Bare Bones (29 page)

Slidel and Rinaldi holstered their guns and approached Tyree. Slidel was stil breathing hard.

Avoiding eye contact, Tyree shifted his weight, shifted back, then back again, as though he wasn’t sure what to do with his feet.

Slidel and Rinaldi crossed their arms and regarded Tyree. Neither detective spoke. Neither moved.

Tyree kept his eyes on the ground.

Slidel dug out and tapped his Camels, extracted one with his lips, and offered the pack to Tyree.

“Smoke?” Slidel ’s face looked scalded, his eyes furious.

Tyree gave a tight head shake, wiggling the tiny pigtails at his neckline.

Slidel lit up, inhaled, placed hands on hips, and exhaled.

“Rock and E-bombs. Planning a two-for-one sale?”

“I don’ deal.” Mumbled.

“I’m sorry, Darryl. I didn’t hear that.” Slidel turned to his partner. “You get that, Eddie?” Rinaldi wagged his head.

“What’d you say, Darryl?”

Tyree slid his eyes to Slidel , but what little sunlight entered the al ey was at the detective’s back. Squinting, Tyree turned his face to one side.

“Shit’s not mine.”

“I got just one problem with that, Darryl. The product was traveling in your pants.”

“I been set up.”

“Now who would do a thing like that?”

“I been around. Man makes enemies, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah, I know. You’re a tough guy, Darryl.”

“You got nothin’ on me. I’m jus’ goin’ ’bout my bidness.”

“What business would that be?” Slidel .

Tyree shrugged and kicked a heel at the gravel.

Slidel took a drag, dropped the butt, and gave it a twist with the bal of one foot.

“Who you serving for, Darryl?”

Another shrug.

“Know what I think, Darryl? I think you’re into some double-breasted dealing.”

Tyree wagged his head on his long, goose neck.

Slidel let loose a sigh, disappointed.

“These questions too tough for you, Darryl?”

Slidel turned to his partner. “What do you think, Eddie. Think maybe we’re going over Darryl’s head?”

“Could try a different approach,” Rinaldi said. “Learned that in my interrogation workshop. Vary the approach.” Slidel nodded.

“How’s this?” Slidel turned back to Tyree. “Why’d you do Tamela Banks and her little baby?” Tyree’s eyes showed the first hint of fear.

“I didn’t do nothin’ to Tamela. We was together.”

“Together?”

“Axe anyone. Tamela and me, we was together. Why I gonna do her?”

“That’s nice, isn’t it, Eddie. I mean, being together’s a great thing, don’t you think?”

“Al you need is love,” Rinaldi agreed.

Slidel turned back to Tyree.

“But you know, Darryl, sometimes a woman gets wandering eyes, know what I mean?” Slidel gave an exaggerated boys’ club wink. “My way of thinking, being together means being together. Sometimes a man’s gotta bring his gal back into line. Hel , we’ve al been down that road.” Tyree flopped his head to one side. “Beatin’ on a woman is messed up.”

“Maybe one little slap? A punch to the kidneys?”

“No, man. I ain’t into that shit.”

“How about beating on a baby?”

Tyree kicked out with one heel, his head flopped to the other side, and his eyes dropped to the ground.

“Shi-i-t.”

Slidel ’s brows shot up in mock surprise.

“We say something to offend you, Darryl?”

Slidel turned to his partner.

“Eddie, you think we offended Darryl? Or do you think Mr. Tough Guy’s got a secret he don’t want to share?”

“We al have skeletons,” Rinaldi played along.

“Yeah. But Darryl’s was a tiny one in a great big nasty woodstove.” Directed at Tyree.

“I didn’t do nothin’ to Tamela.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“Baby jus’ dead.”

“And the woodstove seemed like a touching memorial?”

Another heel kick.

“Man. Why you tryin’ to do me like this?”

“We’re real sorry, Darryl. We realize this little setback might delay your making Eagle Scout.” Tyree shifted his feet.

“Maybe I do a little bidness. That don’t mean I know nothin’ ’bout Tamela.”

“A little business? We just nailed you with enough blow and E to send my three nephews through Harvard.” Slidel took two steps forward and put his face inches from Tyree’s.

