CAREFULLY PENNED POST-IT EXPLAINED THAT MRS. FLOWERS had left the MCME at 11:50, that she was lunching at Alexander Michael’s pub, and that she would return at one p.m.

Hearing a cough, I moved toward the cubicles assigned to death investigators. Inside the second sat a new hire named Susan Volpe. We’d met only once.

Volpe’s head popped up when I appeared at her entrance. She had mocha skin and curly black hair cut in an asymmetric bob. Maybe twenty-five, she was all snowy white teeth and lousy with enthusiasm about her new job.

According to Volpe, Larabee and Hawkins were at a homicide scene. I’d just missed them. The other two pathologists were also away. She didn’t know where.

The erasable board logged three new arrivals. My initials were in a little box beside the number assigned to the third, indicating the case was coming to me.

Walking to my office, I wondered if Hawkins and Larabee had gone to the same address to which Slidell had been called.

A consult request lay on my desk. MCME 239-11. After depositing my purse and laptop, I glanced at the form.

A skull had been found in a creek bed near I-485. Larabee wanted a bio-profile, and especially PMI.

First, lunch.

I went to the kitchen for a Diet Coke to accompany the cheddar-and-tomato sandwich I’d brought from home. I’d barely loosened the wrapping when my landline rang.

Volpe. A cop wanted to see me. I told her to send him through.

Seconds later footsteps echoed in the hall. I turned, expecting Skinny.

Whoa!

Standing in my doorway was a man designed by the gods on Olympus. Then broken.

The man stood six-three and weighed around 240, every ounce rock-solid. His hair was dark, his eyes startlingly green, what Gran would have called black Irish. Only two things kept Mr. God a notch below perfect: a scar cut his right brow, and a subtle kink belied a healed nasal fracture.

My expression must have telegraphed my surprise.

“The lady said to come on back.” Cotton Galimore punched a thumb in the direction of Volpe’s cubicle.

“I was expecting Detective Slidell.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Grin lines creased the perfect face.

Without awaiting invitation, Galimore entered and foot-hooked a chair toward my desk. My nose registered expensive cologne and just the right hint of male perspiration.

“Sure,” I said. “Come on in.”

“Thanks.” He sat.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Galimore?”

“You know who I am?”

“I know who you are.”

“That a plus?”

“You tell me.”

“You working with Skinny?”

I nodded.

“Condolences.” Again the boyish grin.

I didn’t smile back.

“I’m guessing Slidell’s not one of my fans,” Galimore said.

“He’s not.”

I looked at my sandwich. So did Galimore.

“These tight bastards not paying you enough?”

“I like cheese.”

“Cheese is good.”

“I can’t discuss the body from the landfill, if that’s why you’re here.”

“That’s partly why I’m here.”

“Sorry.”

“You know you’ll have no choice.”

“Really?”

“Really. Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with me.”

Astonished at the man’s arrogance, I simply stared.

Galimore stared back. His hair was grayer at the temples, his face more deeply creased than I’d noticed at first.

Mostly I noticed his eyes. They held me in a way I couldn’t explain.

Galimore looked away first. Glancing down, he drew a pack of Camels from his pocket, slipped one free, and offered it to me.

“This is a no-smoking facility,” I said.

“I don’t like rules.” Sliding matches from beneath the cellophane, he lit up, took a long pull, and slowly exhaled. Acrid smoke floated over my desk.

“Aren’t we the rebel.” Cool.

Galimore shrugged.

I fought the urge to grab the cigarette and stub it out on his forehead.

“My office. My rules,” I said with an arctic smile.

“In that case, happy to comply.”

Galimore took another draw, exhaled, then extinguished the Camel on the side of my wastebasket. When he straightened and exhaled, another noxious gray cloud drifted my way.

“Detective Slidell is not known for his objectivity,” he said.

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Did he give you the full story?”

“He told me you drank.”

“I did. But never on the job.”

“And that you went to jail.”

“I had that delight.”

“For accepting a bribe.”

“I was set up.”

“Of course.”

“You want to know what happened?”

I flipped a palm. Whatever.

“The week before my arrest, I’d busted a junkie name of Wiggler Coonts. Real fine citizen. The cops wanted me more than they wanted Wiggler, so they talked his lawyer into wearing a wire. The scumbag tracked me to a bar and started buying. I said some stupid things. No question. But it was textbook entrapment.”

“Doesn’t sound like a basis for a criminal conviction.”

“A wad of cash turned up in a storage bin in the basement of my condo complex.”

“Hardly incriminating.”

“It was my bin.”

“But not your wad.”

“Never saw it before.”

“You saying the cops planted it?”

“You saying they didn’t?”

“Why?”

“They were looking for cause to boot me.”

“Seems pretty extreme.”

“That was just part of it.”

Galimore crooked his right ankle onto his left knee. His tan slacks rode up to reveal one sockless calf.

“This came down while the Gamble-Lovette disappearances were topping the call sheet. There was a lot of pressure to clear the case. I was considered, shall we say, an impediment to swift closure.”

“Why was that?”

