Every Dead Thing

Our footsteps echoed around the stone walls as we approached. Inside, the floor was clean and the dirt neatly raked. In one corner was a green metal table with two slits on either side through which ran leather restrainers. In another corner stood a large, industrial-sized roll of what appeared to be plastic sheeting.

Two layers of shelving ran around the walls. They were empty except for a bundle, tightly wrapped in plastic, that had been tucked in against the far wall. I walked toward it and the beam of the flashlight caught denim and a green check shirt, a pair of small shoes and a mop of hair, a discolored face whose skin had cracked and burst, with a pair of open eyes, the corneas milky and cloudy. The smell of decay was strong, but dulled somewhat by the plastic. I recognized the clothing. I had found Evan Baines, the child who had disappeared from the Barton estate.

“Sweet Jesus,” I heard Angel say. Louis was silent.

I drew closer to the body, checking the fingers and face. Apart from natural decay, the body was undamaged and the boy’s clothing appeared undisturbed. Evan Baines had not been tortured before he died but there was some heavier discoloration at his temple and there was dried blood in his ear.

The fingers of his left hand were splayed against his chest but his small right hand had formed into a tightly closed fist.

“Angel, come here. Bring the bag.”

He stood beside me and I saw the anger and despair in his eyes.

“It’s Evan Baines,” I said. “Did you bring the masks?”

He bent down and took out two dust masks and a bottle of Aramis aftershave. He sprinkled the aftershave on each mask, handed one to me, and put the other one on himself. Then he handed me a pair of plastic gloves. Louis stood farther back but didn’t take a mask. Angel held the flashlight beam on the body.

I took my pocketknife and sliced through the plastic by the child’s right hand. Even through the mask the stench grew stronger and there was a hiss of escaping gas.

I took the blunt edge of the knife and pried at the boy’s fist. The skin broke and a nail came loose.

“Hold the light steady, dammit,” I hissed. I could see something small and blue in the boy’s grip. I pried again, heedless now of the damage I was causing. I had to know. I had to find the answer to what had happened here. Eventually, the object came loose and fell to the floor. I bent to pick it up and examined it by the light of my own flashlight. It was a shard of blue china.

Angel had begun sca

“In the corner of that cellar there’s a tiny hole, not much bigger than my fingernail but big enough to take a fish-eye and a motion sensor,” he said. “An ordinary Joe couldn’t have found them unless he knew they were there and he knew where to look. I reckon the wire follows the ventilation system. Someone wanted to record what went on in that room anytime it was entered.”

Someone, but not whoever went to work on the children in that room. A regular video camera set up in the room would give better-quality pictures. There was no reason for concealment unless the viewer didn’t want to be noticed.

There was no monitor in the room, so whoever was responsible either wanted to watch the tapes in the comfort of his or her own home or wanted to be sure that whoever picked them up couldn’t sample what was on them before handing them over. I knew a lot of people who could put together a deal like that, and so did Angel, but I had one in particular in mind: Pili Pilar.

We went back down to the basement. I took the folding spade from Angel’s bag and began to break the earth. It didn’t take long for me to hit something soft. I dug wider and then began to scrape away the earth, Angel beside me using a small garden trowel to help. A film of plastic was revealed, and through it, barely discernible, I could see brown, wrinkled skin. We scraped away the rest of the dirt until the child’s body was visible, curled in a fetal position with its head hidden by its left arm. Even in decay, we could see the fingers had been broken, although I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl without moving it.

Angel looked slowly around the floor of the cellar and I knew what he was thinking. It was probably worse than that. This child had been buried barely six inches beneath the ground, which meant there were probably others below. This room had been in use for a long time.

Louis slipped into the room, his finger pressed to his lips. He glanced once at the child, then he pointed slowly above us with his right hand. We stayed still, hardly breathing, and I heard the sound of soft steps on the stairs. Angel retreated into the shadows beside the shelves, clicking off the flashlight as he went. Louis was already gone when I stood up. I moved to take up a position at the other side of the door and was reaching for my gun when a flashlight beam hit me in the face. The voice of Bobby Sciorra simply said, “Don’t,” and I withdrew my hand slowly.

He had moved quickly, surprisingly so. He emerged from the shadows, the ugly Five-seveN in his right hand and his flashlight focused on me as he neared the open gate. He stopped about ten feet away from me and I could see his teeth shining as he smiled.

“Dead man,” he said. “Dead as the kids in the room behind you. I was go

“Still doing Ferrera’s dirty work,” I replied. “Even you should have scruples about this.”

“We all have our weaknesses.” He shrugged. “So

And so it was So

“How did the old man find out?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I knew now what had been in the car with Pili when he crashed, or thought I knew. It turned out that I was as wrong in that as I had been in so much else.

There was a scuffle of movement in the corner of the alcove and Sciorra reacted with the swiftness of a cat. The flashlight beam widened and he stepped back, the gun moving minutely from me to the corner.

The beam caught the bowed head of Angel. He glanced up into Bobby Sciorra’s eyes and smiled. Sciorra looked puzzled for a moment and then his mouth opened in slow-dawning realization. He was already turning to try to locate Louis when the darkness seemed to come alive around him and his eyes widened as he realized, too late, that death had come for him too.

Louis’s skin gleamed in the light and his eyes were white as his left hand clamped tight over Sciorra’s jaw. Sciorra seemed to tighten and spasm, his eyes huge with pain and fear. He rose up on his toes and his arms stretched wide at either side. He shook hard once, twice, then the air seemed to leave him and his arms and body sagged, yet his head remained rigid, his eyes wide and staring. Louis pulled the long, thin blade from the back of Sciorra’s head and pushed him forward, and he fell to the ground at my feet, small shudders ru