COTTON GALIMORE. THE MAN WHO’D VISITED LARABEE. THE head of security for Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“Anyone else?”

“A detective named Rinaldo, or something like that.”

“Rinaldi?”

“That’s it. You know him?”

“I do.” After so much time, cold fingers still grabbed and twisted my gut.

Eddie Rinaldi spent most of his career with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD Felony Investigative Bureau/Homicide Unit. The murder table. We’d worked many cases together. Two years back, I’d watched Rinaldi gunned down by a manic-depressive who’d skipped his meds.

Gamble’s words brought me back. “Rinaldi seemed like a stand-up guy. You’ll talk to him?”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” I promised.

Gamble thanked me, and we disconnected.

I sat staring at the page on which I’d written nothing.

For decades Rinaldi had partnered with a detective named Erskine Slidell. Skinny. I wondered why he was working with Galimore in the fall of ’ninety-eight.

Call Slidell? Galimore?

Though a good cop, Skinny Slidell tends to grate on my nerves. But something in my brain was cautioning against Galimore.

I checked my address book, then dialed.

“Slidell.”

“It’s Temperance Brennan.”

“How’s it hangin’, Doc?” Slidell views himself as Charlotte’s answer to Dirty Harry. Hollywood cop lingo is part of the shtick. “Found us a rotter?”

“Not this time. I wonder if I could pick your brain for a minute.” Generous. A second was plenty to search Skinny’s entire neocortex.

“Your dime, your time.” Spitty. Slidell was chewing on something.

“I’m interested in a couple of MPs dating back to ’ninety-eight. Eddie worked the case.”

There was a long moment with neither reply nor sounds of mastication. I knew Slidell’s insides were clenching, as mine had.

“You there?” I asked.

“Fall of ’ninety-eight I was TDY on a training course up in Quantico.”

“Did Eddie partner with someone while you were away?”

“A horse’s ass name of Cotton Galimore. What the hell kinda name is Cotton?”

Typical Skinny. He thinks it, he says it.

“Galimore is now in charge of security for Charlotte Motor Speedway,” I said.

Slidell made a noise I couldn’t interpret.

“Why did he leave the force?” I asked.

“Got too close to a buddy name of Jimmy Beam.”

“Galimore drinks?”

“Booze is what finally got him booted.”

“I gather you don’t like him.”

“Ask me? You can cut off his head and shit in his—”

“Did Eddie ever mention Cindi Gamble or Cale Lovette?”

“Give me a hint, Doc.”

“Gamble was a high school kid, Lovette was her boyfriend. Both went missing in October of ’ninety-eight. Eddie worked the case. The FBI was also involved.”

“Why the feds?”

“Lovette had ties to right-wingers. Possible domestic terrorism issues.”

I waited out another pause. This one with a lot of slurping and popping.

“Kinda rings a bell. If you want, I can pull the file. Or check Eddie’s notes.”

Cops hang nicknames on each other, most based on physical or personality traits. Skinny, for example, hadn’t seen a forty-inch waistline in at least twenty years. Other than excessive height, a taste for classical music, and a penchant for pricey clothes, Rinaldi had exhibited no quirks at which to poke fun. Eddie had remained Eddie throughout his career.

Rinaldi’s one singular peculiarity was his habit of recording the minutiae of every investigation in which he took part. His notebooks were legendary.

“That would be great,” I said.

Slidell disconnected without a good-bye or any query concerning the nature of my interest in a case now over a dozen years cold. I appreciated the latter.

I played with Birdie. Made the bed. Took out the trash. Loaded laundry. Read the e-mails that I’d ignored. Checked a freckle on my shoulder for signs of melanoma.

Then, with a level of enthusiasm I reserve for flossing and waxing, I again phoned Summer.

To my dismay, she answered.

“Hi. This is Tempe.” I could hear voices in the background. Regis and Kelly? “Pete’s ex. Well, any day now.”

“I know who y’all are.” Summer had a drawl you could pour on pancakes.

“How’s it going?”

“Good.”

“Are you still working at Happy Paws?” Desperate for subject matter.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Defensive. “I’m a fully trained veterinary assistant.”

“It must be exhausting having a full-time job while trying to plan a big wedding.”

“Not everyone can be superwoman.”

“How right you are.” Cheerful as hell. “It’s going well?”

“Mostly.”

“Have you hired a planner?” I’d heard that she and Pete were inviting only a few thousand people.

I heard a quavery intake of breath.

“Is something wrong?”

“Petey’s being a grumpy-pants about every little thing.”

“I wouldn’t worry. Pete’s never been big on ceremony.”

“Until that changes, Mr. Grumpy-Pants won’t be foxtrotting at my prom. If you take my meaning.”

So the groom-to-be had lost playground privileges.

“Pete thought it might be good if we got to know each other,” I said.

Nothing but Regis and Kelly.

“If there’s any way I can help…” I let the offer hang, expecting a frosty rebuff.

“Could you talk to him?”

“About?”

“Showing proper interest.” Little-girl petulant. “When I ask what kind of flowers he wants, he says whatever. Cream or white linens on the tables? Whatever. Tinted or clear glass in the hurricane lamps? Whatever. He acts like he doesn’t care.”

