Point of information. My petite, gray-haired mother has a mind like a spaghetti-bowl highway interchange. Conversations with her swoop and diverge, sometimes loop back, sometimes don’t. We were now on the subject of my work. Which, for some reason, fascinates her.
Additional POI. Regardless of the momentary off- or on-ramp, Mama can home in on evasion like a night-vision drone. I didn’t bother dodging this question.
“Apparently not,” I said.
“Is that dreadful woman still causing you grief? What’s her name?”
“Margot Heavner.”
“Why on earth is she so hateful to you?”
“Years ago, I offended her.”
“How? Poisoned her parakeet? Spit in her grits?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
I laid it all out. Hardin Symes. The Body interviews. The revelation about Hardin’s autism. Heavner’s failure to counter Body’s antivax insanity. My calling her unprofessional.
While I was talking, Birdie padded into the kitchen, sat, and fixed me with a contemplative gaze. Either that, or he was hungry.
Choosing to interpret the cat’s appearance as a gesture of rapprochement, I got up and filled his bowl. With the canned stuff he prefers, not the dry crunchers. He sniffed, then stretched, to show his indifference. As I turned away, he abandoned the theater and eagerly dived in.
When I’d finished my story, Mama’s reaction was quick and severe.
“I can forgive the man his flat-out stupidity. Lord knows he can’t help the IQ he’s been dealt. But Nick Body is mean-spirited, unprincipled, and vile as a snake.”
“You listen to his show?” Surprised.
“I listen to everything.”
“But if you don’t like him—”
“I need to be aware of the foolishness flying loose in the world.”
I said nothing.
“I once heard Body go full-out about the government training up cats for mind control. Can you believe that?”
My eyes drifted to Birdie. I believed it.
“Another time, he was off to the races on white genocide, saying immigration, miscegenation, birth control, and abortion are being used to cause white people to go extinct.”
“Used by whom?”
“He was a bit vague on that. Not to mention population genetics. The man is completely ignorant of scientific facts. He doesn’t believe in climate change, insists global warming is a sinister hoax. Like the moon landing. And fluoridation of the water supply.”
I tried to change the subject. Mama was on a roll.
“Did you know that the little weasel rarely shows his face in public? No one knows where he lives or what he does when he’s not contaminating the airwaves with his drivel.”
“I’ve read that.”
“He spews his hogwash, then transmits the files through servers in Bosnia, Borneo, Belarus, and who knows where else so that the original IP is untraceable.”
Final POI. My mother is a crack-bang genius with computers and manipulation of the World Wide Web. Partly my doing. When she was in one of her funks and checked into a rehab facility, I bought her a laptop to engage her mind. To my surprise, she jumped onto the internet with gusto, subsequently enrolled in and completed scores of courses on various cyber skills. Now there’s no stopping her.
I glanced at the clock: 5:20 p.m.
“Mama, I should go.”
I could picture the tightening at the corners of the Dior-tinted lips. Then, “Darling, here’s my counsel, take it or leave it. You say Heavner had no scruples about wagging her chin with this circus-clown fool of a blowhard. You say she’s now blocking you from a job you’ve been performing for decades. Do it anyway.”
“Sorry?”
“Beat Heavner at her own game. If you’re feeling up to it, that is.”
“Her own game?” I was lost.
“Good lord, Tempe. You’re brilliant, but you can be thick.” Mega-patient sigh. “ID the faceless man on your own. If you succeed, it’ll irk the patootie out of your new boss. Maybe impress the big enchilada in Chapel Hill.”
“But—”
“And investigating will give you something to do besides stewing at home all day. As long as it won’t compromise your condition, of course.”
Nope. Didn’t touch that.
“You still there?”
“I am.”
“The shower cut off. I should spritz myself up. You’ll consider what I said?”
“Yes.” Anything to avoid thoughts of Clayton Sinitch fadoodling my mother.
Consider it I did, turning and twisting the idea a zillion different ways.
Accept my fate and focus my professional energies elsewhere? Fact is, I get plenty of requests. Though, to be honest, not enough to fill the financial gap left by my loss of income at the MCME. I still drew a salary for my teaching at UNCC, and payment for my consulting to the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale, the LSJML, in Quebec, but the purchase of the Montreal condo and the cost of construction at the annex had me stretched pretty thin. Ryan would help, of course, but there was no way I’d allow him to pay more than his share. More stressors for the curve.
So. Follow Mama’s suggestion and forge ahead with the faceless man on my own? Clearly, I was already invested. Otherwise, why had I taken the photographs and blood sample?
In addition to Hawkins, I had at least one other ally. But who was the anonymous texter? And why had he or she sent me those images?
Going rogue could turn out to be the final career slayer on my home turf. On the other hand, what did I have left to be slain?
At five forty, I grabbed the handset and dialed Chapel Hill. The office of the chief medical examiner was closed for the day. Of course it was. I left a voice mail for the big enchilada.
By six, I was fizzing to the fingertips with agitation.
Finally, the call I was expecting.
* * *
An hour later, I was sitting in a back booth at Sassy’s Chili Shack, a grubby fifties-style diner behind a patch of weedy gravel on Wilkinson Boulevard. Sassy’s looked like it might have started life as a Hell’s Angels clubhouse. The patrons looked like card-carrying gang members or wannabes. Shaved heads. Flamboyant facial hair. Sleeveless denim, lots of leather, studs, and dangling keys. You get the picture.
Though I like dives, Hawkins’s go-to spot is not my fave. The dump smells of cigarette smoke and beer-marinated wood, and the menu offers little but chili and ’cue.
Hawkins sat across from me, looking like an upright cadaver in glasses. He was working a combo plate involving a lot of dead animals. I was sipping a Perrier with lime. An eyebrow raiser with the tattooed and bearded barman.
An eco-friendly Harris Teeter sack lay on the table between us, the parrot-green fabric discordant in the murky light. Inside it, I could see the top of a large brown envelope. A rectangular bulge I hoped was my phone.
I let Hawkins finish eating before asking if he’d floated queries about the mysterious texter.
“Gotta be cagey,” he said, meaning no.
“What’s in the bag?” Unable to control my curiosity a second longer.
“Copy of Heavner’s file.”
“Holy shit. Seriously?”