Consumed (9 page)

Beth and I got into her rental. She fired up the engine and waited for Dave to pass us. Tom pulled out behind him, followed by us and finally Jeff in the coroner’s van. The drive took us almost twenty minutes.

We spotted the scene down a long, winding, wood-lined road—only a few sporadic houses, farms, and fields had broken up the woods in the previous mile. A single sheriff’s cruiser waited along the side of the road. Our convoy of vehicles pulled in behind the cruiser and parked. We stepped out, and our group approached the single deputy, who waited alongside his car. To our right, I spotted a yellow tarp maybe ten feet from the road’s edge.

I looked back over my shoulder. Jeff had remained in the coroner’s van, seemingly getting it ready to accept another body. We continued walking. Dave, with his kit in hand and camera around his neck, went straight to view the remains. Tom, Beth, and I went to the deputy.

“Deputy Carey,” he said. He was thin and maybe an inch or two under six foot. His face was clean shaved, with a pair of eyes that could have been referred to as
buggy
. He wore the standard Clarksville County Sheriff’s uniform, consisting of a light-blue long-sleeved shirt with black breast pockets and a pair of black slacks.

“We’re Agents Rawlings, Harper, and Clifford with the FBI.” I pointed at each of us with our corresponding names. “Just you out here?” I asked.

“Yeah. Been here for an hour and a half,” he said.

“Who called it in?” Tom asked.

“Anonymous,” he said. “Not sure how someone spotted it. She’s in there a bit. Whoever called it in had to be in a truck or something. Higher line of sight.”

I nodded and looked over to where Dave stood near the body, taking photos. The deputy had made a good point—she wasn’t really visible from the road.

“Didn’t touch the body, did you?” Dave called from the ditch.

“Nope. Just laid the tarp. That’s it.”

I looked at where the remains were, in relation to the street. I took a few steps and surveyed the ground, trying to see if I could spot blood anywhere on the road’s surface, like the last scene, or the gravel of the shoulder—I saw nothing.

“Can we come down, Dave?” I asked.

“One second. Let me just snap a couple more pics of the surrounding area before it’s disturbed further.”

Beth, Tom, and I waited at the edge of the street until Dave gave us the go-ahead to come over. Then we stepped through the knee-high weeds to get to him and the body. The smell increased with each step. I put my sleeve over my nose and mouth. Dave had pushed some of the grass where the woman lay to the side and knelt next to her. His kit was open, his hands gloved. I stopped at his side and looked down just as he began to pull back the tarp. Tom and Beth came to my right. As soon as Dave moved the tarp, a handful of flies scattered. I shooed them from around my head and tried to focus on the remains. I saw white-blond hair, matted red and brown with blood. The woman’s eyes were closed, and her mouth hung open a bit. A single fly was walking around on her forehead. Her throat had been opened wide, ear to ear. She was wearing a loose-fitting hot-pink top, and I saw various stab marks in her chest and abdomen area. Her arms had been removed at the shoulders. Dave pulled the tarp completely from her. She wore a leopard-print skirt that hung from the bottom of her remains, due to the lack of legs. I looked back up to her hair and face—something looked off. Her hair and the way it lay looked unnatural.

“I think that’s a wig,” I said.

Dave nodded. “Yeah, it is. It looks like she’s got short brown hair underneath.”

“She’s got a tattoo there.” Beth pointed at the area around her right collarbone, which her shirt was concealing.

Dave moved her shirt down an inch. “It says Candy.” He inspected the body further. “Knife wounds look to total around seven or eight. Some of these wider ones might be straight through. Can one of you grab Jeff? I’m going to need him to help me roll the body.”

“Sure,” Tom said. He walked toward the street.

Dave looked up at us from his kneeling position. “Another prostitute, I’d guess. She looks to be in her late twenties, maybe thirty. Dave moved her bottom lip down a bit with his finger. Teeth look like she may have been a meth user.”

“See anything around the body?” Beth asked.

Dave shook his head. “Zip.”

Tom walked with Jeff toward us from the back of Jeff’s coroner’s van. They left the street and took the few steps through the weeds toward us.

“Need a hand?” Jeff asked.

