by Kathy Reichs
Slidell determined that Hewlett was now assigned to the Eastway Division. He phoned and was placed on hold. Seconds later Hewlett picked up. Slidell switched to speakerphone.
“Yeah, I remember the B-and-E at Elmwood. Kinda sticks in my head, being the only grave robbery I’ve ever caught. Case went nowhere.”
“You have a gut on it?”
“Probably kids. I caught a double homicide that week, so vandalism didn’t top my dance card. We had no leads, nothing to work. Local Redmons were all dead or moved away. The one out-of-state relative we managed to locate didn’t give a rat’s ass. Eventually, I decided to just wait and see if the skull surfaced.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
I jumped in. “Why was the ME a no-show?”
“He asked my opinion. I told him nothing else in the tomb or in the coffin looked disturbed. He said he’d contact the family member living in Ohio.”
“And?”
“Thomas Redmon said seal her up, call if you find the head.”
“Real humanitarian,” Slidell said.
“Redmon had never been to Charlotte, didn’t know that branch of the family, hadn’t a clue who was stored in that tomb.”
“Did you check cemetery records on Susan Redmon?” I asked.
“Yeah. There wasn’t much. Just the name, burial location, and date of interment. Apparently hers was the last coffin in.”
“When was that?”
“Nineteen sixty-seven.”
“How many others are in there?”
“Four in all.”
“None of the others was vandalized?”
“Didn’t appear to be. But nothing was in good shape.”
Slidell thanked Hewlett and disconnected. For several seconds his hand lingered on the receiver. Then he turned to me.
“What do you think?”
“I think Finney’s lying about Cuervo. Maybe Klapec.”
“How ’bout we have us a crypt crawl?”
Elmwood isn’t the oldest burial ground in Charlotte. That would be Settlers. Located on Fifth between Poplar and Church, Settlers Graveyard is lousy with Revolutionary War heroes, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence signers, and well-heeled antebellum movers and shakers.
Elmwood is a relative newcomer on the local cemetery scene. Opened in 1853, the first interment took place two years later, purportedly the child of one William Beatty. Record keeping was less than detailed back then.
Business at Elmwood was slow for a while. Sales picked up in the latter half of the century due to population increases associated with the arrival of textile mills. The last plot sold in 1947.
Designed from its inception to serve both the quick and the dead, Elmwood remains a popular venue for joggers, strollers, and Sunday picnickers. But its hundred acres offer more than azaleas and shade. The cemetery’s design immortalizes in hardscape and landscape the changing attitudes of America’s New South.
Like Gaul, the original graveyard was omnis divisa in partes tres, Elmwood for whites, Pinewood for blacks, Potters Field for those lacking bucks for a plot. Whites only, of course.
No roads connected Elmwood to Pinewood, and the latter could not be accessed via the main entrance to the former. Sixth Street for whites, Ninth Street for blacks. Sometime in the thirties, a fence was erected to ensure that racially distinct corpses and their visitors never commingled.
Yessiree. Not only did African-Americans have to work, eat, shop, and ride buses in their own special places, their dead had to lie in barricaded dirt.
Years after Charlotte outlawed discrimination in the sale of cemetery plots, the fence lingered. Finally, in 1969, after a public campaign led by Fred Alexander, Charlotte’s first black city councilman, the old chain-linking came down.
Today everyone gets planted together.
Before leaving headquarters, Slidell dialed the number Hewlett had provided for Thomas Redmon. Amazingly, the man picked up.
Have a go, Redmon said. But, if possible, do everything on-site. Redmon was not a fan of rousing dead spirits.
Slidell also phoned the number listed for Allen Burkhead. Burkhead was still in charge of Elmwood and agreed to meet us.
Hewlett. Redmon. Burkhead. Three for three. We were clicking!
Burkhead was a tall, white-haired man who carried himself like a five-star general. He was waiting, crowbar in one hand, umbrella in the other, when we pulled up at the Sixth Street gate. It was raining again, a slow, steady drizzle. Heavy gray-black clouds looked ready to unload at the least encouragement.
