Bare Bones (8 page)

I moved the finger.

Boyd slunk to the floor. Ryan’s size-twelves dropped to the cushion.

“Furniture infraction?” Both blue eyes were open now.

“I take it you found the key?”

“No problemo.”

“How did chowbreath get here, and why did he permit you to just waltz in?”

Boyd and Ryan looked at each other.

“I’ve been cal ing him Hooch. Saw it in a movie. Thought it fit him.”

Boyd’s ears shot up.

“Who letHoochin, and why did Hooch let you in?”

“Hooch remembers me from the TransSouth disaster up inBrysonCity .”

I’d forgotten. When his partner was kil ed transporting a prisoner fromGeorgia toMontreal , Ryan had been invited to help the NTSB with the crash investigation. He and Boyd had met at that time, in theCarolina mountains.

“How didHoochget in here?”

“Your daughter brought him.”

Boyd wedged his snout under Ryan’s hand.

“Nice kid.”

Nice ambush, I thought, fighting back a smile. Katy figured a guest couldn’t refuse the dog.

“Nice dog.”

Ryan scratched Boyd behind the ears, swiveled his feet to the floor, and gave me a once-over. The corners of his mouth twitched upward.

“Nice look.”

My clothes were filthy, my nails caked with mud and soot. My hair was sweaty-wet and matted, my cheeks fiery from a zil ion insect bites. I smel ed of corn, airplane fuel, and charred flesh.

How would my sister Harry describe me? Rode hard and put away wet.

But I was not in the mood for a fashion critique.

“I’ve been scraping up fried brain matter, Ryan. You wouldn’t look like a Dior ad either.” Boyd regarded me but kept his thoughts to himself.

“Have you eaten?”

“The event wasn’t catered.”

Hearing my tone, Boyd jammed his snout back under Ryan’s hand.

“Hooch and I were thinking about pizza.”

Boyd wagged his tail at the sound of his new nickname. Or at the mention of pizza.

“His name’s Boyd.”

“Why don’t you go upstairs and clean up some. Boyd and I’l see what we can rustle up.” Rustle up?

Born inNova Scotia , Ryan has lived his entire adult life in theprovinceofQuebec . Though he’s traveled extensively, his view of American culture is typical y Canadian. Rednecks. Gangsters. Cowboys. Now and then he tries to impress me with hisGunsmokelingo. I hoped he wasn’t about to do that now.

“I’l be a few minutes,” I said.

“Take your time.”

Good. No “podna” or “ma’am” tacked on for effect.

It came as I was trudging up the stairs.

“—Miz Kitty.”

Another sudsy, steamy bathroom session to cleanse body and soul of the smel of death. Lavender shower gel, juniper shampoo, rosemary-mint conditioner. I was going through a lot of aromatic plants of late.

Soaping up, I thought about the man downstairs.

Andrew Ryan, lieutenant-détective, Section de Crimes contre la Personne, Sûreté du Québec.

Ryan and I had worked together for nearly a decade, homicide detective and forensic anthropologist. As specialists within our respective agencies headquartered inMontreal , theQuebec coroner’s bureau and theQuebec provincial police, we’d investigated serial kil ers, outlaw biker gangs, doomsday cults, and common criminals. I’d do the vics. He’d do the legwork. Always strictly professional.

Over the years I’d heard stories about Ryan’s past. Bikes, booze, binges closed out on drunk-tank floors. The near-fatal attack by a biker with the shattered neck of a twelve-ounce Bud. The slow recovery. The defection to the good guys. Ryan’s rise within the provincial police.

I’d also heard tales about Ryan’s present. Station-house stud. Babe meister.

Irrelevant. I had a steadfast rule against workplace romances.

But Ryan isn’t good at fol owing rules. He pressed, I resisted. Less than two years back, at last accepting the fact that Pete and I were better off as friends than spouses, I’d agreed to date him.

Date?

Jesus. I sounded like my mother.

I squeezed more lavender onto my scrunchy and lathered again.

What term did one use for singles over forty?

Go out? Court? Woo?

Moot point. Before anything got off the ground, Ryan disappeared undercover. Fol owing his reemergence, we’d tried a few dinners, movies, and bowling encounters, but never got to the wooing part.

I pictured Ryan. Tal , lanky, eyes bluer than aCarolina sky.

