by Kathy Reichs
The only vehicles present in the Yum-Tum’s lot were a rusty gray pickup and an ancient red Ford Escort. I parked beside the truck and got out.
Through the iron-barred glass door I could see a single clerk behind a chest-high counter. An alarm beeped when I entered.
I noted ceiling cameras, one facing the counter, another in a corner, pointed at the door. Both looked old. I guessed they were programmed to rerecord every twenty-four hours.
If they functioned at all.
Note to self. Ask Slidell about security tapes.
A man in Bermuda shorts, high-top sneakers, and a Panthers jersey was paying at the register. While waiting him out, I took in more detail.
Beer, soft drinks, and milk in the coolers. Racks of salted this and fried that, with warnings of health hazards printed on the bags. Donuts under warming lights, glistening like plastic. Hot dogs revolving on a greasy rotisserie. The place was an intestinal terrorist attack.
Wordlessly, the clerk handed Bermudas his change. She had platinum hair, milky skin, and dark goth eyes. The effect was both tough and innocent. Like a preteen Halloween mishap.
As Bermudas exited, I plucked a pack of mints and approached the counter.
“Busy shift?”
“That it?”
“It is.” I held out a ten. “Were you working last night?”
“I work every weeknight.”
“So you saw the accident?”
The Morticia eyes rose to mine. Narrowed. “Sort of.”
“What’d you make of it?”
“Why are you asking?”
“I’m with the medical examiner’s office. I examined the victim.”
“Like, her body?”
No, genius. Her argyle socks. “Yes, her body.”
“You’re, like, the coroner?”
“I work for the medical examiner.”
“Like, at a morgue?”
Remove the word like from her vocabulary and the kid would be tongue-tied.
“Yes.”
“I guess that’s cool.” She slammed the register and handed me my change. “Did you have to go to school for, like, decades?”
“Yes. May I ask your name?”
“Shannon King.”
“Are you a student, Shannon?” I gestured at an anthology of short stories lying on the counter.
“I’m taking some classes at CPCC.”
“That’s very enterprising.”
“My English instructor makes us keep a blog. It’s a bitch, because, you know, I’m here every night, some afternoons. How much can you say about Cheetos and Pepsi?”
“Must make you a good observer.”
King eyed me, uncertain if I was mocking her. Then, “I guess.”
“The accident, for example.”
“I saw zip. Heard nothing until the sirens.”
“Really?”
“Look, I thought what you’re thinking. I said to myself, Shannie, you must’ve heard something. Tires. Wham-o. Something. I didn’t.”
“Until the sirens.”
She drew a breath, then her upper teeth came down on her lower lip.
“Except?” I prompted.
“I don’t want to sound stupid.”
Too late.
“Of course you won’t,” I said.
“I’m not sure. I may be like, backfilling.”
“Any little thing could turn out to be important.”
“Maybe someone screamed. But not nearby. And it was more like a yelp. But it could have been a passing driver changing radio stations. Or a cat.”
“Or a scream.”
“Yeah, a scream.”
“You didn’t go out to check?”
“Yeah, I did. The store was, like, totally empty. But there was nothing. Same as every night.”
“Did you see any vehicles slowing or accelerating rapidly?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“It was good that you looked.”
“Listen, I’ll try to comb my memory.” She shrugged, embarrassed at what she viewed as unbridled enthusiasm. “Might help my blog. That’s all.”
“That would be good.”
“Or I can ask customers. Be cool about it, you know. Like, ‘Did you see that accident Monday night?’ The way you did with me.”
I passed her the Polaroid I’d taken in the morgue cooler. “Have you ever seen this girl?”
“Is that her?” Staring at the photo. “The girl that got killed?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit. She’s young.”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“We don’t know. We’re trying to find out.”
“I wish I could help.” She started to slide the photo toward me on the counter. Stopped. “I could keep it. Show it around. You want I should do that?”
I considered, decided against it. Not with her alone here at night. No way I wanted her alerting the wrong person.
“I’ll talk to the investigator in charge about getting you a copy.”
“What’s his name?”
“Detective Slidell.”
“He’ll call me?”
“He’ll do that.”
I handed her my card. “Please phone if you think of anything. Anything at all.”
My hand was on the door when her question stopped me.
“What was she doing out here so late?”
“I don’t know, Shannon. But I will find out.”
Thirty minutes later I was home in bed.
THAT NIGHT MY dreams were ragged snatches, all forgotten upon waking. Save one.
Ryan was walking down a shadowy road overhung with dark, intertwined branches. His back was to me.
I called to him, but he didn’t stop. A car approached from beyond, illuminating his long, lanky form in the brilliance of its headlights.
Ryan turned. Slowly, his features morphed into Pete’s.
The Pete/Ryan figure came toward me, twirling a folded umbrella. When close, he poked my side with the tip, again and again.
I opened my eyes. Felt pressure under my rib cage.
Reaching beneath me, I felt something hard on the mattress. Retrieved it.
My Latvian amber ring had slipped from my finger. Or I’d worried it off in the night.
Either way, one thing was clear. I’d lost weight. Not long ago the fit had been tight. Stress poundage?
