The Stone Serpent, page 4
“His blood, the moisture in his skin, even the vitreous humor in his eyes, everything must have crystallized,” she said. She thought again about the art installation at Storm King, The Luminous Flesh. Crystals growing between the bones. Filling the empty spaces.
She put her empty wine glass down on the coffee table. It felt like she was going round and round in circles, only to bump up against the same problem: the timing of Malachai Applewhite’s death. There was a petrified man in her morgue, except there hadn’t been enough time for the body to petrify naturally. As much as she wanted to, she wasn’t going to solve this tonight by drinking wine and bouncing ideas off of Booker. What she needed was more information, but it was clear she wouldn’t get any if Morales had her way.
Frustrated, she lay down and rested her head in Booker’s lap. He put down his glass and stroked her hair, brushing one long, chestnut-colored strand out of her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how much you can’t stand not knowing the answer.”
“It’s not just that,” she said. “Malachai Applewhite came from Valley Grove. I never told you this, I never told anyone this, but that’s where my aunt Gwen lives. My mother’s sister.”
“She lives in Valley Grove?” Booker asked. “Does that mean she’s part of the Church of the Divine Chariot?”
“Yes,” Laura said. “She was devastated after my mother’s suicide. My way of coping was to throw myself into my studies. Her way of coping was to throw herself into religion. She moved to Valley Grove and joined the Church of the Divine Chariot. I didn’t understand it then, and I guess I still don’t. We stayed in touch for a while, writing letters back and forth, until one day I got a letter from her saying goodbye.”
Laura took a deep breath. She wished she still had some wine in her glass. This wasn’t a story she ever thought she would tell.
“In the letter, Gwen told me that even though I was her niece, I was an outsider, and as a member of the Church of the Divine Chariot, she had to keep herself separate from the secular world or ‘risk being corrupted by its depravities.’ I couldn’t believe it. My pride told me if my crazy religious zealot of an aunt didn’t want anything to do with me, then so be it, good riddance. I never wrote back. I never even tried to reach her again. That’s why I don’t talk about her, because what she said in that letter hurt me. But the truth is, I always regretted not being in touch with her for all those years. She was my last living relative, not counting my father, but of course he stopped counting the day he left. And now this. If what happened to Malachai Applewhite was caused by an environmental factor in Valley Grove, Gwen could be in danger.”
“Maybe you should check in with her. Do you have her phone number?”
“No, I never had a number for her, just an address.” She sat up and leaned against him. “Ugh, I can’t think about this right now. It’s too much.”
He put his arm around her. She turned her head and kissed him. His lips were flavored with wine, and for a while, she let herself forget her worries.
It didn’t last long. Upstairs in the bedroom, Laura couldn’t fall asleep. The mystery of Malachai Applewhite’s petrified corpse ricocheted through her mind like a pinball, bouncing off explanations that ranged from the absurd to the impossible. Beside her, Booker moaned and twitched in his sleep. Another nightmare. She ran a hand over his brow and whispered that he was okay, everything was okay, until he quieted. His naked body gave off a heat she clung to. She pressed her own bare body against his back, hoping it would help her relax enough to sleep, but it didn’t work. She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him now that he was finally sleeping peacefully. She put on a fresh pair of underwear and a t-shirt from the drawer Booker had given her in his dresser, then made her way downstairs.
She found Booker’s laptop on the breakfast table in the kitchen. She opened it and pulled up a search engine. Was there a chance Malachai Applewhite’s petrifaction wasn’t the result of external environmental factors, but something internal instead? That would certainly make her less worried about Aunt Gwen, but what could transform tissue on such a grand scale? For that matter, what could crystalize all the fluids in his body? She knew proteins could crystalize, like the natural crystalline arrays of aquaporin in the lens of the eye. Crystals could form when there was a medical condition like gout, when too much uric acid in the body caused urate crystals to accumulate in the joints. But every ounce of liquid in a human body? It seemed impossible, and yet the corpse in her morgue was clear evidence it wasn’t.
She typed the words petrified bodies into the search field, but the results that came back were things she already knew. The victims of Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in Pompeii in 79 A.D. Bog mummies like Tollund Man, Koelbjerg Man, and Röst Girl. Ötzi the Iceman, whose frozen corpse was found in the Alps in 1991, skin and organs intact despite dating back to 3300 B.C. All of them were the consequences of extreme external factors. None of them were helpful.
She kept looking, determined not to give up. On the third page of search results, something finally caught her eye. An article in a magazine called Corpus Delicti: The Journal of Death Studies told the story of scientists in nineteenth-century Italy who routinely petrified cadavers by replacing their biologic liquids with chemical preservatives through intravascular injections as a way to preserve and study them. It allowed the scientists to maintain the deceased’s features and preserve their tissue and internal organs in a state of stone hardness.
Those last five words caught her attention. If she were to describe Malachai’s condition, a state of stone hardness definitely fit the bill. Why had he come to Sakima from Valley Grove? Where was he going? Was it the crash that killed him, or had he already died behind the wheel and that was why he lost control of the car? She wished she could have performed an autopsy on the body. It would answer so many questions. As it was, she was stuck bumping up against the same wall again and again.
