“Where did you find them?” Diana asked.
“Up on the parkway, on the trail at Black Balsam. That’s about as close to Cold Mountain as I can get with my leg the way it is. I saw the keys lying on the ground.”
I didn’t want to tell Diana that I’d actually stepped a few yards off the trail to take a leak and found the keys sitting under a bush.
“One of the keys fits a red BMW 2002,” I said. “Dale and I found the car parked at Graveyard Fields. There were a couple of Long Branch stickers on the bumper. Do you know who drives that car?”
Diana shook her head.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” I said. “The keys are lost again anyway. I gave them to the sheriff’s department, but they’ve misplaced them.”
Diana continued to pack up the food, and I thought about telling her of my adventures with the keys. I wondered how much she’d seen on the legal pad. Probably not much, I thought. If she’d seen the part about me being shot at, she would surely have asked. I wanted to get Diana back to the couch but didn’t think another story about me stumbling into a shooting was the way to do it.
As I was trying to come up with a new conversation starter, Diana reached for her jacket. I limped over and grabbed her hand.
“Don’t go yet,” I said. “I can make some coffee. It’s instant, but it’s really not that bad.”
Diana grinned but didn’t answer. She suddenly looked tired. I didn’t blame her. The woman had thought she was going to share an evening with a writer and beer aficionado, and instead she’d wandered into a therapy session.
She hesitated for a moment, then slid past me and grabbed a fresh beer out of the refrigerator.
“That’s the spirit,” I said.
* * *
When Diana resumed her place on the couch, I sat down next to her. Who was I kidding? Like Dale, I was the cat, not the string.
“Let’s not talk about Perry,” I said. “At least not any more tonight. I’m still trying to process the whole thing.”
Diana nodded but seemed distracted. It was as if a cold front had blown through the cabin. She didn’t want to be on that couch, it was obvious. I wasn’t boyfriend material; I was a project. A fixer-upper that was probably not worth the time or effort. She was just being kind and trying to come up with a way to let me down easy.
As I waited for the hammer to fall, I noticed a blue glow illuminating the trees just past the deck. I walked over to the sliding glass door to get a better look.
I was about to step outside when I heard someone yell my name from back in the kitchen. When I turned around, Dale stormed into the living room. His fingers were clenched tight around the grip of his service weapon, and his face looked as if someone had just told him that Carla and I were dating.
Dale glanced at Diana for a second, then focused his glare back on me.
“What’s going on?” I said. “Why are you holding your—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he yelled.
He grabbed my elbow and pulled me across the living room and into the kitchen. It then occurred to me what he might be doing.
“Is this some kind of plan to impress Daiquiri?” I said. “Act tough in front of Diana so she’ll go back and tell Daiquiri what a badass you are?”
Dale shoved me up against the refrigerator and leaned in close. His mouth was full of tobacco, and I wondered how long he could go before having to spit.
“Tell me everything,” Dale said. “Tell me everything, or I swear to god I’ll haul your lyin’ ass in right now.”
I tried to push Dale off me, but it would have been easier to move the refrigerator.
“What are you talking about?”
“Cordell,” Dale screamed, spraying a mist of tobacco juice over my face.
I glanced back toward the living room and wondered what Diana was thinking. When I looked back at Dale, his face was red as a bottle of hot sauce. I wondered what he was thinking as well.
“What’s gotten into you?” I said, as calmly as possible.
Dale snorted. “Where’d you find those keys?”
“What? I told you. I found them on a trail. At Black Balsam.”
Dale shook his head while I tried to wiggle out from between his belly and the refrigerator.
“Tell me the truth. Tell me everything you know about Cordell and them keys.”
“I don’t know any more than you know.”
“Davis, you’re about to be in a world of shit.” Dale’s words gurgled, like he was trying to talk to a dental hygienist while having his teeth cleaned.
“Go spit in the sink before you drown,” I said.
Dale leaned in closer. His breath was baiting my nausea.
“I’m on my way to the parkway right now,” Dale said. “A couple of campers found Cordell’s body up at Graveyard Fields. Looks like he died a few days ago. About the same time you came across them keys.”
I stared at Dale’s tobacco-stained lips, trying to wrap my head around the words that had just passed through them.
“He’s dead?” I said. “But why?”
“You tell me.”
I don’t know if it was Dale’s breath, the Mexican food, or the news about Cordell, but whatever caused it, the reaction came quick and I vomited a brown mess all over Dale’s chest.
“Goddamit, Davis!” Dale screamed, throwing his hands in the air and backing away as if I’d just pulled a knife on him. As he walked toward the sink, I bent over and puked again on the linoleum floor.
“For the love of fuck!” Dale yelled.
I leaned back against the refrigerator and took a few deep breaths. Across the kitchen Dale unbuttoned his uniform shirt and threw it in the sink. The white tank top he was wearing underneath was so threadbare it was nearly transparent. The material stretched against the mass of his stomach like plastic wrap over a plate of leftover mashed potatoes. On his bicep I could see the Lynyrd Skynyrd tattoo Floppy had mentioned.