Galimore gestured at my sandwich. “How about we find something better than cheese. I’ll tell you all about it.”

My libido gave an immediate thumbs-up.

My neocortex took time to consider.

Slidell would go ballistic. Hawkins would sulk. Larabee would object.

But Galimore had been part of the Gamble-Lovette task force. It was possible he had useful information. Probable.

“I’ll meet you at Bad Daddy’s in twenty minutes,” I said.

“I can’t discuss the landfill John Doe.” I’d said it earlier but wanted to make myself clear.

Galimore was at the back of the restaurant, working on a sweaty glass of iced tea.

“Understood.”

I slid into the booth.

“What did you tell Skinny?”

“I do not clear my actions with Detective Slidell.” Sharp.

Galimore laughed and shook his head. “You’re as feisty as they say.”

“Thanks.”

A waitress appeared with menus and introduced herself as Ellen. “Fill-up?”

Galimore nodded.

To me, “Sweet tea?”

“Diet Coke, please.”

When Ellen returned with my drink, I ordered the Mama Ricotta burger. Galimore went for a make-your-own salad and chose a score of ingredients.

When Ellen withdrew, I decided to take control.

“Are you implying you were framed for refusing to go along with the task force conclusion on Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette?”

“I’m not implying, I’m saying it straight out.”

“Why?”

“There were a number of reasons the cops wanted me out of the way. Yeah, I was drinking. And I’d made some enemies on the force. For a while I thought that was it. I believed the DA really bought in to the bribe thing. The tape was damned incriminating, then the money sealed it.”

Galimore’s eyes swept the room, came back to me.

“Jail’s not like prison. It’s a holding tank. Since there’s nothing to do, you spend a lot of time thinking. The more I thought, the more things started to bug me.”

“Things?”

“Loose ends that didn’t tie up.”

A couple of teens moved toward the booth beside ours. He wore a tank and basketball shorts that hung to his knees. She featured a floopy little skirt that struggled to cover her bum.

“The Gambles refused to accept that their daughter left on her own,” I said. “Are you saying they were right?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you share your doubts with them?”

“Wasn’t my place.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“In retrospect, I realize that the investigation left holes big enough for a Humvee.”

“Loose ends.”

Galimore nodded. “That summer, Cindi asked to have the locks changed at home. Her kid brother thought it was because she was afraid of Lovette.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought it was because she was afraid of something. When I shared this information with the FBI, they blew me off. For me, that doesn’t skew right. When you learn a missing kid was scared, you find out why.”

Ellen arrived with our food. For a moment we focused on dressing and condiments.

“Something else bugged me. In my initial canvas, I turned up a guy who claimed he saw Gamble and Lovette at the Speedway the night they disappeared.”

“Grady Winge.”

Galimore shook his head. “Eugene Fries. Fries swore he sold Gamble and Lovette corn dogs at a concession stand around eight p.m.”

“Winge said they left the Speedway at six.”

“Yeah.”

“Did anyone interview Fries?”

“Our FBI brethren said the guy was a crackhead and unreliable.”

“Did you share this with Rinaldi?”

Galimore nodded. “He agreed the contradiction was troublesome.”

“Did either of you follow up?”

“We tried, but by then Fries was in the wind. Then my life started falling apart. I got busted, went to jail, lost my job, my marriage imploded.”

Galimore took a forkful of lettuce, chewed.

“For a long time I was a very bitter man. Hated the cops, the FBI, my slut wife, life in general. The Gamble-Lovette file was like a festering wound. The only way I could move on was to put it behind me.”

“I’m confused. You’re revisiting the case now because your employer wants to know about the landfill John Doe? Or because you think the victim could be Cale Lovette?”

Galimore leaned forward, eyes intense. “Fuck my employer. Those dickwads locked me up so I couldn’t follow through on a case that mattered to me. I want to know why.”

“Did Rinaldi pursue the leads after you left the task force?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it possible you’re being paranoid?”

“We’re talking the friggin’ FBI. You don’t think, with all their resources, they couldn’t have cracked this case if they wanted to?”

That same thought had occurred to me.

“But it wasn’t just the FBI and the cops.” Galimore pointed his fork at his chest. “I was also part of the problem.”

I let him continue.

“The Gambles were good people caught between bad alternatives. Either their daughter had turned her back on them, or she’d come to harm. Early in the investigation, they phoned me every day. Eventually I stopped picking up. I’m not proud of that.”

“So your interest is twofold and self-serving. You want to clear your conscience and at the same time stick it to the cops.”

“There’s something else. I got a call at my office earlier this week. The voice sounded male, but I can’t be sure. It was muffled by some sort of filter.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll spare you the colorful verbiage. Bottom line, the caller threatened to take me down by exposing my past to the media unless I backed off on the Gamble-Lovette thing.”

“And you said?” I kept my voice neutral to hide my skepticism.

“Nothing. I hung up.”

“Did you trace the number?”

“The call was placed on a throwaway phone.”

“Your explanation?”

“The body in the landfill. The story in the paper.”

Galimore’s eyes again swept the restaurant.

“Someone out there is getting very, very nervous.”