Walking the Bones

by Randall Silvis

  In a moment, everything had been lost.

  He thought, If a man dies in the woods, does anybody hear?

  And the thought brought a smile, but a self-mocking one. You’re fucked, he told himself.

  TWO

  Ten days earlier, southwestern Kentucky

  “It was 2014 they were discovered,” the man told DeMarco. “Seven young females reduced to bone.”

  “Name’s Hoyle,” he had said, but without extending his hand. His throaty voice moved with a distinctly southern lilt, but his articulation was precise, educated, a halting delivery that suggested an agile mind racing far ahead of every word.

  He stood half a foot shorter than DeMarco, but twice as wide. A round, slow-talking man of seventy or more, his nearly bald head and face beaded with perspiration. He breathed heavily, though he had not moved an inch since meeting DeMarco. A worn black suit, twice buttoned, a white shirt damp with sweat around the collar, a dark-blue tie. Plain black brogues shiny with morning dew. The frayed cuffs were wet too, as were DeMarco’s running shoes, the grass in the unkempt lot as high as their ankles.

  “Mid-July,” Hoyle continued. “Just like now. Hot as Hades. If not for the termites, the poor girls might never have been found.”

  The man’s eyes remained fixed on DeMarco’s face, and the slow, infrequent blink of his gaze added another element to the strangeness of the morning—the man’s appearance, the heavy solemnity with which he spoke. Even the buzz of insects and chirp of birds seemed incongruous now, the world slightly askew.

  “Seven skeletons in a four-by-fourteen-by-ten-foot space between walls,” Hoyle said. “Each one cocooned in clear plastic sheeting. The kind painters use to cover a floor. Each cocoon sealed with silver duct tape. Each skeleton meticulously flensed, probably through cold water maceration.”

  “That will remove everything?” DeMarco asked. “Strip the bones clean?”

  “Ninety-eight percent. The rest can be easily picked away. A short bath in a Drano solution is equally effective.”

  DeMarco winced. “All of similar age?”

  “Fifteen to nineteen.”

  DeMarco stood there thinking. Too few pieces. How to make them fit?

  And then a bright-yellow blur glided between the men, downward past DeMarco an inch from his nose. He jerked back suddenly, and in the next instant recognized the creature now fluttering past Hoyle’s broad midsection. Butterfly.

  Hoyle had not flinched, had not lifted his eyes off DeMarco’s.

  “Here’s the interesting part,” Hoyle said. “Not a single Caucasian girl in the bunch. African American one and all. Light-skinned. What do you make of that?”

  “Either a fetish for girls of color…”

  “Or?”

  “A hatred of them.”

  Hoyle smiled. Finally he looked away, following the butterfly as it floated across the quiet street to land on a summersweet bush. “Cloudless sulphur,” he said. “Phoebis sennae. Female.”

  He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed at his face and scalp. “Butterflies and hummingbirds,” he said. “Every summer we suffer the same infestation.”

  And then he did, to DeMarco’s eyes, the oddest thing. Extending both short, heavy arms, one hand still holding by finger and thumb the white handkerchief, Hoyle moved his arms in a slow and sensuous wave, as if hoping, against all odds, to lift himself, too, aloft.

  II

  I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ’Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

  —Thomas Paine

  THREE

  The previous winter, western Pennsylvania

  Sundays DeMarco sat beside Baby Ryan’s grave. Sundays he didn’t drink. He didn’t pray. He didn’t ask for forgiveness because any God who would allow such banal cruelty as had befallen his son, such savagery as had befallen Thomas Huston and his family, such a monstrosity as Carl Inman had proven himself to be—pleas for mercy and forgiveness to any such God would only be laughed at and derided. So DeMarco asked for nothing, and deliberately withheld what he needed most, as if his own stubbornness might outlast God’s.

  On this Sunday afternoon in early December he sat in his parked car with the engine off, the door swung open, his feet in the snow. Between his hands he held a metal thermos cup of steaming coffee. He listened to the naked trees creak with cold. He listened to the dry wind scrape across marble, metal, and crusted snow.

  Before his fingers could grow chill and stiff he reached into a hip pocket and withdrew the round silver locket he carried everywhere he went. Each night he set the locket on the stand beside his bed where he could reach for it if a dream startled him awake. The night his son was pronounced dead, a thoughtful nurse had presented him with a small envelope containing a cutting of the baby’s fine blond hair. The next day DeMarco purchased two silver lockets and one silver chain. Laraine wore her locket around her neck. She had not thanked him when he gave it to her, and said less and less to him with each passing week. Then one day he came home from work and all her clothes and the baby’s clothes were gone. He tracked her down finally in a small rented house in Erie, and though she never turned him away at the door, and sat patiently each time he spoke in a pleading and sorrowful whisper, she refused him a single word of comfort or blame, and therefore it all felt like blame to him, all well-deserved.

