Flash and Bones - Kathy Reichs [90]
“And I suppose Wayne Gamble called him mean names?”
“Eeyuh. Hard to sell temporary insanity on that one. Want to hear a sick sidebar?”
I wiggled my fingers, indicating I did.
“Bogan kept their shoes.”
“What?”
“Before the shooting, he made Cindi and Cale take off their shoes and walk down to the pond.”
“The one by his greenhouse.”
“Yeah. All these years, he kept their shoes in a box in his closet.”
I could think of nothing to say to that.
“Has Bogan said how he murdered Gamble?” I asked.
“He was watching, saw the other mechanic leave the garage. When Gamble bent under the hood, Bogan released some thingamajig that dropped the jack. The engine was cranking full throttle, so when the wheels hit the floor, it was sayonara.”
“Bogan had been poisoning Gamble. Why kill him in the garage?”
“Several triggers. First, Bogan was frustrated because the abrin wasn’t working the way he’d expected. Probably because the dumb shit screwed the stuff up.”
“Or the toxin was old and degraded.”
“Or that. Second, Bogan was getting nervous because Gamble seemed to be making progress. You and Galimore showing up at his greenhouse scared the crap out of him.”
“He didn’t let on.”
“No. But he recognized Galimore, both because of the task force back in ’ninety-eight and from seeing him at the Speedway. He knew who Galimore was, felt things closing in.”
“Why didn’t Galimore recognize Bogan?”
“Bogan got the landscaping contract before Galimore hired on at the Speedway. Since he already had his security clearance and employee ID, the two never intersected. Bogan kept an eye on Galimore but never really entered his orbit. Bogan’s on-site man was Winge.”
“So Galimore had little opportunity and no reason to notice Bogan.”
“Bingo. Third, Gamble had confronted Bogan earlier that day, threatened to clean his clock if he didn’t knock off the bird-dog act. Bottom line, Bogan saw an opportunity at the garage and grabbed it. Figured Gamble’s death would pass as an accident.”
Guilt vied with the anger knotting my gut.
Shoving both aside, I asked another question.
“According to Maddy Padgett, Cale was planning to quit the Patriot Posse. Was that true?”
“Eeyuh. And Cale knew a lot of their dirty little secrets. He and Cindi were crapping their shorts to get out of town. They feared posse hardliners might use muscle to keep them from leaving. Or worse.”
“That’s why she had the locks changed. She was afraid of the posse, not Cale.”
“Bogan also gave it up on Owen Poteat. We were right. He paid Poteat to lie about seeing Cindi and Cale at the Charlotte airport.”
“How did Bogan recruit him?”
“Before he got canned, Poteat sold Bogan a sprinkler system for his greenhouse. One day he was checking out a problem and they got to talking. Poteat needed money. Bogan needed the cops thinking his kid was alive and well and living somewhere with his girlfriend. Bogan undoubtedly gave some innocent-sounding reason for wanting to place the two of them at the airport. Poteat bit.”
Reflections from the magnolias moved in shifting patterns across the dark lenses covering Slidell’s eyes. I suspected his emotions were paralleling mine.
“It’s hard to believe a man could murder two young people, one his own flesh and blood, over an outmoded definition of what a sport should be. But I guess with him, it wasn’t a sport. It was a religion carried to the point of fanaticism.”
“There was a time we lobotomized freaks like him.”
“Those were the days.”
Slidell missed my sarcasm. “Well, that’s last season’s pennant race. Here’s a good one. Bogan’s almost sixty, and the asshole’s never left the Carolinas.”
“I guess stock car racing was all the universe he needed. That and his plants.”
Slidell shook his head.
“I keep seeing Bogan’s den in my mind,” I said. “The place was a shrine to NASCAR. Model cars, auto parts, clothing, signed posters, a zillion framed pictures. Yet not a single snapshot of Cale.”
“Freak,” Slidell repeated.
“Here