Grave Situation (27 page)

When David shut off the car, he
became aware of the drone of a running motor. As he slipped out and
walked over to Sam, the noise grew louder.

“Do we know anything yet?” he
asked him.

Sam turned to him. “It’s murder,
Chief. Fitzgerald said the victim looks like he was
stabbed.”

David inhaled. With a knot
tightening in his stomach, he stepped to the edge of the embankment
and peered down. A grassy slope descended one hundred feet to a
creek that measured perhaps four feet across. Two arc lights,
powered by a portable generator, bathed the area. Bugs had already
begun flashing within their beams.

The dead man lay sprawled on the
bank of the creek with his feet in the water and his pant legs
ballooned up. Paul Fitzgerald, the county coroner, was crouched
next to the body, blocking much of the view. He was in his early
thirties with bright eyes and jet-black hair, neatly
cut.

On the other side of the creek
stood James Bentley, snapping pictures from multiple angles. He was
a twenty-six year veteran who held the rank of staff sergeant and
worked as the department’s sole Ident tech when needed.

Sam walked over to
David.

“It’s going to be pitch-black
soon, Chief,” he said.

“I know.” David cast a concerned
glance at the dimming sky; a ridge of fluffy clouds ran along the
horizon just below a gibbous moon. “We’ll have to postpone a search
until morning. At least it’s not supposed to rain.”

“Do you want me to stay here
overnight?”

David nodded. “Yes. I’ll have
Terrance come in early for his shift in the morning to relieve you.
Did Willy take Cussons and Grant into town?”

“Yeah, he took Cussons in his car.
Grant took his own truck in.”

“Good.”

Fitzgerald broke away from his work
to look inside his medical bag for something, and it was then that
David had a full view of the body. Even though the dead man’s face
was twisted away, the trench coat was recognizable
anywhere.

David grimaced.

John,
he thought sadly.
Who
did this to you?

Up the road a bit, a heavy rope
marked the entrance into the crime scene, stretching down the
embankment north of the victim. David went to it, sliding down the
hillside, grabbing at clumps of grass, nearly tumbling to the
bottom. He moved slowly along the bank of the creek, mindful of
burrows and fallen branches. The woodland on the other side was
dark and gloomy.

As David got closer, he saw
Fitzgerald directing the beam of a flashlight around the ground by
the body.

“How long do you think he’s been
out here?” David called out to him.

“A week, maybe,” Fitzgerald
shouted back over the sound of the nearby generator. “There’s
decomp and bloating present. I’ll be able to establish a better
time frame when I get him back to the morgue. We’re lucky the local
wildlife didn’t find him.”

David frowned.

Didn’t find him?

As he reached the body and stared
down at it, he found himself unable to move. He remembered a boy in
high school who was short and chubby, like him. Outgoing. Bright.
Someone the teachers thought would go somewhere in life, but all
David saw now was the emaciated shell of a man who had gone nowhere
in life and whose lined and ravaged face made him look many years
older than he was.

For a moment, David lowered his
head in silent grief. He touched his forehead, his heart and each
shoulder in the sign of the cross.

In the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

May God be with you,
John.

James walked over to him, camera
dangling from a strap around his neck. “What do you say we remove
the body tonight and come back in the morning to finish the search
of the scene?”

David nodded. “My thoughts
exactly.”

James pointed to the embankment.
“There’s a path of matted grass and fall-like indentations in the
soil leading from the edge of the road straight down to the
body.”

David’s gaze moved up the slope to
where Patterson stood looking down.

A dump
job?
he wondered.
Is this the primary or secondary scene?

“I wonder if he was murdered
here?”

“I don’t know,” said James.
“Someone brought him out here, that’s for sure.”

David paused a moment, staring at
the creek cascading past.

“Fitzgerald hasn’t checked the
body for ID yet,” James said. “But I think the victim’s the park
hermit.”

“He
is.
” David turned to
him. “His name was John Baker.”

“You knew him?”

“Yeah, many years ago.”

“What made him become such a
social oddity?”

David looked at the body with a sad
expression. “The bottle became his demon.”

“Did he have any
family?”

“Don’t think so.”

David watched Fitzgerald slide a
probe thermometer into a mass of maggots on the vagrant’s abdomen
and then record the temperature in his notebook. When he finished,
he took out a plastic spoon from his medical bag and began using it
to collect specimens of maggots in two jars.

“We’re going to have the body
removed tonight,” David called to him. “Return at daybreak to
continue the search.”

Fitzgerald tightened the lid of one
jar. “Okay, Chief. I’m going to come back then as well and check
the soil for pupae.”

“Will you do the autopsy
tonight?”

Fitzgerald checked his watch. “I
can. I’m going to get these little critters,” he held up a jar,
“ready to send down to Halifax for analysis.”

“Did they do much
damage?”

“Only a little. We’re lucky there
aren’t too many flies around yet. If this was the middle of July…”
Fitzgerald paused and shook his head. “Well, there wouldn’t be much
of a body left.”

“Can you determine how his hands
were removed?” David asked.

“Don’t know. Sawed off. Chopped
off.”

This gave David pause. “Animals
couldn’t have done it?”

“No.” Fitzgerald reached down and
lifted one arm. “The cuts are too clean.”

