Virgil Helm was the former part-time caretaker and handyman for the Aberdeen First Baptist Church. He was hired by Pastor Eli Royce as a replacement for Chad McGintey, who left that position upon his brother’s release from prison. Helm devoted twenty hours per week to the church property, where his duties included not only landscaping but also maintenance of all electrical, plumbing, and heating concerns. He was last seen on the church grounds an hour or so prior to the discovery of possible termite infestation of the church building; a more thorough examination and treatment were scheduled for the following day, at which time the remains were discovered.
Despite extensive interviews and queries of Helm’s employer and all other known associates, the handyman, now thought to be approximately forty years old, has never been located. He has no history of criminal activities of any kind, sexual or otherwise, was said to be an individual of temperate habits and nature, was not known to drink alcohol, gamble, or speak ill of others, generally kept to himself, enjoyed playing guitar but never in public, and, according to all reports, seemed ill at ease in large groups. He was unmarried and not in a relationship at the time of his disappearance. He claimed to have been honorably discharged from the United States Army (after at least one tour of duty in Iraq), but a search of military records has turned up no proof of that claim, or that Helm ever held military service.
Eli Royce served as pastor of the Aberdeen First Baptist Church from October 2000 through July 2014, at which time the termite control project resulted in the discovery of seven skeletons concealed behind a false wall on the church’s northern side. Several of Royce’s former parishioners have confirmed that their pastor, although married at the time, was well-known for having affairs with several female members of his congregation (none known to be under the age of consent, which, in Kentucky, is sixteen years of age), some of whom readily admitted to the liaisons and now speak proudly of their affairs with the man who has since become a television evangelist and outspoken advocate of equal rights and opportunities for “oppressed minorities.”
Hearsay evidence suggests that Royce impregnated one Antoinette Coates, sixteen, who, unfortunately, subsequently moved from Aberdeen with her mother and father, leaving no forwarding address.
Royce’s cooperation during the homicide investigations was never more than reluctant, and often flagrantly antagonistic, though he did request and pass a polygraph test administered by an independent polygraph expert. Now a resident of Evansville, Illinois, Royce continues to own several rental properties in and around Carlisle County. He is currently sixty-five years old.
In 2014 the First Baptist Church of Aberdeen was 154 years old. National media coverage of the discovery of the human remains brought the building to the attention of the Kentucky Historical Society, whose research established the church’s role as a stop along the Underground Railroad. Escaped slaves were said to be sheltered in the church before being conveyed by wagon to a point along the nearby Mississippi River some fifteen miles west, or to the Ohio River an additional ten miles northwest, where they were then conveyed farther north by packet boat. The Historical Society then began a campaign to preserve the church as a historical landmark. Unknown citizens of Aberdeen, however, who had no wish to have their town permanently associated with the discovery of seven skeletons of murdered girls of color, burned and bulldozed the church within a week of the discovery. The empty lot is now property of the municipality. Current proposals for future development of the property include: a community garden, a rental storage facility, or a memorial to the victims and the church’s history.
FORTY-ONE
Jayme finished reading the information in the folders before DeMarco did, so she refilled her coffee cup and his, then sat at her grandmother’s kitchen table and watched him as he read. He paused often in his reading, cocking his head a little so that his gaze went off to the side while he considered what he had read. She wished she could plug a cord into his brain and hear what he was thinking. She wanted to know every thought and emotion that passed through him, even those he kept pushed way down deep in his silent well of darkness. Maybe especially those.
Of the men she had truly loved—her father, grandfather, three brothers, and him—none had been so guarded and private as DeMarco. She had never found it easy to love men other than her family, mainly because their gender was so flawed by testosterone, their virtues so blunted and warped by it. A blood bond ameliorated that flaw. But her attraction to DeMarco had been immediate, and after all the years of their acquaintance was yet to fade. When on duty he had frequently been either gruff or sarcastic, but there was little of that to their relationship now. Every smile he gave, even the sad and sheepish ones, was received as an unexpected gift that made her chest fill with hunger for more of him.
Still, she was mystified by why he, of all people, held her in such thrall. She knew all about the dopamine and oxytocin that floods the brain whenever Cupid strikes, bringing feelings of elation and satisfaction, and the endorphins that produce a heightened state of serenity when she lies in his arms. But all that was the what of love, not the why. Why was Ryan DeMarco the one to set those chemicals surging? And how long would the tap stay open?
