SAFELY BURIED Chapter 2: Smell of Death

“Yeah, but they don’t stink like this,” Paula said. She got one window up and left the last one to me. Her steel-heeled cast clonked its way to the dining room on the other side of the entrance hall, and moments later she yelled at me from the kitchen in the back of the house: “Hey, Phil, c’mere. I found your rats.”

By the time I reached the kitchen, she was already using a broom to drag a dead cat out of the cabinet under the sink.

“That’s a mighty big rat,” she said with a sarcastic laugh.

Flies buzzed around the carcass, and carrion beetles crawled on its face. The cat’s mouth was open, as if gagging on the beetles. With one hand, Paula used a broom to pull the animal into a cardboard box that she held at an angle with her other hand.

I opened the door to the pantry, where I discovered that the back door of the house was not locked. I called to Paula, “Guess what—you didn’t have to break in.”

Clonk . . . clonk . . . clonk. “What do you mean?” she said.

“The back door was unlocked.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s strange.” She thought a moment. “They must have went away and forgot to lock it. I hope nothing got stolen.” She paused again. “Let’s put the cat outside. At least they won’t have to put up with the smell when they get back. I wonder why it died. Poor baby. I know. They must have forgot to leave food out for it. But Cheryl would never forget to do that. She loves cats. You know what—I bet they didn’t know it got in the house. Its food is probably in the barn. Maybe it got into some mouse poison or something. Yeah, I bet that’s it.”

“Okay,” I said, “let’s get rid of it.”

I went back to the kitchen and picked up the box. The busy flies buzzed angrily. As I carried the cat through the pantry, Paula held the back door for me and said, “It’s a shame I didn’t come sooner. The cat looks like it just died a couple days ago.”

I laid the box on the ground a few feet from the house and went back inside.

The putrid odor had not left with the cat, and Paula began opening windows in the kitchen and dining room. I picked up a dish towel and used it as a breathing mask. I took short shallow breaths through my mouth as I looked around for something to cover the hole in the broken window. A pair of cloth place mats lay on the kitchen table, and Paula helped me fit them, together with a crumpled-up newspaper, into the hole.

I asked her what she would do now that her friends weren’t here.

“I’ll stay put till they get back,” she said. “Cheryl and Wayne won’t mind. I can clean up the place for them. When they get home, I’ll replace the glass I didn’t need to break.”

“Do you have any idea where they went?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Prob’ly down to Kentucky. That’s where their folks live. Hey, you know what—” she made a tinny embarrassed laugh “—I just remembered what I came in here for. I better go do it before I wet myself.”

She tottered back to the stairway, grabbed hold of the banister, and tried to climb the steps, but she quickly gave up and sat down on them. Using her hands and her left leg, she boosted herself from one step to the next. She smiled as I watched her. “It’s easier this way, she said.” She seemed lighthearted, happy, tipsy. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said. “I’ll fix you a cup of coffee when I come down.”

On the wall at the foot of the stairs I spied a pair of switches and flicked them on, lighting up the second-floor hall. I had to go to work in the morning, but coffee sounded good. “Let’s drink it on the front porch,” I said.

“Sure, that would be nice.” Her voice was soft and friendly, tiredly inviting.

At the top of the steps, she hauled herself onto her feet and disappeared. I heard her thumping across the floor.

Then she screamed the loudest scream I had ever heard.

I took the steps two at a time.

She stood shaking in a doorway. “ They’re dead,” she whimpered. “They’re both dead.” Her voice trembled, “Oh-h-h-h-h my God . . . oh-h-h-h God . . . Somebody killed them. Oh God. Oh Jesus.”

I peered in beside her. The strength of the stench almost knocked me down. The greenish, blackened body of a naked woman lay twisted on the bathroom floor. A man’s body in the same condition hung over the side of the tub, which contained around an inch of bloody water that looked more like mud. So many insects covered the corpses that their skin seemed to move. I could see that the woman’s abdomen had ruptured, and the insects had invaded every opening.

Paula swayed back and forth. Her shoulder trembled against my arm. Her mouth hung open as she gazed at her friends. I thought she was going into shock.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

She did not move.

I put an arm around her waist and tried to steer her out of the doorway. “We can’t do anything here,” I said. “We mustn’t touch anything. We’ve got to call the police.”

Her body stiffened. At the top of her voice she screeched in my face, “No! I won’t go!” She grabbed hold of the door frame with both hands.

“You can’t stay here, Paula. It’s not safe. Whoever did this might come back.” I pinned her arms and broke her grip.

She freaked out. “I’m not going. You can’t make me. They’re my friends.” She pushed backward, and the two of us nearly went down. “You go yourself,” she spluttered at me. She tried to shake me off and squirmed from side to side. “Get offa me. Get the hell out of here. Leave me alone.” She gritted her teeth and almost made us fall again. “I told you to leave me alone! I mean it now! Let go of me!”

I gave her a hard slap on the face. I didn’t expect it to work, but it did. She stopped struggling. Her breaths came loud and hard.

With my arm around her waist, I guided her toward the stairs. I could only hope she wouldn’t start fighting again on the way down. I pictured her slapping and clawing. Maybe that’s how this night would end, the two of us on the floor with our necks broken.

As we reached the bottom step, she said, “I still have to use the toilet.”

“Not that one,” I said. “I’ll take you to a gas station. Right now we are out of here.”

“Wait.” She pulled away. “I have to turn off the lights.”

I didn’t think the Garths would mind if we left their lights burning, but I let her hobble around while I looked for a phone to call the sheriff’s department. I couldn’t find one. My BlackBerry was at home on my desk, but it probably would not have worked here anyway because of the knobs.

I went after Paula and found her rifling through a drawer in the kitchen. I half held, half dragged her outside.

The night air was cool. It smelled amazingly fresh and clean. It felt like a blessing.