Read The Bone Yard for Free Online Page B

or a knife in the ribs.” He unwrapped the cigar, tossed the cellophane in the trash, and began gnawing on the end of the replacement.
    “Mind if I ask you something, Agent Vickery?”
    “I do if you call me ‘Agent Vickery.’ I don’t if you call me ‘Stu.’ ”
    “Okay, Stu. Do you ever light ’em? The cigars?”
    “Never. And it’s not just because every place has banned smoking. Truth is, I hate the smell of cigar smoke. But I like the smell of cured tobacco. Like the flavor, too, in small doses.” He gave the cigar an appreciative chomp. “But chewing tobacco—doing dip—that is one nasty habit.”
    “You’ll get no argument from me about that,” I said, thinking back to my close Copenhagen encounter of the nausea-inducing kind. I chose not to point out that Stu had a thin line of brownish drool trickling from the corner of his mouth.
    It’s possible he noticed me looking at it, or maybe he simply felt a tickle on his chin; in any event, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed. “So,” he said to Angie, “did you ask him yet?”
    Angie turned red. Silence hung like a soap bubble in the air, so I popped it. “Ask me what?”
    “Um . . .” She hesitated. “Ask if you’d consult with us on this case.”
    “Which case? This case?” I raised the skull into the center of the triangular space defined by the three of us. Angie nodded. “Do you mean in a bigger way? More than a take-a-quick-look sort of way?” She nodded again. “Don’t you have forensic anthropologists in Florida who can help you with this?”
    She looked sheepish. “We’re a little shorthanded right now.”
    “What about Tony Falsetti,” I said, “over in Gainesville? Doesn’t he do a lot of work for FDLE?” Tony, who was a Knoxville native and a fine forensic anthropologist, had been hired some years ago to teach at the University of Florida. My impression was that his lab at UF worked with Florida investigators in the same way my own lab consulted with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and other agencies.
    “He’s gone,” she said. “To Yugoslavia, or what used to be Yugoslavia. I sent him an e-mail, and he wrote me back from Sarajevo. He’s working on a huge project to identify people killed in the Balkan civil war. They’re searching for his replacement, but they haven’t filled the position yet.”
    I named another former student, now teaching in Tampa, at the University of South Florida. “Did you try her? I think she consults on forensic cases.”
    “She’s in Africa all month,” said Angie. “Teaching Nigerian medical students about skeletal trauma.”
    “Nigeria? Well, good for her. Sounds like I need to keep better tabs on our graduates, though. Maybe I should put tracking collars on them.”
    “Ha,” said Vickery. “While you’re at it, could you put shock collars on a few of my colleagues?”
    I laughed, and Angie laughed, too, which did my heart good. “So,” she said, “any chance we could beg, borrow, or steal an hour or so more of your expertise before I put you on your flight back to Knoxville?”
    I pulled out my pocket calendar and took a look. I’d blocked out the next two weeks to write a journal article—an account of an experiment in which we’d tested the ability of side-scan sonar to image a body we’d submerged in the Tennessee River—but my heart wasn’t in the project.
    “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll make you a better offer. If you can sign this skull over to me for a few days, I’ll take it back to Tennessee, finish cleaning it, and write a forensic report on it. Then I’ll see if I can get you a facial reconstruction. There’s a forensic artist who works in the bone lab, and she does great work. If Joanna can put a face on this skull for us, somebody might recognize it.” I paused. “And if you can find me a cheaper place to stay, I’ll come back for a week and help you look into your sister’s death.”
    A ngie, not Stu, nearly caused