City of Saviors by Rachel Howzell Hall

Author:Rachel Howzell Hall [Hall, Rachel Howzell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

PROTECTED BY BUNNY SUITS AND RESPIRATORS, WE CROWDED THE TINY BATHROOM off the den at Eugene Washington’s. The medicine cabinet mirrors reflected nothing—just a platter for decades-old layers of dust, cat hair, and cobwebs. Fossilized porno magazines, including the issue that had forced Vanessa Williams to surrender her Miss America crown, had been ripped from their petrified stacks. Roaches of every variety roamed around a large cherrywood humidor sitting in the center of the tower of boobs. And inside the wooden box: a pair of mummified hands.

“Are they . . . real?” Colin asked.

“Just eyeballing,” Zucca said, “I’d say ‘heck yeah.’ Geez . . . This house is like Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

The skin of the hands smelled musty and resembled turkey jerky wrapped around bone. No smell of decay wafted off of them.

Standing there, in that bathroom, with those hands made my stomach churn, and Charity Tate’s sweet tea burned my esophagus.

“This box has been here a few years,” Zucca said. “I’m not a forensic anthropologist, though, so I’ll rope in Dr. Goldberg.”

Just a year ago, Douglas Goldberg, M.D., Ph.D., had helped search the basement of Crase Liquor Emporium near my childhood home. He had examined the bones we’d found there and identified them as my sister’s.

The thick gnarled fingers in the humidor looked like they’d belonged to a man. On the left ring finger, there was a tarnished gold ring with an onyx center engraved with the square-and-compasses symbol.

“Z.,” I said, “get good pictures of that ring. Looks like he was a mason.”

A moment later, I clomped out of the house with my team behind me. I unzipped the front of my Tyvek suit and exhaled as cool air hit my sweaty shell.

The three sisters stood a few yards away, arms outstretched, eyes squeezed shut. They had greeted Colin and me as they’d done before: The detective and the chief join us today.

Ike and his men were huddled on the sidewalk—once again, police tape surrounded the property. They had made great progress during their short time cleaning. They had attacked the living room, and now countless black trash bags were piled in the room’s center. Ike had rented a giant Dumpster trailer, and a lot of the junk from the front yard sat in its bowels. Cats camped about the mountains of plastic. Some had ventured forth and perched on the top bag.

“We need to look for bodies with missing hands,” I told the team. “John Does. Dead homeless. We’ll search the house, and if we don’t find him here, then we’ll search citywide.”

“We can’t do this alone,” Pepe groused. “It took us three days just to find the hands. Which we didn’t find.”

Colin’s face reddened. “Dude, stop whining so fuckin’ much. What the hell’s wrong with you lately?”

Pepe took a step toward Colin. “You know what, Taggert? You can kiss my—”

“Hey,” I snapped. “Chill the hell out, both of you. I’ll get cadets from the police academy to help out, all right?”

Hands on his hips, Colin watched Pepe and Luke zigzag to their car.

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