An Unquiet Grave

CHAPTER 4

They backtracked on U.S. 50 about a half mile. There were no signs for Hidden Lake, but Phillip easily spotted the small side road obscured by a tall stand of trees and slowed the car for the turn in.

Another iron gate, this one in better repair than the one back at the cemetery. There was a discreet sign on the gate that read HIDDEN LAKE. A uniformed man emerged from the red brick guardhouse as they pulled up. Phillip rolled down his window and the man leaned in to peer at them.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Phillip glanced at Louis, so Louis leaned across the seat.

“We wanted to see someone about claiming a deceased patient,” he said.

“Sorry. We’re closed for the weekend.”

“We need to talk to someone in charge,” Louis said. “If we come back Monday, who do I see?”

The guard shrugged. “Not sure. There’s only a skeleton crew and I’m just here to keep folks out. But you can come back Monday and see for yourself.”

Louis glanced at Phillip. He would have to come back alone Monday; he didn’t want Phillip to have to lie again to Frances. Phillip started to put the car in gear.

“Wait a second,” Louis said, leaning back over. “Can you tell me where. .” He pulled the notebook from his jacket pocket. “Spera and Sons Excavations-do you know where it is?”

The guard had to think for a moment. “Go back up to U.S. 12 and head west. Just past the Mystery Hill, take your first left. Go a half mile and you’ll see ’em.”

“Thanks.”

Phillip swung the car back onto the highway. He had been quiet since they left the cemetery. As they drove deeper into the hills, Louis stole a glance at him. Phillip was staring straight ahead out the windshield.

They passed through a town with a shimmering lake and dark clusters of pines and bare birches. A small wood sign welcomed travelers to Ardmore and underneath it read WHERE THE PAST IS PERFECT.

A few miles farther, Louis saw a sign for Mystery Hill. As he turned the corner, he saw Phillip twist his neck to look back at the faded yellow building.

“You want to stop?” Louis asked.

“No.”

They saw the sign for Spera amp; Sons Excavations and Phillip pulled into the gravel parking lot. The compound was enclosed by a high chain-link fence, the top coiled in barbed wire. Behind the main building, Louis could see backhoes and other machinery in the muddy yard. There was a warehouse and beyond that a large white tent. If Louis was guessing right, this small company had won this hospital contract only because it was local and that the tent was probably a temporary holding area for remains not yet claimed or transferred to other graveyards.

Louis hesitated as he got out of the car, thinking Phillip should not go inside. But Phillip was already heading to the main building. Louis caught up with him and opened the door.

Inside, it looked like a construction company office-scuffed linoleum floors, harsh fluorescent lights, and scarred metal desks. The walls were covered in bulletin boards. The largest board, Louis noted, held a schematic of the cemetery. It was marked in a grid and shaded where graves had already been exhumed.

The office was empty, but a radio was playing softly, tuned to a country-and-western station. There was a door leading out into the warehouse.

“Hello! Anyone here?” Louis called out.

His eyes were drawn to a second bulletin board. It looked like an old architect’s plan of a huge factory or development of some kind. He went over to get a better look.

The legend below the drawing identified it as HIDDEN LAKE FARMS ASYLUM AND HOSPITIAL. The drawing showed a sprawling compound of maybe a dozen buildings set down amid farm plots, pastures, and a small lake, all enclosed by a fence. Beyond the fence to the west, set away from the main compound in the surrounding woods, was a place designated only as CEMETERY. Without his glasses, Louis had to squint to read the date: 1895.

The flush of a toilet drew Louis’s eyes back to a man emerging from a door. He was a big guy, with a wisp of black hair and glasses, the shoulders of his blue flannel shirt hanging loose on his round frame. He was carrying a yellowed paperback of Robert B. Parker’s, Looking for Rachel Wallace.

“I’m John Spera. Can I help you?” the man asked.

Louis introduced them both, then told the man they were here to ask about one of the patients.

Spera set down the paperback and slapped open a thick ledger. “Name?”

Phillip answered, “Claudia DeFoe.”

Spera’s eyes came up quickly. “You’re the guy who called.”

“Yes,” Phillip said.

“I told you on the phone, this isn’t our problem, Mr. Lawrence. If the hospital wants to bury rocks, they can bury rocks. We just get paid to dig up the caskets.”

Phillip’s face twitched, and Louis stepped forward quickly. “Can we see her casket?”

Spera hesitated.

“What can it hurt?” Louis asked. “It’s just rocks, right?”

