Break No Bones (10 page)

The climber looked a question at Gulet.

"Cut him down." Gulet's face remained neutral. "Gently."

"As far from the knot as you can," I said.

Bending forward, the climber snared the rope between the short, curved blades and compressed the handles.

I stepped in, prepared to direct the body into the bag.

On the second try, the shears severed the rope.

Miler raised her end of the bag as her helper lowered his. I held my arms up, preventing the body from sliding in my direction.

The corpse slithered into place. Sweating and grunting, the two lowered the bag from above their heads to the gurney.

"You've done this before," I said.

Miler nodded, wiped sweat from her face with a forearm.

As Miler moved off to colect the head and leg bones, Gulet began searching the clothing for ID.

Nothing in the pants. Nothing in the shirt.

Then, "Hel-o."

Gulet puled a walet from one of the jacket pockets. The leather was degraded due to runoff from decomposition that had penetrated the cloth.

Using a thumbnail, Gulet pried the front cover open. The walet's insides were sodden and congealed.

Using the same nail, the sheriff scraped dirt from the face of the first plastic compartment.

His cheeks may have crimped a fraction of a hair.

"Wel. Wel."

10

"DRIVING PERMIT ISSUED BY THE GREAT STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA." Gulet thumb-scraped the plastic some more, raised his shades to his head, and tilted the walet this way and that.

"No way this poor fela's Matthew Summerfield." Gulet thrust the walet at Miler.

The coroner's investigator angled the plastic as the sheriff had done. "You got that right." Miler offered the walet to me. "Print's too smal for these old eyes."

Though the photo was badly deteriorated, it was clear the man pictured was no kid. He had flabby features, black-rimmed glasses, and wispy hair slicked into a comb-over. I strained to make out the lettering to the right of the photo.

"The name looks like Chester something Pinney. Maybe Pickney. Or Pinckney. The rest is too damaged," I said.

Miler produced a ziplock and I dropped the walet into it. She handed the baggie to Gulet.

"If you've got no objection, we'l deliver this gentleman's mortal remains to the morgue. Miss Rousseau wil want to find out who he is and make next-of-kin notification as soon as possible."

Miler looked at her watch. We al folowed suit, Pavlovian pups.

"Going on seven," Gulet said. "Nothing more going to happen tonight."

Nodding to Miler and me, the sheriff repositioned his shades on the bridge of his nose, whistled to the dog, and set off toward the road.

While her coleague cut free and bagged the remaining segment of rope, Miler and I satisfied ourselves that no further information could be wrung from the site. Vines and moss whispered overhead. Mosquitoes whined. Amphibians chanted from the murky gloom of the bog.

The sky was bleeding into a Lowcountry dusk as Miler slammed the double doors on the coroner's van. Her face was splotchy with insect bites, and perspiration darkened her back and chest.

"I'l be caling Emma shortly," I said. "I can fil her in."

"Thank ya, sweetie. That's one less chore to worry my mind."

I dialed from the road. Emma answered after three rings, her voice sounding thin and edgy. I explained what had taken place.

"I don't know how to thank you."

"No need," I said.

"The Summerfields wil be relieved."

"Yes," I said, with little enthusiasm. A common scenario. One family gets good news, another gets bad.

I heard an intake of air, then nothing.

"What?"

"You've done so much."

"Not realy."

"I hate to ask."

"Ask."

A hitch, then, "I have a treatment tomorrow. I—"

"What time?"

"The appointment is at seven."

"I'l pick you up at six thirty."

"Thanks, Tempe." The relief in her voice almost made me cry.

Again, I arrived home steeped in the smel of death. Again, I went straight to the outdoor shower and stood under water as hot as I could stand, soaping and lathering over and over.

Boyd greeted me with his usual enthusiasm, going upright, then working figure eights around my legs. Birdie watched with disapproval. Or maybe scorn. It's hard to tel with cats.

After throwing on clothes, I filed pet bowls, then checked the house phone. Ryan hadn't caled. Nor had he left a message on my cel.

Pete's car was not in the drive. Except for Bird and the chow, the place was empty.

When I unpegged his leash, Boyd flew into a frenzy, racing circles around the kitchen, ending with forepaws down, rump pointed skyward. I took him for a long walk on the beach.

Returning home, I again checked both phones. Nada.

