Free Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs Page A

open.
    The clip was just ending. Overweight and red-faced, Boyce Lingo was delivering one of his media-grab rants.
    “Those who folow Lucifer must be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Their evil must be stopped before it seeps into our playgrounds and schools. Before it threatens the very fabric of our society.”
    Preacher turned county commissioner, Lingo was a case study of extremist ideology, pseudo-Christianity, pseudo-patriotism, and thinly veiled white-male supremacy. His was a constituency that wanted the economy unregulated, the welfare state smal, the military strong, and the citizenry white, native born, and strictly New Testament.
    “You moron!” Had I been holding the remote, it would have gone sailing.
    Birdie shot from the bed.
    “You boneheaded twit!” My palms smacked the mattress.
    I heard soft padding, assumed Birdie was increasing his distance. I didn’t care. Tonight’s grandstanding was typical Lingo. The man had a pattern of attaching himself to anything of media interest for a minute of air time or a half inch of print.
    Kiling the TV and lamp, I lay in the dark, tense and angry. I tossed, kicked the covers, punched the pilow, thoughts and images kaleidoscoping in my brain. The cauldrons.
    The putrefied chicken. The human cranium and femora.
    The school portrait.
    Who was she? Had Skinny’s decision been wise? Or should we be broadcasting the girl’s image?
    Had the photo already flashed on TV screens somewhere far away, in a market disconnected from the coverage that entered Charlotte homes? Had some anchor reported a missing teen, vanished while on her way home from a bal game, from having pizza with friends? When? Had it been before the advent of centers for missing children and Amber alerts?
    Had her parents made pleas to the camera, Mom crying, Dad steely-voiced? Had neighbors and townsfolk offered solace, inwardly thankful that their own children were safe?
    That, this time, tragedy had not selected them?
    How had the picture ended up in that cauldron? The skul? Was it her skul?
    And what about the leg bones? Did both come from a single individual?
    Did the skul, the femora, and the photo represent one person? Two? Three? More?
    My clock radio said 11:40. Twelve twenty. One ten. Out in the garden, a milion tree frogs croaked. Erratic gusts scratched leaves across my bedroom window screen.
    Why so warm this deep into the fal? It would be cold in Quebec by now. Montreal might even be sporting a dusting of snow.
    I thought about Andrew Ryan. I did miss him. But the pragmatist brain cels were definitely right. I had to move on.
    I smiled recaling Katy’s postprandial “coincidence.” Her matchmaking had started several years back, intensified with the arrival of Summer. Judd the pharmacist. Donald the veterinarian. Barry the entrepreneur. Sam the what? I never was sure. I refused al offers.
    My daughter, the yenta of Dixie.
    Now it was Charlie, the public defender.
    Katy did have a point. Charlie Hunt was smart, good-looking, available, and interested. Why not give it a try?
    Charlie was a 9/11 widower. That meant he carried baggage. Was he ready for a relationship? Was I? I also toted a satchel or two.
    Puh-leeze. The man offered coffee.
    Lyrics popped into my head. England Dan and John Ford Coley.
    I’m not talking ’bout moving in,
    And I don’t want to change your life…
    There you go.
    Moving in. Moving on.
    Good old Pete was moving on.
    Pete and Summer.
    What was Summer’s last name? Glotsky? Grumsky? I made a note to ask.
    Again and again, my thoughts veered back to the celar.
    I remembered the dol with the miniature sword piercing her chest. The knife.
    The chicken had been decapitated. Had the goat been slaughtered in a similar fashion?
    Had there realy been a human sacrifice? Like Mark Kilroy, the colege student kiled in Matamoros. Lingo insinuated as much, but he was just yapping. He had no information.
    But then, neither did I.
    I resolved to find some.

    9
    THOUGH I’D