Page 37 of Poison Wood

“What do you think about the skull that was found?” I ask my father and marvel at the even tone in my voice.

“I want to believe it’s ancient. From an old burial ground. People have found all kinds of ancient bones out in those woods.”

“But,” I say.

“But I don’t like where it was found.”

“In a wall,” I say.

He nods.

“How could that happen? How could someone end up in a wall? This isn’t an Edgar Allan Poe poem.”

“Got a pen and a piece of paper?”

I dig through my tote and bring him a pen and a scrap of paper. His hands shake as he starts to draw on it. It’s not as technical a drawing as I saw him make when he was doing the plans for the farmhouse, but it’s good enough for me to get the picture.

“Remember what I said before about including French drains around the perimeter of the basement walls to keep water out?” I nod, and he draws a trench. “So they would dig a trench you could have looked down into from the ground. They’d then fill it with gravel.”

I remember the construction. The digging. The cement trucks and dump trucks. It had caused such a racket the teachers complained our new wellness room was having the opposite effect. Everyone seemed frazzled. Promises were made it would be finished over Thanksgiving break. But if I learned anything from watching my father build the farmhouse, it was that subcontractors were suspiciously absent in November. Hunting season.

So the deep trenches were still open and exposed the week of Thanksgiving break.

My father points to the lines he’s drawn. “Someone could have been pushed in here.”

I swallow and move on before that image takes root. “I saw a reference to a place calledFacesin the article I read.”

“Yeah,” he says. “They do facial recognition when DNA can’t be harvested. But they extracted a tooth and sent it to the state police. Sowe’ll see. State police are free.Facesis pricey.” He clears his throat. “But with a man sitting in prison, the price has been approved.”

I’d searched the acronym after receiving the article from Laura Sanders. It’s a lab in Baton Rouge where they use anthropology and computer enhancement to create an image from a skull. They can not only identify it, they can rebuild the head out of clay and run it through a computer to enhance it, down to the hair, eyes, and cheekbones.

“Makes sense they’d approve that,” I say, watching my father’s wild eyebrows and the way he’s swallowing. He’s trying to be matter of fact, but I know his tells. I grew up in a home with just him and myself. No mother to run interference or explain his moods. I had to figure it out on my own. If he was pacing, leave him alone. If he was on the back porch with a cigar, approach him. If he said he was tired, he didn’t want to talk about something we should have talked about.

Time to test him.

“Is there something you haven’t told me, Dad?”

He leans back in the hospital bed and rests his head against the pillow. “I need to rest a minute. I’m tired.”

I tuck his drawing into my tote. “Maybe we can talk more later.”

He nods, but something in his eyes tells me he’s done talking to reporters.

Chapter Ten

Riverbend, Louisiana

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

5:05 p.m. CST

I pull up to the gates at the farmhouse and punch in the code Debby gave me: 0707. My birthday. I drive in and think of the white sedan from earlier and wait for the gates to close before pulling away.

I steer the truck into the garage and kill the engine. I consider texting Carl, but I stop myself. If I connect with him right now, I’ll have to go into details I’m not quite ready to reveal.

Knowledge is power, and I still have more knowledge to gain.

The dogs yap on the other side of the house door as I walk around to the passenger side and lift the box Iborrowedfrom Poison Wood. I’m about to shut the door with my elbow when I notice the mail on the floorboard. I set the box back on the seat and grab the array of mail that has been sliding around on the floor: bills, small packages, and Sundance catalogues. I stack them on the box and carry it all inside.