"Cal Ryan?" I asked Boyd.

The chow twirled his eyebrow hairs and canted his head.

"You're right. If he's pouting, we'l give him space. If he's busy, he'l phone when he can."

Climbing to my room, I slid open the glass door and fel into bed. Boyd settled on the floor. For a long time I lay awake, listening to the surf and smeling the ocean.

At some point, Birdie hopped up and curled at my side. I was thinking about eating something when I drifted off.

Gulet was right. Nothing more happened that night.

===OO=OOO=OO===

"Pinckney?"

At shortly after eleven the next morning, Emma and I were in a treatment room at a clinic two blocks east of the main hospital. She wore a hospital smock. An IV ran from her left arm. With her right she held a mobile to her ear. Coroner perk. Dispensation from the no cel phone rule.

"Landline?" Emma asked.

Pause.

"What's the address?"

Pause.

"I know it. I'l swing by there in about an hour."

Emma clicked off and spoke to me.

"Chester Tyrus Pinckney."

"I was close," I said.

"The phone's been cut off, but the address isn't too far from Rockvile."

"Isn't that way south? Down by Kiawah and Seabrook?"

"Wadmalaw Island. The area's pretty rural."

I thought about that.

"Mr. Pinckney traveled a long way to hang himself."

Before Emma could reply a woman entered the room. She wore a white coat and held a chart in one hand. Her face was friendly but neutral.

Emma introduced the woman as Dr. Nadja Lee Russel. Despite the bravado she'd been showing al morning, her voice belied nervousness.

"I understand you had an episode," Russel said.

"Just fatigue," Emma said.

"You lost consciousness?"

"Yes," Emma admitted.

"Has that happened before?"

"No."

"Any fever? Nausea? Night sweats?"

"Some."

"Which?"

"Al of the above."

Russel made notes, then flipped pages in the chart. The room hummed with the sound of the overhead fluorescents.

Russel read on. The silence grew ominous. I felt cold bands squeezing my chest. It was like waiting out a verdict. You wil live. You wil die. You are better. You are not. I forced myself to smile.

Finaly, Russel spoke.

"I'm afraid I don't have good news, Emma. Your counts stil have not improved as much as I would have liked."

"They're down?"

"Let's just say I'm not seeing the level of progress I was hoping for."

The room seemed to compress around me. I reached out and took Emma's hand.

"What now?" Emma's voice was devoid of emotion. Her face had gone rigid.

"We continue," Russel said. "Every patient is different. For some, the treatment takes longer to kick in."

Emma nodded.

"You're young, you're stil strong. Continue to work if you feel up to it."

"I wil."

Emma's eyes folowed Russel's retreat out the door. In them I saw fear and sadness. But most of al, I saw defiance.

"You bet your sweet ass I'l keep working."

===OO=OOO=OO===

The travel brochures describe Wadmalaw as the most unspoiled of Charleston's islands. In this case, also the least aluring.

Technicaly, Wadmalaw is an island, carved off from the mainland by the Bohicket and North Edisto rivers. But Wadmalaw is blocked from the ocean by its upscale

"barrier" neighbors to the south and east, Kiawah and Seabrook. The good news: Wadmalaw is stable, and rarely suffers the ful-frontal blast of a hurricane. The bad news: no sandy beaches. Wadmalaw's acreage is a hodgepodge of woodland and wetland, ecozones hardly packing in tourists and vacation home buyers.

Though a few upscale houses have recently gone up on Wadmalaw, the area's residents remain mostly farmers, fishers, crabbers, and shrimpers. The island's one attraction is the Charleston Tea Plantation. Begun in 1799, the plantation lays claim to the title of oldest tea farm in America. But then, it's perhaps the only tea farm in America.

But who knows? If skinks and cooters ever catch the imagination of ecotourists, Wadmalaw wil be golden.

The smal town of Rockvile lies at Wadmalaw's southern tip. It was in the general direction of this metropolis that Emma and I pointed ourselves after leaving the clinic.

On the walk to my car I tried broaching the subject of NHL. Emma made it clear that the topic was off-limits. Initialy, her attitude annoyed me. Why ask for my company then close me out? But then, wasn't that exactly how I'd behave? Nulify weakness by refusing to grant it the validation of the spoken word? I wasn't sure, but I yielded to Emma's wishes. Her ilness, her cal.