Slidell briefed Burkhead, then we passed through the gates. The rain beat a soft metronome on the bill of my cap, and on the pack I carried slung over one shoulder.
Some people view silence as a void needing fill. Burkhead was one of them. Or maybe he was just proud of his little kingdom. As we walked, he provided unbroken commentary.
“Elmwood is a cultural encyclopedia. Charlotte’s poorest and wealthiest lie here, Confederate veterans side by side with African slaves.”
Not in this section, I thought, taking in the Neoclassical-inspired obelisks, the massive aboveground box tombs, the temple-like family crypts, the granite and marble carved in intricate detail.
Burkhead gestured with the crowbar as we walked, a guide identifying pharaohs in the necropolis at Thebes. “Edward Dilworth Latta, developer. S. S. McNinch, former mayor.”
Massive hardwoods arced overhead, leaves shiny, trunks dark with moisture. Cypresses, boxwoods, and flowering shrubs formed a wet understory. Headstones curved to the horizon, gray and mournful in the persistent rain. We passed a monument to firemen, a tiny stone log cabin, a Confederate memorial. I recognized common funerary symbols: lambs and cherubs for children, blooming roses for young adults, the Orthodox cross for Greeks, the compass and square for Masons.
At one point Burkhead paused by a headstone engraved with an elephant image. Solemnly, he read the inscription aloud.
“‘Erected by the members of John Robinson’s Circus in memory of John King, killed at Charlotte, North Carolina, September twenty-second, eighteen-eighty, by the elephant, Chief. May his soul rest in peace.’”
“Yeah?” Slidell grunted.
“Oh, yes. The beast crushed the poor man against the side of a railroad car. The accident caused quite a sensation.”
My eyes drifted to a marble statue of a female figure several graves over. Struck by the poignancy of her pose, I wove my way to it.
The woman was kneeling with one hand cradling her face, the other hanging limply, clutching a bouquet of roses. The detail in her clothing and hair was exquisite.
I read the inscription. Mary Norcott London had died in 1919. She was twenty-four. The monument had been erected by her husband, Edwin Thomas Cansler.
My mind floated a picture of the skull in my lab. Did it belong to Susan Clover Redmon?
Mary had been Edwin’s wife. She’d died so young. Who had Susan been? What calamity had cut her life short? Ended her happiness, her suffering, her hopes, her fears?
Had grieving parents placed Susan’s coffin lovingly in its tomb? Remembered her as a little girl coloring inside the lines, boarding the school bus with her brand-new lunch box? Had they cried, heartbroken at the promise of achievement never to be fulfilled?
Or had it been a husband who most mourned her passing? A sibling?
Slidell’s voice cut into my musing. “Yo, doc. You coming?”
I caught up with the others.
Further east, the cemetery’s subtly curvilinear design gave way to a gridlike arrangement of graves. The rain was falling harder now. I’d abandoned my soggy sweatshirt for an MCME windbreaker. Bad move. The thin nylon was keeping me neither warm nor dry.
Eventually we entered an area with few elaborate markers. The trees were still old and stately, but the layout appeared somehow more organic, less rigid. I assumed we’d crossed the boundary once secured by chain-linking.
Burkhead continued his guided tour.
“Thomas H. Lomax, A.M.E. Zion Bishop; Caesar Blake, Imperial Potentate of the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order and leader of Negro Shriners throughout the nineteen-twenties.”
The section’s most prominent feature was a small, front-gabled structure of yellow and red brick. Raised bricks formed diamond-shaped decorative motifs on the side and rear elevations and spelled SMITH above the plain wooden door.
“W. W. Smith, Charlotte’s first black architect,” Burkhead said. “I find it fitting that Mr. Smith’s tomb reflects his distinctive style of brickwork.”
“How many stiffs you got in this place?” Slidell asked.
“Approximately fifty thousand.” Burkhead’s tone gave new meaning to the term “disapproving.”
“Make a great setting for one of them zombie movies.”
Squaring his already square shoulders, Burkhead pointed the crowbar. “The vandalism occurred over here.”
