Speaking in Bones (6 page)

Shortly after Gran’s death, my mother disappeared without apology or explanation. Four years later, my sister, Harry, and I learned she was living in Paris with a caregiver named Cécile Gosselin, whom she called Goose.

When I was thirty-five, Mama returned to the States with Goose. Since then they’d shifted between the Pawleys Island property and a sprawling condo on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The arrangement worked well for me. Holiday visits. Emails and texts. Brief chats on the phone.

Then, without warning, Mama pirouetted back into my life shortly before Ryan’s own reappearance. With her Louis Vuitton luggage, Hermès scarves, and Chanel No. 5, she’d checked into the only facility ever to meet her extraordinarily high standards. Also traveling in the entourage was an untamed malignancy that would eventually kill her.

“Mama’s still terrorizing the staff at Heatherhill Farm,” I said.

“Goose remains bivouacked at the B and B down the road?”

“Yes. The woman is a saint.”

“Daisy’s probably promised to bequeath her the family fortune.”

“Mama’s estate planning centers on bouncing the very last check she writes. I don’t know. It’s hard to figure Goose. The woman rarely speaks.”

“We French are enigmatic.”

“But you produce good cheese.”

“And wine.”

“And wine.”

“Daisy would make a daunting websleuth.”

“Don’t you dare broach the subject to her.” Ryan was right. My mother’s skill at mining the Web is unsurpassed. But there’s a downside. When she’s in a manic phase, a mild curiosity can become an all-consuming obsession for Mama.

“Roger that. Any news on Katy?”

Another topic that kept me constantly anxious. Two years earlier my daughter had enlisted in the army and been sent to Afghanistan. She’d survived her tour, come home, and, to my horror, volunteered to return. She was now in the first month of her second deployment.

“Happy and healthy.” Or was at the time of our last Skype call.

“Good.”

There was a very long pause. I braced, knowing what was coming.

“I get why you had to cancel your trip to Montreal. But have you given any thought to my pitch?” Ryan’s tone was carefully neutral.

Pitch?

“Yes.” I ran a hand through my hair. Inhaled. Exhaled.

“And?”

“It’s hard, Ryan. With Mama.”

“Yes.”

“And Katy.”

“Katy will be fine.”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

I knew I should reply in kind. Instead, I fought a wild urge to disconnect.

“I’ll take no news as good news.”

I shrugged. Stupid. Ryan couldn’t see me.

“Here’s my suggestion.” He changed topics again. “Shoot that recording over to your audio geeks.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Why not?” Still neutral. No one does it like Ryan.

“Strike refused to leave it with me.” Alone in the dark, I felt myself blush with humiliation at my own ineptness. “I phoned the Burke County sheriff’s deputy who recovered the bones.”

“What did she say?”

“I’m waiting for a callback.”

“It might be wise to have the audio analyzed.” Ryan stated the obvious.

“I’ll call Strike in the morning.”

That turned out to be a bad idea.

T
hat night I attended a Mad Hatter’s party of the macabre.

I was seated at a table stretching as far as I could see in both directions. White linen cloth and napkins. Silver spoons and candlesticks. Porcelain tea service.

Ryan was across from me, wearing a bow tie, tux, and red wool tuque. Beside him was a woman who barely came up to his shoulder. Her hair was a foggy nimbus haloing her head, her features a shadowy landscape lacking in detail or definition. The woman’s body ended at the bottom of a rib cage rippling below a cut-off long-sleeved blue tee.

Behind Ryan and the woman, a huge arched window framed a neon sunset. Garish yellows, oranges, and reds, heaped layer upon layer, supported an ominous black disk floating just above the horizon.

I knew that was wrong. That the sun should be light. I tried to tell Ryan. He kept talking to the woman at his side.

Far down the table to my left, Mama and Larabee were engaged in heated discussion. Larabee was in bloodstained scrubs. Mama had on the black Chanel suit she’d bought for Daddy’s funeral but never worn.

