Chapter 8
While driving home, I phoned Slidell, not really expecting him to pick up.
He did.
“Yo.”
“It’s Tempe.”
“Yeah? A name’s helpful. You know, ’cause I don’t have caller ID or nothin’.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, I relayed the gist of my conversation with Adina Kumar.
Slidell listened, now and then interjecting some quaint Skinnyism. At one point, I thought I heard a woman’s voice in the background.
When I’d finished, he let loose with a particularly colorful reference to a duck and its mother, the vehemence of which startled me. I braced, expecting the usual blow off to follow.
“You’re talking about that psychologist chick?”
“Dr. Kumar.”
“You think she’s solid?”
“I do. She asked a lot of good questions. Especially about the earlier cases for which I had no pics.” The cases for which my approach had been a bit cavalier. Not human? No big deal.
“Like what?” Slidell pressed.
I had to think a moment.
“Like, how far from a drivable road were the remains located? Were they positioned for easy viewing? Was there a pattern to the way the bodies were displayed? Which parts were removed?”
“Go on.”
“She also asked about the places from which the animals went missing.”
“Not sure we’ve got that intel.”
“We know about Bear.”
I waited out a round of nasal breathing. Then, Slidell surprised me.
“CSU’s been all over the spot that dog was found. Maybe Kumar’s onto something. Maybe we should go at it ass back ways. Scope out the place the dog disappeared.”
“I’m in,” I said.
My first surprise. Slidell pulled up at the Annex at exactly seven a.m., the agreed time.
The weather hadn’t cooled. If anything, the heat and humidity had upped their game. My outdoor thermometer already read eighty-two degrees.
I hurried out and slid into the passenger side of Skinny’s Chevy Trailblazer. The AC was in polar ice cap mode, blasting air cold enough to goose-bump my arms.
Slidell’s company usually brings with it a range of odoriferous delights, the particular mix depending on his prior engagement. A night of surveillance followed by a skipped morning shower. A lunch of pastrami with garlic kraut. A beer in a joint that, forget health regs, still allowed smoking.
My second surprise. That morning, Skinny smelled as flowery as the cologne section in a Sephora.
His hair was parted hard on the right and slicked into a greasy swirl on top.
His shirt, a madras plaid that looked like an escapee from the sixties, was pressed into creases sharp enough to make surgical incisions.
Though curious, I made no comment on his appearance.
We exchanged our usual effusive greetings.
“Doc.”
“Detective.”
“Another scorcher.”
“It will be.”
“Park Road Park?”
“That’s where Joye said Bear disappeared.”
Skinny’s jaw muscles bunched, and his fingers tightened on the wheel. I wondered the source of such agitation. Made no comment on that, either.
Traffic ground to a halt two blocks back from the light at Woodlawn Road.
“What the hell.”
“It’s morning rush hour,” I said, unnecessarily.
“They can rush this up my sweet cheeks.” Skinny flipped a bird to no one in particular.
I didn’t bother to reply.
Minutes dragged by.
Five.
Ten.
Skinny drummed a staccato beat on the wheel.
Sliding my phone from my shoulder bag, I skimmed my email. Two items had landed in my inbox since last I’d checked. That day’s New York Times crossword puzzle and a politician’s plea for money.
I saved the former, deleted the latter.
“You submit all those goo-gaws from this latest mutt?”
“Sent to the crime lab and waiting in the queue.”
“Don’t guess an animal hit will get high priority.”
“Don’t guess it will.”
I was pondering a four-letter word for pouch when Skinny surprised me with another stab at conversation.
“You still seeing Monsieur le stud?” Pronounced “miss-your.”
“His name is Ryan.” Skinny knew that. In fact, despite all odds, the two men had become friends. Of a sort. “And yes, I am.”
“How’s that work, him being from the North Pole and all?”
“He lives in Montreal.”
“Yeah, like I said.”
“We take turns flying back and forth.”
“Guess that makes for sizzling bone-jour nookie.” I doubted Skinny was clever enough to realize his pun.
Didn’t matter. No way would I discuss my sex life with him.
“Your niece still around?” he asked, after another round of silence.
“Ruthie. She’s mostly staying with Katy.”
“The kid’s how old now? Ten? Twelve?”
“Seventeen.”
“Time sure as shit flies. I remember when she was a scrappy little runt with scabs on her knees. What’s she up to?”
“I suppose you could say she’s taking a gap year.”
Slidell slid me a sidelong glance, the cant of his brows suggesting no comprehension.
“She’s trying to figure out what to do with her life,” I translated.
“Today’s kids are pampered little assholes.” As the brows re-angled, “When I was coming up, we didn’t get no goddam gap—”
“How’s Doris?” To shut down a critique of modern youth, I asked about Skinny’s long-term on-again-off-again girlfriend.
“Doris and me are stepping back.”
Nope. Not going there.
“You look especially nice today.” Now I was curious about Slidell’s slicked-up appearance.
Color crept up Skinny’s neck and into his cheeks.
“I got a lunch date.”
“Oh?”
“Name’s Lyric. She’s an entertainer.”
“That’s quite unusual.”
