Also By Kathy Reichs

GRAVE SECRETS

FATAL VOYAGE

DEADLY DÉCISIONS

DEATH DU JOUR

DÉJÀ DEAD

SCRIBNER

1230 Avenue of theAmericas

New York,NY10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2003 by Temperance Brennan, L.P.

Al rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SCRIBNERand design are trademarks of Macmil an Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

Text set in Stempel Garamond

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reichs, Kathy.

Bare bones/Kathy Reichs.

p. cm.

1. Brennan, Temperance (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Forensic anthropology—Fiction. 3. Women anthropologists—Fiction. 4. Endangered species

—Fiction. 5. Smuggling—Fiction. 6.North Carolina —Fiction. I. Title.

PS3568.E476345B375 2003

PS3568.E476345B375 2003

813’.54—dc21

2003040725

ISBN 0-7432-6008-2

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

Dedicated to al those fighting to protect our precious wildlife,

especial y:

TheUnited States Fish and Wildlife Service

The World Wildlife Foundation

The AnimalsAsia Foundation

Acknowledgments

IWISH TO EXPRESS GRATITUDE TOCAPTAINJOHNGALLAGHER(retired); to Detective John Appel, Guilford County, North Carolina, Sheriff ’s Department (retired); to Detective Chris Dozier, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department; and, especial y, to Ira J. Rimson, P.E., for help with the Cessna/drug scenario.

Many of those working to protect endangered wildlife gave generously of their time and expertise. Special thanks to Bonnie C. Yates, forensics specialist, Morphology/Mammals Team Leader, and Ken Goddard, director, Clark R. Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory; to Lori Brown, investigative assistant, and Tom Bennett, resident agent in charge, United States Fish and Wildlife Service; and to Agent Howard Phelps, Carolyn Simmons, and the staff at the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. You are on the front lines, battling to save what we can’t afford to lose. Your efforts are appreciated.

David M. Bird, Ph.D.,McGil University , provided information on threatened bird species. Randy Pearce, DDS, and James W. Wil iams, J.D., shared their knowledge of the Melungeons of Tennessee. Eric Buel, Ph.D., director, Vermont Forensics Laboratory, coached me on amelogenin. Michael Baden, M.D., and Claude Pothel, M.D., enlightened me on the details of diatoms and death by drowning.

Captain Barry Faile, Lancaster County Sheriff ’s Department, and Michael Morris,LancasterCounty coroner, were patient with my questions. Michael Sul ivan, M.D., welcomed me at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner facility. Terry Pitts, D.Min., NCFD, offered suggestions on funeral home basements. Judy H. Morgan, GRI, kept me accurate onCharlotte real estate and geography.

I appreciate the continued support of Chancel or James Woodward of the University of North Carolina–Charlotte.Mercito André Lauzon, M.D., chef de service, and to al of my col eagues at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale.

A thousand thanks to Jim Junot for answers to a mil ion questions.

Thanks to Paul Reichs for comments on the manuscript, and to the whole ragtag beach bunch for title suggestions and other minutiae.

My incredibly patient and bril iant editor, Susanne Kirk, took a rough piece of work and made it flow.

A special thanks to my supersonic agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. You delivered Wyatt Z. the same day I deliveredBare Bones.It was a very good year.

1

ASIWAS PACKAGING WHAT REMAINED OF THE DEAD BABY,THEman I would kil was burning pavement north towardCharlotte .

I didn’t know that at the time. I’d never heard the man’s name, knew nothing of the grisly game in which he was a player.

At that moment I was focused on what I would say to Gideon Banks. How would I break the news that his grandchild was dead, his youngest daughter on the run?

My brain cel s had been bickering al morning. You’re a forensic anthropologist, the logic guys would say. Visiting the family is not your responsibility. The medical examiner wil report your findings. The homicide detective wil deliver the news. A phone cal .

Al valid points, the conscience guys would counter. But this case is different. YouknowGideon Banks.

I felt a deep sadness as I tucked the tiny bundle of bones into its container, fastened the lid, and wrote a file number across the plastic. So little to examine. Such a short life.

As I secured the tub in an evidence locker, the memory cel s floated an image of Gideon Banks. Wrinkled brown face, fuzzy gray hair, voice like ripping duct tape.

Expand the image.

A smal man in a plaid flannel shirt arcing a string mop across a tile floor.

