Devil Bones (13 page)

The blades twirled crazily.

Ryan.

Was he happy reunited with Lutetia? Was it realy over between us? Did I care?

Easy one.

Should
I care?

Pete.

Don’t go there.

Charlie.

Enough.

The Lake Wylie corpse.

What had bothered me about the body? The paucity of maggots, given Funderburke’s statement? The absence of smel or signs of scavenging? The missing head? The symbols carved into the flesh?

Duh, yeah.

Was the Lake Wylie case somehow tied to the Greenleaf celar? If so, how? The former suggested Satanism. The latter looked like Santería or a variant such as Palo Mayombe.

What had happened to the Lake Wylie kid’s head?

Sudden image. The hunk of brain buried in the celar cauldron.

Was it human? Note: Ask Larabee.

My pessimist brain cels threw out a thought.

Mark Kilroy’s brain was found floating in a cauldron.

Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo and his folowers were an aberration of Palo Mayombe. They were not Satanists.

Kenneth Roseboro.

Was Roseboro being truthful about the house on Greenleaf? His tenant? Where was T-Bird Cuervo?

Cuervo. Wasn’t that Spanish for “crow”? Thomas Crow. T-Bird. Cute.

What story would Roseboro tel in the morning?

The mutilated kid at Lake Wylie.

The cauldron bones.

The school portrait.

Boyce Lingo.

Charlie Hunt.

Pete’s nuptials.

Ryan’s détente with Lutetia.

And on.

And on.

Jumbled images. Confused musings.

But not as confused as they were about to become.

14

THE CMPD IS HEADQUARTERED IN THE LAW ENFORCEMENT Center, a geometric hunk of concrete looming over the corner of Fourth and McDowel. Across the intersection is the new Mecklenburg County Courthouse, site of Boyce Lingo’s most recent performance.

Al detective units are on the second floor at Law Enforcement. At 8:00 A.M. I presented ID, passed security, and rode the elevator ass to elbow with cops and civilians gripping cups from Starbucks and Caribou Coffee. Conversations centered on the upcoming long weekend.

Columbus Day. I’d totaly forgotten that Monday was a holiday.

No picnic or barbecue for you. Loser.

Kenneth Roseboro presented himself ninety minutes later than Slidel had ordered. His tardiness did not put Skinny in the best of moods.

Nor did the sludge that passed as coffee in the homicide squad room. While waiting, Slidel and I knocked back a ful pot. Rinaldi was out showing the cauldron portrait to school photographers, so I was on my own with his partner’s bad humor.

This did not put
me
in the best of moods.

Slidel’s desk phone finaly rang at 9:37. Roseboro was in interrogation room three. The sound and video systems were up and running.

Before entering, Slidel and I paused to view Wanda Horne’s nephew through a one-way mirror.

Roseboro was seated, sandaled feet jiggling, spidery fingers interlaced on the tabletop. He was maybe five-two, a hundred and twenty pounds, with an oddly elongated head that balanced on his neck like a budgie on a perch.

“Nice hair,” Slidel snorted.

Roseboro’s scalp was looped by concentric circles of ridges and furrows.

“He’s got a three-sixty wave,” I said. “Like Nely.”

Slidel looked at me blankly.

“The rapper.”

The look did not change.

“Jaunty shirt,” I segued. It was lime and large enough to shelter a racehorse.

“Aloha.” Slidel hiked his pants. The belt settled above a rol that masqueraded as his waist. “Let’s sweat this prick.”

Roseboro started to rise when we entered the room.

“Sit,” Slidel barked.

Roseboro folded.

“Glad you could make it, Kenny.”

“Traffic was heavy.”

“Shoulda set out earlier.” Slidel regarded Roseboro as he though he were scum in a drain.

“I didn’t have to come here at al.” Roseboro’s tone fel somewhere between sulky and bored.

“You’ve got a point there.” Slapping a folder onto the table, Slidel dropped into a chair opposite his interviewee. “But an upstanding citizen like you, what’s a little personal inconvenience, right?”

Roseboro shrugged one bony shoulder.

I seated myself next to Slidel.

Roseboro’s eyes slid to me. “Who’s the chick?”

“The
doctor
helped me clean out your celar, Kenny. You got something to say about that?”

“How much I owe you?” Smirking.

“You think this is funny?”

Again, the shoulder hitch.