Something flipped in my stomach.

Woo!

Maybe I wasn’t as tired as I thought.

Last spring, at the close of an emotional y difficult time inGuatemala , I’d final y decided to take the plunge. I’d agreed to vacation with Ryan.

What could go wrong at the beach?

I never found out. Ryan’s pager beeped while en route to theGuatemala City airport, and instead of Cozumel, we flew toMontreal . Ryan returned to surveil ance inDrummondvil e . I went back to bones at the lab.

Woo-us interruptus.

I rinsed.

Now Detective Don Juan had his buns parked on the couch in my study.

Nice buns.

Flip.

Tight. With al the curves in the right places.

Major flip.

I twisted the handle, hopped out of the shower, and groped for a towel. The steam was so thick it obscured the mirror.

Good thing, I thought, picturing the handiwork of the mosquitoes and gnats.

I slipped into my ratty old terry-cloth robe, a gift from Harry upon completion of my Ph.D. at Northwestern. Torn sleeve. Coffee stains. It is the comfort food of my garment col ection.

Birdie was curled on my bed.

“Hey, Bird.”

If cats could look reproachful, Birdie was doing it.

I sat next to him and ran a hand along his back.

“I didn’t invite the chow.”

Birdie said nothing.

“What do you think of the other guy?”

Birdie curled both paws under his breast and gave me his Sphinx look.

“Think I should pul out the string bikinis?”

I lay back next to the cat.

I lay back next to the cat.

“Or hit theVictoria ’s Secret stash?”

Victoria’s Secret knockoffs, actual y, fromGuatemala . I’d found them in a lingerie store, and bought the mother lode for the beach trip that never was.

Those items were stil in their Vic-like pink bag, tags in place.

I closed my eyes to think about it.

The sun was again cutting through the magnolia, throwing warm slashes across my face.

I smel ed bacon and heard activity in my kitchen.

A moment of confusion, then recol ection.

My eyes flew open.

I was in a fetal curl on top of the spread, Gran’s afghan over me.

I checked the clock.

Eight twenty-two.

I groaned.

Rol ing from the bed, I pul ed on jeans and a T and ran a brush through my hair. Sleeping on it wet had flattened the right side, pooched the left into a demi-pompadour.

I tried water. Hopeless. I looked like Little Richard with hat hair.

Terrific.

I was halfway down the stairs when I thought about breath.

Back up to brush.

Boyd greeted me at the bottom step, eyes shining like a junkie’s on crack. I scratched his ear. He shot back to the kitchen.

Ryan was at the stove. He wore jeans. Just jeans. Slung low.

Oh, boy.

“Good morning,” I said, for lack of a more clever opener.

Ryan turned, fork in hand.

“Good morning, princess.”

“Listen, I’m sorr—”

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

He fil ed a mug and handed it to me. Boyd gamboled about the kitchen, high on the smel of frying fat. Birdie remained upstairs, radiating resentment.

“I must have bee—”

“Hooch and I had a hankerin’ for bacon and eggs.”

Hankerin’?

“Sit,” said Ryan, pointing his fork at the table.

I sat. Boyd sat.

Realizing his mistake, the chow stood, eyes fixed on the bacon Ryan was transferring to a paper towel.

“Did you find a pil ow and blanket?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I took a sip of my coffee. It was good.

“Good coffee.”

“Thank ya, ma’am.”

No doubt about it. This was going to be a cowboy day.

“Where did you get the bacon and eggs?”

“Hooch and I went for a run. Hit the Harris-Tooter. Weird name for a grocery store.”

“It’s Harris-Teeter.”

“Right. Makes more sense for product recognition.”

I noticed an empty pizza box on the counter.

“I’m real y sorry about flaking out last night.”

“You were exhausted. You crashed. No big deal.”

Ryan gave Boyd a strip of bacon, turned, and locked his baby blues onto mine. Slowly, he raised and lowered both brows.

“Not what I had in mind, of course.”

Oh, boy.

I tucked hair behind my ears with both hands. The right side stayed.

“I’m afraid I have to work today.”

“Hooch and I expected that. We’ve made plans.”

Ryan was cracking eggs into a frying pan, tossing shel s into the sink with a jump-shot wrist move.

“But we could use some wheels.”

“Drop me off, you can have my car.”

I didn’t ask about the plans.

