Grave Situation

by Alex MacLean

  * * *

  Throat working, Herb snapped out of the daydream. Once more he stared at the granite marker before him.

  “You should’ve never left me alone with him,” he brooded softly. “Why did he hate me so much? A helpless child. I don’t think you realized how badly I suffered at his hands. The childhood that I lost. The scars I still have to this day.”

  Briefly, Herb touched his eyes.

  “I often wondered how you could’ve loved a man like him. Did you see someone I never did? I don’t understand how you could’ve been happy in that home? Were you afraid of what he might’ve done to you if you left him? Or did you believe divorce was a sin? How could any loving God not understand?”

  Herb paused for a moment. The tears in his eyes were not only those of the eighteen-year-old boy who had lost his mother, but they were also those of the thirty-six year old man who now saw his life in the same mess as it was then.

  As Herb turned to the empty plot beside him, a sudden image, like a flashbulb, burst onto his mind—his father’s head at his feet, stricken eyes gazing up at him, a stream of blood trickling from his parted lips.

  Herb momentarily closed his eyes against the image. Only then did the tears roll down his face. One last time he reached down and touched the marker.

  “Good-bye, Mama,” he said. “You won’t see my face in Heaven. No angels will be coming for my soul. There can be no salvation for me.”

  Rising to his feet, he found it hard to leave. When at last he did, he wiped his eyes and didn’t look back.

  He followed a gravel path that led to the rear of the cemetery. He took his time, reading inscriptions and searching for the grave he had come here for. Soon he entered an area where the headstones were oddly similar—tilted, yellow slabs that looked ready to fall over. He walked slowly among them. All he could hear was his breath, the susurrus of his footsteps through the grass.

  Crusts of lichen hid many of the inscriptions. Pits made other markings barely readable. Looking at the dates, Herb realized that this was the oldest section of the cemetery. Some of Acresville’s earliest inhabitants were buried here.

  For all the memories of the living, there wasn’t a single flower on any of the graves. That struck Herb as rather sad.

  Is this how we all end up eventually? A forgotten name etched in a stone to mark our short stint through this world.

  He moved into an area of newer graves and at that moment he saw two caretakers about three hundred yards ahead of him. Quickly, he retreated behind a nearby maple tree. He leaned against the trunk, feeling the hard ridges of bark against his body. His heart began racing.

  He peeked around, watching them. One man was raking a rectangular patch of topsoil in front of an upright headstone of a carved angel holding a large heart. The other man was carrying rolls of sod and setting them down next to the grave. Nearby was a lawn tractor with an attached trailer. In the trailer sat a portable water tank and more sod.

  Herb pressed the binoculars to his face and trained them on the headstone. He adjusted the center dial, bringing the inscription into sharper focus.

  Hector J. Walsh

  Jan. 27, 1942 - May 15, 2010

  In God’s Loving Care

  His heart beat faster.

  That’s him.

  He lowered the binoculars and looked around, trying to orient himself. He wouldn’t have the luxury of daylight when he returned here, so he needed to memorize the location of the grave and the easiest way to find it in the dark.

  After he did that, he gave one final look back to the headstone.

  “Well, Mister Walsh,” he whispered. “I wonder if you had ever believed in the resurrection?”

  36

  Acresville, May 19

  2:35 p.m.

  Allan’s head still pounded. Shadowed by thoughts of the previous night and Cathy’s funeral earlier, much of the drive to Acresville went by unnoticed.

  The police station was located on Preston Street, a small, two-storied structure of brick and glass. Allan parked in the back and then went inside.

  A dispatcher led him to the chief’s office.

  “Lieutenant Stanton.” David rose from his chair and reached out across the desk to greet him. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Allan mustered a smile. “Likewise.”

  Exchanging handshakes, he noticed David’s firm grip, the smile so wide on his face that it deepened the crinkles around his eyes.

  “Where would you like to start?”

  “With the reports,” Allan replied. “Has the autopsy results come in?”

  David remained standing. “Not yet. Fitzgerald said he’ll have them to me by the end of the week.”

  “Is the body still in his care?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d like to see that and also speak with Fitzgerald, if I may?”

  “I’ll arrange that.” David moved out from behind the desk and walked toward the door. “I have an office that you can use during your stay. Come.”

  Allan followed him down a tiled hallway to a room with a desk, fax machine, computer and filing cabinets. A corner window afforded a view of Preston Street.

  “Everything’s in there,” David nodded to a storage box on the desk. “I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Any questions, I’ll be in my office.”

  As David left the room, Allan went to the desk and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Slowly, he pulled the lid off the box and looked inside at the folders and manila envelopes. The folders, he knew, contained the reports. The envelopes would have the photographs.

  Allan sat and began reading through the various reports.

  When he finished he realized John Baker’s murder had special problems. To begin with, the body was found outside in a remote part of the county. That not only minimized the chances of finding physical evidence and witnesses, but it also destroyed the relationship between the victim and assailant with the scene itself. Secondly, Baker had no relatives or friends who could draw a useful chronology of his movements prior to death.

