Dry Bones in the Valley: A Novel

by Tom Bouman

  Yeager eyed the woods behind us. “Okay if I take a shit?”

  “We’re not done yet.”

  “With respect, I don’t want you changing my drawers twice in a day. And I’m sure you don’t either.” Yeager tossed his cigarette butt aside, hopped the ditch, and slipped through the trees.

  I listened, but there wasn’t much to hear and soon the ringing overtook my ears and threatened to escape my head. The sun gained the eastern horizon.

  “Goddamn it,” I said, and went in there after Yeager. There was no sign of him at first. The woods were smaller than he may have anticipated, leading down to a ravine. On the other side of the ravine was a dense row of ranch houses on a busy road. I made descending arcs from tree line to tree line until I spotted him hidden in the lee of a boulder; the bright green scrubs were a giveaway, even half covered with leaves. He must have heard me coming, but made no move to run.

  “I want to get off this merry-go-round,” he said, looking up at me.

  I extended a hand to him and he pulled himself up. “You can stop now. You need to stop. If you’re telling me the truth, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “I’ll remember you said that.”

  We walked back to my vehicle. “Listen,” I said, “you ready? It can’t be as bad as you say.”

  “If you take me back to the well pad,” he said slowly, “they’ll shitcan me and give me bus fare home. At best. What am I going to tell my wife?”

  I thought a moment. “Well, you can’t leave the county yet.”

  “Aw, Jesus—”

  “Listen, if they try to send you home, call me. We’ll work something out.”

  “You ain’t the easiest to reach, Henry.”

  I gave him another of my cards, with my cell phone number written on the back, and we headed for Yeager’s job site. To get there, we passed through a cellular dead zone. At the gate, I steamrolled the man standing guard with my badge. Climbing to the top of the ridge, I got a beep that told me I had a voice mail; could’ve been the portable communications they have up there on the pads that got me the service. Yeager and I idled in the truck for a moment while I checked it. It was from Dally. In the recording, he grumbled a bit about the condition of his new prisoners, but grudgingly thanked me for tracking McBride down. At the end of the message he said, “Well, we’ve one less thing to worry about, and many more. Elmira PD found Contreras last night, alive and kicking. Check in when you get to your station.”

  The message ended. I looked at the phone’s display without seeing it, and laughed though nothing was funny. I turned to Yeager.

  BACK WHEN Gerardo Contreras was dead, I didn’t have reason to feel one way or another about him. Now that he was alive, and not our John Doe, I didn’t care for him at all.

  The Elmira Police Department had pried him out of yet another roadhouse known as a drug market. His room, which he’d shared with a local woman—possibly the woman Yeager had mentioned—had been littered with the remains of a focused period of use. Contreras wasn’t my problem anymore.

  As to the unmarked grave on Aub’s land, it appeared I was in for some digging.

  “I called Detective Palmer,” the sheriff had told me on the phone. “He can get up this afternoon around two. That give you enough daylight?”

  “Am I going to get to talk to McBride?”

  “You don’t worry about that. Let me worry about that.”

  “What about a diver in January Creek? We got anybody in the county? Pretty sure Dufaigh tossed a gun in there.”

  The sheriff made a thoughtful noise, and said, “Noted. We’ll get one if we need to. If we can.”

  “Pretty sure it was a gun, Sheriff.” Dally responded with silence. I looked out the window at a low morning sun dispelling the mist. It promised to be a sunny, warmish day, so I could at least hope for a few inches of thawed ground. I told the sheriff two o’clock would be fine and hung up. I needed some hands with shovels, and had an idea of where to get them.

  As the garage came to life that morning, I was thinking with my stocking feet up on the desk. I hadn’t gone home, and had been in the office since seven-thirty. In the peace and quiet, I lost track of the time; eight-thirty had come and I was supposed to be open to the public. There was a knock on my door, and it opened without invitation. The man who entered was dressed in a brown tweed jacket and soft woolen pants; his tie was fixed to his shirt with a narrow gold pin, and his white hair was brushed straight and hair-sprayed into place. Dr. Robert Loinsigh held a plate covered in smooth tinfoil, which he set down on my desk and, after looking around, wheeled George’s chair over and sat across from me.

