Bare Bones

She gazed at us dully, in her shapeless blouse and terrible shorts.

“What do you mean?”

“Tamela tells me things, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“She confides in you?” I said.

“Yeah. Confides in me. Tells me things she can’t tell Daddy.”

“What she can’t tell me?” Banks’s voice sounded high and wheedly.

“Lots of stuff, Daddy. She couldn’t talk to you about Darryl. You shouting at her, tryin’ to get her to pray all the time.”

“I got to be thinkin’ ’bout her sou—”

“Did Tamela discuss her relationship with Darryl Tyree?” Slidell cut Banks off.

“Some.”

“Did she tell you she was pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“When was that?”

Geneva shrugged. “Last winter.”

Banks’s shoulders slumped visibly.

“Do you know where your sister is?”

Geneva ignored Slidell’s question.

“What d’you find in Darryl’s woodstove?”

“Charred fragments of bone,” I replied.

“You sure they from a baby?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe that baby was born dead.”

“There is always that possibility.” I doubted the words even as I spoke them, but couldn’t bear the look of sadness in Geneva’s eyes. “That’s why we have to locate Tamela and find out what really happened. Something other than murder could explain the baby’s death. I very much hope that turns out to be true.”

“Maybe the baby come too early.”

“I’m an expert on bones, Geneva. I can recognize changes that take place in the skeleton of a developing fetus.”

I reminded myself of the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

“Tamela’s baby was full-term.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The pregnancy lasted the full thirty-seven weeks, or very close to it. Long enough that the baby should have survived.”

“There could have been problems.”

“There could have been.”

“How d’you know that was Tamela’s baby?”

Slidell jumped in, ticking off points on his sausage fingers.

“Number one, several witnesses have stated that your sister was pregnant. Two, the bones were found in a stove at her residence. And three, she and Tyree have disappeared.”

“Could be someone else’s baby.”

“And I could be Mother Teresa, but I ain’t.”

Geneva turned back to me.

“What about that DNA stuff?”

“The fragments were too few and too badly burned for DNA testing.”

Geneva showed no reaction.

“Do you know where your sister has gone, Miss Banks?” Slidell’s tone was growing sharper.

“No.”

“Is there anything you can tell us?” I asked.

“Just one thing.”

Geneva looked from her father to me to Slidell. White woman. White cop. Bad choices.

Deciding the woman might be safer, she launched her bombshell in my direction.