Who would? I thought.

“I’m sure he trusts your judgment,” I said.

“Pretty please?”

I pictured Summer with her overdeveloped breasts and underdeveloped brain. Marveled again at the folly of middle-aged men.

“OK,” I said. “I’ll talk to him.”

The line beeped. I checked the screen. Slidell.

“I’m sorry, Summer. I have to take an incoming call.”

I couldn’t disconnect fast enough.

“I pulled Eddie’s book for the fall of ’ninety-eight. Your MPs are in there. Cindi Gamble, seventeen, Cale Lovette, twenty-four. Last seen at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on October fourteenth. They were attending some big-ass race.”

“The Speedway is located in Cabarrus County,” I said. “Why did Eddie and Galimore catch the case?”

“Apparently the girl’s parents called it in here. Then Kannapolis asked the Charlotte PD to stay in. You want to hear this or what?”

As frequently happened when dealing with Slidell, my upper and lower molars started reaching for each other.

“Gamble and Lovette were an item. He worked at the track. She was a senior at A. L. Brown High in Kannapolis.”

Slidell paused. I could tell he was skimming, which meant this might take the rest of the morning.

“The girl’s parents are listed as Georgia and James Gamble. Brother Wayne. According to the mother, Cindi left home around ten that morning to go to the track.” Pause. “Good student. No problems with drugs or alcohol. That checked out solid.

“The boy’s mother is listed as Katherine Lovette. Father’s Craig Bogan. Kid left home at his normal time, seven a.m. Records showed he clocked in for the job, didn’t clock out.

“A maintenance worker name of Grady Winge saw the MPs around six that night. Lovette was talking to a male subject unknown to Winge. Gamble and Lovette drove off with the subject in a ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang with a lime-green decal on the windshield on the passenger side. What the hell’s Petty blue?”

“Was the car traced?” I asked.

“Winge didn’t get a plate.”

Pause. I could almost hear Skinny reading with his finger.

“Lovette hung with a group of right-wing nutballs called themselves the Patriot Posse. Militia types. The feds had him and his buddies under surveillance. I’m guessing they were hoping for a lead to Eric Rudolph.”

Slidell referred to a suspect in the bombings at Centennial Olympic Park, the lesbian bar, and both abortion clinics. In May ’ninety-eight Rudolph made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and became the subject of a million-dollar reward. For five years, while federal and amateur teams searched, Rudolph lived as a fugitive in the Appalachian wilderness, evading capture with the assistance of white-supremacist, anti-government sympathizers, only to be caught almost accidentally by a local town cop. Rudolph was scavenging a supermarket Dumpster for food.

“—Special Agents Dana Reed and Marcus Perenelli.”

I jotted down the names.

“What the hell makes them special? Think I’ll start calling myself Special Detective Slidell.”

I heard a sharp inhalation followed by thwp. I knew a wad of Juicy Fruit was sailing into a flowerpot on Slidell’s desk.

“Wayne Gamble said a task force investigated the disappearances.”

“Yeah. Made up of the two specials, Rinaldi, and Galimore. They interviewed the usual wits, family, known associates, yadda yadda. Searched the usual places. Ran the usual loops. Six weeks out, they handed in a report saying Gamble and Lovette most likely took off.”

“Why?”

“Maybe to get married. The girl was underage.”

“Took off where?”

“Theory was the Patriot Posse piped them in to the militia underground.”

“Wayne Gamble didn’t buy that theory. Still doesn’t.”

“Ditto Gamble’s parents.” Slidell paused. “Gamble had a teacher, Ethel Bradford. Bradford swore there was no way the kid would leave on her own.”

I thought about that. “I searched but found no news coverage of the incident. That strikes me as odd, given that a seventeen-year-old girl had vanished.”

“Eddie says in here there was a lot of pressure to keep things under wraps.”

“Out of the papers.”

“Yeah. He also hints there was a real squeeze to roll with the party line.”

“Squeeze from whom?”

“He don’t say.”

“Did he disagree with the task force’s finding?”

A full minute passed as Skinny picked through Rinaldi’s notes.

“Not straight out. But I can tell from his wording he thought something didn’t smell right.”

“What does he say?”

Slidell has an annoying habit of sidestepping questions.

“I’ve gotta do some canvassing on a domestic. Soon as I’m back, I’ll pull the original case file.”

“How’s Detective Madrid?” I asked.

Following Rinaldi’s death, Slidell had been assigned a new partner. Feeling he needed a tune-up in the area of cultural diversity, the department had paired him with a woman named Theresa Madrid. Boisterous, bodacious, and weighing almost as much as Skinny, Madrid referred to herself as a double-L: Latina lesbian.

Madrid turned out to be a crackerjack detective. Despite Skinny’s initial horror, the two got along well.

“Get this. The broad’s on frickin’ maternity leave. Can you believe it? She and her partner adopted a kid.”

“You’re working solo?”

“Ain’t it grand.”

As before, Slidell disconnected without an adieu.

The phone was still pressed to my ear when it rang again.

“Just finished the autopsy on your John Doe.” Larabee’s voice sounded odd. “Damned if it makes sense to me.”