Digger - The Doctor Will See You Now by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 17

Walking from the grave, Ryan started toward his car. He felt his sense of purpose return with a confidence he had not possessed since before his dismissal from UNE. He drove the forty-five minutes back to Sebago knowing what he needed to continue his studies. The problem was how to get it, and there were so many details to consider. But Ryan had the luxury of time, and upon returning to his cabin, he began writing a list of everything he would need in order to carry out his work. There were many things he could purchase on the Internet. But others would have to be sought locally at antique stores, flea markets and yard sales. These items would include such things as sheet metal scissors, duct tape, tarps and a few woodworking tools. The items he would order would be sent to his post office box in downtown Portland. He rented it months ago in an added attempt to maintain his privacy.

It took nearly three weeks to collect everything he needed, and Ryan chose the basement as the ideal place to work. There were no windows, and the ceiling was a full six feet high. He bought an old wooden table and set it under the basement’s only light, mounted several feet to the right of the stairs. Purchasing more supplies from the Home Depot store in Portland, Ryan spent several hours reinforcing the table for the weight of an adult body. The floor above the basement had been constructed with several six-inch beams, and upon closer inspection, he came to believe that they could easily hold one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds each. Next, something to put all his instruments and tools in. He considered a chest of drawers, but he needed to see everything at a glance. So instead, he bought a pair of china cabinets. Their glass doors were perfect for quickly locating what he needed.

It was another week until everything was ready. Now, Ryan had to determine where his ‘academic resources’ would come from. He considered Evergreen Cemetery. But they had a policy that caskets needed to be placed in concrete vaults. This was done to keep body fluids and embalming chemicals from leaching out into the surrounding soil, into the water table, and the cemetery was in a heavily residential area. But there was another place near the airport. It was out of the way and didn’t have the same burial policies as Evergreen. This was where he would begin. Not wanting to make too much use of any one cemetery, Ryan did some online research, looking for cemeteries that were fairly isolated and still held more liberal burial policies. He found roughly a dozen within twenty miles of Portland and would drive out to each of them during visiting hours. He wanted to see how big they were, how far from the roads they were, and which graves appeared to be sunken. Without a vault, the casket eventually begins to degrade, allowing the surrounding soil to creep in. But this process takes a great deal of time, and Ryan was looking for new graves. And if one grave was without a vault, chances are there would be others. In order to distinguish one from the other, Ryan would also need a long, thin copper rod. He would use it as a probe, learning to feel the difference between wood and stone, and everything needed to be done under the cover of night.