“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Jamison asked. “Hell, I’m a homicide cop. I’ve worked in Jacksonville, Miami and Houston—tough towns, all of them—and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The lieutenant shook his head, staring at the remnants of what had once been living, breathing human beings.
A small man was standing close to the wall, the epitome of the absent-minded professor with his glasses and tufts of wild gray hair, peering closely at the remains, a penlight in his hand. “You know, embalming started becoming popular after the war—the Civil War. They had to try to get those dead boys back home to their mamas and sweethearts. But it really came into vogue for most Americans because of Abraham Lincoln. When he died, his widow wanted him buried back in Illinois, so they held a public viewing as the body traveled cross-country by train, so they had to keep Abe looking good for the mourners. He was embalmed by injecting fluids through the veins, but I think these poor souls were embalmed in the much less efficient fashion of the day, such as disemboweling a corpse and stuffing it with charcoal, or perhaps just immersing the body in alcohol. I imagine they were given proper viewings to satisfy the families, and then they were walled up. You can see here—” he pointed out different shades of plaster that had been chipped from the walls “—that they were put in at different times. Just guessing from the look of the corpses, I’d say this was all done within a ten-year period. See how the bones have darkened just a bit more? That ten-year span was a very long time ago. Fascinating, the way some of the corpses have mummified. My office will retrieve the remains in the morning. Legally, we could arrange removal right now, but I want to bring in specialists to make sure everything is handled correctly. This is quite the find.”
The man finally turned from his macabre monologue, saw Caleb and sized him up. He pocketed his penlight and offered him a hand. “How do you do? You’re that out-of-towner who found that fellow who’s been missing a year, aren’t you? I did his autopsy this afternoon. I’m the M.E. here in town, Florence Benson—my parents were fans of the Ziegfeld follies, I’m afraid—so they call me Doc Benson or Floby around here. Nice to meet you. You solved a sad mystery today.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Doc Benson, and I’m glad to have been of service,” Caleb assured him. “Did you find out anything interesting regarding the body I found?”
“I sent what tissue samples I could gather out to the lab, but after a year in the water…it’s hard going. I’m reserving my comments until I’ve completed my work.”
“Very smart,” Caleb said.
“Yes, especially given the circumstances. I’m working with little more than bone on that corpse, too, which is proving to be more tedious than you’d imagine. At least I know where all his body parts are. Here…well, as you can see, some of these skeletons are still more or less together, and some have fallen completely apart. This is going to be interesting, to say the least.”
“So it appears,” Caleb agreed.
The man studied him again, up and down, making an assessment.
“You work for some secret agency, huh?” the medical examiner asked him.
“Hardly secret,” Caleb said. “We’re just licensed investigators, like lots of other firms. But my boss doesn’t advertise. He’s the quiet kind and only takes on cases that call for what we can offer that other agencies can’t.”
He knew that Tim Jamison was watching him as he spoke, intrigued. Tim had been asked by the mayor, who been asked by the governor, to bring Caleb in on the case of the newly missing girls. He was both wary, and curious. But he seemed open-minded enough, and that was all Caleb really cared about.
“So where has Miss McKinley gotten herself off to, Tim?” Floby asked.
“She left for the night. She grew up here—she’s got plenty of friends around who would offer her a place to stay for the night. I’m not sure where she’s headed. She loves this old place, though. This has to be a big setback for her.”
“Not so bad—unless the whole house turns out to be riddled with corpses,” Floby said cheerfully. “And I don’t think it will. This seems to have been the…dump, shall we say? And as I said, I’ll have the pros in tomorrow to clear out these unwanted tenants, you cops and that professor will do some investigating—though I’m sure you’ll find out these people were already dead before they got stuck in the wall, just in case anyone was worried about that—and then everyone will get the burial they should have gotten years ago. And she’s a historian with on-site experience, so she’ll understand the significance of this find. And since she’s not a shrinking-violet kind of girl, I’m betting she’ll want in on the investigation herself.”
“I’d really appreciate permission to help, too,” Caleb said.