Sunken Graves

by Alan Lee

“That’s not illegal. And maybe you shouldn’t. I’m putting my job at risk.”

  “I’m not letting you do it alone. Besides, I’m excited about it. I’m tired of pretending.”

  Officer Thornton parked at the police department on Cove Road and walked them back. It was after four and the day shift looked too tired to take interest in them.

  Thornton’s desk was in the bullpen with the others, mostly vacant. He shrugged out of his blue police jacket and dropped it over his chair. He didn’t have a place for them to sit.

  “I can take your statement in a conference room. You said it’s complicated?” said Thornton.

  “Peter Lynch vandalized my car and I think the department should reopen their investigation into him.”

  Jennings knew it was his imagination but he felt the room go still.

  Thornton clicked his pen twice. Slid it back into his shirt pocket.

  “Peter Lynch.”

  “The attorney. You know him?” said Jennings.

  “Know of him. Um.” He twisted to look back at the offices. “Wait here.”

  Thornton left and came back in a minute and beckoned with two fingers. He led them to a door with a Chief of Police plaque.

  Thornton spoke to the man in the office. “Chief, this is them. He says Peter Lynch vandalized his truck. Guys, Chief Gibbs.”

  Buck Gibbs was a blocky man pushing sixty-five, beyond the pseudo-mandatory retirement age but still strong. He was completely bald. He took off his reading glasses and dropped them on the records he’d been reading. He stood and said, “Thank you, Thornton. Come on in. Clean off those two chairs. Just set the files on the floor.”

  Jennings and Hathaway sat. Gibbs hooked a thumb under his belt and his other hand absently pressed against a spot on his hip, like it hurt.

  “Whose car got hit?”

  “Mine. A Tacoma.”

  “And you think Peter Lynch did it? Doesn’t seem the type,” said Gibbs.

  “Yessir. He’s taken an interest in me. In us.”

  “He’s done that before. What’s your name?”

  “Dan Jennings.”

  “Jennings. Kin to Dennis?”

  “My father.”

  “I knew him. Years ago, good man. This your wife, Dan?” said the chief and he smiled.

  “My colleague, Daisy Hathaway.”

  “Daniel and I work together and he needed a ride. I’m mentioned in the note.”

  “The note?”

  “Yes sir,” said Jennings. “Were you involved in the Kelly Carson investigation four years ago?”

  “I was the chief then, that answer your question?”

  “I think that case should be reopened.”

  Gibbs sat. He set his hands on the desk and held them up, demonstrating he held nothing. “There was no victim and no crime. Hard to have an investigation without those, Dan. Not that I wouldn’t like to nail Lynch to the wall.”

  Jennings found some courage—nail him to the wall. “There was a victim and crime but they were sealed behind a nondisclosure. And I know for a fact he has other victims.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I teach at the Academy. I teach his son Benji, who told me Peter beats him.”

  “We tried that last time. Both boys clammed up. Claimed their daddy never touches them.”

  “He told me different,” said Jennings. “Peter came to my classroom and threatened me. Soon after, he threw a brick through my window and trashed my truck.”

  Gibbs picked up his phone and punched two numbers. Into the receiver he said, “Thornton? Bring me that report on Dan Jennings’ truck soon as you finish,” and he hung up. “You know it was Lynch?”

  “The video surveillance is inconclusive. Looks like him. I’ll get it to you. But he left me a message.”

  “What kind?”

  “For one, a dead squirrel.”

  “God almighty. A dead squirrel?”

  Hathaway wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t tell me that part. Gross.”

  “And this.” Jennings laid the note on his desk. Gibbs didn’t touch it but he slid on his reading glasses. Scanned it. Glanced at them and back down.

  “Staff Sergeant?”

  “Yessir. I was in the military. Peter was fascinated by that.”

  “Military man like your father.” Gibbs pointed. “And you’re the…lonely and lovely Ms. Hathaway?”

  Daisy said, “Mr. Lynch calls me that, yes. He makes passes at me.”

  “What football game is this?”

  “Last Friday, in Salem. Ms. Hathaway and I were together.”