Slidel turned to me. “You hear something funny?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“I didn’t hear nothing funny.” Slidel refocused on Roseboro. “You’ve got problems, Kenny.”

“Everyone’s got problems.” Nonchalant.

“Everyone don’t have a little palace on Greenleaf.”

“I told you. I haven’t been in that house since I was nine years old. Blew my mind when the old lady left it to me.”

“Auntie’s favorite nephew.”

“Auntie’s only nephew.” Stil unconcerned.

“No kids of her own?”

“One. Archie.”

“And Archie would be where these days?” Slidel kept his voice set on scornful.

“Cemetery.”

“That’s amazing. I ask where’s Archie, you come back with cemetery. A sidesplitter, right off your head.” Again, Slidel turned to me. “Isn’t he something? Firing off one-liners, just like that?”

“Hilarious,” I agreed.

“Archie died in a wreck when he was sixteen.”

“Condolences for your loss. Let’s talk about the celar.”

“Best I can remember, there were spiders, rats, rusty old tools, and a shitload of mold.” Roseboro snapped a finger, as though in sudden understanding. “That’s it. You’re busting me for failure to maintain safe housing for my pets. Animal endangerment, right?”

“You realy are a scream, Kenny-boy. Bet you’re hoping to make the comedy channel.” Another Slidel lob to me. “What do you think? We’l be surfing one night, there’l be Kenny with a mike in one hand?”

“Seinfeld got his start doing stand-up.”

“Only one problem.” Slidel driled Roseboro with a look that said he was far from amused. “You ain’t going to be standing up, or walking out, or going nowhere, you don’t start making a little effort here, asshole.”

Roseboro’s face showed only indifference.

“Chateau Greenleaf?” Slidel clicked a balpoint to readiness over a yelow legal pad.

“As far as I know the celar was used as a laundry and pantry. And I think there was a workshop down there.”

“Wrong answer.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, man.”

“I’m talking about murder, you dumb fuck.”

Roseboro’s apathy showed its first fault line.

“What?”

“Give it up, Kenny. Maybe you skate on freedom of religion.”

“Give what up?”

“John Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. Rule number one, dumb ass. Never stash body parts in your own crib.”

“Body parts?” Roseboro was definitely interested now.

Slidel only glared.

Saucer-eyed, Roseboro directed a question to me. “What is he talking about?”

Slidel opened the folder and, one by one, slapped scene photos onto the tabletop. The cauldron. The statues of Saint Barbara and Eleggua. The dead chicken. The goat skul.

The human remains.

Roseboro viewed but didn’t touch the prints. After a ful ten seconds, he wiped a hand across his mouth.

“This is bulshit. I’ve got no way of knowing what a tenant drags into my basement. I told you. I never set foot in the place.”

Slidel gave him silence. As is common, Roseboro felt compeled to fil it.

“Look. I got a letter from some pinstripe saying the house was mine. I signed the papers, ran an ad. Guy named Cuervo caled, agreed to a one-year lease.”

“You background him?”

“I wasn’t offering space in Trump Tower. We agreed on a price. Cuervo ponied up the cash.”

“When was this?”

Roseboro searched the ceiling, the fingers of one hand worrying a scab on the back of the other. Finaly, “A year ago March.”

“You got a copy of the lease?”

“I never got around to writing one up. Cuervo forked over every month, never asked for anything. After a while, I forgot about paperwork. Stupid, as things turned out.”

“How’d Cuervo pay?”

“I already said. Cash.”

Slidel wiggled his fingers in a give-me-more gesture.

“He mailed it. I couldn’t have cared less if the guy had a bank account, and I wasn’t about to drive to Charlotte each month.”

“Your little arrangement didn’t have nothing to do with the IRS, now did it?”

Roseboro’s fingers went into overdrive. “I pay my taxes.”

“Uh-huh.”

Flecks of crusty endothelium were building on the tabletop.

“You want to give that a rest,” Slidel said. “You’re turning my stomach.”

Roseboro dropped both hands to his lap.

“Tel me about Cuervo.”

“Latino. Seemed like a nice enough dude.”

“Wife? Family?”

Another shoulder hitch. “We weren’t exactly pen pals.”

“He legal?”

“What am I, border patrol?”

Slidel dug a printout from his folder. The photo looked dark and blurry from where I sat.

“That him?”

Roseboro glanced at the face, nodded.

“Go on.” Slidel took up his pen. I suspected the note-taking was mostly for show.

