I remembered a detail from one of our DFAC conversations. Blanton was from Gastonia.
“I’m sure your family is glad you’re back.” Lame. But I had no idea what the guy wanted.
“And I’ll bet your cat was glad to see you.”
The comment surprised me. Then I remembered that I’d also shared that in the DFAC.
“Yes.” I brushed damp hair from my forehead.
Blanton reached into the bag and withdrew a cardboard box. Flat and rectangular.
Like the one that had held D’Ostillo’s tongue.
Feeling slightly apprehensive, I checked my surroundings. Students crisscrossed the campus at our backs. Traffic passed on Radcliff, not a steady flow, but enough for comfort.
“For you, doctor.” Blanton held out the box. “For being such a trouper.”
“I was doing my job.”
“Then consider it thanks for putting up with my obnoxious behavior.”
I took the box and lifted the cover. Inside was a pashmina similar to those Katy and I had admired at the Bagram bazaar.
Blanton had come to Charlotte and tracked me down to present a two-dollar scarf?
“Your expression says stalker. Either that or you hate the color.”
“It’s beautiful. Just unexpected.”
“I was in the area, thought you might like a memento.”
Gastonia was a good forty minutes away. With light traffic.
“Look. I wasn’t at my best over there. I was tense. The bugs. Welsted drove me nuts.” Rascal smile. “Bygones?”
“Bygones.”
Now that I’d stopped running, the breeze felt cold on my damp skin and clothes. I started to shiver. Blanton seemed not to notice.
“What we did was important, whatever the outcome. Sheyn Bagh was a bad situation with no winners. We helped see justice done.”
“Have you spoken to Lieutenant Gross?”
“No. But I heard through the grapevine he’s itchy to go back downrange.” Blanton’s look suggested he was trying to bore into my brain. “So how’s business? As busy as over there?”
“Mm.”
“Bad people doing bad things to other people. Hopefully to other bad people. But that’s not always how it goes, is it?”
Blanton leaned close, conspiratorial. He smelled of stale coffee and Old Spice.
“We see it, don’t we? Evil. Day in, day out. After a while it screws with your head. How does shit happen to good people? People like John Gross.”
I thought it a poor example, but held my tongue.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve come to believe evil exists in this world. Real, tangible evil. You never know when you’re going to wake up and find it sitting on our doorstep.”
Blanton gave a self-deprecating grin.
“Listen to me, philosophizing. And look at you. You’re freezing.”
Blanton lifted the scarf from the box in my hands, unfolded it, and draped it over my shoulders. As he leaned close I noticed a tattoo low on his neck, a Chinese symbol of some sort.
Was I the only person left on the planet without inked skin?
“You take care, Dr. Brennan.”
Before I could respond, Blanton turned and headed up the sidewalk. I watched until he vanished around the corner at Selwyn.
Feeling a sense of relief.
Jesus. Why did the guy creep me out so?
Suddenly my ankle didn’t feel so great.
I did a slow jog home, showered, ate lunch, then headed to the MCME.
• • •
By 4:30 I’d finished with the skull. The unpleasant part was scraping off the caca. The easy part was ruling out foul play. No pun intended.
The skull was that of a young adult male, very possibly of Indian origin. The sutures and dentition gave me age. The bulging brow ridges, prominent nuchal crest, and large mastoid processes gave me gender.
The little screws, intended to hold the mandible in place, told me the skull was a biological supply house specimen. The exportation of real human bone stopped decades ago, but during the period it was legal, most human skeletons came from India. That fact, along with facial architecture, suggested South Asian ancestry.
I wrote a report stating the above. It would be up to Larabee, and, if he pursued it, the CMPD to figure out how the skull ended up in the dumper.
Motivated by my exemplary performance unpacking, jogging, and analyzing the skull, I hit a Harris Teeter on the way home to stock up on provisions. Who says I’m a procrastinator?
It was almost dusk by the time I got to the annex. Birdie darted from the hall closet and twined around my legs.
I picked him up and scratched his chin. He showed keen interest as I stashed my newly acquired rations. I left him wrestling with one of the plastic grocery bags.
I was upstairs stacking toilet paper and soap in the bathroom closet when I thought of the alarm and hurried down to set it. I’d seen a CMPD cruiser circling the drive as I arrived. Slidell’s surveillance. Still.