The memory cel s had been offering the same image al morning. Though I’d tried to conjure up others, this one kept reappearing.

Gideon Banks and I had worked together at theUniversity ofNorth Carolina atCharlotte for almost two decades until his retirement three years back. I’d periodical y thanked him for keeping my office and lab clean, given him birthday cards and a smal gift each Christmas. I knew he was conscientious, polite, deeply religious, and devoted to his kids.

And he kept the corridors spotless.

That was it. Beyond the workplace, our lives did not connect.

Until Tamela Banks placed her newborn in a woodstove and vanished.

Crossing to my office, I booted up my laptop and spread my notes across the desktop. I’d barely begun my report when a form fil ed the open doorway.

“A home visit real y is above and beyond.”

I hit “save” and looked up.

TheMecklenburgCounty medical examiner was wearing green surgical scrubs. A stain on his right shoulder mimicked the shape ofMassachusetts in dul red.

“I don’t mind.” Like I didn’t mind suppurating boils on my buttocks.

“I’l be glad to speak to him.”

Tim Larabee might have been handsome were it not for his addiction to running. The daily marathon training had wizened his body, thinned his hair, and leatherized his face. The perpetual tan seemed to gather in the hol ows of his cheeks, and to pool around eyes set way too deep. Eyes that were now crimped with concern.

“Next to God and the Baptist church, family has been the cornerstone of Gideon Banks’s life,” I said. “This wil shake him.”

“Perhaps it’s not as bad as it seems.”

I gave Larabee the Look. We’d had this conversation an hour earlier.

“Al right.” He raised a sinewy hand. “It seems bad. I’m sure Mr. Banks wil appreciate the personal input. Who’s driving you?”

“SkinnySlidel .”

“Your lucky day.”

“I wanted to go alone, butSlidel refused to take no for an answer.”

“Not Skinny?” Mock surprise.

“I think Skinny’s hoping for some kind of lifetime achievement award.”

“I think Skinny’s hoping to get laid.”

I pegged a pen at him. He batted it down.

“Watch yourself.”

Larabee withdrew. I heard the autopsy room door click open, then shut.

I checked my watch. Three forty-two.Slidel would be here in twenty minutes. The brain cel s did a col ective cringe. On Skinny there was cerebral agreement.

I shut the computer down and leaned back in my chair.

What would I say to Gideon Banks?

Bad luck, Mr. Banks. Looks like your youngest gave birth, wrapped the tyke in a blanket, and used him as kindling.

Good, Brennan.

Wham-o! The visual cel s sent up a new mental image. Banks pul ing a Kodak print from a cracked leather wal et. Six brown faces. Close haircuts for the boys, pigtails for the girls. Al with teeth too big for the smiles.

Zoom out.

The old man beaming over the photo, adamant that each child would go to col ege.

Did they?

No idea.

I slipped off my lab coat and hung it on the hook behind my door.

If the Banks kids had attended UNC–Charlotte while I was on the faculty, they’d shown little interest in anthropology. I’d met only one. Reggie, a son midrange in the offspring chronology, had taken my human evolution course.

The memory cel s offered a gangly kid in a basebal cap, brim low over razor-blade brows. Last row in the lecture hal . A intel ect, C+ effort.

How long ago? Fifteen years? Eighteen?

I’d worked with a lot of students back then. In those days my research focused on the ancient dead, and I’d taught several undergraduate classes.

Bioarchaeology. Osteology. Primate ecology.

One morning an anthro grad showed up at my lab. A homicide detective with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD, she’d brought bones recovered from a shal ow grave. Could her former prof determine if the remains were those of a missing child?

I could. They were.

That case was my first encounter with coroner work. Today the only seminar I teach is in forensic anthropology, and I commute betweenCharlotte andMontreal serving as forensic anthropologist to each jurisdiction.

The geography had been difficult when I’d taught ful -time, requiring complex choreography within the academic calendar. Now, save for the duration of that single seminar, I shift as needed. A few weeks north, a few weeks south, longer when casework or court testimony requires.

North CarolinaandQuebec ? Long story.

My academic col eagues cal what I do “applied.” Using my knowledge of bones, I tease details from cadavers and skeletons, or parts thereof, too compromised for autopsy. I give names to the skeletal, the decomposed, the mummified, the burned, and the mutilated, who might otherwise go to anonymous graves. For some, I determine the manner and time of their passing.

