A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)(41)

I was rolling by eight. Didn’t bother phoning Slidell. It was Saturday morning. My nerves weren’t up to one of his harangues. Besides, this was strictly a scouting mission.

I followed the same route Slidell had taken. West out of Charlotte, a dip below the border, then back up to Cleveland County, North Carolina.

This time, my navigation system wove me through a tangle of meandering side roads off NC-198. Not far from Art’s Affordable Garage and Buffalo Creek. Not close to anything but the occasional frog, deer, or squirrel. Feral hog?

An hour and a half after I left the annex, the trusty Waze lady directed me onto an unmarked road. Minutes later, she announced my arrival. I did a slow drive-by, scanning the setup. Saw pretty much what I’d observed during my cyber-recon: trees, a short driveway, a whole lot of twelve-foot fencing, the galvanized steel darkened by weather and time. And one additional tidbit. A keypad beside the gate that looked shiny new.

Two passes, roughly half a mile in each direction, revealed absolutely no signage. To either side stretched impenetrable conifer, oak, and beech, their massive branches reaching high to form sun-choking canopies overhead.

The road seemed abandoned by time, save for one shack and two mobile homes on the side opposite the chain linking. The windows of the shack were covered with plywood, the walls with spray-painted graffiti, all pictorial, none skilled.

The owners of the mobile home to the south were also long gone. All glass was broken, and the door was missing. Tangled kudzu wrapped the trailer’s every inch like a leafy green quilt.

The mobile home to the north told a different story. The exterior was white with brown striping. The siding and windows appeared recently washed. A wooden ramp enclosed by banisters and picket rails led, through one right-angle turn, to a do-it-yourself wooden stoop at the trailer’s side door. A red awning jutted from its rear. Below the awning, two molded-plastic chairs and a small table, all Crayola yellow.

Noting the possibility of neighbors, I returned to the fenced property, pulled into the drive, and got out. And felt I’d stepped into the Amazon basin.

I held a moment, listening. The forest was eerily mute. No whining locusts or chirping birds. No creaking branches or shifting leaves. It seemed every living thing was burrowed in, trying to stay cool.

I glanced up. The sun, still low, sizzled behind a gauzy smear of morning haze. The old adage popped into my brain. Mad dogs and Englishmen. No argument here. I wouldn’t be lingering outside long.

The gate was roughly five yards from the road. I walked to it, aware of the gritty crunch of my sneakers on the gravel. Of the possibility I was being observed. Of wilderness in every direction. Of feral hogs.

A security camera mounted high on a metal beam kept vigil like an unblinking alien eye. I saw no buzzer or intercom box, nothing to allow communication with what lay beyond.

I held absolutely still, straining for a hint of human activity. Heard no generator, sprinkler, or mower. No slamming door. No dialogue floating from a radio or TV. No voice ordering me to halt.

If people were back there, they were damn quiet.

I looked up again. The camera stared down. Though it appeared relatively new, I couldn’t tell if the system was functioning or not.

I scanned my surroundings. Noted no utility or phone lines. No mailbox. No address marker. On the gate, a sign saying Private Property Keep Out. A spiffy fresh keypad.

Beyond the gate, the driveway tunneled through hardwoods and pines for about thirty feet, then a jungle of leaves, branches, and kudzu choked off the view. I spotted no tire tracks or oil stains in the gravel. No trash cans. No dog poop or litter. Just vegetation so dense it seemed to soak up every pixel of daylight. My frustration came out as a heartfelt curse.

Stepping from the gravel, I moved north through the scrub bordering the shoulder. Insects billowed from the weeds in frenzied clouds, making me regret my decision to forgo socks.

I caught no glimpse of anything among or beyond the dark trunks and shadows. The fence, though weathered, was well maintained. Beams similar to the one at the gate rose at regular intervals along its inside perimeter. Twenty feet tall, they held nothing. Rectangular discolorations on the outside of the chain linking beneath each beam suggested the possibility of missing signs. Now I was getting somewhere.

A sortie south yielded the same picture. And more bites.

Back in the car, waiting for the AC to kick in, I scratched and debated my next move. A casual internet search of the address had yielded no links. My visit to it had proven spectacularly unproductive. Not sure what I’d expected. A mailbox marked F. Vodyanov, KGB?

I was itchy and irritable. My shirt was damp and stuck to my back. Still, before declaring the trip a bust, I decided on one last effort.



* * *



It seemed I was expected. Or the occupant had been tracking my moves.

As I shifted into park, the trailer door opened and a man hop-stepped onto the stoop. The stump of a thigh projected from one leg of his grubby camo shorts. A faded red tee hung loose on his rib-shadowed chest. A blue bandanna covered dreads perhaps not rewoven since Da Nang.

Dreads watched me climb from my car, eyes unreadable. The sheathed knife on his belt sent a more obvious message.

“Good morning.” I smiled my warmest smile.

Dreads nodded, a barely perceptible angling of his chin. Which grazed his ZZ Top beard across the dog tags hanging from his neck.

“I’m Temperance Brennan.” In case he cared about names.