THE CMPD IS HEADQUARTERED IN THE LAW ENFORCEMENT Center, a geometric hunk of concrete looming over the corner of Fourth and McDowell. Across the intersection is the new Mecklenburg County Courthouse, site of Boyce Lingo’s most recent performance.

All detective units are on the second floor at Law Enforcement. At 8:00 A.M. I presented ID, passed security, and rode the elevator ass to elbow with cops and civilians gripping cups from Starbucks and Caribou Coffee. Conversations centered on the upcoming long weekend.

Columbus Day. I’d totally forgotten that Monday was a holiday.

No picnic or barbecue for you. Loser.

Kenneth Roseboro presented himself ninety minutes later than Slidell had ordered. His tardiness did not put Skinny in the best of moods.

Nor did the sludge that passed as coffee in the homicide squad room. While waiting, Slidell and I knocked back a full pot. Rinaldi was out showing the cauldron portrait to school photographers, so I was on my own with his partner’s bad humor.

This did not put me in the best of moods.

Slidell’s desk phone finally rang at 9:37. Roseboro was in interrogation room three. The sound and video systems were up and running.

Before entering, Slidell and I paused to view Wanda Horne’s nephew through a one-way mirror.

Roseboro was seated, sandaled feet jiggling, spidery fingers interlaced on the tabletop. He was maybe five-two, a hundred and twenty pounds, with an oddly elongated head that balanced on his neck like a budgie on a perch.

“Nice hair,” Slidell snorted.

Roseboro’s scalp was looped by concentric circles of ridges and furrows.

“He’s got a three-sixty wave,” I said. “Like Nelly.”

Slidell looked at me blankly.

“The rapper.”

The look did not change.

“Jaunty shirt,” I segued. It was lime and large enough to shelter a racehorse.

“Aloha.” Slidell hiked his pants. The belt settled above a roll that masqueraded as his waist. “Let’s sweat this prick.”

Roseboro started to rise when we entered the room.

“Sit,” Slidell barked.

Roseboro folded.

“Glad you could make it, Kenny.”

“Traffic was heavy.”

“Shoulda set out earlier.” Slidell regarded Roseboro as he though he were scum in a drain.

“I didn’t have to come here at all.” Roseboro’s tone fell somewhere between sulky and bored.

“You’ve got a point there.” Slapping a folder onto the table, Slidell dropped into a chair opposite his interviewee. “But an upstanding citizen like you, what’s a little personal inconvenience, right?”

Roseboro shrugged one bony shoulder.

I seated myself next to Slidell.

Roseboro’s eyes slid to me. “Who’s the chick?”

“The doctor helped me clean out your cellar, Kenny. You got something to say about that?”

“How much I owe you?” Smirking.

“You think this is funny?”

Again, the shoulder hitch.

Slidell turned to me. “You hear something funny?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“I didn’t hear nothing funny.” Slidell refocused on Roseboro. “You’ve got problems, Kenny.”

“Everyone’s got problems.” Nonchalant.

“Everyone don’t have a little palace on Greenleaf.”

“I told you. I haven’t been in that house since I was nine years old. Blew my mind when the old lady left it to me.”

“Auntie’s favorite nephew.”

“Auntie’s only nephew.” Still unconcerned.

“No kids of her own?”

“One. Archie.”

“And Archie would be where these days?” Slidell kept his voice set on scornful.

“Cemetery.”

“That’s amazing. I ask where’s Archie, you come back with cemetery. A sidesplitter, right off your head.” Again, Slidell turned to me. “Isn’t he something? Firing off one-liners, just like that?”

“Hilarious,” I agreed.

“Archie died in a wreck when he was sixteen.”

“Condolences for your loss. Let’s talk about the cellar.”

“Best I can remember, there were spiders, rats, rusty old tools, and a shitload of mold.” Roseboro snapped a finger, as though in sudden understanding. “That’s it. You’re busting me for failure to maintain safe housing for my pets. Animal endangerment, right?”

“You really are a scream, Kenny-boy. Bet you’re hoping to make the comedy channel.” Another Slidell lob to me. “What do you think? We’ll be surfing one night, there’ll be Kenny with a mike in one hand?”

“Seinfeld got his start doing stand-up.”

“Only one problem.” Slidell drilled Roseboro with a look that said he was far from amused. “You ain’t going to be standing up, or walking out, or going nowhere, you don’t start making a little effort here, asshole.”

Roseboro’s face showed only indifference.

“Chateau Greenleaf?” Slidell clicked a ballpoint to readiness over a yellow legal pad.

“As far as I know the cellar was used as a laundry and pantry. And I think there was a workshop down there.”

“Wrong answer.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, man.”

“I’m talking about murder, you dumb fuck.”

Roseboro’s apathy showed its first fault line.

“What?”

“Give it up, Kenny. Maybe you skate on freedom of religion.”

“Give what up?”

“John Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. Rule number one, dumb ass. Never stash body parts in your own crib.”

“Body parts?” Roseboro was definitely interested now.

Slidell only glared.

Saucer-eyed, Roseboro directed a question to me. “What is he talking about?”

Slidell opened the folder and, one by one, slapped scene photos onto the tabletop. The cauldron. The statues of Saint Barbara and Eleggua. The dead chicken. The goat skull. The human remains.

