Kathy Reichs - Spider Bones

In counties lacking willing or capable doctors, nonphysicians—sometimes registered nurses—still serve. Instead of coroners, they’re now called “acting medical examiners.”

And get this. On its Web site, the North Carolina Medical Examiner System describes itself as a network of doctors who voluntarily devote their time, energy, and medical expertise.

Read between the lines. Doctors or dog walkers, in North Carolina, MEs are paid zilch.

Robeson County’s acting medical examiner was Silas Sugarman, owner and operator of Lumberton’s oldest funeral home. By prearrangement, following exhumation the casket would go from the cemetery to Sugarman’s facility.

I’d driven from Charlotte to Lumberton in my own car, departing as the first tendrils of dawn teased the Queen City awake. Though careful timing was required, I managed to shake Guipone and leave alone from the cemetery.

It wasn’t just that I found the lieutenant annoying. I had a plan.

Over the years, I’ve driven countless times from Charlotte to the South Carolina beaches. The back route I favor involves a long stretch on Highway 74 and brings me close enough to Lumberton for a barbecue detour. That was my target today. Being already in Lumberton, it only made sense to score some “que.”

I headed straight for Fuller’s Old Fashioned BBQ. A bit of a diversion, but I wasn’t due at the funeral home until two. And my stomach was broadcasting deprivation distress.

At one fifteen, most of the lunch crowd was gone. Ignoring the buffet, I ordered my usual. Barbecue pork, coleslaw, fries, and hush puppies. A tumbler of sweet tea the size of a silo.

OK. No smiley heart. But the owners, Fuller and Delora Locklear, know how to do pig.

Exiting the restaurant was like stepping into the molasses I’d left untouched on my table. The temperature inside my Mazda was 150.

After cranking the AC, I punched an address into my portable GPS and wound south toward Martin Luther King Drive. Within minutes the robotic voice was announcing arrival at my destination.

Sugarman’s Funeral Home looked like Tara on steroids. Redbrick. White antebellum pillars and trim up and down. Elaborate drive-through portico in front.

The interior could only be described as rose. Rose carpet. Rose drapes. Rose floral wallpaper above the wainscoting and beadboard.

In the main lobby, a faux-colonial placard listed two temporary residents. Selma Irene Farrington awaited mourners in the Eternal Harmony Room. Lionel Peter Jones cooled his heels in Peace Ever After.

A young woman materialized as I was pondering the relative merits of harmony versus peace. When I requested directions to the owner’s office, she led me past the Lilac Overflow Reposing Room and the Edgar Firefox Memorial Chapel.

Sugarman was seated at a massive oak desk with carved pineapples for feet. At least six-four and three hundred pounds, with greasy black hair and a crooked nose, he looked more mafioso than mortician.

Also present were the good lieutenant and a small, rat-faced man with short brown hair parted with surgical precision.

The trio was chuckling at some shared joke. Seeing me in the doorway, they fell silent and rose.

“Dr. Brennan. It is indeed an honor.” Sugarman’s voice was surprisingly high, his drawl as thick as the Fuller’s molasses.

Sugarman introduced rat-face as his brother-in-law, Harold Beasley, sheriff of Robeson County. Beasley nodded, repositioned a toothpick from the right to the left side of his mouth. No comment, no question. Obviously he’d been prepped on my role in the day’s activities.

“And you know the lieutenant.”

“Yes.” I resisted the impulse to add “of course.”

Sugarman arranged his beefy features into an expression of appropriate solemnity. “Ma’am, gentlemen. We all understand the sad business the Lord has chosen to send our way. I propose we get to it without further ado.”

Sugarman led us down a hall and through a door at the back of the facility. No name plaque. Everlasting Embalming? Perpetual Preparation?

The room was windowless, and maybe fifteen by twenty.

From the west wall, a door opened to the outside. Beside it, metal shelving held the usual array of instruments, chemicals, cosmetic supplies, plastic undies, and fluids whose purpose I didn’t really want to know.

A deep sink jutted from the south wall. Aspirating and injection machines sat on a counter beside it. So did a crowbar and small electric saw.

Dressing and embalming tables had been snugged to the north wall. An open casket yawned ready inside an aluminum transport case on a gurney pushed up to them.

The exhumed coffin rested on the collapsible gurney on which it had ridden from the graveyard. Though fans did their best, the smell of mildew, moldy wood, and decomposing flesh permeated the small space.

Sugarman removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves. He and I donned gloves, aprons, and goggles. Beasley and Guipone watched from the doorway. Both looked like they’d rather be elsewhere. I hoped I was more discreet.

The old coffin was mahogany, with sculpted corners and a domed top, now collapsed. Both swing bars and most of the hardware were gone. The metal that remained was eroded and discolored.

I made notes and took photos. Then I stepped back.

Sugarman raised both brows. I nodded.

Crossing to the gurney, the big man inserted one end of the crowbar and levered downward. Rotten wood cracked and flew.

Kicking aside splinters, Sugarman heaved again. And again. As fragments detached, I tossed them to the floor.

Finally, sweat rings darkening both armpits, Sugarman laid down his tool.

I stepped close.

Guipone and Beasley moved in beside us.

Breathing hard, Sugarman lifted what remained of the top half of the coffin lid.

Beasley’s hand flew to his mouth.

“Sweet baby Jesus.”

THE FUNERAL INDUSTRY CLAIMS ITS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES protect our dearly departed from the ravages of time. Coffin manufacturers offer vaults, gasket seals, and warranties on the structural integrity of their caskets. Morticians tout the permanence of embalming.

Nothing stops the inevitable.

Following death, aerobic bacteria begin acting on a corpse’s exterior, while their anaerobic brethren set to work in the gut. By excluding the former, airtight coffins may actually accelerate, not retard, action due to the latter. The result is liquefaction and putrefied soup in the box.

A simple wooden coffin, on the other hand, permits air passage, and thus, aerobic sport. The outcome is rapid skeletonization.

With most exhumations it’s anyone’s guess what lies under the hood. Bones? Goo? Some time-hardened combo?

Burned body. Forty years. Compromised box.

With this one I’d had little doubt.

I was right.

The coffin held a skeleton covered with mold and desiccated black muck. Below the pink-white outer crust, the bone surfaces looked dark and mottled.

“Dear God in heaven.” Beasley’s words came through a hand-shielded mouth.

Guipone swallowed audibly.

The remains had been casketed military-style. Though the traditional wool blanket shroud was now gone, rusted safety pins attested to its previous presence.

“May I see the file again?”

Sugarman retrieved a manila folder from the counter and handed it to me. This go-round I skipped the government forms in favor of the mortician’s handwritten account.

“Regrettably, record keeping wasn’t one of my daddy’s strengths.” Sugarman flashed what I’m sure he considered his “regrettable” smile. Probably practiced it in the mirror while knotting his somber black ties. “Such were the days.”