As we ate, I described the crash scene. Ryan agreed that it sounded like drug traffickers. He, too, had no idea about the odd black residue.

“NTSB investigator didn’t know?”

I shook my head.

“Larabee’l autopsy the pilot, but he’s asked me to deal with the passenger’s head.” Boyd pawed my knee. When I didn’t respond he shifted to Ryan.

Over second, then third cups of coffee, Ryan and I discussed mutual friends, his family, things we would do when I returned toMontreal at the end of the summer. The conversation was light and frivolous, a mil ion miles from decomposing bears and a shattered Cessna. I found myself grinning for no reason.

I wanted to stay, make ham and mustard and pickle sandwiches, watch old movies, and meander wherever the day might take us.

But I couldn’t.

Reaching out, I pressed my palm to Ryan’s cheek.

“I real y am glad you’re here,” I said, smiling a smile with giggles behind it.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” said Ryan.

“I have a few animal bones to finish up, but that shouldn’t take any time at al . We can leave for the beach tomorrow.” I finished my coffee, pictured the shards of skul I’d extricated from the charred fuselage. My cupcake smile drooped noticeably.

“Wednesday at the latest.”

Ryan gave Boyd the last strip of bacon.

“The ocean is everlasting,” he said.

So, it would turn out, was the parade of corpses.

RYAN COULDN’T DROP ME OFF. IHAD NO CAR.

I cal ed Katy. She arrived within minutes to taxi us downtown, cheerful about the early-morning errand.

Yeah. Right.

The air was hot and humid, the NPR weatherman negative on the subject of a temperature break. Ryan looked overdressed in his jeans, socks, loafers, and chopped-sleeve sweatshirt.

At the MCME I handed Ryan my keys. Across Col ege, a kid in an extra-large Carolina Panthers jersey and crotch-hangers headed in the direction of the county services building, bouncing a basketbal to a rhythm he was hearing from his headphones.

Though my mood was gloomy, I couldn’t help but smile. In my youth jeans had to be tight enough to cause arteriosclerosis. This kid’s drawers would accommodate a party of three.

Watching Katy then Ryan drive off, my smile col apsed. I didn’t know where my daughter was going, or what plans Ryan shared with my estranged husband’s dog, but I wished I were heading out, too.

Anywhere but here.

A morgue is not a happy place. Visitors do not come for pleasant diversion.

I know that.

Every day greed, passion, carelessness, stupidity, personal self-loathing, encounters with evil, and plain bad luck send otherwise healthy people rol ing in with their toes up. Every day those left behind are sucker punched by the suddenness of unexpected death.

Weekends produce a bumper crop, so Mondays are the worst.

I know that, too.

Stil , Monday mornings bum me out.

When I came through the outer door, Mrs. Flowers waved a chubby hand and buzzed me from the lobby into the reception area.

Joe Hawkins was in his cubicle speaking to a woman who looked like she might have worked at a truck-stop counter. Her clothes and face were baggy.

She could have been forty or sixty.

The woman listened, eyes glazed and distant, fingers working a wadded tissue. She wasn’t real y hearing Hawkins. She was getting her first glimpse of life without the person whose corpse she’d just viewed.

I caught Hawkins’s eye, motioned him to stay at his task.

The board showed three cases logged since yesterday. Busy Sunday forCharlotte . The pilot and passenger had checked in as MCME 438–02 and 439

–02

Larabee already had the pilot on the main autopsy room table. When I peeked in he was examining the burned skin through a hand-held magnifier.

“Any word on who we have here?” I asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“Prints or dentals?”

“Fingers are too far gone on this one. But most of the teeth are intact. Looks like he might have seen a dentist at some point in this mil ennium or the last.

He definitely saw his tattoo artist. Check out the artwork.”

Larabee offered the lens.

The man’s lower back must have been protected from the flames by contact with the seat. Across it writhed the south end of a snake, taloned and winged. Red flames danced through the coils and around the edges of Mr. Serpent.

“Recognize the design?” I asked.

“No. But someone should.”

“Guy looks white.”

Larabee sponged upward on the tattoo. More snake emerged from the soot, like a message on a Burger King scratch-and-win. The skin between the scales was pasty white.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “but check this out.”

Snugging a hand under the pilot’s shoulder, Larabee eased the man up. I leaned in.