Fatal Voyage tb-4

by Reichs, Kathy

  “Isn't Granbar awfully expensive?”

  “Knowing I'm in Big Law, Boyd has come to expect a certain lifestyle.”

  “I could work him in.”

  “You like that dog,” he wheedled.

  “That dog is a moron. But there's no reason to lay out bucks when I'm still stuck with five pounds of Alpo.”

  “The Granbar staff will be crushed.”

  “They'll work through it.”

  “I'll bring him by in an hour.”

  I was spray-cleaning the inside of the trash can when the phone rang again. Lucy Crowe's voice was taut with frustration.

  “It's still no go with the magistrate. I don't get it. Frank's usually reasonable, but he got so angry this morning I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I backed off because I was afraid I'd kill the weasel.”

  I told her what I'd found in the Veckhoff diary.

  “Can you check on MPs from seventy-two and seventy-nine?”

  “Yeah.”

  A long silence rolled down from the highlands. Finally, “I noticed a metal bar when we were out at that place, lying in the dirt by the front porch.”

  “Oh?” My burglary tool.

  Another pause.

  “If wreckage is discovered on property within reasonable proximity of an airplane crash, my office has jurisdiction during the period of active recovery.”

  “I see.”

  “Only for matters relating directly to the crash. To check for survivors who might have crawled off, for example. Maybe died under the house.”

  “Or inside the courtyard.”

  “Anything suspicious found while inside, I'd need a regular warrant.”

  “Of course.”

  “There are still two passengers unaccounted for.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did that bar look like wreckage to you?”

  “Could have been a piece from the cabin floor.”

  “That was my impression. Guess I'd better take a look.”

  “I can be there by two.”

  “I'll wait.”

  By three, Boyd and I were in the backseat of a Jeep, Crowe at the wheel, a deputy riding shotgun. Two others were behind us in a second vehicle.

  The chow was as pumped as I was, though for different reasons. He rode with his head out the window, nose twisting like a weather vane in a tropical storm. Now and then I'd push down on his haunches. He'd sit, rise immediately.

  The radio sputtered as we raced along the county road. Passing the Alarka Fire Department, I noted that only one reefer truck and a few cars were parked in the lot. A Bryson City cruiser guarded the entrance, its driver bent over a magazine spread across the steering wheel.

  Crowe took the blacktop to its end, then the Forest Service road, where I'd left my car three weeks earlier. Ignoring the cutoff to the crash site, she proceeded another three quarters of a mile and turned onto a different logging trail. After crawling upward for what seemed like miles, she stopped, studied the forest to either side, advanced, repeated the process, then took us off road. Our backup followed closely.

  The Jeep bounced and pitched, branches scraping its top and sides. Boyd pulled in like a box turtle, and I yanked my arm from the window ledge. The dog whipped his head from right to left, spraying saliva on everyone. The deputy pulled a hanky from his pocket and wiped his neck but said nothing. I tried to remember his name. Was it Craig? Gregg?

  Then the trees stepped back, yielding to a narrow dirt track. Ten minutes later, Crowe braked, alighted, and swung back what looked like an entire thicket. When we proceeded, I could see that what she'd moved was a gate, entirely overgrown with kudzu and ivy. Moments later the Arthur house came into view.

  “I'll be goddamned,” said the deputy. “This place in the 911 book?”

  “Listed as abandoned,” said Crowe. “I never knew it was here.”

  Crowe pulled to the front of the house and honked twice. No one appeared.

  “There's a courtyard around to the side.” Crowe nodded in that direction. “Tell George and Bobby to cover that entrance. We'll enter in front.”

  They got out, simultaneously releasing the safety clips on their guns. As the deputy walked back to the second Jeep, Crowe turned to me.

  “You stay here.” I wanted to argue, but her look told me no way.

  “In the Jeep. Until I call you.”

  I rolled my eyes but said nothing. My heart was hammering, and I shifted about more than Boyd.

  Crowe sounded another long blast on the horn while scanning the upper windows of the house. The deputy rejoined her, a Winchester pump held diagonally across his chest. They crossed to the house and climbed the steps.

