page26 (1/2)

“Kinda,” she said “Like the pope is kinda Catholic”

“Are you okay?”

“I will be,” she said “Soon as I get a chance to take a long, hot shower and wash the scum off”

“If he contacts you again, tell me,” I said “We’ll call the caht now is to be any higher on the radar screen of the cops”

She thankedup From what she’d said, it sounded plausible that Stuart Latha Two other possibilities-two other suspects, as I thought of the as well

One possibility was Edelberto Garcia, who I still feared ue or occasional babysitter There was so about Garcia’s cool snized that it ic that lay behind my suspicions

The other possibility was Garland Haht have sent Miranda the flowers chilled me to the bone A few hts on Jess, and now Jess was dead When I considered this possibility, I couldn’t help praying that the flowers had come from Stuart Latham

By es of the latest issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences-one of e by studying cranial sutures-when I gradually beca sound and then a fa, “Doc, mind if I come in?” I roused myself back to the present

“Sorry Sure, come on in” I looked up at the saan walked in, and the sight brought a smile to my face, despite the stress of the past two days Steve was a TBI agent who’d been a student of mine years before; ation into official corruption in the Cooke County Sheriff’s Office

“I hope you’re here to tell ht Garland Hamilton,” I said

He winced and shook his head “I wish I were, but I’h We’ve been watching his bank accounts and looking at his credit cards”

“And?”

“We found a storage unit he rented about six s to you” He stepped back into the hallway, then reappeared, cradling a cardboard box in his arh, and 12 inches deep I knew the exact di skeletons into boxes just like this one I had a pretty good idea whose skeleton was in this particular box, too: I’d have bet a year’s salary that the box contained the postcranial skeleton-the bones fro woman killed in Cooke County thirty years earlier I had recovered the woman’s body from deep in a cave in the mountains, where the combination of cool air and abundant moisture had transformed her soft tissue into adipocere, a soaplike substance that preserved her features reation into Leena’s murder, someone had broken into my office and stolen the box That someone had been Garland Hamilton

I an set the box down I raised the lid, which was hinged along one of the three-foot sides Inside, I saw the bones of a young white fe Two parts of the skeleton were , as I knew they would be: the skull and the hyoid, both of which I had taken to show y class the day the box was stolen The woman’s skull-Leena’s skull-and the fractured hyoid bone froo up in Cooke County by Jim O’Conner O’Conner was now the county’s sheriff, but thirty years earlier he’d been si irl Before her uncle had led her

The bones tookbread or fresh- a skeleton was like reading a diary-a diary recording injuries, illnesses, handedness, and a host of other parts of life that re after death In the room that adjoined my office, I had a library full of such diaries-diaries of life and death Every one was uniquely fascinating, and I always remembered its details Every one was uniquely sad, too-Leena’s doubly so I shook an

“Sorry,” I said “I was just taking a quick trip down a dark stretch of memory lane”

He nodded “I understand,” he said “Take your time”

“I’ at Garland Ha that points to where he is now?”

“No,” he said “The storage-unit rental was about six o, and he paid for a whole year up front Latest activity”-he hesitated-“was a couple hours after he escaped A security ca the cash ot a four-hundred-dollar cash advance and four hundred dollars out of checking The et”

“Where’d he get the cards?”

“I don’t know,” said Morgan “He didn’t have them in jail, so he et to Maybe the storage unit”

“Weren’t his accounts frozen?”

Morgan shook his head “If he were bankrolling international terroris millions, the feds would freeze his accounts Otherwise there’s no legal basis for it He won’t get real far on eight hundred bucks, but it lets him drop off the radar at least for a while”

“Any idea where heput, or do you think he’s on the run?”

Morgan frowned “Hard to tell Typically, escaped murderers run, but he’s not typical He’s smarter than most, and he kno cops think”

“So he uys would expect him not to”

“Hell, you can chase your tail in circles second-and third-guessing that way Doesn’t get you anything except dizzy, though His picture’s all over the ency in the country We’ll get him”

“I hope sooner rather than later,” I said

“It’ll be sooner,” he said “Meanti a gun?”

“Me? A gun? When I’enerally on all fours, with h froun do me?”