One Drop of Blood

by Thomas Holland

  “Hold on,” Kel cautioned. “Hold on. There may be some other explanation. Fact, most likely is.”

  “Like?”

  “Like maybe a record fell through a computer crack or somethin’. Best not say anythin’ that you’ll have to eat later.”

  Levine nodded as if he was in agreement, but his mind continued to chew on the idea of Ray Junior being a deserter.

  “Besides,” Kel continued, “that isn’t the really big news. You ready for this?”

  Levine continued nodding, his mind elsewhere. Yeah,” he responded. “Yeah, sure.”

  Kel took a long sip of water, making Levine wait a little longer. Then he slowly set the glass down, registering it with the water ring it’d left on the tabletop. He looked up. Without a smile, and in as smooth a voice as he could muster, he said, “I found y’all’s body.”

  “Glad to hear it. Super.” Levine smiled.

  “No. No, you’re not listenin’, are you? I said, I found your body. Your John Doe’s.”

  The meaning finally soaked through, and when it did, Levine looked as if he had been whacked on the back of the head with something solid. His eyes bulged, and he turned his head slightly to the side and adopted a look that clearly conveyed to Kel that he had better repeat and elaborate. Quickly.

  Now it was Kel’s opportunity to grin, his eyebrows shooting a high arc. “I said, I found Mr. Doe’s long-lost body…it’s a-molderin’ in the grave, sure as ol’ John Brown’s.”

  “You’re shitting me…don’t shit me, Doc. You’re shitting me, right? Don’t.”

  “No shit,” Kel said.

  “How? Where?”

  “Right where you’d expect it to be—sort of. I’m still kickin’ myself for takin’ so long to figure it out. Where do you normally find bodies?”

  “Hell, I don’t…ask the friggin’ Boy Scouts, how the hell should I…”

  “In graves…right? In cemeteries.”

  Levine squinted and nodded, slowly at first and then faster as the obviousness crystallized.

  “You handle many murder cases, Mike?”

  Levine shook his head. “Good God, no. I’m an MBA…Fordham University, magna cum laude…bank fraud, embezzlement, check kiting…never worked a homicide in my life—until now.”

  “Ahh,” Kel said in his most all-knowing tone. A great deal now made sense. “Okay, here’s how it works—and again I apologize for bein’ so slow to figure this out—coroners, or medical examiners, whatever, in this case a coroner—they don’t have unlimited space…small budgets, especially in small jurisdictions like this one, and especially when the remains are unpleasant to keep around. As in, they smell. So, what do you do with them?” He shifted again in his seat. “Two choices really—if no one claims them—bury them or burn them. That’s it, really. In an open case, like this one, where you may need to reexamine the evidence at some future time, you’d best bury them. Can always dig ’em up, right?” He paused and took another sip of water.

  Levine continued nodding as if the scales were sloughing off his eyes.

  “Now, in the United States, you have to have a permit to bury someone, even in a family plot. You need a death certificate and a burial permit. Cremations are a little different—set those aside for the minute—but burials require these two documents. In Arkansas, it turns out, at least from what I can best figure, these are one and the same—sort of. Top and bottom of the same form anyhow. Top’s the death certificate; bottom’s the disposition permit—column A and column B, kinda like a Chinese menu. These are legal documents, and since it’s a legal matter, copies have to be kept.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, in this case, I’m guessin’ that the originals would be at Vital Statistics in Little Rock, but a lot of smaller counties keep copies—makes it easier for people around here if they need a copy for some reason—and this is a small county. It took me a few minutes—and cost me a couple of pounds of sweat, which I’ll admit I could afford—but I found a copy of the burial permit for a John Doe, signed out a year and a day after the body was found at the levee. Young, white male, gunshot wound to the head. Date of death matches. All matches.”

  “Shit,” Levine said. “I’ll be goddamned.”

  “Gets better. The body was signed over to a Mr. D. Hawk from Hawk’s Mortuary—isn’t that the place you visited?”

  Levine simply stared at Kel. His thoughts flashed back to Donnie Hawk, and his “Aw shucks, Mr. Levine, why don’t you check with the Boy Scouts” act.

