“Could you talk to him?”
“About?”
“Showing proper interest.” Little-girl petulant. “When I ask what kind of flowers he wants, he says whatever. Cream or white linens on the tables? Whatever. Tinted or clear glass in the hurricane lamps? Whatever. He acts like he doesn’t care.”
Who would? I thought.
“I’m sure he trusts your judgment,” I said.
“Pretty please?”
I pictured Summer with her overdeveloped breasts and underdeveloped brain. Marveled again at the folly of middle-aged men.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll talk to him.”
The line beeped. I checked the screen. Slidell.
“I’m sorry, Summer. I have to take an incoming call.”
I couldn’t disconnect fast enough.
“I pulled Eddie’s book for the fall of ’ninety-eight. Your MPs are in there. Cindi Gamble, seventeen, Cale Lovette, twenty-four. Last seen at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on October fourteenth. They were attending some big-ass race.”
“The Speedway is located in Cabarrus County,” I said. “Why did Eddie and Galimore catch the case?”
“Apparently the girl’s parents called it in here. Then Kannapolis asked the Charlotte PD to stay in. You want to hear this or what?”
As frequently happened when dealing with Slidell, my upper and lower molars started reaching for each other.
“Gamble and Lovette were an item. He worked at the track. She was a senior at A. L. Brown High in Kannapolis.”
Slidell paused. I could tell he was skimming, which meant this might take the rest of the morning.
“The girl’s parents are listed as Georgia and James Gamble. Brother Wayne. According to the mother, Cindi left home around ten that morning to go to the track.” Pause. “Good student. No problems with drugs or alcohol. That checked out solid.
“The boy’s mother is listed as Katherine Lovette. Father’s Craig Bogan. Kid left home at his normal time, seven a.m. Records showed he clocked in for the job, didn’t clock out.
“A maintenance worker name of Grady Winge saw the MPs around six that night. Lovette was talking to a male subject unknown to Winge. Gamble and Lovette drove off with the subject in a ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang with a lime-green decal on the windshield on the passenger side. What the hell’s Petty blue?”
“Was the car traced?” I asked.
“Winge didn’t get a plate.”
Pause. I could almost hear Skinny reading with his finger.
“Lovette hung with a group of right-wing nutballs called themselves the Patriot Posse. Militia types. The feds had him and his buddies under surveillance. I’m guessing they were hoping for a lead to Eric Rudolph.”
Slidell referred to a suspect in the bombings at Centennial Olympic Park, the lesbian bar, and both abortion clinics. In May ’ninety-eight Rudolph made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and became the subject of a million-dollar reward. For five years, while federal and amateur teams searched, Rudolph lived as a fugitive in the Appalachian wilderness, evading capture with the assistance of white-supremacist, anti-government sympathizers, only to be caught almost accidentally by a local town cop. Rudolph was scavenging a supermarket Dumpster for food.
“—Special Agents Dana Reed and Marcus Perenelli.”
I jotted down the names.
“What the hell makes them special? Think I’ll start calling myself Special Detective Slidell.”
I heard a sharp inhalation followed by thwp. I knew a wad of Juicy Fruit was sailing into a flowerpot on Slidell’s desk.
“Wayne Gamble said a task force investigated the disappearances.”
“Yeah. Made up of the two specials, Rinaldi, and Galimore. They interviewed the usual wits, family, known associates, yadda yadda. Searched the usual places. Ran the usual loops. Six weeks out, they handed in a report saying Gamble and Lovette most likely took off.”
“Why?”
“Maybe to get married. The girl was underage.”
“Took off where?”
“Theory was the Patriot Posse piped them in to the militia underground.”
“Wayne Gamble didn’t buy that theory. Still doesn’t.”
“Ditto Gamble’s parents.” Slidell paused. “Gamble had a teacher, Ethel Bradford. Bradford swore there was no way the kid would leave on her own.”
