One Drop of Blood

by Thomas Holland

  “New York? They’re not gettin’ someone from AFIP?” Kel knew the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology had assisted in the original 1965 autopsy.

  “Guess not. They tell me New York. State police. I ask, they send, I don’t question. I’m lucky to get any support. Anything else?”

  Kel paused while he measured his words. “Yeah, there is. The Gonsalves case, I…thing is, Mike…thing is I’m goin’ out on a limb for you. We’re goin’ be doin’ this work under some piss-poor conditions. I’m not sure why I’m even agreein’ to do this except…”

  Levine held up a hand. “I’ve got a lot of faults, Doc…Kel. Too many. But one thing that I won’t do is burn people who’ve been square with me. What I said the other night about you earning my respect—that was out of line. Anything goes to shit, it’s on my head, not yours. Mine.”

  “Thanks.”

  Levine nodded an acknowledgment. “So, anything else?”

  “Not that I can think of. Got everythin’ that I need…which reminds me,” Kel removed a wad of money from his pocket and pushed it across the table to Levine, “here’s your money…and the receipts.”

  Levine suddenly stiffened as if he’d dropped an ice cube down his pants. His phone had been ringing so frequently that he’d flipped it to vibrate mode before going to visit the sheriff. He hadn’t gotten used to it sneaking up on him in his pocket, and apparently it just had. He groped it out and answered it.

  “Yeah, Levine here.” He listened closely, squinting as he did so, then he looked at his watch. “Right. Fifteen minutes.” He snapped the phone shut without saying good-bye. If Levine’s calling plan charged by the spoken word, he’d gotten a good deal. “They’re ready, Igor. Let’s go get us a body.”

  Levine took the roll of money from the table and extracted a ten-dollar bill and some ones that he left to cover their meal. Then he stood. Kel did the same, catching the eye of Jo and the little man behind the grill, the one he’d talked to the other night. He waved to them both and then followed Levine out to the car. It was almost one-thirty and with the sun again standing straight overhead, they cast almost no shadow, and the black asphalt parking lot was turning soft in the heat. He waited, watching the heat waves ripple the air above the hood of the car while Levine worked the locks. Soon they were seated with a blast of air-conditioning directed at their faces, heading south of town at a high rate of speed. When they left the hardball, they roostered a tall plume of fine brown dust in their wake. If Jimbo was following, he’d better know the way by feel.

  Kel had purchased a bottle of calamine lotion that morning and had brought it along in a small paper sack. He took the opportunity to dab the pink liquid on his inflamed ankles with a cotton ball. He had to synchronize his movements with the bouncing of the car as it took the rough road. The lotion stung when it hit his raw skin. He sucked a short breath of air in between clenched teeth.

  Levine kept casting quick glances at him. He wasn’t at all sure what Kel was doing, but he disapproved on some general principle. When it looked as if Kel was about finished, he asked, “You do remember how to get there, I assume?” He’d slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses that Kel hadn’t seen before, and he looked so much like a G-man that Kel had to smile.

  Kel arched his brow, placed the soggy pink cotton in the ashtray, and reached up to drop the sun visor to block the glare. “Think so. Just head south and look for a clump of trees off to the right. Aren’t many around once you leave town.”

  It was a short ride. As he had earlier, Kel saw it from a distance, a clot of trees and tall grass about seventy-five yards off the road in a sea of heat-stunted cotton. A big John Deere 510 backhoe and three cars were at the edge of the field. One of them was a dark hearse, and there was a shiny white pickup truck there as well; their occupants standing out on the mound looking at the tombstones and pawing the ground like young horses. About fifty feet behind the backhoe, a sheriff’s cruiser was parked, engine and air-conditioner running, driver inside.

  It wasn’t Jimbo Bevins.

  Levine slipped to a stop, whipping the dust into cloud that took almost fifteen minutes to completely settle, and when it did, it covered everything. He got out and flashed a look at the sheriff’s car. As soon as Kel had gotten out and retrieved his bag of supplies, Levine locked the vehicle and started off across the field, trampling cotton plants in his way. Kel paused long enough to soak his pant legs and shoes with bug repellent and then followed, threading his path carefully so as to not damage any more plants than he had to.