  “And…and this is the part you’re not goin’ to believe…it seems the burial took place in the Wallace Cemetery.”

  “Wallace Cemetery? Is that supposed to mean something? I’m not in a mood to fish. Is that here…local? You mean it’s around here after all? You know where it is?”

  Kel leaned forward and took Levine’s eye intently, pulling it in close. “I do…and this is the cork in the bottle: It seems that only old-timers from around here call it Wallace—and I mean real old-timers. No one else has called it that for almost a hundred years. Everyone else knows it as…the Elmore Cemetery.”

  “Elmore?” Levine almost shouted, then there was a pause, like thunder following a distant lightning strike. “Why that sonofabitch. Elmore? As in Sheriff I-don’t-have-a-friggin’-clue Elmore? That’s twice that bastard has lied to me.”

  Kel nodded. He looked around to see if anyone was watching them. Fortunately, the conversational pitch was loud enough that Levine’s outburst had gone unnoticed.

  “That sonofabitch.” Levine’s good mood seemed to have rapidly melted away. “Do you know where it is? This Elmore Cemetery? D’you look for it? D’you find it?”

  Kel sat back against the cushion of the booth before nodding again. “South of town. Scouted it out yesterday. The grave’s there—I’m sure of it—and it’s got a funny tombstone: Luke 15:31.”

  Levine frowned. “I told you I’m not in the mood to fish. Luke?”

  “Chapter and verse. Don’t tell me you don’t know your Bible, Mr. Levine?” It was, of course, a joke, since Kel wasn’t any more familiar with the Bible than Levine probably was.

  “Wrong testament, Doc. What’s it mean? You figure that out?”

  “Now what it means, I don’t know. It’s the parable of the prodigal son, though—I can tell you that. It’s about a man with two sons, one of whom strayed…”

  “I know that much, Reverend, thank you for the service.” Levine, too, sat back and stared out into the diner. A few more customers had drifted in. “But I don’t understand what it means…the prodigal son…What’s it mean?”

  “Beats the crap outta me, and I’ve been woolin’ it about for the better part of a day now.”

  Levine suddenly leaned forward and looked intently at Kel. “Help me out here, Doc. What’s the procedure for digging this guy up? This Luke guy. I mean, what do we have to do next?”

  Kel wiped his hand across his face and mouth and pinched his nose while he collected his thoughts. “I’ve been thinkin’ about that as well. Unfortunately, bein’ the weekend, everythin’s closed. Process varies from state to state, but for sure you’ll need an exhumation permit—a disinterment permit. The family can request it—but unless you know where to find Mr. and Mrs. Doe—there is no family in this case.” He touched the tip of his left index finger as if he were ticking off the start of a long list, then his middle finger. “Or, the coroner can order it, especially in this case, since it’s still an open homicide—I assume that’s your best course of action.”

  “And if he won’t? That fat little piece of sausage wasn’t the most cooperative public servant the other day.”

  “Then a judge.” He tallied the third option onto his ring finger. “District or circuit, I think. I’m not sure how Arkansas divvies up its jurisdiction. This may be outside a district judge’s power, but in any case, a judge can do it. You’d just need to figure out who’s got jurisdiction and present some evidence.”

  “Okay, okay.” Levine’s
eyes began darting around quickly as his brain revved up. “That’s easy. I’ll check into this exhumation permit…can you put together a list of what you’d need, I mean, shovels, shit like that…whatever it is you bone-diggers use?”

  “You’re talkin’ about physically exhumin’ this grave?”

  “Fucking-A, I am. This is my ticket out of here. Yours too.”

  “Well, ahhh, in that case…a funeral home or crypt company would probably do the actual backhoe work, but, yeah, I can get a list of a few items that I’d need if I was goin’ to be involved. Camera, trowel. You want any analysis and I’ll need some other stuff. Cheap set of calipers, tape measure…I won’t need much. Bone-diggin’—as you so reverently described my profession—is a simple sport.”

