Devil Bones (2 page)

I sensed, more than heard, an odd sound in the room. Stilness.

Glancing up, I realized attention was focused on me.

“Sorry.” I shifted a hand to cover my tablet. Casualy.

“Your preference, Dr. Brennan?”

“Read them back.”

Doe listed what I assumed were three hotly contested names.

“Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct. Committee on the Evaluation of Ethical Procedures. Committee on Ethical Standards and Practices.”

“The latter implies the imposition of rules set by an external body or regulating board.” Petrela was doing petulant.

Bickham threw her pen to the tabletop. “No. It does not. It is simp—”

“The department is creating an ethics committee, right?”

“It’s critical that the body’s title accurately reflect the philosophical underpinnings—”

“Yes.” Doe’s reply to my question cut Petrela off.

“Why not cal it the Ethics Committee?”

Ten pairs of eyes froze on my face. Some looked confused. Some surprised. Some offended.

Petrela slumped back in his chair.

Bickham coughed.

Roberts dropped her gaze.

Doe cleared his throat. Before he could speak, a soft knock broke the silence.

“Yes?” Doe.

The door opened, and a face appeared in the crack. Round. Freckled. Worried. Twenty-two curious eyes swiveled to it.

“Sorry to interrupt.” Naomi Gilder was the newest of the departmental secretaries. And the most timid. “I wouldn’t, of course, except…”

Naomi’s gaze slid to me.

“Dr. Larabee said it was urgent that he speak with Dr. Brennan.”

My first impulse was to do an arm-pump
Yes!
Instead, I raised acquiescent brows and palms.
Duty calls. What can one do?

Gathering my papers, I left the room and practicaly danced across the reception area and down a corridor lined with faculty offices. Every door was closed. Of course they were. The occupants were cloistered in a windowless conference room arguing administrative trivia.

I felt exhilarated. Free!

Entering my office, I punched Larabee’s number. My eyes drifted to the window. Four floors down, rivers of students flowed to and from late-afternoon classes. Low, angled rays bronzed the trees and ferns in Van Landingham Glen. When I’d entered the meeting the sun had been straight overhead.

“Larabee.” The voice was a little on the high side, with a soft Southern accent.

“It’s Tempe.”

“Did I drag you from something important?”

“Pretentious pomposity.”

“Sorry?”

“Never mind. Is this regarding the Catawba River floater?”

“Twelve-year-old from Mount Holy name of Anson Tyler. Parents were on a gambling junket in Vegas. Returned day before yesterday, discovered the kid hadn’t been home for a week.”

“How did they calculate that?”

“Counted the remaining Pop-Tarts.”

“You obtained medical records?”

“I want your take, of course, but I’d bet the farm the broken toes on Tyler’s X-rays match those on our vic.”

I thought of little Anson alone in his house. Watching TV. Making peanut butter sandwiches and toasting Pop-Tarts. Sleeping with the lights on.

The feeling of exhilaration began to fade.

“What morons go off and leave a twelve-year-old child?”

“The Tylers won’t be getting nominations for parents of the year.”

“They’l be charged with child neglect?”

“Minimaly.”

“Is Anson Tyler the reason you caled?” According to Naomi, Larabee had said urgent. Positive ID’s didn’t usualy fal into that category.

“Earlier. But not now. Just got off the horn with the homicide boys. They may have a nasty situation.”

I listened.

Trepidation quashed the last lingering traces of exhilaration.

2

“NO DOUBT IT’S HUMAN?” I ASKED.

“At least one skul.”

“There’s more than one?”

“The reporting unit suggested the possibility, but didn’t want to touch anything until you arrived.”

“Good thinking.”

Scenario: Citizen stumbles onto bones, cals 911. Cops arrive, figure the stuff’s old, start bagging and tagging. Bottom line: Context is lost, scene is screwed. I end up working in a vacuum.

Scenario: Dogs unearth a clandestine grave. Local coroner goes at it with shovels and a body bag. Bottom line: Bits are missed. I get remains with a lot of gaps.

When faced with these situations, I’m not always kind in my remarks. Over the years, my message has gotten across.

That, plus the fact that I teach body recovery workshops for the ME in Chapel Hil, and for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD.