“You’re going down hard, Tyree.”

Tyree tried to back up but the Chevy kept him trapped within breath range of Slidel .

“Know how long baby kil ers last in the joint?”

Tyree twisted his face as far to the side as his neck would al ow.

“I’d say about three months.” Over his shoulder to Rinaldi. “That sound about right to you, Eddie?”

“Yeah. Maybe four if you’re tough.”

“Like Darryl.”

“Like Darryl.”

I could take it no longer.

“Please,” I said. “Do you know where Tamela is?”

Tyree tipped his head and glanced over Slidel ’s shoulder. For a moment his eyes fixed on mine. It was only a moment, but it was enough. I felt like I was looking into the dark, empty void of hel .

Wordlessly, Tyree turned away.

“Please,” I said to the side of his face. “It’s not too late to help yourself.”

Snorting air through his nose, Tyree shifted his feet and gave a who-gives-a-shit shrug.

A terrible thought kept recycling through my brain. Tamela and her family are dead. This man knows.

This man knows a lot.

As I watched Tyree being led off, a cold, sick feeling overcame me.

At the MCME, Tim Larabee’s office door was open. I suspected he’d been lying in wait for me. He cal ed out as I passed.

“Hear you’re bucking for a spot onNYPD Blue.”

I stepped into his office.

“Word is you wanted to do an orifice search on Tyree. Slidel had to restrain you.”

“Slidel was in no shape to restrain anybody. I thought I’d have to do CPR on him.”

“Tyree tel you anything useful?”

“He’s innocent as the Little Flower.”

“That the kid saw the Virgin at Lourdes?”

I nodded.

“Cute analogy.”

“I was taught by nuns.”

“Hard to break the habit.”

Eye rol .

“Now what?” Larabee asked.

“Once they’ve completed intake, Rinaldi and Slidel are going to gril Tyree, play him off against Sonny Pounder. One or the other wil rol over.”

“My money’s on Pounder.”

“Good bet. The question is, how much does Sonny know?”

Larabee’s face got the look of a kid bursting with a secret.

“Guess who’s in storage?”

Larabee’s way of referring to a decedent’s sojourn to the morgue. Temporary storage.

“Ricky Don Dorton.”

“Old news.”

“Osama bin Laden.”

“Better than that.”

I gave him a come-on gesture with my fingers.

The name was the last I expected to hear.

“BRIANAIKER.”

I felt a plunging sensation like you get just before screaming downward toward terra firma on a rol er coaster. One of my toothpick towers was col apsing.

“Are you sure?”

“Body was found in Aiker’s car. Lots of ID on the body. A perfect match on the dentals.”

“But the skul , the Lancaster bones…,” I sputtered.

“Not your boy. You already knew the skul wasn’t his. Turns out the bones aren’t either.”

“How? Where?” I was too taken aback to ask meaningful questions.

“Hauled his car out of a smal lake at Crowder’s Mountain State Park.”

“What was Aiker doing at Crowder’s Mountain?”

“Not paying attention at the wheel.”

“It took five years to find him?”

“Apparently it’s not a popular lake.”

“Why now?”

“The region’s experiencing drought conditions, water levels are down. Kid slid down the embankment or fel off the jetty or some damn thing. Car was a couple yards off a boat landing, roof twenty inches below the surface.”

It happens al the time. A couple leaves a restaurant, vanishes. Two years later their Acura is found at the bottom of their neighborhood pond. Grandpa drops the kids off, heads home. Next Christmas the old man’s Honda is spotted in a culvert under the highway. Mama releases the brake and steers the family SUV into a reservoir, boys and al . Four months later a propel er hits metal, and vehicle and victims are hauled from the muck.

Thousands drive, golf, pedal, or walk by accident scenes every year. No one spots anything. Then someone does.

“Windows were up, car was sealed wel enough to keep the crabs and fish out,” Larabee continued. “Aiker doesn’t look that bad, considering how long he was in the drink.”

“Where?”

Larabee misunderstood my question.

“Backseat.”

“Was the body sent to Chapel Hil ?”

Larabee shook his head.