  “Good. Do that. Elmore Cemetery, south of town, Locust County. That lying sonofabitch.” Levine stood and fished a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket, tossing it on the table. “Dinner’s on me—if it ever arrives.” He cast a glance toward the kitchen as he started to the door. “Be ready to roll in the morning. Early.”

  “Whoa, time out there, partner. You were goin’ to tell me somethin’, remember?” Kel called after him.

  “What?”

  “Your news. You said you had some news to tell me. We were savin’ it for dessert.”

  “Shit, it can wait. Just some research I did. More of Elmore’s goddamn lies. This is more important right now.” Levine resumed walking toward the door.

  “Hey. Where you headed off to?” Kel shouted.

  Levine didn’t even slow long enough to look back. “To lance a boil, Doc. A fat boil.”

  Chapter 34

  Split Tree, Arkansas

  MONDAY, AUGUST22, 2005

  Kel didn’t see Levine the rest of the evening. The glacier posing as a waiter had finally delivered Kel’s dinner, along with Levine’s, and Kel had eaten his silently. Chewing his thoughts as thoroughly as his food, and scratching as little as he could.

  Levine had run out of the diner so fast that they hadn’t coordinated when they were leaving in the morning. He’d said early, and Kel guessed that the earliest Levine could get an exhumation order signed by a judge—assuming he could find one willing to act on such scant evidence as an obscure biblical passage, which would be an achievement in its own right—would be sometime late in the day. Kel really didn’t know what kind of paperwork was required in this jurisdiction, but he doubted that Levine could arrange it in anything less than a week. And Kel wasn’t staying another week, no matter how interesting the case might become.

  One of Sam’s other pieces of creative economizing involved not investing in an ice machine. Instead, every afternoon about three o’clock, Sam or his wife would venture over to the Pic-n-Tote, a rock’s throw down the road, and return with a five-pound bag of Handy Dan’s Crystal Clear Ice that he would then dole out to his guests upon request, a half-dozen cubes at a time, in sandwich-size Ziploc Baggies. At this time of year, that usually meant that by the time you arrived at your room, you were carrying four or five small, rounded marbles of ice adrift in a bag of water. Kel had made at least three trips to the office for ice to put on his raw ankles, and each time he rapped at Levine’s door on the way back to his room and scanned the lot for his car. At half-past-eleven, he lowered himself into the center of his sagging bed and went to sleep.

  He’d only been asleep for a few minutes when Levine began pounding on his door. Or maybe it wasn’t only a few minutes. He hit the button lighting up his watch—almost 10:00A.M.Jesus, he thought,I just slept ten hours .

  Kel leaned over and looked at the crack between his curtains as he worked the latches on the door. He could see a hot, white sliver of day, like a shard of splintered glass and twice as painful, working its way through the drapes, confirming the time on his watch.

  He groaned like something about to painfully expire.

  Levine was standing a foot or two back from the door, near the edge of the sidewalk, his back to the room. He was talking on a cell phone and didn’t break conversational stride but used expressive body English to convey that Kel had better get dressed, and do it quickly, for the game was afoot.

  Kel blinked, trying to coax his pupils to relax from the pinholes they’d shrunk to, and then realized he was standing in the open doorway in his underwear. Reflexively, he retreated into the waning darkness of his room and pulled on a pair of khaki military-style cargo pants and a light blue cotton shirt. He had at least had enough sense to lay them aside before going to bed last night and they were ready to go—even if he wasn’t. He carefully worked a pair of socks on, careful not to start an argument with the chiggers that he was unlikely to win. That done, he stepped into the bathroom and held his head under the faucet and took a swallow to rinse his breath. He dried off as he was stepping into his boots.

  Two minutes after opening his door to Levine he was on the sidewalk.

  Levine didn’t wait. He stepped off the concrete walk and headed for his car, talking forcefully to someone on his cell phone while motioning for Kel to follow. He was saying things like “Hey, ask me if I give a shit?” and “Tell me something I don’t know.” Kel braved the glare of the sunlight bouncing off the black asphalt long enough to sight-in the car and then navigated the short distance with his eyes shuttered closed. He felt for the car handle as Levine cranked the engine over, and had barely gotten in when, with a jolt, the car backed and then shot forward, turning right on Magnolia and then right again onto Tupelo.

