I moved to the hallway. Four closed doors. Keeping my gun in my right hand, I wrapped my gloved left hand around the handle and opened the first door. A closet packed with junk.
Keeping with the room-clearing tactics I’d had drilled into my head, I shoved open the second door. A bedroom I assumed was Sheldon’s. One side resembled the barracks from basic training, but from a single soldier’s view. One cot with an army-green wool blanket, one footlocker, pegs embedded into the wall for clothes. Christ. I could’ve bounced a quarter off the bed, it was so tightly made. He’d allowed a few concessions. A humidifier hummed in the corner. A gun safe abutted the closet. The gun safe was locked and the closet held work clothes.
The other side of Sheldon’s bedroom had been set up like a military command office. A desk. A computer. Maps on the wall. Little army men in a Plexiglas container with tanks and equipment that could be moved around. Different topographical dioramas were stacked along the wall.
It looked like a movie set, staged and pristine. Nothing like a real command center in wartime with broken shit piled up everywhere.
The third door opened into a bathroom. Typical 1950s ranch house. White tub, white toilet, white tile. Mirrored medicine cabinet above the white pedestal sink. I opened and scrutinized the contents. Herbal concoctions in plain bottles. No prescriptions. For either Shelton or Harold. Did that mean he had to lock up Harold’s medication?
The last door stood at the end of the stubby hallway. The lock on this door was an industrial padlock-on the outside.
Dammit.
I understood the necessity of a lockdown procedure if an elderly person tended to wander, but I hoped Sheldon hadn’t locked his uncle in his bedroom while he’d gone to run errands.
I couldn’t shoot this lock off. Couldn’t bust down the door. I might look for a crowbar to remove the latch the padlock was attached to, if I had lots of time.
Or… I could look for a spare set of keys. Remembering the big key ring Sheldon carried at the archives, I knew he had at least one extra set. Where would I keep them?
In my office. In a place where they’d be clearly marked, but out of plain sight. I returned to Sheldon’s bedroom and started opening drawers in his desk.
Bingo. In the back of a filing cabinet was a metal box containing keys. And score, they were all marked. I snagged the sets for the spare bedroom and the garage.
The padlock to the bedroom clicked open easily.
In hindsight, I wished it hadn’t worked at all. Because what I found behind that door was beyond disturbing.
I’d kept my gun out and swept the room. At first, I thought I’d walked in on a sleeping man. Easy to do with a human shape stretched out on the bed with the covers pulled up. But something about the too-pale, too-still form resting atop the pillow bothered me. I stepped closer.
My breath stalled.
Not only was the guy on the bed dead, but he was mummified.
Holy shit.
I’d never seen anything like this.
The top of the head hadn’t been wrapped in gauze, so graying black hair stuck up in dull tufts. The strands looked as if they’d disintegrate upon contact. It also looked like an entire can of shellac had been poured on the face and neck. The mouth was open, covered in gauze, in a parody of
The star quilt had been tucked beneath the man’s mummified neck, blocking the rest of the body from view. I knew I had to pull that quilt back. I studied the lump under the covers for a solid minute to make sure nothing was moving, like rats or mice feasting on rotten flesh and living inside a dead-body cavity. Critters that would shriek at me with high-pitched outrage that I’d discovered their secret snack and home combination.
Inhaling deeply, I grabbed the corner of the quilt hanging on the floor. I hesitated and felt like a total pussy for it. What was my problem? I had no issue dealing with soldiers whose innards were dragging in the dirt after being gut shot, so why was I hesitating when this guy was already dead?
So I did.
The rest of the body was wrapped in gauze. The arms were secured alongside the body, not wrapped separately. The legs were wrapped as one unit, too. The entire form held a shiny glaze, like this was a kid’s art project. I half feared if I looked closely, I’d see glitter. But I knew it wasn’t papier mâché crafted to resemble a human when I noticed the feet hadn’t been wrapped. A greasy, soiled spot on the sheet gave the impression of decayed flesh beneath the skeletal bones.
Fucking nasty. I shuddered.
The body didn’t smell like rotten flesh, but there was a sour herblike odor. I had no way of knowing how long this dude-who I presumed to be Harold War Bonnet-had been dead.
No wonder Sheldon kept his house locked up tight.
Why would he do this?
Some kind of loneliness?
No, Sheldon hadn’t struck me as the sentimental type, if mummifying your relative’s body could be considered sentimental.
