Devil Bones (15 page)

It happens.

Using a scalpel, I cut intersecting lines in the wax coating the top of the skul, outlining a roughly two-inch square. With some teasing, a flake lifted free.

I repeated the process until the entire wax cap lay in pieces on a stainless steel tray. One by one I viewed each under the scope.

I was three-quarters through when I saw it on the concave side of a segment that had adhered to the right parietal. One perfect thumbprint.

Why the undersurface? Had the wax lifted the print from the underlying skul? Had the perp’s finger contacted the hot wax as it was poured or as it dripped from a candle?

It didn’t matter. The print was there and it could lead to a suspect.

Feeling pumped, I dialed Slidel. His voice mail answered. I left a message.

After photographing the print with direct then angled light, I examined every flake twice, upside and downside. I found nothing.

The clock said 10:22.

Time to go.

I was puling into my drive when Slidel caled.

His news trumped mine.

“James Edward Klapec. Went by Jimmy. Seventeen. Looks better with his head. But not much.”

Slidel’s comment irked me even more than usual. We were talking about a dead child. I said nothing.

“Parents live down east, near Jacksonvile,” Slidel continued. “Father’s a retired marine, pumps gas, mother works in the commissary at Camp Lejeune. Dropped a dime, found out little Jimmy split last February.”

“Did the parents know he was living in Charlotte?”

“Yeah. The kid phoned every couple months. Last cal came sometime in early September. They weren’t sure the exact date. Keep in mind, these folks ain’t checking the mail for an invite from MENSA.”

I wondered how Slidel knew about MENSA, but let it go.

“The Klapecs didn’t come to Charlotte to take their son home?”

“According to Dad, the kid was sixteen and could do as he pleased.” Slidel paused. “That’s what he said, but this shitbird read like an open book. The kid was queer and Klapec wanted nothing to do with him.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Caled him a faggot.”

Clear enough.

“Why was Klapec in the system?”

“Kid was a chicken hawk.”

That made no sense. In the parlance of my gay friends, chicken hawks were older gay men looking for young blood.

“I know you’re going to explain that,” I said.

“Punks that hang around gay bars waiting for prey. You know, circling, like chicken hawks. Great lifestyle. Do a john, score some dough, get wasted.”

Deciding the term in this context was a cop thing, I let it go.

So the Lake Wylie boy had folowed a common path for runaways. Kid leaves home expecting a Ken Kesey Merry Pranksters bus ride, ends up eating garbage from Dumpsters and turning tricks. It’s a heartrending but predictable course.

“Did you speak with the mother?”

“No.”

“Did you mention the condition of the body?”

There was a brief silence. Then, “Maybe we’l find the head and they don’t have to know.”

So Badass Slidel had a heart after al.

I described the wax print.

“Worth running,” Slidel said. “Klapec worked a patch in NoDa, around Thirty-sixth and North Davidson.” NoDa. North Davidson. Charlotte’s version of SoHo. “Rinaldi’s gonna float his picture, see what the homeys are wiling to share. Before he heads up there I’l have him colect your wax and run it by the lab.”

“What time are you tossing Cuervo’s shop?”

“Eight. Sharp. And, doc?”

I waited.

“You oughta stay out of the spotlight.”

Overnight, a front swaggered down from the mountains and kicked aside the warm comforter swaddling the Piedmont. I awoke to the smel of wet leaves and the sound of rain drumming my window. Beyond the screen, magnolia branches worked hard in the wind.

Cuervo’s shop was located just south of uptown, in a neighborhood that wasn’t a Queen City showplace. Many enterprises were fifties and sixties Dixie, chicken and burger franchises, body shops, barbecue joints. Others catered to more recent arrivals. Tienda Los Amigos. Panadería y Pastelería Miguel. Supermercado Mexicano. Al were housed in strip mals wel past their prime.

La Botánica Buena Salud was no exception. Brick, with a dark, brown-tinted window, the operation was flanked by a tattoo parlor and a bronzing salon. An ice cream shop, an insurance agency, a plumbing supply outfit, and a pizzeria completed the assemblage.

A beat-to-crap Mustang and an ancient Corola occupied a narrow band of asphalt fronting the shops. Each gleamed as though buffed by a proud new owner. A good drenching wil do that for old junkers.

