Gray-wood doors revealed stone steps that led down into darkness. I thought for a second that I ought to go back to the truck for my flashlight, but it seemed ridiculous in the middle of the day.
The steps were hard, a little damp. The cellar was pitch-black. I moved very slowly out of the daylight and into the dungeon, waited at the bottom of the stairs for my eyes to adjust. The ceiling was too low for me; the smell was already nauseating: mildew, stagnant water, formaldehyde—the waiting room for hell’s doctor.
As my vision adjusted, I half-expected to see evidence of Donny’s suspicions there under the house. All I could make out were buckets and shovels, tarps, bottles, a few long-unused tools, typical cellar inhabitants. To my right were the old root bins for cold storage. To the left an ancient coal furnace sat silent. A black overturned coal bucket stood to one side, a silent sentinel. Behind it were other bins of some sort and stacks of large burlap bags for feed or seed. Just beyond there was a flight of wooden stairs that led up, I guessed, to the kitchen.
The dirt floor of the cellar was not entirely dry, silty, and I slipped a little on my way to the steps, but the handrail steadied me. I made it up; the door opened into the kitchen.
It complained loudly and I stopped in my tracks, certain the noise had alerted inhabitants. I thought it best then to confess my trespass.
“Hello?” My voice offended the silence.
I pushed into the room. Dirty dishes were in the sink; the faucet dripped. The floor was filthy. The kitchen table was a mess, cluttered with paper plates, plastic ware, tissue napkins.
“Harding?” That was stupid. I knew he wouldn’t be there. But I somehow thought it was the right thing to yell in case anyone else heard me.
I made my way slowly through the kitchen to the other back rooms, the mortuarial lab, embalming chambers, whatever they were called. I followed my nose.
The first room was locked with a hook and eye from the inside. The one beside it was open and sterling. Spotless. It looked as if it had never been used. Chrome was polished; surfaces dazzled; everything gleamed, far from being the butcher Donny had suggested, the room seemed to prove Harding the cleanest mortician in the state.
I turned back to the other room, knew I had to get in. A combination of fear and determination supplied the adrenaline; a kitchen knife did the rest. I slipped the knife into the door frame and managed, after a few attempts, to simply push the hook up. The door swung open.
Chaos. What struck my eye like a fist was the utter disarray of the room, darker than the other. Tables were shoved against the far wall; stacks and stacks of papers were everywhere, empty medicine bottles, industrial-sized drums of cleaning fluid, and more large seed sacks. The room was a janitorial closet. I realized after a moment that there were several opened bottles of formaldehyde on the counter, completely full, perfuming the room.
It didn’t make sense. One room was a showplace, the other a storage room.
And, it suddenly occurred to me, how did this one come to be locked from the inside?
I checked the single window: locked as well. That made the room more important. Someone had bothered to secure it from the inside. Why? To make it look as if someone were in the room? Working?
I would find the secret exit.
I started at the door and took in every inch of the room, slowly, letting the details sink in. Took nearly ten minutes. Then I started a more physical examination, checking for disguised doors in the wall, trapdoors in the floor, something in the ceiling. Another twenty meticulous minutes later, I found it. Surrounded by the heavy stacks of seed there was a blank space of floor where the boards gapped a quarter of an inch more than in any other place in the room. I moved a few of the sacks aside, finding they weighed more than expected, gazed down at the floor. On my knees, really looking at the floorboards in that corner, it was clearly different from the rest of the wood. I used the knife, worked it into the extra quarter-inch gap, and, sure enough, found I could pry up a section of the floor about three feet square.
I looked down onto the cellar floor where the rest of the sacks were laid. For a man of my size it was a little tight, easing myself down into the darkness. The black coal pail was directly under my feet, a convenient step stool.
Back in the cellar I was at a loss. Why would there be a trapdoor?
Clearly Donny had been wrong about Harding; there was no evidence of botched embalming. But the trapdoor phenomenon was eerie, no denying.
