Chapter 19
Traffic was heavy and moved like sludge through a clogged pipe. The drive to Charlotte took almost two hours.
Arriving home shortly before eight, I zapped a frozen dinner of P.F. Chang’s Dan Dan noodles and ate while watching CNN with Birdie. The cat appeared to tense during coverage of the Middle East bombings but kept his opinion to himself.
After washing my utensils and wiping down the table and counter, I showered, then tried reading the Sandra Brown novel I was halfway through.
My eyelids grew heavier with each page. Not the fault of the book. A dinner of noodles will do that to my hypothalamus.
At ten I gave up and headed to bed.
Despite my postprandial drowsiness, sleep eluded me.
I spent hours tossing and turning, punching the pillow, kicking off, then retrieving the comforter. Checking and rechecking the time.
Midnight came and went.
Two a.m.
Three-thirty.
My mind scrolled through the possible causes. Maybe the day’s outing with Slidell. Maybe the chemicals contained in frozen meals. The week’s events looped ceaselessly in my overstimulated brain.
I pictured Bear and the other animals found nailed to trees, their faces painted and glittered, their features stretched into macabre expressions.
I saw Eleanor Godric, the cemetery burial. The mixed bag of bones from Steven’s Creek Nature Preserve. The man and dog hanging in Cordelia Park.
I heard voices.
Ralph Balodis explaining the use of a scanner.
Adina Kumar predicting the doer’s escalation.
Sister Adelbert describing a man wearing shorts.
Jordan Allen Bright telling his dog, Millie, not to bite Slidell.
Hugh Norwitz and what Slidell called his erotic taxidermy hobby.
Other players in my nocturnal operetta came from closer to home.
Slidell, still obstinately focused on sex offenders.
Katy, off to South Carolina to comfort a client.
Ryan, arriving on Sunday.
Ruthie, moody, but apparently happy here. Katy told me that Kit had phoned to report his daughter’s desire to spend her senior year in Charlotte.
I rendered only one opinion on that, saying it was a big step. A decision that was up to Katy, Ruthie, and her father. Or was that two opinions?
Birdie lay silently curled at my side. I reached down to stroke his head. He didn’t withdraw, nor did he crank up his usual low-pitched buzz.
The cat seemed unhappy with me. Or was I imagining censure where none existed?
My thoughts drifted back to Ruthie. To our Red Rocks meal with her UNCC friend Lester Meloy.
Meloy had been a charming and witty dinner companion. His enthusiasm for his—in my opinion somewhat esoteric—research was endearing.
Then why had the encounter with Meloy left me feeling uneasy? Was the guy’s speech too glib? His charm too slick?
Or was I being overly critical because of Meloy’s connection to my niece? Though a few years older than Ruthie—living the grad school versus the high school chapter of life—he seemed interested only in mentorship. Perhaps friendship.
The black rectangle that was my front-facing window unexpectedly oozed to gray.
I glanced at my bedside clock.
The glowing digits said 4:17.
What the hell?
Before I could cross the carpet for a peek outside, headlights slashed the darkness around me. Shadows elongated and veered sharply.
Then, as quickly as it had brightened, the room dimmed again.
I lay with my heart beating a wee bit faster.
Who would be mounting the circle drive at this hour? A doomsayer gaggle of brain cells demanded.
Not your business. A more rational cluster replied.
My neighbors’ well-being is my business.
You’re becoming that snoop that everyone hates.
The doomsayer neurons had no comeback to that.
Back in bed, I cleared my mind and gave free rein to my thoughts. Like a Sidewinder missile, they arrowed straight to Bear and the other animal displays.
Despite learning almost zilch at the NCTA conference, Slidell remained convinced that our doer was a psycho taxidermist. Maybe Hugh Norwitz. Maybe Ozzie Key.
I wasn’t feeling it.
But what was I feeling? My subconscious kept teasing my higher centers, hinting at some tidbit just out of reach.
What tidbit? A piece I was failing to recognize? A pattern I was missing? What kind of pattern? A pattern suggestive of what?
Frustrated, I forced my attention to Ryan’s upcoming visit and began a mental list of possible outings. The Whitewater Center. The NASCAR Hall of Fame. The Mint Museum.
Somewhere along the way I finally drifted off.
Ryan was hating the smell of sweaty bodies assaulting his nose. The taste of exhaust coating his tongue. The sun’s heat scorching his shoulders and scalp.
Above all, he was hating the roar of the powerful V8 engines blasting his ears.
Bottom line. Ryan was loathing NASCAR.
Again, he complained about having to be at the Speedway.
Again, I told him why we were there.
My explanation had something to do with Slidell. And Birdie.
Ryan opened his mouth to respond.
Another car screamed past, drowning out his words.
Another.
Another.
Mind clawing to the surface from a very deep sleep, I opened my eyes.
The room was filled with that hazy half-light that presages the coming of dawn.
The clock now said 6:47.
The souped-up race car shrilled again.
No, it was the phone.
I lifted the device and clicked on.
“Yes.”
“We may have us another one.”
“Detective Slidell?” Over-enunciating as one does when trying to sound awake.
“No. It’s room service ringing with your wake-up call.”
It was too early, and I’d had no coffee. I said nothing.
“I just got off the phone with Harve Acorn,” Slidell went on. “Acorn caught a call about a body at the McDowell Nature Preserve.”
“Acorn’s the tall gray-haired detective who walks with a limp?”