I parked and tuned into WFAE. Sipping coffee from a travel mug, I listened to
Weekend Edition.

Ten minutes passed with no sign of CSS or Slidel. So much for eight sharp.

Rain turned the neon lights on the tattoo parlor to orange and blue streaks. Through the wash on my windshield I watched a homeless man pick through trash, waterlogged sweatshirt hanging to his knees.

Scott Simon was reporting on mutated frogs when my eyes drifted to the driver’s-side rearview. Slidel was framed in the glass. Below it letters announced:
Objects in mirror
are closer than they appear.

A sobering thought.

Kiling the engine, I got out.

Slidel was also breakfasting on the run, a Bojangles sausage biscuit and a Nehi orange.

“Hel of a downpour, eh?” Garbled.

“Mm.” Water was soaking my hair and running down my face. I raised the hood of my sweatshirt. “Is CSS coming?”

“Thought we’d poke around first, see if they’re needed.”

Preferring to examine his scenes pristine, undisturbed, Slidel’s normal MO was to alow himself time alone before caling in the techs.

Downing the last of his biscuit and soda, Slidel bunched and stuffed the wrapper into the can, then unpocketed and flourished a set of keys. “Asshole at the management office has punctuality issues.”

Up the strip, a storm drain had clogged, turning the asphalt into a shalow pond. Together, Slidel and I slogged to the shop.

I waited while he tried key after key. A bus whooshed past, water spraying from al of its tires.

“Want me to try?” I offered.

“I got it.”

Keys continued jangling.

Rain pelted Slidel’s windbreaker and dripped from the bil of his cap. My sweatshirt grew heavy, began to lengthen like that of the bum.

Far off a car alarm whooped.

Finaly, something clicked. Slidel pushed. The door opened with a soft tinkling of bels.

The shop was murky and jammed with so many smels it was hard to ID any single contributor. Tea. Mint. Dust. Sweat. Other odors only teased. Fungus? Cloves?

Gingerroot?

My eyes were stil adjusting when Slidel found the lights.

The square footage was approximately twenty by twenty. Aluminum shelves lined the wals and formed rows down the center. Slidel headed down one.

I headed down another, reading random labels on my right. Energy enhancers. Brain rejuvenators. Tooth and gum restorers.

Pivoting, I scanned the products at my back. Skin poultices. Fertility oils. Aloe balms. Tinctures of slippery elm, barberry, fennel, juniper.

“Here’s a good one.” Slidel’s voice sounded loud in the musty stilness. “Parkinson’s kit. No more tremors, my ass.” I heard the tick of glass hitting metal, then footsteps.

“Here we go. Passion oil. An ancient Hindu recipe. Right. That’l make your johnson sit up and smile.”

Though I didn’t disagree, I offered no comment.

Beyond the shelving, a wooden counter paraleled the shop’s rear wal. On it sat an old but ordinary-looking cash register. Centered behind it was a curtained doorway.

Slidel joined me, features crimped with disdain.

“Looks like pretty standard fare,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” Slidel lifted a hinged wooden flap connecting the far end of the counter to the wal. “Let’s see what the Prince of Passion keeps stashed in back.”

Crossing the threshold was like entering a different time and place. Even the smels underwent a metamorphosis. Beyond the curtained doorway, the overal impression was of flora and fauna and things long dead.

The space was windowless, and little ilumination seeped in from out front. Again, Slidel located a switch.

In light cast by a single overhead bulb I could see that the room was roughly ten by fifteen. As in front, shelves lined both sides. Wood, not aluminum. Those on the right were divided into compartments measuring eight inches square. A smal bundle lay centered in each cubby.

The shelves on the left had been converted into pul-out bins, the kind from which seeds or flour might be sold in bulk.

A table ran the length of the back wal. Spread along it were an old-fashioned two-plate scale and approximately twenty glass jars. Some housed recognizable things.

Gingerroot. Tree bark. Thistle. Others contained dark, gnarled objects whose provenance I could only guess.

In front of the table sat two folding chairs. Equidistant between them was a large iron cauldron.

“Wel, hel-o,” Slidel said.

To the right of the table was a half-open door.

Striding forward, Slidel reached in and felt the wal with his fingers. In seconds, amber light revealed a rust-stained toilet and sink.

