“Uh-huh.”
“It’s about Summer.”
Warning bells clanged in my brain.
“I want you to talk to her.”
“I don’t even know her, Pete.”
“It’s probably just the wedding. But she seems”—silver-tongued Mr. Petersons searched for a descriptor —“unhappy.”
“Marriage planning is stressful.” True. But if
“Could you feel her out? See what’s up?”
“Summer and I—”
“It’s important to me, Tempe.”
“I’ll give her a call.”
“It might be better if you invite her to your place. You know. ‘Girls sharing a glass of wine’ kind of thing?”
“Sure.” Masking my horror at the thought. And my annoyance at Pete’s failure to bear in mind that I’d popped my final cork years ago.
“Who knows, buttercup?” Relief put a bounce in Pete’s tone. “You might find you like her.”
I’d have preferred hemorrhoids to a conversation with Pete’s dimwit fiancee.
THAT NIGHT’S STORM MADE THURSDAY’S LOOK LIKE A Fairyland sprinkle. I awoke to windows papered with soggy magnolia leaves and blossoms.
And a Chet Baker ringtone.
Relocating Birdie to my left side, I picked up my iPhone. Through one half-raised lid, I could see that the caller was Larabee. I clicked on.
“Hello.” I did that thing you do when trying to sound wide awake.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No. No. What’s up?”
“We didn’t get a chance to talk before you left.”
“I had errands to run.”
“Listen, a guy came to see me yesterday. He’s wondering if the landfill John Doe could be this Ted Raines guy who went missing earlier this week.”
I sat up and stuffed a pillow behind my head. Birdie stretched all four legs and spread his toes.
“I seriously doubt that drum went into the landfill this week. What’s Raines’s story?”
“He’s a thirty-two-year-old white male. Married, one kid. Lives in Atlanta, works for CDC.”
Larabee was referring to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“How tall is he?”
“Five-eight.”
Males tend to embellish their actual height, and measurements taken from corpses are often inaccurate. The extra inch wasn’t a problem. Raines fit my profile. But Larabee knew that. So why was he calling?
“Didn’t Mrs. Flowers give you my prelim?” I asked.
“I wanted your take.”
“Given what you say, there’s nothing to exclude him based on physical characteristics.”
Birdie recurled into a very small ball.
“What about PMI?” Larabee wanted to know how long I thought the John Doe had been dead.
“Other than Molene’s speculation that the drum came from a sector of the landfill active during the late nineties, and the fact that the thing is old and rusty, I’ve nothing more to go on. Could be a month. Could be a decade. But I doubt it was less than a week.”
“Do you have a gut?”
“You were right about the asphalt. It created an airtight envelope and kept scavengers away from the body, so the vic is in pretty good shape. But the drum is toast. Given its condition and location, I think the guy was in there a while.”
“He have anything with him? Clothes, personal items, maybe a social security number?”
“Zip.”
“Guess I can rule out natural death.”
“Did Hawkins manage to get prints?” I asked.
“Six. I’ll have them run through AFIS.” The Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a national
