Carved in Bone

Jasper,” I said, “did you happen to see what direction he came from when he brought either skull home?”
    “Nope. Wish I had. Like I told Miss Angie here, way it happened was, I sleeping in the bed. It was right about daybreak.”
    “Excuse me,” I interrupted, “was that the first time, or this time?”
    “It was both times. Jasper, he’s kind of a night owl. Likes to roam around while I’m asleep. So there I am, sleeping like a baby, and Jasper jumps up in the bed with me. He mostly just does that if there’s a thunderstorm, ’cause he’s scared of thunder. But sometimes he does it if he’s real pleased with himself. So anyhow, there I am, dreaming about something or other, and I feel Jasper curl up beside me, and he’s slurping and gnawing on something that keeps bumping me in the leg. First time it happened, I ’bout jumped out of my skin when I saw what it was. Second time, I just said, 'dammit, dog’–'scuse my language, ma’am–'you have got to quit doing this.’”
    # # #
    Where should we begin? What were we searching for, and how hard should we search? Did the two skulls come from the grounds of the school? If so, were they victims of the fire that destroyed the place in the 1960s? Or was there another, darker story?
    Those and a hundred other questions spun through my mind as the black Suburban hummed northwest toward Bremerton County, taking Angie, Vickery and me toward what had once been the North Florida Boys’ Reformatory.
    U.S. 90 almost, but not quite, managed to dodge Bremerton County altogether. As it was, the highway cut through such a small corner of it that even as I passed a faded sign announcing “Bremerton County,” I glimpsed another, a hundred yards ahead, reading “Miccosukee County.” Midway between the two signs, a two-lane county highway intersected 90, and Angie slowed the Suburban.
    “Turn left,” Vickery instructed.
    Angie made the turn. A mile down the empty road, she glanced at Vickery. “You’re sure that was it?”
    “Pretty sure. Unless our Miccosukee County agent is having some fun with us. I asked him how to get to the old reform school from highway 90 in Apalachee County. He had no idea–he’s only been assigned here about six months–but he checked with the sheriff’s dispatcher, and she said to turn right there where we just turned.”
    “Wait.” Angie took her foot off the gas. “We were supposed to turn right there?”
    “No. Left there. Right there . Exactly there.”
    I laughed. “Are you two secretly married?”
    “Good god, no,” exclaimed Angie.
    “Hey,” Vickery squawked, “you don’t have to sound so horrified. Some women have actually liked the idea of being married to me. You know. Briefly.”
    Angie chortled. “Stu’s left a string of broken hearts and wealthy divorce lawyers in his wake.”
    “Only three,” he said. “So far. But I’m starting to look for future ex-wife number four.”
    A few miles farther, we came up behind a sheriff’s cruiser, its blue lights flashing, tucked on the shoulder behind a black Ford pickup. “That’s Stevenson in the F-150,” said Vickery. “I’ll tell him we’re here.” He sent a quick text from his cell phone, and the truck began easing forward. The cruiser whipped around it, then turned right. The truck followed, and Angie fell in behind them. The pavement was cracked and buckled, knee-high with weeds in places. Fifty yards off the highway, a rusted chain was stretched across the road between rusted steel posts. We stopped, and a big-bellied deputy got out and inspected the chain and the padlock. He leaned back into his car and took out the radio microphone; after a brief exchange, he got off the radio and popped the trunk of the cruiser. Leaning in, he rummaged around, emerging with a bolt-cutter whose handles were as long as my arm. He spread them wide and nibbled at the lock with the jaws; the chain clanked to the weedy pavement.
    A half-mile farther in the pavement ended in a loop, and we eased to a stop in front of four tall, widely spaced columns of Virginia creeper. At the tops of the four tangles of vines, I glimpsed a few crumbling courses of chimney bricks and–perched on one of these–a glossy crow, who cawed indignantly and flapped to a nearby pine tree as the five humans emerged from the vehicles.
    Vickery introduced Angie and me to Stevenson, the young FDLE agent; Stevenson, in turn, introduced the Bremerton County deputy, Officer Raiford, who studied