by Kathy Reichs
Silence. Then, “Saturn ate his children.”
“Polyphemus captured Ulysses and dined on his crew.”
“Why the pope?”
“I’m not sure.”
McMahon disappeared, returned in a moment.
“Rayner’s looking him up.”
He looked at a note, scratched a clump of hair.
“Rayner found the Géricault painting. It’s based on the 1816 wreck of a French frigate, La Méduse. According to the story, survivors ate the dead while stranded at sea.”
I was about to show McMahon my own findings when Rayner appeared in the doorway. We listened as he read from scribbled notes.
“I don’t think you want the old boy’s entire résumé, so I’ll give you the highlights. Pope Innocent III is best known for organizing the Fourth Lateran Council in twelve fifteen A.D. Anyone who was anyone in Christendom was told to get his butt to this meeting.”
He looked up.
“I’m paraphrasing. With all the honchos convened, Innocent decreed that henceforth the words hoc est corpus meum were to be taken literally, and the faithful were required to believe in transubstantiation. That’s the idea that, at Mass, the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ.”
He looked up again to see if we were with him.
“Innocent decreed that the act isn’t symbolic, it’s real. Apparently this question had been debated for about a thousand years, so Innocent decided to settle the issue. From then on, if you doubted transubstantiation, you were guilty of heresy.”
“Thanks, Roger.”
“No problem.” He withdrew.
“So what’s the link?” McMahon asked.
“Innocent defined the most sacred ceremonial act of Christianity as true God-eating. It’s what anthropologists call ritual anthropophagy.”
A childhood memory. A nun in traditional habit, crucifix on her breast, chalk on her hands.
“Do you know the origin of the word host?”
McMahon shook his head.
“Hostia. It means ‘sacrificial victim’ in Latin.”
“You think we’re dealing with some fringe group that gets high on cannibalism?”
I took a steadying breath.
“I think it’s much worse than that.”
“Worse than what?”
We both turned. Ryan stood in the spot recently occupied by Rayner. McMahon gestured at a chair.
“Worse than drooling over myths and allegorical paintings. I’m glad you’re here, Ryan. You can verify what I’m about to describe.”
I pulled Jim’s photos from my briefcase and handed the first to McMahon.
“That is the reconstructed leg bone of a red deer. The gashes were made with a sharp instrument, probably a stone knife. Notice how they cluster around the tendon and ligament attachment points, and at the joints.”
McMahon passed the photo to Ryan, and I handed him several more.
“Those are also animal bones. Notice the similar distribution of cut marks and striations.”
Next picture.
“Those are fragments of human bone. They were recovered from the same cave in southeastern France where the animal bones were found.”
“Looks like the same pattern.”
“It is.”
“Meaning?”
“Butchery. The bones were stripped of flesh and cut or twisted apart at the joints.”
“How old is this stuff?”
“One hundred thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand years. The site was occupied by Neanderthals.”
“Is this relevant?”
I gave him several more prints.
“Those are also human bones. They were recovered at a site near Mesa Verde, in southwestern Colorado.”
“Anasazi?” Ryan asked, reaching for a photo.
“Yes.”
“Who are the Anasazi?” McMahon.
“Ancestors of groups like the Hopi and Zuni. This site was occupied by a small group around 1130 to 1150 A.D., during a period of extreme drought. A colleague from Chapel Hill did the digging. These are his photos. At least thirty-five adults and kids were butchered. Notice that the pattern is identical.”
I fed them another photo.
“Those are stone tools found in association with the human bones. Tests confirmed the presence of human blood.”
Another.
“That ceramic cooking pot held the residue of human tissues.”
“How can they be sure these marks aren’t caused by abrasion? Or by animals? Or by some sort of burial ritual? Maybe they cut up the dead to prepare them for the afterlife. That could explain the bloody tools and pot.”
“That was exactly the argument until this was discovered.”
I passed them another photo.
“What the hell is that?” McMahon gave it to Ryan.
“After seven people were killed, cooked, and eaten in a small underground room at this site, one of the diners squatted over the cold hearth and defecated.”
“Holy shit.”
“Exactly. Archaeologists call preserved feces coprolites. Biochemical tests showed traces of digested human muscle protein in this particular beauty.”
“Could the protein have gotten there by some other route?”
“Not myoglobin. Tests also showed this guy had eaten almost nothing but meat for eighteen hours prior to his grand gesture.”
“That is great stuff, Tempe, but I’ve got eight stiffs and a pack of reporters breathing down my neck. Other than perps with a morbid taste in art and literature, how is this relevant? You’re showing me people who have been dead for centuries.”
I placed three more photos on his desk.
“Ever heard of Alfred G. Packer?”
He glanced at his watch, then at the pictures.
“No.”
“Alfie Packer is reputed to have killed and eaten five people in Colorado during the winter of 1874. He was tried and convicted of murder. The victims were recently exhumed and analyzed.”
“What the hell for?”
“Historic accuracy.”
Ryan circled behind McMahon. As the two men studied the bones of the Packer victims, I got up and spread my Polaroids across the desk.
“I took these at the morgue this morning.”
