A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)(20)

Slidell flashed me a glance. Then the dark lenses swiveled back, and his face shut down.

I tried wrestling more from the text, gave up, vowing to seek help from Pete. Born in Riga, he was fluent in Latvian.

“That it?”

I looked up. Slidell was pointing at an unpaved road T-boning in from the right.

“Slow down,” I said.

He did.

The sign was twisted off-angle from the pole but readable. Honeysuckle Road.

“The garage is a couple hundred yards down, after a curve to the left.” I gestured a wide arc.

Slidell made the turn.

The road cut like a dull yellow wound through the scrub vegetation bullying up to its edges. Starlings watched mutely from utility lines overhead. Our tires hummed on the hard-packed clay.

Running along each shoulder, had there been shoulders, were the remnants of ancient wood fences. Vines wormed and coiled around the crossbars and posts, filling every millimeter of open space, turning the tumbledown structures into thick, green walls. After the openness of the highway, the narrow corridor felt close and confining.

Slidell cursed as the 4Runner bounced and lurched over potholes deep enough to bottom out in Antarctica. An eon, then the curve, and the tight passage opened up.

The clearing was large, at least an acre across, ringed by forest rising dark and leafy against the impossibly blue summer sky. The ground was bare and the same dried-mustard color as the road.

The 4Runner ground to a stop. Slidell scanned with cop eyes. We both did.

No voice shouted a warning. No mongrel charged out to challenge our presence.

The garage lay off to the left, a big metal box with a flat roof and two sliding bay doors on the road-facing side. Beside the bays, a customer entrance with a window on the upper half, covered on the inside by closed venetian blinds.

Cars and trucks were parked between us and the garage, maybe fifty in all, arranged in rectangles. The northeastern cluster was the farthest away.

Off to the right, past the southeastern rectangle, squatted a trailer that had probably rolled off the assembly line sometime in the sixties. Toothpaste-aqua below, pus-gray above, the exterior was as dinged and rusty as a retired battle tank. The windows, one on the end and one on the side, had cracked panes barely hanging on to their frames. The wheels were gone, and weed-wrapped cinder blocks supported the corners.

“Looks like Affordable Art ain’t big on security.” Slidell’s eyes were still roving.

It was true. There was no chain linking, no gate, no barrier of any kind. Not a single security camera in sight.

We both got out, leaving the doors wide. The air was hot and still and smelled faintly of skunk.

“Yo!” Slidell yelled.

Several starlings winged off.

Slidell cupped his hands to his mouth and tried again, louder.

More startled birds.

I strode to the customer entrance and tried the knob. Locked. I knocked. No answer.

I looked at Slidell. He shrugged. We met at the northeast rectangle. It was organized like a pair of parallel centipedes, the vehicles parked headlight to headlight, with a driveway between the two double rows.

Slot 8 was the last in the uppermost string. In it was a black Hyundai Sonata. Slidell said it was a 2014 model. The plate said it called West Virginia home.

Slidell tried the doors, found all four locked. Reaching below the left front wheel guard, he ran his hand over the top of the tire. Withdrew a set of not-so-cleverly hidden keys. Used the fob to disengage the locks.

I took surgical gloves from my shoulder bag and handed a pair to Slidell. He rolled his eyes, I think, but pulled them on before sliding behind the wheel. I gloved and dropped into the passenger seat. The car’s interior smelled of overheated plastic and vinyl. The seat felt like a griddle burning my jeans.

Slidell found nothing on or under the dash, nothing in the center console. The glove box was empty. The back seat was empty.

“What kinda clown drives around with no ID?” Slidell, gruff. “No registration, no proof of insurance.”

“Think it’s a rental?”

“No paperwork on that, either.”

Slidell used one key to start the engine, then checked the car’s GPS history. Found no record of previous trips.

We got out and circled to the rear. Slidell used the second of the two keys to open the trunk.

Standard jack and spare. Standard folding windshield sunshade. Not-so-standard neon-green duffel.

“Come to Papa, sweetheart.”

Slidell snagged the handles and dragged the duffel closer to the back bumper. The whuurp of the zipper triggered another avian flurry.

Gesturing a take-it-away palm, Slidell stepped sideways to make space for me. Or to give himself more room to sweat.

A starling chose that moment to land on the car to our right. Tilting, head down and tail up, it observed us with two shiny black eyes.

Momentary flash of a beheaded goose.

Forcing the image back to its mental repository, I leaned in and began pulling items from the duffel.

Not sure what I expected. What I found were a screwdriver with an insulated handle, a butter knife with the blade filed into a shiv, a portable cell phone charger, a flashlight, binoculars, toilet paper, and an empty plastic bottle with a screw cap. I handed each to Slidell. He arranged the collection on the trunk floor. Considered.

Then, “Looks like a surveillance kit?”

“For?”