At the far right, Hazel Strike sat alone in jeans and boots, backpack beside her on the snowy linen. The fiery twilight made her topknot look like brassy meringue.

Everyone was holding a tiny china cup. Ryan’s fingers looked huge on the scrolly little handle.

Mama and Larabee grew louder, but I couldn’t make out their words. Recognizing a dangerous note in my mother’s tone, I tried to stand, but found I was glued to my chair.

Drizzle began falling. No one seemed to notice but me.

I looked at Ryan.

“Will you melt?” he asked.

I tried to answer. My lips wouldn’t form words.

“Will you let Cora Teague melt?” Flat.

Still my mouth wouldn’t work.

“Melt.” Larabee, Mama, and Strike chorused in unison. The word reverberated, as though bouncing off the walls of an enormous chamber. I looked around. All three were staring at me.

“Will you let
me
melt?” Sharp-edged, no echo.

I refocused on Ryan. His eyes were angry blue flames.

“Do I disappear into the black hole?”

Before I could answer, Ryan swirled backward and vanished into the menacing death-disk sun. The woman’s fog-hair swirled, sucked upward by Ryan’s sudden departure. Her face, now revealed, was devoid of flesh, the empty orbits pointed at me in beseeching accusation. A beat, then the woman swooped a path identical to Ryan’s.

Frightened, I whipped my gaze left. Mama and Larabee were gone.

Right. Strike was on her feet, curling knobby fingers inward, telling me to join her.

I turned away. Tried to peer into the wormhole that had swallowed Ryan and the woman. Saw nothing but tomb-like black.

“Ryan!” I screamed.

I awoke, heart racing, skin slick with sweat.

Wildly disoriented, I took a moment to figure out where I was.

The clock said 2:47
A.M.

Birdie was up on all fours, back arched, undoubtedly annoyed that I’d interrupted his sleep. I stroked his head, and he settled at my knee.

I closed my eyes.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Calm.

I repeated the mantra again and again. Of course sleep didn’t come. My mind was obsessed with deconstructing the dream. Which typically does not require Freud. Remarkably uncreative, my subconscious simply reworks its recent intake.

The tux and formal table setting represented Ryan’s desire for a wedding, the tuque his Canadian roots and love of Quebec. His disappearance into the black hole needed no explanation.

The woman beside Ryan was Cora Teague. Ditto for her pleading look and sudden exit into oblivion.

Strike was present, playing herself. She wanted me to look for Teague. Larabee, at the opposite end of the table, would probably be opposed, given what little we knew about Strike or the remains labeled ME229-13.

And Daisy? Easy one. Mama was constantly in my thoughts of late.

The Chanel suit and bloody scrubs? Anyone’s guess.

At my last time check, the orange digits glowed 5:54. The alarm buzzed at 7:00.

—

I was at the MCME by eight, spent two hours pounding coffee and composing a final report on the mummified corpse, an elderly gentleman by the name of Burgess Chamblin. When finished, I pulled the file on ME229-13, walked down the hall, and knocked on Larabee’s door.

“Yo.”

I entered and stood in the middle of the room, unsure whether to proceed or to drop the whole thing. My mind shot dual flashbacks. The face in the dream. The audio.

Larabee was writing at his desk, still wearing civvies. “How’s it going?”

“All roses and sunshine.”

“Good.” Still scribbling. Half listening.

“You saw my prelim on the man in the recliner?”

“I did.” Larabee dotted an i. Maybe a j. Slid a handful of photos into a folder and closed it. “Thanks for hopping right on it.”

“I’ve finished the final.”

He glanced up. “That’s great. Thanks.” When I didn’t leave, “Something on your mind?”

“If you have a minute.”

“Grab a seat.”

I dragged a chair forward and sat.

Larabee leaned back and laced long, bony fingers on his chest. Which looked scrawny and concave under his white polo, the result of an overzealous thirty-year commitment to long-distance running.

“Such a crock. No one checks on Grandpa for almost two years, suddenly the kids are on fire to bury the old man.”