With Tamela’s baby there’d been but a cup of charred fragments. A newborn is chump change to a woodstove.

Mr. Banks, I’m so sorry to have to tel you, but—

My cel phone sounded.

“Yo, Doc. I’m parked out front.” SkinnySlidel . Of the twenty-four detectives in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD Felony Investigative Bureau/Homicide Unit, perhaps my least favorite.

“Be right there.”

I’d been inCharlotte several weeks when an informant’s tip led to the shocking discovery in the woodstove. The bones had come to me.Slidel and his partner had caught the case as a homicide. They’d tossed the scene, tracked down witnesses, taken statements. Everything led to Tamela Banks.

I shouldered my purse and laptop and headed out. In passing, I stuck my head into the autopsy room. Larabee looked up from his gunshot victim and waggled a gloved finger in warning.

My reply was an exaggerated eye rol .

The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner facility occupies one end of a featureless brick shoebox that entered life as aSearsGardenCenter . The other end of the shoebox houses satel ite offices of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Devoid of architectural charm save a slight rounding of the edges, the building is surrounded by enough asphalt to paveRhode Island .

As I exited the double glass doors, my nostrils drank in an olfactory cocktail of exhaust, smog, and hot pavement. Heat radiated from the building wal s, and from the brick steps connecting it to a smal tentacle of the parking lot.

Hot town. Summer in the city.

A black woman sat in the vacant lot acrossCol ege Street , back to a sycamore, elephant legs stretched ful length on the grass. The woman was fanning herself with a newspaper, animatedly arguing some point with a nonexistent adversary.

A man in a Hornets jersey was muscling a shopping cart up the sidewalk in the direction of the county services building. He stopped just past the woman, wiped his forehead with the crook of his arm, and checked his cargo of plastic bags.

Noticing my gaze, the cart man waved. I waved back.

Slidel ’s Ford Taurus idled at the bottom of the stairs, AC blasting, tinted windows ful up. Descending, I opened the back door, shoved aside file folders, a pair of golf shoes stuffed with audiotapes, two Burger King bags, and a squeeze tube of suntan lotion, and wedged my computer into the newly created space.

Erskine “Skinny”Slidel undoubtedly thought of himself as “old school,” though God alone knew what institution would claim him. With his knockoff Ray-Bans, Camel breath, and four-letter speech,Slidel was an unwittingly self-created caricature of aHol ywood cop. People told me he was good at his job. I found it hard to believe.

At the moment of my approach Dirty Harry was checking his lower incisors in the rearview mirror, lips curled back in a monkey-fear grimace.

Hearing the rear door open,Slidel jumped, and his hand shot to the mirror. As I slid into the passenger seat, he was fine-tuning the rearview with the diligence of an astronaut adjusting Hubble.

“Doc.”Slidel kept his faux Ray-Bans pointed at the mirror.

“Detective.” I nodded, placed my purse at my feet, and closed the door.

At last satisfied with the angle of reflection,Slidel abandoned the mirror, shifted into gear, crossed the lot, and shot across Col ege onto Phifer.

We rode in silence. Though the temperature in the car was thirty degrees lower than that outside, the air was thick with its own blend of odors. Old Whoppers and fries. Sweat. Bain de Soleil. The bamboo mat on whichSlidel parked his ample backside.

SkinnySlidel himself. The man smel ed and looked like an “after” shot for an antismoking poster. During the decade and a half I’d been consulting for theMecklenburgCountyME , I’d had the pleasure of working withSlidel on several occasions. Each had been a trip to Aggravation Row. This case promised to be another.

The Bankses’ home was in the Cherry neighborhood, just southeast of I-277,Charlotte ’s version of an inner beltway. Cherry, unlike many inner-cityquartiers,had not enjoyed the renaissance experienced in recent years by Dilworth and Elizabeth to the west and north. While those neighborhoods had integrated and yuppified, Cherry’s fortunes had headed south. But the community held true to its ethnic roots. It started out black and remained so today.

Within minutesSlidel passed an Autobel car wash, turned left offIndependence Boulevard onto a narrow street, then right onto another. Oaks and magnolias thirty, forty, a hundred years old threw shadows onto modest frame and brick houses. Laundry hung limp on clotheslines. Sprinklers ticked and whirred, or lay silent at the ends of garden hoses. Bicycles and Big Wheels dotted yards and walkways.

