Two kids watched from the opposite shoulder, spindly legs hanging from cutoff jeans, fishing gear strapped to their bikes. Not bad as far as gawkers go. But it was still early, just past eight. Others would arrive once our little army was spotted. Passersby, the neighbors, perhaps the media, all salivating for a glimpse of the misfortune of others.
Larabee was standing on the lawn with Joe Hawkins, two CMPD uniforms, one black, one white, and the pair of crime scene unit techs who’d helped recover the bear bones.
Someone had made a Krispy Kreme run. Everyone but the black cop held a Styrofoam cup and a doughnut.
Boyd leaped up, nearly knocking himself unconscious against the roof when Ryan and I left him in the backseat. Righting himself, he stuck his snout through the six inches of open window and began licking the exterior glass in a circular pattern. His yips followed us to the little circle beside the blacktop.
After introductions, during which I simply identified Ryan as a visiting police colleague from Montreal, Larabee laid out the plan. Officers Salt and Pepper looked hot and bored, seeming curious only about Ryan.
“This property is supposed to be abandoned, but the officers are going to look around to see if they can interest anyone in their warrant.”
Officer Salt shifted his feet, finished the last of his chocolate with sprinkles. Officer Pepper folded his arms across his chest. The muscles looked the size and strength of banyan roots.
“Once the officers give the go-ahead, we’ll cruise the dog around, get his thoughts on the place.”
“His name is Boyd,” I said.
“Boyd sociable?” asked the CSU tech with the granny specs.
“Offer him a doughnut, you’ve got a buddy for life.”
Red sun flashed off a lens as she turned to look at the chow.
“Boyd hits, we dig,” Larabee went on. “We find any human remains our anthropologist here determines to be suspicious, the warrant says we can toss the place. Everyone OK with that?”
Nods all around.
Ten minutes later the cops were back.
“No signs of life in the house. Outbuildings are empty,” said Officer Salt.
“Place has the charm of a hazardous waste dump,” said Officer Pepper. “Watch yourselves.”
“OK,” Larabee said to me. “You three take the western half.” He raised his chin at Hawkins. “We’ll take the east.”
“And we’ll be in Scotland afore ye,” sang Ryan.
Larabee and Hawkins looked at him.
“He’s Canadian,” I said.
“Boyd hits, give a holler,” said Larabee, handing me a radio.
I nodded and went to leash the chow, who was bursting with eagerness to serve.
The farm wasn’t really a farm. My herb garden produces a higher yield of edibles.
The crop here was kudzu.
North Carolina. We’re mountains. We’re beaches. We’re dogwoods, azaleas, and rhododendron.
And we’re up to our asses in kudzu.
The legume took one look at the Southern states and said, “Hot diggity!”
In Charlotte, you can sit on your porch on summer nights and hear the kudzu edge forward. My friend Anne claims she once set out a marker. In twenty-four hours the runners on her banister had advanced two inches.
Kudzu covered the rusted chain-link fence at the back of the property. It slithered along power lines, swallowed trees and bushes, and blanketed the house and its outbuildings.
Boyd didn’t care. He dragged me from vine-draped oak to magnolia to pump house to well, sniffing and wagging as he had at the annex.
Other than the depression left behind by the bear bones, nothing got a rise but the chipmunks and squirrels.
Boyd of the Baskervilles.
By eleven the mosquitoes had drained so much blood I was starting to think “transfusion.” Boyd’s tongue was barely clearing the ground, and Ryan and I had said “fuck” a thousand times each.
Fat, leaden clouds were drifting in overhead and the day was turning dark and sluggish. An anemic little breeze carried the threat of rain.
“This is pointless,” I said, wiping the side of my face on the shoulder of my T-shirt.
Ryan didn’t disagree.
“Except where we went digging for bear by the McCranie hedge, dogbreath hasn’t so much as stiffened a whisker.”
“He liked that sneak swoop-and-sniff of your tush.” Ryan addressed Boyd. “Didn’t think I was watching, did you,
