Chapter 22
“I know this man,” said Katy.
I could only stare at her.
“Why do you have his picture on your phone?”
“Who is he?” I asked, sidestepping her question.
“Why is this guy’s pic on your phone?” she repeated.
A brief stare down ensued. I cracked first.
“That’s a photo of the body found at the McDowell Nature Preserve, the case I mentioned briefly at dinner. I’m so sorry if he was a friend of yours.”
“How did he die?”
“He was shot.”
Katy flinched as though slapped.
“Who is he?” I asked gently.
“Quaashi Brown. Everyone called him Quash.”
“How do you know him?”
“I don’t really know him. I saw him now and then at the shelter.”
“Can you tell me where he lived?”
“Tent City, until the heartless bastards shut that down.”
Katy referred to a homeless encampment that grew up inconveniently close to Uptown.
Upsetting to the more sensitive—the less compassionate?
—among my fellow Charlotteans, the hodgepodge of makeshift shelters had eventually been demolished, the unhoused forced into facilities or back onto the streets.
“After that?”
“Rumor was he had one of those tents near the Clanton Road exit off I-77.”
“Are you sure it’s Quash?”
“Oh, yeah. I recognize the earring.”
“What’s his story?”
Katy shrugged both shoulders. “He was an old geezer who occasionally dropped into the shelter for a meal.”
“I believe the man was still in his fifties,” I noted with an eye roll.
“I’m just saying. The guy wasn’t planning a spring break in Daytona.”
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted Quash dead?”
Shaking her head glumly, Katy handed back my phone.
“Any idea what the letters ‘PE’ might mean?” I ventured.
“Price to earnings ratio?”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
At ten-thirty, Mama rang to say she had squirrels in her attic. Not a euphemism. She had a legit rodent problem. Lots of scratching and scurrying paws overhead. I helped her search the internet for a pest control service that promised to trap and release.
We’d barely disconnected when Ryan phoned to provide his flight information.
Again, he offered to call an Uber.
Again, I said I’d pick him up at the airport.
When I was finally in bed and had turned off the light and silenced my phone, the ol’ gray cells dived straight into dissecting the evening’s dinner conversations.
Meloy had asked endless questions about forensic anthropology. My educational pathway. My position with the MCME. My role at a crime scene.
Standard queries for those interested in the processing of death. Tedious, but nothing surprising.
Having seen a brief online article in the Observer about a body found at the McDowell Nature Preserve—note to self to determine how that little gem had come to be—he asked if I was involved in the case. I admitted that I was and outlined the basics.
Talk rambled on through various topics. The pros and cons of Ozempic and other GLP-1 receptor drugs. A horrific accident at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The potential benefits and threats of AI.
My last conscious thought before drifting off:
Meloy hadn’t posed a single follow-up about the McDowell case—what I now knew to be the Brown case.
Mildly surprising.
Birdie nudged me to consciousness from a jumbled dream about flowers and chipmunks. Or maybe they were Mama’s squirrels.
Forcing my eyes open, I squinted at the bedside clock. The digits indicated it was just past six.
I drew Birdie close and stroked his head, hoping for a few more hours of shut-eye. Unaware that the day would spiral from disappointing to depressing to truly horrendous.
Cuddles were not what the cat had in mind. Wriggling free, he positioned himself to chew on my hair.
“Fine,” I said, throwing back the covers. “But we’re not going to make this breakfast at dawn thing a habit.”
Birdie looked at me with round, yellow eyes. Questioning my inappropriate reference to eating at sunrise?
I descended to the kitchen, planning to throw some kibble into a bowl, then hurry back up to bed.
My brain had other ideas.
Ideas that did not involve additional sleep.
I should have known they wouldn’t.
After tossing about for a good twenty minutes, I propped myself up and grabbed my mobile.
No voice mails.
Three texts.
The first was an ad from a spa about a skin care sale.
The next was a notice that my car was overdue for an oil change.
The final message was from Nguyen about fragmentary skeletal remains unearthed at a construction site in Fourth Ward. Nothing urgent. The bones were at the morgue, and she was fairly confident the deceased was an animal.
I’m a person who can’t rest if there’s a task to complete. I’ve always been that way. I was one of those kids who finished the science project or wrote the English essay well in advance of the due date. Annoying, granted, but that’s how I’m wired.
Even though it was the weekend, I decided to pop in at the lab. I could confirm that the newly arrived DOA was nonhuman. And I could plug away at Nguyen’s damn case inventory.
I know. Get a life.
The MCME was quiet in the way institutional buildings are when largely deserted. No gurneys rattling. No doors whooshing. No elevators bonging.
A weekend crew was there, of course. Including the new guy, Winslow, of undetermined surname.
