Authors: Kathy Reichs
“Good timing, ma’am. We were informed the porch light was a signal for trouble. Seeing it lit, we approached the premises, found this gentleman looking into one of your windows. He says the two of you know each other.”
“Detective Ryan is an old friend,” I said, staring into a pair of Arctic blue eyes.
“You’re good then?”
“We’re good.” Tearing my gaze free, I turned to the officers. “Thank you for your vigilance.”
The cops puled out. Crossing to my car, I began hauling groceries from the trunk with unsteady hands. Wordlessly, Ryan joined in the effort.
In the kitchen, I offered Ryan one of the beers Katy had left in my fridge. He accepted. I opened a Diet Coke for myself.
Took a long drink. Set the can on the counter. Carefuly. Spoke without turning.
“You’ve been wel?”
“Yes. You?”
“Yes.”
“Katy?”
“She’s good.” I didn’t offer that she was out of town for a while.
“I’m glad. She’s a great kid.”
“This is a surprise.” I didn’t ask about his daughter. Mean-spirited, I know, but pain takes you past the point of civility.
“Yes.” I heard movement, a chair scrape, more movement.
“You’ve picked a bad time, Ryan.”
“I came for Rinaldi’s funeral. He was a good man.”
I’d forgotten. How many years now? Three? Four? Ryan met Rinaldi and Slidel while helping me with a case involving black marketeering in endangered species.
“And to see you.”
Tentacles began squeezing my heart.
My eyes fel on Monday’s wineglass, stil upturned in the wooden dish rack beside the sink. The newly awakened beast caled out.
How welcome that would be. Glowing red warmth, then confidence and conviction. Finaly, oblivion.
Folowed by self-loathing.
Closing my eyes, I fought to banish the craving.
“Where are you staying?”
“A Sheraton out by the airport.”
“How did you get here?”
“A couple of uniforms dropped me at the corner of Queens and something. I walked over from there. I turned on the porch light and was poking around.”
“And got busted for peeping.”
“Something like that.”
“I could have let you go to jail.”
“I appreciate the character reference.”
I didn’t answer.
“We need to talk.” Ryan’s tone was gentle, yet insistent.
No, wrangler. We don’t.
“I’ve made mistakes.”
“Is that a fact?” I could barely speak.
“It is.”
The refrigerator hummed. The clock ticked on the living room mantel.
I tried to think of something distracting to say, or at least light and clever. Nothing came to mind.
In the end what I said was, “Is the beer cold enough?”
“Just right.”
I could barely breathe as I emptied bags and placed items on my pantry shelves. Ryan watched, silent, aware of the jolt his sudden appearance had delivered. Knowing I’d open real conversation only when ready. Or I wouldn’t.
From the beginning I’d felt an almost overwhelming attraction to this man, initialy resisting, finaly succumbing. Right off it was more than just sex or the assurance of a Saturday-night date. Ryan and I had spent hours together, days, watching old movies, cuddling by fires, arguing and debating, holding hands, taking long walks.
Though never roommates, we’d been as close as two people can be. We’d shared secret jokes and played sily games no one else understood. I could stil close my eyes and recal the way his back curved into his hips, the way his fingers shot through his hair in frustration, the way he smeled just after a shower, the way our bodies molded when dancing.
The way he could stop my breath with a wink from across the room. With a suggestive quip on a long-distance cal.
Then, one day, he just walked away.
Now Ryan was drinking beer in my kitchen in Charlotte.
How did I feel?
Hostile. Cautious.
Confused as hel.
Did I stil love him?
Pain also has a way of wearing love down. And Ryan had never been easy.
Nor, to be fair, had I.
Did I want that melodrama back in my life?
I felt compeled to say something. What?
The tension in the room was almost palpable.
Mercifuly, my cel sounded. I checked the caler ID. Slidel.
Mumbling an apology, I walked into the dining room and clicked on.
“Yes.”
“Talked to Evans.”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“You OK?”
“Yes.”
“What? You sick again?”
“No. What did you learn from Evans?”
“Wel, ain’t we Miss Congeniality?”
I was definitely not up to soothing Skinny’s wounded sensitivity.
“Evans?”
“He’s sticking with his story. Lingo had nothing to do with Jimmy Klapec, wasn’t in town on October ninth.”