I thought about that. “I searched but found no news coverage of the incident. That strikes me as odd, given that a seventeen-year-old girl had vanished.”
“Eddie says in here there was a lot of pressure to keep things under wraps.”
“Out of the papers.”
“Yeah. He also hints there was a real squeeze to roll with the party line.”
“Squeeze from whom?”
“He don’t say.”
“Did he disagree with the task force’s finding?”
A full minute passed as Skinny picked through Rinaldi’s notes.
“Not straight out. But I can tell from his wording he thought something didn’t smell right.”
“What does he say?”
Slidell has an annoying habit of sidestepping questions.
“I’ve gotta do some canvassing on a domestic. Soon as I’m back, I’ll pull the original case file.”
“How’s Detective Madrid?” I asked.
Following Rinaldi’s death, Slidell had been assigned a new partner. Feeling he needed a tune-up in the area of cultural diversity, the department had paired him with a woman named Theresa Madrid. Boisterous, bodacious, and weighing almost as much as Skinny, Madrid referred to herself as a double-L: Latina lesbian.
Madrid turned out to be a crackerjack detective. Despite Skinny’s initial horror, the two got along well.
“Get this. The broad’s on frickin’ maternity leave. Can you believe it? She and her partner adopted a kid.”
“You’re working solo?”
“Ain’t it grand.”
As before, Slidell disconnected without an adieu.
The phone was still pressed to my ear when it rang again.
“Just finished the autopsy on your John Doe.” Larabee’s voice sounded odd. “Damned if it makes sense to me.”
“YOU WANT DETAILS OR THE SHORT VERSION?”
“Short.”
“The guy had lesions in his airways and pulmonary edema. The organs were pretty far gone, but I saw hints of multifocal ulceration and hemorrhage in the gastric and small-intestinal mucosa.”
“Meaning he died of natural causes?”
“Meaning his lungs were full of fluid and something was screwing with his vascular system. But it’s not that simple. He’d also taken a blow to the left side of the head, resulting in hemorrhage into the temporal lobe.”
“The man either fell or was struck.”
“If the tox screen comes back negative, MOD goes down as undetermined.” Larabee used the acronym for one of the five categories of manner of death: natural, homicide, suicide, accidental, or undetermined.
“So how’d the guy end up in a barrel of asphalt?”
“In my report I’ll note suspicious circumstances.”
“What about ID?”
“Nothing. Even though you think it’s unlikely the PMI works, I’m following up on Raines. According to the wife, his last dental checkup was in 2007. The dentist died in 2009, and no one knows what happened to his files.”
“Any hit on the prints?”
“No. The landfill guy’s not in any system.”
I told Larabee about my conversations with Wayne Gamble and Skinny Slidell. “I suppose the John Doe could be Cale Lovette.” I didn’t really believe it.
“Your age estimate looks pretty solid. At least dentally, the landfill guy looks older than twenty-four. How about you get Lovette’s profile, maybe a photo, then check the John Doe’s skeletal markers, try to narrow the range?”
“Today?”
“Galimore phoned twice this morning. The folks at the Speedway are pissing their shorts for res
olution on this.”
My eyes met Birdie’s. The cat was giving me an accusatory look. I think.
“Is Joe working this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there shortly.” Resisting the impulse to sigh theatrically.
“You’re a trouper.”
I checked my list of incoming calls, scrolled down, hit dial. I’d been on the phone so long, the handset was now the same temperature as my liver.
Wayne Gamble answered after two rings. Background noise told me he was still at the track.
“Can you describe Cale Lovette?” I asked.
“Dirtbag.”
“His physical appearance.”
“Brown hair, brown eyes, wiry, maybe a hundred and sixty pounds.”
“How tall?”
“Five-six or -seven. Why? What’s happened?”
“Nothing. I just need descriptors.”
“I saw the little snake who’s been tailing me. First at the hauler, then by Sandy’s trailer. Whenever I spot him, he cuts into the crowd.”