After a few moments’ pondering, remaining confused, I thought it best to put everything back the way it had been. I stood on the pail, hoisted myself into the workroom to lock the hook from the inside, then crawled back down the hole, moved the sacks as best I could to hide the trapdoor, replaced the false piece of flooring. I smoothed the cellar dirt where my feet had left impressions and was out, the old wooden doors creaking shut.
I don’t know what caught my eye first, a glint of something in the woods behind the house, a black blur. Maybe a squirrel moved, but this time I saw dozens more seed sacks laid against a red wheelbarrow about sixty yards from where I was standing.
Harding was never a farmer, and there’s not usable land anywhere near this place; what’s he doing with all these seeds?
I peered around the side of the house, still no cars anywhere; my truck was fine. I headed for the woods to check things out.
Past the shadow of the house, the sun flickered patterns against the bare limbs in the wind. The woods were in constant motion, and I thought how van Gogh’s sense of movement must have been inspired by this sort of autumn afternoon.
The sacks were jumbled everywhere, sixty, maybe a hundred of them. Some had been partly rotted by exposure, and it took me a second look to realize what was odd about them: they were filled with dirt, not seeds.
I stooped down, wind flinging leaves up from the ground all around me; ruby, chestnut, hazel colors floated for a moment like slow birds in the air. The bags were filled with red Georgia clay, heavy good-for-nothing soil. A wet bag that size might weigh a hundred pounds; dry it would turn to concrete, hard as brick. Bag after bag was packed with the stuff and tied loosely at the top.
What the hell is this? I stood.
I could see more stacks farther into the woods, down the slope where the area was guarded with barbed wire, decorated with NO TRESPASSING signs. Everyone talked about the wild dogs and feral swine in that part of the government’s property. No one ever went near it. Harding himself had a history of taking shots at high school kids trying to get into the area on a dare or hunters looking for protected game. Though it was unlikely that he’d fire at me that day.
I made my way down the slope, skidding on wet leaves, grabbing what handholds I could. The fence was easy enough to crawl under. The sun still found its way past the trees. The leaves were cathedral windows. I found the wind wasn’t so stern down in the hollow; if I’d been set for a hike in the woods, the place would have made for a good starting point, I thought.
Until I saw the rotted human hand.
I didn’t respond the way I’d seen people in films react. Disbelief allowed me to be more curious than horrified. I thought my eyes deceived me. I took a step closer to where it lay on top of a pile of leaves beside a tall pine. By the time I realized that my perception was accurate, I confess to being fascinated.
Bone from the ring finger showed through gray flesh; long milky nails clung precariously to the tips. The thumb stuck up stiffly. It was not, as I had first thought, a dismembered body part, simply a portion of a larger body that had been mostly covered by leaves.
I stood, head cocked, trying to make my legs move me closer, when a gust of wind rolled down the slope, scattered more leaves, and revealed the nightmare. There were three bodies stacked one on top of the other against the pine tree. Piled like the seed sacks, partially covered with red clay.
I backed away, unable to comprehend—the shock of seeing the hand was wearing off; I shivered.
Find a phone, I told mys
elf calmly. Call Skidmore.
I continued backing up the hill for a moment, stumbling, slipping on wet leaves, then turned and sprinted up the rest of the slope as best I could. Strange noises seemed everywhere; I was very conscious of my own breathing, like a trapped animal. By the time I reached the barbed wire I realized I was making little noises every time I exhaled. There was a ring of fire around my hairline and a torrent of white noise pounding in my ears. When I made it to the truck, I was drenched in sweat.
Trade at Gil’s Filling Station was slow, as usual, and Gil himself had gone hunting. A teenage boy whose name I could not remember had handed me the phone. I’d made five calls before finding the deputy. Luckily Skidmore knew me well enough to read the sound of my voice and he was a good enough friend to come quickly without asking any questions.
“You want a co-cola, Dr. Deverling?”
