Though a faintly organic smell tinged the air, the surface did not burn. The sliver was not plastic or resin. That left bone or ivory.
But the material looked far too smooth and uniform for bone.
Mind buzzing, I hurried to the stinky room and positioned the sliver under the dissecting scope, fractured edge up. Then I adjusted lighting and magnification.
And there they were in the cross section. Schreger lines. Tiny angled marks, like stacked chevrons. Their presence meant the material came from an elephant or mammoth tusk. The angle of the little Vs could indicate which, but my memory failed me on that.
I stared, bewildered. How did ivory end up in the scalp of a hit-and-run victim?
Suddenly I was in a froth to talk to Slidell. Hurrying back to my office, I returned the sliver to its vial and punched in his number.
For the third time that day, I was rolled to voicemail.
“Sonofabitch!”
Agitated, and not wanting to scoop poop from a brainpan at that moment, I jabbed the message button on my phone, then, not so gently, entered my mailbox code.
One by one, I worked through ten days of accumulated drivel.
A question from the chief ME in Raleigh. Another from a colleague in Wisconsin. Those I saved. Two hang-ups. An interoffice appeal concerning abuse of the refrigerator in the staff lounge. Three queries from members of the media. All those I deleted.
The final message froze the fingers I was drumming on the blotter.
THE CALLER WAS FEMALE, THE words whispered in accented English. Background noise obliterated much of what she said.
“. . . want to say, but . . . girl that . . . no accident . . .”
The volume kept strengthening then fading, as though the woman had been repeatedly turning her head, sporadically distancing her lips from the receiver. Or maybe signal strength was erratic.
Somehow the voice was familiar. Or maybe it was the tone, the urgency.
Ping.
Was it the same person who’d contacted me from the pay phone at Seneca Square?
I held my breath, eager to catch every word, every nuance.
“. . . Passion Fruit . . . place . . . go . . . not right . . .”
I heard a shout in the background. Someone summoning the woman? Threatening her?
Either way, the call ended with the click of an abrupt hang-up.
I replayed the message again and again, pen poised over paper. I wrote almost nothing.
I receive hundreds of calls, listen to scores of messages, some useful, some crackpot, some the sad ramblings of bereaved next of kin. Over the years I’ve developed an instinct for those to take seriously. This call was among them.
I checked the messaging system information. The call had come into the switchboard the previous Friday, the day after Stallings’s piece ran in the Observer.
I studied the few words I’d scribbled. My gut told me Passion Fruit did not refer to a produce market.
I hit Google. Bingo. The Passion Fruit Club was located on Griffith, along a stretch that catered to adult male tastes.
I picked up the phone and punched Mrs. Flowers’s extension.
“Yes, Dr. Brennan.”
“I got a call last Friday at one thirty-one P.M. It rolled to voicemail. Could you check the log to see if the number was recorded?”
After a few seconds, Mrs. Flowers read off a series of digits that began with 704, the local area code. I ran the number through a 411 reverse-lookup site, but got zip. No name, no address.
I was dialing Slidell when the man himself appeared at my door.
“Yo, doc.” Dropping heavily into the chair opposite my desk, feet out, ankles crossed.
“Detective.”
“How’s it hanging?”
“Did you get my messages?”
Slidell reached out, snatched my tester safety pin from the blotter, and began cleaning a thumbnail. The scritching sound grated like a mosquito whining in the night.
“Didn’t tangle with one of those mean-ass desert wolf spiders, did you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Big as golf balls.” Slidell stopped excavating to splay his fingers. “Legs spread, they’re big as dinner plates. And the little fuckers can jump. Guy told me—”
“Can we discuss my hit-and-run case?”
“Topping my dance card.”
“It is?”
“Found our MP.” More scritching.
“Cheryl Connelly.”
“Ee-yuh. Car went off West Arrowood into a pond in the Moody Lake Office Park. Water barely covered the roof.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I was. Though I was glad Slidell was now free to focus on my Jane Doe. “Did you get my messages?”
“Seventy-two by my count.”
“You received the DNA reports?”
“The many loves of Juanita Doe.”
“That statement is presumptive and offensive.”
Slidell raised a placating palm. “I’m just saying.”