Page 25 of Cold, Cold Bones

I laid out my theory concerning preservation of the eye.

“You’re saying some mope mined an eyeball and popped it into his Frigidaire?”

“Yes.”

“What about the head?”

“I’m unsure. It’s possible that was also kept for a while.”

“Taken from who?”

“I don’t know,” I said, fighting the urge to correct Slidell’s grammar.

“How’d he get hold of a human head?”

“Maybe he got hold of a whole body.”

Slidell spent several seconds mulling that gruesome possibility. Not for the first time, I was certain. Then, “Why deliver the eyeball but chuck the head to rot?”

“Maybe the eye was meant as a message.”

“Yathink? What message?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why you?”

“I don’t know.” I was saying that a lot. “Did you learn anything useful at MiraVia?”

“That crew’s like one big bleeding-heart Sunday-school choir. They think the world’s gonna be all kittens and bunnies if they just—”

“The privy head?”

“One kid, Sandra-Leigh Keyler—belly’s now bigger than her IQ—went to the crapper to off-load a jar of cigarette butts.”

“She didn’t want others to know she was smoking.”

“I didn’t query her motive. Sandra-Leigh sees the plastic bag with writing across the front. It said, ‘Here’s Johnny!’ Apparently, she’d seen a movie calledThe Shiningand was totally creeped out.”

“The Stanley Kubrick film with Jack Nicholson?”

“I look like theHollywood Reporter? Anyway, Sandra-Leigh fessed up, an exploratory committee was formed, took a gander, dimed security. Not sure why these bimbos found a bag with writing so unnerving, but the rest is history.”

I could imagine how Slidell’s visit had gone. Felt enormous sympathy for the “bimbos.”

“The whole friggin’ lead dead-ended.” Slidell activated his turn signal. It clicked softly, as if to punctuate his list. “No missing staff, no AWOL baby mamas, no angry boyfriends, no hostile mean-girl rivals, no miffed teachers or priests. Nothing but sunshine and butterflies.”

“Did the women offer any suggestions as to who might have ended up in their privy?”

“None.”

“Any ideas who might have used the privy to dispose of a head?”

“Someone who knew it was back there.”

Valid point.

“Any guesses who that someone might be?”