As Dale washed my puke off his shirt, he turned and glared at me. Then he glanced to my right. I followed his gaze and saw Diana standing in the doorway leading to the living room. She was surveying the kitchen like it was a crime scene.
“Is everything okay?” she said.
Dale and I glanced at each other, then back at Diana.
“Yeah, sorry.” I said. “Everything’s fine. I just got a little sick.”
Diana stood still for a moment, then navigated around my vomit to the kitchen table.
“I should really get going,” she said.
Diana pulled her jacket over her shoulders and tiptoed toward the door. She was almost there when her feet flew out from under her. The next second she was flat on her back, the soles of her boots covered in what I guessed was once a chicken quesadilla.
“Holy fuck,” Dale yelled.
I reached down and helped Diana to her feet. I apologized constantly as I led her through the bedroom and into the bathroom to get cleaned up. In the bedroom I changed my shirt and wiped off my face with a dirty towel from the laundry basket, all the while knowing there would be no more ear nibbling tonight, or probably ever. When I returned to the kitchen, Dale was still standing at the sink washing out his shirt. He was seething.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I said.
Dale shook his head like he still wasn’t sure he could trust me.
“Tell me, goddammit.”
Dale wrung out his shirt and threw it back into the sink. Then he turned toward me and put his hands on his hips.
“Two campers found a body at Graveyard Fields,” Dale said. “One of the campers had gone off to take a shit and stumbled over something. Said he thought it was a log at first, but when he shined his flashlight at it, he saw it was a body. When they called 911, the dispatcher sent it through to the ranger station. Terry got the call and then rode down there to take a look—he thought they might be drunk and just fucking around. When he saw the body, he called the sheriff’s department to confirm it. Byrd and three other deputie
s are already up there. I should be up there too, but I needed to stop here and talk to you first.”
“How do you know it’s Cordell?” I asked.
“Because who else would have Cordell’s driver’s license on ’em?”
“Holy shit.”
“No shit, holy shit. Terry didn’t know no better than to not fuck around with the scene before Byrd got up there. When he saw the body, he looked for identification and found a wallet in the man’s back pocket—a Florida license issued to Lester Cordell. Terry said it looked like he’d been shot in the back of the head. But I don’t know if Terry’s ever seen a dead body before, so I ain’t taking his word on how the man was killed.”
“But why did you need to talk to me? I don’t know anything about this.”
“Because it’s a fuckin’ mess, that’s why. I’m gonna have to tell Byrd I know where Cordell lives because me and your dumb ass was there last night. I’m gonna have to tell him somebody took a few shots at you and I didn’t report it.”
“But you told some of the deputies we went up there. Skeeter knew about me crashing the bike into the ditch.”
“I didn’t tell anybody where we was. That weren’t nobody’s business. But now it’s Byrd’s business, and it’s a mess I don’t like being in.”
I felt another wave of nausea coming on.
“It gets worse,” I said. “When they find Cordell’s phone, your number is going to be in there. Remember? I called his number yesterday from your phone.”
Dale kicked the cabinet underneath the sink.
“Holy fucking shit, Davis. I’m neck-deep in this, and it’s all on account of you.”
“So what’s going to happen now?”
Dale held up his dripping uniform shirt and snorted.
“Well, dickhead, I’m going up to Graveyard Fields to tell Byrd the truth. Then, after Byrd chews my ass six ways from Sunday, he’s gonna come down here and talk to you. And your story better be the same as mine, ’cause if I find out you ain’t been straight with me, yours will be the next body found laying out in the woods.”
I sat down at the table and looked at the legal pad. My story would match Dale’s because it was the truth.
“I told you there was something fishy about those keys,” I said.
Dale spun around from the sink as if I’d smacked him on the back of his head. “Now you listen to me, Davis, and you listen good. Don’t you go telling Byrd any of your bullshit theories about them keys, or that dead hippie, or that asshole couple.”
I suddenly wanted to punch Dale in his fat, red face. “Oh, I get it. Byrd doesn’t need to know that I’m the one who’s thought something was off about this whole thing from the start. And that while I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on, you’ve been scratching your ass and trying to fuck anything that’ll fog a mirror.”
Dale leaned against the sink and crossed his arms over the top of his belly. “You know what? I don’t give a shit what you tell Byrd. If you lie to him, he’ll catch it. But I’m clean. I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. “
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see Diana standing in the bedroom doorway. I wondered how much of the conversation she’d heard.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Diana rubbed her hip.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “But I really do need to get going.”
“Miss, I’m sorry you had to hear me speak so offensively,” Dale said in his official voice. “The heat of the moment got to me, and I apologize.”
Listening to Dale’s bullshit made me feel like I might puke again.
Diana didn’t respond. She simply opened the door and vanished into the darkness.
Dale left a few minutes later after trying to dry his uniform shirt with a thirty-year-old hair dryer he pulled out from the cabinet under the bathroom sink. I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, then took a long hot shower and wondered if I would ever hear from Diana again. The angel whispered something about the importance of human connection and the value of honesty. The devils chanted Beer. Pills. Beer. Pills.
