Read Online The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S. Winter - Free Book Online Page B

have a look.”
    Letreau turned to Pelleter, shaking his head. “See, it just keeps getting worse.” He turned back to the officer. “Well, go ahead.”
    “Right, sir,” the officer said.
    Letreau continued, “I’ve got to see what Marion wants. She’s been waiting all morning.”
    “Wait.” Pelleter stood up, stopping the officer as he turned in the doorway. “Where is this box?”
    “On the eastern highway, about ten miles out of town.”
    Pelleter looked at Letreau. “And about ten miles from the prison.” He turned back to the officer. “I think I’ll go with you.”
    By the time Pelleter and the officers arrived at the farm, the farmer and his son had uncovered the whole length of the so-called coffin.
    The excavation site was no more than ten feet from the road, halfway between the town and the prison. The officers parked just off of the pavement behind a rusty truck and another automobile already there.
    A group of four men and a boy stood around the open grave watching the inspector and the officers approach. The pile of dark brown dirt beside them was like a sixth waiting figure. The mid-afternoon sun had burned away the morning cool, and it was hot in the unshaded field.
    “It’s a coffin, all right,” one of the officers said when they reached the spot. The box was unfinished pine, imperfectly crafted.
    “The rain did the first part of the digging for us,” the farmer said. He was a mustachioed man of about forty. “My son saw the wood sticking up while he was plowing, and then he came back and got me.”
    “So you don’t know anything about this?” Pelleter said.
    “The family plot’s back up near the house...This is good soil here. Why would I bury a body where I wanted to plant?”
    “And so shallow,” one of the other men said.
    Pelleter looked at him.
    “I’m a neighbor. I was just passing by with my truck. I’ll help take it back into town if you need.”
    Pelleter didn’t respond. Instead he looked at the two officers and said, “Open it up.”
    They looked at him without comprehension, their expressions lost. They had let Pelleter take charge, and did not expect to be called upon.
    “Open it,” Pelleter said again, throwing up his hands. “We need to know if there’s even a body inside, and what it’s wearing.”
    “What it’s wearing?” somebody said.
    The officers stepped forward, but it was the farmer and his neighbor who each picked up a shovel, and fitted the ends of the blades into the space between the lid of the coffin and its body.
    Pelleter stepped away, pacing the ground to the side of the coffin, looking at the dirt as he went.
    The sound of wood creaking cut the air, somebody said, “Easy,” and then there was a snap.
    A car passed on the road heading towards town, slowing as it approached the site where the men’s vehicles were parked, and then resuming speed.
    “Oh, my god.”
    Pelleter turned back, and the men parted so he could see.
    There was a body in the coffin. It must have been there for several weeks, because the face had softened, distorting the features into a ghost mask, and the body appeared caved in. A large patch of blood stained the man’s shirt over his stomach. But the important thing was what the body was wearing: Malniveau Prison grays.
    A sweet moldy smell caused more than one man to gag.
    Pelleter squatted beside the grave, and pulled the man’s shirt taut to reveal the number above the breast. He pulled out his oilcloth notebook and jotted the number down, then he stood and waved a hand towards the body. “Close it back up and get it out of there. This gentleman will take it back to town.” And he nodded at the man who had offered his truck.
    The officers, embarrassed now over their delay in moving to open the coffin, stepped forward, taking the lid from the farmer. “We’ve got that. Let the police handle this.”
    Pelleter began to walk along to the side again, watching the ground. It was clear that he was looking for