Like spectators at a tennis match, their eyes shifted among the Neanderthals, the Anasazi, the Packer victims, and my Polaroids. For a very long time no one spoke.
McMahon broke the silence.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in a bloody pear tree.”
30
NO ONE HAD ANYTHING TO ADD TO THAT.
“Who the hell are these lunatics?” Ryan’s question broke the silence.
McMahon responded.
“The H&F Investment Group is buried under more layers than Olduvai Gorge. Veckhoff’s dead, so he’s not talking. Following up on your suggestion, Tempe, we tracked down Rollins and Birkby through their fathers. Rollins lives in Greenville, teaches English at a community college. Birkby owns a chain of discount furniture stores, has homes in Rock Hill and Hilton Head. Each gentleman tells the same story: inherited his interest in H&F, knows nothing about the property, never visited there.”
I heard a door open, voices in the corridor.
“W. G. Davis is a retired investment banker living in Banner Elk. F. M. Payne is a philosophy professor at Wake Forest. Warren’s an attorney in Fayetteville. We found the counselor on his way to the airport, had to spoil his little getaway to Antigua.”
“Do they admit to knowing one another?”
“Everyone tells the same story. H&F is strictly business, they never met. Never set foot on the property.”
“What about prints inside the house?”
“The recovery team lifted zillions. We’re running them but it will take time.”
“Any police records?”
“Payne, the professor, was busted for pot in seventy-four. Otherwise, nothing came up. But we’re checking every cell these guys
have ever shed. If one of them peed on a tree at Woodstock, we’ll get a sample. These assholes are dirty as hell, and they’re going down for murder.”
Larke Tyrell appeared in the doorway. Deep lines creased his forehead. McMahon greeted him, went in search of additional seating. Tyrell spoke to me.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
I said nothing.
McMahon returned with a folding metal chair. Tyrell sat, his spine so erect it made no contact with the backrest.
“What can I do for you, Doc?” McMahon.
Tyrell removed a handkerchief, wiped his forehead, then refolded the linen in a perfect square.
“I have information that is highly sensitive.”
The Andy Griffith eyes shifted from face to face, but he did not say the obvious.
“I’m sure you are all aware that Parker Davenport died of a gunshot wound yesterday. The wound appears to be self-inflicted, but there are disturbing elements, including an extremely high level of trifluoperazine in his blood.”
We all looked blank.
“The common name is Stelazine. The drug is used in the treatment of psychotic anxiety and agitated depressions. Davenport had no prescription for Stelazine, and his doctor knows of no reason he would be taking it.”
“A man in his position wouldn’t have trouble getting what he wanted.” McMahon.
“That’s true, sir.”
Tyrell cleared his throat.
“Minute traces of trifluoperazine were also detected in the body of Primrose Hobbs, but immersion and decomposition had complicated the picture, so a definitive finding was not possible.”
“Does Sheriff Crowe know this?” I asked.
“She knows about Hobbs. I’ll tell her about Davenport when I leave here.”
“Stelazine wasn’t found among Hobbs’s belongings.”
“Nor did she have a prescription.”
My stomach tightened. I had never seen Primrose take so much as an aspirin.
“Equally disturbing are phone calls made by Davenport on the evening of his death,” Larke went on.
Tyrell handed McMahon a list.
“You may recognize some of the numbers.”
McMahon scanned the printout, then looked up.
“Sonofabitch. The lieutenant governor phoned the H&F officers just hours before blowing his brains out?”
“What?” I blurted.
“Or had them blown out.” Ryan.
McMahon passed me the list. Six numbers, five names. W. G. Davis, F. M. Payne, F. L. Warren, C. A. Birkby, P. H. Rollins.
“What was the sixth call?”
“The number traces to a rented cabin in Cherokee. Sheriff Crowe is checking it out.”
“Tempe, show Dr. Tyrell what you just showed me.”
McMahon reached for his phone.
“It’s time to run these bastards to ground.”
* * *
Larke wanted to examine the marks firsthand, so we went straight to the morgue. Though I’d had nothing since coffee at seven, and it was after one, I had no appetite. I kept seeing Primrose, wondering what she’d discovered. What threat she’d posed. And a new question: Was her murder linked to the death of the lieutenant governor?
Larke and I spent an hour going over the bones, the ME looking and listening closely, now and then asking a question. We’d just finished when my cell phone rang.
Lucy Crowe was in Waynesville but had something she needed to discuss. Could we meet around nine at High Ridge House? I agreed.
As we were disconnecting she asked a question.
“Do you know an archaeologist named Simon Midkiff?”
“Yes.”
“He may be involved with this H&F bunch.”
“Midkiff?”
“His was the sixth number Davenport dialed before his death. If he tries to contact you, agree to nothing.”
As we talked, Larke photocopied the pictures and articles. When he was done, I told him what Crowe had said. He posed a single question.
“Why?”
“Because they’re crazy,” I answered, still distracted by Crowe’s comment about Midkiff.
“And Parker Davenport was one of them.”
He slid the photocopies into his briefcase, impaled me with exhausted eyes.
“He tried professional sabotage to keep you from that house.” Larke swept an arm in the direction of the tables. “To divert you from this.”
I did not reply.