  “And Peter was there?”

  “Yessir.”

  Gibbs nodding. “Apparently watching. You two an item?”

  “No sir.”

  “Seems to think you are.”

  “Mr. Lynch is jealous of Daniel. He told me as much,” said Hathaway.

  “Can you fingerprint that?” Jennings nodded at the note.

  “Can and will. Who’s touched it?”

  “Only me. And only at the edges."

  “Sit tight.” Gibbs left the room. Came back wearing latex gloves and picked the note up by the corners.

  While they waited, a forensic tech came in and fingerprinted Jennings for comparison. The chief returned without the note.

  “We’ll know something in a sec.” He lowered into the chair and sighed. “Where’s the animal carcass?”

  “I threw it away.”

  “Got anything else for me to use?”

  “No sir. The rest is hearsay and it isn’t criminal.”

  “Let me hear it.”

  “I witnessed him buy off a parent to avoid a lawsuit and bad press. I know he bullies the school’s dean and he fires teachers and coaches he doesn’t like.”

  Gibbs leaned back in his chair and laid a hand on his bald head. The other hand went to his hip. “You’re right, Dan, that’s not criminal. We already know he’s an asshole. You might get him on workplace violations or civil infractions but he’s a helluva lawyer and it’d never see court.”

  “That’s what happened with Kelly Carson.”

  “I can’t talk much about that, Dan. But that was going to be an uphill battle for her, the poor girl.”

  Carson had been in and out of rehab. That’s what Gibbs meant—she wouldn’t be a reliable witness. Hard for a judge or jury to trust her.

  The chief said, “When they figured out some kind of settlement, the police were left with nothing. A bad feeling, let me tell you, investigating a man when the floor drops out. The victim, the evidence, and the crime vanish? That’s a hard day.”

  The tech returned and laid the note on the chief’s desk. Jennings could see powder residue on the surface.

  “It’s clean, Chief. Got a few partials but looks like they belong to Dan Jennings. Nothing else. No hairs. No fibers. The handwriting could be analyzed but it’s intentionally scrambled. We can run a GraphJ, if you want. I made photocopies.”

  Gibbs nodded and the man left.

  Jennings ground his teeth. He’d been banking on fingerprints.

  “No luck. Doesn’t mean he didn’t write it,” said Gibbs.

  “But I can’t prove it.”

  “And that’s the only way we score points.” The chief glanced at the clock on the wall. “Dan, Daisy, I have a meeting in five. Anything else you have, tell it to Officer Thornton.” They stood and Gibbs returned the note to Jennings. “Email me the videos, Dan. Anything else comes up, call the department. We’ll get this sonofabitch one of these days.”

  “He hits his kids, Chief."

  “I made a note. I’m talking to CPS before I leave, but that’ll be tough sledding. We know going in the boys won’t talk.” He picked up a file and walked them to the door. “Don’t go places alone. If you’re scared, call 911. If you see something, try to record it.”

  “I’m not giving up,” said Jennings.

  “Me neither, partner. This is what I do.”

  15

  Peter Lyn
ch had acquired much of an entire vale in the Blue Ridge Mountains nestled between two ranges along the border of Roanoke County and Craig County. He spent two years buying property on either side of Route 740 in Bennet Springs, and the next two building a luxury enclave on the thousand acres. Construction was ongoing, currently on a new stable near the outdoor shooting range he’d built for his boys. Behind the range, half a mile from the homestead, was a plot of land where no one went, warned off by signs, where the dark earth could be dug easily and secrets buried.

  Dusk came early inside the wide valley, but Peter’s daughter Ann insisted she keep flying her kite on the wide green between the old horse stable and the homestead. A November wind flowed north through the basin and held her rainbow diamond fluttering seventy feet in the air, the tail whipping, until she could barely see it.

  The wind played havoc with Peter Lynch’s hair. He smiled and watched Ann, one hand holding a cell phone to his ear. The reception was excellent—he’d erected a tower on the eastern rise.

  Into the phone, he said, “I don’t like calls this late, Jerry. You better get me horny.”

