“Unless you just wanted to subdivide it into parcels.”
“Humph.” Around a final bend, the live oaks and pines opened to a small rise where the old house stood. It may have once been grand, but now it was waiting for a bulldozer to put an end to its steady and imminent decline. “Sad,” she said as they walked to the front door, which was securely locked, then made their way to the back of the house and the open doorway, where Phil Carter, another deputy for the county, was waiting. About five-ten and trim, with blue eyes cut deep into his skull and the ravages from teenage acne still visible, he was a good cop who was known as “Crater,” the nickname having been pinned on him by a bully of a football coach twenty years earlier.
They knew each other. No introductions necessary. “This way,” he said, and they followed him past a bank of boarded-over French doors to a side entrance most likely used by delivery people and servants back in the day.
“What’ve you got?” Reed asked.
“Nothin’ good,” Crater said, the trace of a Georgia drawl evident. “Two bodies. Maybe more. Been there a while. Other than that, the place is clear. No one else inside.”
“Forced entry?” Morrisette was eyeing the dingy doorjamb.
“Nope. Door wide open. But it hadn’t been open for long. Wasn’t wet inside. And that storm would’ve poured gallons inside.” He led them down a narrow, curving staircase to a basement where Reed couldn’t quite straighten without bumping his head on ancient beams. He sank into water and mud that had collected. Maybe the rain hadn’t gotten into the stairwell above, but it sure as hell had seeped through windows or cracks in the foundation.
“Swell,” Morrisette said as she sank into the mud. “Just . . . swell.”
They sloshed past piles of discarded furniture, clothing and equipment to a spot on the far wall where an entrance led to a cavern of sorts, where a door, now open, had been cut into the brick foundation. “In there,” he said, and shined the high-wattage beam into the musty, dark space, where the smell of old death lingered and two small corpses were visible.
Reed’s stomach clenched.
The flesh on each body had long rotted away, the bones of small skeletons stark and white, tufts of blond hair still attached to each weirdly grinning skull, the clothes disintegrating but recognizable. One of the small frames was still covered by a dingy blouse and skirt, a bra visible beneath the tattered fabric, a chain encircling the neck bones, a locket resting on the sternum glinting in the flashlight’s beam.
Reed fought nausea.
The smaller skeleton was clad in shorts with a belt and a faded blue T-shirt, along with tattered sneakers that appeared identical to those worn by the larger skeleton, a ring on one finger.
“Holy Mother of God,” Morrisette whispered as she peered inside the crypt. “They’re just girls. Priscilla had shoes almost like those. Keds. What the hell happened here?”
Reed didn’t answer, just studied the crypt, his jaw tightening, his thoughts darkening. Had the girls died here? He didn’t think so because of the positioning of the victims. They had been laid side by side, the bony fingers of the older girl’s hand entwined with those of the smaller child.
“You don’t think this was some kind of weird suicide pact, do you?” Morrisette was looking at the clasped hands.
“What? No.” He couldn’t imagine anyone would put themselves into this dark hole on purpose and slowly die of either lack of oxygen or starvation or madness.
“Or a game of, like, hide-and-seek gone bad? No one found them and quit looking?” But even as she posed the thought, she was shaking her head. “Nah, course not. Someone killed these girls and put them in here. Placed their hands together. Arranged them just so. What kind of a sick jerk-wad would do that?”
Reed didn’t know. Serial killers sometimes staged the positioning of their victims to throw off the police, or posed them to fulfill some kind of fantasy. But in this case, bodies locked away as they were for what appeared to be years, possibly decades, why would anyone go to the trouble?
Reed felt sick inside.
This tight, dank place was getting to him.
Yeah, he’d seen more than his share of death and mutilated bodies. Had witnessed firsthand how malevolent one person could be to another, but this . . .
Carter swung the beam of his flashlight to an empty space between the smaller victim and the wall of the crypt. “Look at that,” the deputy said, shining the bright light over the small depression in the dirt floor of the crypt. “Don’t that look like another spot for, y’know, another one?”
“Another body,” Morrisette clarified. “You mean, like he wasn’t finished or got interrupted?”
“Or used another spot,” Carter suggested.
Reed’s stomach clenched again. The deputy was right. The first two bodies were lying side by side, yes, but each nestled in a small, carved-out spot in the floor, their joined hands slightly elevated on the rim of dirt between them. Next to the smaller of the two another shallow indent was visible, just large enough for a third body.
“Holy crap,” Morrisette whispered. She straightened and ran a hand through her near-white hair. “Any other bodies?”
“Not that I saw. Been through the top two floors and looked through all the stuff down here. Found nothing. But I guess there could be more inside here. Y’know, buried beneath these. Stacked like sardines in a can. Or maybe there’s another crypt here somewhere.” He swept the beam over the interior of the tomb again. “Who’s to say?”
Reed asked, “Crime scene team?”
“On their way,” Carter said. “Same with the ME.”
Reed eyed the mess in the basement. “Might need cadaver dogs.”
“And a hazmat unit,” Morrisette said. “C’mon. I’ve seen enough down here. Let’s check the rest of the house.” She was already heading for the stairs.
They took the narrow servants’ steps to the top floor, intending to work their way down. The attic/maids’ quarters was dark and dank, stuffed to the gills; some of the rooms were exposed to the elements as a portion of the roof had collapsed near the chimney. The sky was visible here, treetops swaying slightly, clouds skittering high overhead. Water from the recent storm pooled on the buckling floors and seeped under the stacked, already-moldering boxes, crates and baskets. What had been stored here—boxes of clothes, an old sewing kit and treadle machine, books and records—were long ruined and scattered by nesting squirrels or birds or whatever.
Morrisette said, “I’m surprised this whole house didn’t come down with the hurricane. Can’t be safe up here. Let’s go.”
The second floor had been stripped of most of the furniture, the remaining bedframes stacked against the walls of four massive bedrooms complete with fireplaces. A large, intricately tiled bathroom had been stripped of fixtures aside from a stained claw-foot tub, and the center ballroom was devoid of its chandelier, electrical wires exposed, a few crystals scattered and broken on the stained, intricately laid hardwood floor below. Layers of spider webs and insect carcasses clung to the windowsills while water from the floor above dripped from bowed ceilings.
“Nothin’ here,” Morrisette observed, frowning. “Hard to believe anyone would let this happen, y’know.”