“And I was suckered in.”
Still, I remained silent.
“Is there anything I can say to you?”
“There are things you can say to my colleagues.”
“Letters will go to the AAFS, the ABFA, and the NDMS immediately.” He grabbed my wrist. “And I will phone the head of each organization first thing Monday to explain personally.”
“And the press?” Though I knew he was suffering, I could force no warmth into my voice. His disloyalty had hurt me, professionally and personally.
“That will come. I must determine how best to handle it.”
Best for whom? I wondered.
“If it’s any consolation, Earl Bliss acted on my orders. He never believed anything against you.”
“Most who know me did not.”
He released my arm but his eyes held firm. Overnight he’d come to look like a tired old man.
“Tempe, I was trained as a military man. I believe in respecting the chain of command and carrying out the lawful orders of my superiors. That predisposition led me not to question things I should have questioned. The abuse of power is a terrible thing. Failure to resist corrupting pressure is equally contemptible. It’s time for this old dog to rouse and get off the porch.”
I felt a deep sadness as I watched him leave. Larke and I had been friends for many years. I wondered if we could ever be friends again.
As I made coffee, my thoughts shifted to Simon Midkiff. Of course. It all made sense. His intense interest in the crash site. The lies about excavating in Swain County. The photo with Parker Davenport at Charlie Wayne Tramper’s funeral. He was one of them.
A sudden flashback. The black Volvo that had almost run me down. The man at the wheel had looked vaguely familiar. Could it have been Simon Midkiff?
* * *
I was completing my report on Edna Farrell when my cell phone rang a second time.
“Sir Francis Dashwood was a prolific guy.”
The statement came from a different galaxy than the one in which my mind was orbiting.
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s Anne. I was organizing stuff from our London trip and came across a pamphlet Ted bought at the West Wycombe caves.”
“Anne, this is not—”
“There are gobs of Dashwoods still around.”
“Gobs?”
“Descendants of Sir Francis, later known as Lord Le Despencer, of course. Just for fun I popped the name Prentice Dashwood into a genealogical site where I’m registered. I couldn’t believe how many hits I got. One was particularly interesting.”
I waited.
Nothing.
I cracked.
“Do we do this with twenty questions?”
“Prentice Elmore Dashwood, one of Sir Frank’s many descendants, left England in 1921. He opened a haberdashery in Albany, New York, made bundles of money, and eventually retired.”
“That’s it?”
“During his years in America, Dashwood wrote and self-published dozens of pamphlets, one of which recounted tales of his great-great-great-something, Sir Francis Dashwood the Second.”
“And the other pamphlets?” If I didn’t ask, this would take forever.
“You name it. The song lines of the Australian Aboriginals. The oral traditions of the Cherokee. Camping. Fly-fishing. Greek mythology. A brief ethnography of the Carib Indians. Prentice was quite the Renaissance man. He penned three booklets and several articles that focused exclusively on the Appalachian Trail. Apparently Big P was a real mover in
getting the trail started back in the twenties.”
Oh? A mecca for hikers and trekkers, the AT starts at Mount Katahdin in Maine and runs along the Appalachian ridgeline to Springer Mountain in Georgia. Much of the trail lies in the Great Smoky Mountains. Including Swain County.
“Are you still there?”
“I’m here. Did Dashwood spend time here in North Carolina?”
“He wrote five pamphlets on the Great Smokies.” I heard paper rustle. “Trees. Flowers. Fauna. Folklore. Geology.”
I remembered Anne’s tale of her visit to West Wycombe, pictured the caves under the H&F house. Could this guy Anne was talking about be the Prentice Dashwood of Swain County, North Carolina? It was a striking name. Could there be a connection to the British Dashwoods?
“What else did you find out about Prentice Dashwood?”
“Not a thing. But I can tell you that old Uncle Francis hung with a wild crowd back in the eighteenth century. Called themselves the Monks of Medmenham. Listen to the list. Lord Sandwich, who at one point commanded the Royal Navy, John Wilkes—”
“The politician?”
“Yep. William Hogarth, the painter, and poets Paul Whitehead, Charles Churchill, and Robert Lloyd.”
“Impressive roster.”
“Very. Everyone was a member of Parliament or the House of Lords. Or a poet or whatever. Our own Ben Franklin dropped in now and then, though he was never an official member.”
“What did these guys do?”
“Some accounts claim they engaged in satanic rites. According to the current Sir Francis, author of the booklet we picked up on our trip, the monks were just jolly fellows who got together to celebrate Venus and Bacchus. I take that to mean women and wine.”
“They held wild parties in the caves?”
“And at Medmenham Abbey. The current Sir Francis admits to his ancestor’s sexual frolics but denies the devil worship. He suggests the satanism rumor came from the boys’ somewhat irreverent attitude toward Christianity. They also referred to themselves as the Knights of Saint Francis, for example.”
I could hear her biting an apple, then chewing.
“Everyone else called them the Hell Fire Club.”
The name hit me like a sledgehammer.
“What did you say?”
“The Hell Fire Club. Big in Ireland in the 1730s and 1740s. Same deal. Overprivileged devos mocking religion and getting drunk and laid.”