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to do next.”
    “You call the cops.”
    “But they will want to know why I was digging. Such labor is not something a gentleman does. They’ll hardly be satisfied that I was planning to build a guest house and doing the work myself.”
    “Then give them the evil-eye whammy and make them accept it.”
    “The what? ”
    “Hypnotize ’em.”
    “It won’t last and you know it. There will be an investigation, gossip, and heaven knows what else. They could connect it to Maureen’s funeral and take it straight back to Emily and Laura—I want to live here. I can’t do that in peace if a pack of sensation-seekers start tramping over the property poking into my business. What if one of them breaks into my room during the day and finds me?”
    I waved the flashlight beam toward the hole. “The rest of him is still down there?”
    “He is.”
    “Then you put his foot back and bury him again.”
    He looked ready to spit with outrage. “An unmarked, unsanctified grave? That’s indecent!”
    “Then call the cops. You can whammy them into not talking to the press.”
    “No. I won’t risk it.”
    “Sounds like you didn’t need my advice after all.”
    Barrett snarled something while I looked down into the pit. I sniffed, catching the stink again. There was more down there, all right. “What?”
    “I said, you could help me find out who this poor devil is and how he came to be here.”
    Which was exactly what I did not want to do. “You’re kidding.”
    “You’ve more experience at this sort of thing than I.”
    He had me there. “Have you told Escott?”
    “This is not a subject one should mention in a telegram, and I don’t want to risk a letter. Once a tale is in writing, all sorts of mischief can ensue. Telephoning is out of the question; the long-distance operator might hear something she shouldn’t.”
    Too right. “Why didn’t you say something sooner about this?”
    “It would have been inappropriate. Seeing to Maureen was more important.”
    An old-fashioned guy with old-fashioned manners. They must have their uses.
    “Will you help me, Mr. Fleming? Please?”
    I wanted to say no, but knew Maureen wouldn’t have liked it. Besides, he’d said the magic word. “Okay, but only up to a point.”
    “What point?”
    “I’ll let you know when I reach it.”
     
    * * * * * * *
     
    * * * * * * *
     
    I’d been careful to not ask about or to imagine how Barrett had taken Maureen from that miserable hole. Unfortunately I found out firsthand as we spent the next few hours digging out the rest of body belonging to that detached foot.
    I’ll skip the details.
    We put the muddy, decomposed remains on the tarp in six pieces: legs (one with the foot still attached), trunk, arms, head, all of which were in gruesome condition and stinking despite the cold. Barrett and I had to inhale to talk, so we didn’t say much. I was positive I’d never get the stench out of my nostrils.
    Back when I was a reporter I’d seen my share of bodies, but had never been part of the actual recovery. A body this far gone didn’t get a picture in the paper, not the rag I’d worked for, anyway. I’d never covered a story about one this bad.
    Cops and reporters tend to ask the same questions, the first having to do with identity: who was this guy?
    I had on borrowed work clothes and gloves, which didn’t make going through the pockets an easy task. I found loose change and nothing else. His wallet and the other things a man usually carries were gone.
    He had no coat; we’d not found a hat or any other belongings. His shirt and summer weight trousers looked to be as expensive as his handmade shoes, but the labels had been cut away, which was significant. Barrett wanted to know why.
    Backing well upwind from the corpse I breathed in cleaner air to talk. God, I could taste the stink. I hawked and spat. It didn’t help.
    “Labels are a trail straight to a tailor, who might be able to identify the man,” I