“Did you confirm that the commissioner was actualy in Greensboro?”
“Gee. Never thought of that.” Pause. “Yeah. They were both there, returned to Charlotte late the next afternoon.”
“Too late to kil and dump Klapec.”
“If Funderburke’s remembering right about the body turning up the morning of the ninth.”
“The insect evidence suggests forty-eight hours as a PMI.”
“Yeah.” Skeptical. “The bugs.”
I was so unsettled by Ryan’s sudden appearance my thoughts were al over the map.
“Couldn’t you drive from Greensboro, kil someone, dump the body, and get back to Greensboro in just a few hours?”
“You’d be setting a land record.”
“According to Pinder, Gunther saw Klapec fighting with someone right before Gunther went to jail. Did you ask where Lingo was at that time?”
Slidel gave me a moment of reproachful silence.
“Lingo’s got his eye on the statehouse, so he’s stumping hard to scare up dough. Between September twenty-eighth and October fourth he and Evans were in Ashevile, Yadkinvile, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Fayettevile. They’ve got dozens of witnesses can put ’em in each place.”
“Does Lingo have a record?”
“I ran a rap sheet search. Not so much as a citation for spitting on the street.” Slidel drew air through his nose. It whistled. “But I’m catching bad vibes off Evans.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s hiding something.”
I was about to press the point when the line beeped, indicating an incoming cal.
“I’l cal you tomorrow.”
Lowering the phone, I glanced at the screen. Dear God. Charlie Hunt.
I hesitated. What the hel?
“You looked very down at the cemetery this afternoon.”
“Rinaldi and I worked together for many years. I’l miss him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Beat.
“That went badly today, didn’t it?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“That wasn’t a line, Tempe.”
“I believe you.” I had to smile. “You use them so sparingly.”
“I realy do understand how hard it is to start over. I was married eight years. I loved my wife. She died at the Trade Center on nine-eleven.” Charlie sighed deeply. “Perhaps it’s harder when the other person is stil alive.”
“Perhaps.”
“I can work around that,” Charlie said.
“I’m sure you can.”
“Shal I try?”
“The man in question showed up from Montreal today.”
There was a moment of dead air.
“I like a chalenge.”
“Your odds are not good, Charlie.”
“I’ve always preferred the tough three-pointer to the easy slam dunk.”
“Outside the arc.”
“That’s me.”
After disconnecting, I stood with the phone pressed to my chest, recaling my admission to Charlie earlier at the cemetery. Until the words left my mouth I’d been in denial.
Then, there it was.
Now here
he
was. Wanting to talk. To admit to mistakes.
What mistakes? Taking up with me? Leaving me? Wearing a jacket that was crazy warm for the day?
The door opened and Ryan came in.
We looked at each other as though across a great chasm.
“I’ve missed you,” Ryan said, spreading his arms and beckoning me forward.
I stood motionless, Gran’s clock ticking a metronome for my crashing emotions.
Ryan moved closer.
And that was it.
I stepped into Ryan’s embrace and pressed my cheek to his chest. I smeled starched cotton, male sweat, and the familiar Hugo Boss cologne.
Ryan stroked my hair and puled me closer.
My arms went around him.
31
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. ANOTHER ROMP IN THE SHEETS, slut girl.
That’s not what happened.
Ryan and I talked.
Old pal talk. Mostly.
We spoke of mutual friends, old cases. Katy. Boyd. Charlie, our shared cockatiel.
Ryan relayed news of a homicide in Montreal, a man shot seven times, his chalet set ablaze. Teams were searching for the victim’s hands and head. If found, the missing parts would be at my lab when I next traveled north.
I told Ryan about T-Bird Cuervo’s celar, and about the
santero
’s untimely death by train. I traced the link from Asa Finney to Cuervo via the cauldron bones and the vandalism of Susan Redmon’s tomb. Finney and Donna Scott-Rosenberg to Manuel Escriva to the cauldron.
I described Finney’s Web sites, and his seemingly schizoid personas, Ursa and Dr. Games. I mentioned Jennifer Roberts’s conviction concerning Finney’s innocence, and gave my impression of the Wiccans I’d met at Camp Ful Moon.