  “Swain County Sheriff 's Department.” Her call sounded tinny in the thin air. “Police. Please respond.”

  She banged on the door.

  No one came forth.

  Crowe said something. The deputy spread his feet and raised the shotgun, and the sheriff began hammering the door with her boot. There was no give.

  Crowe spoke again. The deputy replied, keeping the barrel of his weapon trained on the door.

  The sheriff walked back to the Jeep, sweat dampening the carrot frizz escaping her hat. She rummaged in back, returned to the porch with a crowbar.

  Wiggling the tip between two shutters, she applied the full force of her body weight. A more earnest rendition of my own jimmying act.

  Crowe repeated the movement, adding a Monica Seles grunt. A panel yielded slightly. Sliding the bar farther into the crack, she heaved again, and the shutter flew back, hitting the wall with a loud crash.

  Crowe laid down the bar, braced herself, then smashed a foot through the window. Glass shattered, sparkled in the sun as it showered the porch with jagged shards. Crowe kicked again and again, enlarging the opening. Boyd urged her on with excited barks.

  Crowe stood back and listened. Hearing no movement, she poked her head inside and called out again. Then the sheriff unholstered her gun and disappeared into darkness. The deputy followed.

  Centuries later the front door opened, and Crowe stepped onto the porch. She waved a “come on” gesture.

  I leashed Boyd with clumsy hands and wrapped the loop around my wrist. Then I dug a Maglite from my pack. Blood pounded hard below my throat.

  “Easy!” I aimed a finger at his nose.

  He practically dragged me out of the Jeep and up the steps.

  “The place is empty.”

  I tried to read Crowe's face, but it was registering nothing. No surprise, disgust, uneasiness. It was impossible to guess her reaction or emotion.

  “Better leave the dog here.”

  I tied Boyd to the porch railing. Clicking on the flashlight, I followed her inside.

  The air that hit me was not as musty as I expected. It smelled of smoke and mildew and something sweet.

  My olfactory lobe scanned its database. Church.

  Church?

  The lobe separated into components. Flowers. Incense.

  The front door opened directly into a parlor that spanned the entire width of the house. Slowly, I swept my light from right to left. I could make out sofas, armchairs, and occasional tables, grouped in clusters and draped with sheets. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered two sides.

  A stone fireplace filled the room's northern wall, an ornate mirror decorated its southern. In the dim glass I could see my beam slide among the shrouded shapes, our own two images creeping with it.

  We progressed slowly, taking the house a room at a time. Dust motes swirled in the pale yellow shaft, and an occasional moth fluttered across like a startled animal in headlights on a two-lane black-top. Behind us, the deputy held his shotgun raised. Crowe clutched her gun double-handed, close to her cheek.

  The parlor opened onto a narrow hallway. Staircase on the right, dining room on the left, kitchen straight ahead.

  The dining room was furnished with nothing but a highly polished rectangular table and matching chairs. I counted. Eight at each sid
e, one at each end. Eighteen.

  The kitchen was in back, its door standing wide open.

  Porcelain sink. Pump. Stove and refrigerator that had seen more birthdays than I had. I pointed to the appliances.

  “Must be a generator.”

  “Probably downstairs.”

  I heard the sound of voices below, and knew her deputies were in the basement.

  Upstairs, a hallway led straight down the middle of the house. Four small bedrooms radiated from the central artery, each with two sets of homemade bunks. A small spiral staircase led from the end of the hall to a third-floor attic. Tucked under the eaves were two more cots.

  “Jesus,” said Crowe. “Looks like Spin and Marty at the Triple R.”

  It reminded me of the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego. I held my tongue.

  We were circling back down when either George or Bobby appeared on the main staircase at the far end of the hall. The man was flushed and perspiring heavily.

  “Sheriff, you gotta see the basement.”

  “What is it, Bobby?”

  A bead of sweat broke from his hairline and rolled down the side of his face. He backhanded it with a jerky gesture.

  “I'll be goddamned if I know.”

