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

Clouds hung low, dark and bloated with rain.
    Smoother ground allowed me to yell, “I thought this was Mecklenburg.”
    “County line runs through the middle of the lake. My property spans both sides. My man Skip knew Mecklenburg had a bone lady and suggested I call down there.”
    Clever Skip. The CMPD had rolled it to the MCME. My boss had rolled it to me.
    “Actually, I work for the medical examiner.”
    “You’re a coroner?”
    “Forensic anthropologist. I examine bodies too far gone for normal autopsy.”
    “Like floaters.” Kahn’s use of the term suggested way too much television.
    “Yes. And the skeletal, mummified, decomposed, dismembered, burned, and mutilated.”
    “I’ve seen that on TV. You figure out how old the vic is. Man or woman, black or white. How they died, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “You can do that with just four bones?”
    “Fragments are tough,” I shouted. “It’s good you found more.”
    Something winged from a back tire and ricocheted off a boulder.
    “We getting close?”
    Kahn either ignored or didn’t hear my question.
    “So the more bones, the easier to catch a murderer.”
    “If it’s murder.”
    I had my doubts. Mr. Tibia Fibula’s cortical surfaces were smooth and bleached. Too smooth and bleached. I suspected they’d been around for decades. My money was on a washed-out grave. North Carolina has relaxed laws on private burial. In the Appalachians, it wasn’t uncommon for Grandpa to end up in the backyard with Rover.
    “Were all the bones found at the same location?” I bellowed over the roar of the engine.
    “The first four washed up on Arch Beach. Want to detour over there?”
    “Another time.” An ominous rumbling juddered from the clouds. “And today’s find?”
    “At The Toe, facing the Meck side.”
    “The opposite shore of the peninsula,” I clarified.
    “When the river flooded last week the lake rose fifteen feet. The whole point was underwater, so the bag could have come from either side. Skip was checking out the damage when he saw it snagged on a tree. One whiff and he called me.”
    Bag? Whiff? Apprehension rippled a neural pathway.
    “I thought you found bones.”
    Kahn beamed over his shoulder. “You insisted we call if we found anything else, so we did. We didn’t touch a thing, so the scene’s not compromised.” Definitely too much crime TV.
    Irritation battled uneasiness. Was this a goose chase? A colossal waste of my Saturday?
    With a twist of the wheel, Kahn jerked the Mule ninety degrees, bounced down a hill, and stopped just short of the water. When the motor died, the silence was deafening. “Here we are.”
    I jumped out and surveyed my surroundings.
    We were on a finger of land showing signs of recent submersion. Rippled soil. Scattered pebbles and shells. Mud-coated vegetation.
    I looked a question at Skip. He gestured toward lake.
    Branches snagged my hair as I picked my way toward the water. Kahn and Mr. Loquacious waited upslope.
    A dead fish lay on the muddy shoreline, guts ballooning like mushrooms from its belly. Surprisingly, few flies were availing themselves of the free lunch. Feeding elsewhere? Spooked by the coming storm?
    I scanned the length of a pine tree lying half out of the water. Saw an oversized blue canvas bag ten feet out, its surface crawling with flies.
    I turned to question my chatty companion. “You didn’t touch the bag?”
    “Nope.” Skip could speak. “Smell was enough.”
    “How long since you found it?”
    “Two, three hours?”
    I pulled on gloves, the neural pathways now pinging fortissimo. Smell? Flies on old bones?
    Thankful I’d worn rain boots, I waded into the lake. The men watched without comment.
    Footing was awkward. The mucky bottom sucked with every step I took. The water rose, eventually topping the rims and spilling into the boots, soaking my socks and chilling my feet.
    At midthigh depth, I reached the bag and a waft of odor.
    Hopes of viewing watercolors with Anne vanished