“Money involved?”

“Not really.” Larabee’s forehead, permanently lined from hours spent pounding the pavement, furrowed more deeply. “What’s up?”

“I want you to hear me out on this,” I began.

“Don’t I always?”

I made a face, then continued. “A woman came to see me yesterday. Hazel Strike. Strike believes one of our UIDs is a girl named Cora Teague.” I tapped the folder in my lap.

“That’s terrific. Follow up.”

“It’s not so simple.”

“Go on.”

“The remains consist of a handful of bones found in Burke County in 2013.”

“Why did the case come here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can you score DNA?”

“That may be problematical on two levels. First, the bone is badly degraded. Acid soil, animal scavenging—”

“Second?”

“The family may be unwilling to provide comparison samples.”

“Why?”

“They don’t believe the kid’s dead.”

Larabee’s brows rose, crimping the furrows.

“They think she took off on her own.”

“So what makes this Strike think our UID is Teague?”

I explained my entry of ME229-13’s identifiers into the NamUs database, then briefed him on websleuthing. On Strike’s visit to Burke County and the disturbing audio. As I spoke, Larabee’s expression morphed from interest to scorn.

“You’re kidding?”

I wagged my head no.

“Fine. Play me this Blair Witch moment.”

“Strike refused to leave the recorder with me.”

“Jesus, Tempe.”

“What was I supposed to do, rip it from her hand?”

Larabee’s phone rang. He ignored it.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“Perhaps I should go up there. Maybe take Joe, run a cadaver dog through the woods below the overlook.” Joe Hawkins is a death investigator who’s been with the MCME since the Eisenhower years. If any bone remained on that mountain, Joe Hawkins would find it. Or the canine would.

Larabee gave the idea some thought. Then, “You say the remains were already badly damaged when they arrived in 2013. What are the odds more could have survived?”

“It’s possible.”

“Likely?”

I shrugged.

“Who worked the recovery?”

“A Burke County deputy sheriff.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Her. Opal Ferris. She was unavailable. I left a message.”

“Did the NOK file an MP report?” Larabee used the shorthand for next of kin.

I shook my head.

“Who put Teague up on this CLUES site?”

“There’s no way to know. All posters are allowed to remain anonymous.”

Larabee’s face executed something between a grimace and a scowl. Held the expression several seconds. Then he said what I’d expected.

“I can’t commit funds or personnel to something this thin. Phone back up to Burke County. Talk to Ferris. See where that goes.”

I nodded. Got to my feet and returned to my office.

This time Opal Ferris took my call.

I introduced myself. Ferris remembered me. And the bones. And her trek around the mountain with Mort. She asked if new info had surfaced.

For what seemed the hundredth time I went through the recent time line, focusing on developments unknown to Ferris. Websleuthing. Strike’s NamUs epiphany and visit to Burke County. Cora Teague. The audio.

Ferris listened. I think. There seemed to be a lot going on in the background.

“This key chain thingy was just lying in the dirt?” Ferris’s voice was raspy, maybe from smoking, maybe from vocal cords working on a node.

“So Strike claims.”

“And the family thinks the kid’s run off with some local fella?”

“I’m unsure of his place of residence.”

“But the bottom line is she’s not been reported missing.”

“Except on CLUES.”

“Which any pig nut can access.”

I said nothing.

“Teague have a cellphone?”

“No.”

“Any Internet presence?”

“Not according to Strike.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sorry, Doc. But it don’t sound like you’ve got squat. A few bones in Burke, someone who may or may not be missing in Avery. That someone being eighteen and free to stay gone if she chooses.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“Can you make a couple of calls?” I asked. “See if the mother or one of the sisters is willing to provide a DNA sample?”

I waited. Quite a while. When I was sure Ferris was about to blow me off, she said, “I’ll get back to you.”

—

Ferris didn’t. But an Avery County deputy sheriff named Zeb Ramsey did. At four that afternoon, as I was pulling into my drive.