“It sounds like a fit. But I haven’t seen photos or the original bones.”
“Any reason Cagle might have changed his mind, started avoiding your calls?”
“He was very cooperative when we talked.”
Now the empty air was of Slidell’s choosing.
“You game for a little spin down to Columbia?”
“I’ll be waiting on the steps.”
24
FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER LEAVING THE MCME, SLIDELL AND I were crossing into South Carolina. To either side of I-77 lay a border sprawl of low-end shops, restaurants, and entertainment emporia, a Carolina version of Nogales or Tijuana.
Paramount’s Carowinds. Outlet Market Place. Frugal MacDougal’s Discount Liquors. Heritage USA, abandoned now, but once a mecca for Jim and Tammy Faye’s PTL faithful intent on God, vacation, and bargain basement clothes. Opinions varied as to whether PTL had stood for Praise the Lord or Pass the Loot.
Rinaldi had opted for a trip to Sneedville, Tennessee, to do some digging on Ricky Don Dorton and Jason Jack Wyatt. Rinaldi also planned to run a background check on the pilot, Harvey Pearce, and was intent on a meaningful conversation with Sonny Pounder.
Jansen had headed back to Miami.
Slidell had spoken little since picking me up, preferring the sputter of his radio to the sound of my voice. I suspected his coolness derived from my homophobia crack.
OK by me, Skinny.
We were soon rolling between heavily wooded, kudzu-draped hills. Slidell alternated between drumming the steering wheel and patting his shirt pocket. I knew he needed nicotine, but I needed O2. Through a lot of sighing and throat clearing and drumming and patting, I refused to give the go-ahead to light up.
We passed the exits for Fort Mill and Rock Hill, later Highway 9 cutting east to Lancaster. I thought of Cagle’s headless skeleton, wondered what we would find at his lab.
I also thought of Andrew Ryan, of times we’d been rolling toward a crime scene or body dump together. Slidell or Ryan? Who would I rather be with? No contest there.
The University of South Carolina system has eight campuses, with the mothership parked squarely in the heart of the state capital. Perhaps the Palmetto State founders were xenophobic. Perhaps funds were limited. Perhaps they simply preferred to have their offspring educated in their own backyard.
Or perhaps they foresaw the bacchanalian rite of spring break at Myrtle Beach, and tried reaching across the centuries to discourage a very different type of hajj.
In Columbia, Slidell took Bull Street and turned left at the edge of campus. Failing to locate a spot in the visitor-metered parking area, he pulled into a faculty lot and cut the engine.
“Some egghead gets me ticketed, I’ll tell him to stick it up his PHD.” Slidell pocketed the keys. “You know what those letters stand for, don’t you, Doc?”
Though I indicated no interest, Slidell provided his definition.
“Piled higher and deeper.”
Exiting the Taurus was brutal. The sun was white-hot, the pavement rippling as we crossed Pendelton Street. Overhead, leaves hung motionless, like damp nappies on clotheslines on a windless day.
The USC anthropology facilities were located in a dishwater-blond building named Hamilton College. Built in 1943 to spur the war effort, Hamilton now looked like it could use some spurring of its own.
Slidell and I located the departmental office and presented ourselves to the secretary/receptionist. Dragging her eyes from a computer screen, the woman regarded us through Dame Edna glasses. She was in her fifties, with a mulberry mushroom on her forehead and hair piled higher than a Texas deb’s.
Slidell asked for Cagle.
The deb informed him that the professor was not in.
When had she last seen him?
A week ago Friday.
Had Cagle been on campus since?
Possible, though their paths hadn’t crossed. Cagle’s mailbox had been emptied the immediate past Friday. She hadn’t seen him then or since.
Slidell asked the location of Cagle’s office.
Third floor. Entrance was impossible without written permission.
Slidell asked the location of Cagle’s lab.
Second floor. The deb reiterated the point about written permission.
Slidell flashed his badge.
The deb studied Slidell’s shield, lipstick crawling into the wrinkles radiating from her tightly clamped lips. If she noticed the words “Charlotte-Mecklenburg,” she didn’t let on. She turned a shoulder, dialed a number, waited, disconnected, dialed again, waited again, hung up. Sighing theatrically, she rose, walked to a filing cabinet, opened
