Thicker Than Water

Chapter Thirty-Three

The mechanical clamor stopped and the quiet rushed in. The hush stretched over the cemetery and then was broken by the chirp of a bird. Then came the beep-beep-beep drone as the backhoe crept away from the hole in the ground.

Louis watched as two men jumped down and secured the straps around the concrete vault. He looked up, his eyes traveling over the knot of people standing in the shade of a tree a few yards away. There were a couple of Lee County uniforms and a guy Louis assumed was the detective Mobley had just assigned to the case, all with the usual stone cop faces. There were also two men in suits. The shorter one, the cemetery administrator, wore the benign expression of a man used to watching the dead unearthed. The other was Scott Brenner. He was standing a few yards away, his eyes locked on the hole, his expression determinedly stoic.

Over by the road, a small group of reporters and rubberneckers were cordoned off by yellow crime tape. He saw someone standing off by himself away from the crowd, under a tree. It was Bob Ahnert.

The vault was hoisted out and carefully set down. Gray concrete, mottled with mud and mold. The workers took out crowbars.

Louis had never been to an exhumation before. It was all so. . business-like. He had not expected that. There was something disturbingly commonplace about it, like the dead were routinely taken from their graves, like children rousted from sleep to get up for school.

The smell was terrible. Louis had not expected that either. He looked up, as if for relief. The tree’s canopy stretched for about fifty yards. The branches were heavy with flowers that looked like lilacs. It made a beautiful umbrella of lavender over Kitty’s grave site.

They lifted the casket out. The dark wood still had a sheen to it, but the brass handles had gone green. He thought of what Joyce had said about Willard. He spent a fortune on the coffin, mahogany with these beautiful brass handles. But then, he was so upset he didn’t even come to see her.

Louis was staring at the casket. Why wasn’t he feeling anything? He should feel something-sorrow, regret, at least a sense of propriety. But he was dry inside.

The thud of a car door made him look up. A green uniform ducked under the yellow tape. Mobley ignored the reporters’ questions and came up to Louis’s side.

“Thanks for coming, Sheriff,” Louis said.

“I had to get out of the office,” Mobley said. “They won’t leave me alone. Between the damn reporters and Sandusky, I don’t have enough ass left to take a shit.”

Louis nodded slightly, his eyes going back to Scott Brenner. He was staring at the casket now, his eyes narrowed, his hand clasped over his mouth like he was going to be sick. Suddenly, Scott turned away and walked off.

“Excuse me, Sheriff,” Louis said.

Louis went over a small rise and saw Scott standing, head bowed, hands in his pants pocket.

“You okay?” Louis asked, coming to his side.

Scott looked up. “What? Oh yeah. . yeah.” His voice dropped off and he looked away.

Louis followed his gaze down to the large granite headstone in front of them.

BRENNER

Charles 1914–1981 Vivian 1919-1953

“Your parents?” Louis asked.

Scott nodded.

“Your mother was a young woman when she died,” Louis said.

“Yeah, I was seven,” Scott said quietly. “At least I remember her. Brian doesn’t at all.”

Louis looked back at the headstone. “But you had your dad.”

“It was just the three of us,” Scott said. “Dad was away most of the time in Tallahassee and we were raised by the housekeeper. I ended up watching over Brian.” Scott looked back down at the headstone. “But my father was there when it counted.”

They fell silent. Louis looked at the Brenner headstone. It was only then that he noticed the three small markers set down in the grass.

Geraldine Infant Baby Girl Infant Baby Boy

1942–1944 1945 Stillborn 1948 Stillborn

Scott noticed Louis looking at the small markers. “Dad always wanted a big family, but my mother-she had a difficult time with her pregnancies.” He paused, looking at the marker. “Dad always called them blue babies,” he said. “That’s what they called stillborns in those days.”

The sound of a car door made Louis look back toward the grave site. They were loading Kitty Jagger’s casket into a county van. Louis turned back to Scott.

“Thanks for getting this done so quickly.” He extended his hand and Scott shook it.

“No problem,” Scott said.

Louis looked over at the crowd behind the tape. Bob Ahnert had disappeared.

“Aren’t you going with her?” Scott asked.

Louis turned to Scott. The sympathy in his voice had surprised him.

“Yeah,” Louis said quietly. “I guess I better.”

The door to the autopsy room opened and Octavius walked out.

“She’s on the table, Vince,” he said. The diener went back into the office, leaving Vince and Louis standing at the door. Louis was looking at the window, but he couldn’t see the table.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Vince asked.

“Yes.”

Vince wasn’t wearing his Walkman or earphones. It was the first time Louis had seen him without them. But other things were different today too, like the whole place was muted somehow. No sounds, none of the usual numbing smells. Even the florescent lights seemed dimmer than usual.

“I don’t know what we’re going to get here, Louis,” Vince said. “If there was a lot of water damage or if the-”

“Her father bought her the best casket,” Louis interrupted.

Vince just looked at him for a moment, then pushed the door open. Louis followed.

A spot of pink. That was the first thing he saw. He moved closer.

She was wearing a dress. Pink, with a high white collar. White shoes. He hadn’t expected her to be dressed. He had expected. .

It hit him now. He had been expecting decay, putrified flesh and bone, like the corpses he had seen pulled from mangroves, or at least a shattered shell, like the bodies lifted from car wrecks.

Not this. .

Her skin was waxy and sunken, her long hair limp and bleached to ash from the decades of laying in darkness. But as she lay there, hands folded over her chest, Kitty Jagger looked almost as if she were asleep.

Louis felt a dullness in his chest, but he couldn’t look away.

“Man, whoever did this was a hell of an embalmer,” Vince said. “They don’t usually come out of the ground this well preserved.”

But Louis did not hear him. He was staring now at her hands. Small fingers, a silver ring on the right hand. She was holding a pink rose. It was shriveled but still intact, like a cherished prom corsage.

Louis realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out. Bones. . if it had been just bones, he could have stood that. He had seen bones before, like Eugene Graham, the young black man whose skeleton he had found in a Mississippi swamp with a noose still wrapped around the vertebrae. Eugene had been violated and brutally murdered just like Kitty. But this was different. Kitty was still here. A ghost of herself, but she was still here.

He stared at the pink rose. Something so beautiful. . so damaged. Something so alive. . so wasted.

He felt his throat tighten. A whisper in his head: Don’t be afraid, just let go.

Something broke deep in his chest. He was hearing her, just like Ahnert. God, he was hearing a dead girl talk to him.

Oh Jesus, am I going crazy?

“Send me your report when you’re done, Vince,” Louis said. He turned quickly and left.