  And now in the cemetery, this Sunday and every Sunday, he held a metal cup of coffee in his left hand, the locket in his right. From time to time he looked up at the frozen sun, clouded and dim, and monitored its descent into the horizon. Now and then an eighteen-wheeler Jake-braked out on the highway, releasing a rat-a-tatting pulse of air that made him grit his teeth. Sometimes a crow screeched, or the thumping rumble of overloaded woofers swelled and then gradually receded. Every anomalous sound jarred and made him stiffen. When no identifiable sounds were present, there was always the faint rumbling that seemed to come from all directions at once.

  DeMarco wished for nothing but silence inside and out. A silence absolute and eternal.

  He would sit like this long after the cup had been drained, after his feet were numb and his bare hands scarlet and stinging. The only thing warm would be the silver locket clutched in his right hand.

  Only after he had shivered and wept himself empty, had relived and questioned and cursed every fatal decision he’d ever made, only then would he admit to himself that pain could never cancel out pain, could never erase memory or alter the past. Pain wasn’t fire, it wasn’t magic, it was only human suffering. And it would be with him all the days of his life.

  FOUR

  After Huston’s death, and Inman’s, Bonnie’s, the whole Huston family’s, DeMarco agreed to speak with a psychiatrist. His station commander and several of the troopers had begun to treat him gingerly, as they might a brick of C-4 or some other explosive—a treatment that, he told himself, maybe could make him explode. He wanted everything to be as it had been months ago. No, years ago. Thirteen and a half years ago, to be exact. To have his son, his namesake, in his life again… That would change everything.

  During the first session, the psychiatrist wanted to know how DeMarco felt about Huston’s death. And what about Bonnie’s murder, her throat slit not far from where he had been sleeping? Did he blame himself for any of those tragedies?

  DeMarco felt as if he were watching an episode of The Sopranos after three double whiskeys. He didn’t laugh or get angry, just watched numbly as the scene transpired.

  SHRINK

  Do you resent having to talk to me?

  DEMARCO

  It’s what you get paid for.

  SHRINK

  But you feel it’s unnecessary. An intrusion.

  DEMARCO<
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  I’m not an extrovert.

  SHRINK

  Excuse me?

  DEMARCO

  Psychiatrists are how extroverts are forced to look at themselves.

  SHRINK

  And by look, you mean examine? Self-critique? That’s something you don’t need?

  DEMARCO

  Everything I see is a mirror. You or the wall, it’s all the same to me.

  In the second and last session, the shrink tried something different, an attempt to incite more than shrugs and curt responses. The shrink was not a bad guy, well-meaning, no doubt, but DeMarco felt nothing toward him, neither animus nor felicity, neither interest nor contempt.

  SHRINK

  Let’s talk about Carl Inman. The one person you actually pulled the trigger on. Do you feel remorse for that act?

  DEMARCO

  I had no choice.

  SHRINK

  We always have a choice.

  DEMARCO

  Kill or be killed. You call that a choice?

  SHRINK

  Not a good choice but a choice nonetheless. You choose to take a life, or to sacrifice yours.

  DEMARCO

  I wouldn’t sacrifice a snail’s life for a man like Inman.

  SHRINK

  You don’t value human life more than a snail’s?

  DEMARCO

  (after a pause)

  Have you ever been threatened?

  SHRINK

  Let’s keep the focus on you.

  DEMARCO

  I’ll take that as a no. In which case you have no contextual understanding of such a situation.

  SHRINK

  I’ve read your report. I’ve read your file. I think I have a fair understanding of what you experienced.

  DEMARCO

  All you have is story. Story and theory. Words written by other people. Some of whom, like you, have never known what it’s like to have their lives threatened.

  SHRINK

  Why don’t you tell me what it’s like.

  DEMARCO

  How could you understand if you’ve never experienced it?

  SHRINK

  Well, we’re not here to talk about me, though, are we?

  DEMARCO

  Are you sure about that?

  SHRINK

  What does that mean?

  DEMARCO

  (stands, crosses to him, leans down, grips the arms of the shrink’s padded chair)

  If I were to put my hands around your throat right now and start to squeeze, what’s your theory going to tell you to do?

  SHRINK

  Please return to your seat, Sergeant.

  DEMARCO

  (leans closer, whispers)

  How do you know I won’t do it? How do you know?

  The shrink presses back against his chair…leans awkwardly to the side…reaches for his briefcase…fumbles to unsnap it.

  DeMarco smiles, draws back… He turns away, returns to his seat. He sits there smiling, hands placid atop his lap.

  By now the shrink has his pistol out, a Beretta .380 semiautomatic, the short silver barrel showing above his hands, hands clasped atop his groin, trembling.

  DEMARCO

  Let’s say you do it. Let’s say you pull the trigger on me. Will you feel any remorse afterward?

  SHRINK

  This session is over.

  DEMARCO

  Theory and reality, Doc. Not the same thing. It’s best not to confuse them.

  SHRINK

  This is all going into my report. Every second of it.

  DEMARCO

  (smiles, stands)

  I’ll look forward to reading it.

