Flash and Bones

When I finally drifted off, my rest was fitful. I woke repeatedly, then dozed, dreaming in unrelated vignettes.

Birdie, walking on a table set with glassware and swirly pink fabric. Galimore, driving a blue Mustang with a green sticker on the windshield. Ryan, waving at me from very far off. Slidell, talking to a man curled up in a barrel. Summer, teetering down a sidewalk in skyscraper heels.

When I last checked the clock, it was 4:23.

EXACTLY THREE HOURS LATER THE LANDLINE JOLTED ME AWAKE.

“You good?”

“I’m fine.”

“Last night turned ugly.” Galimore sounded like he’d logged less sleep than I had.

“I’m a big girl. I’m fine.”

“You hear back from that tool?”

“No. But I heard from someone else.”

I told him about the Eli Hand call and about my conversation with Williams.

“You’re going to stay put, like I said, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m waiting for a call from Oprah.”

“You should put together an act. Maybe take it on Comedy Central.”

“I’ll think about that.”

“But not today.”

“Not today.”

Galimore sighed in annoyance. “Do what you gotta do.”

“I will.”

I was making toast when the phone rang again.

“Williams here.”

“Brennan here.” Sleep deprivation also makes me flippant.

“The number you gave me traced to a pay phone at a Circle K on Old Charlotte Road in Concord.”

“So the caller could have been anyone.”

“We’re checking deeds for properties located within a half-mile radius.”

“That’s a long shot.”

“Yes.”

“Who’s Eli Hand?”

“Due to your recent involvement in the situation, I’ve been authorized to share certain information with you and Dr. Larabee. May we meet this morning?”

“I can be at the MCME in thirty minutes.”

“We’ll see you then.”

It was take two of the previous day’s scene. Larabee was seated at his desk. The specials were side by side in chairs on the left, facing him. I was to their right.

Williams began without being asked.

“Do you remember Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh?”

Williams was asking about a 1980s Indian guru who moved several thousand followers onto a ranch in rural Wasco County, Oregon, and established a city called Rajneeshpuram. The group eventually took political control of the small nearby town of Antelope and renamed it Rajneesh.

Though initially friendly, the commune’s relations with the local populace soon soured. After being denied building permits for expansion of Rajneeshpuram, the commune leadership sought to gain political control by dominating the November 1984 county elections.

“The bhagwan and his crazies wanted to win judgeships on the Wasco County Circuit Court and elect the sheriff,” I said. “But they weren’t certain they could carry the day. So they poisoned restaurant salad bars with salmonella, hoping to incapacitate adverse voters.”

“Exactly,” Williams said. “Salmonella enterica was first delivered through glasses of water to two county commissioners and then, on a larger scale, to the salad bars. Seven hundred and fifty-one people got sick, forty-five of whom were hospitalized. The incident was the first and single largest bioterrorist attack in United States history.”

“I remember,” Larabee said. “They finally nailed the little creep right here in Charlotte. It was national news.”

Larabee was right. Back in the eighties, few in the country had heard of a quiet southern city called Charlotte other than for its school integration and mandatory busing. The arrest conferred notoriety, and the citizenry got a kick out of it. We Bagged the Bhagwan T-shirts did a booming business.