by Kathy Reichs
I knew I was ranting, couldn’t help myself. Finney was dead. Slidell was snubbing me. Tyrell had just fired me. Ryan wasn’t at fault. But he was there in my face so he took the hit.
“And look at you.” I flapped an agitated hand at Ryan. “You’re almost fifty. Who the hell are the Dead Milkmen?”
“Beats me.”
“You’re wearing the T-shirt of a group you don’t even know?” Disdainful.
“I figured it was a charity for the widows and orphans of deceased dairy workers.” Delivered deadpan.
That did it.
I laughed.
“Sorry.” I laid a hand on Ryan’s arm. “You don’t deserve this. Lately, I’m certifiable.”
“But cute,” he said.
“Don’t start, big boy.”
Frustrated, I got up and poured my coffee down the sink. In my condition, caffeine was probably not a good plan.
Minutes later, the phone rang again. I grabbed it.
Slidell’s disposition had improved. Slightly.
“The Jetta is registered to a Mark Harvey Sharp in Onslow County. No police record. We’ve got a call-in down there. Should know something soon.”
Several cells opened sleepy eyes in my subconscious.
What?
No answer from my id.
It was the cemetery all over again.
Ignoring the subliminal stirring, I told Slidell I wanted to be present when he interrogated the driver.
“Why?”
“Because I do.”
Dial tone.
More pacing. Pointless activity. Dishes. Cat litter.
I was sure I wouldn’t hear from Detective Dickhead again. I was wrong. Slidell called back. Background noises suggested he was now in his car.
“We got us a suspect. You won’t believe who was driving that Jetta.”
32
TWENTY MINUTES LATER RYAN AND I WERE EXITING THE ELEVATOR on the second floor at Law Enforcement. Slidell had initially denied my request, finally relented. We could watch, but not participate in the interrogation of the man in custody.
Slidell was at his desk. Ryan expressed sympathy to him for the loss of his partner. Slidell thanked Ryan for traveling to Charlotte to attend the funeral.
“There was never any question. I admired the man. And liked him.”
“They don’t make ’em like Eddie no more.”
“No, they don’t. Had it been the reverse, Rinaldi would have come to salute at my grave.”
Slidell held up tightly curled fingers. “Brothers in the uniform.”
Ryan high-fived Slidell’s fist with one of his own.
The two spent a few moments recalling the time the three detectives first met.
Then we got down to business.
Slidell phoned to see if the interrogation room was up and running. It was. We trooped down the hall, Slidell in the lead.
Same one-way-mirror window. Same battered table. Same chair once occupied by Kenneth Roseboro, later by Asa Finney.
The chair was now holding the man suspected of killing Finney.
The suspect was around forty with flint gray eyes and short brown hair shaved into whitewalls. Though small, he was fit and muscular. Tattooed on his right forearm were the Marine Corps logo and the words Semper Fi.
I was still struggling to wrap my mind around the man’s identity.
James Edward Klapec. Senior.
Jimmy Klapec’s father had been stopped twenty miles south of Charlotte driving the Volkswagen Jetta spotted by Asa Finney’s neighbor.
Klapec’s eyes kept sweeping his surroundings then dropping to his hands. His fingers were clasped, the flesh stretched pale on each of his knuckles.
Leaving Ryan and me in the corridor, Slidell entered the room, footsteps clicking metallic through the wall-mounted speaker.
Klapec’s head jerked up. Wary eyes followed his interrogator across the room.
Tossing a spiral onto the table, Slidell sat.
“This interview is being recorded. For your protection and ours.”
Klapec said nothing.
“I’m sorry about your loss.”
Klapec gave a tight nod of his head.
“You’ve been read your rights.” More statement than question.
Klapec nodded again. Dropped his gaze.
“I want to repeat, you have a right to a lawyer.”
No response.
Slidell cleared his throat. “So. We’re good to talk here?”
“I killed him.”
“You killed who, Mr. Klapec?”
“The satanic sonovabitch who murdered my son.”
“Tell me about that.”
Klapec sat almost a full minute without speaking, face pointed at his hands.
“I’m sure you know about Jimmy.” Halting.
“I’m not judging you or your boy,” Slidell said.
“Others will. The press. The lawyers. They’ll paint Jimmy as a pervert.” It was obvious Klapec was treading carefully, choosing his words. “I didn’t agree with the choices Jimmy was making.” Klapec swallowed. “But he deserved better than I gave him.”
“Tell me what you did.”
Klapec looked at Slidell, quickly away.
“I shot the cocksucker who killed my boy.”
“I’m gonna need specifics.”
Klapec inhaled, exhaled through his nose.
“Since Jimmy’s murder, I start every morning with the Charlotte paper online. Cops don’t bother with nobodies like me and my wife, so we have to rely on the news to know what’s being done about the murder of our own son. Sad, eh?”
Slidell rotated a hand, indicating Klapec should continue.
“I read what this commissioner said about Finney.”
“Boyce Lingo?”
“Yeah. That’s the guy. Lingo made sense about the cops being handcuffed and the courts being paralyzed. About the common citizen needing to take action.”