  Jerry, his office manager, his third office manager in six years, got him close.

  Medical malpractice litigation is expensive and tricky. The doctors have insurance companies with deep pockets for high-priced attorneys, making the life of a plaintiff’s lawyer hell. Peter Lynch steered clear for that reason and his office manager knew it. But this was a slam dunk, sure to max out at the cap of two and a half million. A beautiful mother was dead and a young doctor had killed her, lacerating her liver during a routine cholecystectomy and letting bilious toxins leak into her system. It’d never see trial—a jury would weep at her little children.

  Jerry wanted to pounce before some other greedy bastard got wind. He’d been hired in large part for his blood-thirst.

  Peter Lynch listened and strolled the green, watching his daughter as Jerry finished his pitch. Within his mind, numbers and financial damages fell like plinko discs into payday slots. Except for the discs that were intercepted by Daisy Hathaway. Daisy Hathaway and her mouth and her legs intercepted a lot recently. His knees went watery.

  “The case is good, Jerry,” he said. “But I don’t want it.”

  Through the phone, “You’re fucking with me?”

  “It’s juicy. But my mind is occupied with lovelier things.”

  “Our cut would be a million, Peter.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll give it to Keith. He can—”

  “Give it to someone else, Jerry, out of our camp, and you can spend your time wiping my ass instead. I don’t want it. We’ll take the standard referral fee. Do the math. That’ll keep you occupied with speed balls and whores for a month, Jerry.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Don’t…don’t tempt me, and don’t call again tonight.”

  Peter Lynch hung up. He took a deep breath to fill his great lungs and breathe out the hate. The hate had to be kept under tight wraps.

  The light in the barn extinguished and Homer Caldwell marched out. Homer was an exceedingly rare man—born with Mosaic Down Syndrome, he had grown tall and powerful instead of short; Homer was almost as tall as Lynch. He was Lynch’s full-time help at the enclave and he lived in his own three-room house behind the homestead. He was so grateful for the job and the house that he’d grown a beard in imitation of his benefactor.

  Lynch referred to him as his Giant Mongoloid.

  Homer watched the kite, delight on his face. He clapped for Ann and then strode with stooped shoulders into the dark to his house.

  Lynch also clapped for his daughter.

  “Bravo, Ann!”

  “See it, Daddy? It can stay up forever.” She pointed over her head.

  Lynch’s eyes left her and fixed on the headlights swiveling his way through the gloom. A car had turned off his enclave’s winding service road and onto his personal drive.

  “Let’s go in, Annie, it’s cold.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Ann—”

  “No Daddy, you said I could…”

  Lynch quit listening. He recognized the vehicle. A Ford F-150.

  The angry embers of Peter Lynch’s heart, always smoldering, were doused. Watching the truck, a thrill of fear and awe ran through him like a wave; he hadn’t seen his father in weeks. The risk of exposure was too high.

  Lynch walked to greet him but the truck roared by on the circular drive, parking closer to Ann. Hot red brake lights and the engine died.

  His father got out and greeted Ann, who warmly displayed her kite. He picked her up and they pointed together at the sky, stars emerging.

  Lynch waited his turn, hands in his pockets. He was patient for no man except his father, Buck Gibbs, the chief of Roanoke County police.

  Finished with his granddaughter, Chief Gibbs set her down and approached Lynch. Gibbs still wore his uniform and belt and police ball cap. From his jacket pocket he withdrew a photocopy of the note Dan Jennings had provided.

  Gibbs didn’t hug his son. He waved the note and smacked it against Lynch’s chest, crinkling the paper.

  Lynch flinched all over. He felt fear of no man except his father. “Hello, Chief.”

  “You fat idiot.”

  “I know.” Lynch nodding.

  “A squirrel?”

  “I know. I was angry.”

  “Your fingerprints were all over this note. I had to wipe it down.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You want to go to prison? Over that girl?” Gibbs, shorter than Lynch, had a way of growling and talking so that Lynch felt he was looking up. Still a scared boy.

  “You saw her?”