  A SET OF WOODEN STAIRS SHOT STRAIGHT FROM THE KITCHEN down to an underground cellar. The sheriff ordered Deputy Nameless to remain topside while the rest of us went down.

  Bobby led, I followed, Crowe brought up the rear. George waited at the bottom, flashlight darting like a klieg on opening night.

  As we descended, the air went from cool to refrigerator cold, and murky dimness gave way to pitch-black. I heard a click behind me, saw Crowe's beam at my feet.

  We gathered at the bottom, listening.

  No scurrying feet. No whirring wings. I aimed my light into the darkness.

  We were in a large windowless room with a plank ceiling and cement floor. Three sides were plaster, the fourth formed by the escarpment at the back of the house. Centered in the cliff-side wall was a heavy wooden door.

  When I stepped backward, my arm brushed fabric. I spun and my beam swung down a row of pegs, each holding an identical red garment. Handing my flashlight to George, I unhooked and held one up. It was a hooded robe, the type worn by monks.

  “Holy mother of Jesus.” I heard Bobby wipe his face. Or cross himself.

  I retrieved my flash, and Crowe and I probed the room, spotlighted by George and Bobby.

  A full sweep produced nothing indigenous to a basement. No worktable. No Peg-Board hung with tools. No gardening equipment. No laundry tub. No cobwebs, mouse droppings, or dead crickets.

  “Pretty damn clean down here.” My voice echoed off cement and stone.

  “Look at this.” George angled his beam to where plaster met ceiling.

  A bearlike monster leered from the darkness, its body covered with gaping, bloody mouths. Below the animal was one word:Baxbakualanuxsiwae.

  “Francis Bacon?” I asked, more to myself than to my companions.

  “Bacon painted people and snarling dogs, but never anything like this.” Crowe's voice was hushed.

  George moved his light to the next wall, and another monster stared down. Lion mane, bulging eyes, mouth wide to devour a headless infant gripped between its hands.

  “That's a bad copy of one of Goya's Black Paintings,” Crowe said. “I've seen it in the Prado in Madrid.”

  The more I got to know the Swain County sheriff, the more she impressed me.

  “Who is that creep?” George asked.

  “One of the Greek gods.”

  A third mural depicted a raft with billowed sail. Dead and dying men littered the deck and dangled overboard into the sea.

  “Enchanting,” said George.

  Crowe had no comment as we crossed to the rock wall.

  The door was held in place by black wrought-iron hinges, drilled into stone and cemented in place. A segment of chain connected a circular wrought-iron handle to a vertical steel bar adjacent to the frame. The padlock looked shiny and new, and I could see fresh scars in the granite.

  “This was added recently.”

  “Step back,” Crowe ordered.

  As we withdrew, our beams widened, illuminating words carved above the lintel. I played my light over them.

  Fay ce que voudras

  “French?” Crowe asked, sliding her flashlight into her belt.

  “Old French, I think. . . .”

  “Recognize the gargoyles?”

  A figure decorated each corner of the lintel. The male was labeled “Harpocrates,” the female “Angerona.”

  “Sounds Egyptian.”

  Crowe's gun exploded twice, and the smell of cordite filled the air. She stepped forward, yanked, and the chain slithered loose. There was no resistance when she lifted the latch.

  She pulled on the handle and the door opened outward. Cold air rolled over us, smelling of dark hollows, sightless creatures, and epochs of time underground.

  “Maybe it's time to bring him down,” said Crow.

  I nodded, and double-stepped up the stairs.

  Boyd showed his usual exuberance at being included, prancing and snapping the air. He lapped my hand, then danced beside me into the house. Nothing on the ground floor dampened his delight.

  Starting down the basement steps, I felt his body tense beside my leg.

  I added an extra coil to the wrap around my hand, and allowed him to pull me down the steps and across toward Crowe.

  Three feet short of the door he exploded, lunging and barking as he had at the wall. Cold prickled up my spine and across my scalp.

  “All right, keep him over there,” said Crowe.

  Grabbing his collar with both hands, I dragged Boyd back and gave Bobby the leash. Boyd continued to growl loudly and attempted to pull Bobby forward. I rejoined Crowe.

