The Stirlings and the Missing Statue

Chapter Eleven: Dig Like the Devil in the Pale Moonlight

He was getting soft. Or at least he was thinking too much of human life, as of late. His first grave robbery in a decade and he didn't so much as need to render a person unconscious to do it. And no one died? Soft. He knew that he didn't need to kill—he wasn't a psychopath—but he did feel odd that he got something he wanted and there was no blood to wash off his hands. Like a checklist that was incomplete. The old man walking around through the graveyard like he already had one foot in the grave had been helpful without meaning to be, and hadn't asked too many questions. Excepting the car's ridiculous appearance and the white attire he'd chosen to wear, it was entirely possible that the man had forgotten about him. When he found the grave of Aurelio Reyes González had been disturbed, he might be inclined to raise the alarm, but Mr. Steach hoped to be gone or possibly on a flight back to Europe by then.
Just to fulfill some kind of requirement of the persona he'd built for himself, he used the tools he'd acquired from the unlocked shed belonging to a small farmhouse a few miles from the church to topple over the crumbling cross that marked María (something-something)'s grave. It wasn't exactly killing a man, but he was sure that it would hurt the old man's feelings. If he didn't have the opportunity or need to kill, that was, he supposed, the next best thing.
In true villain form and by cover of night and dressed all in black, hot and sweating, he returned to the graveyard that evening and found it totally deserted. The gates were broken and couldn't have been closed if anyone cared to try, and the walls around the graveyard were so low, Mr. Steach could practically step over them without effort. He'd brought the acquired tools and kept his torch—flashlight—turned off until he was sure he'd dug deeply enough that the light wouldn't be seen.
As he toiled that night in the graveyard, his thoughts traveled back to the childish attendant on the plane who'd assumed him ignorant in his choice of gin and preference for no physical contact. His wiry muscles, untrained with almost no physical exercise (if he could help it), struggled to maintain an even stride of pushes against the spade's head and the lifting of loose dirt out of the growing hole was causing him to tire rapidly. Could the attendant see him at that moment, his hair slicked with sweat and the determination on his features only adding menace to his overall appearance, she'd likely have laughed at his pitifulness.
Even with the ability to use an accent from any dialect of English, the fine clothes he'd acquired (legally, in most cases) from high-end shops in luxury markets across the globe, and the multiple extravagant homes that exhibited his great wealth, Mr. Steach knew that there was hardly ever a second glance at his appearance or a longing by anyone for a casual dalliance. His persona oozed suavity and while his features were not unkind or grotesque he lacked the charm and chivalry in terms of attractive qualities.
He stopped, mid-swing with a spadeful of grave dirt and chided himself silently for his unexpected obsession over a fleeting encounter with the flight attendant. He rarely understood any person's emotions and his own were no exception. But to allow the interaction to invade his casual thoughts when they should be trained on both the task at hand and the future plan—that was completely unlike him.
He shook off the thoughts and the grave dirt that had fallen off of the spade and onto his now filthy ensemble and turned his mind back to the plan. Perhaps killing the old man would make him feel better. More focused. But then that would require waiting around for the old man's return or hunting the man down and further upsetting his plan.
"No," he told himself. No one was there to listen anyway and the sounds of his grave robbing were louder than his whispered self-scolding.
He dug further, pulling dirt from Aurelio's grave in large clumps, the earth still damp and cold the deeper he carved. Focusing his mind, he recited the names of all the places he'd robbed of fine treasures in order from oldest to most recent: Leon, Perth, Quebec, St. John's, Hamburg, Amalfi, Johannesburg, Hershey, Sapporo, Glasgow, Oxford. He'd left out the cities in which he'd found his mark, but which he did not consider being a treasure so fine. He'd never considered a job in Central or South America and had always stayed far from the enticing cities of Spain, so as not to insult his heritage, but soon, he would add Oaxaca to his list. Perhaps to most, a simple bronze statue and, if he was truly lucky, the painting of it, was of no value, but the rarity of the items was enough to warrant his attention. Coupled with the idea of debunking a local legend or two, the fine treasures he hoped to acquire soon made Steach's mouth water..
As the spade dipped another time into the old dirt, he found his mark this time with the thunk of metal against wood. It made a strange squeaking sound, the wood rotten and soft from age and decay, and Mr. Steach reached for the torch where he'd left it to the side of the hole. He'd ignored the odor until this point, the smell of earth heavy with the remains of hundreds, but a waft of formerly trapped air filled the hole he'd dug. Images of desiccated corpses, maggot filled cavities, and oozing fluids ensnared his mind with just one whiff of Aurelio's death-scent. Mr. Steach held his breath for a moment and let it out with one burst. A vapor cloud emerged from him and played in the light of the torch.
He was never there for this part, the result of death. Death was so common to him now that he had even considered killing the graveyard keeper just because it felt right, but the stench of this rot was nothing he considered common or comfortable. Finding his treasures was never easy—that was exactly why he hunted them—but when it had been clear that a crucial clue was trapped in the earth with the bones of a forgotten artist, Mr. Steach had nearly given into his reservations.
Stifling a retch behind a cough, he used the spade to crack a hole in the top of the exposed casket and shoved the loose clumps of dirt away from the opening. Below it, his stretched and dry skin still clinging to parts of bone, Aurelio smiled at him with crooked, broken teeth. Mr. Steach had calculated his digging perfectly, finding the head of the casket and therefore the point of his late-night search: the golden chain just under Aurelio's jaw glinted in the torchlight.
"Thank you, good lad," Mr. Steach said absently, in English. He nearly corrected himself and translated for the late Mr. González, but he scoffed and reached for the chain instead.
Aurelio hadn't been an old man upon his death, but the cause of death was evident on his bones—the fragments and pits in the skull alone pointed to some degenerative disease. Mr. Steach had some idea of this beforehand, of course, but in his fervor to take the chain, he forgot. The fragile bones of the diseased man came apart easily and more than one of the vertebrae crumbled to dust. The chain, fully intact, came away with a piece of poor Aurelio's neck and dangled from Mr. Steach's fingers like an impressive craftwork of gruesome design.
Steach held the chain in his dominant hand and the torch in the other and at once, tried to shake loose the caught bone. It slipped away, finally, revealing the only other (intentional) bauble attached to the gold. The large brass key was tarnished and dull in the light. But it may as well have shined like the sun for how beautiful it was to Mr. Steach.