  I hadn’t gotten up to shake his hand, but I did him the courtesy of removing my dirty socks from view and sitting up straight. He extended his hand across my desktop, and I took it. “Mary made those,” he said, referring to the covered plate. “Butterscotch.”

  “Thank you. Tell your wife thank you.”

  He smiled. “Any news?”

  “Just what’s on TV.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I saw. I’m beginning to appreciate your situation here. So, the investigations? You have all you need?” he pressed.

  “They’re proceeding. Dunmore lends us a couple troopers here and there. We’re getting somewhere.”

  “Yeah.” He looked about him at the little office that to him must have seemed dreary, but to me was just right. Apart from George’s empty desk.

  “Tell your wife thank you,” I hinted.

  “About that. We . . . you understand, we have standing permission to be on Dunigan’s land. We’ve hiked his woods for thirty years. Watched birds in his woods for thirty years—”

  I could tell what he was working up to, and cut him off. “I understand, but you weren’t up there to watch birds. The citations have been issued and I’m not taking them back.”

  He sat stunned for a moment. Then he stood and said, “You’ve got plenty to worry about. Sorry to intrude.”

  “I understand. Don’t worry. Actually, you’ve done me a favor—please sit—I had been meaning to pay a visit, ask about what you’ve heard or seen on the ridge.”

  He sat, still looking aggrieved. “No,” he said, “it’s shocking. I mean, are we safe?”

  “We have a pretty strong theory about . . . who is responsible. Their world and yours probably don’t mix. What about Mrs. Loinsigh—she see anything these days?”

  “There’s nothing that happens in her life that she doesn’t tell me about. In detail.” He chuckled. “I’m at work during the day—”

  “You’re a, what do you do?”

  “Ear, nose, and throat specialist. Over the border. Anyway, Mary would have said.”

  “And you mentioned that you have permission to be on Aub’s land—what kind of relationship do you have with him? Seen any changes lately?”

  “Aub is Aub, always has been. I’d say our relationship was neighborly. For years. Long, long ago, when he was already an old man, and I was still young, he found out I was an MD. So, early mornings maybe twice or three times a year he’d come over the ridge, sometimes with fresh eggs or a piece of deer meat, sometimes an old medicine bottle—I collect them, for my office—and he’d have a complaint. A sore throat, a cough, something. There wouldn’t be anything seriously wrong most times. I think he just thought, free checkup, free doctor. I’d see him in the garage. Once, and this was maybe fifteen years ago, he needed hospital care. Something to do with his plumbing.”

  “You say he was healthy?”

  “For his life, for what he was. His nutrition was poor. He drank too much; that was obvious.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I couldn’t say. He stopped visiting some years ago.”

  “And you never checked up on him?” It sounded more accusatory than I’d intended.

  Loinsigh paused a moment, and said, “Each man has his own life, Henry.”

  “Uh-huh. Look, I didn’t mean . . . I know it’s not
your job.”

  “Exactly. Dealing with indigents is more in your line, no?” After another cold silence, the doctor said, “Well, if there’s nothing else?”

  “Tell your wife thank you. Stay in touch.” As Loinsigh put his hand on the doorknob, one more thing occurred to me. “Doctor,” I said, “Aub was always alone, far as you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Never married?”

  Loinsigh shook his head and scoffed, and left.

  I looked out the window. The sun had taken its place in the sky, burning the mist away. I walked next door to the garage, where I found John Kozlowski underneath a raised fire truck, banging its frame and chassis with a rubber mallet; flakes of rust rained down around him and settled in his graying hair and all over his coveralls. When he noticed me, he emerged from under the truck. “Goddamn thing,” he said. “This truck ain’t worth fifty bucks. We only keep it around to give kids rides at the Field Days. Fuckin thing.” He patted a red fender with affection. “What’s up?”

  “Would you say you owe me one, John?”