“Just with rolling the body,” Dave said. “I’ll take a few photos, and then I can give you a hand loading her up.”

“Sure,” Jeff said.

Beth and I spread apart so Jeff could assist Dave. We watched as Jeff gloved his hands and then helped roll the remains onto their side. The wig fell from the woman’s head to the weeds beside her.

Beth swatted my shoulder and pointed. “Crescent moon and stars.” She pointed at the woman’s ear.

“Are those more of the same tattoos, Dave?” I asked.

He took the camera from his eye and tilted his head to get a look behind her ear. He look back at Beth and I. “Yeah, same,” he said.

Richard sat on the couch in the living room, staring at the television, which was currently airing an infomercial for a juicer. Over his lap rested a TV tray with his breakfast—four eggs and a four-inch roast of Peaches’s calf, slow cooked and seasoned to perfection. The meat, having been in the slow cooker overnight, shredded with the lightest touch. Peaches had won Richard’s own personal taste test between the two hookers. He sliced his eggs with a fork and knife and shoveled a forkful into his mouth. He mixed some of the wet yellow egg yolk with some of Peaches’s shredded calf meat and brought it to his mouth.

He chewed and savored his breakfast—the meat carried a flavor similar to a pork roast, though Richard hadn’t eaten pork in quite some time. While pan frying, grilling, and baking were all suitable methods for cooking the women he’d selected, Richard always preferred the tenderness that slow cooking provided.

He heard a car pulling up the driveway. Richard slid the TV tray from over his lap and went to the window to look out. “Shit.” Richard scratched at his beard.

“Who is it?” he heard his mother ask.

“It’s your cop son. Come on.” Richard went back to the couch, picked her up, and carried her to the basement door.

“Mark came to visit me?”

“He’s not here to visit you. Just be quiet.” Richard opened the basement door, walked down the steps, and set his mother in the corner. “Keep your trap shut,” Richard said.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” he heard.

Richard jogged back up the basement stairs, closed the door at his back, and walked through the living room to the kitchen. He looked through the screen door leading outside—Mark was getting out of his sheriff’s SUV. Richard knew why he was there. He retreated back to the living room and took his seat again on the couch. He pulled the television tray with his breakfast on it back over his lap. His eyes darted in between the kitchen door, his food, and the television.

“He looks angry,” Richard heard his mother say from the basement.

“Shut up. He’s coming.”

Richard heard the tinny crack and rattle of the screen door slamming into the outside wall of the house.

“Where the hell are you?” Mark called.

“I’m eating breakfast in the living room,” Richard said. His right hand went to his hip and flipped open the snap that secured the handle of his knife to the sheath.

“Don’t you hurt your brother, Richie,” he heard his mother say from below.

“Be quiet,” he snapped. “If he tries getting rough with me, I’m going to stab him in the face. He tried getting tough with me last night. I didn’t like it.”

The sound of stomping footsteps thumped through the kitchen.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Mark asked. The footsteps came around the backside of the couch, and Mark appeared in front of him. “I asked who you were talking to.”

“Mom,” Richard said.

“Mom is dead, dipshit.”

“She still talks to me,” Richard said. “Every day. She keeps me company.”

Mark snapped his fingers. “Back to reality, Richie. Mom is sitting in hell, pissed off that you killed her.”

Richard said nothing. He focused on the television and scooped some eggs into his mouth. He could see Mark shaking his head from the corner of his eye.

“Richie, what the hell did I tell you to do last night?” Mark asked. He shooed a fly away from his face with his hand.

Richard looked down at his food. He picked up his fork and began to stab at the shredded meat, filling the fork’s tines.

Mark pulled his hand back and swatted the TV tray, sending the tray, the knife, the plate, and Richard’s breakfast flying across the living room. “What did I tell you to do?”

“Hey! That was my breakfast, dammit!” Richard shouted.

Mark stared at him, waiting for a response.

Richard ate the meat hanging from his fork and set it on the table beside the couch. “You told me to pick them back up. But I couldn’t find them. I drove around for a long time. I just couldn’t find where I dumped them.”

“That’s not acceptable. You know what I just did for the last hour?”

“I don’t know.” Richard leaned back into the couch’s cushions. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me, though.”

