Flash and Bones

A neon-lit bar. Slidell, yanking a man by his beard.

A cheesy Kmart apartment. Lynn Nolan wearing a tacky negligee.

The old guy said that thing about poisoning the system. Then Cale said something about it being too late. It was going to happen. Then the old guy said something about knowing your place.

Maddy Padgett, face tight with emotion.

Craig Bogan was a racist, a sexist. Cindi Gamble had flash. Again the bones.

Flash and bones.

A photo of a girl with a blond pixie bob and silver loops in her ears.

Craig Bogan in an armchair, stroking a cat.

Bogan said ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang.

Not “a Mustang.” Or “a blue Mustang.” A ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang.

Ted Raines cringing on a couch.

Every fricking red seed has to be accounted for.

Red beads peeking from the neckline of a jumpsuit.

Galimore talking to a woman in sweaty black spandex. Reta Yountz. A handshake. Yountz’s bracelet jumping like a string of ladybugs doing a conga.

The world slid sideways.

I sucked in my breath.

Was that the message my id had been whispering?

Summoning what little strength I had left, I crawled to the door. Still on hands and knees, I pulled a paper from the back pocket of my jeans and unfolded it on the concrete. In the thin strip of light, I could see the picture and most of the text.

The article was titled “Rosary Pea: Abrus precatorius.” The image showed small red seeds with jet-black spots at one end. The text described them as resembling ladybugs.

In my delirium, atoms collided. Meshed.

Reta Yountz was wearing a bracelet made of rosary pea seeds.

Abrin comes from the rosary pea.

Wayne Gamble was poisoned with abrin.

Maddy Padgett made reference to a contract between Bogan and the Speedway. CB Botanicals. I was in a garden shed.

Padgett described Bogan as a redneck cracker who despised the idea of women and blacks in NASCAR. A man with a wicked temper.

Cindi Gamble was determined to race stock cars. Bogan had watched her race Bandoleros and knew that she could do it.

Nolan’s “old guy” at the Double Shot was Craig Bogan!

Bogan and Lovette weren’t planning a terrorist act. They were arguing about Cindi’s failure to know her place. The system being poisoned wasn’t a water supply. It was Bogan’s twisted vision of NASCAR.

The brutal truth slammed home.

Craig Bogan shot Cindi Gamble to stop her from driving NASCAR. He killed his own son because he and Cale were estranged, and he knew Cale would finger him as a suspect. He murdered Wayne Gamble because Gamble was asking too many questions and prodding the authorities to start a reinvestigation for discovery of new facts.

My vision blurred. My legs trembled.

I reached out to brace myself.

At that precise moment, a bolt slicked sideways.

Grating loudly, the door winged left.

I wobbled but didn’t topple.

A dark figure loomed in front of me, backlit by two powerful beams.

I drew in my arm and shielded my eyes.

Two muddy boots swam into focus.

“Well, well.” Bogan’s tone was bloodless. “Aren’t you the rugged one.”

I sat back on my haunches. Looked up.

Bogan was a black silhouette. One elbow angled out. Something in his hand. “Guess I underestimated you, little lady.”

Bogan shifted. Spread his feet.

Light glinted off a semiautomatic pistol pointed at my head.