Page 33 of Evil Bones
“If this ‘nutcase,’ as you call him, isn’t stopped, I fear people may die.”
CHAPTER 8
While driving home, I phoned Slidell, not really expecting him to pick up.
He did.
“Yo.”
“It’s Tempe.”
“Yeah? A name’s helpful. You know, ’cause I don’t have caller ID or nothin’.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, I relayed the gist of my conversation with Adina Kumar.
Slidell listened, now and then interjecting some quaint Skinnyism. At one point, I thought I heard a woman’s voice in the background.
When I’d finished, he let loose with a particularly colorful reference to a duck and its mother, the vehemence of which startled me. I braced, expecting the usual blow off to follow.
“You’re talking about that psychologist chick?”
“Dr. Kumar.”
“You think she’s solid?”
“I do. She asked a lot of good questions. Especially about the earlier cases for which I had no pics.” The cases for which my approach had been a bit cavalier. Not human? No big deal.
“Like what?” Slidell pressed.
I had to think a moment.
“Like, how far from a drivable road were the remains located? Werethey positioned for easy viewing? Was there a pattern to the way the bodies were displayed? Which parts were removed?”
“Go on.”
“She also asked about the places from which the animals went missing.”
“Not sure we’ve got that intel.”
“We know about Bear.”
I waited out a round of nasal breathing. Then, Slidell surprised me.
“CSU’s been all over the spot that dog wasfound. Maybe Kumar’s onto something. Maybe we should go at it ass back ways. Scope out the place the dogdisappeared.”
“I’m in,” I said.
My first surprise. Slidell pulled up at the Annex at exactly seven a.m., the agreed time.
The weather hadn’t cooled. If anything, the heat and humidity had upped their game. My outdoor thermometer already read eighty-two degrees.
I hurried out and slid into the passenger side of Skinny’s Chevy Trailblazer. The AC was in polar ice cap mode, blasting air cold enough to goose-bump my arms.
Slidell’s company usually brings with it a range of odoriferous delights, the particular mix depending on his prior engagement. A night of surveillance followed by a skipped morning shower. A lunch of pastrami with garlic kraut. A beer in a joint that, forget health regs, still allowed smoking.
My second surprise. That morning, Skinny smelled as flowery as the cologne section in a Sephora. His hair was parted hard on the right and slicked into a greasy swirl on top. His shirt, a madras plaid that looked like an escapee from the sixties, was pressed into creases sharp enough to make surgical incisions.
Though curious, I made no comment on his appearance.
