Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) (4 page)

“I’d like the meet the man who did that.”

“You already have.” Julia winked. “It was Lamar.”

6

Barefoot Bonnie’s Pub was a stone’s throw from Red Fox Lake. It had a view of the waterway where sailboats inched through glass-calm waters. It was the perfect spot for rowdy volunteer firefighters to celebrate my first fire.

“A round of cold ones for my friends.” I stepped up to the bar. “And the rest of these losers, too.”

“You’re a firefighter?” The bartender and owner, Bonnie, was in her mid-forties. She wore a swim top and a lime green skirt. She was also barefoot. “How old are you, handsome?”

I flashed my military ID. “Old enough to pay for this bunch.”

“You have my sympathies.” Bonnie smiled with her eyes, which I noted were light blue. She drew a round from the keg. “What’s the occasion?”
 

“Just put out my first fire.”

“He sure did.” Julia threw an arm over my shoulder. “We busted his cherry real good.”

Bonnie cocked an eyebrow in that a catty,
oh really, bitch way
. She set the beers on the bar. “Why’s he buying?”

“Tradition.” Julia grabbed four mugs. “It’s a firefighter thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

She walked away toward the vollie’s table.

“Watch out for that one,” Bonnie said. “She’s trouble.”

I gathered the remaining mugs. “How so?”

“You haven’t even slept with her, and she’s already marking her territory. Her cards are on the table for everybody to see.”

“Thanks.” I dropped a five in the jar. “I appreciate the tip.”

“If you ever need advice, there’s more where that came from.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

“It’s Bonnie to you.”

I saluted with a mug. “Yes, ma’am.”

Julia and I delivered the beers. The crew stood and raised their glasses.

“To my stepson,” Lamar began, “who worked as a team member this morning. For probably the first time in his life. Welcome to the club.”

“Cheers!” they all shouted and clinked their glasses together.

“Speech!” Julia yelled.

“Short speech!” Otto said.

“Very short speech!”

I stood and raised my own glass. “Um. Thanks? I’m not much for this kind of thing, so I’ll just say, appreciate y’all putting up with me and sorry you’ll have to put up with me on a permanent basis now.”

“Cheers!”

They drained their mugs and sat down.
 

“Bonnie!” Otto yelled. “Another round!”

“Aw,” Julia said, “that speech was awful. Sweet, but awful.”

“What can I say?” I said. “I gave fair warning.”

“That’s okay.” Julia grabbed my knee. “You just need some extra training.”

“I’m already house broken.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Yeah, I thought, I know exactly what you meant. “Lamar.” I turned to my stepfather. “I was thinking of asking Abner to look over the fire site. There’s something hinky about it.”

“No,” Lamar said. “Your granddaddy’s retired. Leave him to his fishing hole, where he can’t cause trouble.”

“What’s wrong with causing a little trouble?”

“With Abner, it’s never a little trouble.” Lamar emptied his beer. “That’s it for me, boys—and girl. Got to get back to work. Boone, don’t you have class?”

The toughest thing about coming home was dealing with Lamar and Mom. They insisted on parenting me, even though I was twenty-three and had a uniform full of chest candy. At first, I let it slide, but it was really starting to grind my nerves.

With a chorus of boos, the crew downed their beers and rose from the table. I dropped another tip for the busboy and took the last sip of beer.

“That was a nice tip,” Julia took my arm and steered me outside. “Are you always that generous?”

“Servers worked hard. You give a little, you get a lot back.”

She opened her car door. “I’ll keep that in mind. Just in case.”

“Um. Yeah.” My cell rang. Cedar’s name popped up. “Got to take this. Catch you later.”

“Later.” She gunned her engine. “‘Mater.”

“Hey, Cedar.” I stuffed a finger in my ear to block the noise. “What’s up?”

“Good news,” she said. “I’ve got Luigi’s notes from the lab, and Dr. K is letting you make up the missed time.”

“Really? That’s awesome.” I jumped away from Julia’s Mustang. She did a donut and roared out of the lot. “I really owe you.”

“Make up for it by buying me lunch,” she said, “and I’ll give you the details. Food court in an hour?”

