My cell buzzed. It was Abner. “Hey, Doc. Where’ve you been? I’ve left you—say that again. You’re kidding. You’re not kidding. He’s not going to be very happy with us after last time. Okay. Okay. I’ll take care of it.” I drained my iced tea. “Anybody care to give an over-medicated guy a ride?”
“Where to?” Cedar said.
“Tin City. Abner wants to see Stumpy’s frozen finger.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
“Okay,” Cedar said, “but this time, you’re coming along. It's too weird.”
“It’s just a finger.”
“A finger? I was talking about Stumpy.”
3
“I’m too much man for your car,” I told Cedar as she backed out of the parking space.
I scooted the passenger seat back, but I still had too much leg for Cedar’s VW Bug. My knee knocked against the dash vase holding an oversized tie-dye daisy made of silk.
“And they say size doesn’t matter.” She hit the gas, and my head snapped against the seat.
“Ow! What are you, a jackrabbit?”
“You could use a little acceleration in your life.”
Dust clouds billowed out behind the car as she whipped the car onto Highway Twelve.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
“Did I do something to make you mad?”
“Nothing.” Her eyes were fixed on the road as she rammed the gearshift into fourth. “You haven’t done a thing.”
I decided to take her at her word, even though her body language said she was upset.
“Damn it,” Cedar said, eyes fixed on the rearview.
I knew that look.
An Allegheny County sheriff’s car was on our tail, lights flashing.
“Better pull over,” I said.
“I am pulling over.”
Cedar drifted to the shoulder of the highway, a soft berm that overlooked part of Black Oak Creek. I checked the side mirror.
“What bug crawled up that deputy’s ass?” she said.
“That’s not Mercer. It’s Hoyt.”
Hoyt climbed out of his cruiser, adjusted his trooper hat, then set his palm on the grip of his Smith & Wesson. The flashing blue lights lent a purple shadow to his face, blanching the ruddy color away and highlighting the pockmarks on his cheeks.
Cedar offered her license. “Hello, sheriff.”
“Put that away,” Hoyt barked. His voice was so full of gravels and dust, I didn’t recognize it. “I know who y’all are.”
She stuffed the license in her pocket. “Then why did you pull me over?”
“Boone,” the sheriff said, “I’d like a minute of your time.”
“What’s going on?” she asked me.
“I’ve got no earthly idea. Be right back.”
I followed Hoyt to the prowler. The car’s lights were still going, and the radio squawked like an angry chicken. The smell of the cedar trees that lined both sides of the highway reminded me of the trunk where Mom kept my service awards and medals. It was a strange thought to have just then, but the whole situation was strange.
Hoyt put his foot up on the bumper. “You need to keep out of police business.”
“What business would that be?”
“Don’t act stupid, son, ‘cause you’re not. I know your granddaddy’s been sticking his nose where it don’t belong, and you’ve been helping him.”
I held out my hands, palms up. “What is it you think we’re doing?”
“There’s a lot of things I can tolerate,” Hoyt said. “Vigilantes ain’t one of them.”
“How do Dewayne and Eugene Loach and his boys fit into that equation? You say you don’t tolerate vigilantes, but they’re attacking anybody with brown skin they find. Or does the law only extend to white people?”
“Boone, if me and Lamar wasn’t friends, I knock you upside the head.” He stood ramrod straight, put a palm on the Glock, and stuck out his chin. “You’re just a college student now, so you better act like one. Go to class, study hard, and all that bullshit. But that’s it. I expect you to keep your nose clean and your ass wiped. Got that?”
I saluted. “Yes sir.”
“Don’t get smart with me, boy.”
“No sir," I said. "I’ll remain ignorant."
As I walked back to the Volkswagen, I could hear Hoyt saying, don’t get smart with me, boy.
Deputy Mercer had used the very same phrase. How much difference, I wondered, was there between the two men?
4
The yard around the Tin City property looked like Stumpy had been searching for buried treasure. The path between his Airstream and the tobacco barns was pocked with dozens of deep holes and mounds of reddish dirt.
Cedar parked near the Airstream. “Somebody’s been busy.”
“You have a gift for understatement.” I spotted Stumpy’s Airstream through the trees. “I didn’t think Stumpy had enough motivation for digging.”
Cedar clipped the leash to Chigger’s collar. He ran beside her up the path, panting with excitement, savoring the luscious new smells on the wind.
I knocked on the trailer. “Stumpy!”
The only answer was the echo of my voice.
“Nobody’s home.” Cedar popped down the steps of the small, rickety deck. “Let’s go.”
“You’re not getting off that easy.”
“Watch me.”
“Then you can call Abner and explain to him that we didn’t get the finger.”
“Chigger, bite Boone. He’s a bad boyfriend.”
Chigger yawned, then took a great interest in the sole of her sneakers.
“Not me, you stupid dog. Him.”
“Good dog.” I rubbed his ears. “Come on, Vicious, let’s take a look around.”
“Hey, don’t call my dog vicious. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“Who said I was talking to the dog?”
Cedar swatted at me, but I danced away.
“Coward!” Cedar said. “Stand still so I can hit you!”
