Kathy Reichs: Devil Bones

Despite the contrast between the born-agains and the yet-to-be-re-created, the work of caring hands was evident up and down the block. Walks were swept. Lawns were mowed. Window boxes overflowed with marigolds or mums.

Larabee’s address belonged to one of the few exceptions, a seedy little number with patched siding, sagging trim, and peeling paint. The yard was mostly dirt, and the front porch featured a truckload of nondegradable trash. Pulling to the curb behind a Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD cruiser, I wondered how many wannabe purchasers had knocked on the bungalow’s faded green door.

Alighting, I locked the Mazda and took my field kit from the trunk. Two houses down, a boy of about twelve shot a basketball into a garage-mounted hoop. His radio pounded out rap as his ball thupped softly on the gravel drive.

The walkway was humped where bulging tree roots snaked beneath. I kept my eyes down as I mounted warped wooden steps to the porch.

“You the one I gotta talk to so’s I can go home?”

My gaze moved up.

A man occupied a rusted and precariously angled swing. He was tall and thin, with hair the color of apricot jam. Embroidered above his shirt pocket were the name Arlo and a stylized wrench.

Arlo had been seated with knees wide, elbows on thighs, face planted on upturned palms. Hearing footsteps, he’d raised his head to speak.

Before I could respond, Arlo posed a second question.

“How long I gotta stay here?”

“You’re the gentleman who called in the nine-one-one?”

Arlo grimaced, revealing a rotten tooth among the lower rights.

I stepped onto the porch. “Can you describe what you saw?”

“I done that.” Arlo clasped dirty hands. His gray pants were ripped at the left knee.

“You’ve given a statement?” Gently. The man’s body language suggested genuine distress.

Arlo nodded, head moving crosswise to a torso canted at the same slope as the swing.

“Can you summarize what you saw?”

Now the head wagged from side to side. “The devil’s work.”

OK.

“You are Arlo…?”

“Welton.”

“The plumber.”

Arlo gave another bobble-head nod. “Been banging pipes for thirty years. Never come across nothing like this.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Arlo swallowed. Swallowed again.

“I’m changing out fittings. The new owner’s missus is planning to put in some newfangled washer setup, some kinda green thing saves the environment. It’ll need different pipe fittings. Lord knows why she wants to start with that, place needing all it does. But that’s not my business. Anyways, I start in on the wall and drop a piece of brick that takes a bite outa the flooring. I think to myself, Arlo, you cut that flooring, they’re gonna take the cost of repairs outa your wages. So I roll back the flooring, and what do I find but a big ole wood plank.”

Arlo stopped.

I waited.

“Don’t know why, but I give the thing a nudge with my toe, and the end raised up in the air.”

Again Arlo paused, recalling, I suspected, a bit more than a nudge.

“This plank was part of a hatch that opened?”

“Thing was covering some kinda hidey-hole. I’ll admit, curiosity got the better of me. I took my flashlight and shined it on down.”

“Into a subcellar.”

Arlo shrugged. I allowed him time to continue. He didn’t.

“And?” I prompted again.

“I’m a churchgoing man. Every Sunday and Wednesday. Never seen the devil, but I believe in him. Believe he’s in the world, working his evil amongst us.”

Arlo ran the back of a hand across his mouth.

“What I seen was Satan himself.”

Though the day was still warm, I felt a chill ripple through me.

“You reported that you saw a human skull.” All business.

“Yes’m.”

“What else?”

“Don’t want to put words to wickedness. It’s best you see with your own eyes.”

“Did you go down into the subcellar?”

“No way.”

“What did you do?”

“I hauled my butt upstairs fast as I could. Called the police.” Arlo emphasized the first syllable and gave it a very long o. “Can I go now?”

“The officer is downstairs?”

“Yes’m. Follow the hall, then through the kitchen.”

Arlo was right. It was best I saw with my own eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Welton. It shouldn’t be long.”

I crossed the porch and entered the house. Behind me, the swing rattled as Arlo’s face dropped back to his hands.

The front door opened directly onto a narrow corridor. To the right was a bile green living room. A broken window had been sealed with cardboard duct-taped into place. The furnishings were sparse. A moth-eaten armchair. A sofa badly clawed by a cat.

To the left was a dining room, bare except for a knotty-pine sideboard, a mattress, and a stack of tires.

Continuing down the central hall, I turned left into a kitchen that would already have been retro in ’56. Round-top Philco fridge. Kelvinator stove. Red Formica and chrome dinette set. Speckled gray Formica countertops.

A door stood open to the left of the Kelvinator. Through it I could see wooden stairs and hear radio static drifting up from below.

Shifting my kit to my right hand, I gripped the banister and started to descend. Two treads down, small hairs began rising on the back of my neck.

Unconsciously, I switched to breathing through my mouth.

THOUGH FAINT, THE ODOR WAS UNMISTAKABLE. SWEET AND FETID, it heralded the presence of rotting flesh.

But this wasn’t the cloying, gut-churning smell with which I am so familiar. The reek of active putrefaction. Of innards ravaged by maggots and scavengers. Of flesh greened and bloated by water. No other stench can compete with that. It seeps into your pores, your nostrils, your lungs, your clothing, rides you home like smoke from a bar. Long after showering, it lingers in your hair, your mouth, your mind.

This was gentler. But still undeniable.

I hoped for a squirrel. Or a raccoon that had gnawed through a wall and become trapped in the basement. Recalling Larabee’s words, and Arlo’s agitation, I doubted either scenario was likely.

The temperature dropped with each downward tread. The dampness increased. By the time I reached bottom, the banister felt cool and slick to my palm.

Amber light seeped from a bulb dangling from a fuzzy overhead cord. Stepping onto hard-packed earth, I looked around.

Barely six feet high, the cellar had been divided into a number of small rooms arranged around a central open space. Plywood walls and prefab doors suggested partitioning had taken place long after the home’s construction.

Every door in my sight line was open. Through one I could see shallow shelving, the kind used to store home-canned jam and tomatoes. Washtubs were visible through another. Stacked boxes through another.

A Charlotte-Mecklenburg uniform waited at the far end of the cellar, past a furnace that looked like a Jules Verne contraption. Unlike the other three, the door at his back looked old. The oak was solid, the varnish thick and yellowed with age.

The cop stood with feet spread, thumbs hooking his belt. He was a compact man with Beau Bridges brows and Sean Penn features, not a good combination. Drawing close, I could read the plaque on his shirt. D. Gleason.

“What have we got?” I asked, after introducing myself.

“You met the plumber?” Gleason lowered the volume on a speaker mike clipped to his left shoulder.

I nodded.

“Around sixteen hundred hours, Welton phoned in a nine-one-one. Said he’d found dead people in a crawl space. I caught the call, spotted remains which I believed to be human. Reported in. Desk told me to stay put. I told Welton to do the same.”