I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about not remembering the boy’s name. “No, thanks. I think I’ll go wait outside.”
“You been sick?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Sorry, you’re breathing funny is all, like you had a cold. My mother she has a cold.” He sniffed. “A cold, it can be bad. In the head. That’s where she’s got it.” He blew out a breath. “Right there in her head.”
“I ran to get here, use the phone,” I said distractedly. “I’m a little out of breath is all.”
“You ought to get you a cell phone,” he advised me. “Everybody’s got one.”
“I’m just going …” I started for the door.
“You find that Truvy Deveroe yet?”
I stopped.
“Who?” I had no intention of revealing anything to him.
“Everybody at school is talking about it,” he assured me.
Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a secret to hide in Blue Mountain.
Still, I felt I should try. “What makes you think I’m looking …”
“Ms. Needle told you to do it at the church meeting.” He was matter-of-fact, confident in his knowledge.
“I see.” I folded my arms.
Gil’s station was a comfortable place for me, the smell of gasoline and Old Spice, cigarettes, the gas heater. I’d played music in the garage with older men since I was ten. The sound of those tunes clung to the splinters in the walls, stuck in the rainbows of oil by the car lift.
“Do you have an opinion?” I asked the boy.
“Sir?”
“Do you have a feeling about Truevine Deveroe?”
“You mean do I think she’s what people say?” He grinned. “I got a lots better sense than that.” He straightened. “I’m college prep.”
“That’s great,” I said, glad to change the subject. “What do you want to study?”
“In college? Well, I build Web sites, you know. I did one for school; then I just sort of took to it, I reckon. I’m going to Georgia Tech. Be a computer technologist.”
The fact that he worked a little too hard in pronouncing the last two words in his sentence was only slightly less heartbreaking than the fact that his aspiration was eight years behind the times. But what hurt more was the idea that not many years ago this boy’s aspiration would have been to work at Gil’s, stay in Blue Mountain, marry his sweetheart, play mandolin, have a nice kitchen garden. How long would it be before there were no young people left in town? And how much longer after that would Blue Mountain be another ghost?
“Georgia Tech,” I said, smiling. “Very impressive.”
His grin covered his face. “Thanks, Dr. Deverling; that means a lot coming from you.”
Skidmore’s squad car screeched into the lot at the front of the station.
“That’s for me,” I told the boy.
“Take care,” he said, turning his attention back to a bag of potato chips.
I was barely out the door when Skid and Andrews flung their doors open and rushed me.
“What is it?” Skid said softly.
Andrews saw my face, registered concern.
“You’re not going to believe,” I began, my stomach burning, “what I found at the Pinhurst mortuary.”
By sunset the deputies had counted seventy-three bodies and it was getting too dark to continue.
“We need more people, Skid,” one of the deputies said, wiping his forehead. He was as shaken as the rest of us, face white, eyes bleary.
“I know,” Skid answered. “I just …” he trailed off, watching the last bit of red at the horizon. He turned to me slowly. “By the time I realized the magnitude of the situation …”
“ … it was too late to call anyone,” I finished, trying to reassure him. “You’re doing fine. You need to leave a couple of people here tonight, get away from this. We’ll all keep quiet until you’ve had a chance to get your thoughts together, calm down.”
Though how any of us would get our minds around the enormity of the problem was another matter. Bodies stacked, three, five, sometimes more, littered everywhere in these woods. As close to the house as forty yards, as far away as half a mile, and every time a deputy reported in over the walkie-talkie in Skid’s hand more had been found. Amazement had long since turned to dull sickness.
“I’ve never even heard of anything like this,” Andrews whispered for the third time. “Anywhere.”
The bodies were in no order we could determine: some were fresh; some were skeletons; the rest were in every imaginable stage in between. Men, women, children, dressed, naked, wealthy, poor—unknown and all too familiar.
