Speaking in Bones

  Terrence O’Tool—GP, epilepsy, inadequate treatment, gold cross, uncooperative.

  Fenton Ogilvie—Coroner, alcoholic, died in elevator fall.

  I studied the jumble of lines and nodes. Felt my head begin to go up in smoke.

  Tearing off a blank page, I created a new list labeled “Human Remains.”

  1. Fragmentary leg and foot bones found at Lost Cove Cliffs Overlook. Sent to Marlene Penny at WCU.

  2. Partial torso found at Burke County overlook. Sent to me. ME229-13.

  3. Fragmentary bone and printless fingertips (Mason Gulley / NJF?) found on return trip to Burke County overlook with Strike and Ramsey. ME122-15.

  4. Fragmentary bone and concrete mold (Mason Gulley?) found with Ramsey at the Devil’s Tail trail near Wiseman’s View overlook. ME135-15.

  I reread the four entries. Threw down my pen in frustration. My unanswered questions far outnumbered my facts. The exercise had been as useful as a slap on the butt.

  One more try. “Dates.”

  1993: Cora Teague is born.

  1996: Eli Teague is born.

  2008: Eli Teague dies.

  2011, Spring: Cora Teague graduates high school and goes to work for Brice family. River dies. Cora is sent home.

  2011, July: Cora Teague and Mason Gulley disappear. (Gulley goes to Johnson City, TN?).

  2011, August: OMG (Mason Gulley?) posts on CLUES.net about Cora Teague.

  2011, September: OMG’s posts stop.

  My hand froze. I closed my eyes and conjured an image. A conversation with a green-vestment-clad man on a windy day.

  A high-voltage impulse fired in my brain.

  I knew when and where Mason Gulley was killed.

  I was awake until four. Fortunately it was Sunday, so I could sleep late. Tell that to my stoked-with-a-breakthrough brain.

  I waited until eight to start dialing. Ramsey’s voice mail stated that he’d be out of contact until Monday. I left a message, then tried his landline at the sheriff’s department. Was told the same thing. Left the same message.

  Slidell. Message.

  Nine o’clock came and went with no call back from either. Ten.

  I was working through the loathsome box, reading the same receipts over and over, putting them in piles, picking them up and putting them in different piles, when my cell finally warbled an incoming call.

  I grabbed it.

  “You were seen in the hall of the mountain king.”

  “Sorry?” I kicked into nuance analysis mode, not sure if my mother was being cryptic or irrational.

  “You were spotted at Heatherhill Thursday night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Were you secretly plotting with the wizards and shamans who oversee my well-being?”

  “Mama, are you taking your meds?”

  “Of course I’m taking my meds. Why is it if I wax the least bit lyrical you always ask about pills?”

  “Sorry.” Resolving to phone Dr. Luna or Goose.

  “Why didn’t you come to see me, sweetheart?”

  “You weren’t in your suite.” True. “I figured you were with Dr. Luna or having a treatment.” Not so much. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Such a long trip to not interrupt.”

  “I was up in Avery County anyway.”

  I braced for a broadside of questions about the Brown Mountain remains. Didn’t come.

  “Would you mind tackling that hideous drive again?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Time with my daughters.”

  “You’ve called Harry?” Pulse kicking up at her use of the plural. At the implication of a dual offspring request.

  “I have.”

  “Are you unwell?”

  “Really, Tempe. I love you. But you are so tediously predictable.”

  I waited.

  “I could not be better.” High melodrama sigh.

  “Harry is coming to North Carolina?” I asked.

  “Your sister is always so supportive.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  “Can you explain what this is about?”

  “Must a desire to see my little girls be about something?”

  “No.” Yes.

  “I really must go now. Lunch is at noon. Then I have a massage. I will see you soon?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s Grieg.”

  “What?” Totally lost.

  “ ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ is by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.”

  With that she was gone.

  I pitched the phone to the table. Which drew a stern look from Birdie.