“I don’t-”

“You do have it, don’t you?”

“Sure we do. We keep everything until someone claims it or we’re told to send the remains somewhere else. Even rocks.”

Now Louis was quiet, watching Phillip. His face was tight but his eyes had a flicker of something Louis read as distress.

“All right, but I got to warn you,” Spera said. “There’s other remains out there. You sure you want to go?”

Louis looked to Phillip, who nodded. They followed Spera out the back door and across the gravel lot. Despite the cold, Louis detected a familiar scent in the air-the sour mixture of decomposition.

“Phil, you sure about this?” Louis said quietly as they walked.

“When I was in Korea we got caught in a bad night battle once, the kind of thing where nobody knows what’s going on,” Phillip said. “In the morning, I looked out and there were bodies hanging on the barbed wire and the sarge just said, ‘You, you, and you, go clear the field.’ So we did. I’ve seen dead bodies before, Louis.”

They stopped and Spera threw back the flap of the tent. The smell engulfed them and Louis’s hand flew to his nose. He glanced quickly at Phillip.

“Let’s go,” Phillip said quietly.

There were sixty or seventy tables set up in the tent. Each table held a pile of dirt and wood and one large clear plastic bag. The wood was what was left of the caskets, Louis guessed, the cheap boards now warped or waterlogged, some just in pieces. The bags held the bones and tatters of cloth. The few caskets that were still in one piece were stacked on plywood shelves at the back of the tent.

“How many graves are in the cemetery?” Louis asked.

“Over six thousand,” Spera said.

They followed Spera as he wove his way through the tables. Louis couldn’t help but look down as they passed. Each heap of bones had a tag attached, printed with two sets of numbers, Spera told them: the graveyard identifying number and a new number assigned by Spera. No names on any of them.

Spera finally stopped near the back of the tent next to a screened window. The outside flap was whipping against the canvas, and Louis was grateful for the fresh air.

On the table lay a pile of medium-size rocks, a scattering of dirt, and a few shards of boards dark with age and rot. The tag had the same number as Claudia’s grave marker-1304. Spera had given her the number 51.

Louis looked at Phillip. His skin was ashen as his eyes flicked over the pile of the rocks.

Louis cleared his throat to get Spera’s attention. “The graves next to this one were untouched,” he said. “Can you let us know when you get to them?”

Spera had to pull his eyes from Phillip. “I could do that.”

Louis had asked mainly for Phillip’s sake. He knew that the chances of Claudia’s remains being in a neighboring grave by mistake were almost nil. Even if Claudia’s remains were still in that cemetery somewhere, they could be in any one of those thousands of unnamed graves.

He touched Phillip’s arm. Phillip turned away and started wandering the rows of tables, peering down into each heap.

“Mr. Spera,” Louis said, “what can you tell me about the hospital?”

“Well, it’s been here forever,” Spera said. “It’s just something we’ve all gotten used to over the years. When we were kids we used to hear these stories about-”

Louis shook his head and Spera stopped himself, watching Phillip.

“I do know,” Spera said, “that out of all these graves, only twelve have been claimed by relatives. Seems most have been forgotten or folks just don’t want to acknowledge them.”

“What’s going to happen to those that aren’t claimed?” Louis asked.

“We send ’em over to county and they’ll rebury them somewhere else,” Spera said.

Louis turned back to Phillip. He had stopped at a plastic bag and was fingering the edge. Louis wondered if he had heard what Spera had said. But Phillip just walked away without looking up.

“Look, if you don’t need me anymore,” Spera said.

“Thanks, you’ve been a big help,” Louis said.

Spera left. Louis stayed for a few moments, his eyes on the pile of rocks. Thousands of people buried in that cemetery but only twelve had been claimed. It was beyond sad, almost grotesque.

He looked up and didn’t see Phillip. Then he spotted him over in a far corner of the tent. Louis started toward him and as he neared, he saw the white casket. It was sitting on a table by itself, apart from all the other decrepit wooden boxes. It was pearly white with gleaming silver handles. There was a tag attached to one of the handles on which someone had scribbled HOLD FOR P. LAWRENCE. Phillip was just standing there, staring at it.

“This was for her,” Phillip said. “This is the one I picked out.”

The cold air swirled in from the open tent entrance, the smell of decay eddying around them. Phillip reached out and put a hand on the coffin. He pulled in a deep breath that caught in his throat.

“Come on,” Louis said, taking his arm. “Let’s go home.”