I was moving toward the cubbyhole cabinet when a bel tinkled.

I froze. Brushed eyes with Slidel. He flicked a low backward wave with one hand.

Silently, we eased to the left of the door. Slidel’s hand rose to his hip. Backs pressed to the wal, we waited.

Footsteps crossed the shop.

The curtain flicked sideways.

17

HAD HATSHEPSUT’S MUMMY APPEARED IN THAT DOORWAY I couldn’t have been more surprised.

The girl was young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with nutmeg skin and center-parted hair tucked behind her ears. Only her waistline differed from the school portrait. Based on bely size, I guessed she was almost ful term.

The girl scanned the room, expression watchful and alert.

“Está aquí, señor?”
Whispered.

I held my breath.

Stil clutching the curtain, the girl stepped forward. Backlight from the shop sparkled moisture in her hair.

“Señor?”

Slidel’s hand dropped. Nylon swished.

The girl’s face whipped our way, eyes wide. Flinging aside the curtain, she bolted.

Without thinking, I blew past Slidel and raced across the shop. By the time I cleared the shelving, the girl was out the door.

Rain stil poured from the sky and sluiced along the pavement. Head lowered, I pounded after my quarry, water pluming up from my sneakers.

I had the advantage. I wasn’t pregnant. By the pizzeria, I’d closed the gap enough to lunge and catch hold of the girl’s sweater. Reaching back, she knuckle-driled my hand again and again.

It hurt like hel. I held on.

“We just want to talk,” I shouted through the downpour.

The girl gave up pummeling my carpals to claw at her zipper.

“Please.”

“Leave me alone!” Struggling to shrug free of the sweater.

I heard splashing behind me.

“Hold it right there, little lady.” Slidel sounded like a whale spouting air.

The girl’s thrashing grew desperate. Rain flicked from her hair, sending spray across my face.

“Let me be. You got no—”

Slidel pinwheeled the girl and clamped her arms to her sides.

She kicked back with one foot. A heel connected.

“Sonova—”

“She’s pregnant,” I yeled.

“Tel that to my goddamn shinbone.”

“It’s OK,” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring voice. “You’re not in trouble.”

The girl glared at me, fury in her eyes.

I smiled and held her gaze.

The girl squirmed and kicked.

“Your choice.” Slidel panted. “We do this civilized, or I cuff you and we do it downtown.”

The girl stiled, perhaps laboring through her alternatives. Then her shoulders slumped and her hands baled into fists.

“Good. Now I’m going to let you go and you’re not gonna do nothing stupid.”

We al stood there, breath coming in gasps. After a moment, Slidel released his grip and stepped back.

“Now. We walk to my car, al calm and colected.”

The girl straightened and her chin tipped up in defiance. I could see a smal gold cross lying in the holow of her throat. Below it, a pulse beat hard.

“We al on the same page?” Slidel asked.

“Whatever gets you off,” the girl said.

Regripping the girl’s arm, Slidel motioned for me to folow. I did, watching drops dimple the lake at my feet.

Slidel eased the girl into the passenger seat. As he circled the hood I displaced a mashed pizza box, a Chinese takeout bag, and a pair of old sneakers, and climbed in back.

The Taurus’s interior smeled like week-old underwear.

“Jesus.” The girl’s left hand rose to cover her nose. The fourth finger wore no ring. “Something die in here?”

Sliding behind the wheel, Slidel slammed and leaned against the door, then pointed a key in her direction.

“What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?”

Slidel badged her.

The girl blew air through her lips.

“What’s your name?” Slidel repeated his question.

“Why you want to know?”

“In case we lose touch.”

The girl roled her eyes.

“Name?”

“Patti LaBele.”

“Buckle up.” Slidel yanked and clicked his seat belt, then jammed the key into the ignition.

The girl raised a hold-it palm, then lay both hands on her bely. “Al right.”

Slidel relaxed into the seatback. “Name?”

“Takeela.”

“That’s a good start.”

Eye rol. “Freeman. Takeela Freeman. You want I should spel that?”

Slidel produced a notebook and pen. “Phone number, address, name of parent or guardian.”

Takeela scribbled, then tossed the tablet onto the dash. Slidel picked it up and read.

“Isabela Cortez?”

“My grandmother.”

“Hispanic.” More statement than question. “You live with her?”