“Eeyuh.” In a tone suggesting the subject was closed.
Taking the hint, I refocused on my puzzle.
Twenty minutes later, we’d finally made it to our turnoff. Hooking a right onto a park service road, Slidell asked,
“When?”
“When what?” I asked, clueless to the new thread unspooling in Skinny’s brain.
“Jesus H Christ. When did the goddam dog go missing?”
“Tuesday.”
“So this asshole didn’t keep it long.”
“No.”
We passed the tennis complex on our right. A dozen women were warming up for doubles. Probably a league.
I’d played on those courts many times. Wished I was heading to do so now, not to revisit a site where a dog had gone missing before turning up dead.
“Maybe it ain’t the mutilation what gets his rocks off.” Slidell’s voice brought me back. “Maybe it’s the killing.”
“We don’t know who shot Bear. It’s possible whoever decapitated and displayed his remains did so after finding him dead.”
Again, Slidell made that crotchety sound in his throat.
Park Road Park is an urban oasis offering hiking trails, wooded picnic areas, open green spaces, sports fields, and a lake called the Duck Pond. Just before the small body of water, Slidell pulled onto a grassy strip paralleling the pavement.
“Anything else turn up when you did your cutting?” Shifting gears, he made another of his disjointed segues.
“Besides the bullet, no.”
Skinny swiveled toward me, a look of disgust on his broad, florid face.
“Honest opinion, doc. You think the same doer what’s been nailing up body parts also capped that dog?”
“I don’t know.”
“Either way. I catch this shit weasel, he’s gonna wish he died in his mama’s womb.”
Slidell released his seat belt with a one-thumb jab, hit the door handle with his elbow, and hauled himself from the car in one surprisingly swift move for a man of his bulk.
Donning shades and a ball cap, I alighted also. Scanned my surroundings.
The lake was to my right. The ducks gliding on its surface seemed not to care that the water was green and murky. Or perhaps they preferred it that way.
“Where’s the goddam trail?”
“There.”
The woods to our left were a mix of pine and hardwood. Recognizing the trailhead from Joye’s description—the weathered utility shed, the pump, the tree stump—I indicated a point among the oaks, more a gradation in shadowing than an obvious gap.
Slidell set off at an unusually fast clip. I followed, half running to keep up.
By the time we reached the trees, Skinny was panting like a marathoner finishing a race. Sweat dampened his hairline and rivulets streamed down his temples. The greased pompadour lay flat on his crown.
At his winded direction, I brushed past him to take the lead. Ten yards into the woods, I spotted a scrap of red cloth tied to a low-hanging branch. Recognizing Joye’s marker, placed during his search for Bear, I veered from the path.
Skinny’s wheezing told me he was close behind. As did the occasional whiff of BO, now overpowering the cologne. Moving through the dense vegetation, I handed off low-hanging branches to prevent them snapping back in his face.
In less than five minutes, we reached an enormous oak.
“This is the last place Joye had eyes on Bear. According to his statement, it was here that the dog shot off into the trees.”
Slidell was bent at the waist, hands on his knees. When he straightened, his face was the color of claret.
“Show me those Frog Pond scene pics,” he managed to pant.
I dug my phone from my pocket and pulled up the compilation file. In it, I’d created a folder for every case for which we had photos of the remains still in situ.
As Skinny flipped through the images, I walked the area, following a loose grid pattern. Several minutes passed with no words exchanged.
“Spot anything shouldn’t be here?”
I turned. Slidell had finished with the photos and was now watching me.
“Not yet,” I replied.
Casting me one baleful look, Slidell started walking a grid to the left of mine. Again, the only sounds were his heavy breathing and the shuffling of dead leaves underfoot. Not a single forest creature had anything to say.
Then, in my peripheral vision I noticed Skinny stoop to pluck something from the ground. Bringing his hand to eye level, he inspected his find.
“Yo.”
“What?”
He curled impatient fingers with his free hand, indicating that I should join him.
I walked over.
“Let me see those pics again.”
I reopened the file and handed him my phone.
He scrolled through the photos, eventually paused. Moved on. Stopped again. Continued scrolling.
“Sonofabitch.” With feeling.
“What?”
“What’s your take on that thing down among the roots?”
I retrieved the phone and enlarged the image with a finger-thumb spread. Studied the item on the screen.
“No idea.” I said. “What is it?”
“Fuck if I know. But check this out.”
Slidell extended his upturned palm. Lying on it was an object resembling the one he’d spotted in the earlier scene photo.
“You found that here?” Stupid question. I’d just seen him pick it up.
Tight nod.
“So far we don’t have much tying this whole freak show to one perp,” he said, with none of the derision I’d expected.
“Or leading us to him. I mean, there’s no pattern to the type of animal, the type of tree, the type of pose.
The creep changes his MO slightly every time, except for nailing up some poor critter and keeping a body part. ”
Slidell was composing his voice into a careful monotone, masking an underlying anger I didn’t fully understand. Why such a high level of emotion?
I said nothing.
Slidell raised his upturned palm.
“But he messed up with this. And it’s going to put his sick ass in the can.”