  Did Mama’s summons have to do with her cancer? The chemo? I couldn’t ask about that. Harry had sworn me to secrecy. Or was it about Clayton Sinitch? Mama was often recklessly impulsive. Was she about to make a potentially disastrous decision?

  Snatching up the mobile, I hit a speed-dial button. Got Harry’s annoying little message. Left the same few words I’d left twice earlier. Call me. It’s urgent.

  I glared at the box. At the mountain range of paper spread out before me.

  My eyes landed on the tablet and drifted down my list of questions. One by one, I considered. Came up with zilch.

  Then: Why wouldn’t Susan Grace divulge the reason Mason went to Tennessee?

  As of last night, I was certain I knew when and where Mason had died.

  I saw Susan Grace in the gloom of her grandmother’s parlor. Recalled the old woman’s admonition. Do not allow yourself to be hostage to Satan.

  I saw Susan Grace’s face shadowed in my car. The trembling lips, the dinner-plate eyes half hidden by bangs. Had I misread the girl? Had her intensity been born of fear, not fury?

  Cora Teague. Mason Gulley.

  Suddenly the air in the room bit cold at my skin.

  There is evil in the world. Evil that demands compliance with unyielding dogma. Evil that believes in dark forces.

  In that instant I understood.

  Susan Grace feared defiance would be interpreted as demons in need of purging.

  And purging could kill.

  What the hell! I thought. What the bloody hell!

  Decision. I would go visit Mama. Heatherhill would put me closer to Avery when Ramsey called back. Or Slidell.

  No farther without backup. Just Heatherhill.

  —

  While winding through Charlotte, I called Harry again. Though Mama had contacted her, Baby Sister had not booked a flight east. For once we agreed. Our mother is unsurpassed at genteel manipulation.

  Once on I-40, I retried Slidell.

  “What the freakin’ hell is so urgent you gotta bust my chops the first weekend I’m off in over a month?”

  “It’s Hoke.”

  “What? Am I listening to one of those messages beamed over and over for space aliens? You already said that.”

  “I’m convinced Cora Teague and Mason Gulley died during botched exorcisms.”

  “Earth here. Anyone out there? Anyone out there? Anyone out there?”

  “Will you listen to me?”

  “Tell it to Ramsey.”

  “He’s unavailable.”

  “Me too.”

  “It all comes back to Hoke. To his church.”

  “I’m working Strike. She ain’t an MP. She’s an actual stiff in the morgue with a tag on her toe. The morgue on my patch.”

  “Strike is connected.”

  “Maybe I’ll call NASA. Ask how to make my own audio so’s I can keep looping a message saying back off.”

  I launched my grenade straight at his solar plexus. “Mason Gulley died at Hoke’s church. Or his body was dismembered there.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Ramsey and I went to Jesus Lord Holiness to talk to John and Fatima Teague. Hoke was present.”

  “It’s his church.”

  “We asked about Cora and Mason.”

  “And Daddy said he won’t be walking his slut kid down the aisl
e. We getting to something new here?”

  My fingers tightened on the wheel.

  Easy.

  “Mason died with olive oil and incense in his hair. Those are materials used in the rite of exorcism.”

  “That don’t mean—”

  “The Gulleys are Jesus Lord Holiness members. Mason stopped attending around the time a parish renovation project was wrapping up.” I pictured shiny brass rings embedded in a pristine stoop. “Those renovations involved the pouring of cement to replace old stairs. The project ended in September of 2011.”

  Surprisingly, Slidell didn’t interrupt.

  “Mason and Cora disappeared in July of 2011. In August, Mason started posting on CLUES.net as OMG. Those posts stopped in September.”

  “Wasn’t that when he was in Johnson City?”

  “I think Mason returned from Tennessee and something bad went down at the church. There was an exorcism, he died. There were bags of cement lying around, power saws…”

  I let the gruesome thought hang.

  “And Strike?”

  “She probably found out and confronted Hoke. Strike was up in Avery on Saturday, the day before her body was found.”

  Slidell did the throat thing.

  “Surely it’s enough to get a warrant,” I said.