Again, Roseboro shrugged. He realy had the move down.

“After June, the guy stopped paying, stopped answering his cel phone. By September I was so pissed I drove up here to toss his ass out.” Roseboro shook his head in disilusionment over his falen felow man. “Shithead was gone. Realy screwed me.”

“You’re bringing tears to my eyes, Kenny, you being such an honorable guy and al. Cuervo clear out his stuff?”

Roseboro shook his head. “Left everything. It was crap.”

“You got his number?”

Roseboro unhooked his mobile, powered on, and scroled the address book.

Slidel jotted down the digits. “Go on.”

“Nothing else to tel. I hired a Realtor and sold the place. End of story.”

“Not quite.” After gophering the stack, Slidel slid free a shot of the human skul. “Who’s this?”

Roseboro’s eyes dropped to the print, snapped back up. “Jesus Christ. How would I know?”

Slidel removed a copy of the school portrait from his folder and held it up. “And this?”

Roseboro looked like a man whose mind was racing. For composure? Comprehension? Explanation? A way out?

“I’ve never seen that kid in my life. Look. I may have tried to scam on a few taxes, but, honest to God, I know nothing about any of this. I swear.” Roseboro’s gaze jumped from Slidel to me and back. “I live in Wilmington. Been there for five years. Check it out.”

“Count on it,” Slidel said.

“You want, I’l take a lie detector. Now. I’l do it now.”

Wordlessly, Slidel gathered the prints, placed the folder on the tablet, and pushed to his feet.

I stood.

Together, we started for the door.

“What about me?” Roseboro whined at our backs. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Slidel spoke without turning.

“Don’t schedule no auditions.”

“Impressions?” I asked when we were back in Slidel’s office.

“He’s a sniveling little weenie. But my gut says he’s teling the truth.”

“You’re thinking Cuervo?”

“Or Auntie.”

I shook my head. “Wanda died a year and a half ago. I’m almost certain the chicken was kiled within the last few months. I’l phone my entomologist, see if he’l hazard a preliminary opinion.”

“If Wanda’s clear, then I gotta like Cuervo. Assuming Roseboro’s not taking us for a ride.”

“May I see the mug shot?”

Slidel dug the printout from the folder.

The quality was, indeed, lousy. The man was al teeth and wrinkles, with thick gray hair swept back from his face.

“If Cuervo is Latino, Santería makes sense,” Slidel said. “Or that other one.”

“Palo Mayombe.” I hoped that wasn’t it. If so, I hoped it was not of the Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo variety. “What about Roseboro?”

“I’l let him cool his heels, then go in for some more face time. Fear has a way of jogging the gray cels.”

“Then?”

“I’l cut him loose and start looking for Cuervo. Start with his cel phone.”

“And the INS. Cuervo could be undocumented.”

Slidel roled his eyes at my use of the term. “Him being ilegal could explain Roseboro’s desire for cash and carry only.”

“Rinaldi cal in?”

Slidel checked his voice mail and mobile, then shook his head.

“I’m going to the ME office,” I said. “Let me know if Rinaldi learns anything. If not, maybe it’s time to put the girl’s face out there. I’l phone when Larabee and I finish with the Lake Wylie torso.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Slidel said.

We didn’t know that another plan was already unfolding. A plan traveling a deadly colision course with our own.

15

WEEKENDS MEAN PAYCHECKS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR KNOCKING back booze. Consequently, the number of brawls, batteries, mishaps, and misfortunes swels from quittin’ time on Friday til church on Sunday. Week’s opening can be bedlam at a morgue. Week’s close, on the other hand, is often tranquil.

Such was not the case this Friday morning.

Two blocks out I knew something was wrong. Vehicles filed the few slots fronting the MCME and lined the curbs on Colege and Phifer.

Drawing close, I could read logos.
WBTV. WSOC. WCCB. News 14 Carolina.

Gunning into the lot, I threw the car into park, flew out the door, and raced toward the building. TV crews, print reporters, and photographers blocked the front entrance.

Head lowered, elbows winging, I charged into the pack.

“Dr. Brennan,” a voice said.

Ignoring it, I plowed forward, anger tensing every muscle in my body. After much shoving by me and name-caling by others, I finaly broke through.

Boyce Lingo was holding court at the top of the steps. As before, Crew-Cut-Squirrel-Cheeks was covering his flank.