Chapter 2

Author’s note:[ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

The next day, I drove my truck to work. Man, did that bring up a lot of comments! All of the comments were favorable, but some of them were the kind of comments where you had to know the people not to be insulted. I actually laughed along with the crowd at what some of the people said.

This was a large house we were working on with a basement, two regular floors, and an attic. That meant that we had a lot more places to clear out, so we went at it with a lot of verve. We had finished the two main floors in a lot less time than had been budgeted, so two guys were sent to take a look at the attic and Ramos and I were sent to the basement.

Wow, this pace was in one hell of a mess! There were a lot of large paper boxes tossed around at random and no telling how many old newspapers were lying on the floor. The place also had a peculiar smell that I could not identify. Ramos did not seem to notice the smell, but it was really getting to me. [Ring, do you have any idea what that odor might be?]

[Frankly, to me, it smells like rotting meat. At least, that is what I interpret from the signals coming from your nose.]

[Okay, let’s see if we can track it down.]

I started following my nose until I came to a place where the concrete slab was discolored as compared to the rest of the floor. The odor seemed to be the strongest here, and it was easy to see a crack about four feet long running through the discolored area. [Dammit, Ring, the odor is so strong here that I think that there is something dead and decomposing under this dark spot. I think that I had better alert the boss. He may want to back out of this deal if there is something decomposing under the slab.]

I used my very cheap cellphone to call the office and leave word with the boss’ secretary about what I had found. The boss called me back a few minutes later for more information. “Boss, it looks to me like somebody broke a hole in the slab, dumped in a dead body, and tried to cover it up with a patch of something like QuikCrete. The body had to be pretty big, too, to need a hole as large as the patch shows. I caught the smell through a crack in the patch.”

“Dammit, Sam, I hope you are wrong about the smell and what it’s coming from. That could ruin any possible sale of the property. Go ahead with the cleaning, and I’ll be there in a few minutes. This represents too much money to fool around.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ll do like you say. Goodbye.”

That was the end of that and I returned to cleaning up the junk that littered the floor. By God, the boss must he upset. He showed up in half the time I expected him, and he had a real worried look on his face as he came down the steps to the basement. “Oh, my God, Sam, you were right about the stink! Ramos, don’t you smell that?”

“Smell what, boss. I got such a bad head cold that I can’t smell nothing. Sorry.”

“Sheesh! Ramos, I wish I had your luck about when to have a head cold. Sam, go fetch the sledgehammer from the tool box in the truck. See if you can break away some of the concrete around that crack.”

“Okay, maybe I should photograph the crack in the floor before I start smashing it. You may need some photographic evidence if you have to go to court to get your money back.”

“That’s a damned good idea, Sam. I’m glad you thought of it. Do you have a camera?”

“My cellphone has a pretty good camera in it. The crack should show up fine in a photo made with it. I’ll take three or four photos before I start trying to smash up the concrete around the patch.”

“Fine, I’ll leave that to you. I’ve got to chase down the bastard that sold me this place. He should get the benefit of the smell that you and I did. No matter what, I’m getting some of my money back.”

[Ring, give me a first class cellphone with a good camera. I want to look good for the boss with this one.] Just a moment later, I was holding a top of the line smartphone. I used it to take four pictures at 90° intervals around the crack. The photos were in color, so the crack really stood out in the photos.

I started hammering at the concrete with the sledgehammer, and Ring gave my muscles an added boost of strength. It didn’t take me long to break away enough of the patch to get a gush of foul air to hit me square in the face. Oh, God, I had no trouble recognizing the smell of rotten meat at this point. Shit, I wondered what could be in that grave that would produce so much foul gas.

I was wearing work gloves, so I didn’t even pause as I reached down to move some of the chunks of concrete out of the hole I had made in the patch. As I bent over, I caught a glimpse of a flash of light off a piece of metal down in the grave. I got a flashlight from Ring and looked more closely into the hole. Oh, my God, there was a human body in that hole!

Oh, shit! I dialed the boss’ cell number, and he answered right away. “What is it, Sam? I’m in traffic, so I don’t want to talk long.”

“Boss, you better get back here quick. I found a human body in that grave under the slab. There is no doubt what I have found. Should I call the cops or wait on you to get back here?”

“You better call 911 right away. We might get into trouble if we don’t report this right away. I’m on my way back right now.” With that statement, he hung up. I agreed with him about reporting this right away, so I ended that call and dialed 911. I told the dispatcher what I had found and that I was not going to touch anything else until the cops got here. She agreed with me, and I hung up.

I called Ramos over to look at what I had found. I didn’t want him to think that I was keeping secrets from him. Dammit, I had to push him back to keep him from vomiting on the body as soon as he saw what was in the hole. I sent him upstairs to meet the cops at the front door and to bring them downstairs. I told him that I was going to stay there until the cops or the boss arrived. I had no trouble convincing Ramos to do as I asked.

As soon as he left, I said to Ring, [Ring, please give me a quick education in acting like Sherlock Holmes. I have a feeling that the cops are going to blow this one.]

I didn’t touch the body, but I used the flashlight to examine it as much as I could without touching anything beyond what I had already done. About all I could tell was that the body was male, 20-30 years old, and had been killed by being hit in the back of the head with a blunt instrument hard enough to crush his skull. Other than that, I had to wait for the cops before I could get any more information.

I guess that this was a slow day as far as the cops were concerned. Two uniformed cops showed up within 15 minutes of my 911 call, and a detective was there within another 10 minutes. Another person, a woman, showed up with a camera right behind the detective and started taking pictures. The boss showed up with a lawyer only a couple of minutes later.

The boss, his lawyer, and I were shipped off upstairs to “clear the crime scene.” By now, this whole thing was beginning to look like a TV series. I wasn’t surprised when we three were taken to the police station to be questioned. Obviously I was being treated as just a hired hand and not really worth questioning. On the other hand, my boss, with his lawyer present, was questioned by two detectives.

We went to different rooms for the questioning, and the detective talking to me acted like he didn’t think that I had much to offer to the case. I told my story three times, and then I had to answer some specific questions. I answered the questions as thoroughly and as honestly as I could, but some of the questions were something like “have you stopped beating your dog?” Those I resented, and I confess that I started to get hostile, but the cop must have figured that he had earned his money for that day and let me go. By the way, I had not asked for a lawyer to be present. Later, Dad said that might have been a mistake.

I rode back to the company headquarters with my boss and the lawyer so that I could pick up my truck to drive home. That was when I detected that the lawyer was going to try to blame everything on me if the cops got nosy about what we had been doing at the house. I was really pissed off at the lawyer, but I did keep my mouth shut. I was happy to escape and drive home.