My eyes met Ryan’s. I knew what was coming.
“They proved him right by setting the murdering sonovabitch free. Lingo was dead-on.” Klapec’s jaw muscles bunched, relaxed. “Jimmy was a homo. Even if a trial took place, they’d make him look bad. I knew justice for my son would have to come from me.”
Klapec’s words were sending chills up my spine.
“I owed it to Jimmy. God knows I didn’t do shit for him while he was alive.”
“Tell me exactly what you did.” Slidell prompted.
“Borrowed my neighbor’s car, drove to Charlotte, waited outside his house, and put the evil bastard out of his misery.”
“How did you find Finney’s address?”
Klapec gave a mirthless snort. “That took about ten minutes online.”
“Describe the weapon.”
“Forty-five-millimeter semi-automatic. A Firestar.”
“Where is it?”
“In a Dumpster behind a Wendy’s, about a quarter mile east of Finney’s place.”
Slidell made a note in his spiral.
“What did you do following the shooting?”
“After tossing the gun, everything’s a blank. This morning I woke up in a motel and headed out of Dodge.”
“Where were you going when the trooper pulled you over?”
“Home. I wanted to be sitting in my own kitchen in Half Moon when the cops finally called. If they called. Doubt they’d waste the time on me.”
Yo!
Again, the whispered heads-up.
I closed my eyes, trying to establish a connection with my lower centers.
No go. Having signaled, my subconscious was now ignoring my call.
Slidell asked about Gunther. Klapec said he’d never heard the name.
Slidell took a moment to review his notes. Or to pantomime doing so.
Then he started in from a different angle.
“Why were you driving your neighbor’s car?”
“Eva needs ours to get to work.”
“That would be Mrs. K
lapec.”
Klapec nodded.
“What can you tell me about the death of Detective Rinaldi?”
Klapec’s knuckles turned an even paler shade of yellow. “That’s the cop that was killed up here?”
“Where were you around ten last Saturday night?”
Klapec gave Slidell a look of blank insolence. “I’m leveling with you, here. I killed Finney because the murdering prick needed killing. Don’t try putting anything else on me.”
“Answer the question, Mr. Klapec.”
Klapec considered. Then, “I was leaving a meeting at South Gum Branch Baptist. My wife can vouch for me.”
“What kind of meeting?”
Klapec dropped his chin. I could see scalp gleaming pink through his close-cropped hair. “I attend a support group for anger management.”
“Where’s this church?”
“A good two hundred miles from here.”
“That don’t answer my question.”
“On Highway Two fifty-eight, about halfway between Jacksonville and Half Moon.”
Yo!
What? Highway 258? That would put the church near Camp Lejeune. I’d been on the Marine Corps base four years back, digging a dead woman from under a crawl space.
Nothing clicked.
“Hold that thought.” Slidell’s voice brought me back. He was leaving Klapec to rejoin us in the corridor.
Tipping his head toward the window, Slidell asked Ryan, “Thoughts?”
“He’s wrapped pretty tight.”
“Poor bastard just shot the man who murdered his kid.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Slidell’s eyes slid to me, back to Ryan.
“Think he’s on the level?”
“Seems sincere,” Ryan said. “But he could be mental.”
“Or covering for someone.”
“They swabbed his hands for gunshot residue?”
“Yeah. He’s fired a weapon. Dipshit’s either too stupid to scrub down or smart enough to fire a cover-up shot.”
“I’m sure you have a unit checking the Wendy’s Dumpster.”
“You bet your ass I have. And every motel along that corridor.”
Slidell turned to me. “How about you? Find anything in your fandangle photos can help put this whole thing to bed?”
For a moment I didn’t get it. Then I practically did a full-on head slap.
The SEM scans of bone from Jimmy Klapec’s femur. Marion Ireland’s envelope was still in my car. Ryan’s appearance had blown it right off my compass.
“I’m not quite finished.” I looked at Klapec to avoid direct eye contact with Slidell.
“Uh. Huh.”
“I’ll have at it again as soon as I leave here.”
“How ’bout that’s right now. This guy’s life’s in the toilet. Least we can do is assure him he got the right witch.”
With that Slidell returned to his suspect.
33
RYAN AND I STOPPED AT A STARBUCKS THEN DROVE TO THE Annex. I got Ireland’s envelope from my car and spread the photos across my kitchen table. Ryan sat beside me, sipping his coffee in a way that grated on my nerves.
As I viewed the SEM hard copy, I explained what I was doing.
“When Jimmy Klapec’s body was still unidentified, I took samples from his femur and made thin sections for microscopic examination.”
“Why?” Ryan asked.
“To allow me greater precision in estimating age at death.”
“Then the kid was ID’ed by prints and that became irrelevant.”
“Yes.”
Ryan slurped his coffee.
“But on viewing the thin sections I noticed something wrong with some of the Haversian canals.”
“Point of order.” Ryan raised an index finger.
“Haversian canals are tiny tubes that run longitudinally down compact bone.”
