Bones of the Lost

slow out of the gate, Slidell usually came through in the stretch. Unless preoccupied. Enter high-pressure missing-person case.
    I pictured the girl with the pink barrette.
    I pictured Katy the last time I’d seen her, at Fort Hood the day she graduated from basic combat training. Instead of barrettes she wore camouflage fatigues, boots, and a black beret. Her body was rock hard, her long blond hair tightly knotted at the nape of her neck.
    Throughout that day, I’d fought back tears of pride. Tears of dread.
    The same dread I felt sitting alone in that parking deck.
    What if Katy disappeared and no one bothered to find her? To determine if she was dead or alive?
    The human brain is a switching station that operates on two levels.
    As my hand turned the key, my higher centers sent up images of a lonely stretch of two-lane.
    Instead of going home toward Myers Park, I wound through uptown toward I-77.
    Took the southbound ramp.
    Headed toward Woodlawn.

THE STRETCH OF old pineville road I was driving had once been the main route from Charlotte to Pineville. But the town and the road had both seen better days. And busier. South Boulevard, to the east, now had all the action, and few motorists made this strip their final destination.
    I flicked on my turn signal and tapped the brakes. Double beams bore down on my trunk. A horn blared and a large mass swerved around me, tail lights like glowing red eyes in the darkness.
    After reversing direction, back toward uptown, I pulled to the shoulder and studied my surroundings. No sidewalks. No traffic signals. Deadly for pedestrians.
    Off my passenger side ran a broad strip of weeds and scrub vegetation. Beyond that, the tracks of the Lynx Blue Line, the first and only spur on Charlotte’s light-rail system.
    Had the girl come here by train? To what station? Woodlawn? Scaleybark? If she’d descended from a Lynx platform, might someone have seen her?
    Had she come by car? On foot? Was she alone? With a companion? A kindly stranger who’d offered a lift? A burger? A drink?
    And, above all, why? Why was she here? Larabee was placing her time of death at somewhere between eleven and two. What had lured a teenage girl to this isolated spot in the middle of the night? With no jacket in the chilly weather.
    I knew the CSU techs had photographed and bagged every scrap of evidence. So why was
I
here after my long, frustrating, blister-raising day?
    To see for myself. To hear. To smell. To sense the place.
    Keys firmly in my pocket, I popped the door. A gust of wind caught my hair and flipped the hem of my jacket. Though summer lingered by day, come sunset the air was already turning cool.
    I zipped up to my chin.
    I was more warmly dressed than my Jane Doe had been. Why? An adolescent fashion statement? A rushed departure? Anticipation of an evening indoors?
    I pictured the high-heeled boots and denim skirt. Meaningless. Kids dressed like that to hang out at the mall, attend school, or party with friends.
    A train whistled softly in the distance. Not the light rail. A freight line on parallel tracks. Norfolk Southern? CSX? Aberdeen and Carolina Western?
    Had the girl hopped from a boxcar and walked to Old Pineville Road? A long shot, but possible.
    If the girl had arrived by car, it was doubtful she asked to be dropped here. Did the driver force her to disembark? Why? An argument? The conclusion of a cash transaction?
    I thought about the semen stains.
    Was the sex consensual? Was it followed by a disagreement, her slamming from a vehicle in anger? Was she raped, then tossed aside like last week’s trash?
    Was Slidell right? Had the girl tried to turn a trick and been run over by a renegade john?
    I scanned the far side of the road, saw the black silhouettes of commercial buildings. Pewter-gray space between.
    I thought about the US Airways club card in the girl’s purse. About John-Henry Story. Why was she carrying a dead man’s plastic? Had she been traveling with him the last time he used it? Going where? Had he given the card to her? Had she stolen it from him? It was nothing she could have used without him present. Why had she kept it?
    The girl’s body was found near the intersection of Old Pineville and Rountree, a short distance in front of me. Was she running whenhit? Standing still? Walking? How far had she crawled after being struck?
    A truck rumbled by, arcing wide to avoid my Mazda.
    Note to self: Have Slidell check with truckers frequenting this route. Appeal to