Michael Prescott: Riptide

An uncomfortably long period of time had passed with no sound from below. “You all right down there?” she called.

His voice came back to her. “Right as rain. I’ve confirmed one fact, at least. They’re definitely dead.”

“What gave it away, the lack of flesh tones or the lack of flesh?”

“And I don’t think they were buried in any sort of family crypt.”

“Why not?”

He appeared at the base of the staircase. “Because in a proper burial, the corpse isn’t naked. I didn’t see any clothes, did you?”

“Clothes can disintegrate over time.”

“In a damp environment.” He climbed the stairs, angling his flashlight downward so it wouldn’t blind her. “That wall cavity is nice and dry. Besides, even if the fabric disintegrated, there would be buttons, zippers.” He emerged from the cellar and got to his feet. “And shoes,” he added.

“Shoes. Right.”

“There aren’t any shoes, Short Round. Which suggests to me that this wasn’t a formal burial. And there’s another thing.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear it. And don’t call me Short Round.”

He stepped a little too close to her. She smelled chili dogs on his breath. She moved back, though the smell wasn’t bad. Onions and beans.

“The bones are all mixed up together. Bits and pieces. These people weren’t laid out neatly side by side. They were tossed in there, one on top of the other.”

“Maybe there was an epidemic…or an accident. Something where there were a lot of fatalities, and the bodies had to be buried quickly.” She knew she was reaching even as she said it.

He laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles one at a time, the pops reminding her of cartilage, of bone.

“If it was an epidemic,” he said, “the remains would have been burned, not buried. And if it was a disaster, like a quake, there would have been time afterwards for a proper disposal of the bodies.” He cracked the last knuckle. “Health codes in the olden days might not have been what they are now, but I doubt anybody would be allowed to inter a bunch of dead bodies in a fruit cellar. Society frowns on that kind of thing.”

“I guess you’re right. Which means they were…” She didn’t want to say murdered .

“Yeah. That’s what it means. Hey, why the long face? You didn’t do it.”

“This house has been in my family a long time.”

He saw where she was going. “How long?” he asked in a softer tone.

“Forever. My great-grandfather lived here. He may have been the original owner. But we don’t have any records that go back that far.” Or at least, she didn’t have the records. Richard might.

Casey frowned. “Well…let’s not go jumping to any conclusions.”

“It looks like the conclusions are jumping to us.”

“There may be some perfectly innocent explanation.”

“Any suggestions as to what it might be?”

“Let’s wait till we know more. Traffic stops and drug busts I can handle. DBs are someone else’s job.”

Dead bodies. DBs. She wished he hadn’t put it like that. It objectified the victims, made them less than persons.

He shifted his balance, the cuffs on his belt tinkling. “Is there any history of, um, criminal activity in your family?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “No.”

“Why the hesitation?”

She was thinking there was a history of mental illness. But she didn’t want to tell him so. “We’re not a family of criminals,” she said brusquely.

“I didn’t say-”

“Nobody in my family had anything to do with this.”

His hands went up. “All right, I hear you.”

“No, you don’t hear me. You never hear me. I told you it wasn’t necessary for you to come over. You’re here, anyway. I told you it wasn’t necessary to look in the cellar. You looked. And now you’re telling me things-”

“That you don’t want to know.”

She turned away, her shoulders stiff. “I’m keeping you from your job, Sergeant.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I do.”

“Right. You do.” He walked to the front door. “I’ll have someone over here as soon as possible. A detective and an ME. What with the quake, it won’t be right away. Everything’s all fouled up. Roads, phone lines, you name it.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Tomorrow, probably. We can get them here tomorrow.”

“Great.”

“Problem?”

“I guess I’m not crazy about having a bunch of dead people in my cellar overnight.”

“You can bunk at my place. I have a foldout couch-not that we’d need it.”

“I’d rather sleep with the skeletons.”

“Ouch. That’s a wicked tongue you’ve got there, Mini-Me. Okay, enjoy your night in a haunted house. And don’t touch anything down there, don’t disturb the remains-”

“I was planning to take out the skulls and make them into Halloween lanterns. Not a good idea?”

“I would take a pass on that. At least until the ME has had a look.” He stepped outside with a parting wave. “See you.”

“Hey, Casey?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call me Mini-Me.”

She watched him return to his squad car and drive away. She wondered, not for the first time, exactly why she kept sending him signals to back off. Maybe because he really didn’t hear her. Didn’t listen. Refused to take her seriously. Like Sean, her college beau.

Still, she still liked him. His persistence was comically ingratiating. The truth was, she didn’t know what the hell she wanted. Some psychologist she was. She could read the minds of strangers, but not her own.

In the pantry, the trapdoor was still open. She almost shut it, and then Richard’s voice came back to her: You can’t even stand the sight of blood.

It wasn’t blood. It was a cadaver…

A body under a sheet, wheeled in on a gurney. She remembered how the wheels squeaked on the tile floor. The instructor whisked off the sheet, revealing the body of an old man, spindly and gnarled, tufts of white clinging to his sunken chest. A cadaver for dissection.

She was chosen to make the first incision. Probably the prof saw how nervous she was, blanched with fear. He might have found it amusing to hand her the scalpel.

She stood over the dead man, unable to depress the blade into the waxy flesh. Finally she handed back the scalpel and left the room.

The next day she gave up her pursuit of an MD and shifted her sights to psychology.

There was no reason for her to be ashamed of the episode. But she was. She came from a family of doctors. Her grandfather, father, and brother had practiced medicine. She’d wanted to be the first woman in the family to do likewise. And it still bugged her that she hadn’t stayed in the room with the dead man.

Well, she had been in rooms with dead people since then. She had been to crime scenes. She had seen Marilyn Diaz pulled from the water.

She wouldn’t be scared off by a bunch of rotting bones.

Flashlight in hand, she descended into the cellar. At least now she had an explanation for the dead bolt on the underside of the trapdoor. Whoever interred these bodies made sure he wouldn’t be disturbed in his work.

She reached the scatter of fallen bricks and, kneeling, peered at the nest of skeletons. The floor of the burial chamber was loose sandy soil. The back wall was a sandstone outcrop. She scanned the crypt with her flashlight and saw small scuttling things among the bones. Their black carapaces gleamed like shards of onyx.

Nothing to fear. No reason to be creeped out.

She tracked one beetle as hurried over the mound. A small obstruction blocked its path, and it skittered to one side.