A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)(55)

A grim thought sent a rush of gooseflesh up my arms.

The bone’s small size and cross-sectional shape were consistent with those of an immature human tibia.

My mind was fighting that horrifying possibility when my eyes caught a hint of red embedded in a crack running from one shattered extremity. Blood?

Drawing the fragments closer to the phone, I made out a tiny shred of fabric patterned with flowers or dots.

Paws?

Had the coon been lunching on the remains of a child? Was I looking at a scrap of teddy bear PJs or superhero briefs?

Mouth dry, fingers sweaty slick, I laid down the bones, switched to camera mode, and took several shots, flash strobing bright in the murky gloom. That done, I slipped the fragments into my shirt pocket and stepped to the dumpster into which the coon had been diving.

Groucho hadn’t been messing around. Or, more accurately, he had. Garbage spread out in every direction, strewn like wreckage after a cyclone.

Trash. The detective’s best friend.

Up close, I could see that the dumpster was made of steel and green plastic, had wheels, and was accessed through a slanted front-loading lid. The lid was up. Another indication of carelessness. Or Procyon dexterity.

I leaned over to peer in. The stench blasted me like a sirocco, a blend of liquefaction, fermentation, rot, and microbes. Covering my mouth and nose, I lit the bin’s interior.

Groucho’s gang—the abundance of scatter suggested accomplices—had been selective. Left behind were nonedibles and articles too heavy to mine. A woven vinyl and metal chair. A globe with a broken base. A leather shoe. Light bulbs. Empty containers—Windex, Mr. Clean, Clorox, Gatorade. Cardboard boxes. Rags. Lengths of pipe. I snapped a few shots with my camera app and backed away.

Hoping for clues to the occupants or purpose of the bunker, I moved among the items littering the ground. Saw gnawed slices of pizza, pasta curling like ghostly white worms, ziplocks oozing unidentifiable sludge.

At the far end of the mess lay an eviscerated drawstring plastic bag, innards fanning out as a smaller debris field within the larger. Among the bag’s displaced contents were foil packets, Styrofoam cups, cardboard baskets, and waxy wrappers from Taco Bell, Burger King, and Bojangles’ dinners. Of more interest, a manila file, grease-stained and covered with putrefying beans, fries, bread, meat, and garnish.

I wove my way to the folder and, using a plastic knife, flipped back the cover. Inside were the mangled remains of newspaper clippings, most deteriorated to mushy clumps resembling flattened tofu. Breathing through my mouth, I teased out the only two intact enough to retain legible copy. Each had been cut from a larger page, leaving neither a date nor the name of the paper.

Centered in the first clipping was a head-and-shoulders color shot of a blond-haired, green-eyed boy. Gaps in his front dentition suggested an age of six or seven. The boy was looking straight at the camera, smiling stiffly, a potted palm at his back. I guessed it was a school portrait, first, maybe second grade.

Below the portrait ran the caption: Timothy Horshauser, still missing after five yea …What remained of the accompanying story was lost to a slurry of ketchup, mustard, and mayo.

The second surviving clipping had fared even worse. The coons and condiments had destroyed half of the picture and the entire article.

Still, I recognized the photo’s subject. The caramel skin, the dreadlocks bound with bright pink beads.

Jahaan Cole.

Anger starts like a match flaring in my chest. Spreads like wildfire roaring through dry grass.

I felt the tiny hot flame.

Upper incisors vising onto my lower lip, I spread the file’s soggy contents and took shot after shot, blind to my subject matter in the dark. The tunnel was bake-oven hot, the only sound the soft click of my phone. Outside, far beyond the camo, a muted whine, there then gone.

Suddenly, the low-battery warning filled my screen.

Crap.

A few more pics, then I carefully regathered the whole slimy mess. Tucking the folder under one arm, I rose, hoping the clipped articles, along with the bone fragments, would be enough to justify a search warrant.

Exiting the camo elicited more pupil retrenchment. I scanned while walking, hand-shielding my eyes. The clearing was empty, filled with the same silence echoing everywhere but inside my chest.

The sun had dropped and was now skimming the tree line. In the late-afternoon shadows, off to the right, I noticed a blackened cylinder rising to a height of roughly five feet. Its walls were constructed of horizontal steel bands with open slits between. A vegetation-free zone circled the base, a mix of gravel and cinders. I suspected the thing was a home incinerator. Somehow I’d missed it on my inward charge toward the bunker.

The source of the charred bone in my pocket?

I made the short detour. Two yards out, I smelled burnt paper, smoky wood, and melted plastic. Not pleasant but not as bad as the decaying organics I’d left behind.

The raccoons had also worked their magic here, but not with the same enthusiasm as at the dumpster. Or maybe it was a human hand, sloppy while emptying the ashy dregs.

Several blackened hunks lay helter-skelter, too twisted and distorted to identify. Not so a small duct-taped pouch. Though it was obscured by the shadows and covered with soot, I recognized the fabric. Not daisies or polka-dots. Rabbits doing handsprings and somersaults against a field of red.

I dropped to my knees, set the folder aside, and began thumbnailing the end of the tape. Badly heat-seared, the adhesive refused to budge. I gouged deeper, again and again, my perspiration falling as small dark blotches on the acrobatic bunnies.