“They’ve got two pathologists on vacation and one out sick. Chief asked if I’d mind doing the post here.” I nodded absently, my mind on bones that werenotBrian Aiker’s. Larabee picked up on my mood.

“Guess that leaves you sucking wind with the privy skul and the Lancaster bones.”

“Yeah.”

“Ever get that report you were waiting for?”

“No.”

Larabee waited while I sorted through my thoughts. He was stil waiting when his phone rang. After hesitating a moment, he reached for it.

I withdrew to my office for more sorting. The process did not go wel . I tried adding coffee. No improvement.

Opening my laptop, I tried organizing in cyber bytes what I’d learned in the last eleven days.

Category:Places.Foote farm. Airplane crash site. Lancaster County, South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. Crowder’s Mountain State Park.

Weren’t the Lancaster remains also found in a state park? I made a note.

Category:People.Tamela Banks. Harvey Pearce. Jason Jack Wyatt.

Ricky Don Dorton. Darryl Tyree. Sonny Pounder. Wal y Cagle. Lawrence Looper. Murray Snow. James Park. Brian Aiker.

Too broad. I tried subdividing.

Bad Guys.Harvey Pearce (dead). Jason Jack Wyatt (dead). Ricky Don Dorton (dead). Darryl Tyree (under arrest). Sonny Pounder (under arrest).

Victims.

That didn’t work. I was placing too many question marks after names. I bifurcated.

Definite Victims.Tamela Banks’s baby. The owner of the privy skul and hand bones. The headless skeleton from Lancaster County.

Possible Victims.Tamela Banks and her family. Wal y Cagle. Murray Snow. Brian Aiker.

Did Tamela Banks and her family belong in this category? Had they real y come to harm, or had they simply been spooked into going underground?

Did Tamela Banks’s baby belongoutof this category? Was it possible the baby had died of natural causes? I knew from the bones that the baby had been ful -term, but it could have been stil born.

Was Cagle’s col apse real, or had his coma been induced in some way? Was Cagle’s unknown visitor at the university the same man with whom Looper had seen him at the coffee shop? Why hadn’t Looper taken his partner to the nearest hospital? Where was Cagle’s report on the Lancaster remains?

Had Murray Snow died of natural causes? Had the Lancaster County coroner been reopening the investigation of the headless, handless remains when he died? Why?

Did Dorton belong in this category? Dorton died of an overdose. Had it been self-administered? Had he been helped?

I was getting nowhere.

Grabbing pen and paper, I tried diagramming links. I drew a line from Dorton to Wyatt and wroteMelungeonover it. Then I extended the line to Pearce, and printed the wordCessnaover al three names.

I connected Tyree to Pounder, marked the lineFoote farm,extended the line to the words “privy skul ,” then to the name Tamela Banks.

Connecting Tyree to the Dorton-Pearce-Wyatt line, I jottedcocaine.

I made a triangle linking Cagle, Snow, and the Lancaster remains, then hooked that to the Foote farm privy skul . Shooting an extender from that, I added nodes for the bear bones and bird feathers, shot a line up to J. J. Wyatt, added another, and wrote the names Brian Aiker and Charlotte Grant Cobb at its terminus.

I stared at my handiwork, a spiderweb of names and intersecting lines.

Was I trying to link unrelated events? Disparate people and places? The more I thought, the more frustrated I became with how little I knew.

Back to the laptop.

Possible Victims.Brian Aiker.

Neither the privy skul nor the Lancaster skeletal remains could be assigned to the missing FWS agent. Aiker had driven his car off a boat landing and drowned. I was deleting his name from the possible-victim category when a troubling thought stopped my hand. Why was Aiker found in the back of his vehicle?

A manageable question. Shoving back my chair, I went in pursuit of an answer.

Larabee was working in the stinky room. I knew the reason as soon as I entered.

Aiker’s skin was mottled olive and brown, and most of his flesh had been converted to grave wax. Exposure to the air was not improving him.

What remained of Aiker’s lungs lay sliced and splayed on a cork-board at the foot of the autopsy table. Other decaying organs rested in a hanging scale.

“How’s it going?” I asked, drawing shal ow breaths.