“Mr. Gamble, I—”
“Next time I’ll twist his balls until he tells me what the hell’s going on.”
“Thank you for the information.”
Driving to the MCME, I pondered Larabee’s closing “attagirl.” Wondered. Was “trouper” a promotion or demotion from “champ”?
When I arrived, Larabee had left a photocopied picture on my desk. The name Ted Raines was written at the bottom.
Raines wasn’t exactly a looker. His weak chin and prominent nose made me think of a bottlenose dolphin.
Hawkins had already rolled the John Doe to the stinky room and plugged in the Stryker saw. With his help, I removed the collarbones and the pubic symphyses, the little projections that meet at the midline on the belly side of the pelvis.
While Joe stripped flesh from the harvested bones, I retracted the scalp to observe the cranial surface.
The adult skull is composed of twenty-two bones separated by twenty-four sutures that appear as squiggly lines. Throughout adulthood, these gaps fill in and disappear. Though progress varies from person to person, the state of suture closure can provide a very general sense of age.
The John Doe’s squiggles suggested he was a middle-aged adult.
The pubic symphyseal faces also undergo change throughout adulthood. Those of the John Doe were smooth and had raised edges rimming their perimeters, suggesting an age range centering on thirty-five.
The epiphysis, or little cap at the breastbone end of each clavicle, fuses to the shaft somewhere between the ages of eighteen and thirty. Both the John Doe’s caps were solidly attached.
Bottom line. My first estimate was dead-on. In all probability, the John Doe was in his fourth decade when he died.
A bit old for Cale Lovette, but not impossible.
“So,” I said, stripping off and tossing my gloves. “It’s probably not Lovette.”
“Who’s Lovette?”
Hawkins was at the sink, untying his apron. I told him about the MPs from 1998.
“Don’t remember hearing talk of ’em.” His tone was brusque.
“Apparently no one does. Anyway, Galimore will be happy.”
Hawkins winged his wadded apron toward the biohazard receptacle. It bounced off the edge and landed on the floor. He made no move to retrieve it.
“You have issues with Galimore?” I asked.
“Damn right I have issues with Galimore.”
“You want to tell me?”
“The man can’t be trusted.” Hawkins’s mouth was crimped as though he’d tasted something bitter.
“Are you referring to his alcohol problem?”
“Suppose that’s as good a starting place as any.”
Hawkins crossed to the pail, pounded the pedal with his heel, snatched up and tossed the apron inside. Letting the lid slam, he strode from the room.
After changing to street clothes, I went in search of my boss. He was not at his desk, in the kitchen, out front, or in the large autopsy room.
I returned to my office, jotted Larabee a note about my refined age estimate, then headed out.
The afternoon was featuring the season’s current default weather. The sky was pewter, the thunderheads dark and fat as overripe plums.
On the way home, I thought about the man entombed in asphalt. Had someone filed a missing person report? When? In Charlotte or elsewhere? Had a girlfriend or wife or brother gone to a station, filled out forms, then waited for a call that never came?
I felt in my gut that the man had spent years in the drum. Wondered. Was someone still waiting? Or had all those who’d known him long since forgotten and moved on with their lives?
The first drop hit my windshield as I pulled in at the Annex. I was locking the car when I noticed the doors open on a Ford Crown Vic parked by the coach house ten yards away.
Two men got out. Each wore a dark suit, blue tie, and eye-blistering white shirt. I watched the pair walk toward me.
“Dr. Brennan?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m Special Agent Carl Williams.” Williams flashed a badge. He was small and compact, with mahogany skin and nostrils that flared spectacularly.
I looked at Williams’s badge, then at his companion.
“With me is Special Agent Percy Randall.”
Randall was tall and pale, with wide-set gray eyes and a quarter-inch buzz. He nodded slightly.
Keys in hand, I waited.
“I suppose you know why we’re here.” While Williams took the lead, Randall observed me closely.
“I have no idea.” I didn’t.