Roseboro viewed but didn’t touch the prints. After a full ten seconds, he wiped a hand across his mouth.

“This is bullshit. I’ve got no way of knowing what a tenant drags into my basement. I told you. I never set foot in the place.”

Slidell gave him silence. As is common, Roseboro felt compelled to fill it.

“Look. I got a letter from some pinstripe saying the house was mine. I signed the papers, ran an ad. Guy named Cuervo called, agreed to a one-year lease.”

“You background him?”

“I wasn’t offering space in Trump Tower. We agreed on a price. Cuervo ponied up the cash.”

“When was this?”

Roseboro searched the ceiling, the fingers of one hand worrying a scab on the back of the other. Finally, “A year ago March.”

“You got a copy of the lease?”

“I never got around to writing one up. Cuervo forked over every month, never asked for anything. After a while, I forgot about paperwork. Stupid, as things turned out.”

“How’d Cuervo pay?”

“I already said. Cash.”

Slidell wiggled his fingers in a give-me-more gesture.

“He mailed it. I couldn’t have cared less if the guy had a bank account, and I wasn’t about to drive to Charlotte each month.”

“Your little arrangement didn’t have nothing to do with the IRS, now did it?”

Roseboro’s fingers went into overdrive. “I pay my taxes.”

“Uh-huh.”

Flecks of crusty endothelium were building on the tabletop.

“You want to give that a rest,” Slidell said. “You’re turning my stomach.”

Roseboro dropped both hands to his lap.

“Tell me about Cuervo.”

“Latino. Seemed like a nice enough dude.”

“Wife? Family?”

Another shoulder hitch. “We weren’t exactly pen pals.”

“He legal?”

“What am I, border patrol?”

Slidell dug a printout from his folder. The photo looked dark and blurry from where I sat.

“That him?”

Roseboro glanced at the face, nodded.

“Go on.” Slidell took up his pen. I suspected the note-taking was mostly for show.

Again, Roseboro shrugged. He really had the move down.

“After June, the guy stopped paying, stopped answering his cell phone. By September I was so pissed I drove up here to toss his ass out.” Roseboro shook his head in disillusionment over his fallen fellow man. “Shithead was gone. Really screwed me.”

“You’re bringing tears to my eyes, Kenny, you being such an honorable guy and all. Cuervo clear out his stuff?”

Roseboro shook his head. “Left everything. It was crap.”

“You got his number?”

Roseboro unhooked his mobile, powered on, and scrolled the address book.

Slidell jotted down the digits. “Go on.”

“Nothing else to tell. I hired a Realtor and sold the place. End of story.”

“Not quite.” After gophering the stack, Slidell slid free a shot of the human skull. “Who’s this?”

Roseboro’s eyes dropped to the print, snapped back up. “Jesus Christ. How would I know?”

Slidell removed a copy of the school portrait from his folder and held it up. “And this?”

Roseboro looked like a man whose mind was racing. For composure? Comprehension? Explanation? A way out?

“I’ve never seen that kid in my life. Look. I may have tried to scam on a few taxes, but, honest to God, I know nothing about any of this. I swear.” Roseboro’s gaze jumped from Slidell to me and back. “I live in Wilmington. Been there for five years. Check it out.”

“Count on it,” Slidell said.

“You want, I’ll take a lie detector. Now. I’ll do it now.”

Wordlessly, Slidell gathered the prints, placed the folder on the tablet, and pushed to his feet.

I stood.

Together, we started for the door.

“What about me?” Roseboro whined at our backs. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Slidell spoke without turning.

“Don’t schedule no auditions.”

“Impressions?” I asked when we were back in Slidell’s office.

“He’s a sniveling little weenie. But my gut says he’s telling the truth.”

“You’re thinking Cuervo?”

“Or Auntie.”

I shook my head. “Wanda died a year and a half ago. I’m almost certain the chicken was killed within the last few months. I’ll phone my entomologist, see if he’ll hazard a preliminary opinion.”

“If Wanda’s clear, then I gotta like Cuervo. Assuming Roseboro’s not taking us for a ride.”

“May I see the mug shot?”

Slidell dug the printout from the folder.

The quality was, indeed, lousy. The man was all teeth and wrinkles, with thick gray hair swept back from his face.

“If Cuervo is Latino, Santería makes sense,” Slidell said. “Or that other one.”

“Palo Mayombe.” I hoped that wasn’t it. If so, I hoped it was not of the Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo variety. “What about Roseboro?”

“I’ll let him cool his heels, then go in for some more face time. Fear has a way of jogging the gray cells.”

“Then?”

“I’ll cut him loose and start looking for Cuervo. Start with his cell phone.”

“And the INS. Cuervo could be undocumented.”

Slidell rolled his eyes at my use of the term. “Him being illegal could explain Roseboro’s desire for cash and carry only.”

“Rinaldi call in?”

Slidell checked his voice mail and mobile, then shook his head.

“I’m going to the ME office,” I said. “Let me know if Rinaldi learns anything. If not, maybe it’s time to put the girl’s face out there. I’ll phone when Larabee and I finish with the Lake Wylie torso.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Slidell said.

We didn’t know that another plan was already unfolding. A plan traveling a deadly collision course with our own.