After the shower I changed into sweat pants and a T-shirt and wondered how long it would take before Byrd showed up to interrogate me. I also wondered if he would talk to me at the cabin or if he had enough suspicion to take me in to the station. I opened the medicine cabinet to get the last pill of the day, the one that would help me keep calm while being questioned by Byrd. But the pill bottle was gone.
That was going to be a big problem.
29
Without a pill or two to help me sleep, I tossed and turned until the first birds of the morning started chirping. I got out of bed and made some coffee, then sat down in front of the laptop. According to Facebook, I still had zero friends. Either Sarah, Dale, and Perry hadn’t logged on since I’d “friended” them, or they were ignoring me. The latter was more likely than the former.
I typed the name Diana into the search field and then paused. I couldn’t believe it. The woman had listened to me spill my guts, then watched me literally spill them. She was a woman I’d thought I could really connect with, a woman I’d hoped might save me from myself, yet I didn’t know her last name.
I clicked on the email icon to see if Perry had responded to my accusation. But the only new email was from an Indian pharmaceutical company trying to sell me discount hard-on pills. Diana had helped prove I didn’t need any chemical assistance in getting blood to flow to my dick. Getting it to flow to my brain was another matter entirely.
I was digging through the brewery’s Facebook page, trying to find Diana’s last name, when I heard a knock on the back door. I looked up and noticed Byrd and a deputy I’d not seen before staring at me through the panes of glass. I’d figured Byrd would bring at least one deputy with him, and I was glad it wasn’t Skeeter. I was glad it wasn’t Dale either.
During the night I’d thought about what Cordell’s death might mean and who was responsible. It was a good distraction from thinking about Perry or the fool I’d made of myself in front of Diana. Of course, the hipster couple were the prime suspects; they’d lied to me about being at Graveyard Fields, and they were actively searching for the keys. But on the other hand, why would you kill someone and then go to the sheriff’s department to collect their property? That would take balls the size of watermelons.
But maybe Cordell wasn’t yet dead when the couple came to the sheriff’s office. Maybe they confronted him later at Graveyard Fields and that’s when they killed him. Then they go to his house in Maggie Valley to collect something, or hide evidence, or who knows what. And that’s when I show up and announce my arrival by knocking over a few growlers. They think I’m onto them, so they start firing. And now they were probably long gone.
It was a decent theory, but it was full of holes. It didn’t explain what the keys opened or why they had been sitting under a bush near the parkway. It also didn’t explain the biggest question of all: why was Cordell murdered? I had thought of one possible answer to those questions, but it was too silly to consider with any seriousness.
Dale was right, I didn’t need to hassle Byrd with my theories. I just needed to tell the truth and let the sheriff’s department do their job.
When I opened the door, Byrd nodded. His eyes were droopier than usual and his uniform was wrinkled. I figured he’d spent the night up on the parkway.
“ ’Morning, Mr. Reed. I need to ask you a few questions.”
“I’m a little busy right now,” I said. “Maybe we could have lunch one day this week.”
Byrd’s hound-dog face dropped, and he turned slightly to the deputy at his side.
“Tommy, go wait in the car. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Tommy frowned at me, and I gave him a quick grin. As he walked away, Byrd and I looked deep into each other’s eyes. The man’s face gave nothing away, and I imagined sitting across a poker table from him, trying to figure out whether he had a straight flush or a pair of twos. I could tell he was trying to read
me as well. Was he looking into the eyes of a murderer or staring at a broke wannabe writer with a pill problem and an alcohol problem and an anger problem and a—
“Let me in, son,” Byrd finally said.
I gave my asshole routine a rest and stepped aside to let Byrd into the kitchen. He pulled out one of the chairs from the kitchen table and issued a small sigh of relief when he sat down.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a cup of coffee, would you?” Byrd asked.
Instead of answering, I walked over to the counter and grabbed the electric kettle. After I filled it with water and turned it on, I sat down at the table across from Byrd.
“It’s instant,” I said.
Byrd scoffed.
“With your palate for beer, I thought you would have one of those fancy Italian coffee machines,” he said. “I thought a man like you would be drinking espresso, and lattes, and those flavored coffees with the whipped cream on top.”
“I’m full of surprises, Sheriff.”
Byrd smirked and straightened himself in his chair.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“For what?” Byrd asked.
“I gave you the perfect segue. I say I’m full of surprises, and then you say, ‘Well, that’s actually the reason I’m here.’ And then we stop talking about coffee and get down to it.”
“You look very tired, son,” Byrd said.
I bit my lip and tried to stay calm. Without any pills, my rubber band was already stretched tight.
“Listen,” I said. “Before we get started, you’ve got to lay off this ‘son’ bullshit. You can call me Mr. Reed or Davis, or hell, you can be like Dale and call me dickhead or peckerhead, but I’m not your son, so don’t call me that again. Okay?”
Byrd didn’t respond, so I stood up and busied myself with the coffee. A minute later I placed two cups on the kitchen table and resumed my place across from the sheriff.
Byrd took a sip, made a face of dissatisfaction, then stared at me for a good fifteen seconds before speaking.
“You look very tired, son,” he said again.
Graveyard Fields Page 16