The deputy who had requested more people suddenly sat down on the ground sobbing uncontrollably, grinding his palms into his temples. He had come across the body of his aunt, only recently deceased. He hid his eyes from us; we were too tired to look away.
“I don’t even know what it means, Dev,” Skid said softly.
“At first I thought it was some mass murder scene,” Andrews agreed. “Now I have no idea what this could mean.”
We hadn’t talked much during the course of the afternoon. As the scope of the phenomenon grew, we talked less. Minds were numb. Eyes were sore. Everyone was shivering and hot at the same time.
I had kept silent, though I was certain I knew what was transpiring.
Both men read my silence.
The air was amber, the wind had picked up, and the chill of it stung. All leaves were rust-colored in the last light of the day; all trees were black; all men were shadows. The gentle slopes around us seemed menacing and harsh, crouched, alive. The night sky was an anvil in the east; stars were sparks struck there, burning holes in the air. Nothing was right.
“What is it, Dev?” Skidmore said.
“In the cellar of the house,” I began mechanically, “and in the house itself, you’ll find more of these sacks packed with fill dirt. I think that’s what Harding put in caskets instead of bodies, and the rest he’s used to cover up the corpses out here.”
The full import of what I was saying was lost on my two friends. They stared blankly.
“Harding has been hauling the remains of his customers out here to these woods, through a trapdoor in one of his workrooms. It leads to his cellar. It would appear he’s been doing it for most of the time he’s worked there. The cemeteries, as it turns out, might be more empty than we might have imagined.” I cast my eye over the Poe landscape. “But these woods are quite full.”
“That’s not possible.” Andrews would not close his mouth.
“Why would he do it?” Skidmore’s eyes bored into mine.
“I have no idea,” I answered. “But I think Able Carter found out.”
That began to register with them.
“Believe it or not,” I confessed, “Donny Deveroe hinted at this. Just this morning.” Seemed a month ago.
“Somebody found out about this,” Skidmore agreed slowly. “That’s why Harding was murdered.”
“Able wouldn’t murder him for this,” Andrews managed. “He’d want to prosecute, wouldn’t he?”
“Maybe they got in a fight about it,” Skid said.
“That’s not murder,” Andrews argued.
Debate was interrupted by the crackle of Skidmore’s walkie-talkie.
“Skid?” the scratchy voice said.
“Joseph,” Skidmore answered.
“We found another …” but the rest of the sentence was scrambled.
“Say again,” Skid said, monotone, into the speaker. “You found another body?”
“No, sir,” said the voice at the other end. “We found another … whole section.” Black silence. “Looks like fifty or sixty more bodies.” Crackle. “Can I come in now? I don’t believe I can do this anymore tonight.”
The sobbing deputy lay back against the ground, exhaled roughly, stared up at the waning moon. Night was coming on.
Eight
The next morning, Andrews and I were Skidmore’s only help. Two deputies called in sick; the others simply hadn’t shown up. We stood at the edge of the barbed wire, warming our hands on cups of coffee, watching the woods.
“I called the state patrol,” Skid finally said. “They’re sending some. Not till later, though.”
We nodded.
The sun was barely up, reluctant to shed light on the scene. I hadn’t slept well. Neither had Andrews from the look of him.
“Hey. What were you two cooking up yesterday?” I said, scanning the deeper woods, mostly to delay our task.
“Yesterday?” Andrews gave it some thought, as if trying to remember his childhood.
“You spent part of the day together.” I had to work to keep a needle point of paranoia at bay.
“That’s right. I was mad at you,” Skidmore confessed. “I wanted to teach you a lesson. Andrews and me, we did some paperwork. Got more report from Dahlonega. Said the wound on Harding’s head was ‘consistent with the pathology of being struck a blow by a blunt instrument.’”
“But they wouldn’t rule out the possibility,” Andrews chimed in solemnly, “that he hit his head on a rock when he fell down the hill.”
The Witch's Grave: A Fever Devilin Mystery Page 11