I lay a while, replaying the dream in my head. What would ol’ Sigmund think?
I pondered the Peruvian dogs. Considered the best approach.
Then I remembered something far more important. Wednesday morning. Katy and I were scheduled to Skype at oh-nine-hundred, as she’d put it. East coast time.
My eyes shot to the clock. Seven fifty-five.
I quickly showered, shampooed, and dried my hair.
As I exited the bathroom, my iPhone was singing. I reached it too late.
The phone icon indicated two voice messages. A third landed as I stood with the device in my hand. Seriously? In twenty minutes?
I ran through the list.
The vet’s office had called with a reminder about Birdie’s annual checkup.
Pete. No message. With congratulations on a successful divorce?
Shannon King. It took a moment for the name to click. The clerk at the Yum-Tum. King left a number and asked that I call her.
Time check. 8:20 A.M.
I pulled on sweats, barefooted down to my office, and launched Skype on my Mac. Katy wasn’t online. Made sense. I was forty minutes early. It was only 4:50 P.M. in Afghanistan.
Birdie jumped up and nudged my hand from the keyboard.
“Sorry, Bird. Breakfast it is.”
The cat followed me into the kitchen and watched as I concocted another feline gastronomic delight. Tuna with instant oatmeal. I vowed to hit the PetSmart that day for a case of canned food and a huge bag of crunchers.
Cat fed, I spooned French roast into the basket, added water, and clicked on the coffeemaker.
>
While Mr. Krups did his thing, I phoned Shannon King. She answered, sounding distracted. Or sleepy.
“Listen. I’m like, combing my mind. Like we said.”
How long could that take?
“Good,” I said.
“But I’m coming up empty. I promise, tonight I’ll be all over this.”
“That’s great.” I checked my watch.
“And I was thinking. Like, maybe I could come to the morgue.”
The morgue.
“Thank you for offering, but nonprofessional visits aren’t allowed. It’s a question of security and bio-protocol. But please let me know if you remember anything.”
Returning to the study, I checked Katy’s online status with Skype.
Nope.
Fair enough. 8:28 A.M. here. 4:58 P.M. there.
To kill time I did a quick scan of my e-mail.
Three donation requests.
An ad for a natural way to burn fat.
A picture of Harry with an Irish wolfhound and her current squeeze. One was named Bruce, the other Albert. I’d no idea who was who.
An Exercise After Forty newsletter.
Nothing from Katy. Good. No cancellation.
Unable to sit still, I raced up the stairs two at a time. Exercise after forty.
Returning to the bathroom mirror, I dabbed on mascara and blush.
As though Katy would notice.
More after-forty exercise down to the kitchen. A refill on coffee, then I rechecked Skype.
No change. 8:42 here. 5:12 there.
I rolled my chair sideways and plucked an issue of JFS from the shelf above the desk. Scanned the table of contents.
Crossover immunoelectrophoresis for discovery of blood proteins in soil. Confocal microscopy for examination of fired cartridges. STR melting curve analysis for genetic screening. Detection of meglumine and diatrizoate from bacillus spore samples.
Though scintillating topics, nothing held my attention.
Time check. Nine twenty. Still no Katy.
Easy, Brennan. Bagram Air Force Base is the safest location in Afghanistan.
So Katy had assured me. Ditto Pete.
I sipped my tepid coffee and stared at the unchanging screen. Willing my daughter to appear.
9:40.
10:05.
Stomach knotted, I thought about the Jane Doe in the MCME cooler.
Maybe the girl’s mother was drinking coffee as I was, trusting that her daughter was somewhere safe.
Easy.
Back to the journal.
No go.
For the millionth time I wondered about Slidell. I knew he’d go all Dirty Harry about a kid being killed on his patch. That he’d pursue every lead. But he had his priorities.
The disappearance of a hard-working single mother who was locally known forced the death of an unknown probable illegal and possible hooker onto the back burner.
On screen, the digits in the upper corner changed to 10:22.
She’s calling from a USO center, I told myself. Dozens lined up for the Internet. Troops talking to their wives, their husbands, their kids, their mothers. Lingering over good-byes.
Keep busy. Do your job.
I reduced Skype to the dock and entered a series of keystrokes.
In 2005, recognizing a need to address the dual problems of missing persons and unidentified remains, the National Institute of Justice held a giant meeting in Philadelphia called the Identifying the Missing Summit. Later, a deputy attorney general created the National Missing Persons Task Force and charged the U.S. Department of Justice with identifying and developing tools to solve missing-person and unidentified-decedent cases. The task force recommended the creation of a centralized data bank.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NamUs, resulted from that recommendation. NamUs is free, online, and available to everyone.
The NamUs home page appeared on my screen, with links to three databases: Missing Persons, Unidentified Persons, Unclaimed Persons. Hoping someone had reported my Jane Doe missing, I chose the first.
Search parameters appeared. I entered sex as female, race as white, age as adolescent. Leaving the category “ethnicity” blank, I filled in Date Last Known Alive, Age Last Known Alive, and State Last Known Alive. Then I hit search.
And got zero matches.
I changed the age descriptor to late teen/young adult.