Burkhead led us to a tiny concrete cube centered among a half dozen graves, each with a headstone bearing the middle or last name Redmon. The name also crowned the tomb’s front entrance.
Handing me the crowbar, Burkhead collapsed his umbrella and leaned it against the crypt. Then he produced a key and began working a padlock affixed at shoulder height to the right side of the door.
I noticed that the lock appeared shinier and less rusted than the nails and hinges embedded in the wood. Adjacent to it, deep gouges scarred the jamb.
After freeing the prongs, Burkhead pocketed both lock and key, and gave the door a one-handed push. It swung in with a trickle of rust and a Hollywood creak.
As one, we pulled out and flicked on our flashlights.
Burkhead entered first. I followed. Slidell brought up the rear.
The odor was dense and organic, the smell of earth, old brick, decayed wood, and rotten fabric. Of moths and rat piss and dampness and mold.
Of Slidell’s pastrami breath. The space was so small we were forced to stand elbow to elbow.
Our flashlights showed built-in ledges straight ahead and to the left of the door. Each held a simple wood coffin. Bad idea for riding out history. Good idea for a quick dust-to-dust sprint. Each box looked like it had gone through a crusher.
Wordlessly, Burkhead unfolded a photocopied document and stepped to the shelves opposite the door. Shadows jumped the walls as his gaze shifted back and forth from the paper in his hand to first the upper, then the lower coffin.
I knew what he was doing.
The dead do not always stay put. I once did an exhumation in which Grandpa was three plots over from the one in which he was supposed to have been buried. Another in which the deceased lay in a plot containing two stacks of three. Instead of bottom left, as shown in the records, our subject was second casket from the top right.
First rule in a disinterment: Make sure you’ve got the right guy.
Knowing the vague nature of old cemetery records, I assumed Burkhead was checking photos or brief verbal descriptions against observable details. Casket style, decorative hardware, handle design. Given the obvious age of the coffins, I doubted he’d be lucky enough to have manufacturers’ tags or serial numbers.
Finally satisfied, Burkhead spoke.
“These decedents are Mary Eleanor Pierce Redmon and Jonathan Revelation Redmon. Jonathan died in 1937, Mary in 1948.”
Moving to the side wall, Burkhead repeated his procedure. As before, it took him several minutes.
“The decedent on top is William Boston Redmon, interred February 19, 1959.”
Burkhead’s free hand floated to the lower coffin.
“This is the burial that was violated seven years ago. Susan Clover Redmon was interred on April 24, 1967.”
Like her relatives, Susan met eternity in a wooden box. Its sides and top had collapsed, and much of its hardware lay on a piece of plywood slid between the casket and the shelf.
A crack ran a good eighteen inches along the left side of the cover. Over it, someone had nailed small wooden strips.
“Mr. Redmon declined to purchase a new casket. We did our best to repair and reseal the lid.”
Burkhead turned to me.
“You will examine the decedent here?”
“As per Mr. Redmon’s request. But I may take samples to the ME facility for final verification.”
“As you wish. Unfortunately, the coffin key has gone missing over the years.”
Stepping to one end of the shelf, Burkhead gestured Slidell to the other.
“Gently, Detective. The remains are no longer of any great weight.”
Together, the men scooted the plywood forward and lowered it to the floor. The displaced casket filled the tiny chamber, forcing our little trio back against the walls.
With scarcely enough room to maneuver, I opened my pack and removed a battery-operated spot, a magnifying lens, a case form, a pen, and a screwdriver.
Burkhead observed hunched in the shadows of the easternmost corner. Slidell watched from the doorway, hanky to mouth.
Masking, I squatted sideways and began to lever.
The nails lifted easily.
21
SOUTHERNERS DON’T ATTEND WAKES. WE ATTEND VIEWINGS. Makes sense to me. Drained of blood, perfumed, and injected with wax, a corpse is never going to sit up and stretch. But it is laid out for one final inspection.
To facilitate that last, pre-eternity peek, casket lids are designed like double Dutch doors. Finney and his gal pal had taken advantage of that feature, prying open only the hinged upper half.
