Page 81 of Cold, Cold Bones

“Is he violent?” Fearing the answer.

“We be goaded enough, darlin’, we all be violent.”

“Eldon, is my daughter at risk?”

Our gazes locked.

“Out on these streets, we all be at risk.”

I tried Katy as I walked to my car.

Still no answer. Her mailbox was now full and refusing messages.

Not what I wanted to hear.

I wasn’t in my office ten minutes when the landline rang.Mrs. Flowers reported that Dr. Nguyen was doing a postmortem but wanted to speak with me as soon as I arrived.

Not what I wanted to hear.

I hurried to the main autopsy room, embarrassed at my late appearance.

Nguyen had stepped back from the table to allow Hawkins to lift the organs from a young woman’s torso. Heart. Liver. Spleen. You know the players. Her breastplate, which had been removed following the initialYincision, lay by her feet. Her eyes bulged purple and swollen below black pixie bangs. A small, round hole pierced her left temple.

“Suicide?” I asked.

“Maybe.” Nguyen spoke through her mask, gloved hands held at shoulder height. “Your facial wounds look better.”

“Thanks.”

“This morning I had my second conversation with a very agitated deputy up in Burke County. Her second and third calls I did not take.” With a rare hint of annoyance. “Deputy Santoya is anxious for a report on the bucket she sent to us.”

“Topping my list.” It hadn’t been.

“Good. I will direct her future calls to you.”

Hallelujah. “Anything else?”

“Nothing urgent. A man brought in a skull he discovered while cleaning his grandfather’s attic.”

“His story?”

“His grandfather ordered a truckload of gravel back in the fifties. The skull was an unexpected inclusion in the delivery. The old man kept it. The grandson wants it gone.”

On the way to my office, I thought about that. Envied gramps. Wished I had someone to plow through the mounds of junk stored in the crawlspace under my roof.

Seated at my desk, I gathered forms for my personal hard-copy folder and logged onto the MCME computer system. Dug out thenchecked a line on the anthropology request form. The case had been entered as MCME 237-22.

After I opened an electronic file, my brain decided it was time for more coffee.

Really? The last thing my neurons needed was more caffeine. I was stalling.

Grabbing my mug, I headed to the kitchen.

As I poured, not as skillfully as Karlene, I contemplated my reluctance to tackle the bucket. Because the case came from outside our official jurisdiction? Whyhadit come to us from Burke County? Did Deputy Santoya’s off-duty hours involve too much crime TV?

Was I simply unmotivated about viewing the remains of a chipmunk or squirrel? Perhaps someone’s dearly departed pet lizard? Experience told me that’s what I’d find in the fill.

Or did my foot-dragging spring from another source? Were the blasted id boys at it again? Whatever their issue, if they even had one, I needed a distraction. MCME 237-22 would keep my mind off Katy. And Nguyen off my back. Time to focus.