Devil Bones Read Free

suggested the possibility, but didn’t want to touch anything until you arrived.”
    “Good thinking.”
    Scenario: Citizen stumbles onto bones, cals 911. Cops arrive, figure the stuff’s old, start bagging and tagging. Bottom line: Context is lost, scene is screwed. I end up working in a vacuum.
    Scenario: Dogs unearth a clandestine grave. Local coroner goes at it with shovels and a body bag. Bottom line: Bits are missed. I get remains with a lot of gaps.
    When faced with these situations, I’m not always kind in my remarks. Over the years, my message has gotten across.
    That, plus the fact that I teach body recovery workshops for the ME in Chapel Hil, and for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD.
    “Cop said the place stinks,” Larabee added.
    That didn’t sound good.
    I grabbed a pen. “Where?”
    “Greenleaf Avenue, over in First Ward. House is being renovated. Plumber knocked through a wal, found some sort of underground chamber. Hang on.”
    Paper rustled, then Larabee read the address. I wrote it down.
    “Apparently this plumber was totaly freaked.”
    “I can head over there now.”
    “That would be good.”
    “See you in thirty.”
    I heard a hitch in Larabee’s breathing.
    “Problem?” I asked.

    “I’ve got a kid open on the table.”
    “What happened?”
    “Five-year-old came home from kindergarten, ate a doughnut, complained of a belyache, hit the floor. She was pronounced dead two hours later at CMC. Story to tear your heart out. An only child, no prior medicals, completely asymptomatic until the incident.”
    “Jesus. What kiled her?”
    “Cardiac rhabdomyoma.”
    “Which is?”
    “Big honking tumor in the interventricular septum. Pretty rare at her age. These kids usualy die in infancy.”
    Poor Larabee was facing more than one heartbreaking conversation.
    “Finish your autopsy,” I said. “I’l handle the chamber of horrors.”
    Charlotte began with a river and a road.
    The river came first. Not the Mississippi or Orinoco, but a sturdy enough stream, its shores rich with deer, bear, bison, and turkey. Great flocks of pigeons flew overhead.
    Those living among the wild pea vines on the river’s eastern bank caled their waterway Eswa Taroa, “the great river.” They, in turn, were caled the Catawba, “people of the river.”
    The principal Catawba vilage, Nawvasa, was situated at the headwater of Sugar Creek, Soogaw, or Sugau, meaning “group of huts,” a development not based solely on proximity to the water. Nawvasa also snugged up to a busy route of aboriginal commerce, the Great Trading Path. Goods and foodstuffs flowed along this path from the Great Lakes to the Carolinas, then on down to the Savannah River.
    Nawvasa drew its lifeblood from both the river and the road.
    The arrival of strange men on great ships ended al that.
    For helping in his restoration to power, England’s King Charles II awarded eight men the land south of Virginia and westward to the “South Seas.” Charlie’s new “lord proprietors” promptly sent people to map and explore their holdings.
    Over the next century, settlers came in wagons, on horseback, and wearing out shoe leather. Germans, French Huguenots, Swiss, Irish, and Scots. Slowly, inexorably, the river and the road passed from Catawban to European hands.
    Log homes and farms replaced native bark houses. Taverns, inns, and shops sprang up. Churches. A courthouse. At an intersection with a lesser trail, a new vilage straddled the Great Trading Path.
    In 1761, George III married Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany. His seventeen-year-old bride must have caught the imagination of those living between the river and the road. Or perhaps the populace wished to curry favor with the mad British king. Whatever the motive, they named their little vilage Charlotte Town, their county Mecklenburg.
    But distance and politics doomed the friendship to failure. The American colonies were growing angry and ripe for revolt. Mecklenburg