“Got it.” I ended the call and scrolled through my contacts for the name Abner Zickafoose. The phone rang five times before going to message. “Hey, Doc, it’s Boone. Call me back. I’ve got some human remains that might interest you.”

7

It took more than an hour to change into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, drive to campus, find a parking place, and dash to the cafeteria. It took fifteen minutes longer to be exact, the number of minutes Cedar had been sitting alone at a table, pushing around her salad like Sisyphus rolling his stone.

Her yellow sundress was pretty easy to pick out of the crowd. When she stood, the pouring sunlight gave her an aura. I could see her legs right through the fabric.

Don’t be such a perv, I thought and looked at the ceiling.

Cedar greeted me with a friendly hug. “You smell like smoke and beer.”

“Smoke’s an occupational hazard. The beer’s a vollie tradition.” I took a seat in the sun. “They have a cold one to celebrate the newest rookie busting his cherry.”

“How was the fire?”

“Amazing! I rescued a possum.”

“From a burning building?”

“It was an accidental rescue.”

“They bought you a beer for that?”

“I had to treat.”

“Wish I could buy beer. My twenty-first birthday isn’t till next month.”

“Having a party?”

“Want to come?” Her whole face blushed red. “I mean, to my party.”

“Sure.” I maintained decorum, though I was dying to tease her. “Sounds like fun. Is this a graduation party, too?”

“Not so much,” she said. “Not to be dismissive, but I came to Coastal to save money. I’m transferring to Carolina, so I probably won’t even go to graduation.” She covered her mouth. “That made me sound like a real bitch, didn’t it? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“No worries. I don’t have a problem with the truth.” So Cedar was going to Carolina. Why did that bother me? I was choosing between schools myself.

My phone rang. Without looking, I rejected the call and set the ringer to buzz.

“Most guys would’ve taken the call.”
 

“I’d rather talk to you.”

“Oh?”

“It’s the way you move your salad around. It’s fascinating.”

“Smart ass.” She pushed a stack of photocopies to me. “The notes from class. Luigi and I finished the dissection. Dr. K gave you both an A since you started the process. She admires your castration technique.”

“My mom will be proud.” I stuffed the notes in my backpack. “So this thing to make up the lab hours?”

“It’s complicated.” She flashed a little smile that made her face light up.
 

“Complication is my middle name.”

“Thought it was Boone.”

“You try being named after a man who killed him a bear when he was only three. There’s pressure.”

She leaned forward so that the strap of her dress slipped over her shoulder. This time, my face lit up.

“Dr. K agreed to let you help with my research for Olympiad,” she said. “My project’s on scent receptors, and it’s really cool. Well, I think it’s cool. It’s an artificial nose. I’m hoping to win the Olympiad with it.”

“Your project is a fake nose? Like the toy with the glasses and mustache?”

“Not that kind of artificial nose. A real artificial nose.”

“Be glad to help,” I said, even though my own Olympiad project needed my full attention. “Sounds like fun.”

Cedar’s watch alarm beeped. “Damn. I have to run. I’ll tell you more about the project later?”

“Works for me.” I gave her a ten. “Is this enough? I’m still not used to civilian prices.”

“What’s this for?”

“Lunch. I’m buying, remember?”

She handed the money back. “I’m having second thoughts.”

“Second thoughts?” Had I offended her? Stared at her sun-lit legs too long? Allowed my eyes to wander to much? “About helping me?”

“No, stupid, about the repayment meal.” She laughed nervously. “Dinner would be more in line with the level of favor, don’t you think?”

“Are you free tonight?”

“I can’t. Luigi needs to meet his benefactor today, and I’m his ride.”

“His what?”

“Benefactor. The people who funded his student exchange? He has to attend this social thing they do.” She curled a lock of hair around her finger. “How about tomorrow?”

“Deal. I’ll pick you up at eight. Any dietary restrictions?”

“You’re not letting me pick the restaurant?”

“I could.” I leaned in conspiratorially. “But why spoil the surprise? You like surprises, right?”

She winked. “Only the good kind.”

“The good kind it is.”

We both rose.

She gave me a quick hug again. This time, I rested a hand on her hip, and her fingers lingered on my arm. Something in my gut twisted. Her dress swished just so as she waved bye and wound through the crowded tables.