  Groundskeepers for the Acresville Public Park reported seeing Baker at different times throughout the day of May 12th, the last being at quitting time—5 p.m. He was alone, either sitting on a park bench or panhandling passers-by. The groundskeepers never saw him since then and they thought it odd because Baker was such a fixture at the park.

  After a request for information was issued to the public, a couple came forward, claiming they saw the homeless man at the park while out walking their dog around 7:30 p.m., May 12th.

  Allan’s chair creaked as he sat back with a weary yawn. He ran a hand hard over his face, stretched his arms over his head and clasped his fingers behind his neck.

  Tired, he thought. I’m just too damned tired.

  He paused for a moment to look out at the light traffic on Preston. Then he removed the photos from the envelopes and laid them out in a collage over top of the desk. One after another, he studied them.

  He held up a straight-on shot of the body. The photo showed John Baker lying on his side, feet in a brook, one arm partly extended. Allan felt a weird tingle in his stomach as he stared at the limb that ended at a maggot-encrusted stump.

  Eyes and hands. Why does he want them? Is he from here or a transient?

  There were a lot of questions, but few answers.

  Allan wanted the autopsy results. He left everything there and went back to David’s office.

  “Fitzgerald will be at the morgue all afternoon,” David told him. “He said we could stop over anytime.”

  “I’m ready when you are,” Allan said.

  David smiled. “I like your eagerness, Lieutenant. Let’s go.”

  The morgue was located in the basement of the Acresville Regional Hospital. The two men found Doctor Fitzgerald in the autopsy room.

  Two things hit Allan the moment he stepped through the door—the pungent smell of formaldehyde and the body of an elde
rly woman lying on the stainless steel dissection table with her head propped up on a metal block. Her skullcap was removed, exposing the convoluted surface of the brain. Under the low-hanging fluorescent lights, the meninges glistened.

  “Gentlemen!” Fitzgerald turned from a sink on the far side of the room, wiping his hands on a towel. “You’re here to see the body.”

  David opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was lost in a hard swallow. With wide eyes, he stared at the blood smears on the front of the coroner’s apron. David had a weak stomach and it showed.

  At last with some effort, he managed, “Our new boy wants to have a look.” He gestured at Allan, who stood beside him with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

  “Sure, Chief.” Fitzgerald removed his apron and dropped it into the sink. He grabbed a green smock from the back of a chair and shrugged it on.

  Walking toward them, Fitzgerald held out his hand to Allan. “Paul Fitzgerald.”

  “Allan Stanton.”

  Fitzgerald smiled. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Allan and David followed him through the anteroom and into the cold storage room, where Fitzgerald walked over to a wall of refrigerated drawers. He flipped over a tag that was attached to the handle of drawer #3 and gave the handle a gentle tug. Quietly, the drawer rolled out on its casters.

  A body lay draped in a white sheet.

  “Our victim is, John Baker.” Fitzgerald removed the sheet. “Fifty-eight year old Caucasian male.”

  All at once, Allan’s gaze settled on the handless wrists. He felt that weird tingle in his stomach again.

  “Were the hands cut off before or after the victim died?” he asked.

  “After,” Fitzgerald said. “I found no sign of vital reaction in the wounds.”

  Scratching a temple, Allan examined the right wrist. “What instrument do you think was used in the dismemberment?”

  “A saw. The multi-stroke marks on the bones of the proximal row have the class characteristics of one. I made silicone rubber casts of the impressions on the bones and sent them off to the forensics lab in Halifax. Once they analyze the striations on the kerf wall, they should be able to narrow it down to a particular saw.”

  Allan shot David a questioning look. “And nothing at all was found at the scene?”

  David stood three feet away with his back toward the body and a stricken face bowed to the floor.

  “Chief?”

  At length, David cleared his throat and answered weakly. “No, nothing was found. No hands. No saw. No weapon.” He turned around, keeping his gaze averted from the body. “The next morning after the body’s discovery, we searched the entire area right up until nightfall.”

  “Why do you think the killer took the hands?” Fitzgerald asked Allan.

  “I’m not sure. A memento perhaps.”

  “Like Jeffery Dahmer?”

  Allan looked at him. “I’m not a psychiatrist. Some killers take personal belongings from their vic…” He stopped in mid-sentence.

  A noise came from the room—the light brushing sound of a door closing and then the fading scuffs of retreating footsteps. David had walked out.

  “He knew the victim,” Fitzgerald explained. “Plus, I don’t think he likes morgues.”

  Allan continued to stare at the doorway for a moment longer.

  “I’m not a big fan myself,” he said. “Can you tell me about the injuries on the victim’s face?”

  “Those slight abrasions on the eyelids and lips were caused by insects. There’s no accompanying bruising. Maggots were discovered on the body and as you can see, they were doing a good job on the wrists and forearms. You’d be surprised at how fast they can clean away a human body.

  “I remember this elderly man who went missing a couple years ago. He suffered from Alzheimer’s.