  FIVE

  As per their understanding, never stated aloud, Jayme was gone when he returned to the house after visiting his son’s grave. Four Saturdays in a row she had spent the night with him, languorous and wonderful nights. Often when she slept he searched for words to tell her how much those nights meant to him, but in the morning when he rehearsed the words they sounded false inside his head, and he let them fade unspoken. He was a man unused to gentle language. His job and history had made him a stranger to it, and he had grown easy with that agreement. But Jayme’s regular presence in his life was forcing a reappraisal.

  On their first Sunday morning together, Jayme had noticed a change in him midmorning, a restlessness while they cleaned up the breakfast dishes, him fully dressed, her still in panties and one of his black T-shirts. Later, when she refilled their coffee cups and carried them into the living room, where she then sat and patted the sofa cushion next to hers, and held out the paper, he hesitated, looked almost panicked for a second, then took the paper from her hand and sat down.

  She waited a few minutes before speaking. “You have plans for the day?”

  Again he hesitated. “Not really.”

  “You seem a little anxious to me. If you have something to do, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not important,” he said.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your routine. Just tell me and I’ll go.”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  “But you don’t want me to stay either.”

  “I want you to come back.”

  “And in order to do that, I first have to go away.”

  He smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”

  She set her cup on the coffee table, then swung a long naked leg across his lap and straddled him. “I understand. All you want is a sex toy.”

  He slipped a hand under her shirt. “I’ve always wanted a sex toy.”

  “You can buy them online, you know. Express shipped from Japan.”

  “I only buy American-made. Local, when possible.”

  “And what are your specifications, sir?”

  Now he withdrew his hand from the warmth of her waist and cupped it gently against the side of her neck. “Somebody smart,” he told her. “Smarter than me. Nicer than me. Sweeter than me. And prettier than me.”

  “That covers just about everybody,” she said. “How about physical attributes?”

  “We talking ideal scenario here?”

  “Absolutely. We ship made-to-order.”

  “Hmm. Five seven, five eight would be nice. A firm yet womanly bottom. One breast for each hand. One very delicious mouth. Two green, hypnotic eyes. And a thick mop of—” He lifted the hair off her shoulder. “What color would you call this?”

  “It’s a deep shade of strawberry blond. Verging on honey blond.”

  “That’s how I want my sex toy. Verging on honey blond.”

  “I’ll place your order immediately. Oh, one last thing. How do you like your vajayjay, sir?”

  “I’m a little embarrassed you didn’t notice, but I don’t have one.”

  “On your sex toy, Sergeant. Do you prefer natural, shaved, or landing strip?”

  “That’s what yours is called, a landing strip?”

  “Correct. It serves for both takeoffs and landings.”

  “With signal lights in case of heavy traffic?”

  She answered with a lighthearted slap.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Out of line?”

  “And almost out of business. Shall I place your order or not?”

  “Please,” he said.

  “Done. Now tell me why you’re so anxious to get rid of me today.”

  He slid both hands down over her shoulders, along her arms, and covered her hands with his. “Sundays I go to the cemetery.”

  “Oh baby,” she said. “To see Thomas Huston?”

  “My son,” he said.

  She inhaled deeply, then leaned into him, slipped her hands around his back.

  And they sat like that for a long time. She asked no more
questions, and neither did he.

  After a while she kissed his cheek, slid away from him, stood, and went into the bedroom to dress.

  When she came back out he was standing at the kitchen window, gazing across the yard. She kissed him again. “I’m keeping the T-shirt,” she told him.

  “What do I get to keep?”

  “Me,” she said. She put both hands on his cheeks and pulled his face down to hers and kissed him on the mouth.

  She held him a moment longer, then stepped away. “Tomorrow, love,” she said, and headed for the front door.

  Moments later he stared at the empty doorway and wondered, How does she do that? How does she give herself to love so easily, no questions asked, no doubts, no litany of fears? He had done that for only a short time in his life, and it had been spontaneous, a sudden outpouring of love impossible to restrain, that tiny face, that tiny soft bundle, seven pounds, four ounces, a miracle to behold.

  And look how that turned out, he thought. Then busied himself with unnecessary housekeeping until his time for the cemetery arrived.

  SIX

  And after that first Sunday, he relaxed through the subsequent sleepover mornings. Sometimes they watched a movie or took a walk or made a trip to the mall. He learned that he could look out the window in the afternoon and say, “I guess I better get going,” and she would smile without getting up from the bed or the sofa and say, “Okay, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And when he later returned to the house in the deepening dusk, every room would be empty, her scent following him wherever he chose to sit, another ache of hollowness like an old gunshot in his chest.

  At those times he reverted to the stillness of sitting in his silent house, unreclining on his recliner in the living room. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind of thought but that was never possible. Sometimes unwanted thoughts of his days in Panama arose and sometimes of his life as a boy in a trailer court in Youngstown. When he felt his body stiffening in reaction to those thoughts, he turned his mind to Jayme instead, and remembered their previous night together and the way she had smelled in the soft sunlight of morning.