  Levine reached the mound first, thrusting the tall grass aside before Kel could issue a chigger warning. Donnie Hawk came walking over to greet him, hand outstretched.

  “Mr. Levine,” he said, smiling, “we’re almost ready to go here. Just tryin’ to figure out the best way to get that there backhoe out here.” He nodded to the green earthmover parked at the edge of the field as if there might be two backhoes present, and he didn’t want Levine to be mistaken as to which one was under discussion.

  Levine looked first at Donnie and then at the backhoe and then back at Donnie. “Is this some sort of IQ test?” he said slowly, as if proposing something quite radical. “Why don’t you have the driver start the goddamned thing up and drive the sonofabitch over here.”

  Donnie was forced back a step. “Ahhh…the problem is, you see, there ain’t no road, and if we go and drive it over here…well, we’re gonna tear up some o’ that cotton sure as shit. Now, that may not bother you, Mr. Levine, but it sure does bother that man standin’ right over yonder, yes sir,” he employed a discreet jerk of his thumb to indicate a tall, thin man in overalls standing at the edge of the cemetery with Skeeter Boy and two others. “It’s his crop, don’t you see, and I ain’t nothin’ but an elected county official with no money to pay for miscellaneous expenses like crop damage this close to harvest time. Mercy.”

  Kel had walked up in time to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  “Oh, goddammit,” Levine said, starting toward the man in overalls. “I’ll pay for his friggin’ cotton. How much does this schmuck want?”

  Kel caught him by the arm and pulled him back. “Hold up there, partner. I can see this gettin’ hosed slam up. Gimme that wad of money of yours and cool your afterburner,” he said. “I used to have to negotiate crop damage all the time when I was doin’ archaeology in these parts…I’ll do it.”

  Levine paused and considered but handed over the money, and Kel slipped it into his pocket along with both hands. He started walking over to the men, but paused and looked out into the field, surveying the knee-high cotton plants.

  “It’s been a while since I negotiated cotton damage. What is that…is that El Dorado?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the cotton plants. “Been too damn long. What is that, Mr. Hawk? El Dorado Acala…is that it?”

  “Ahh, El Dorado?” Hawk answered.

  “Seed. You know what seed that is?” He shifted his look to Donnie Hawk.

  “If you’re askin’ me, your guess is as good as mine. All I do with cotton is stick it in people’s cheeks…and other places,” Donnie replied with a slight grin. “I don’t plant it, don’t harvest it. But I think that sounds about right.”

  Kel shrugged and then slowly walked over to the group of men and shook hands all around. It took a while. In fact, Levine thought it was taking forever. From where he stood, they seemed to be talking about everything but crop damage. They were laughing and pointing in all different directions. Kel was scratching. At one point three of them were squatting down, chewing on blades of grass and spitting excessively.What was it with these toothpick-chewers that they were always spitting? Levine thought. Before too long, however, Kel and the man in overalls stood up and shook hands again. They laughed a couple more times for good measure, and then the man waded out through the tall grass and headed for the white truck; Kel walked leisurely back over to Levine and handed him the wad of money.

  “Remind me to have you negotiate my next raise,” Le
vine said with a measure of respect as he repocketed the money. “I take it we’re good to go.”

  “Yup. Good to go. Turns out we’re kin, sort of. Plus, he remembers my father. No charge—for me.” He looked over at Donnie Hawk. “And, by the way, it’s Diva seed—not Acala.”

  “Talk about your faux pas. There goes your chance of being elected King of the Cotton Festival,” Levine responded, amazed that people could even care about such things. He then turned to Donnie Hawk with a look that conveyed surprise he was still standing there. “Well…saddle up.”

  Donnie sprang into high gear as if Levine had goosed him with a wet stick and hustled over to Skeeter Boy and the other two men. One of them nodded twice and then slowly walked to his backhoe. Shortly it had ground a path straight across the field and up onto the mound.

