Rick Noetzel

Maggie didn't find many bodies in her basement, but when she did she always called me. I wished she wouldn't but old habits died hard.

She was sitting on her back porch in a wooden rocker that had seen better days, better years. She wheezed when she stood up. Two hundred pounds and a lifetime of Marlboros will do that.

"You park down the street?" 

I'd made this drive for nearly thirty years and she asked every time. "Like always."

"Anybody follow you? This ain't a good neighborhood anymore."

"I got nothing anybody would want."

Maggie sniffed and went inside. I crossed the weather-beaten porch behind her. The boards complained, like their owner, but they held.

The rest of Maggie’s house was in the same shape as her porch. Built during Truman, it hadn’t seen fresh paint since Kennedy. The lawn was a quilt of waist-high weeds and bare dirt. Unless you knew Maggie – and nobody knew Maggie -- you'd swear the house had been empty for years.

"He's in the basement?" I stopped in the kitchen. Thick drapes hung across the windows and every lamp in the house was off. The only light came from three candles melting in saucers on the counter. "I’m assuming it's a 'he'." We'd had two women over the years and I can't say I liked that much.

"It's a man and he's down there."

I opened a narrow door in the corner. I pulled a metal chain that hung next to the frame and filled the stairs with murky yellow light. I half-expected Maggie to complain but I wasn’t going to do this with candles.

He was in the usual place: a metal bin beneath an old coal chute. A foot, wearing a bright red tennis shoe, stuck up in the air over the bin like a football player caught in mid-kick. 

I looked into the bin, dreading what I'd see. I'd had shootings, stabbings, and the occasional strangulation to deal with over the years. It wasn’t the blood that bothered me, but I didn't like guts. Once, a body had been dismembered and dumped down the chute in plastic trash bags. It would have been okay except one of the bags had burst. That was back in ’84 or ‘85, I thought. Long time ago and I still dreamed about him.

This guy had been shot and it wasn’t too bad. He had two bullet holes in the center of his shirt. They hadn't bled much, so he must’ve died pretty fast.

"Thank goodness for that," I said to myself. 

"You say something, Artie?" 

Maggie was at the top of the stairs. She won’t come down unless I ask her.

"Bring me the chart, would you?" If I have to be down here so does she.

I pulled the guy out of the bin and laid him on the floor. He had on a blue suit -- expensive and out of place with the sneakers. His eyes were open and he looked surprised to see me. A wallet was in his back pocket: a driver’s license protected behind plastic.

"Who is it?" Maggie was standing on the bottom step.

"Lester Carzone."

"Never heard of him."

I had. "He's been in the papers. Supposed to testify this week against the Garcano family."

"He ain't gonna be there."

"Do I call the cops? They’re going to be looking for this guy." I knew her answer already. 

"I don't want no cops here. I don't want nobody here. You know what happens if they find me."

"That was a long time ago, Maggie. We can turn ourselves in."

“They ain’t looking for you, Artie.”

I doubt anyone was still looking for her either.

“All those pictures of me from the bank cameras,” she continued. “All those newspaper articles, TV stories…”

“You didn’t kill anybody. Phil did that.”

“I was there when he started shooting, so the TV said I was just as guilty as him. Said you were too, even though you were out in the car.”

At least I was never identified, I thought. “You never fired your gun, so –“

"Murder's murder and that’s what they would have charged me with. You see me in prison?"

I see you in one all the time, I thought. You're already serving a life term in this dump.

“Besides,” she said, “how about you? You’d go to jail too.”

The whole discussion was moot and we both knew it. Neither of us would go to jail if we surrendered – the Garcanos would see to that. We’d end up buried in some other basement by some other Garcano debtor.

"Just asking," I said.

"Well, stop asking and start digging." She handed me a piece of paper.

It was a map I’d started in 1977 after the fourth body. I turned the paper to line up with my view of the basement. I walked to a place about ten feet from the back wall. "This is the next spot."

"I'm running out of room down here. Can't you bury them closer?"

"I could." But I wouldn't. I didn't want to be digging too close to the last one I buried. Like I said, I don't like guts.

I dug slowly, my back aching before I was two feet down. Fifty-eight might not sound too old, what with all the hundred-year olds in the news, but it sure feels ancient when you’re digging a grave.

Maggie sat at the far side of the basement and waited for me to finish. She brought me some iced tea once or twice, but mostly she just sat and watched.

When it was done, she put another box on the paper. "What was his name again?"

"Carzone. Lester Carzone." He wasn't the first Italian I'd buried. I'd planted a United Nation of bodies under this dirt over the years. Some of the names I'd recognized, some I hadn't. They all got treated the same.

I looked around. "Got room for another six or seven, I suppose."

"What then? Back to where we started?"

I looked toward the corner farthest from the stairs. "Over there."

She glanced at her chart. "James Hoffa, August 1975,” she read. “Think anyone's still looking for him?"

"Does it matter?" I said. "They're not looking here." I leaned the pick and shovel against the wall. "C'mon, Maggie. Your secret's safe for another year.” That was the deal she made with the Garcanos in 1975. They kept people away from this dump – and kept her hidden – and she handled one or two ‘deliveries’ each year. 

I stretched and groaned. The muscles protested when I pulled out the cramps. ”I need to use your shower."

“Got time for a cup of coffee? Maybe a piece of cake?”

I had all the time in the world. “Sounds good to me.” I turned off the lights behind me and followed her up the stairs.