THOUGH FAINT, THE ODOR WAS UNMISTAKABLE. SWEET AND FETID, it heralded the presence of rotting flesh.

But this wasn’t the cloying, gut-churning smell with which I am so familiar. The reek of active putrefaction. Of innards ravaged by maggots and scavengers. Of flesh greened and bloated by water. No other stench can compete with that. It seeps into your pores, your nostrils, your lungs, your clothing, rides you home like smoke from a bar. Long after showering, it lingers in your hair, your mouth, your mind.

This was gentler. But still undeniable.

I hoped for a squirrel. Or a raccoon that had gnawed through a wall and become trapped in the basement. Recalling Larabee’s words, and Arlo’s agitation, I doubted either scenario was likely.

The temperature dropped with each downward tread. The dampness increased. By the time I reached bottom, the banister felt cool and slick to my palm.

Amber light seeped from a bulb dangling from a fuzzy overhead cord. Stepping onto hard-packed earth, I looked around.

Barely six feet high, the cellar had been divided into a number of small rooms arranged around a central open space. Plywood walls and prefab doors suggested partitioning had taken place long after the home’s construction.

Every door in my sight line was open. Through one I could see shallow shelving, the kind used to store home-canned jam and tomatoes. Washtubs were visible through another. Stacked boxes through another.

A Charlotte-Mecklenburg uniform waited at the far end of the cellar, past a furnace that looked like a Jules Verne contraption. Unlike the other three, the door at his back looked old. The oak was solid, the varnish thick and yellowed with age.

The cop stood with feet spread, thumbs hooking his belt. He was a compact man with Beau Bridges brows and Sean Penn features, not a good combination. Drawing close, I could read the plaque on his shirt. D. Gleason.

“What have we got?” I asked, after introducing myself.

“You met the plumber?” Gleason lowered the volume on a speaker mike clipped to his left shoulder.

I nodded.

“Around sixteen hundred hours, Welton phoned in a nine-one-one. Said he’d found dead people in a crawl space. I caught the call, spotted remains which I believed to be human. Reported in. Desk told me to stay put. I told Welton to do the same.”

I liked Gleason. He was concise.

“You go belowdecks?”

“No, ma’am.” A second bulb hung in the room at Gleason’s back. The angled light falling through the door threw shadows from his brows and carved his already too chiseled features deep into his flesh.

“The ME said you suspected more than one body.”

Gleason waggled a hand. Maybe yes, maybe no.

“Anything down here I should know about?”

I was remembering a pizza parlor basement in Montreal. Detective Luc Claudel had pegged rats while I’d dug bones. I pictured him underground in his cashmere coat and Gucci gloves, almost smiled. Almost. The bones had turned out to be those of adolescent girls.

Gleason misinterpreted my question. “Appears to be some sort of voodoo thing. But that’s your call, doc.”

Right answer. Skeletons often appear sinister to the uninitiated. Even gleaming white anatomical specimens. The thought lifted my spirits. Maybe that’s what this would turn out to be. A fake skull long forgotten in a cellar.

I flashed again on the pizza parlor case. The initial concern there had been PMI. Postmortem interval. How long since death? Ten years? Fifty? A hundred and fifty?

Another hopeful scenario. Perhaps the skull would turn out to be an ancient head pilfered from an archaeological site.

Lab models and relics don’t smell of rot.

“Fair enough,” I said to Gleason. “But I was wondering about rats, snakes?”

“So far, no company. I’ll watch for party crashers.”

“Much appreciated.”

I followed Gleason through the doorway into a windowless room measuring about ten by twelve. Two brick walls appeared to be exterior, part of the original foundation. Two were interior. Workbenches pressed against those walls.

I did a quick scan of the jumbled contents atop the tables. Rusty tools. Boxes of nails, screws, washers. Coiled wire. Chain linking. A vise.

Large rolls of textured gray plastic lay below the workbenches. Dirt coated the underside of each.

“What’s with the plastic?”

“G-floor.”

I cocked a questioning brow.

“Rollout vinyl floor covering. I installed it in my garage last year. Normally, the stuff’s secured with adhesive and seaming strips. Here it was just spread over the dirt and a hatchway.”

“Welton rolled it and set it aside.”

“That’s his story.”

Save for the workbenches and the vinyl flooring, the room was empty.

“Opening is over here.” Gleason led me to the corner at which the exterior walls met.

A one-by-two-foot breach was evident at roughly shoulder level in the easternmost wall. Jagged edges and a marked color difference attested to the brevity of the opening’s existence. Shattered brick and plaster littered the floor below. Welton had broken through to the plumbing at that location.

Through the gap I could see labyrinthine piping. On the ground, just out from the rubble, gaped a black rectangle, partially covered by a battered hatch of wood planks.

Setting my kit to one side, I peered down into the blackness. It yielded no clue of what lay below.

“How far to the bottom?”

“Twelve, fifteen feet. Probably an old root cellar. Some of these houses still have them.”

I felt the familiar crawly sensation. The tightness in my chest.

Easy, Brennan.

“Why so deep?” I asked, forcing my voice calm.

Gleason shrugged. “Warm climate, no refrigeration.”

Opening my kit, I unfolded and stepped into coveralls. Then I settled on my stomach, face over the hole.

Gleason handed me his flash. The shaft danced down makeshift wooden steps whose angle of descent was precariously steep, more a ladder than a stairway.