By all accounts, Malachai was alone in the car. The body was recovered right after the crash, already petrified. There was no time for anyone to inject it with chemical preservatives like the Italian scientists of old.
Everything was pointing to an environmental cause, but she was no closer to an answer.
She exited the search engine and considered going back to bed, but her curiosity got the better of her and she launched it again. She typed in the words Stuckie the dog. The first article that came up related the same sad story Booker had told her earlier. However, she was not prepared for the pictures.
She was not prepared to see the dog.
It stared back at her from within the ragged, black hollow at the center of the tree trunk, a grisly horror with one paw thrust forward as though it were still trying to climb. Its skin was a brownish gray, like Malachai’s, but its eyes were gone, leaving only dark sockets in their place. For a moment, she had the sense it could still see her through the laptop screen, that it was staring at her across the distant reaches of time and space, life and death.
Laura exited the search engine again and closed the laptop. She shouldn’t have looked. She climbed up the stairs and got back under the covers beside Booker, but sleep still didn’t come. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the pictures of Stuckie again. Her mind focused on a single haunting detail, one thing in particular that had crept under her skin and stayed with her.
The withered flesh of the dog’s face was drawn back from its snout to reveal sharp teeth locked in a ferocious snarl. Even to her normally rational mind, it struck her as a warning. Death comes for us all, Stuckie seemed to be saying, and when it does, it isn’t always peaceful.
5.
* * *
When morning came, Laura left Booker’s house and crossed the street to Dradin Park. It was still closed to the public, its entrance blocked off with metal police barricades and plywood. Months ago, someone had spray-painted FUCK MUSHROOMS! across the plywood panels in big black letters. No one had removed it. No one wanted to. Inside the park, the community garden that had once been the heart and soul of Sakima was gone. It had been dug up and the earth salted to keep the mutant fungus from returning. Half the homes that burned in last year’s chaos had been rebuilt, but no one knew if or when Dradin Park would reopen. There was talk about getting a new community garden started in another location, but so far it was only talk.
Erected next to the park entrance was a memorial to the people Sakima had lost, two towering slabs of polished granite etched with the names of the dead. Victor Cunningham’s name was there, and so were Ralph Gorney’s, Sofia Hernandez’s, and over a hundred others who’d perished.
After Ralph’s death, she and Booker had taken care of his wife Debra as best they could. They brought over food, looked after her baby Darius when Debra needed time to herself, and tackled the lion’s share of the paperwork required by the city, the state, the bank, the police union, and the life-insurance company. Time passed, but Debra never quite recovered. Everywhere I look, there are memories of Ralph, she told Laura one day. Sometimes I hear footsteps behind me, and I turn around thinking it’s him, but there’s no one there, or it’s a stranger minding their own business. Of course it’s not him. Why would it be? Just because my life feels like a bad dream doesn’t mean it is one. In the end, she decided to take Darius back to Baltimore to be closer to her family. As much as Laura supported the decision, she still missed her friend.
She traced Ralph’s name in the smooth stone with her finger, wishing she could ask for his advice one last time. Chief Morales had made it clear she didn’t want her involved in the investigation, but she couldn’t shake the case from her thoughts. It was just the way she was. Even as far back as medical school, if there was something she didn’t understand, she would work at it obsessively until she had the answer. This was no different. She wanted—needed—to know what happened to Malachai Applewhite.
But that wasn’t the whole truth. Something was different this time, in a very big way. Her aunt was in Valley Grove, and she could be in danger.
What would Ralph say if he were still here? He would tell her nothing was more important than family, and he would be right. Maybe Gwen had cut off contact with her, but it didn’t mean Gwen wasn’t family anymore. Gwen was her aunt, and Laura’s last connection to the mother she lost. That had to mean something, even now.
With her mind made up, she drove to the central police station in City Square and parked in the official lot. She hung a placard on her rearview mirror that announced she was here on official business, and then marched into the station. She found the door to Morales’s office closed, but the light coming through the frosted window told her Morales was inside.
Because it was how she’d always done things with Ralph, Laura opened the door out of habit and walked right in. The chief’s office was a big, square room with multiple chairs for meetings and a view of the Hudson River from the window. The photos Ralph used to keep on the desk had been replaced with piles of papers and books on procedure. Morales sat at the desk, but she wasn’t alone. A dark-haired man in his late twenties sat across from her. He wore a crisp navy-blue shirt and a gray tie loose around his neck like a man who had to dress professionally but didn’t enjoy it.
Morales glared at Laura from the desk. “Can I help you with something, Dr. Powell?” Her tone of voice couldn’t have been colder if it came out of the morgue freezer.
Shit.
Morales had every right to be annoyed at the interruption. Ralph might have always had an open-door policy with her, but as Morales had already made clear to her, she wasn’t Ralph. Laura had come to plead her case, but now she looked like a buffoon, barging clumsily into a closed-door meeting. She’d shot herself in the foot before she even got a word out.
