Bones in Her Pocket: A Tempe Brennan E-Short (6 page)

S
LIDELL VISITED ME A
few days later. I was at home, forced leave, Larabee’s order.

“Nice scarf.”

Doris’s leash had turned my neck into a Monet landscape of purple and yellow. I was covering the bruises with a bandanna featuring test tubes and beakers, a giveaway from some forensics outfit looking for business. Geek chic.

“Souvenir?” Skinny gestured at the Rottweiler asleep on the floor.

“Temporary boarder.” Hoarse.

After we’d fled the horror show and called the cops, Blount had activated an animal rescue network. A swarm of volunteers moved in as soon as CSS released the scene. Dogs were taken to veterinarians, shelters, and homes. Most would make it. A few would not.

In the chaos, the Rottweiler and I had bonded. She was with me until a permanent home could be found. Kind of a foster arrangement. I was calling her Edie, in honor of Edith. My cat, Birdie, was calling her devil incarnate, refusing to come out from under my bed.

“Got a present waiting in your cooler.”

I raised my brows in question.

“Turns out Gaston Skip isn’t a complete waste of oxygen. Two days ago he busted a biker trail-riding through Kahn’s art-fart estate. Kid’s shitting his shorts, gives it up without a fight. Claims he wanted a peek at the legendary Hells Angels well of lost souls.”

Again the brows. Saved wear and tear on my throat.

“Seems there’s an abandoned well on Kahn’s property. Rumor has it the thing enjoyed regular intake in the eighties.”

“Bodies?”

“No. Tricycles. Of course I’m talking bodies.”

I curled my fingers in a give-me-more gesture.

“After Skip learns the kid’s story, he goes shaft-diving, does some digging and rock-lifting, finds a bunch of bones.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m guessing it’s the rest of your John Doe. Skip figures recent flooding washed out the four he found on the beach.”

“Edith Blankenship?”

“Your gal Doris is looking at murder one.”

“She’s OK?”

“She ain’t dancing no jigs, but she’ll pull through.”

“Motive?”

“Like I told you, door A or door B. Love or money.”

Amazing what you can ask without using words. Now I relied on upturned palms.

“Both. The old broad was totally mental for anything with feathers. Her financials showed she was donating to a boatload of birdie outfits, including the raptor center. The puppies gave her extra liquidity to take the load off birds. Blankenship intended to shut her down.”

We sat in silence a moment, thinking about that.

“We found Edith’s phone wedged between two beams in the back of the shed. Smashed to shit. But the tech boys were able to recover some pics from the memory. Dogs, kennels, a pile of rotting puppies. The kid probably stumbled across the place, wanted evidence to blow a big friggin’ whistle. Doris caught her and took her out.”

“The leash?”

“Lab guys lifted a couple hairs, some blood. They’re testing for DNA. They’re also running comparisons on the red fiber you pulled from the vic’s neck bone. It’ll come back to Blankenship.”

“Doris dumped the body?” Four words. It hurt.

“She’s tough, but for that she needed help. She has a son, retarded or slow or whatever. Works part-time as a forklift driver at some warehouse. She muscled Blankenship into the bag, then called sonny. Told him to take his rowboat way out onto the lake and toss it. Said there were dead dogs inside. Made him swear not to open the zipper.”

Sweet Jesus.

“Blount?”

“That ass-hat’s gonna live, too. Turns out our little chit-chat set the guy off. Blount liked Blankenship. Was pissed the kid got whacked. So, caped crusader that he is, he goes snooping, stumbles across Doris’s shit show. Poetic, ain’t it? The old lady belts him with a shovel, he uses the same shovel to belt her back.”

“The Olsens?”

“I’m guessing Casanova’s investing in flowers.”

“His wife found out?”

Slidell shrugged. “Not from me.”

Way to go, Skinny.

“Emmett Kahn?”

“Investing in fencing. Oh, and you’re gonna love this. He’s commissioned one of his bohemian buddies to make a giant owl sculpture. Plans to call it Essence of Edith.”

With that, he took his leave.

So my John Doe might be a fallen Hells Angel. Made sense. Arthritic lower back from years of bouncing on a Harley. Burned ankle from contact with a hot exhaust pipe.

I pictured Edith roaming the woods, eyes moving from the trees to the ground at her feet. Finding a pellet and slipping it into her pocket.

Not knowing she had but a pocketful of hours to live.

But I didn’t want to think about death today. Finally take that jog around the Booty Loop? Go for a drive? Bad idea in a scarf. Ask Isadora Duncan.