  “So far it’s all speculation. A judge will want more.”

  “Like what?” Too charged.

  “Call me crazy, but, evidence?”

  “Human remains? A death mask screaming Mason Gulley? The olive oil and incense? Fingertips without prints? Two missing kids? A priest who strangled a nine-year-old girl?” Waaay too charged.

  “Where’s Ramsey?”

  “I don’t know. But consider this. Susan Grace lied to her grandmother to contact me. She revealed things Hoke and his bunch probably don’t want known. If they find out, she could face the same fate as Cora and Mason.”

  “I’m on my way to the gym.”

  “The gym?” A word I couldn’t imagine in Skinny’s vocabulary.

  “You got something against working out?” I heard soft scraping, probably Slidell’s hand rubbing his face. “Write down what you told me. Anything else you can think of. Send it. In the meantime, don’t do nothing stupid.”

  I pulled off at a gas station and quick-thumbed an email to Skinny as requested. Sent it with a cc to Ramsey. Then I clicked the icon for Google Earth and typed in an address I thought to be close to the location I wanted to view. Got coordinates. Using those, I estimated other coordinates, finally found what I needed.

  I spent a few minutes zooming in and out, checking the landscape. After hitting the ladies’, I bought a Diet Coke and filled my tank. Then I got back on the road.

  I blew right past Heatherhill and straight on to Avery.

  —

  I pulled in and killed the engine. Mine was the only vehicle in the lot.

  Through the dusty lens of my windshield, the scene looked like a landscape titled First Hint of Spring. Tentative shoots were now greening the winter-brown grass. Delicate vines were sending threadlike feelers up the hardwood trunks. High above, the pines were enjoying good chemistry with an indifferent breeze.

  The buildings stood out white against the green-on-blue curves of the mountains behind. I saw no one outside. No movement through the cracks between and below the big front doors. No sign of a human presence.

  I realized I wasn’t breathing.

  Exhaling, I checked my iPhone for signal. Maybe, just maybe, one flickering bar.

  I sent texts to Slidell and Ramsey. The former would be livid. The latter, who knew? Screw it. Skinny was too stubborn to listen, Ramsey too busy. Anyway, I wasn’t crashing the Manson family at the Barker Ranch. This was, though creepy, a church. Worst-case scenario, someone would show up, be pissed, and order me to leave.

  As I dropped the phone into my shoulder bag, a red light flashed in a far corner of my mind. A gaggle of neurons called out. Someone hacked up a kid and put his head in concrete. Here!

  I was running on less than three hours of sleep. I was exhausted. But I had to know.

  Pulling my nerves together, I opened the car door and strained to listen. Heard the staccato whine of a frustrated insect. The trickle of water not far off. Otherwise, it was still. Traffic still, voice still, bird still, wind still.

  I wanted to stay behind the wheel and drive away. Instead, I got out, popped the trunk, and thumbed open the clasps on my scene recovery kit. I dug out two vials, took one tablet from each, placed both in an empty spray bottle, added the remains of my drinking water, and shook. The mixture went into my purse, along with a small flash and a UV penlight. I lowered the trunk cover and, after skimming my surroundings, started toward the church.

  The nearer I got, the more the temperature seemed to drop. Which was ridiculous. The sun, though a hair closer to the ridgeline, was as bright as when I’d arrived.

  I stopped at the foot of the steps. Then, heart thudding like hoofbeats, I climbed and put my ear to the door.

  My nose registered sunbaked wood, dust, polyurethane sealer. My ears registered absolute silence. I tried the handle. Of course it was locked.

  While crossing the lawn, I’d noted two north-side windows. I rounded the corner. Both were too high for a view of the church’s interior. And shuttered. I moved to the back of the building.

  And came face-to-face with the muzzle of a Browning semiautomatic shotgun.

  I froze. The best thing to do when looking down the barrel of a twenty-gauge.

  Hoke was by a stand of fir five feet beyond the back wall of the church. He was wearing a black shirt, black pants, and a white clerical collar. Spiky shadows dappled his face and shoe-polish hair.