  He shifted his eyes, then nodded in the affirmative.

  “And would you say,” I continued, “that your buddy Nolan owes me one?”

  “He may not see it that way, but okay.”

  “Well. Make him understand. I’ve got some county business this afternoon. I need a couple strong backs and it can’t wait.”

  NOLAN’S HOUSE WAS closest to the unmarked grave, so we gathered in his driveway at two p.m. John had followed me in his truck, with Detective Palmer close behind in an unmarked Crown Vic, and Wy Brophy back in his maroon pickup, wearing a tweed cap.

  The four of us—me, John, Palmer, and Wy Brophy—stood outside Nolan’s house, waiting. Me and John carried picks and shovels and packs full of heavy-duty garbage bags, jugs of water, and sandwiches. I had a thermos of coffee. Brophy carried a metal case and had a camera hanging around his neck.

  Palmer slapped my shoulder in a friendly way. “Farrell, you’ve got to stop turning up bodies. Or I’m going to have to buy a trailer out here in Pennsyltucky, huh?”

  “You could do worse,” John said.

  Nolan’s back door opened, and out came the man himself, hulking and droopy around the face. Unshaven, with a pair of waders slung over his shoulder, he thudded down the steps without greeting and seized his own pick and shovel with one hand. “Snow White and the five fuckin dwarves,” he said, looking at all of us together.

  “We appreciate your help—Finbar?” Palmer said.

  “Yeah,” said Nolan. “Yeah. It’s Barry.”

  Our group complete, we set off for the trees about an acre back from Nolan’s house. We passed a pond with a small dock, and continued on a trail that skirted the edge of the swamp.

  On the way out, I found myself walking next to Nolan. “Busy up on the ridge these days,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I was over to the Grady place. They said they used to get visits from Aub Dunigan, through the woods. Odd hours.”

  “Sounds like him.” We walked along. “You talk to Ron?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Ron and Evelina both.”

  “The old lady knows a thing or two. I was friendly with Ron Senior. Not sure about the son.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s been putting the pressure on Evie to lease,” Nolan said. “It’s unpleasant.”

  “What does he care? He can lease his rights, can’t he?”

  “She owns it all. Ron’s been pressuring me too. Trying to set up a parcel.”

  “You interested?”

  “Maybe. Can’t do it without at least Aub and Evelina, at any rate. And I know Shelly Bray don’t want to.”

  We reached the clearing and slipped down the slope toward the rock pile.

  You ever dig in a cold swamp all afternoon? Wear a back brace and join a union is my advice. After a couple hours I felt two inches shorter and partway folded into myself like a rusty jackknife. Wy Brophy took numerous photos of the site in its undisturbed state, and even took a turn with the pick. His pleated pants were streaked with dirt where he’d wiped his hands. For the earth we were digging up, we’d sectioned off as much room in the little grotto as we could spare; per Palmer’s instructions everything had to be saved, and could not be hucked out into the swamp. Between the four of us working—Palmer refrained, citing a bad back—we dug a good-sized, neat hole by the headstone, though one that was lined with a seeping pool of cold swamp water. From time to time, Brophy knelt and examined the exposed soil layers.

  Unasked, Nolan stepped into his waders, and then into the cavity, and flung muck over his shoulder. At one point he leaned on his shovel and looked up at John and muttered, “Thirsty work.” He was pale, and sweat beaded on his face. John palmed him a steel flask.

  The afternoon wore on. Chickadees sang “tee-hee” from their perches far above. Repeatedly hammering pieces of shale with a pick had produced high-pitched clinks that traveled up my arms and resonated with the ringing in my ears. My head felt a little better when I took a break. As the sun made its slow vault across the sky, I tried to position it to my back. Coffee was keeping me moving, and though I’d had very little water and felt dried out, eventually I had to relieve myself, so I clambered over one of the boulders that hemmed us into the site and stepped into the woods. From my vantage point, I could see most of the clearing and the tree line surrounding it. It was bathed in light, and I couldn’t look for long before my vision blurred and doubled. Scanning the trees bit by bit, I caught movement high and to the northwest, and . . . something. Beyond naked undergrowth, some color slightly out of place. A jagged, eight-foot tree stump marked the spot.