“Can’t hit what you can’t catch,” I said, right before I fell backward into a deep, narrow hole. “Oof!” The impact knocked the wind clean out of my chest and made my ribs scream bloody murder. “Shit on a stick! That freaking hurt!”
Cedar’s head appeared above me. “Are you okay down there?”
Her hair clung to her face, and she would have looked angelic if she had not been so worried. Chigger whimpered loudly. His paws knocked loose dirt on my face.
“My ribs are killing me," I said. “But I’ll live.”
“You sure?”
I waved the hand. “Truly, I’m fine.”
Cedar started laughing. “I’m so sorry. You lo-looked so funny falling into th-that h-hole. Bloop!”
“Thanks for your sympathy.” While she was laughing and Chigger was barking, I tried to find a way out of the pit. The walls all had the same markings, as if a mouth with ragged teeth had scraped them clean.
Stumpy hadn’t dug these holes.
Not by hand, anyway.
“When you’re done with your fit of giggles,” I called up, “could you get something to pull me out?”
“Okay,” she said. “Be right back.”
While she was gone, I took several photos with my cellphone. The depth of the cuts came up to the second knuckle of my index finger. Whatever Stumpy was looking for, he was using some heavy machinery. There were probably over a hundred holes on the property. That was a lot of work for one man.
Maybe Stumpy wasn’t involved in the digging at all.
Cedar dropped a coil of hose down the hole. “It’s Stumpy’s water hose. I left it screwed into the spigot so it would hold your weight.”
“You sure?”
“If you want out, you’ll have to trust my judgment.”
I braced my back against the dirt wall, and using the cuts in the clay, pulled myself out of the hole. My ribs weren’t happy with me when I
rolled onto the grass.
“See?” Cedar said. “My calculations were correct.”
“What calculations?”
She held up her thumb. “The ones I made with this.”
“Glad you were right.” I dusted my pants off and kicked clay from my boots. “Let’s go.”
“You’re speaking my language.”
“After we get the finger.”
“But you said—“
“Look around. Stumpy may have left before he expected to, and a dismembered finger’s not something he’d pack.”
“I'm not going into his house. It smells like pig crap."
"You'll be fine out here." I opened the door. “Be right back.”
“Wait for me.” She tied Chigger’s leash to a post on the rickety porch and followed me inside.
The trailer smelled like Stumpy had been making soup with old shoes, and the air was thick with the scent of body odor and mold. Cedar pulled her shirt over her nose as I hit the lights.
“Ugh,” she said. “I’m not strong enough for this. My stomach can’t hack the stench.”
“Fish sticks,” I said as I opened the freezer door.
“So the freezer’s empty?”
“No.” I pulled out a package of cod fillets. “It’s a box of fish sticks.”
I shook the contents onto the counter, which also held several opened packets of ketchup, breadcrumbs, and an empty package of wieners. Three sticks fell out, followed by the finger.
Cedar gagged. “He put someone’s body part in with food? That’s just so wrong.”
“Yeah, it’s a terrible way to preserve evidence.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I slipped the frozen digit into an evidence bag. “At least he wrapped it in plastic.”
“Boone!”
“What?”
“You don’t think this is really, I don’t know, ghoulish? I mean, I’m okay with scientific inquiry and all of that, but the finger you just stuck in your pocket was once attached to somebody’s hand. How can you not be totally disgusted?”
“Abner raised me in his lab,” I said. “I’m used to it.”
It wasn’t that death didn’t bother me. It did. But it was the ending of a life that ate through my gut, not the corpse that was left behind. It was something you couldn’t explain in the middle of a deserted, completely trashed trailer.
Clothes were strewn everywhere. The closest had been tossed, the side table drawers emptied onto the floor. Broke glass lay at the edge of Stumpy’s favorite sleeping post, the couch. It was hard to tell because of Stumpy’s underwhelming housekeeping skills, but the more I looked around, the more I was convinced that someone else had helped Stumpy redecorate.
“They were looking for something,” I said.
“Who?”
I started down the paneled hallway. “The people who tossed this trailer. Look at this toilet.”
“How did we go from talking about human dignity to examining toilets?” She followed me to the bathroom. “Oh, that’s how.”
The toilet had been shattered. From the wood splinters on the floor, I suspected the instrument of destruction was a baseball bat. The cabinets above the toilet had been tossed, too. A bottle of bowl cleaner lay on its side, leaking blue liquid onto a stack of paper towels.
“Let’s check out the bedroom.”
“Let’s leave instead,” Cedar said.
She didn’t wait for my answer. I heard the door slam, followed by the sounds of Chigger’s bark.
Space in the bedroom was tight. The double bed took up most of the room, leaving space for only a narrow bedside table, which had also been dumped. The mattress was askew on the frame. From the marks on the ceiling, it had been lifted then dropped. A single, yellowed sheet lay rumpled on the floor in front of the closet. Inside the closet, there were no coats, no shirts, not even a coat hanger.
Empty.
This was no robbery.
