I put a mason jar labeled "blow fly" on the shelf. The project consisted of forty-seven mason jars containing the flesh of dead animals. The mouth of each jar was covered with wire mesh of varying gauges. The variance allowed insects of specific sizes to reach the samples. Charting data helped me rein in my random thoughts, to reshape them the way a magnet realigns atoms.
“I can’t believe you’ve been conducting research in my barn. You know how I feel about desecrating the dead.”
“They’re dead animals. Not people.”
“I’m a veterinarian, so it’s just as bad to me. Killing animals for research is unethical and unacceptable.”
“You put down horses.”
“It’s part of my job. A sad part. I’m not going to justify myself to you. Understand?”
“It’s road kill, Mom. The only thing I hurt was the turkey buzzards’ choice of snacks.”
“You’re a terrible child.”
“That’s because I’m grown. We do that. Grow up. Have our own thoughts. Our own 401k plans.”
She put her fingers in her ears. “Lalala. I can’t hear you.”
“Cedar says that you’re experiencing empty nest denial syndrome. She read about in Psychology Today.”
“Cedar is a lovely young woman.”
“That she is.”
“Who should stick to her studies instead of psychoanalyzing a middle-aged woman’s relationships with her unreliable, single-minded, inconsiderate elderly father and the son who is just like him. I also suggest better reading material. Cosmo, for example. They have nice quizzes.”
“Essay or multiple choice?”
“Ha-ha.” She peered over my shoulder as I dumped a sample on a metal tray and counted the fly larvae. “In the 80’s, we used the word gnarly to described things so disgusting.”
“Gnarly or not.” I returned the bugs and the tissues to the jar. “This is an important project. Police will be able to use my data to accurately determine the date of death of an individual.”
“Yep, you sound just like your grandfather.”
“That’s a bad thing?” Abner said, stepping from the field and into the barn. His hair was helter-skelter, and his pants looked like twisted rope. “I happen to like his grandfather.”
“Dad!” Mom caught her breath. “You snuck up on me!”
“Would it’ve changed what you said?”
“Not one bit. You know how I feel about your disregard for simple human dignity. You treat people like pieces of meat.”
Oh, no, here they go, I thought. Mom’s dislike of Abner’s profession was no secret. Lately, she’d become an internet crusader for human dignity. She had been quoted several times in blog articles and had once done a Reddit AMA about her belief that forensic anthropology was a ghoulish hobby.
"That’s because we are all meat in the end. Including yours truly.” Abner stroked his beard as he scanned the specimens. “Boone, did you tell your mama what we did this morning?”
“This morning? I don’t recall anything unusual.”
“Mary Harriet.” Abner looked a man who would rather eat the contents of my jars than to confess, but he did anyway. “There’s something we’ve got to tell you. Right, Boone?”
“As I still maintain a Top Secret clearance,” I said, “my actions are classified.”
“Who says?”
“Me.”
“If he won’t tell you, then I reckon I will.”
Abner spilled the whole story. The trip to the Nagswood house. The discovery of the body. All without the truly gory details.
Mom turned to me with tears misting in her eyes, and I clenched up in anticipation of what was to follow.
A hug.
“What’s that for?”
“For finding that poor woman. And for restoring my faith in you."
“Sprained neck, Mom.” I grunted, and she patted my back in sympathy, which made me grunt again. “One more hug, and I’m going to be in traction.”
“Tough.”
Abner also told her about Hoyt chasing us off the property. He left out the fact we had gathered evidence from the hooligan and saved it plastic evidence bags. The bags were now stored in Ab’s Range Rover.
“My god." Mom sat down on a straw bale. To keep from fainting, she pressed a knuckle under her nose. “The victim. Do we know who she is?”
“Not yet,” Abner said.
But we will soon, I thought. Like a hound dog, Abner had his bone, and he wasn’t about to let it go.
“Who owns the house?” Mom said.
“Some corporation,” Abner said. “Bought from some band teacher named Blevins.”
“Troy Blevins?” Mom asked.
“That’s him.”
“Small world, huh?” I reached for another jar. The sudden movement sent a spike of pain through my back. The meds were wearing off.
“Sit,” Mom told me. “You’re pushing too hard.”
I sat next to her on the bale. “Happy?”
“I’m on the horns of a dilemma,” she said. “On one hand, I’m sorry a woman died because nobody believed you. You did a good thing finding that person. Now, she can be laid to rest properly.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, Mary Harriet,” Abner said. “Don’t turn on the boy. I was the one that took him there in the first place.”
“A fact that I very well aware of. You’ve betrayed my trust. Both of you.” Mom wiped her eyes. Then she shook a finger at us. “Dad, I left my son in your care. You promised to bring him home.”
“He’s home, ain’t he?”
“Taking him to a forensic investigation on the way from the hospital doesn’t fit my definition of home! And you, Daniel Boone Childress, you were to get bed rest. Instead, I find you out in the barn!”
“What’s going on?” Lamar stood silhouetted in the doorframe. “I heard the commotion all the way in the house.”
“You wouldn’t believe what these two did.”
“Since every firefighter in the county knows about the business in Nagswood," Lamar said, "I can make a good guess.”
“Boone.” Mom stuck out a hand. “Give me your license. You’re too injured to drive. Hand it over.”
“Not happening,” I said. “You can’t ground me anymore.”
“Then I reckon I’ll have to.” Lamar stood beside Mom. A united front. “Did I not put you on probation?”
“Yes, but—“
“No buts. You defied a direct order from your captain.”
“Seriously?” I swept past Abner. “We found a woman’s body!”
“No matter what y’all found, you still broke regulation.”
“If you really heard what happened,” I said. “Then you know that I was right about the screams. And I was right about Eugene Loach and those two other morons refusing to render aid. Instead of busting me, you should report them for misconduct.”
“Those are dangerous charges to make about a firefighter.”
“The truth shall set you free, Captain.”
“Not in Allegheny County North Carolina, rookie.”
Mom pulled Abner out of the barn. "Come on, Dad."
“Give me a holler,” Abner told me, “when your ears stop burning.”
“Deserter,” I mumbled and waited for Lamar to speak. As a teenager, the whole Clint Eastwood tough guy act really ground my nerves. Now, I was used to standing at attention. I could wait all day. But when Lamar spoke after a minute, I was relieved.
I needed to pee.
“I’m going to pass on the advice my captain gave me when I started out,” he said. “There’s horrible things we see that men aren’t meant to see. If you let them, the horrors turn into ghosts, and they’ll haunt you every minute of every day. That’s the first hard lesson about fire. When you walk away from the job, you walk away from the memories, too. You go on with your life like nothing happen, because it’s the only way to survive. You ain’t learned that yet. This fire’s stuck in your craw, and until you get it out or learn to swallow, ain’t nobody going to trust you.”
“I’m used to people not trusting me,” I said. “I can live with it.”
“Well, I can’t,” Lamar said flatly. “You’re dismissed from the Allegheny Volunteer Fire Department. That’s all I’ve got to say.”