Bones in Her Pocket: A Tempe Brennan E-Short by Kathy Reichs

your cooler.”
    I raised my brows in question.
    “Turns out Gaston Skip isn’t a complete waste of oxygen. Two days ago he busted a biker trail-riding through Kahn’s art-fart estate. Kid’s shitting his shorts, gives it up without a fight. Claims he wanted a peek at the legendary Hells Angels well of lost souls.”
    Again the brows. Saved wear and tear on my throat.
    “Seems there’s an abandoned well on Kahn’s property. Rumor has it the thing enjoyed regular intake in the eighties.”
    “Bodies?”
    “No. Tricycles. Of course I’m talking bodies.”
    I curled my fingers in a give-me-more gesture.
    “After Skip learns the kid’s story, he goes shaft-diving, does some digging and rock-lifting, finds a bunch of bones.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Seriously. I’m guessing it’s the rest of your John Doe. Skip figures recent flooding washed out the four he found on the beach.”
    “Edith Blankenship?”
    “Your gal Doris is looking at murder one.”
    “She’s OK?”
    “She ain’t dancing no jigs, but she’ll pull through.”
    “Motive?”
    “Like I told you, door A or door B. Love or money.”
    Amazing what you can ask without using words. Now I relied on upturned palms.
    “Both. The old broad was totally mental for anything with feathers. Her financials showed she was donating to a boatload of birdie outfits, including the raptor center. The puppies gave her extra liquidity to take the load off birds. Blankenship intended to shut her down.”
    We sat in silence a moment, thinking about that.
    “We found Edith’s phone wedged between two beams in the back of the shed. Smashed to shit. But the tech boys were able to recover some pics from the memory. Dogs, kennels, a pile of rotting puppies. The kid probably stumbled across the place, wanted evidence to blow a big friggin’ whistle. Doris caught her and took her out.”
    “The leash?”
    “Lab guys lifted a couple hairs, some blood. They’re testing for DNA. They’re also running comparisons on the red fiber you pulled from the vic’s neck bone. It’ll come back to Blankenship.”
    “Doris dumped the body?” Four words. It hurt.
    “She’s tough, but for that she needed help. She has a son, retarded or slow or whatever. Works part-time as a forklift driver at some warehouse. She muscled Blankenship into the bag, then called sonny. Told him to take his rowboat way out onto the lake and toss it. Said there were dead dogs inside. Made him swear not to open the zipper.”
    Sweet Jesus.
    “Blount?”
    “That ass-hat’s gonna live, too. Turns out our little chit-chat set the guy off. Blount liked Blankenship. Was pissed the kid got whacked. So, caped crusader that he is, he goes snooping, stumbles across Doris’s shit show. Poetic, ain’t it? The old lady belts him with a shovel, he uses the same shovel to belt her back.”
    “The Olsens?”
    “I’m guessing Casanova’s investing in flowers.”
    “His wife found out?”
    Slidell shrugged. “Not from me.”
    Way to go, Skinny.
    “Emmett Kahn?”
    “Investing in fencing. Oh, and you’re gonna love this. He’s commissioned one of his bohemian buddies to make a giant owl sculpture. Plans to call it Essence of Edith.”
    With that, he took his leave.
    So my John Doe might be a fallen Hells Angel. Made sense. Arthritic lower back from years of bouncing on a Harley. Burned ankle from contact with a hot exhaust pipe.
    I pictured Edith roaming the woods, eyes moving from the trees to the ground at her feet. Finding a pellet and slipping it into her pocket.
    Not knowing she had but a pocketful of hours to live.
    But I didn’t want to think about death today. Finally take that jog around the Booty Loop? Go for a drive? Bad idea in a scarf. Ask Isadora Duncan.
    Edie padded over and placed her chin in my lap. I rubbed her ears. She rolled big caramel eyes up to mine. Rotated the eyebrow whiskers above them.
    I thought about the horror she’d survived. Feared the memories would stay with her always.