Bones of the Lost(5)

Finally, curiosity won out.

“What were you up to with Larabee?” I asked.

“Hit and run came in this morning. Female. No ID.”

“Age?”

“Old enough.”

“Meaning?” Sharper than I’d intended.

“Mid to late teens.”

“Race?”

“Wetback. You can take that to the bank.”

“No name, but magically you know the girl’s Latina, and therefore undocumented?”

“She’s moving with no ID and no keys.”

Rather like I was, I thought, but didn’t say it.

Seconds passed.

“Where was she found?” I asked.

“Intersection of Rountree and Old Pineville roads, just south of Woodlawn. Doc Larabee’s putting time of death somewhere between midnight and dawn.”

“What was she doing out there?” Mulling aloud.

“What d’you think?”

I was thinking Old Pineville was one deserted stretch in daytime, let alone in the middle of the night. There was a smattering of small businesses, but none that would attract a teenage girl.

“Any witnesses?”

Slidell shook his head. “I’ll do some canvassing once I’m done with Doc Larabee. My guess, she was out working.”

“Really.”

Slidell shrugged one beefy shoulder.

“Unidentified teenage girl, that’s what you know. But you’ve got her down as an illegal turning tricks. That speed detecting?”

He mumbled something.

I blocked him out. After years of practice, I’ve gotten better at it.

My gray cells offered a collage of images. A young girl alone in the dark on an empty two-lane. Headlights. The impact of a bumper.

“—Story?”

“What?”

“Do you remember John-Henry Story?”

The change of topic confused me. “The fire death last April?”

Six months back I’d examined fragmentary remains found in the aftermath of a flea market explosion and fire. I’d determined the victim was white, male, forty-five to sixty years of age. The bio profile fit John-Henry Story, the owner of the property. Story had told witnesses he was going to that location and had not been heard from thereafter. Personal items were found with the bones. A cell phone? Wallet? Watch? I couldn’t remember details.

Though the ID was circumstantial, the ME had decided it was enough. Arson investigators had probed and tested, but the barn was so old, the destruction so total, an exact cause for the blaze was never determined.

Story’s death had been big news. Prominent businessman burned to death in a building with inadequate alarm and sprinkler systems. The media had jumped on the issue of public safety at under-regulated markets and gun shows. Eventually the press turned to something else, the furor fizzled, and Story’s flea market reopened elsewhere.

“Ee-yuh.” Skinny’s favorite utterance. It drove me nuts.

For years the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner was located at Tenth and College, in a redbrick box that was once a Sears Garden Center. For years the city fathers had talked of relocation. For years nothing had happened. Then, miraculously, the plan moved forward.

At a cost of eight million smackers, a replacement facility was built on government land in an industrial area northwest of uptown. Boasting seventeen thousand square feet, the new building is four times the size of the old. Epoxy floors, Corian walls, miles of stainless steel. Instead of only two, pathologists can now perform four simultaneous autopsies. The new setup includes a pair of rooms for analyses requiring special handling due to decomposition or potential contamination.

The stinkers. My kind of cases.

And the spanking-new building is conscientiously green. Sophisticated energy recovery systems. HVAC with air ducts up to forty inches wide. Though all the action takes place on the first floor, parts of the building had to be two stories to accommodate it all.

Yet the atmosphere is reasonably peaceful. The office and public areas are done in soft blues and earth tones. The windows are large and solar shades and light shelves maximize daylight intake and minimize glare.

In other words, our new digs are the bomb.

I waited as Slidell pulled through the black security fence, circled the flagpoles, and slipped into a parking spot. Killing the engine, he threw an arm over the seatback and a wave of odor my way. Then he shifted to face me.

“John-Henry Story had holdings all over Mecklenburg and Gaston counties. Story Motors. Story Storage—”

Store your stuff with Story. The slogan popped into my brain unbidden. It had been an annoying but effective ad campaign.

“—John-Henry’s Tavern. The list is longer than my coon dog’s tail.”

“You have a dog?”

“You want to hear this?”