“They don’t typically carry rabies, either. There’s never been a recorded case of rabies resulting from a rat bite in the U.S. That’s a myth. Makes us feel better about killing them. Can you imagine how filthy this city would be without rats running around eating our waste? People are the real infestation, if you ask me. People do things like this.” His eyes were fixed on the body. “I need you to pick up the gurney while I roll the body. Get on the other side.”
“I never took you for a rat sympathizer.” Nash pinched the flashlight under his arm while pulling out a pair of his own gloves and snapping them on, then walked around the body and took hold of the frame. “On three?”
“On three.”
He counted them down. As Nash lifted the gurney, Porter took hold of the shoulder with his left hand and reached around to the back of the body’s leg with his right and pulled toward him, his aging back fighting the movement with a bolt of pain down his thigh. The body made a sick sucking noise as it pulled away from the concrete floor. The smell lofted up in a wave of stink both sweet and sour, rotten and damp. As the body fell onto its back, Porter realized half the stomach was missing. There was only a large cavity where the intestines and lining had been, pink and oozing melted fat infested with maggots.
Nash rolled the gurney aside, barely missing Porter’s head as he dropped the frame to the ground and doubled over, half-digested Kit Kat remnants splashing against the cinder block wall. The flashlight turned with him, and Porter was thankful for the moment of darkness. He needed those seconds to prepare himself before he could look back.
When Nash righted himself and turned back, he tried to apologize but Porter waved him off. “Give me the light.”
Nash nodded and handed the flashlight to him before wiping the corner of his mouth on his jacket sleeve.
The beam rolled over the body, slowly, from what remained of the face to the toes and back again. “Male, probably fifties.”
“Christ, how can you tell?”
The rats had made off with his genitals. Most of the meat had been picked clean, leaving bones, sinewy muscle, and an empty space where they had once been. It was an odd color, a mix of dark green, white, and maroon. Maggots wiggled and writhed through the layers, slowly digesting what remained of the rat’s feast.
“They made off with the eyes,” Nash said.
Porter directed the light back to the head. They had taken more than just the eyes. The empty sockets stared back at him with an unfaltering gaze. The white of the optic nerve at the center and the missing eyelids gave a cartoonish appearance—Little Orphan Annie from the old comic strips.
“How long do think he’s been down here?”
Porter sighed, regretting the deep breath the moment the putrid air entered his lungs. “Couple days, at least. I think he was alive for at least two before he passed.”
“Why?”
Porter pointed at the man’s neck. “See the beard stubble? He’s got at least a couple days’ worth. His hair is short, well kept. He even trimmed his eyebrows. A man like that shaves once, sometimes twice a day. He hadn’t shaved at least two days, maybe three. I’m sure the medical examiner will be able to get us something more precise.”
“Any idea on the cause of death?”
He ran the light over the body again. “No obvious wounds. I’m going to guess he was stabbed in the stomach area. That’s where the rats seemed to do the most damage.”
“They went for the blood from the wound first, like the crack to his skull.”
“Uh-huh.”
Nash took a step closer and pointed at the victim’s left hand. “What’s that?”
Porter followed his gaze. The hand was balled up into a fist, clenching something. He reached down and tried to pry open the fingers.
“Rigor?”
“It’s already passed. The rats chewed at the fingers, and the dried blood glued them together. Hold this again.” He passed the flashlight back to Nash.
Both hands free, he pried open the fingers. There was a piece of glossy paper clutched in the victim’s grasp. About five inches long, rolled up like a handmade cigarette. Porter plucked it free and delicately unrolled the thick paper. “It’s a brochure.”
“For what?”
Porter held the colorful brochure up to the light.
Nash leaned in closer and read aloud. “The Moorings Lakeside, a Talbot Estates Development. Where yacht and country club living combine.”
“Talbot’s real estate company?”
“Or his construction company, possibly both.” Nash reached for the brochure. “I’ve seen commercials for this place. They bulldozed dozens of warehouses and industrial facilities on the lake, buildings just like this one, and they’ve been replacing them with McMansions. The houses are huge, but on zero lot lines. It’s crazy. If you’ve got the kind of coin to afford a place like that on the water, why would you want to live right on top of your neighbor? I’ve got a buddy who works down at Harbor, and he said the water lots come with docks, but they didn’t dredge them out deep enough—you can’t get much more than a troller in there. If you want to bring in a bigger boat, they upsell you into paying a ridiculous fee to go deeper. Doesn’t do much good, though, unless your neighbors do the same; the sediment washes right back in. A couple years’ time and you’ll need to do it all over again.”
Porter forced his tired body to stand, his knees creaking under the strain. “We need to get outside and call Hosman. 4MK targeted Talbot for a reason; it must be tied to this development.”
“Maybe something sketchy with the accounting?”
“Big project like this? Could be anything. You step on a lot of toes pushing a large real estate project through.”
“Porter?”
Both men turned. Espinosa was standing at the entrance. “My men located the tunnel you mentioned. It was boarded over at some point, but someone busted through recently and covered up the opening with a few crates. The tunnel breaks off from the subbasement and heads north. Unless you need me here, I’m going to take a team and follow it, see where it leads.”
Porter wanted to get back outside. This room, the body, the rats, everything about this mess was making him claustrophobic. “Nash, wait here for the medical examiner. Get Watson to process the scene. I’m going with Espinosa’s team. I’ll touch base when we figure out where the tunnel leads.” He turned back to Espinosa. “Lead the way.”
37
Diary
“Hey, champ. Can you give me a hand with these?”
Father stood near the back stoop, my little red wagon beside him, piled high with small parcels about one foot square wrapped in black plastic bags and sealed with duct tape.
I must admit, I hadn’t used that wagon in a number of years. The last time I saw it, it was buried far back in our toolshed under assorted lawn care products and an old barbecue Father purchased on clearance at Sears many summers ago. Father liked the grill because it used gas; Mother disliked it because it did not use charcoal. To me, a burger off the grill was a burger off the grill, and I had zero preference as to how it was grilled as long as that burger ended up on my plate—perhaps with a dab of ketchup, a smear of mustard, and a little mayonnaise.