“Cop said the place stinks,” Larabee added.

That didn’t sound good.

I grabbed a pen. “Where?”

“Greenleaf Avenue, over in First Ward. House is being renovated. Plumber knocked through a wal, found some sort of underground chamber. Hang on.”

Paper rustled, then Larabee read the address. I wrote it down.

“Apparently this plumber was totaly freaked.”

“I can head over there now.”

“That would be good.”

“See you in thirty.”

I heard a hitch in Larabee’s breathing.

“Problem?” I asked.

“I’ve got a kid open on the table.”

“What happened?”

“Five-year-old came home from kindergarten, ate a doughnut, complained of a belyache, hit the floor. She was pronounced dead two hours later at CMC. Story to tear your heart out. An only child, no prior medicals, completely asymptomatic until the incident.”

“Jesus. What kiled her?”

“Cardiac rhabdomyoma.”

“Which is?”

“Big honking tumor in the interventricular septum. Pretty rare at her age. These kids usualy die in infancy.”

Poor Larabee was facing more than one heartbreaking conversation.

“Finish your autopsy,” I said. “I’l handle the chamber of horrors.”

Charlotte began with a river and a road.

The river came first. Not the Mississippi or Orinoco, but a sturdy enough stream, its shores rich with deer, bear, bison, and turkey. Great flocks of pigeons flew overhead.

Those living among the wild pea vines on the river’s eastern bank caled their waterway Eswa Taroa, “the great river.” They, in turn, were caled the Catawba, “people of the river.”

The principal Catawba vilage, Nawvasa, was situated at the headwater of Sugar Creek, Soogaw, or Sugau, meaning “group of huts,” a development not based solely on proximity to the water. Nawvasa also snugged up to a busy route of aboriginal commerce, the Great Trading Path. Goods and foodstuffs flowed along this path from the Great Lakes to the Carolinas, then on down to the Savannah River.

Nawvasa drew its lifeblood from both the river and the road.

The arrival of strange men on great ships ended al that.

For helping in his restoration to power, England’s King Charles II awarded eight men the land south of Virginia and westward to the “South Seas.” Charlie’s new “lord proprietors” promptly sent people to map and explore their holdings.

Over the next century, settlers came in wagons, on horseback, and wearing out shoe leather. Germans, French Huguenots, Swiss, Irish, and Scots. Slowly, inexorably, the river and the road passed from Catawban to European hands.

Log homes and farms replaced native bark houses. Taverns, inns, and shops sprang up. Churches. A courthouse. At an intersection with a lesser trail, a new vilage straddled the Great Trading Path.

In 1761, George III married Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany. His seventeen-year-old bride must have caught the imagination of those living between the river and the road. Or perhaps the populace wished to curry favor with the mad British king. Whatever the motive, they named their little vilage Charlotte Town, their county Mecklenburg.

But distance and politics doomed the friendship to failure. The American colonies were growing angry and ripe for revolt. Mecklenburg County was no exception.

In May 1775, peeved at his majesty’s refusal to grant a charter for their beloved Queens Colege, and incensed that redcoats had fired on Americans in Lexington, Massachusetts, Charlotte Town’s leaders assembled. Dispensing with diplomacy and tactful phrasing, they drafted the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in which they declared themselves “a free and independent people.”

Yessiree. The folks who wrote the Mec Dec didn’t mess around. A year before the Continental Congress put pen to paper, they told old George to take a hike.

You know the rest of the story. Revolution. Emancipation and civil war. Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Industrialization, meaning textiles and railroads in North Carolina. World wars and depression. Segregation and civil rights. Rust Belt decline, Sun Belt renaissance.

By 1970, the Charlotte metro population had grown to roughly 400,000. By 2005, that number had doubled. Why? Something new was traveling the path. Money. And places to stash it. While many states had laws limiting the number of branches a bank could have, the North Carolina legislature said “be fruitful and multiply.”

And multiply they did. The many branches led to many deposits, and the many deposits led to very much fruit. Long story short, the Queen City is home to two banking-industry heavies, Bank of America and Wachovia. As Charlotte’s citizenry never tires of chortling, their burg ranks second only to New York City as a U.S. financial center.