  Kel looked over at Levine, who was still instructing someone on the other end of the phone on some finer point of doing his job properly. He looked at Kel out of the corner of his eye and said to the phone, “Yeah, yeah, I hear you…Look, you let me know as soon as you get a name—understand?…Good…Yeah, yeah, out.” He closed his cell phone and looked full-face at Kel. “Sorry to wake you so early, Dr. McKelvey—but I didn’t want you to miss lunch.”

  “Yeah, hate to do that,” Kel replied. “Nice phone—steal that from Sam?”

  Levine held up the cell phone as if he’d never seen it before. “Like it? Drove over to Helena last night and found a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart Super-Duper Center that sells cell phones with next-day activation. Thank God for government credit cards, right?”

  Kel rubbed both eyes with his fingertips and then brushed his wet hair back from his forehead. His pupils were fully functioning now, and he could see that they were nearing the town square. “Thought you didn’t like phones.”

  “Never said that, Doc. It’s people I don’t like. There’s a difference. Phones sometimes come in handy.”

  “Hmmm, if you say so,” Kel mumbled. “So, where we headed?”

  “You get that list together like I asked? Stuff for an exhumation.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Bone diggin’. That where we’re headed?”

  “I’m going to hit an ATM machine and get you some money. Will two hundred do it or d’you need more?”

  “Thought you said the FBI wouldn’t give you any money for this case?”

  “I didn’t say they were going to reimburse me, did I? Just answer the question. Two hundred enough?”

  “For bone-diggin’ equipment, or are we hittin’ the casino over in Tupelo?”

  Levine shot him a look.

  Kel smiled in response. “I guess you mean equipment. Sure. Easy. I was thinkin’ maybe twenty.”

  “I’ll give you two hundred…to be sure. Get what you need. Save the receipts just in case. Right now, we’re headed—” The phone rang and Levine picked it up. “Yeah, Levine…No…No…did I say that? No, the answer is, No, I did not say that. I’d rather it be Little Rock…All you got to do is call me when you get a name. Yeah. Out.” He closed the phone and set it down firmly on the seat between his legs. “Goddamn moron.” He looked at Kel and exhaled loudly through his nose. “How many employees work in your organization, Doc?”

  “About a third of them,” Kel replied, looking out the window.

  Levine smiled.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you worked for the federal government.”

  “If I knew better, I wouldn’t.”

  “You sound like me.”

  “Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of my folks. Good lab, good mission; it’s the damn bureaucracy that’s beatin’ me down.”

  “As I said, you sound like me.” They drove in silence for a moment and then Levine cleared his throat and spoke. “Tell me something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me your version of what happened in that Gonsalves case.”

  Kel snorted. “My version? You mean the truth?”

  Levine smiled and shrugged.

  Kel rubbed his eyes again before answering. “Pretty simple. Eddie Gonsalves was a thirty-two-year-old drugstore clerk in Poughkeepsie, New York. He ran the sixty-minute photo machine. He also abducted, killed, and dismembered nine prostitutes over an eighteen-month period. Made the mistake of disposin’ of the remains in garbage bags along interstates, includin’ some in New Jersey—across the state line. That’s what got you Feds involved. Good investigation, actually. Y’all narrowed it down to Gonsalves on some circumstantial evidence pretty quickly; you just needed the last nail to hammer the coffin shut.”

  “That’s where your lab came in?”

  “Yup. We matched cut marks on some of the dismembered bones to a hacksaw found in Gonsalves’s basement workshop.”

  “So what happened?”

  “What happened is that we got the bone samples, matched them up, wrote a report—bang, bang, bang. Great case. Problem was that your evidence tech transposed a number on the chain-of-custody document. That’s the number we used in our report, so when the case goes to trial, guess what? Our guy goes to testify and—”

  “And the defense counsel points out that the case number doesn’t match.”

  “You got it. Nobody caught it until too late. Our analysis gets bounced and so does the case.”

  Levine seemed to consider Kel’s version as they neared the front of the courthouse. “If that’s what happened, why’s the Bureau trying to point the finger at you?”