Read Online Unearthed by Robert J. Crane - Free Book Online

like he’d gone rolling around in wet clay, grey stains all over the front. He had a thin beard that grew in funny places, patchy around the cheeks but heavy on the chin. He had a chemical smell about him, sharp and unpleasant.
    Reeve just stared at him, bass in hand, fishy aroma pervading the store. “Casey, the word hello’s got one damned ‘o’ in it, not twenty.”
    Casey grinned, uneven teeth showing under that patchy beard. “Why would you ever limit yourself to just one ‘o’?”
    Reeve stared at him, trying to ferret out the meaning on that one. Casey was in his thirties if Reeve recalled, but the man was so damned grungy it was hard to tell. “Got something for you. I’d like it stuffed and mounted.”
    Casey took a swaggering step up to the counter. “Well, go on then, lay your thang down. Don’t just stand there with your dick in your hand.”
    Reeve cocked an eyebrow at him. This was the shit you had to put up with for working with Casey Meacham. The trade-off for the best taxidermist in the county. He put the bass on the counter with a wet plop.
    “I never understood that phrase,” Casey said, leaning over the fish and giving it a look. “‘Standing there with your dick in your hand.’”
    Reeve stared at him. “It means … uh … sitting there useless.”
    “Yeah, but I don’t get it,” Casey said, looking up at him. “Why is it a bad thing to be standing there with your own dick in your hand? Sounds like a fun time to me.” He cracked a grin.
    “Jesus,” Reeve said. “The bass, please.”
    “I’ll get it taken care of for you,” Casey said, standing up straight. “Come on back here a minute, though, I got something to show you.” He turned on his heel and disappeared back behind the curtain, gesturing with a hand for Reeve to join him.
    “God save me from it being his dick in his hand.” Reeve stared at the bass on the glass countertop for a moment, pondering whether he should leave right then, and then remembered the only thing waiting for him back at the office was County Administrator Pike. With a shrug, he walked around the counter and stepped behind the curtain into a darkened room that ran about thirty feet straight.
    On either side of the room were terrariums with lights. Reeve could see Casey standing a few feet away, looking into one of the terrariums at face level. Reeve did a quick estimate. There had to be twenty or thirty of the glass enclosures in here, and all of them looked to be occupied by something, at least.
    “Dermestid beetles,” Casey said, tapping the glass of the terrarium he was looking at. He glanced back at Reeve, face and beard partially lit by the lamps glowing from within the glass enclosures. “You ever heard of them?”
    “Yeah, actually,” Reeve said, stepping closer to the nearest terrarium. It was filled about an inch of the way with sand, and a small animal skull was resting atop it. The skull was positively swarmed by beetles, little dark bugs that seemed to be crawling all over the remaining bits of skin on the carcass. “They use ’em in crime scene investigations for corpses that have been dead a while. Helps ’em figure out the time or day of death sometimes.” He glanced over at Casey, whose face was glowing with pride. “What do you got ’em for?”
    “For European-style mounts, that’s what,” Casey said, puffing out his chest. “See, my brethren across the pond can’t get the chemicals for preserving an animal very easily, so they have these beetles, see, and use ’em to clean the animal off and just mount the skull. Takes up less space because there’s no neck.”
    Reeve raised an eyebrow at him. “You think people in Calhoun County are gonna give up their wall mounts, you’re a crazy fuck, Casey. People live for the season around here. That shit may fly over in Germany or England or wherever, places where they’ve got queens and shit, but this is the South. We kill animals, we put them on the wall and brag to