Trade and Tryon streets now overlie the old trading path and its intersecting trail. Dominating this crossroads is the Bank of America Corporate Center, a fitting totem in sleek glass, stone, and steel.

From Trade and Tryon, old Charlotte’s core spreads outward as a block of quadrants caled, uncreatively, First, Second, Third, and Fourth Wards. Blinded by a vision of their town as a child of the New South, Charlotteans have historicaly cared little about preserving these inner-city zones. The single, and relatively recent, exception has been numero quatro.

The northwestern quadrant, Fourth Ward, was built by the town’s nineteenth-century elite, then slipped into genteel decay. In the midseventies, spurred by the steel-magnolia force of the Junior League ladies, and some friendly financing by the banks, Fourth Ward became the focus of intense restoration effort. Today, its grand old homes share narrow streets with old-timey pubs and quaint modern townhouses. Gas lamps. Brick pavers. Park in the middle. You get the picture.

Back in the day, Second Ward was the flip side of lily-white Fourth. Lying southeast of the city center, Log Town, later known as Brooklyn, occupied much of the ward’s acreage. Home to black preachers, doctors, dentists, and teachers, the Brooklyn neighborhood is now largely extinct, cleared for the construction of Marshal Park, the Education Center, a government plaza, and a freeway connector to I-77.

First and Third Wards lie to the northeast and southwest, respectively. Once crowded with depots, factories, rail yards, and mils, these quartiers are now crammed with apartments, townhouses, and condos. Courtside. Quarterside. The Renwick. Oak Park. Despite the city’s policy of raze and replace, here and there a few old residential pockets remain. Larabee’s directions were sending me to one in Third Ward.

Exiting I-77 onto Morehead, my gaze took in the monoliths forming the city skyline. One Wachovia Center. The Westin Hotel. The seventy-four-thousand-seat Panthers stadium. What, I wondered, would the residents of Nawvasa think of the metropolis superimposed on their vilage?

I made a left at the bottom of the ramp, another onto Cedar, and roled past a cluster of recently converted warehouses. A truncated rail line. The Light Factory photo studios and galery. A homeless shelter.

On my right stretched the Panthers training complex, practice fields muted green in the predusk light. Turning left onto Greenleaf, I entered a tunnel of wilow oaks. Straight ahead lay an expanse of openness I knew to be Frazier Park.

A bimodal assortment of homes lined both sides of the street. Many had been purchased by yuppies desiring proximity to uptown, modernized, painted colors like Queen Anne Lilac or Smythe Tavern Blue. Others remained with their original African-American owners, some looking weathered and worn among their gentrified neighbors, the deed holders awaiting the next tax reevaluation with trepidation.

Despite the contrast between the born-agains and the yet-to-be-re-created, the work of caring hands was evident up and down the block. Walks were swept. Lawns were mowed. Window boxes overflowed with marigolds or mums.

Larabee’s address belonged to one of the few exceptions, a seedy little number with patched siding, sagging trim, and peeling paint. The yard was mostly dirt, and the front porch featured a truckload of nondegradable trash. Puling to the curb behind a Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD cruiser, I wondered how many wannabe purchasers had knocked on the bungalow’s faded green door.

Alighting, I locked the Mazda and took my field kit from the trunk. Two houses down, a boy of about twelve shot a basketbal into a garage-mounted hoop. His radio pounded out rap as his bal
thupped
softly on the gravel drive.

The walkway was humped where bulging tree roots snaked beneath. I kept my eyes down as I mounted warped wooden steps to the porch.

“You the one I gotta talk to so’s I can go home?”

My gaze moved up.

A man occupied a rusted and precariously angled swing. He was tal and thin, with hair the color of apricot jam. Embroidered above his shirt pocket were the name
Arlo
and a stylized wrench.

Arlo had been seated with knees wide, elbows on thighs, face planted on upturned palms. Hearing footsteps, he’d raised his head to speak.

Before I could respond, Arlo posed a second question.

“How long I gotta stay here?”

“You’re the gentleman who caled in the nine-one-one?”

Arlo grimaced, revealing a rotten tooth among the lower rights.

I stepped onto the porch. “Can you describe what you saw?”

“I done that.” Arlo clasped dirty hands. His gray pants were ripped at the left knee.