  The exhumation progressed fairly much in the manner that Kel had outlined. He’d taken some photographs of the grave as it was. He also took a sample of the topsoil. When Levine asked him why, he’d said it was to cover their ass. “Just to be safe,” he’d replied. “You never know when somethin’ may become an issue—poisonin’, for example—and a sample of the surroundin’ soil may be necessary as a control. Unlikely, but better safe than lookin’ foolish later in front of a jury.”Better than getting blamed for something later, he thought.

  The backhoe operator was quite skilled, and the top of the casket was soon exposed. That accomplished, he backed the machine off a few feet and shut it down. Kel took some more photographs, and then Skeeter Boy and a man who’d introduced himself as Hump took turns climbing into and out of the hole with their shovels. Hump presumably was so called because he had a rather large irregular lump over his left shoulder. It made one think that a small animal was curled up asleep under his shirt. Despite that, at one point Skeeter Boy had pulled Kel aside and whispered that he shouldn’t take obvious notice of it, “’Cause he’s kinda hinky about it, you know?” Kel had assured him that he understood, though he wondered why any man “hinky” about a deformed back would introduce himself to people as “Hump.”

  Donnie Hawk spent most of the time orbiting around Levine like a small satellite. In the afternoon heat, his cinnamon-roll hairdo had started to unwind, and several long strands were cascading wetly over his right ear like an oily brown graduation tassel.

  “Mr. Levine,” Donnie Hawk finally said, “I sure am sorry about that misunderstandin’ the other day. You remember, though, I told you I didn’t think them Boy Scouts had your skeleton—I told you that—I said, ‘I don’t think that’s the one you’re after.’ Course, after you reminded me about the Elmore Cemetery, then I remembered this here place here. We’re goin’ to get this straightened all out here shortly, though. No harm, no foul. Right?”

  Levine pinned him to the tree with a look. “That’s right, Mr. Hawk, we’re going to straighten this whole thing out once and for all. I’m simply glad that the phone call from Judge Clifford was able to refresh your memory last night.”

  Donnie Hawk looked over to the ongoing excavation, not so much to check the status as to avoid further eye contact with Levine. “I was just a boy when all this took place here,” he said softly. “That was a long time ago, Mr. Levine.”

  Skeeter Boy saved his father from Levine’s answer by a sharp whistle. He and Hump had gotten the grave dug out to a point where some lifting chains could be snaked under the ends of the casket. He was motioning for his father to come advise and approve. As Levine watched him walk away, a motion took his eye. Off to the side, partially obscured by the ragweed and tall Johnson grass, stood Sheriff W. R. Elmore, the sun glinting off his hard-cane cowboy hat. He’d gotten out of his car and was standing on the fringe, watching. The two men stared at each other but made no movement. Levine looked away only when he heard the backhoe start up.

  Kel had taken advantage of Skeeter Boy and Hump being out of the hole to make more photos and inspect the condition of the coffin. It looked like a Batesville glass-sealer. The top was bowed in from the weight of the soil, but otherwise it looked intact. There was no crypt, and it was likely that some groundwater had gotten in. The bottom of the grave pit was beginning to muddy up badly just in the short while Kel had been in the hole, and this was the driest part ofa particularly dry year. He’d also taken the trowel he’d purchased earlier and used it to scrape two more soil samples, one from each end of the casket, into separate Ziploc baggies. Then he hefted himself out and let Skeeter Boy back in to secure the hoist chains.

  Hump fastened the free end of the chains to the backhoe, and at Donnie’s signal, the operator slowly began raising the bucket arm. The chains popped and thumped as they cinched up, and there was a wet sucking sound as the coffin began to pull free from the muck. Skeeter Boy halted the operator a couple of times to skinny into the hole for some adjustments to the chains or to remove some hindering dirt. Within a few minutes the casket was swung up and over the hole. Water streamed out the bottom, confirming Kel’s concern. Hump and Skeeter Boy took hold of opposite corners and steadied the coffin as the backhoe moved it over to firm ground. Then they freed the chains and the backhoe withdrew.

  While the casket was being lifted, Donnie had walked over to the hearse and had backed it slowly over the furrows, careful to keep in the tracks made by the backhoe to minimize crop damage. Hanging half out of the driver-side window to better see, he eased it through the gap in the surrounding weeds made by the big John Deere and drew up alongside the coffin and opened the back. The interior was spread over with clear plastic sheeting, which Donnie double-checked to ensure it was smoothed out and covering the floor. Kel took additional photos as Donnie, Skeeter Boy, Hump, and the backhoe operator lifted the muddy coffin and slid it into the hearse.

