Bones in Her Pocket: A Tempe Brennan E-Short by Kathy Reichs

I CLUNG TO AN UPRIGHT as the Mule bounced and lurched, engine churning, parts rattling like a junker from the Korean War. Though the sky was overcast, it was still warm for October. I blew upward in a vain attempt to unstick hair from my forehead, unwilling to release my death grip on the four-wheel-drive ATV.
    However I’d pictured an artist colony, the image definitely involved more numerous and better maintained roads. This one consisted of dense forest, a cleared seam for power lines, and rough tracks spidering through bushy undergrowth. North Carolina meets Jurassic Park.
    But I hadn’t come to commune with nature, or to nurture the creativity of my right brain. I’d come to recover a corpse.
    My plan for the day had been a nice run on Charlotte’s Booty Loop, lunch with my friend Anne, and a crawl through the galleries in NoDa, the art district north of Davidson Street. I’d gotten as far as lacing my Nikes when the call came from my boss.
    “It’s Saturday,” Anne had protested when I gave her the bad news. “Why can’t it wait?”
    “You want to talk details of decomp before lunch?”
    “Don’t they have cops for this kind of thing?”
    “It’s my case.” As forensic anthropologist for the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner, unidentifiable human remains were my domain. “A fibula, tibia, and two vertebrae were discovered at Mountain Island Lake a few weeks ago. Cops thought it was a missing person named Edith Blankenship.”
    “I heard about her on the news. College kid, right?”
    “Grad student at UNCC.” I referred to the University of North Carolina–Charlotte, my other employer.
    “Not Edith?”
    “Amelogenin testing indicated the bones came from a male,” I said.
    “I love it when you talk dirty.”
    “I still haven’t ID’d the guy.” John Doe was in a box at my lab. Case file: MCME-422-13. I’d requested a sonar scan of the cove where the bones washed ashore. Perhaps not needed now. Less paperwork. Small consolation.
    Anne didn’t congratulate me for my commitment to public service.
    “The same guy who found the bones thinks he’s spotted more.”
    “And you have to retrieve the rest of Mr. Tibia Fibula.” Theatrical sigh.
    “I might have time to meet you after.”
    “Be sure to wash your hands.” Anne disconnected.
    The Mule jogged left and shot downward through an invisible break in the trees, nearly tossing me headfirst out the open side. The guy at the wheel shouted over his shoulder.
    “You good?” Slight accent.
    “Dandy,” I managed.
    My driver was an art cowboy named Emmett Kahn, his term not mine. He’d greeted me an hour earlier with a smile and a bone-crushing handshake.
    I guessed Kahn’s age at somewhere north of sixty. Shaggy black hair, olive skin, lidded dark eyes, muttonchops the size of prime ribs. A successful art dealer, Kahn owned the three hundred acres through which we were taking Mr. Toad’s wild ride.
    “I call the place Carolitaly because the property’s shaped like a boot. We’re heading to The Toe.” The last conveyed in capital letters. “Know much about Mountain Island Lake?”
    I shook my head, jaw clamped. By the time we rattled to our goal, I’d need fillings replaced.
    “The lake was created in 1929 to support the hydroelectric and steam stations. It’s fed by the Catawba River and is the smallest of the three man-mades in Mecklenburg County.”
    “Big.” All I could muster was caveman speak. Land large. Drive bumpy. Tempe rattled.
    “That’s why I have a caretaker. Skip handles security. ” Kahn tipped his head toward the block of cement riding shotgun. More Thud than Skip, the man was square in every sense of the word. Square shoulders, square back, brush cut that squared the top of his head. Aviator shades hid Skip’s eyes, but I hadn’t a doubt he was scowling.
    “Skip’s a cop with Gaston County. Helps to have local grease, you know?”
    The Mule leveled, allowing a clear sight line to the eastern horizon.