Bare Bones: A Novel by KATHY REICHS

Author:KATHY REICHS
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Temperance (Fictitious character) - Fiction, Crime & mystery, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, Brennan, General, Women Sleuths, Thrillers, Crime & Thriller, Fiction, Thriller, Adventure
ISBN: 1448106583
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2003-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Got a good answer?”

“These birds can go for a hundred thousand dollars.”

“You’re shitting me. Who’d pay a hundred grand for a bird?”

“People with more money than brains.”

“That legal?”

“Not if the bird is wild.”

“You’re thinking black market?”

“Could explain why the feathers were hidden with the coke.”

“Doesn’t Tweetie have to be chirping to bring the bucks?”

“It could have died in transport.”

“So the mope saves the feathers thinking they might be worth something.”

“And buries the carcass with the other animals he’s slaughtered.”

“The bear bones?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Thought you said they were garden-variety black bears.”

“I did.”

“That an endangered species?”

“No.”

A moment of empty air.

“Doesn’t hang,” Slidell said.

“Why so many bears?”

“Where’s the money?”

That had been Ryan’s question, too.

“I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.”

And I knew just whom I was going to ask.

19

FOR THE FIRST DAY IN ALMOST A WEEK,THERE WAS NO NEED TOgo to the MCME. I’d done

what I could with the privy remains, the Cessna passenger, and the bears.

Slidell could get the feathers personally if he needed them quickly.

Over grilled cheese sandwiches at Pike’s Soda Shop, Ryan and I discussed the

wisdom of leaving for the beach. We decided it was better to hold off for a few

days than to be yanked back to Charlotte.

We also discussed my suspicions concerning the illegal trade in wildlife. Ryan

agreed my theory posed a possibility given the feathers found with the cocaine,

and the large number of black bears buried at the farm. Neither he nor I had any

idea how the bears figured in, nor what the link was among the farm, Tamela

Banks and Darryl Tyree, the privy victim, and the Cessna’s owner, pilot, and

passenger, though there was clearly a cocaine connection to Tyree.

After an hors d’oeuvre run to Dean & DeLuca’s at Phillips Place, we returned to

the annex. While Ryan changed into running gear, I phoned Mrs. Flowers.

Wally Cagle, the forensic anthropologist who’d done the headless, handless

skeleton from Lancaster County, had called. She gave me the number.

Next I checked my voice mail messages.

Katy.

Harry.

Harry’s son, Kit, warning that his mother would be calling.

Harry.

Harry.

Pierre LaManche, the chef de service for the medicolegal section at the crime

lab in Montreal. An informant had led police to a woman buried seven years in a

sandpit. The case was not urgent, but he wanted me to know that an

anthropological analysis was required.

My arrangement with the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine

Légale was that I would rotate through the lab on a monthly basis, doing all

cases for which my expertise had been requested, and that I would return

immediately should a critical investigation, disaster, or subpoena demand my

presence. I wondered if the sandpit case could wait until my planned return to

Montreal at the end of the summer.

Two hang-ups.

Knowing the Harry-Kit-Harry-Harry sequence meant my sister and twenty-something

nephew were arguing, I put that conversation off.

As I disconnected, man and his best friend entered the kitchen, Boyd trailing

like a shark on a blood scent. Ryan wore running shorts, a sweatband, and a T

that suggestedPERFORM RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS AND SENSELESS BEAUTY.

“Nice shirt,” I said.

“Half the proceeds went toward saving the Karner Blue.

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