The conversation replayed in my mind as I changed clothes and towel-dried my hair. Had the visit been an attempt to dissuade me from helping Wayne Gamble?

I’d just slipped on sandals when the phone rang.

As usual, Slidell skipped the pleasantries.

What he said stunned me.

And tripped an anger switch in my brain.

Chapter 8

“GONE?”

“Like a long dog.”

“Gone where?”

“Snatched by the fart barf and itch.” Slidell’s voice was tight with fury.

“The FBI seized the entire Gamble-Lovette file?”

“Right down to the paper clips.”

“At the conclusion of the inquiry?”

“No. Right now. Yesterday. Twelve years after the investigation, they came and grabbed the file.”

“Who authorized that?”

“All I could pry loose was that word came from high up.”

“What about Eddie’s notes?”

“No friggin’ way. They weren’t part of the jacket.” I heard a palm smack something solid. “Got ’em right here.”

A body surfaced at the landfill on Thursday. Wayne Gamble came to see me on Friday. Shortly thereafter, a twelve-year-old file was suddenly confiscated. What the hell?

Silence hummed across the line as Slidell and I considered the implications. He broke it.

“Something stinks.”

“Yes.”

“No one fucks with Erskine Slidell.” I’d seen Skinny angry. Often. But rarely with so much emotion.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Call you right back.”

Dead air.

Fifteen minutes later the phone rang again.

“You free?” Slidell asked.

“I could be.”

“Pick you up in ten.”

“Where are we going?”

“Kannapolis.”

Ethel Bradford taught junior and senior chemistry at A. L. Brown High School from 1987 until her retirement in 2004. She still lived in the house she’d purchased upon landing that job.

Save for the blasting AC and angry air whistling in and out of Slidell’s nose, the drive from Charlotte to Kannapolis passed in silence. Skinny alternated between drumming agitated fingers and gripping the wheel so tightly I thought he might crush it.

Though the temperature inside the Taurus was subarctic, the space was ripe with odors. Old Whoppers and fries. Cold coffee. The bamboo mat on which Skinny parked his ample backside.

Slidell himself. The man reeked of cigarette smoke, drugstore cologne, and garments long overdue for hamper or dry cleaner.

I was bordering on queasiness and hypothermia when Slidell pulled to the curb in front of a small brick bungalow with green shutters and trim. Hydrangeas bordered the foundation. Potted geraniums lined brick steps leading to the front porch.

“Is she expecting us?” I asked.

“Eeyuh.”

Pushing off the seat back with an elbow, Slidell hauled himself from behind the wheel. I followed him up the walk.

The inner door swung open before Slidell’s thumb hit the bell.

I’d formed a mental image, perhaps based on my own high school chemistry teacher. Ethel Bradford was younger than I expected, probably just a hair north of sixty-five, slim, with boy-cut auburn hair. Her pale blue eyes looked enormous behind thick round glasses.