What the hell is going on? I thought.

But I knew the answer.

My cell buzzed in my pocket. The missed call was from Abner. I hit redial to call back.

Abner Zickafoose was a legend among North Carolina law enforcement. A short man with a big personality, he started his career as an anthropologist studying pre-Columbian Native American civilizations. His specialty was the excavation of burial mounds, mass graves that reached thirty or forty feet and included hundreds of bodies. Men, women, and children were all piled together in ceremonial burials. Excavating a single mound could take years and a small army of anthropologists and graduate students.

It was a satisfying career, and Abner Zickafoose probably would have been happy to continue it, until one late July day, thirty-one years ago, when he and a graduate student dusted off a skull that was decidedly not Native American. It had protruding dentition called prognathism and no nasal sill, characteristics of an African-American individual. Based on the lack of weathering, it was also not thousands of years old, and two of the molars had gold fillings.
 

What Abner had in his hands was a modern skull, an African-American female who he estimated to be eighteen to twenty years of age at the time of death.
 

What the police had on their hands was a murder.

After that, Abner became the go-to guy for most of the rural police departments in the Carolinas and southern Virginia. He traveled to beaches, forests, mountains, ponds, lakes, creeks, and swamps. His ability to identify the sex, race, and age of corpses earned him a solid reputation with law enforcement, and his research quickly turned from pre-Columbian mounds to modern burials.

He lived in sprawling timber frame house on Red Fox Lake. His property had a boat house and a dock. That’s where my call found him.

“Zickafoose speaking.”

“Hey, Doc.” It was always Doc. Never grandpa, granddad, granddaddy, and certainly, never, ever paw-paw. “It’s Boone, your grandson.”

“Of course, it’s Boone, my grandson. I only have one, and his name is Boone. Or is it pain in the ass?”

“Close enough. Listen, I need help with a case.”

“A case of what?”

“A forensics case.”

“Too bad. I don’t consult anymore. I’m retired.”

Abner was still moping about his forced retirement from the university. “It’s a fire case, Doc. A human finger was found on the scene.”

While the line crackled with static, I got in the cafeteria line. The static was a good thing. It meant that Abner was actually considering it.

“I’ll take a Big ol’ Burger,” I said to the cashier. “No onions. Absolutely no onions, unless you like me to die of anaphylactic shock in your parking lot. And an extra large coffee. Black.”

“Onions?” Abner said. “What’s onions got to do with a finger?”

“No, no,” I said.

“No, no what?” the cashier asked.

“No onions.” I pressed the phone against my chest. “And a large Coke, too. No ice. Yes, I want both coffee and Coke.”

“No ice what?” Abner said. “Thought you said this was a fire case.”

“It is!” I yelled. “Look, Doc, I’m ordering food. Hang on a minute, before the cashier decides I want my Big ol’ Burger with a side of spit.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I did!”

“You always were a colicky baby.”

“Inherited it from you.” I paid for lunch and found a seat in the corner. “Sorry about that. I was starving.”

“You in school?”

“In between classes.” I told him about the Tin City fire and the finger. “There was a similar fire to this last week in Duck. A sudden fire in a deserted farmhouse. Lots of unusual debris. I'm going visit the Duck site later. What kind of evidence do I look for if I suspect arson?”

“Arson?” he said. “Hell, Boone. It’s worse than that. You’re looking for a bomb.”

8

As soon as the word “bomb,” left my grandfather’s lips, I knew there’d no waiting until tonight to investigate the fire that happened last week. I wolfed down my burger and ran for the parking lot.
 

Duck was a wide place in the road only a few miles from Galax. If I hurried, there was time for a quick look around the burned farmhouse there before my next class.

It took longer than expected to find the house. It was set off from the highway, hidden behind a pine forest owned by Carolina Pacific. I passed it three times before finally stopping at a roadside vegetable stand to ask directions.

“Who’s wanting to know?” the old man running the stand asked.

I flashed my badge. “Fire investigation.”

“Bout time somebody came poking around.”

“You think the fire was suspicious?”

“An empty house gets blow to hell in the middle of night. What d’you think?”

I followed his directions. But when I finally reached the driveway, I lost hope of finding any useful evidence.