I recounted the discovery of Jimmy Klapec, and described the 666 and inverted pentagram carved into his flesh. I summarized the entomologist’s report, and shared my uneasiness about the lack of animal scavenging and the paucity of insect activity on the body.
Ryan posed exactly the question that I expected. Santería, Satanism, and Wicca? I had no explanation.
I described Boyce Lingo and his extremist brand of morality, and admitted to my unfortunate on-air tantrum. Ryan asked what Larke Tyrel thought of my performance. I shook my head. He let it go.
I explained that Slidel and Rinaldi had been lead detectives on both the Cuervo and Klapec cases. Ryan made sympathetic noises as I described the shooting in NoDa, more as I explained Slidel’s continuing, though curtailed, involvement in al three investigations.
Ryan asked if those assigned to the Rinaldi murder were sharing their findings with Slidel. I passed on the information they’d given to Skinny and he’d given to me. There was no way to trace the nine-milimeter used to shoot Rinaldi. Few were on the streets that night, and those in the shops and restaurants saw little. Eyewitnesses did agree the vehicle involved was a white SUV. Otherwise, accounts were al over the map. Other than heavy credit card debt, Rinaldi had no known personal problems. No addictions.
No angry ex-lovers. Except for being a cop, no associations that would put him at risk. No recently released prisoners who might hold a grudge. No unexplained financial transactions, trips, or phone cals.
Ryan asked about Finney. I said he was Slidel’s prime suspect. I ticked off the incriminating evidence: Susan Redmon’s jaw; the tension when asked about Cuervo; the eyewitness report of a Ford Focus, the same model of car Finney owned; the bloody Dr. Games Web site, verified by Slidel as belonging to Finney; the satanic books I’d found at the Pinevile house.
I told Ryan that Finney was sticking to his story that he didn’t know Cuervo, and that he was home the night Jimmy Klapec was kiled, but took no cals because he was fasting and meditating. I told him that between the grave-peeing incident six years earlier and his recent arrest, Finney had had no interaction with the police. That a search, reluctantly authorized by the DA, had turned up nothing in Finney’s home. That his phone, bank, and credit card records showed nothing suspicious.
I added that, save for Jennifer Roberts and those at Camp Ful Moon, no one had been located who knew Asa Finney. Even his felow Wiccans barely remembered him. He attended few gatherings, was what they caled a solitary practitioner. Finney had no employer, coworkers, family, or friends.
I explained that Jimmy Klapec had no police record, but that he was engaged in a high-risk lifestyle as a chicken hawk. That questioning of other hawks had yielded little. Save for Vince Gunther, no one seemed to have noticed the kid’s existence or his disappearance. That, other than the bugs and the postmortem mutilation, neither the corpse nor the scene had yielded trace or any other kind of forensic evidence. That, except for the sighting of the suspicious Ford Focus, canvassing had turned up no witness to the kiling or to the dumping of Klapec’s body.
I outlined what Rinaldi’s informant had told Slidel concerning Klapec and the violent customer resembling Rick Nelson. Finaly, I described what we’d found in Rinaldi’s notes.
RN, Rick Nelson. VG, the mysteriously absent Vince Gunther. GYE, perhaps Glenn Yardley Evans. Boyce Lingo’s phone number.
Ryan asked my opinion of Lingo and his assistant. I told him I thought something was off there. He gave me one of his looks.
I admitted that I had no idea what the motive might be, and that Lingo and Evans were out of town both the day Klapec got into his fight and dropped from the radar, and the day Klapec was kiled and dumped at Lake Wylie.
Ryan asked if I thought the Cuervo, Klapec, and Rinaldi cases were connected. I said I wasn’t sure. He asked what Slidel thought. I reiterated Skinny’s conviction that Cuervo and Klapec were linked, and that Asa Finney was implicated in both.
But what you have on Finney, Ryan said, is diddly.
That’s what we have, I agreed, but added that Finney deserved further scrutiny.
Ryan asked about his backyard welcome from Charlotte’s finest. I told him about the porch light signal and the slit-bely snake. He asked who I thought might have left the little critter. I said take your pick.
Ryan said it was good he was here to protect me. I said “my hero.” Laughed.
Ryan’s voice went serious. No, he said. Realy.
Unsure of his meaning, I said nothing.
Then Ryan talked. About Lily. Her addiction. Her rehab. His failed attempt to reconcile with her mother.