Flash and Bones - Kathy Reichs [88]
“I tried hiring baton twirlers, but everyone was booked.”
“That’s OK. It would have been rather crowded in here.”
It was tight anyway. Skinny was at the desk. The specials were in chairs dragged from the dining room. I was on the sofa, with Birdie curled on my quilt-covered lap.
“Bogan’s going to make it?” I asked.
“Not because I wasn’t aiming. The peckerwood hunkered down in the backhoe just as I fired.”
The pops I’d heard weren’t backfires.
“How did you know I’d gone to the Speedway?”
“A tip from a man of the cloth.”
“Reverend Grace?” Of course. I’d mentioned my whereabouts in our phone conversation.
“Hallelujah, sister.” Slidell waggled splayed fingers.
“Why did you go to the dirt track?”
“I learned that Bogan was supposed to fill the sinkhole. I hauled ass out there, saw the headlights, heard you cursing like a sailor on shore leave.”
“Thank God you finally called Winge’s pastor.”
“Big Guy had nothing to do with it. And I didn’t call Grace. He called me around ten, all in a twist because we’d collared one of his flock. I was still sweating Winge.”
“Grace persuaded him to talk?”
“Yeah. Told him that salvation would be his only if he bore witness to the truth. Or some bullshit like that. According to Winge, Bogan killed the girl and his own kid, then told Winge they’d been agents of an anti-patriot conspiracy and ordered him to bury the bodies, or both his membership in the posse and his job were toast.”
“Two years later, Bogan used the same arguments to force Winge to help dump Eli Hand.”
Williams’s comment was news to me.
“It was like a damn pyramid scheme,” Slidell said. “Danner was squeezing Bogan. Bogan was squeezing Winge.”
“J. D. Danner? The leader of the Patriot Posse?” Clearly I’d missed a lot while incapacitated.
“The head wrangler,” Slidell said.
“After events at the Speedway, the bureau decided it was time to bring in some individuals we’d had under surveillance,” Williams explained.
“Round ’em up.” Slidell circled a finger in the air.
“Danner’s lawyer allowed him to cooperate in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The DA agreed to a deal covering criminal acts prior to 2002.”
“The year the Patriot Posse disbanded.”
“Yes. As you know, Grady Winge is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And he was still drinking back in ’ninety-eight. Winge let slip to others in the posse that Bogan had killed Cale and Cindi. According to Danner, certain group members used that knowledge to blackmail Bogan.”
“They made him their whore,” Slidell said.
“When Eli Hand died, higher-ups in the posse pressed Bogan into service to dispose of his body,” Williams said. “As with Cindi and Cale, Bogan forced Winge to do the dirty work.”
“Conveniently, at the time they were filling potholes at the Speedway,” Slidell said.
It seemed incredible that a person, even one with Winge’s limited IQ, could be pressured to do such a thing.
“How do you get someone to cram a corpse into a barrel, cover it with asphalt, and haul it to a landfill?” I asked.
“Bogan told Winge if he refused to dump Hand, he’d make sure Winge took the fall for Cindi and Cale. And he threatened to burn Mama Winge’s place to the ground.”
“It was Bogan who killed Eugene Fries’s dog and torched his house,” I guessed.
Williams nodded. “And it was Bogan who was stalking Wayne Gamble.”
I considered that. “When Gamble first came to see me at the MCME, he offered to locate Cale Lovette’s father and give him a call. He must have done that.”
“Freaked Bogan out.” Slidell was playing with a water globe I keep on my desk, a gift from my nephew Kit.
“Bogan used his usual MO to try to dissuade Gamble from pursuing the reopening of his sister’s case,” Williams said. “But this time intimidation didn’t work.”
I remembered Gamble’s calls to me, the anger and fear in his voice as he talked of his stalker. Again felt the heavy weight of guilt.
“It was Bogan who threatened Galimore,” Williams added. “And you.”
I thought back to the day at CB Botanicals. The greenhouse. Daytona.
“His cat startled