I drove, Emma rode shotgun. Her directions took us southwest across James and Johns islands, onto the Maybank Highway, then onto Bears Bluff Road. Except for navigational commands, and a few exchanges concerning road signs, we rode in silence, listening to the air conditioner and to bugs slapping the windshield.

Eventualy, Emma directed me to turn onto a smal road lined with live oaks dripping Spanish moss. Shortly, she ordered another right, then, a quarter mile later, a left onto a rutted dirt lane.

Ancient trees leaned inward from both sides, drawn through decades to the ribbon of sunlight created by the lane's passage. Beyond the trees were trenches, black-green with moss and brackish water.

Here and there, a battered mailbox marked the opening to a driveway snaking off from one shoulder or the other. Otherwise, the narrow track was so overhung with vegetation, I felt like I was piloting through a leafy green wormhole in space.

"There."

Emma pointed to a mailbox. I puled up beside it.

Metalic letters formed an uneven row, the kind you buy at Home Depot and paste on. PINCKNEY.

On the ground, a homemade sign leaned against the box's upright. Rabbits for Sale. Good bait.

"What do you catch with rabbits?" I asked.

"Tularemia," Emma answered. "Turn here."

Thirty yards in, the trees yielded to tangled scrub. Ten more and the scrub dissolved into a smal dirt clearing.

No developer's dream had reworked this place. No condos. No tennis courts. No Dickie Dupree.

A smal clapboard house occupied the center of the clearing, surrounded by the usual piled tires, auto parts, broken lawn furniture, and rusted appliances. The house was single story, raised above the ground on crumbling brick pilings. The front door was open, but I could see nothing through the outer screening.

A steel cable ran between two uprights on the clearing's right side. A leash hung from the cable, a choke-chain colar clipped to its lower end.

An unpainted wooden shed stood at the clearing's left. Barely. I assumed this was home to the unfortunate rabbits.

I watched Emma draw a long, deep breath. I knew she hated what she was about to do. She got out. I folowed. The air was hot and heavy with moisture and the smel of rotting vegetation.

I waited at the foot of the steps while Emma climbed to the porch. I kept my eyes roving, alert for a pit bul or rottweiler. I'm a dog lover, but a realist. Rural canines and strangers spel stitches and shots.

Emma knocked.

A large black bird cawed and darted low over the shed. I watched it spiral upward, then disappear into the lobloly pines behind the clearing.

Emma caled out and knocked again.

I heard a male voice, then the
thrup
of rusty hinges.

I glanced back toward the house.

And saw the very last person I expected to see.

11

EMMA'S KNOCK HAD BEEN ANSWERED BY A MAN IN BAGGY YELLOW pants, homemade tire-tread sandals, and an apricot T that said: Go home. Earth is ful.

EMMA'S KNOCK HAD BEEN ANSWERED BY A MAN IN BAGGY YELLOW pants, homemade tire-tread sandals, and an apricot T that said: Go home. Earth is ful.

The man had black-rimmed glasses and hair greased into the worst comb-over I'd ever seen.

"Who's banging on my damn door?"

I froze, mouth open, staring at Chester Pinckney.

Emma had not seen Pinckney's license, and had no idea she was addressing the man pictured on it. She proceeded, unaware of my reaction.

"How do you do, sir. May I ask if you're a member of the Pinckney family?"

"Last I looked, this was my damn house."

"Yes, sir. And you would be?"

"You ladies needing crawlers?"

"No, sir. I'd like to talk to you about Chester Tyrus Pinckney."

Pinckney's eyes slithered to me.

"This some kinda joke?"

"No, sir," Emma said.

"Emma," I whispered.

Emma shushed me with a low backward wave of one hand.

A smile crawled Pinckney's lips, revealing teeth browned by smoking and years of neglect.

"Harlan send you?" Pinckney asked.

"No, sir. I'm the Charleston County coroner."

"We got a girl coroner?"

Emma badged him.

Pinckney ignored it.

"Emma," I tried again.

"That's dead bodies, right, like I seen on TV?"

"Yes, sir. Do you know Chester Pinckney?"

Maybe Emma's question confused him. Or maybe Pinckney was working on his idea of clever riposte. He gave her a blank stare.

"Mr. Pinckney," I jumped in.