“Stuff’s over by the east wall.”

I shot the beam in that direction. It picked out rusted metal, flecks of red, yellow. Something ghostly pale, like cadaver flesh. Then I saw it.

The skull rested on some sort of short, round pedestal, lower jaw missing, forehead strangely mottled in the small oval of light. An object was centered on top of the cranial vault.

I stared. The empty orbits stared back. The teeth grinned, as though daring me to approach.

Pushing to all fours, I sat back and brushed dirt from my chest and arms. “I’ll take a few shots, then we’ll remove the plank and I’ll go down.”

“Those treads appear to have some years on them. How about I test to see if they’re safe?”

“I’d prefer you stay topside, lower equipment as I need it.”

“You got it.”

The click of my shutter. The skitter of dirt cascading from the undersurface of the hatch cover. Each sound seemed magnified in the absolute stillness of the cellar. Irrationally, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the hush was ominous.

After gloving, I shoved my Maglite into my waistband. Then I tested the first riser. Solid enough. Turning my face toward the steps, I gripped the banister with one hand and clutched the risers with the other as I descended.

The air grew dank. The odor of death strengthened. And my nose began picking up ribbons of other things, olfactory hints more than solid smells. Impressions of urine, sour milk, decaying fabric.

Six rungs down, almost no light penetrated from above. I paused, allowing my pupils to adjust. Allowing my nerves to come to grips with their environment. The tunnel I was descending through was two feet square, damp, and smelly.

My heart was banging now. My throat felt constricted.

There you have it. Brennan, the legendary tunnel rat, was claustrophobic.

Breathe.

Death-gripping the side rails, I descended four more steps. My head cleared the tunnel into a larger space. As I moved to the fifth, a sliver pierced the latex sheathing my left palm. My hand jerked reflexively.

More self-coaching.

Calm.

Breathe.

Two more rungs.

Breathe.

My toe touched solid ground with an odd little click. Gingerly, I explored behind me with my foot. Found nothing.

I stepped from the stairs. Closed my eyes, a reflex to stem the pounding adrenaline. Pointless. It was pitch black.

Releasing the banister, I flicked on my flash, turned, and swept the beam above and around me.

I was standing in an eight-foot cube whose walls and ceiling were reinforced by rough wooden beams. The dirt floor was covered with the same rollout vinyl that had been used overhead.

The action was off to my right. Cautiously, I edged in that direction, beam probing the shadows.

Cauldrons, one large, one small. Rusty saucepan. Plywood. Tools. Statues. Candles. Beads and antlers suspended overhead.

Gleason had called it correctly. The chamber housed some sort of ritualistic display.

The large cauldron appeared to be the focal point, with the rest of the paraphernalia fanning out from it. Stepping over a semicircle of candles, I pointed my light toward center stage.

The cauldron was iron and filled with dirt. A macabre pyramid rose from its center.

An animal cranium formed the base. Judging by shape, and by what I could see of the teeth, I guessed it came from a small ruminant, maybe a goat or sheep. Remnants of desiccated tissue lined the orbits and orifices.

Centered on the ruminant was the human skull that had so frightened the plumber. The bone was smooth and fleshless. The vault and forehead were oddly luminescent, and darkened by an irregular stain. A stain the exact red-brown of dried blood.

A small avian skull topped the human cabeza. It, too, retained scraps of dried skin and muscle.

I angled my beam to the floor.

Positioned at the cauldron’s base was what looked like a section of railroad track. On the track lay a decapitated and partially decomposed chicken.

The source of the odor.

I inched my light left to the saucepan. Three hemispheric objects took shape. I bent for a closer look.

One turtle carapace. Two halves of a coconut shell.

Straightening, I sidestepped right past the large cauldron to the smaller. It, too, was soil packed. On the soil surface lay three railroad spikes, an antler, and two strands of yellow beads. A knife had been thrust into the fill to the depth of its handle.

A chain wrapped the cauldron’s exterior, just below the rim. A machete leaned against its left side. A sheet of plywood was propped against its right.

I moved to the plywood and squatted. Symbols covered the surface, executed, I suspected, with black Magic Marker.

Next in the row was a cheap plaster statue. The woman wore a long white gown, red cape, and crown. One hand held a chalice, the other a sword. Beside her was a miniature castle or tower.

I tried to recall the Catholic icons of my youth. Some manifestation of the Virgin Mary? A saint? Though the visage was vaguely familiar, I couldn’t ID the lady.

Shoulder to shoulder with the statue stood a carved wooden effigy with two faces pointing in opposite directions. Roughly twelve inches tall, the humanoid figure had long, slender limbs, a potbelly, and a penis upright and locked.

Definitely not the Virgin, I thought.

Last in line were two dolls in layer-cake ruffled gingham dresses, one yellow, one blue. Both dolls were female and black. Both wore bracelets, hoop earrings, and medallions on neck chains. Blue sported a crown. Yellow had a kerchief covering her hair.

And a miniature sword piercing her chest.

I’d seen enough.

The skull was not plastic. Human remains were present. The chicken hadn’t been dead long.

Perhaps the rituals performed at the altar were harmless. Perhaps not. To be certain, proper recovery protocol had to be followed. Lights. Cameras. Chain-of-custody documentation to ensure possession could be proved every step of the way.

I headed to the stairs. Two treads up I heard a noise and raised my eyes. A face was peering down through the opening.

It was not a face I wanted to see.