Slidel pul ed to the curb halfway up the block, and jabbed a thumb at a smal bungalow with dormer windows jutting from the roof. The siding was brown, the trim white.

“Beats the hel outta that rat’s nest where the kid got fried. Thought I’d catch scabies tossing that dump.”

“Scabies is caused by mites.” My voice was chil ier than the car interior.

“Exactly. You wouldn’t have believed that shithole.”

“You should have worn gloves.”

“You got that right. And a respirator. These people—”

“What people would that be, Detective?”

“Some folks live like pigs.”

“Gideon Banks is a hardworking, decent man who raised six children largely on his own.”

“Wife beat feet?”

“Melba Banks died of breast cancer ten years ago.” There. I did know something about my coworker.

“Bum luck.”

The radio crackled some message that was lost on me.

“Stil don’t excuse kids dropping their shorts with no regard for consequences. Get jammed up? No-o-o-o problem. Have an abortion.” Slidel kil ed the engine and turned the Ray-Bans on me.

“Or worse.”

“There may be some explanation for Tamela Banks’s actions.”

I didn’t real y believe that, had spent al morning taking the opposite position with Tim Larabee. ButSlidel was so irritating I found myself playing devil’s advocate.

“Right. And the chamber of commerce wil probably name her mother of the year.”

“Have you met Tamela?” I asked, forcing my voice level.

“No. Have you?”

No. I ignoredSlidel ’s question.

“Have you met any of the Banks family?”

“No, but I took statements from folks who were snorting lines in the next room while Tamela incinerated her kid.”Slidel pocketed the keys. “Excusez-moiif I haven’t dropped in for tea with the lady and her relations.”

“You’ve never had to deal with any of the Banks kids because they were raised with good, solid values. Gideon Banks is as straitlaced as—”

“The mutt Tamela’s screwing ain’t close to straight up.”

“The baby’s father?”

“Unless Miss Hot Pants was entertaining while Daddy was dealing.”

Easy!The man is a cockroach.

“Who is he?”

“His name is Darryl Tyree. Tamela was shacking up in Tyree’s little piece of heaven out onSouth Tryon .”

“Tyree sel s drugs?”

“And we’re not talking the Eckerd’s pharmacy.”Slidel hit the door handle and got out.

I bit back a response.One hour. It’s over.

A stab of guilt. Over for me, but what about Gideon Banks? What about Tamela and her dead baby?

I joinedSlidel on the sidewalk.

“Je-zus. It’s hot enough to burn a polar bear’s butt.”

“It’s August.”

“I should be at the beach.”

Yes, I thought. Under four tons of sand.

I fol owedSlidel up a narrow walk littered with fresh-mown grass to a smal cement stoop. He pressed a thumb to a rusted button beside the front door, dug a hanky from his back pocket, and wiped his face.

No response.

Slidel knocked on a wooden portion of the screen door.

Nothing.

Slidel knocked again. His forehead glistened and his hair was separating into wet clumps.

“Police, Mr. Banks.”

Slidel banged with the heel of his hand. The screen door rattled in its frame.

“Gideon Banks!”

Condensation dripped from a window AC to the left of the door. A lawn mower whined in the distance. Hip-hop drifted from somewhere up the block.

Slidel banged again. A dark crescent winked from his gray polyester armpit.

“Anyone home?”

The AC’s compressor kicked on. A dog barked.

Slidel yanked the screen.

Whrrrrp!

Pounded on the wooden door.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Released the screen. Barked his demand.

“Police! Anyone there?”

Across the street, a curtain flicked, dropped back into place.

Had I imagined it?

A drop of perspiration rol ed down my back to join the others soaking my bra and waistband.

At that moment my cel phone rang.

I answered.

That cal swept me into a vortex of events that ultimately led to my taking a life.

2

“TEMPEBRENNAN.”

“Pig pickin’!” My daughter gave a series of guttural snorts. “Barbecue!”

“Can’t talk now, Katy.”

I turned a shoulder toSlidel , pressing the cel phone tight to my ear to hear Katy over the static.

Slidel knocked again, this time with Gestapo force. “Mr. Banks!”

“I’l pick you up at noon tomorrow,” Katy said.