“You’re damn right I’m going to tell you. I stood on the side of the road while a couple of feds looked over what you left.”

Richard shrugged. “I couldn’t find them. What can I say other than that? I drove around for, like, three hours, trying not to fall asleep. I was really tired. I couldn’t do it anymore. Look, I’m sorry, but we wouldn’t be having this talk if you did what you were supposed to.”

“What I’m supposed to do? I’ve been taking care of your dumb ass for how many years, making sure you don’t get found, making sure the girls disappear. You dumping these whores on my streets is going to get you caught. Because you couldn’t wait for me, now there are a pair of feds that have been sent in from out of state. If they find you, there’s a chance they will find out who I actually am. I’m telling you as your brother I will put your ass in the ground before I let that happen. I don’t care. I’m not sitting in prison for you.”

“I just needed the bodies away from me, and you stopped coming to take care of them. I can’t call you. I can’t come looking for you. When I’m done with them, they have to go away. It was the same with Dad. You don’t understand how bad the voices get because you don’t have the disease.”

“Disease.” Mark cocked his head to the side. “You’re calling it a disease now? Why don’t you call it what it is, being a damn nut that hears voices. You don’t see me sawing up whores and eating them. You don’t see me having conversations with ghosts. And don’t bring Dad into this.”

“I still don’t believe you’ve never found him.”

“He’s gone—either dead or deserted us. Just accept it. It’s been how many years? If he gave a shit about your crazy ass, he wouldn’t have left you.”

“Tell him to be nice!” Richard heard his mother say.

“Mom says to be nice to me,” Richard said.

“Really, she just told you that?” Mark asked.

“Yup.”

“Okay. For the last time, whatever the hell you’re hearing in your head sure as shit isn’t Mom. She’s nothing but bones and dirt. You want to go grab a shovel and take a walk downstairs with me? I can show her to you.”

“I know she’s down there,” Richard said.

Mark pursed his lips in thought. “You know, Richie, I’ve been thinking about something.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Richard asked.

“The
disease
that you call it that you suffer from, the voices and breaks with reality, I think I have a hunch what it’s from.”

“You’re a doctor and a cop?” Richard asked. “Wow, what’s the diagnosis?”

“You want to get cute with me?” Mark asked.

Richard smirked and tried to look around his brother at the television.

“Did the thought ever cross your mind that these whores you’re eating are probably filled with drugs and diseases?”

“Cooking kills all that.”

“How in the hell would you know that?” Mark asked.

“Educated guess.”

“From someone who’s never been educated.”

Richard said nothing.

Mark shooed away another fly and let out a puff of air through his nose. “You need to do something about the smell and flies.”

“What do you propose I do about it? No one ever comes in here, and it’s not like you and I aren’t used to it.”

“Just spray something and put up some fly tape. Clean up after yourself, at least. That kitchen is a mess.”

“I’ll get around to it,” Richard said.

“All right, I’m done parenting you for the day. You wait until I come for the next ones. Put them in the basement of the old house.”

“It’s full,” Richard said.

Mark shook his head and let out a breath. “Just put them somewhere on the property. No more side-of-the-road shit. None.”

“Dad always left them on the side of the road,” Richard said.

“Dad also didn’t have who-knows-how-many bodies stacked up under the floorboards of the house. He was smart about it: killed them out in fields, took what he needed to feed us, and left them at the side of the road. He didn’t bring the hookers home with him, chop them all to shit here, and then drive their dead bodies around in the middle of the night. I’ve seen the inside of the old house. I know what you’re doing out there.”

Richard didn’t respond.

“I’m just telling you to use your damn head, Richie.”

“Fine.”

“You better swear,” Mark said. “No more bullshit.”

“I swear.”

Mark stared at him.

Richie looked up and returned his brother’s gaze. “I said I swear.”

Mark shook his head and looked down at Richard in disgust. “And clean your ass up. You look like hell.”

“I like the long hair and beard,” Richard said. “Makes me look outdoorsmanlike.”

“No, it makes you look like a damn homeless person.”

“Whatever,” Richard said.

Mark looked toward the kitchen and sniffed the air. “You have food going?” he asked.