  Though I couldn’t see Hoke’s expression, there was no mistaking his mood. He was coiled, elbows winging, shotgun pointed straight at my chest.

  “Father Hoke,” I said.

  “Father G. Raise your hands.”

  I did.

  “You’re trespassing.”

  “Isn’t everyone welcome in the Lord’s house?”

  “You’ve no business here.”

  “Deputy Ramsey will be arriving shortly.” I couldn’t tell what impact my bluff had. If any. “We’d like to talk to you.”

  “Again you would disrupt our Sabbath?”

  “I’m sorry for that.”

  “Your business couldn’t wait one day?”

  “Deputy Ramsey and I were concerned. Are concerned. We won’t let it drop.”

  Hoke’s grip tightened on the gun.

  “There’s no need for firepower.” Fighting to quell the adrenaline roaring through me.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m a man of God.”

  “Nothing says God like a loaded Browning.”

  “You blaspheme.”

  “The gun’s not loaded?”

  Hoke stepped forward out of the shadows, barrel still level on my sternum. “What do you want?”

  “We know about Cora Teague.” Confrontational. But the best my sleep-deprived-adrenaline-pumped brain could provide.

  “You know nothing.”

  “Inform me.”

  “Leave it alone. You will only cause pain.”

  “Like the pain you caused Cora?”

  No response.

  “And Mason Gulley?”

  “You have it all wrong.”

  “I also know about the little girl in Elkhart.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “I have. I learned that you are no longer a priest. That the church rejects your fire-and-brimstone brand of Catholicism. Your demons and—”

  “Satan exists.”

  “So does Lady Gaga.”

  “Do you find this amusing?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Your attitude reflects everything wrong with modern society.”

  “What’s wrong with modern society?”

  “This country has spiraled into total cultural desolation.”

  ?
??Are we back to rocker chicks?” I knew goading him was dangerous, couldn’t help myself. Blame it on a combo of fear and fatigue.

  “You mock. But Satan is at work in the world.”

  “Headquartered on Brown Mountain?”

  “Again, you make fun.”

  “Most people view the devil as allegory.”

  “A by-product of mankind’s free will.” Hoke snorted, a bristly little explosion of air. “Satan is real. And he will not stop until he has delivered mankind unto damnation.”

  “By setting up shop in kids like Cora and Mason.”

  “The climate has never been more favorable for Satan and his minions.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Today’s young people are being raised in a time when criticism is out of fashion. Can’t be too hard on their fragile little egos. Morality is off the curriculum. Can’t be prejudiced or politically incorrect. Youth are forced to swim through a daily sea of pornography and greed, to function in an atmosphere ruled by what’s in it for me.”

  “Your critique is a bit harsh.” I felt vibration in my purse. Ramsey? Slidell? I couldn’t risk lowering my arms to dig for my phone.

  “We were a nation built on a Christian God. People went to Mass. Listened to the clergy.”

  “Not all Christians are Catholic.” Stalling. Looking for that moment.

  “Methodist. Baptist. Catholic. Denomination doesn’t matter. Worship is out of style. No one cares about the Bible, the sacraments, the Ten Commandments.”

  “Millions of Americans still attend church.”

  Hoke wasn’t listening. He was rolling up his sleeves for a sermon he’d undoubtedly delivered ad nauseam.

  “Even mother church has watered down her mainstream teachings. Today’s clergy mustn’t emphasize hell or purgatory. Mustn’t encourage confession. Talk of sin is a downer. We mustn’t induce guilt trips. Angels? Forget it. Far too mystical.”

  “What does this have to do with Cora and Mason?”

  “People are floundering. With no moral code, the vulnerable haven’t the capacity to resist. The weak are fertile ground for Satan.”

  “Targets for demonic possession.”

  “Exactly.” Said with such vehemence, I flinched. “And once possessed, there is no remedy.”

  “That’s where you come in.”

  “The victims of Satan have nowhere to turn.”