OK for a snatch and run in the night. I needed full-body access.
Thanks to the vandalism and to natural deterioration, the top of Susan’s coffin had collapsed into a concavity running the length of the box. Experience told me the cover would have to be lifted in segments.
After prying loose Burkhead’s makeshift repair strips, I hacked through corrosion sealing the edges of the lid. Then, like Finney, I laid to with the crowbar.
Burkhead and Slidell helped, displacing decayed wood and metal to unoccupied inches of floor space. Odor oozed up around us, a blend of mildew and rot. I felt my skin prickle, the hairs rise along my neck and arms.
An hour later the casket was open.
The remains were concealed by a jumble of velvet padding and draping, all stained and coated with a white, lichenlike substance.
After shooting photos, I gloved, uneasy about Hewlett’s assessment that nothing in the coffin had been violated but the head. If that was true, what of the femora I’d found in Cuervo’s cauldron? I kept my concerns to myself.
It took only minutes to disentangle and remove the funerary bedding covering the upper half of the body. Slidell and Burkhead observed, offering comments now and then.
Susan Redmon had been buried in what was probably a blue silk gown. The faded cloth now wrapped her rib cage and arm bones like dried paper toweling. Hair clung to the cushion that had cradled her head, an embalmer’s eye cap and three incisors visible among the long, black strands.
That was it for the pillow. No head. No jaw.
My eyes slid to Slidell. He gave a thumbs-up.
I collected a sample of hair, then the incisors.
“Those teeth?” Slidell asked.
I nodded.
“Do you have dental records?” Burkhead asked.
“No. But I can try fitting these three into the sockets, and comparing them to the molars and premolars still in place in the jaw and skull.”
Teeth and hair bagged, I continued my visual examination.
Susan’s gown was ripped down the bodice. Through the tear I could see a collapsed rib cage overlying thoracic vertebrae. Three cervical vertebrae lay scattered above the gown’s yellowed lace collar. Four others nestled between the soiled padding and the edge of the pillow.
Gingerly, I peeled away coffin lining until the lower body was also exposed.
The wrist ends of the radii and ulnae poked from both sleeve cuffs. Hand bones lay tangled among the folds of
the skirt and along the right side of the rib cage.
The gown was ankle-length, and tightly adhered to the leg bones. The ankle ends of the tibiae and fibulae protruded from the hemline, the foot bones below, in rough anatomical alignment.
“Everything’s brown like the Greenleaf skull,” Slidell said.
“Yes,” I agreed. The skeleton had darkened to the color of strong tea.
“What are those?” Slidell jabbed a finger at the scattered hand bones.
“Displaced carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges. She was probably buried with her hands positioned on her chest or abdomen.”
As I snipped and tugged rotting fabric, I imagined Donna thrusting a hand into the covered lower half of the coffin, fingers groping blindly, grabbing, tearing, amped on adrenaline.
“Overlapping hands is a standard pose. Either on the belly or the chest. Often the departed are interred holding something dear.”
Burkhead was talking to be talking. Neither Slidell nor I was listening. We were focused on the fragile silk covering Susan’s legs.
Two last snips with the scissors, then I tugged free the remnants of the skirt.
One lonely kneecap lay between Susan’s pelvis and her knees.
“So Hewlett screwed up,” Slidell said.
“Both femora are gone.” Relief was evident in my voice.
“I’m going to fry that pissant Finney. And his sicko girlfriend. We done here?”
“No, we are not done here,” I snapped.
“What now?” Slidell’s thoughts had already turned to tracking Donna Scott.
“Now I check for consistency between this skeleton and the skull and leg bones found in Cuervo’s cauldron.”
“I gotta make a call.” Pivoting, Slidell strode from the tomb. In seconds, his voice floated in from outside.
Folding back the torn edges of the bodice, I lifted the right clavicle, brushed and inspected its medial end. The growth cap was partially fused, suggesting a young adult with a minimum age at death of sixteen.
I lifted and inspected the left clavicle. Same condition.