Edie padded over and placed her chin in my lap. I rubbed her ears. She rolled big caramel eyes up to mine. Rotated the eyebrow whiskers above them.

I thought about the horror she’d survived. Feared the memories would stay with her always. As they would with me.

Still, she found love in her heart for humans. I hoped I’d always be like Edie. Given my line of work, I am sometimes pessimistic about my species. But I do understand. The good in humanity outweighs the bad.

Suddenly, I knew what to do with my day. I grabbed my phone and dialed a friend at the
Charlotte Observer
.

“Is there still time to get an op-ed into this Sunday’s paper?” I asked.

“What topic?” she asked.

I told her.

“Deliver by five today, I’ll see what I can do.”

With Edie on my heels, I hurried to my desk, booted my laptop, and typed a headline.

Opt to Adopt—Stop the Horror of Puppy Mills

From the Forensic Files of Dr. Kathy Reichs

You Can Help Stop Puppy Mills

As a forensic anthropologist I see the malice humans cause one another. As the owner of five rescue animals, I’m distressed by cruelty to all species. Occasionally, these paths intersect.

Early in my career, on a warm Monday in May, a heartbreaking case arrived at my lab in Montreal. Police recovered a burlap bag on the shore of a small lake in southern Quebec. It contained bones and a pair of bricks. My job was to determine if the remains were human.

They weren’t. These were the skeletons of four puppies. The helpless creatures had been bagged, weighted down, and drowned.

Thoughts of those puppies stayed with me for a very long time. I imagined their terror as the water closed around them. Their desperate attempts to escape. To breathe.

I am a tolerant person, but animal abuse is a sin I cannot forgive. And nothing is more abusive than a puppy mill.

A puppy mill is a “factory farm” for dogs. Some are legal, some not. Government regulation is lax, if it exists at all. The “crops” are raised in cages. Females are bred as frequently as possible, and discarded when no longer fertile. It’s a life with no joy, no love, no hope. The dogs are sick, starved, and sad. They have never played on the grass or run through a field.

Thousands of people buy dogs from puppy mills annually, most believing they are getting their pet from a responsible source. Inhumane breeders seduce buyers into “puppy love,” either in pet stores or through online photos. The Humane Society estimates there are ten thousand puppy mills across the country. Collectively, they sell two to four million puppies each year. My home state of North Carolina is one of the worst offenders, requiring no inspections and with no laws governing breeders’ sales.

You can help prevent animal abuse. Here are eight things you can do to stop the horror of puppy mills:

• 
Adopt your next pet.
The perfect pet is waiting for you at one of the thousands of shelters and rescue groups across the country. If you want a particular breed, you can locate one by contacting a breed-rescue organization.

• 
Don’t buy a puppy online or from a pet store.
If you buy a puppy, you’re most likely supporting the puppy mill industry. If you must buy, please do your research to be sure your puppy isn’t from a mill.

• 
Take action against pet stores that sell puppy mill dogs.
Ask pet store owners to consider switching to a humane business model. If the store refuses to change, hold a peaceful rally or start a letter-writing campaign.

• 
Advocate for stricter breeding laws.
Write or call your city, county, state, and federal officials and ask them to take these issues seriously. Constituent feedback influences legislators. To help change your city, county, and state laws, sign up to receive action alerts from Voices for No More Homeless Pets at yourvoice.bestfriends.org.

• 
Speak out in your community.
Write to the editor of your local newspaper about puppy mills that keep their animals in unacceptable conditions.

• 
Elect animal-friendly candidates.
Ask candidates if they support regulating commercial breeders and what they would do about puppy mills. Let them know you support stricter puppy mill regulations and that you vote.

• 
Raise awareness and/or donations.
Organize a walk, conduct a bake sale or car wash, or set up a table at local events to raise awareness and funding for animal rescue and breeding regulation.

• 
Don’t give up.
The fight against puppy mills and inhumane breeders has been going on for decades. Things won’t change overnight, but there has been progress. If you educate just one person about the horrors of puppy mills or convince just one person to adopt rather than buy, you’ve made a difference.

Please turn the page for a special preview of the new Temperance Brennan novel

Bones of the Lost

By Kathy Reichs

Available from Scribner August 2013

“The forensic procedures take center stage, as they always do, in this cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“Reichs always delivers a pulse-pounding story.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Reichs knows what her readers like.”

—Associated Press

“When it comes to technical detail and local color, Reichs knows her stuff.”

—
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

H
EART POUNDING, I CRAWLED
toward the brick angling down to form the edge of the recess. Craned out.

More footfalls. Then heavy boots appeared at the top of the stairs, beside them a pair of small feet, one bare, the other in a platform pump.

