Joe Lansdale - The Bottoms

The cutting was odd in that there wasn’t any blood. She was long dead and pretty well frozen, but there was a hint of gas that rose up from the corpse and through the slit in the roof. It made me feel sick for a moment, then it passed.

I squinted when he started handling the sweet meats inside her. Finally he cut open something, reached in with his hand, took out some dark things, and put them on the table.

I turned away for a moment, saw that Richard and Abraham were still looking. I didn’t want to be thought a weak sister, so I looked again.

Doc Tinn had Daddy open the front door to let in some more light. There were people out by the porch and Daddy had to run ’em off. They moved away reluctantly. They were looking up at us on the roof, but no one spilled the beans. I think they were glad someone was getting a look.

Doc Tinn went to work on the woman’s privates, cut, probed around down there for a while, and Daddy moved across the room with the other two men.

This went on for some time, and finally the doctor stopped, rolled the body over, looked at it, rolled it on its back again, said, “Billy Ray. Will you or Cyrus bring me a pan of water and some soap and a towel?”

Both Billy Ray and Cyrus went away. Doc Tinn pulled off his gloves and lay them on the table. He said, “Now this is just my opinion, mind you.”

“I appreciate it,” Daddy said, walking up to stand beside him. “Go on.”

“Wasn’t no wild hog nor a panther done this.”

“I never thought it was. Panthers don’t normally attack people. It could happen, but it ain’t normal.”

“Panther. Wild hog. They don’t work a body like this no how. This was a man done it.”

“I figured as much.”

“Used a real sharp knife. These cuts was made while she was alive. Mostly. But some was after. Look at her hands here.” Doc Tinn reached down and took hold of one, lifted it, turned it so Daddy could see. “There’s cuts on ’em, like she was tryin’ to fend the fellow off. Also there’s fingernail wounds. This means he did most of this while she was alive. See how she’s buried her own nails into her palms, trying to deal with the pain. There’s a stab here on her back, and a slash at the kidney area. None of these are deep, ’cept for the stab. It’s pretty deep, and it was twisted to be pulled out. I think she tried to fight him off, he had a knife, he slashed at her, she put up her hands, they got cut, she turned to run, he stabbed her in the back, then slashed her, or maybe the other way around. She went down, and from the looks of the way she’s been used… you know, down there

… she was raped. She’s all torn up, so she was forced. He got through with that, he cut on her some while she was alive. Her clitoris is missing.”

“Her what?” Daddy asked.

“It’s down there with her private parts. You rub it on a live woman and they get really excited.”

“Yeah?” Daddy said.

“Yeah.”

Doc Tinn said, “It’s a little nub and it rolls under your thumb or finger. It’s a thing a man ought to know, you know what I mean.”

Daddy nodded again, as if contemplating a great mystery, or rather common information that had somehow been denied him. I filed it away in my own file cabinet, though at the time I wasn’t sure it was something I’d ever need.

Daddy said, “He cut it off? This cli…”

“Clitoris. Did it just as precise as could be. And from the looks of the wound she bled good. Probably still alive through that too, though I don’t know for sure. Lot of the other cuts and slashes and such I think he did after he choked her to death.”

Doc Tinn leaned over the table. “See her throat there. Those bruises. Them are from hands. He finished up with her, I think he threw her in the river.”

“How would you know that?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure, but there ain’t no river in her lungs, so she didn’t drown. I know a little about drownings. Flood five years ago there was twenty-five people drowned. I seen what it did to bodies.”

“Twenty-five people?” Daddy said. “Five years ago. I don’t remember anything about that.”

“Wasn’t none of ’em white,” Doc Tinn said.

“Oh,” Daddy said.

“This woman was dead when she was thrown in. There’s all kinds of scrapes on her forehead there, and there was a piece of gravel in one of her eyes, lodged in the corner there. River gravel. Body thrown in a river will mostly go face down, and the current will drag it along and scrape it up, like it’s done on her forehead there. There was bits of river in her mouth, throat, and nose, but not in her lungs, so I figure she was dead already.”

“Makes sense,” Daddy said. “But if he threw her in the river, how does that account for her being tied to that tree?”

“Well now, Doctor Stephenson may be kinda right. Someone got the body out of the river and cut on it some more. Way her breasts are all cut up there, that was done afterward. You can tell ’cause there ain’t no real blood wound. He was cuttin’ on a corpse.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Then he tied her to that tree with barbed wire, way you said your boy found her. Wrapped some vines around her and such, and left her there. I wouldn’t be surprised he came back a few times and messed with the body. Your boy hadn’t found it, he might have come back some more. I think he would have.”

“You couldn’t know that?”

“No. But like I said, some of them wounds was after death. It might have been done in one trip, but they’re some with maggot eggs in them, and some not so many. The maggots was just gettin’ started in some of them wounds when your boy found it and you got her down before they was thick. Maggots don’t just work one wound at a time. Flies get all over them wounds, lay eggs in them. Ones wasn’t packed with eggs was because there wasn’t time for ’em to.”

Daddy considered on this for a moment. “Like you said, though. Stephenson could have been right. It could have been someone else found the body and did those things. It don’t mean there was just one fella did it all.”

“Uh huh, but what do you think? What’s your gut tell you, Constable? Man did this in the first place is the more likely to do it some more. I think he threw her away, like she was garbage, threw her in the river, but then figured he hadn’t got his fill, come back, got her out, and did the rest.”

“How would he know where to find her? She could have washed downriver.”

“She could have. But I figure he threw her in there, tied her out like a trot line. Look here. You see this around her ankle. See that friction. I think after he killed her he tied a rope around her and tossed her out. Maybe had some kind of weight tied to her. That way he knew where to find her. And just for the record, on her butt there, I think that’s a turtle been nibblin’.”

The sun came out from behind its cloud and it was bright enough to burn right through the leaves on the chinaberry tree, giving our immediate world a shade of green. I could see the shapes of our heads move across the woman’s body on the table, and Daddy looked up as we pulled our heads back.

We didn’t look again. We just sat there listening. Doc Tinn said, “You know ain’t no one here gonna worry about her none.”

I didn’t hear Daddy respond. Doc Tinn continued.

“She’s colored, but colored over here don’t want no trouble. If it’s one of our own did it, and we find out who it is, well, it’ll get taken care of. We tell the whites a colored did it, well, ain’t no tellin’ who all will pay.”

“Could be a white man done it.”

“Even better reason colored won’t get involved.”

“Can you see to it she gets a proper burial, and let me know when?”