Before she could make her apologies and back out of the office with what she hoped was her last shred of dignity intact, the young man rose from his chair.
“Wait, you’re Dr. Powell? Dr. Laura Powell?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “Have we met?”
“No, but I’ve heard about you. You saved a lot of lives last year, including mine. I’d only just moved to Sakima when…everything happened.” He extended his hand. “I’m Sam Templeton.”
“Nice to meet you, Sam,” she said, shaking his hand. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can come back later.”
“That would be for the best, Dr. Powell,” Morales said flatly.
“Wait, but…you’re the medical examiner, right?” Sam asked. “Did you perform the autopsy on Malachai Applewhite?”
“I tried to,” Laura said. “Unfortunately, the condition of the body didn’t allow it.”
The color drained out of Sam’s face. “Condition? What—what happened to him?”
“That’s what I was getting at before we were interrupted.” Morales stood up, glaring at Laura. “Dr. Powell, Mr. Templeton is a friend of the deceased.”
“Please, can you tell me what happened to him?” Sam pleaded. “I thought it was a car accident.”
“There was an accident,” Morales told him. “However, once his body was recovered, there was an unexpected problem. Dr. Powell can explain it.”
“A problem?” Sam’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Please, just tell me what happened to my friend.”
“Something affected his body,” Laura explained. “All his soft tissue has petrified, including his skin. It prevented us from performing a full autopsy.”
Sam gaped at her, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Petrified?”
“I’m so sorry, Sam. I know it’s a lot to take in. We’re still trying to figure out how it happened.”
“Do you have any ideas, Mr. Templeton?” Morales asked.
“No,” Sam said, pulling himself together, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with his father.”
“Why his father?” Morales asked.
Sam sat down. “Malachai belonged to the Church of the Divine Chariot in Valley Grove. They’re a fundamentalist Christian sect.”
“I’m familiar with them,” Morales said.
“I—I used to be part of the sect,” Sam said. “I was born into it, just like Malachai was. I left a little over a year ago.”
“Why?” Morales asked.
“Why?” Sam repeated as though he didn’t understand the question. “You don’t know what it’s like living with religious zealots. They’re more like a cult. You’re not allowed to question authority. You’re not allowed to think for yourself, or to think differently from everyone else. You’re told what to do every hour of every day, whether it’s what you want or not. But maybe worst of all, you’re told when you’ll get married and to whom. That’s how it works there. You don’t get to choose your own wife or husband. The Shepherd, the head of the Church, decides for you. When I turned twenty-seven, it was decided for me that I would marry the daughter of one of our neighbors. Her name was Miriam. She was…” He paused, cringing, on the verge of tears again. “She was twelve years old. That’s how it works there, too. It was the last straw. I couldn’t stay there. I ran away and never looked back.”
Laura felt sick. She wasn’t naïve. She knew there were thousands of forced marriages involving minors every year in the United States, almost all of them involving young girls married off to older men. Remembering what she’d been like at that age—sensitive, introverted, socially awkward—the idea that she could have been married off to a man twice her age, or more, put a knot in her stomach. More often than not, religious custom was to blame, which was why so many elected officials were too cowardly to do the right thing and legislate against it. They were afraid of being pegged as anti-religion by their rivals and possibly losing elections because of it. Apparently, re-election was more important to them than what was happening to those girls. It infuriated her.
“Malachai ran away from the Church of the Divine Chariot just like I did,” Sam continued, wiping the tears from his face. “He was coming here to stay with me, until he could find work and someplace to live.”
“Why did you say you thought his death had something to do with his father?” Morales pressed.
“Malachai’s father is Eliezer Applewhite.” He paused as though he expected Laura and Chief Morales to recognize the name. When it was clear they didn’t, he said, “Shepherd Eliezer. He’s the head of the Church of the Divine Chariot. His word is law. He’s not to be questioned. He doesn’t care about anything except holding on to his power. It’s like a drug to him. Everyone knows it, but no one would dare say a word. They’re too scared of him. Now imagine how it would look if Shepherd Eliezer’s own son, his firstborn child, turned his back on the Church and ran away. He must be terrified that the Elders are talking behind his back, wondering if he’s still worthy of being Shepherd. They’re the only ones who can take away his power.”
“You think that would be enough for him to kill his own son?” Morales asked.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “If he felt like his power was being threatened, I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. Templeton,” Morales said. She took down Sam’s contact information and asked him to call her if he thought of anything else that might be helpful.
“Malachai was a good person,” he said. “He didn’t deserve to end up the way he did. Dr. Powell, I know you’ll help him the way you helped me and so many others last year.”
She shook his hand. “I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to find out what happened to him.”
Sam nodded solemnly, his eyes downcast. She didn’t envy what he was going through. She knew what it was like to lose a close friend, knew the grief and anger all too well. She watched him walk out of the office. His steps slow and careful, as if he didn’t trust the ground under his own feet anymore.
Morales gestured for Laura to close the door. She sat down at her desk and began jotting notes in a file.
“You have quite the fan club here in Sakima, don’t you, Dr. Powell?” Morales asked. It wasn’t a friendly question.