  My flash revealed a cavelike tunnel with a series of alcoves to either side. The floor was dirt, the ceiling and walls solid rock. Height to the tunnel's arched top was approximately six feet, width was about four feet. Length was impossible to tell. Beyond five yards, it was a black hole.

  My pulse had not slowed since I'd entered the house. It now went for a personal best.

  Slowly we crept forward, our beams probing the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the recesses. Some were nothing more than shallow indentations. Others were good-sized caves with vertical metal bars and central gates at their mouths.

  “Wine cellars?” Crowe's question sounded muffled in the narrow space.

  “Wouldn't there be shelving?”

  “Check this out.”

  Crowe illuminated a name, then another, and another, chiseled the length of the tunnel. She read them aloud as we progressed.

  “Sawney Beane. Innocent III. Dionysus. Moctezuma. . . . Weird bedfellows. A pope, an Aztec emperor, and the party meister himself.”

  “Who's Sawney Beane?” I asked.

  “Hell if I kno—”

  Her beam left the wall and shot straight into nothing. She threw out an arm, catching me across the chest. I froze.

  Our lights leapt to the dirt at our feet. No drop-off.

  We rounded the corner and inched forward, sweeping our beams from side to side. I could tell from the sound of the air that we had entered a large chamber of some sort. We were circling its perimeter wall.

  The names continued. Thyestes. Polyphemus. Christie o' the Cleek. Cronus. I recognized no one from Veckhoff 's diary.

  Like the tunnel, the chamber gave onto a number of alcoves, some with bars, others ungated. Directly opposite our entrance point we found a wooden door, similar to that at the head of the tunnel, and secured with the same chain-and-padlock arrangement. Crowe dealt with it in the same way.

  As the door swung inward, cold, foul air slithered out. Behind me I could hear Boyd barking as if possessed.

  The odor of putrefaction can be altered by the mode of death, sweetened by some poisons, tinted with pear or almond or garlic by others. It can be retarded by c
hemicals, augmented by insect activity. But the essence is unmistakable, a heavy, fetid mix that heralds the presence of rotting flesh.

  Something dead lay in that alcove.

  We entered and circled left, keeping to the wall as we had in the outer chamber. Five feet in, my beam caught an irregularity on the floor. Crowe saw it at the same time.

  We focused our lights on a patch of coarse, dark soil.

  Wordlessly, I handed my Maglite to Crowe and pulled a collapsible spade from my backpack. Keeping my left hand on the stone wall, I squatted and scraped at the ground with the side of the blade.

  Crowe holstered her gun, hooked her hat to her belt, and trained twin beams on the ground before me.

  The stain gave way easily, revealing a boundary between freshly turned earth and hard-packed floor. The smell of decay increased as I lifted soil and laid it to the side.

  Within minutes I hit something soft and pale blue.

  “Looks like denim.” Crowe's eyes glistened, and her skin gleamed amber in the pale yellow light.

  I followed the faded fabric, lengthening the opening.

  Levi's, contoured around a scarecrow leg. I worked my way down to a shriveled brown foot, angled ninety degrees at the ankle.

  “That's it.” Crowe's voice caused my hand to jump.

  “What?”

  “This is no airplane passenger.”

  “No.”

  “I don't want a bad crime scene. We're shut down until I have a warrant.”

  I didn't argue. The victim in that pit deserved to have his or her story told in court. I would do nothing to compromise a potential prosecution.

  I rose and tapped my spade against the wall, carefully removing adhering soil. Then I folded the blade, stuck it in my pack, and reached for my light.

  On the hand off, the beam shot across the alcove and glinted off something in the farthest recess.

  “What the hell's that?” I asked, squinting into the dark.

  “Let's go.”

  “We should hit your magistrate with everything we can.”

  I picked my way toward the point where I'd seen the flash. Crowe hesitated a moment, followed.

  A long bundle lay tucked against the base of the wall. The bundle was wrapped in shower curtains, one transparent, one translucent blue, and tied with several lengths of rope. I approached and ran my light over the surface.