  “A massive ground search turned up his body in a dense wooded area half a mile from his home. The body had baked in the July heat for over four days, but it looked like it’d been there for weeks. Big time decomp. There must’ve been thousands upon thousands of maggots all over him…”

  Allan interrupted Fitzgerald’s story with a gesture of his hand.

  “I get the idea, Doctor,” he said.

  Opposite him, Fitzgerald raised his eyes from the body, a crooked grin lifting his cheeks. “A little squeamish are we?”

  Allan regarded him with an impassive expression. “Just a little,” he answered. “I’ve had my own such experiences and would rather forget them. Have you determined a rough time of death?”

  “I’d say four to six days,” Fitzgerald told him. “I factored in many variables—the temperature, the victim’s body type, the poor health he was in and that he was clothed.

  “As you can see, the skin over a large portion of the abdomen is of a greenish color. This is due to the formation of sulph-hemoglobin. It would take about four to six days for a body to reach this stage of putrefaction.”

  Allan thought that over.

  Last seen on May 12th. Found on the 16th.

  Four days seemed about right to him.

  “The entomology report won’t be in for awhile,” Fitzgerald added. “I didn’t find any pupae in the soil around where the body was, leading me to believe that the maggots were from the first generation.”

  “Was the victim moved after death?” Allan asked.

  “No. The heavy lividity is consistent with the way he laid. Furthermore, the compression marks in the skin matched the texture of the surface of the ground beneath the body. Rock imprints that had been trapped under the body were clearly visible.

  “Like the lividity, the initial compression marks never disappear. If the body was taken from one location and then dumped at the Timbre Road location, there would’ve been second set of marks in the skin.”

  Allan considered this.

  How’d the killer get him out there? Con approach?

  “Tell me about the more serious injuries,” he said.

  “The victim was stabbed three times. Once in the umbilical region of the abdomen. Twice in the epigastric region. I numbered the wounds based on their depth. Shortest to longest.

  “The first one in the umbilical region is eleven and a half centimeters deep. Eleven o’clock to five o’clock. Blunt margin superior, tapered margin inferior. This injury wasn’t life threatening.

  “The two stabbings in the epigastric region caused grave damage to the stomach, pancreas and left lobe of the liver. The aorta was also damaged. The second wound is roughly fourteen and a half centimeters deep. Twelve o’clock to six o’clock. As with the first one, the blunt margin is superior, the tapered margin inferior.

  “The third wound is eighteen and a half centimeters deep. But you must remember the wound tract can be longer than the actual blade because the abdominal wall compresses, carrying the point of the blade much deeper than its actual length. With enough force, even short-bladed knives can perforate the abdomen by ten to fifteen centimeters. In many regards, a knife’s lethality is superior to firearms.

  “As you can see by the V-shape of this particular wound, the blade was either twisted or the victim moved when the blade was withdrawn. If you look closely, there’s slight bruising in the inferior margin. The guard of the knife caused this. And being in the inferior margin tells me the blade entered the body at an upward angle.

  “I found one and a half liters of blood in the peritoneal cavity. I attributed death to exsanguination.”

  Allan studied the three injuries. “Do the cuts in the victim’s clothing correlate with the stab wounds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the blade straight?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “How long do you think it is?”

  “About six inches.”

  That gave Allan pause.

  Same length as the one used in the Hawkins’ murder.

  “Do you think the killer is right or left-handed?”

  “Right.”

  Quiet a moment, Allan nodded t
o himself.

  Yes.

  “Anything else of importance?” he asked.

  “Nothing really pertinent to your investigation. The victim hadn’t eaten anything for several hours before his death. The stomach was completely empty. He wasn’t in the best of health either.”

  “Was he sick?”

  Fitzgerald nodded. “Very sick. The Chief told me the man was an alcoholic. I found signs of this during the internal examination. The spleen was enlarged; the liver was fatty and cirrhotic; and there was an ulcer in the stomach.”

  “Okay. Thank you for your time, Doctor,” Allan said and walked toward the door. “If I have any further questions, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you,” replied Fitzgerald. “You probably hope we don’t meet again.”

  Allan paused, glanced back over his shoulder and smirked at the smiling coroner. “No offense, but I do hope we don’t.”

  He found David in the hallway outside the anteroom. In profile, he seemed thoughtful, sad somehow. As Allan approached him, he saw the whiteness of his face.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  David turned to him. “Yes, I just couldn’t stay in there.” He became still for a brief moment, as if his mind cradled some memory. “I knew the victim.”

  They began walking.

  “Was he a friend?”

  David shook his head. “More of an acquaintance. Many years ago.”

  They rode the elevator to the first floor. In the gift shop by the front entrance, Allan purchased a bottle of aspirin, popped two tablets into his mouth and washed them down at a nearby fountain. He followed David out into the late afternoon sun.

  Next on Allan’s agenda was to visit the crime scene. By the time they reached it, his headache had dissipated.

  As he got out Allan realized just how remote the location was. From here, the trees seemed to stretch for miles. Everything that told a murder had occurred here were gone—the wooden stakes, the barricade tape, the evidence markers.