I had decided to take a closer look for clues in the kitchen area when Chigger yapped a warning bark. Peeking through the blinds, I looked out a grimy window and saw Cedar a few yards away holding onto Chigger’s lease. It was stretched taut, and the dog was growling.
When I stepped outside onto the porch, I saw why.
A two-ton diesel truck drove across the overgrown yard toward the big barn. It was hauling a trench digger behind it, equipped with a scoop shovel. That answered his questions about what had made the holes.
When two men got out of the front of the truck, it also answered the question of who.
Early and Stuart, my favorite independent contractors specializing in fire site clean up and debris removal. What kind of debris where they removing this time?
“What business have you got being here, anyhow?” Stuart shouted as he approached, carrying a digging spade. “Hey, you're that boy who was with the bone doctor, ain’t you?”
"That's me," I said.
“You two are trespassing on private property,” Early stabbed the air with a meaty finger. “We ought to call the law. Have y’all arrested.”
“Call the sheriff if you want,” Cedar said. “There aren’t any No Trespassing signs posted, and we have a legitimate reason to be here.”
Stuart spat tobacco on the ground. “What would that be?”
“We’re visiting a friend.”
“Stumpy Meeks,” I said. “Have you gentlemen seen him recently?”
“What do we look like, the missing person department?” Stuart said. “You’re wasting our time, so beat it.”
“Who would that be?” I asked.
“Who would what be?” Stuart said.
“The company paying you to clean up their mess. Who’s that?”
Stuart shook his head in wonder. “The man who owns it, dumb ass.”
“Does this man have a name?” I fought the temptation to add, dumb ass.
“Not one you’re getting from us.” Stuart said. “Beat it, before things get ugly.”
“Don’t threaten me,” I said. “It’s not a good idea.”
Stuart and Early chuckled. The thought of my taking them both out seemed absurd to them, but I was already figuring out how to separate the spade from Stuart’s hands.
“Let’s go, Boone.” Cedar looped an arm through mine. “We’ve got that thing in a half hour, and we don’t want to keep these guys from their work.”
“Better do like your lady says,” Stuart said.
For a few seconds, I stared hard at him. My meaning was clear. Next time we crossed paths, I was going to hurt him.
When we got in the car, I rolled down the window so that Chigger could stick his head out. Across the way, Stuart and Early were unloading the bobcat from its trailer. The bobcat was designed for moving a small amount of dirt very quickly. Not massive like a bulldozer or dresser, its lightweight and small relatively light bucket made it perfect for maneuvering through tight spaces.
Like the spaces that separated one grave from another.
“What a couple of assholes.” Cedar turned in a wide arc and slowly drove toward the highway. “You think they know something about Stumpy?”
“Yeah, and I know what they’re digging for, too.”
The flatbed truck held a pile of empty garment bags. One of the bags, however, was full. I suspected that it contained the object that had hit the side of Stumpy’s trailer.
An object that was missing a finger.
I smacked my forehead. “How dense could I be?”
“Pretty dense. What did you figure out?”
“From the size, shape, and pattern of the larger holes,” I said, “they’re looking for the same thing we are.”
“And that would be?”
“Body parts.”
5
“They are moving graves!” Cedar took a deep breath. “Illegally!”
She sat at the round oak table in our kitchen, next to me and across from Mom. Lamar leaned against the counters as Chigger lapped up a bowl of milk.
/> I had decided to let Cedar tell Mom the news. It would be more believable from her, since Mom considered Cedar far more levelheaded and trustworthy.
“Say that again,” Mom said, almost rising out of her chair.
Cedar repeated the whole story about Early and Stuart, though she left out the information about the finger in the fish sticks.
While she talked, I watched for Lamar’s reaction. He was listening, too, because he laughed when Cedar mentioned the part about me falling in the hole. But he kept a poker face the whole time and only moved when Chigger finished the milk. He picked up the bowl and rinsed it in the sink.
“The whole field is full of graves,” I said. “It’s not only a family plot, it’s an organized cemetery. From the pattern of the holes, the guys knew exactly where to dig.”
“The owners knew about the graves beforehand?” Mom asked.
“Wouldn’t testify to that in court,” I said, “but that’s what it looked like.”
“You’re sure?”
“The field looked like dominos.”
“What about—” Mom wiped a tear from her eye. “What about the headstones?”
“None,” I said. “We didn’t see a single one.”
“That’s outrageous!” Mom stood and threw her arms wide. “They have absolutely violated state law! They can’t do this!”
“Sounds like they already did,” Lamar said.
“Call the sheriff!” she told him. When Lamar didn’t move fast enough, she grabbed the handset from the wall. “Never mind, I’ll do it myself. Some help you are.”
The call connected, and Mom stepped out on the porch.
Lamar picked Chigger up and handed him to Cedar. “Did either one of these men threaten you?”
“They ordered us off the property,” Cedar said. “And we left.”
“Your mama’s wound up, that’s for sure,” Lamar said. “But if the rightful owner asked them to do the work, nothing can be done. It’s not illegal to move bodies in this state, just to do it without permission. Since those old boys let y’all walk around without a fuss, they’re not too worried about getting caught.”
Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) Page 11