Still no matches.
I entered Hispanic/Latino for ethnicity.
Nada.
Changed the age descriptor back to adolescent.
Nothing.
Disappointed but not surprised, I did the only thing I could. Taking information from my copy of the girl’s ME file, I entered her into the Unidentified Persons database. Physical, medical, and personal descriptors. Clothing. Accessories. A brief summary of the circumstances surrounding her discovery.
There was so little to enter. No scars. No tattoos or piercings. No dental work. No implants. No deformities.
Just a normal, healthy teenager. Dead.
10:40. Still no ring from Skype.
Head to the office and get on with the mummy bundles?
I decided to give Katy a few more minutes.
I logged in to the Doe Network, the International Center for Unidentified and Missing Persons.
Same result.
I was finishing up when my iPhone sounded.
“Yo. Doc.” Slidell was chewing on something.
“Yes.” Staring at a picture of Katy taken two summers back at the Outer Banks. Wind-tossed and caught by late-afternoon sun, her long blond hair shimmered like gold.
“Spent some time with the brain trust out on Old Pineville Road. These dipshits couldn’t find their own assholes if—”
“Did you learn anything useful?”
“You kiddin’ me? Checked out a party junk store, a U-store facility, a garden center looked like it specialized in mold, and a dozen other shitholes holding on by suction cups. Welding shop was my personal favorite. Chick at the desk must’ve spent a whole lotta time sucking fumes. Could’ve waltzed the corpse in with me and Dumbella wouldn’t have taken notice.”
“No one recognized the photo?” I’d sent Slidell a copy of my cooler Polaroid.
“No one knew shit.”
“Did you visit a convenience store called the Yum-Tum?”
“Yeah. That was a treat.”
“Did you ask about security tapes?”
“Camera’s broke because the owner’s broke. Fuckwit actually said that.”
“Did any other businesses have CCTV or security cameras? Maybe one that might have caught the road, maybe even the accident?”
“Same story everywhere. The tapes are reused every twenty-four hours.”
“What about the vehicle? Did you get a lab report back on the paint?”
“Oh, yeah. They put it right at the top of the priority list and sent the report over by limo.”
“Did you try body shops? Ask if anyone brought in a car with damage consistent with a pedestrian hit?”
“You been drinking a lot of coffee this morning?”
Ignoring that, I told Slidell about my NamUs and Doe Network searches.
“No surprise there. Larabee sent her through every system on the planet. I checked MP cases. No one’s reported a kid missing that fits her profile.”
“How far back did you go?”
“Far enough. Clearly she ain’t local.”
“She could be a runaway.”
For several beats no one said anything. I could hear muted traffic noises in the background. Slidell spoke first.
“The kid’s moving under the radar. Carrying no papers. No keys. Nothing. The odds we hang a name on her ain’t real good. What are ya gonna do?”
“We’ve still got to try.”
“Chief’s got my balls in a sling with this woman’s gone missing.”
“Double task, detective.”
Slidell made a noise, then disconnected.
11:02. So much for Skype.
I typed an e-mail to Katy. Sorry to miss you. Everything okay? Suggest another time. Love, Mom.
On to the dogs.
But instead of heading upstairs to get dressed, I got more coffee and returned to my desk.
What are ya gonna do?
I dialed the SBI Crime Lab in Raleigh. Asked for Josie Cromwell in the Forensic Biology and DNA section. After a short delay she picked up.
“Ms. Cromwell.”
“Hey, Josie. Tempe Brennan.”
“How you doing, girl?”
“Good. And you?”
“Can’t complain. Still know where all the bodies are buried?”
“A few. Are you busy up there?”
“Just sitting around, keeping my nails clean.”
We both laughed. It was a quote from a man she’d recently beaten out for a project manager spot.
“How’s it feel being boss?” I asked.
“Has its perks. So, what’s happening? You coming up to Raleigh?”
“Sadly, no. I’m calling to ask a favor.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I’ve got a young girl, midteens, a hit-and-run victim. Struck from behind and left to die.”
“Lord in heaven.” I could see Josie shaking her head, short black dreads bobbing with the motion.
“I’m not sure how committed the lead detective is. He thinks she’s illegal, probably in the life.”
“Just another dead hooker.”
“We’ve got prints, but the kid’s not in any system. We can’t find an MP with her profile. We swabbed for DNA, of course.”
“Which is useless until you have a name so we know who to contact for comparison.”
“Exactly. But the pathologist found semen. We’re hoping that might lead somewhere.”
“I hear you. But the backlog here is freaking out those higher up the pay scale.”
“Any chance you can goose my girl up the queue?”
“I’ll do what I can. Which is probably not much.”
“Tim Larabee is submitting the samples.” I gave her the pertinent case information. “I’m in your debt.”
“You better believe it.”
Still, I didn’t log out to head to the lab.
I returned to my e-mail and opened the picture I’d scanned and sent to myself and Slidell the previous night. The girl lay in her body bag, pale and still.
I wondered how she’d looked in life, when her spirit still lived in her face, and her quirks and mannerisms made her unique. The squint of an eye, the tilt of a brow, the lopsided upturning of one lip.
