Free Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop by Tim Downs Page A

talking?”
    The boys stepped from the car and nodded to their unexpected visitors, then proceeded silently to the rear of the car. The older boy wore baggy denims that hung low on his hips and draped about his feet. He wore a green plaid button-up that hung open over a gray T-shirt beneath, and he sported a pair of silver rings in his left ear. His hair was shaved close on the sides, and his sideburns were thin and long. A tangled tuft of red hair lay atop his head. The younger boy was similarly clad. Both wore bright bandannas around their necks, one red and one blue.
    “Can I give you fellas a hand?” Nick asked, taking a position opposite them as they rolled the long gurney from the hearse. “Ready? One, two, three.” They lifted and pulled, and the stretcher’s wheels dropped and locked in place. Atop the stretcher was a black vinyl bag, zippered down the center.
    “I’m Dr. Nicholas Polchak.” He smiled, extending his hand to each of them. “Call me Nick.”
    “I’m Casey,” said the older boy, returning the handshake.
    “Griff,” said the second, his voice a full octave higher.
    “I’m with the medical examiner’s office in Chapel Hill,” Nick lied.
    Kathryn winced.
    “It seems we missed a few things in the initial investigation,and they sent me down to take a final look. Why don’t we set up over here?” He guided the gurney into the left side of the garage, out of sight of the driveway.
    “You guys know Mrs. Guilford? It seems she knew the deceased here, so I said she could tag along.” Both boys looked at Kathryn, but Casey looked a little longer. Kathryn smiled back nervously and waved, not trusting her voice.
    “Can we watch?” Casey asked hopefully.
    “I could use your help. Tell me what you’ve got here.”
    “We picked him up this morning, in the woods off Weyerhaeuser Road. Musta had to carry him a mile, maybe more. A big guy, weighed a ton. He’s been dead a week—a real rotter. Another few days and we woulda had to use the straps to bag him.”
    “Well, let’s take a look.” As he reached for the zipper, each boy slid his bandanna up over his nose and mouth. Nick stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath through his nose.
    “You don’t use anything?” Griff asked in astonishment.
    “Whoa,” Casey muttered through his bandanna, “you’re the man.”
    As Nick slowly pulled the zipper, it suddenly dawned on Kathryn that she was about to view the remains of one of her oldest and dearest friends—and it wasn’t going to be pretty. “Don’t do this to him,” Mr. Schroeder’s words returned to her. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
    A wave of doubt came over her. Did she really need to do this? Did she really want to? Is this the way she wanted to forever remember her friend—not as a handsome, always-smiling companion, but as a decomposing, insect-infested corpse? She had hired Dr. Polchak to do the examination. Why did she need to be here at all? She remembered Dr. Polchak’s words: “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.” Was he really warning her, or were his words just more of his arrogant posturing? She edged closer to the body, then stepped quickly back again. She wanted to know—but did she really need to see?
    Nick spread open the body bag near the head and tucked the flaps under the shoulders. “Mrs. Guilford,” he said without looking up, “you might want to watch out for—”
    Too late. The stench hit Kathryn like a punch in the gut. It was more than a smell—the word was ridiculously inadequate todescribe what Kathryn now experienced. Something had reached deep into the limbic region of her brain and triggered an ancient memory—a memory that every human being possesses yet no one needs to learn—the smell of death.
    The three men watched as she lurched for the open doorway and dropped to her knees, convulsing. “Now that,” Nick sneered, “is what I call gross.”
    Casey stooped over Kathryn and slid off his bandanna.