As a younger woman she had wondered about her capacity to love. She harbored no shortage of compassion, no lack of empathy, no deficit of libido or fondness for sex. But love had seemed out of her reach and possibly an illusion. As a trooper exposed to less goodness and virtue than base, narcissistic indulgence, she had come to view most human consciousness as no more than a blunt instrument, an animal skin stretched taut over a hollow stump. The skin would resonate and sound no matter what object struck it. But only the hand of love, when she finally experienced it, produced music—the long, graceful fingers and delicate touch, the gossamer strings needing only to be stroked, only to be breathed upon, and a melody would course through the body, go skittering through the blood. Sometimes with DeMarco it was birdsong, and sometimes the trees were full of crows. Sometimes a melodious hum and sometimes a chorus. Sometimes rank upon rank of white-winged angels, or the piercing cat cry of an electric guitar.
Now he closed up the final manila folder and laid it atop the others. He picked up his coffee cup, but too briskly, causing some of the coffee to spill over his hand.
“What a slob,” she said, her smile full of music, the air warm in the kitchen, the house otherwise still.
He looked down at the cup. “Did you fill this up?”
“No, you did.”
“I got up and went to the counter and filled my cup without realizing I was doing it?”
“You filled mine too,” she said.
He nodded, then wiped his hand on her T-shirt. “That’s what you get for lying,” he told her.
Then he kissed her cheek. “So what do you think?”
“You’re asking me who did it?” she said. And shook away the comforting stillness.
“My money’s on the anarchist,” she answered. “His proclivity is well-established. His alibi rests solely on his own little group of nutballs. And if none of them use credit cards, it would have been fairly easy to travel two, three hundred miles without leaving any tracks.”
“According to Vicente, there was no sign of the group’s vehicles on any surveillance cameras.”
“They’re professional paranoids, Ryan. You think McGintey would kidnap a girl without being aware of cameras?”
DeMarco shrugged. “He did have access to the church. If his duties were the same as Helm’s.”
“And why wouldn’t they be?” she said. “Besides, we don’t know if the girls were kidnapped or went with the murderer of their own free will. Teenage girls can make decisions on their own, you know.”
He nodded, thought for a few moments, sipped his coffee.
“On the other hand,” Jayme said, “the handyman’s glaring absence has to put him at the head of the list. Despite what my gut tells
me.”
“Yep,” said DeMarco. “Did you get a sense, though, that whoever put this information together has a hard-on for Eli Royce?”
“Do you mean hard-on in the good way?” she teased, and slipped her hand along his thigh.
“You know I can’t think straight when you do that.”
“One of your most endearing qualities,” she said.
He put his hand on hers, moved it to his knee, and held it in place. “I know Hoyle has a tangible dislike for the man. I suspect that Vicente does too, and I think these are his words,” he said, and tapped the folders.
“Personally,” Jayme said, “I have a tangible dislike for every one of these jerks. What a Pandora’s box of nasty behavior! They all should be behind bars. Royce, however, is the only one without a criminal background.”
“Royce and Virgil Helm.”
“Yes,” Jayme said, “but Helm’s disappearance has to implicate him. He knew what was behind that wall. Why else would he disappear the night before a termite inspection?”
“Then why didn’t he remove the bodies before the boards got torn off? He had plenty of time to do it.”
“Maybe he put the bodies there that night.”
“Maybe McGintey did,” DeMarco said. “He and Royce must have hated each other. A white anarchist working for a black anti-white supremacist?”
Jayme said, “Imagine the dynamics of that relationship.”
DeMarco shook his head, blew out a long, exasperated breath.
She raised her hand to his shoulder and lightly massaged the muscle. “You think we should talk to Vicente again? Get the Irregulars together for another fun-filled lunch with no food?”
“Vicente maybe. Not all three of them at once. Unless you’re looking to get your fortune told.”
“She’s just dying to do a reading for you. You know that, right?”
DeMarco pushed his chair away from the table. “She is the scariest little woman I’ve ever met.”
“Scary how?”
“Something about her eyes. The way she looks at me.”
Jayme leaned close. “She’s peering into your soul, my love. All your secrets revealed.”
DeMarco flinched, then moved away and stood. He went to the sink, emptied his coffee cup, and rinsed it clean. Then glanced at the clock on the stove. 4:27. “We need to check in with local enforcement before we start poking around,” he said.
“Not Vicente?”
“I’m trying to remember what Hoyle said about Pastor Royce. He called him a charlatan, I remember that. And something about… ‘No responsibility for the crimes has yet been assigned,’ he said. When we were talking specifically about Royce.”
“As if he believes Royce responsible?”
“That’s how it sounded to me. He also said that one of his colleagues is certain Royce was involved. And I’m betting that colleague is Vicente.”
“Okay,” Jayme said. “Let’s just say it was Royce. Maybe he used McGintey and Helm to acquire the girls for him. Maybe there were drugs involved. Both men worked for Royce.”
“But only one of them disappeared,” DeMarco said.
“Or was disappeared,” Jayme added.
DeMarco nodded, lips pursed. Then he pointed a finger at the papers. “Those were written with a lawyer’s touch. And lawyers manipulate. I say we talk to the sheriff’s department and the state boys. And get the skinny on the Irregulars while we’re at it.”