  “Daisy Hathaway, I saw her. And now every damn officer in my department has too.” Gibbs released the note from Lynch’s chest. It fluttered and the wind caught it away. “I know you. You can’t let her go, can you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I know you can’t.” He sneered the can’t. “That perverted brain of yours.”

  “We’ll get married soon. I need her.”

  “No you got’damn don’t.” Gibbs lowered his voice, for Ann. “You only think you do, Peter. Since you were a boy. You fixate and you break things, and I have to clean up your shit.”

  Deep within the halls of Lynch’s brain, halls kept clean by an uncontrollable rage that howled through without check, Gibbs’s voice walked around at will, pointing out flaws. An intruder and Lynch had no recourse.

  “You’re broken, boy. You always been broke. But now? Now you’re gonna take me down with you.” Gibbs tapped on his own chest with a finger. “I’m your daddy. Your adopted daddy. I didn’t have to take you but I did. And this isn’t how it works, Peter. Not how it got’damn works. By now I shouldn’t have to wipe your ass. Clean your shit. Sons take care of their father, not the other way round.”

  Gibbs’s voice swelled inside Peter’s ears. Growing hot. Wipe your ass, a phrase Peter had picked up from his father, evidence of his dependency. Memories flashed on his conscious, as a child who’d defecated in his bed, terrified to wake up his new father. Again.

  “But you saw her. You can’t blame me.” Lynch’s voice was pathetic to his own ears.

  “I bet you think she’s lovely.”

  “She is.”

  “You’re right. But they always are until you get through with them, Peter.” The chief didn’t point at the distant plot of land behind the shooting range but he may as well have. Land with sunken spots. “I risk my neck for you one more time, I’m done. Hear me? They’ll know and I’ll be done. Me and your brother, all of us in prison. Covering for you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But you won’t stop. You’re sorry but you won’t stop, and that’s why we’re not a family. That’s why I have to hide from my granddaughter,” said the chief. “And it’s different this time.”

  “How?”

  “You got a problem, Peter. A big damn problem.”

&nb
sp; “What’s my problem?”

  “You know your problem. You put a brick through his window.”

  “Daniel Jennings,” said Peter Lynch. Hate kindled. Hate, the true sign of manhood.

  “That’s right. I met Jennings. He knows about you. He’s not a man you can bully or buy or bury.”

  “He’s a teacher. I can deal with a teacher.”

  “Should see the way Daisy looks at him, Peter.”

  “No. No she doesn’t.” His fists clenched. Fire creeping but careful to avoid the voice of Chief Gibbs wherever he roamed.

  “You know his family?” said Gibbs.

  “I know.”

  “Drives you nuts, don’t it. Jennings being from a family of war heroes. And you, fat and slow, couldn’t even make the military as a JAG. He lived it and tossed aside your dream life.”

  Another unwelcome memory, Peter now a man, returning home in shame after failing the MEPS physical. Returning home to a father’s wrath. Lynch flinched away from it.

  Gibbs said, “Jennings is a problem. Stop pissing him off.”

  “He’s nothing compared to me. He…he’s broke. He limps and he was discharged. She doesn’t look at him.”

  His father stuck a finger into Lynch’s face. “Get your mind off her. You forgot what it means to be a man? I need to remind you?”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “You need a haircut. You always need a haircut.” His words were caught short. His face paled and he pressed a hand below his belt.

  “What’s wrong?” said Lynch.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  Gibbs opened his eyes and straightened, unclenching. “Just old. Stay away from Jennings. And stay away from the girl.”

  “I…” said Lynch. “I did. For a year, I stayed away. But she wants me. I can’t anymore.”

  Gibbs snatched the ball cap off his head and struck Peter with it. A stinging blow to his cheek. Lynch wore it, wouldn’t cry. It almost felt nostalgic.

  The police chief pulled the cap on and stepped away.

  The wave of paternal anger rose and quelled. Looking back at him, the little boy he’d adopted who couldn’t help himself, no matter what he tried. The little boy who caught and suffocated squirrels, and who used fish hooks to string up living rabbits by their ears in these mountains, who’d had to learn how to be strong, how to be a man or the world would’ve destroyed him.