“Yeah. The guy’s a real piece of work, thinks—”
“McDowell is down off York Road?” Suspecting where this was going, I was coming awake fast.
“Yeah. Acorn heard about the cases we’re looking at. You know, through the cop shop grapevine, and he—”
A woman spoke in the background. I couldn’t make out her words.
“Hold on,” Slidell said.
The line muffled.
Birdie took advantage of my silence to head butt my arm. I stroked his head, which was not what he wanted. He was jonesing for breakfast.
Seconds passed, then Slidell was back.
“Acorn figured this new DOA sounded like our doer. Paint, glitter, face messed up, missing body parts.”
Bird nudged me harder. This time, I ignored him.
“What’s the plan?”
“I’m meeting Acorn at McDowell in sixty.”
“I’ll be ready in thirty.”
Lake Wylie was created in 1904 when the Catawba Power Company built a dam and power plant between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Fort Mill, South Carolina. The thirteen-thousand-acre body of water straddles the border between the states like a giant meandering millipede.
Hugging a stretch of Wylie’s shoreline is the McDowell Nature Preserve.
Like the other locations in which animal remains were displayed, McDowell is composed mostly of undeveloped forest and grassland, but also contains picnic and recreational areas.
Also like the other sites favored by our doer, McDowell is easily accessed via a major thoroughfare.
During the drive to the preserve, Slidell briefed me on the little he’d discovered about Ozzie Key.
Key, now in his forties, was a native Charlottean who’d dropped out of South Mecklenburg High School to enlist. Following his discharge from the army, he hadn’t bothered to pursue a GED.
Currently, Key lived alone—no wife, no kids, no girlfriend, no roommate—in a small rental home off North Sharon Amity Road. He worked part-time as a Wendy’s cook, part-time as the shampooer for a dog spa near the Southpark mall.
Slidell learned that Key had a sheet going back to his middle school years. Nothing major, nothing violent. Shoplifting. Petty larceny. One auto theft bust that landed him in the can for five years. Several DUIs.
All in all, Key’s profile didn’t read like that of a candidate for MENSA.
The day’s outing unfolded as a reboot of our trip to Chantilly.
Until we connected with Harvey Acorn.
Harve the Nut, to his friends. Of whom there were few, according to hearsay.
My policy is to avoid gossip about the personal lives of others. That strategy often leaves me out of the loop. Truth be told, I’m happy that way.
So, here’s what I knew about Harve the Nut.
Three years back, Acorn had left the NYPD to accept a much less prestigious job with the department in Charlotte. There was talk at the time, of course, with explanations varying.
One version had it that Acorn had appeared drunk at the workplace once too often. Another that he’d been caught in flagrante delicto with the captain’s wife. Another that he’d been nailed taking a bribe.
Acorn’s account of his southern migration relied on far less drama. He attributed the change of locale to his personal arrival at a tipping point regarding three issues: snow shoveling, commuting, and paying through the nose for his kids’ private schools.
I’d met Acorn several times over the years. Folio briefings, strategy sessions, police charity events, that sort of thing. But I’d never worked with the guy.
That said, my limited exposure to Acorn had been enough to form an opinion. For once, I couldn’t disagree with Skinny and the others.
Acorn was a pompous prick with a ninety-ton chip on one shoulder. A man with an elevated view of himself. A man who always insisted on having the last say.
Acorn’s vehicle was part of the usual crime scene carnival in the McDowell parking lot to which Slidell had been directed. The MCME and CSU trucks. Several CMPD cruisers. An armada of unmarked cars. Cordelia Park all over again.
A pair of vans each bore the logo of a local TV affiliate, one for ABC and the other for CBS.
A news crew sat inside one. A cameraman and an on-air reporter stood outside the other.
Both looked annoyed at being denied access to the actual body recovery.
Blood and gore boosts ratings, and they weren’t getting the footage.
Like Slidell, Acorn drove an SUV. Unlike Skinny’s, his was black.
Acorn was waiting behind the wheel, one hand clutching a YETI cup, the other hanging from an arm draped around the back of the passenger seat. A very long arm.
Slidell and I alighted. I hauled my recovery kit from the trunk, then we started toward the black SUV.
On recognizing Slidell, Acorn muscled himself out onto the pavement, long, skinny limbs working in oddly graceful concert.
Yielding to the heat, he’d abandoned his jacket and wore only a short-sleeved blue shirt and khaki pants—size 36 giraffe.
His tan leather shoes looked like the product of a factory in Verona.
The two men greeted each other when five feet apart.
“Detective.”
“Detective.”
“DOA’s still here?” Slidell asked.
Acorn nodded. “The little lady ME’s been and gone. Her recovery team is waiting until CSU clears the scene.”
Little lady ME? I said nothing.
Acorn’s gaze slid to me, then back to Slidell. His right eye was such a deep earthy brown it was impossible to distinguish iris from pupil. His left eye was the milky blue of over-washed denim.
“Doc Brennan’s been working these animal cases,” Skinny offered in justification for my presence. “I understand this new one’s jazzed up like the others?”
“She’s working them how?” Acorn asked, ignoring Slidell’s question.
“She knows bones. Now, you gonna tell me what we got here?”
“It sure as hell ain’t bones.”
Crossing his arms and spreading his feet, Slidell drilled Acorn with a laser stare.
“Okay, genius. It ain’t bones. How about you tell us what the fuck it is.”
“I think it’s best you see for yourself.”