“Two days ago you recovered a body from the Morehead Road landfill.”
I neither confirmed nor denied the statement.
“You’ve been asking about Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette.”
Didn’t expect that. Had Wayne Gamble contacted the FBI? Slidell? Galimore? How would Galimore know what names I’d queried?
“What is it you want?” I asked.
“We can’t help wondering if the man from the dump is Cale Lovette.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss medical examiner files. You’ll have to speak to Dr. Larabee.”
“We’re trying to contact him. In the meantime, we hoped you could save us some shoe leather.” Williams did something with his mouth that might have been a smile.
“Sorry,” I said.
A drop hit my forehead. Backhanding the moisture, I glanced skyward.
“I wasn’t involved in the Gamble-Lovette inquiry back in ’ninety-eight.” Williams ignored my not so subtle hint. “Those special agents are now gone from North Carolina. But I can assure you, the task force carried out a thorough and comprehensive investigation.”
“I’ve no reason to doubt that, but I understand they didn’t locate either live persons or bodies.”
“Wayne Gamble was a child at the time. He didn’t fully understand the effort that went into searching for his sister. The task force concluded she had gone underground.”
“Is there something specific you wish to discuss?” A steady rain was falling now.
“Task force members canvassed family, friends, teachers, students, coworkers—anyone who’d had even the most casual contact with Gamble or Lovette.”
“Grady Winge?” Winge was the last to see Cindi and Cale alive. His name came out before I even thought about it.
Williams’s lower lids pinched up ever so slightly. “Of course. Everyone searched until the trail went dead. The consensus was that Gamble and Lovette had left the area of their own volition.”
“The parents didn’t think so. Nor did Ethel Bradford.” I tossed out the teacher’s name, implying I knew more about the investigation than I actually did. Which was virtually nothing.
“Mr. Gamble is still upset.” Williams’s tone remained absolutely neutral. “And that is understandable. He lost his sister. The bureau has no problem with his wish to reopen the case.”
If Williams wanted a response, I disappointed him.
“We prefer, of course, that he act with discretion.”
“I can’t stop him from talking to the press, if that’s what you mean.”
“Of course not. But we hope he might be discouraged from making unjustified allegations against the FBI.”
Rain was dropping in earnest. Williams kept talking.
“If the case is reopened, the bureau will cooperate fully. But I’ll be straight with you, Dr. Brennan. We don’t know if Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette are alive or dead.”
“Thank you for your honesty.”
“We know it will be reciprocated.” Again, Williams might have smiled.
“Should the case be reopened, would the medical examiner and the CMPD have access to information gathered by the bureau back in ’ninety-eight?” I asked.
Williams and Randall exchanged glances.
“I don’t want to dishearten you, Dr. Brennan. But I can’t guarantee that the FBI will turn over all its files and internal notes to anyone. Please trust me when I say we have no idea what happened to Gamble and Lovette. They simply vanished.”
I looked Williams straight in the eye. “You’ve spoken with members of that task force. What do you think happened to them?”
“I believe they left to join fellow extremists out West.”
“Why?”
Williams hesitated. Debating whether to pony up some of that reciprocal honesty?
“The sieges at Ruby Ridge in ’ninety-two and Waco in ’ninety-three shot militia outrage sky-high. When Gamble and Lovette disappeared, the airways were full of anti-government chatter.”
Williams referred to incidents in which U.S. agents stormed compounds occupied by fringe groups. In each case, people were killed, and those contesting the legitimacy of government were irate.
“From everything I’ve learned, Lovette was a virulent young man, and Gamble was very young, in love with him, and under his thumb,” Williams said.
“So the two just slipped underground.”
“That’s the only theory that makes sense.”
“Is that really so easy to do?”
“Rural Michigan, Montana, Idaho,” Williams said. “These crackpots go so far off the grid, no one can find them.”
One thing bothered me.
“The investigation lasted only six weeks,” I said.