By nine-thirty, I’d changed into scrubs and Winslow had rolled the remains, now designated MCME-766-25, to autopsy room four. Just habit, not due to concerns about odor.
I was unzipping the small black pouch when my mobile sounded. Holding my gloved hands away from my body, I crossed to the counter to check the screen.
Crap.
A moment of hesitation, then I answered.
“Brennan.” Knowing that formal greeting would probably draw censure.
“We got us another one.” Background noise told me Slidell was calling from his car.
“Another one?”
“Jesus. I’m working homicide here. Whadaya think I’m talking about?”
“A body?” Fervently hoping for a negative response.
“With all the trimmings.”
“Where?”
“A Girl Scout campground called Pod Village. Apparently, the little ladies will be needing some serious therapy.”
My empathy with the scouts, I refused to acknowledge the wisecrack.
“But this round the perv added a new twist,” Slidell continued.
“What?”
“Better you see for yourself.”
“Wait. Why do you need me?”
“Two reasons. First off, I ain’t good with kids.”
“The girls are still there?”
“No. We flew them all to Paris so’s they could jamboree.”
Easy, Brennan.
“And the second reason?”
“I’m told the stiff ain’t exactly pristine.”
“Fine.” It was so far from fine, a high-precision GPS system couldn’t measure the distance.
“Give me the address,” I said resignedly, reaching for a pen.
“I’ll pick you up in thirty.”
“At the Annex.”
Yep, I thought again. Groundhog Day.
Peering through the windshield of the Trailblazer, I gave silent thanks for small favors. Unlike the recovery at the McDowell Nature Preserve, this one wouldn’t require a hike through vegetation infested with man-eating mosquitoes.
Less than half an hour after leaving the Annex, Slidell’s navigation announced that we’d arrived at our destination. We were on Idlewild Road in southeast Charlotte. A sign on a freestanding brick wall announced that the property belonged to the Girl Scouts Hornets’ Nest Council.
The usual three-ring circus was already clogging the street. I noted a pair of white sedans with the blue CMPD logo, a coroner’s van, a CSU truck, a couple of unmarked cars, probably belonging to detectives.
A white Sprinter bore the logo of WSOC-TV, Charlotte’s ABC affiliate. So far, no other media had picked up on the radio transmissions concerning the body. Or they’d deemed the situation non-newsworthy.
A Nissan Pathfinder sat at the front of the line of parked vehicles, three silhouettes visible through its open rear hatch. Small ones. I assumed these were the scouts who’d spotted the body.
Slidell pulled to the curb and we both got out. Cruisers flashing red-blue-red-blue-red-blue blocked each end of a circle drive sweeping up through an acre of lawn. A uniformed officer stood beside each cruiser, feet spread, arms crossed in identical poses.
Slidell strode toward the cop on the left. I followed. Seeing us approach, the woman straightened and dropped her arms, keeping her right elbow slightly cocked.
Drawing close, Slidell badged the woman. She glanced at his shield, then stepped to one side and waved us through.
“Body’s how far back from the building?” Slidell asked.
“About ten yards. The scene’s taped off and a detective is on site. CSU’s doing their magic. You can’t miss it.”
Slidell hot-assed it up the drive toward a modern redbrick structure devoid of any whimsy or caprice. I followed, again surprised that Skinny could move that fast. We were halfway there when my mobile sounded.
Digging the phone from my pocket, I checked the screen, then clicked on.
“Hey,” I said, failing to suppress a big goofy grin.
“Bonjour, ma chère.”
I knew from Ryan’s tone that something was wrong.
“What’s up?” We rounded the building and cut diagonally across a stretch of mown grass toward a cluster of trees.
“A ferret.”
“Sorry?” When I entered the shadows, the temperature dropped a good ten degrees.
“This could be an aviation first.”
“There’s a problem with your plane?”
“The plane’s just dandy. Except for Elton John, who’s disappeared into its bowels.”
“You’re going to have to explain that.”
“We’d just boarded when a lady opened her pet carrier to calm her ferret. Availing himself of the unexpected portal to freedom, Elton John—that’s the ferret, not the lady—bolted.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Je suis sérieux. We passengers, now disembarked, are cooling our heels at the gate while a squad of ferret busters searches for the escapee.”
“How long might that delay you?”
“Ferrets are slippery little buggers.”
“Can’t the crew go ahead and take off and wait for the thing to show itself?”
“Apparently not. What are you doing?”
I told him about the remains I was out to collect.
“We’ll laugh about this later,” he said, not sounding amused.
“Keep me posted,” I said.
Disconnecting, I heard Slidell address someone, then a wheezy exclamation.
“Well, I’ll be goddammed.”
Stashing the phone, I hurried toward him.