David’s gaze fell upon the stump of
a wrist, crusted with writhing maggots. Suddenly exposed to the
powerful arc lights, they began dropping off the arm in a steady
line. David brought up a fist to his mouth, knuckles touching his
lips, as he tried to fight the rise of a late supper.

He turned to James. “Did you find
the hands?”

“No, Chief. I looked on the
hillside, along the bank of the creek, even downstream, but they’re
not here.”

David shook his head. He felt a
strange sense of foreboding.

Why the hands? Where are
they?

30

Acresville, May 17

8:15 a.m.

Herb pulled on a pair of gloves and
opened the creaky basement door. Below him a flight of narrow steps
disappeared into a murky darkness. He flipped the light switch and
went down. The dank smell of moist soil flooded his nostrils. One
dimly-lit bulb hung from a wire in the middle of the ceiling
joists, casting long shadows out to the cement walls.

The basement itself was open and
unfinished with an earthen floor. Resting on a slab of concrete, a
furnace took up the center floor space, its pipes jutting in all
directions.

In three strides Herb crossed to a
chest freezer set up on two pallets against the right-hand wall. A
blast of cold air struck his face as he lifted the lid and bent
inside. He took out two Ziploc bags containing the hands he had
stolen from the vagrant and carried them upstairs.

There was a
small
Coleman
cooler on the table. Herb put the frozen hands inside it and
closed the lid. He removed his gloves.

The clock on the wall read
8:23.

Almost time.

Herb sighed, feeling tension in his
gut.

What will they
want next?
he wondered.

The uncertainty made him anxious.
He went to the kitchen counter and slid open the linen drawer. From
beneath a pile of dishtowels he withdrew his .38 revolver. He
didn’t need to check the cylinder; he kept the gun loaded at all
times. He tucked it in the back of his pants and pulled his shirt
over it.

To calm his nerves, he poured a
generous amount of whiskey into a glass and gulped it down in one
swallow.

The morning sun, brightening, hit
his face through the kitchen window. As Herb squinted out at the
rolling pastures, he found himself remembering with terrible
clarity a little boy and his dog plunging through the cornfield
that used to be there.

“C’mon, Jessie,” the boy called
out, maneuvering his way through the stalks of young
corn.

The family dog, a black and white
cocker spaniel, was close behind him, bounding and frolicking
tirelessly.

The day was clear and sun-washed
with a modest wind.

Suddenly, the boy became aware the
dog was no longer following him.

“Jessie?”

He staggered around in an erratic
circle, searching. Every direction looked the same—row upon row of
stalks.

He whistled sharply and waited,
expecting the dog to come leaping out of nowhere.

Seconds passed.

A minute.

Cupping his hands to his mouth, the
boy called out, “Jessie. Here, boy.”

Still the spaniel didn’t
come.

Often the dog would wander off with
its nose to the ground, chasing the scent of some animal that had
passed through the cornfield. The little boy thought this to be one
of those times.

“Jessie.”

A moment later, the boy began to
search for the dog.

Retracing his route, he eventually
saw the spaniel through gaps in the stalks.

“There you are.”

The dog turned and looked at the
approaching boy. Gave a wag of its tail and then turned back, its
floppy ears alert.

“What is it?”

The boy lapsed into silence,
listening. He could hear something faint, but distinct.
Interspersed with the wind hissing through the maize, it sounded
like a voice.

The cornstalks were just over the
boy’s head. On tiptoes he craned his neck, looking out and over the
tops. Nearly gasped when he saw a figure high above the golden sea
of gently moving tassels—the scarecrow his father had put up to
keep away the crows.

So far, it hadn’t done a good
job.

The scarecrow was tied to a wooden
crucifix. Beneath a tattered hat that slouched over a burlap face,
a few straws were poking out where the boy’s mother had stitched a
sad mouth. Bird droppings pocked the checkered shirt and gray
coveralls that clothed its hay-filled body.

When the boy’s gaze trailed past
the scarecrow, he saw his father standing at the edge of the field.
The words coming from his mouth were lost in the wind, but his
gestures alone told the boy that he was furious about
something.

The boy’s heart began thrashing. He
wondered if his father was drunk again because that meant only bad
things were going to happen.

The boy spun
around, searching wildly for an escape. At the far end of the
cornfield lay a tightly choked stand of trees. To the right were
rolling pastures and grazing cows; to the left, the
west pasture and its timothy that had yet to be
hayed.

There was nowhere to run. His
father would only find him. And then he would be in deeper
trouble.

Slowly, the boy started back
through the corn with fear growing inside him. His legs were like
lead. In his paranoia he imagined the terrible beating awaiting him
and felt sick to his stomach.

Within minutes he emerged from the
cornfield. His father stood just inside the fence, meaty hands
balled at his sides. He wore a thick beard and moustache, and a red
and black flannel shirt that reminded the boy of Paul
Bunyan.

With panic gripping his heart, the
boy walked towards him, stopping a few feet away. His mouth felt
dry.

“What is it, Dad?”

For a long moment, the man didn’t
move or speak. Just bored his eyes into his son with a fiery
intensity. Unable to control his nervousness, the boy began to
fidget.

All at once, the man spat, “You
little shit.”

He came forward in a rush and
grabbed hold of his son’s shirt. The boy could feel the seam tear
under one arm as his father yanked him forward and thrust his
contorted face close to his. A prominent vein stood out in the
center of his forehead.