“How tiny?” Slurp.
“Really tiny. Must you make that noise with your coffee?”
“It’s hot.”
“Blow across the top. Or wait.”
“What are these canals for?”
“Stuff goes through them.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Blood vessels, nerve cells, lymphatics. That’s not important. What’s important, or could be, is that some of the canals exhibit unusual patterning at their rims.”
“What kind of patterning?”
“Weird dark lines.”
“You’re really hot when you use that scientific jargon.”
I’d have rolled my eyes but they were glued to Ireland’s photos.
Seconds passed.
Slurp.
“Next time, could you choose a cold beverage?”
“It’s drinkable now. So what do these mysterious dark lines mean?” Ryan asked.
“With the light microscope at the ME office I could only crank the magnification to four hundred. That’s not enough to really see detail.”
“Enter Ireland’s big gorilla.”
“Mm.”
“We’re now viewing hard copy from her SEM analysis.” Aborted slurp.
“Mm.”
I’d singled out and was studying one photo. A white band at the bottom provided the following information:
Mag=1.00 KX 20µm EHT=4.00kV Signal A=SE2 Date: 16 Oct
WD=6mm Photo No=18
“What’s that?” Ryan’s face was right beside mine.
“Femoral section 1C magnified a thousand times.”
“Looks like a moon crater circled by frozen waves.” Ryan pointed at a jagged crack shooting from the crater’s center. “That one of your weird dark lines?”
Without answering, I exchanged the photo for another. Femoral section 2D showed two fissures originating within the Haversian system.
One by one I studied every image.
Twelve of the twenty showed microfracturing.
“It’s not an artifact,” I said. “The cracks are real.”
“What caused them?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do they mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lunch?” Ryan asked.
“But I intend to find out.”
“That’s my girl,” Ryan said.
My mind was already triaging possibilities. No evidence of a fungus. A disease process seemed unlikely. So did trauma, even repeated trauma to the femur.
I reexamined each image.
The cracks seemed to be originating deep within the canals and radiating outward. What could distribute strain so deep and so widespread within bone to cause such a phenomenon?
Pressure?
Ryan placed a sandwich in front of me. Ham? Turkey breast? I took a bite, chewed, swallowed. My mind was spinning too fast to notice.
Vascular pressure? Lymphatic?
A phone rang somewhere in the same time zone.
“Shall I get that?” Ryan asked from far off.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
I heard Ryan’s voice. Didn’t listen to his words.
Pressure due to expansion?
Expansion of what?
Ryan said something. I looked up. He was beside me, palm pressed to the mouthpiece of the portable.
“What might expand and place stress deep within bone tissue?”
“Marrow?”
“I’m talking about inside the compact bone, not in the marrow cavity.”
“I don’t know. Water. Do you want to take this? The caller’s pretty insistent.”
“Who is it?”
“Woman named Stallings.”
Anger flashed from nerve ending to nerve ending.
My first reaction was to order Ryan to disconnect.
Then I changed my mind.
“I’ll take it,” I said, reaching for the portable.
Patting my head, Ryan stepped from the kitchen.
“Yes.” Practically hissed.
“Allison Stallings.”
“I know who you are.
What I don’t know is how you have the audacity to phone my home?”
“I thought maybe we could talk.”
“You thought wrong.” My voice could have flash-frozen peas.
“I’m not trying to compromise your investigation, Dr. Brennan. Really, I’m not. I write true-crime books and I’m scouting an idea for my next project. It’s nothing more sinister than that.”
“Where do you get off crashing my crime scenes?”
“Your crime scenes?”
I was too furious to answer.
“Look, I have a police scanner. When I heard a call concerning a satanic altar, it caught my attention. Right now people are nuts for voodoo and witches. Then the body washed up at Lake Wylie and I thought the situation was worth pursuing.”
“You’re a paparazzo. You sell photos exploiting personal tragedy.”
“My books don’t make a lot of money. Occasionally I sell a picture. The income puts bread on the table.”
“Mutilated children always sell. Too bad you didn’t get a close-up of Klapec.”
“Come on, you can’t really fault me. This thing has all the elements. Satanic ritual. Male prostitution. Fundamentalist Southern politico. Now a murdered witch.”
“What do you want?” Through tightly clamped molars.
“I’m neither a cop nor a scientist. To keep my work accurate I must rely on those actually involved in the investigations—”
“No.”
“I know you shut me down last time we talked, but I was hoping I could persuade you to change your position.”
I did?
“What did I tell you?”
“Is this a test?” Chuckling.
“No.” Definitely not laughing.
She hesitated, perhaps confused, perhaps searching for the best spin.
“When I asked for your help, you said no and hung up. Then you called back and reamed me out for showing up at your crime scenes. Frankly, I found it a bit of an overreaction. When I dialed you an hour later, to see if you’d cooled off, you refused to pick up.”
“Did you phone the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill?”
“Yes.” Wary. “Dr. Tyrell was less than cooperative.”
“What did you tell him concerning our conversation?”
Again, she hesitated, choosing her words.