“So we’re doing it?” Jayme said. “We’re taking it on?”
He blinked. Looked momentarily stunned. “Damn,” he said. “What about New Orleans? Key West? Gumbo and Key lime pie?”
Jayme came up behind him, set her cup in the sink, slipped her arms around his waist. “Whatever you choose, babe. I’m with you all the way.”
He covered her hands with his. “That’s Sergeant babe to you, Trooper.”
She nuzzled the side of his neck. “It’s nice having the house to ourselves, isn’t it?”
“And without Richie standing outside the window, listening to you moan.”
“I am going to miss that,” she told him. “Hey, you want to make a video for him?”
FORTY-TWO
As a boy walking the tracks, Ryan would sometimes come across a black snake or copperhead sunning itself on a crosstie or shedding its skin on the rough cinders. He saw possums and groundhogs, raccoons and stray dogs and feral cats, on occasion a red fox, and twice a black bear. White-tails were always jumping up from the tall grass and crashing through the mountain laurel into the woods that grew along the side of the hill. Once he came upon some kind of eagle perched atop a rusted rail and tearing chunks of pink meat out of a sunfish that kept trying to wriggle free from the talons. He liked to explore the ruins of old station houses and tipples and knew which ones the older kids used on summer nights for their beer and sex and weed parties.
One day he saw an odd shape rising up from the heat shimmer coming off the cinders and on closer inspection encountered some bizarre kind of snapping turtle, its shell as large as a barrel hoop but ridged with thick spikes just like those running down its long tail and broad head. He held a dried stick to its beaked mouth and the turtle grabbed hold and snapped the stick in half.
When he was thirteen he found a loaded revolver wrapped in a dirty piece of burlap in the corner of an abandoned boxcar. He had been afraid to touch the burlap except with his foot, and then afraid to peel away the oily flap of cloth, and then for a while afraid to pick up the revolver. But he did all those things despite his fear and then he looked out the boxcar door in all three directions and then climbed down and ran into the woods with the revolver held hard against his thigh.
A mile or so from home where the hardwood forest gave way to red pines he stopped to catch his breath. There he could smell the pine needles but also the smoke from the steel factories and the soot of the city. He stood in the pines in a small patch of dusty sunlight and examined the revolver. It was heavy in his hand and the barrel was pitch-black and smooth and the handle had dark wooden panels on each side. There were four bullets in the cylinder and two empty spaces.
Only at home in his room when he knew his mother was sleeping did he shake the bullets out of the cylinder and experiment with the hammer and trigger. He learned how to release the safety and how much pressure was needed on the trigger to trip the hammer.
Sometimes when his father was out in the kitchen screaming and cursing at his mother for something or other, Ryan would lie on his bed with his hand under the pillow on top of the loaded revolver. Sometimes he would slip his finger into the trigger housing and think, Anytime I want to.
When he was fifteen his father was found dead at 3:00 a.m. in the parking lot of his favorite bar. It was his favorite because he could walk to it in twenty minutes and there was always somebody around who would stand him a dollar beer. He always drank close to home because he didn’t have a car and wasn’t allowed to have a driver’s license. The boy thought his mother would get happy again without somebody to beat her around all the time, but she got even sadder and sometimes wouldn’t leave her bed except to go to the bathroom. He would open a can of soup and heat it up in the microwave and serve it to her in a coffee mug, but she never took more than a sip or two and it was always on her nightstand the next morning with dried soup caked around the rim.
When he was in Panama with the army, the Red Cross notified him that his mother had used a razor blade to cut long slits down the insides of both elbows to the palms of her hands. At the funeral some woman he did not recognize told him, She didn’t fool around with it, did she? I’ve got to admire her for that, and he had felt an odd sense of pride that his mother had showed so much determination, when for as far back as he could remember she had never followed up on any of her promises.
FORTY-THREE
The sheriff of Carlisle County was a tall
, sinewy, burr-headed man in his midsixties, his skin leathery and tanned but jaw still firm, steel-blue eyes still clear, his cheeks sporting a day or two of white stubble. He sat with his back to the sunlit window, holding both Jayme’s and DeMarco’s business cards between the same finger and thumb, the cards extended to catch the morning light as he leaned back in his office chair, relaxed, unhurried. He wore faded blue jeans and an olive-green cotton shirt with light-brown buttons and flaps on the breast pockets. The sleeves were rolled neatly to the elbow, forearms and hands peppered with age spots.
“This number will get me your station commander?” he asked.
DeMarco had decided to let Jayme do the talking initially. Her smile was more fetching and likely to charm.
“Straight through to Captain Bowen,” she said with a smile.
The sheriff nodded, then waved the cards at the two chairs facing his desk. Jayme and DeMarco sat.
Walking the Bones Page 12