The feet started to descend, the small ones wobbly, their owner somehow impaired. The lower legs angled oddly, suggesting the knees bore little weight.

Anger burned hot in my chest. The woman was drugged. The bastard was dragging her.

Four treads lower, the man and woman crossed an arrow of moonlight. Not a woman, a girl. Her hair was long, her arms and legs refugee thin. I could see a triangle of white tee below the man’s chin. A pistol grip jutting from his waistband.

The pair again passed into darkness. Their tightly pressed bodies formed a two-headed black silhouette.

Stepping from the bottom tread, the man started muscling the girl toward the loading-dock door, pushing her, a hand clamping her neck. She stumbled. He yanked her up. Her head flopped like a Bobblehead doll’s.

The girl took a few more staggering steps. Then her chin lifted and her body bucked. A cry broke the stillness, animal shrill.

The man’s free arm shot out. The silhouette recongealed. I heard a scream of pain, then the girl pitched forward onto the concrete.

The man dropped to one knee. His elbow pumped as he pummeled the inert little body.

“Fight me, you little bitch?”

The man punched and punched until his breath grew ragged.

Rage flamed white-hot in my brain, overriding any instinct for personal safety.

I scuttled over and grabbed the Beretta. Checked the safety, thankful for the practice I’d put in at the range.

Satisfied with the gun, I reached for my phone. It wasn’t with the flashlight.

I searched my other pocket. No phone.

Had I dropped it? In my frenzied dash, had I left it at home?

The panic was almost overwhelming. I was off the grid. What to do?

A tiny voice advised caution. Remain hidden. Wait. Slidell knows where you are.

“You are so dead.” The voice boomed, cruel and malicious.

I whipped around.

The man was wrenching the girl up by her hair.

Holding the Beretta two-handed in front of me, I darted from the alcove. The man froze at the sound of movement. I stopped five yards from him. Using a pillar for cover, I spread my feet and leveled the barrel.

“Let her go.” My shout reverberated off brick and concrete.

The man maintained his grasp on the girl’s hair. His back was to me.

“Hands up.”

He let go and straightened. His palms slowly rose to the level of his ears.

“Turn around.”

As the man rotated, another fragment of light caught him. For a second I saw his face with total clarity.

On spotting his foe, the man’s hands dipped slightly. Sensing he could see me better than I could see him, I squeezed further behind the pillar.

“The fucking slut lives.”

You’ll die, too, fucking slut.

“Takes balls to send threats by e-mail.” My voice sounded much more confident than I felt. “To bully defenseless little girls.”

“Debt to pay? You know the rules.”

“Your debt-collecting days are over, you sick sonofabitch.”

“Says who?”

“Says a dozen cops racing here now.”

The man cupped an upraised hand to one ear. “I don’t hear no sirens.”

“Move away from the girl,” I ordered.

He took a token step.

“Move,” I snarled. The guy’s fuck-you attitude was making me want to smash the Beretta across his skull.

“Or what? You’re gonna shoot me?”

“Yeah.” Cold steel. “I’m gonna shoot you.”

Would I? I’d never fired at a human being.

Where the hell was Slidell? I knew my bluff was being sustained by coffee and adrenaline. Knew both would eventually wear off.

The girl groaned.

In that split second I lost the advantage that might have allowed him to live.

I looked down.

He lunged.

Fresh adrenaline blasted through me.

I raised the gun.

He closed in.

I sighted on the white triangle.

Fired.

The explosion echoed brutally loud. The concussion knocked my hands up, but I held position.

The man dropped.

In the murky gloom I saw the triangle go dark. Knew crimson was spreading across it. A perfect hit. The Triangle of Death.

Silence, but for my own rasping breath.

Then my higher centers caught up with my brain stem.

I’d killed a man.

My hands shook. Bile filled my throat.

I swallowed. Steadied the gun and stole forward.

The girl lay motionless. I crouched and placed trembling fingers on her throat. Felt a pulse, faint but steady.

I swiveled. Gazed at the man’s mute, malevolent eyes.

Suddenly I was exhausted. Revolted by what I’d just done.

I wondered. In my state, could I make good decisions? Carry through? My phone was back at the house.

I wanted to sit, hold my head in my hands, and let the tears flow.

Instead I drew a few steadying breaths, rose, and crossed what seemed a thousand miles of darkness. Climbed the stairs on rubbery legs.

A single passage cut right at the top. I followed it to the only closed door.

Gun tight in one clammy hand, I reached out and turned the knob with the other.

The door swung in.

I stared into pure horror.