  Shovels sliced into the muck, and muffled voices carried over the swamp’s surface, to my left, where the others dug. Detective Palmer had a Glock in a shoulder holster, but I couldn’t call to him without drawing attention. I stood there, not moving myself, waiting for a sign. Nothing stirred. And then, a slow shift, and a naked sapling danced out of time with the breeze coming out of the northwest.

  I must have been gone awhile, because when I returned to the dig, four silent, expectant men were waiting for me.

  “Where’ve you been?” said John.

  “There’s something down there,” Palmer said.

  Wy Brophy bent over his open case, sorting through equipment. Nolan squatted beside the open grave, using a shovel for support, his nose dripping sweat and his face ashen. “We hit wood,” he said. “It’s soft. You can’t see it now, the water keeps coming in.” The earthen wall facing the swamp had been seeping since we’d dug about two feet down. The deeper we got, the more that side of the hole crumbled like a levee on the verge of collapse. I moved to the edge of the pit and peered into the pooling water in its depths, water that reflected the robin’s-egg sky. The others joined me. I pulled Palmer back for a moment and told him we were not alone. He nodded without meeting my eyes and without belief.

  Brophy instructed John and Nolan—gently, gently—to find the edges of the casket and clear its surface of water. As the two large men slid down into the pit, I pulled on Palmer’s coat again, quietly. “Something’s up there too,” I said, and nodded toward the tree line above. “I chased a man to this same spot yesterday, and I’m telling you, I saw someone up there. Let’s work up either side of the clearing—”

  “Easy,” said Palmer, “I’m not doing that.”

  “We could have the shooter right now,” I said. I turned to find John and Nolan watching us from below.

  Palmer put an arm around my shoulder and turned me away from them. “Listen,” he said, “we’ve got something right here. I think you can see that. I’m doing what I was called in to do. Whatever’s up there, frankly, I’m not going to crash through the woods after it. Not on your word alone.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed. “Sheriff mentioned. Your doctor friend? She told him. You need rest.” Palmer patted me on the back and joined the others.

  Feeling b
etrayed, I resisted looking to the tree line, then took a breath and stepped to the pit’s edge. John and Nolan were at pains to work together in the small space, and after a misplaced foot and an ominous crunch, the coroner cleared them out of the hole and slid down himself, scooping away earth with his gloved hands. He exposed a narrow coffin, its wood barely distinguishable from the soil surrounding it. There were no handles visible. Brophy raised a hand and asked for a hammer. Using the claw, he knelt and eased iron nails out of soggy wood; the coffin lid folded in half like cardboard.

  Another age gazed up at us.

  The face was dark as mahogany, its eyelids sunken into sockets that had emptied long ago, its mouth forced into a wince as the facial tissue tightened into leather. And still, its features were delicate, discernible. It. Her. And strange to relate, her face, turned slightly to the east, seemed to reach out to us from somewhere.

  “Jesus,” said Brophy, scrambling to his feet. “Jesus.”

  A film of cloth swam around the body, stained the color of iron-rich earth, its floral print still visible. Around her collarbone, lace had shriveled and turned the same red-brown. A black weal of what looked like damaged skin encircled her throat.

  Brophy asked for his camera, and Palmer handed it down to him. After taking some photos, Brophy held up an end of rope, about an inch in diameter. “This is in with her,” he said. “It’s around her back and under her arms; it was laid out here, on her anterior abdomen. Maybe she was lowered with it?” Or killed with it, I thought. He took another picture. As he cleared around the body, we saw a sodden dress clinging to hipbones, hand curled around skeletal hand. All the while, the swamp crept in.

  “Wy,” John said, looking at the rising water level, “she’s going under, there.”

  “What do you think’s been preserving her all this time? She’ll last a while longer.” The coroner took samples of water and soil. “This bog, this . . . this area here. Amazing. Never seen anything like this, guys.”