  “Well, Mr. Levine, if y’all will follow us back to the funeral home, the boys will tidy up this here mess here,” Donnie said as he walked up to Levine, bending over to wipe his muddy hands on the dry grass.

  Levine suddenly remembered Sheriff Elmore and turned to rejoin his earlier stare. But Elmore was gone, having driven away sometime while the casket was being raised.

  “Mr. Levine…” Donnie Hawk repeated. “Mr. Levine—you all right?”

  Levine turned back.

  Everyone, including Kel, was looking at him.

  Kel opted to ride back to the Pacific Funeral Home with Skeeter Boy in the hearse. It was good evidence-handling practice to have someone stay in sight of the casket at all times, and while he knew this wasn’t his case, at least technically, he wasn’t going to have the finger pointed at his Lab if something went sour—Levine’s willingness to take the heat notwithstanding. Besides, he figured that if there were to be a question about chain of custody the FBI would rather have him take the stand than Skeeter Boy.Do you, Skeeter Boy, promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

  Levine drove himself. So did Donnie Hawk. Hump and the backhoe operator stayed to fill in the hole before some old grandmother on a genealogy field trip fell into it.

  Fortunately, it was a short ride back to the funeral home. Fortunate for Kel, because Skeeter Boy had turned out to be about the level of conversationalist that one would expect from someone with that name, and the silence was quite loud. For the most part, Skeeter Boy had chewed on his muddy thumb and hummed quietly, seemingly unaware of Kel’s presence beside him. Behind the hearse, in his blue Caprice, Levine had spent most of the short drive working his phone like a telethon operator. Donnie Hawk, following third behind him, spent the whole time wishing he hadn’t won the last election.Should have backed out and let old Blind Boon Pugh take that one, he thought.Don’t need this headache, mercy no.

  The rear of the Pacific Funeral Home had a large aluminum-sided add-on garage that served as the embalming and prep room. It was accessed from the outside by a double-wide garage door with a chain-drive electric opener. Less than a year old, it was a testament to the financial stability of the mortuary business. The old prep room had been converted to a sho
wroom for caskets and cremation urns—though in Split Tree there wasn’t much need for the latter. None of that oddball shit in Locust County; folks still expected to be buried proper.

  Skeeter Boy backed the hearse into the garage, closed the door, and quickly killed the engine before the exhaust fumes built up. Donnie Hawk and Levine entered from the interior of the building. With Hump and the backhoe operator detained at the cemetery, it took Kel and Levine to help pull the muddy, wet casket from the back of the hearse, setting it down roughly onto a stainless-steel church truck.

  “This here’s y’all’s show now,” said Donnie, apparently forgetting that technically he was the only one in the room who had any actual authority in the case. “What d’y’all want to do now? You can use the embalmin’ table if you’ve a mind…I think that would work, least-wise I think…I’m not really sure what y’all have planned.”

  Neither was Levine, but he wasn’t about to admit that in this company. He looked at Kel for some direction—hoping that he would take the reins.

  Kel caught Levine’s look. “Hmmm…well, if you don’t mind my opinion…you’ve got your pathologist due in tomorrow. I suspect he won’t want us messin’ with much until he gets here—I know I wouldn’t.” Kel sensed that he needed to fill in the vacuum without diminishing Levine’s authority. He scratched several chigger bites at his armpit and waistband while he evaluated the social dynamics in the room. “I tell you what, though, I also don’t think it would hurt to crack that box and get a little look-see. Hell, if they buried a sack of cement in 1966, we might be able to save your pathologist a trip. Y’all’s call, though.”

  “No cement was buried here—not in Locust County—no sir—I can guarantee you that. My daddy buried this here coffin.” Donnie stepped forward. He bowed up like a rooster.

  Levine smiled. “Glad to see your memory is improving, Mr. Hawk. I mean, sonofabitch, last night you couldn’t even remember that it was buried.”