Page 27 of Ground Truth

When the opening was wide enough, Scarlett rolled through.

Flint waited until she’d pulled into one of the half-dozen empty spaces out front. She slid the transmission into park.

“Want me to come in with you?” she asked. “Or I can wait here. Whatever you want.”

“You can come in. This is not some big emotional journey. We won’t be taking a coffin with us now,” Flint replied as he opened the door and stepped out onto the pulsing hot tarmac.

Scarlett shut the engine down and followed. At the front entrance, he opened the door and they stepped into weakly cooled air. He imagined the heat from the ovens in the back made cooling the place impossible during Houston’s oppressively muggy summers.

Flint scanned the lobby quickly. There was money to be made in the funeral business, but Frazier’s didn’t seem to be anywhere near the top of the revenue chain.

The small room was ten-by-ten and matched the age and practical design of the building’s exterior. The cheap tile on the floor was cracked and yellowed. Faded paneling halfway up the walls. The top half was cement block painted gray which had probably been white when it was applied sometime last century.

An abandoned metal desk and a metal chair with cracked green vinyl padding on the seat occupied one corner of the room. Both were probably bought cheaply from government surplus at least two dozen years ago. Maybe longer.

“This place looks cheerful,” Scarlett deadpanned, pushing her sunglasses onto her head. “Good thing their customers can’t complain.”

Flint grinned at the gallows humor but said nothing.

The doorway to the back of the building opened. A stout man with a fringe of red hair running around his head from ear to ear and a full red beard came through, wiping first his head and then his hands with a brown paper towel.

“How can I help you folks?” he asked with a Louisiana accent. Houston wasn’t far from New Orleans, so the accent wasn’t uncommon around here.

Scarlett said, “We understand you’re holding a body for us. The decedent’s name is Marilyn Baker. Her remains were exhumed as part of the Mount Warren Interstate bypass project.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” The man stuffed the soggy paper towel ball into his pocket and pulled a clipboard out of the top desk drawer.

He ran his finger down the page, flipped to the next page, and then the next, and finally stopped about halfway down.

“Marilyn Baker. Found it.” He looked up, still holding his place on the page. “Are you wanting to have the remains interred somewhere? We don’t do that work here. You’ll need to get yourselves a mortician to arrange everything for you with the cemetery.”

“We’d like to see her,” Flint said before Scarlett could reply.

The man looked uncomfortable and stammered slightly when he said, “If I’m honest, there’s not really anything you’d want to see. The body had been down there a long time. More than thirty years, according to the plot map. Mostly, she’s just bones now.”

“We understand but we’d like to see her,” Flint said again, nodding. “What’s your name?”

“Nick. And we can’t take you in the back. State law,” he said, looking down, beads of sweat popping out on his bald head.

“Bring her out here, then, Nick,” Flint replied. “We’ll wait.”

“Look, I’ll be honest. What we have is a cardboard box with some bones and a bit of dirt. The coffin was just a pine box and it deteriorated to nothing, so we left it out there,” Nick said apologetically, refusing to meet Flint’s gaze.

“Yeah, that’s about what we expected. Can you just give me the box? I’ll sign for it,” Flint replied.

Nick looked up, eyes wide. “No. I mean, we can’t do that. We’d lose our license.”

“Look, Nick”—Scarlett moved closer and lowered her voice—“we promise we’d never tell.”

“No. I’m sorry. Can’t do it.” He shook his head. “But I can put a hold on her cremation for you while you get a court order. Would that help?”

“Not much. But if that’s the best you can do.” Flint shrugged when Nick shook his head vigorously. “I’d still like to see the remains before we leave.”

“Okay, you wait here—”

“Nope,” Flint said, shaking his head. “I want to see how you’ve complied with chain of custody. I’m only interested in Marilyn Baker’s remains. I need to be sure that what you have is really her.”

“All I can say is that the remains were delivered here in a box with a metal ID tag saying it’s Marilyn Baker. I can’t vouch for what happened before the remains reached our receiving dock,” Nick said, aggrieved. “These days, families can have DNA testing done on the deceased before and after cremation to be sure we’ve returned the correct body. But that’s a relatively new thing. You could do it now, though. On Ms. Baker’s bones and teeth.”

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