Like the phalanges poking from the mass in my palm.
“So she falls here following an attack, or her body ends up here after being thrown from the overlook. One hand lands at the base of the pine.” Strike gestured toward the tree. “Over time the sap oozes up, or drips down, whatever the hell it does, and encases a couple of fingers.”
Strike’s scenario sounded sadly realistic. But I was only half listening. As I sealed our grisly find into a Ziploc, my eyes were already scanning for more.
—
The sun was low when we finally quit. Didn’t matter deep in our loblolly sanctuary. There was no more reangling of rays slipping through overhead branches. No lattice of shadow and light changing shape underfoot. Now only perpetual gloom.
Though we grid-walked Gunner then gave him his head, the dog alerted only two more times. Both were legit.
In the end, we found six phalanges, two metacarpals, a scaphoid, and a hamate, all weathered and chewed. Yowsa! A whopping ten out of fifty-four hand bones. We also scored a rusty screwdriver, eight aluminum cans, and a hunk of what looked like an old tent stake.
All the bones were adult and indeterminate in size. I doubted any would yield much information.
But the flesh in the pine sap was a different story. One that had me totally jazzed. Someone had died or been dumped on the mountain. One readable print could provide an ID.
If that person was in the system. Or a valid comparison sample could be obtained.
Ramsey insisted I take the remains with me. Adamantly. Made sense. I had ME229-13 at my lab. Chances were good the hand had been part of the same person.
Upon reaching terrain favored by AT&T, I phoned Larabee. As expected, he was not happy that I’d gone to Burke County. After riding out a fairly lengthy rant, I explained our discovery.
Wanting to avoid jurisdictional complications, and the ire of his boss, Larabee ordered me to wait until he’d contacted the OCME in Raleigh. His return call came ten minutes later. Though surprised that Burke County remains had originally gone to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the state’s chief ME was assigning the case directly to me.
Strike stayed till the end, then tore off with a pedal-jamming, gravel-spitting roar. Sonofabitch. Again, I’d failed to obtain the audio recorder.
All day Strike’s attitude had swung between sulky and petulant. I wondered about the source of her hostility. Didn’t give the question a whole lot of thought.
As I’d been dialing Larabee, a text from Mama had pinged in. I’d read it while awaiting his callback. Nothing urgent. Just querying my health and state of mind.
I wanted to go home, take a very long, very hot shower. Eat dinner. Curl in bed and share the day’s news with Birdie. Maybe Ryan.
But no one does passive-aggressive like Mama. Her subtext: I am old, have cancer, and very few visitors.
Your mother is twenty miles away, my conscience piped up.
I checked the time. Half past five. I could share a quick dinner with her and be home at the annex by nine.
The euphoria fizzled, leaving no contender but guilt.
Thus, instead of home, I was driving east, hair sweaty under a Charlotte Knights cap, clothes filthy, nails crusted with mud. Not looking forward to Daisy’s appraisal.
—
Near Marion, I turned east off Highway 221. Heatherhill Farm came up quickly, if not flamboyantly. The sign is so tastefully understated, those needing it for guidance blow right by.
I turned onto an unmarked strip of asphalt cutting through mountain laurel higher than my head. Soon, the dense tangle gave way to more finely groomed acreage.
In the dark, Heatherhill looked like a small college campus. Besides the main hospital there were garden-fronted structures of varying sizes. Ivy-covered chimneys, long porches, white siding, black shutters. From my many visits I knew the outbuildings included a chronic-pain center, gym, library, and computer lab. Still wasn’t sure which was which.
I turned onto a tributary lane and, fifty yards down, pulled into a gravel rectangle enclosed on three sides by a white picket fence. I parked and took a flagstone path to a small brown bungalow with flower boxes below each window. A sign above the door said RIVER HOUSE.
I stood a moment, feeling a tense edge of anger. Or remorse. Or some long-denied emotion I couldn’t identify. It was always like that. The moment of hesitation before the plunge.
The afternoon’s breeze had turned surly and cold. Gusts whirling down the mountain snapped my collar and elbowed the bill of my cap. I looked up. The sky showed a million stars but no moon. All around me, except for wind, utter silence.
On the inside, River House looked exactly as promised on the outside. The gleaming oak floors were covered with Oushaks and Sarouks. The upholstered pieces were done in soft beiges and tans, the wooden ones stained and distressed to look old. The designer, striving for calm and serene, had achieved that and a sense of limitless cash.
After presenting ID to a smiling attendant at a Louis-the-somethingth desk, I wound through the living room, past gas-fed flames dancing in a stacked stone fireplace. Mama’s suite was down a side corridor, the last on the right.
Before turning, I glanced left, into the dining room. Half a dozen diners of various ages sat at linen-draped tables centered with flower arrangements showing not the slightest hint of droop. I knew Mama wasn’t among them. Daisy prefers eating solo, at the small desk by her sitting room window.
The door was open a crack. A fact that set a tiny alarm dinging deep in my brain. Normally Mama is a bugger on security and privacy. Did the breach mean apathy, thus a dark phase? Carefree jubilation? A random mishap lacking significance?
Mama was, indeed, at her desk, fork forgotten in one hand, staring through the glass at the woods beyond. Perhaps at a flickering memory from another time. Perhaps at nothing.
I studied her a moment. She’d lost weight, but otherwise looked good. Which told me zilch. Despite her myriad mental issues, or perhaps because of them, my mother is an Oscar-Tony-Emmy-class actress.
On hearing me, she turned, all bright green eyes and soft, crinkling crow’s-feet. The smile faded as she took in my appearance. “Oh, my.”
“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Good look, eh?”
“My sweet girl. Have you run away from the circus?”
“Good one.” Refusing to rise to the bait. I intended to keep the visit light and sweet. No arguments about my dress, coiffure, or marital state. No pressure on Mama to begin the chemo she was resisting with every fiber of her ninety-pound being.
“Or did you have a fight with your lovely detective?” Nonchalantly pointing the fork at me “What’s the gentleman’s name?”
“Andrew Ryan.”
“Wait. I know.” Mama’s face lit up. “You’ve come from a crime scene.” Her voice went low and breathy. My work fascinated her. “You’ve dug up a body.”
Nope. No talk of murder or death. Or marriage proposals. Mama would make a Broadway production out of that.
“I was doing a consult in Burke County. It was no big deal.” Crossing to inventory her plate. “I was close so I decided to drop by for dinner. What’s on the menu?”
Mama is not easily dissuaded. Ever. “You can’t share with your doddery old mother?” Spreading her arms. Which looked like twigs inside her thick Irish-knit sweater. “Sweet lord in heaven, where do I ever go? With whom would I discuss the intricacies of your professional life?”
Wind rattled the window at Daisy’s back, shimmying the reflection of her upturned face. A sad image bubbled up in my mind. Mama, alone in her self-imposed exile, talking to no one but Goose and the Heatherhill staff, doing little that didn’t involve her journal or laptop.