“I know nothing about cigars,” I said, speaking as softly as I could. Katy wanted me to accompany her to a picnic given by the owner of a cigar and pipe store. I had no idea why.

“You eat barbecue.”

Bam! Bam! Bam!The screen door danced in its frame.

“Yes, bu—”

“You like bluegrass.” Katy could be persistent.

At that moment the inner door opened and a woman scowled through the screen. Though he had an inch on her in height, the woman hadSlidel hands down in poundage.

“Is Gideon Banks at home?”Slidel barked.

“Who askin’?”

“Katy, I’ve got to go,” I whispered.

“Boyd’s looking forward to this. There’s something he wants to discuss with you.” Boyd is my estranged husband’s dog. Conversations with or about Boyd usual y lead to trouble.

Slidel held his badge to the screen.

“Pick you up at noon?” My daughter could be as unrelenting as Skinny Slidel .

“Al right,” I hissed, punching the “end” button.

The woman studied the badge, arms akimbo like a prison guard.

I pocketed the phone.

The woman’s eyes crawled from the badge to my companion, then to me.

“Daddy’s sleepin’.”

“I think it might be best to wake him,” I jumped in, hoping to defuseSlidel .

“This about Tamela?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Tamela’s sister.Geneva . LikeSwitzerland .” Her tone suggested she’d said that before.

Genevabackhanded the screen. This time the spring made a sound like piano keys.

Removing his shades,Slidel squeezed past her. I fol owed, into a smal , dim living room. An archway opened onto a hal directly opposite our entry point. I could see a kitchen to the right with a closed door beyond, two closed doors to the left, a bath straight ahead at the end.

Six kids. I could only imagine the competition for shower and sink time.

Our hostess let the screenwhrrrrpppto its frame, pushed the inner door shut, and turned to face us. Her skin was a deep, chocolate brown, the sclera of her eyes the pale yel ow of pine nuts. I guessed her age to be mid-twenties.

“Genevais a beautiful name,” I said for lack of a better opening. “Have you been toSwitzerland ?” Genevalooked at me a long time, face devoid of expression. Perspiration dotted the brow and temples from which her hair had been pul ed straight back. The lone window unit apparently cooled another room.

“I get Daddy.”

She tipped her head toward a worn couch on the right wal of the living room. Curtains framing the open window above hung limp with heat and humidity.

“Wanna sit.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Thank you,” I said.

Genevawaddled toward the archway, shorts bunching between her thighs. A smal , stiff ponytail stuck straight out from the back of her head.

AsSlidel and I took opposite ends of the couch, I heard a door open, then the tinny sound of a gospel station. Seconds later the music was truncated.

I looked around.

The decorating was nouveau Wal-Mart. Linoleum. Vinyl recliner. Oak-laminate coffee and end tables. Plastic palms.

But a loving hand was clearly present.

The fril ed curtains behind us smel ed of laundry detergent and Downy. A rip on my armrest had been careful y darned. Every surface gleamed.

Bookshelves and tabletops overflowed with framed photos and crudely made objets d’art. A garishly painted clay bird. A ceramic plate with the impression of a tiny hand, the nameReggiearching below. A box constructed of Popsicle sticks. Dozens of cheap trophies. Shoulder pads and helmets encased forever in gold-coated plastic. A jump shot. A cut at a fastbal .

I surveyed the snapshots closest to me. Christmas mornings. Birthday parties. Athletic teams. Each memory was preserved in a dime-store frame.

Slidel picked up a throw pil ow, raised his brows, set it back between us.God is Love,embroidered in blue and green. Melba’s handiwork?

The sadness I’d been feeling al morning intensified as I thought of six children losing their mother. Of Tamela’s doomed infant.

The pil ow. The photos. The school and team memorabilia. Save for the portrait of a black Jesus hanging above the archway, I could have been sitting in my childhood home inBeverly , on the south side ofChicago .Beverly was shade trees, and PTA bake sales, and morning papers lying on the porch. Our tiny brick bungalow was my Green Gables, my Ponderosa, my starshipEnterpriseuntil the age of seven. Until despair over her infant son’s death propel ed my mother back to her belovedCarolina , husband and daughters fol owing in her mournful wake.

I loved that house, felt loved and protected in it. I sensed those same feelings clinging to this place.

Slidel pul ed out his hanky and mopped his face.

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