“And this Agent Aiker might have been closing in,” said Rinaldi.
“Maybe,” I said.
“So the perp gets spooked, kills Aiker, dumps his head and hands in the privy, and hauls his body to Lancaster County?” Slidell sounded unconvinced.
“We’ll know when we get the dental records,” I said.
Slidell turned to Jansen.
“Your Cessna was also flying a cargo of snort. Snort’s heavy time. You get nailed, you do a long stretch inside. Why bother with herbs?”
“Entrepreneurial sideline.”
“Like Brennan’s birds.”
I didn’t bother to comment.
“Yes,” Jansen said.
“Why goldenseal? Why not ginseng, or something grows you hair or perks up your pecker?”
Jansen looked at Slidell like she might have eyed a dead spider in her cat’s litter.
“Goldenseal makes more sense.”
“Why’s that?”
“Some people think it masks certain drugs in your urine.”
“Does it?”
“Does a line of coke turn you into a rock star?”
Jansen and Slidell locked eyes. For a few seconds neither spoke. Then Slidell rethumbed his waistband.
“We’ve been grilling Pounder.”
“And?”
“Maroon’s got the brains of a carp. We’re still liking Tyree or Dorton.”
“Might have to rethink that.”
The five of us turned as one. Joe Hawkins was standing in the doorway.
“You’d better come see this.”
23
WE FOLLOWED HAWKINS DOWN THE CORRIDOR AND AROUND the corner to the intake bay, where a gurney had been rolled onto the weigh-in scale. The pouch it held showed a very large bulge.
Wordlessly, Hawkins unzipped the body bag and laid back the flap. Like a class on a field trip, we leaned in.
Gran called it fay, claimed prescience as a family trait. I call it deductive reasoning.
Perhaps it was Hawkins’s demeanor. Perhaps it was the image I’d conjured in my mind. Though we’d never met, I knew I was staring at Ricky Don Dorton.
The man’s skin was the color of old leather, creased by vertical lines beside his eyes and ears and at the corners of his mouth. The cheeks were high and broad, the nose wide, the hair dead black and combed straight back. Irregular, yellowed teeth peeked from purple, death-slacked lips.
Ricky Don Dorton had died bare-chested. I could see two gold chains in the folds of his neck, and the Marine Corps emblem on his right upper arm, the words SEMPER FI circling below.
Larabee scanned the police report.
“Well, well. Mr. Richard Donald Dorton.”
“Son of a bitch.” Slidell spoke for us all.
Larabee handed the paper to me. I stepped close to Jansen so we could read together.
Larabee asked Hawkins, “You just bring him in?”
Hawkins nodded.
According to the report, Ricky Don was found dead in his bed in an uptown motel.
“Dorton checked in with a woman around one-thirty A.M.,” Hawkins said. “Desk clerk said they both looked hammered. Maid found the body about eight this morning. Knocked, got no answer, figured the room had been vacated. Poor thing’s probably looking through the want ads even as we speak.”
“Who caught the case?” Slidell asked.
“Sherrill and Bucks.”
“Narco.”
“Room held enough pharmaceuticals and hypodermics to stock a Third World clinic,” said Hawkins.
