Sunken Graves

by Alan Lee

  Coach Murray sat next to his wife on the couch. Last Chance U played on the television but neither watched. She was bent over a pair of khaki pants and she worked on the hem. Jamal would never stop growing, it seemed, but she liked the chore and she hummed to herself.

  Murray’s laptop sat open on his thighs and a forgotten notepad on the couch’s armrest. He had intended to study video of Fishburne Military’s last game for the championship tomorrow. FMS was a powerhouse this year and privately he thought he’d be lucky to lose by only two touchdowns. The Academy had far and away exceeded his expectations but their luck was about to run out. Murray was a pragmatic man and he understood the odds.

  He should be watching the video. But he wasn’t.

  Instead, he was watching books fly at Jennings’ face in Hathaway’s classroom.

  Instead, he was listening to Jennings’ calm resolve to do something.

  Instead, he was already wondering what he’d do when Lynch fired him for losing the game. Wondering how he’d tell his wife.

  He should be worrying about Fishburne Military. Instead, he was wondering if he could find a way to defeat Lynch, the more dangerous opponent.

  Daisy Hathaway sat in her kitchen, listening to music. Her laptop was open too; no emails tonight, though she kept hoping. An empty wine glass rested beside the keyboard. She wasn’t crying. But if her anxiety deepened further, the dam would break.

  In the basement Byron Horton played video games with a friend, and they shouted at the television loud enough to be irritating despite the closed door.

  She called to her Amazon Echo, “Alexa, turn up the volume.”

  The speaker complied. The music was an old song of Byron’s.

  She wrinkled her nose at the speaker. Enough of that.

  “Alexa, play…The Postal Service.”

  Music from her youth. A song came on and whisked her backward in time to early adolescence. A song about kissing Clark Gable that she’d sung a dozen times with her eyes closed tight in her bedroom, back when that was possible.

  I want so badly to believe

  That there is truth, that love is real

  And I want life in every word

  To the extent that it’s absurd

  I know you’re wise beyond your years

  But do you ever get the fear

  That your perfect verse is just a lie

  You tell yourself to help you get by.

  Hathaway moved her lips with the words. The lyrics had passed through some refraction and sounded different now. The vast gulf between herself as a teenager and herself almost thirty, the thought of Peter Lynch leering at her, books soaring like rockets but the administration was already hiding, the cold loneliness, and suddenly life was too heavy and the dam broke and she fled to her bedroom.

  Daniel Jennings’ laptop was also open. He slumped at his desk, late, researching Peter Lynch but learning little. The man was a ghost.

  Jennings’ prosthesis was still attached, though it was an irritant sitting. It felt alien but it was better than nothing.

  Do you ever wonder if they shot you on purpose?

  Jennings had wondered that. He knew it wasn’t true, but at the moment he didn’t trust himself to lay down and think about it.

  That afternoon he’d sent an email to Dean Gordon.

  Mr. Gordon,

  We need to inform you of an incident that took place in Ms. Hathaway’s classroom after school. Peter Lynch arrived unannounced to talk with Ms. Hathaway about hosting the holiday banquet. When Coach Murray and I stepped into the room, Mr. Lynch became irate. He cursed and threw her novels and left. His language toward her was inappropriate and his behavior bordered on abuse.

  If it happens again, we will be alerting the school board of trustees and maybe the police.

  I trust you will help us enforce the civility and safety our school deserves.

  Daniel Jennings

  Daisy Hathaway

  Coach Murray

  That evening, Jennings received Gordon’s reply.

  Mr. Jennings,

  Thank you for notifying me. Parent/teacher conferences can get heated. I’ll keep your email on file. Please let me know if you have another meeting with him and I’ll sit in.

  -Gordon

  Garbage. Pathetic and cowardly garbage from the school’s dean, a man in need of Lynch’s millions. More and more Jennings realized he’d get no help from the school.

  The dorm had been silent for two hours but there could be no sleep for him. He clicked and skimmed until his eyes burned. His head and ribs ached from the police brutality, and his stress was a motor winding him up.

  At one in the morning, yawning and irritated, he switched tactics. He quit searching Peter Lynch. Instead he typed in Francis Lynch.

  His browser filled with articles and photographs. Francis was popular with the local paper and with the news stations. Just like with Peter, however, there seemed to be little personal information.

  Jennings clicked until finding a photo of Francis’ investiture ceremony. Much of the bar had come out to witness his oath of office—local defenders, Salem prosecutors, and two other judges. Plus his wife. Francis, tall and stately, looked like a Transylvanian vampire wearing his robe, his black hairline forming a widow’s peak.

  Peter Lynch wasn’t in the photograph.

  Jennings surfed away but came back a minute later.

  Something from the photo whispered at him. Look at me, look closer. He recognized many of the faces, movers and shakers around Roanoke. The photo was taken ten years ago. He found the newspaper article attached to the photo, written by Kabir Patel. Patel helpfully included the names of some faces…

  That was it. Jennings latched onto a name. Buck Gibbs.

  Gibbs was the man he’d met at the police station, the chief. In the photo he was listed as Detective Buck Gibbs. Jennings hadn’t recognized him because he still had hair.

  Jennings leaned forward and enlarged the photograph.

  Why did this bother him? Surely it wasn’t that unusual for a police detective to attend a judge’s swearing-in ceremony. He scanned the list again. Salem’s sheriff was there too.

  Jennings stared until the photograph went blurry, until the figures disintegrated into grainy pixels. Stared until his eyes closed, the photograph printed into his vision.

  Look at me, look at me closer.

  24

  Jennings returned from the track the next morning, sweating and blowing steam, to find a man standing at his door.

  Jennings’ defenses dropped into place. His head still ached from the police assault, and the man before him looked like law enforcement. Tall and broad, though he dressed better than a cop. “Help you?”

  The man kept his distance, hands in his jacket pockets. “Sorry for the surprise. My name’s Mackenzie August. We have a mutual friend who expressed some concern for you, and he asked me to check in.”

  “Who’s our mutual friend?” said Jennings.

  “Kabir Patel.”

  Oh. “The reporter.”

  “That’s him.”

  “What’s he worried about?” said Jennings.

  “Believes you’re in danger.”

  Without thinking about it, Jennings’ hand rose to the bruise on the back of his skull. “How do you know Kabir?”

  “He hired me to help him with an investigation, few years ago. Yesterday he called, worried you’ll get yourself killed. He says you’re looking into the same man I was.”

  The alarm in Jennings’ chest began to lessen. “You’re the private detective he worked with.”

  The man nodded. “You got time for coffee?”

  Jennings showered and dressed, and August brewed a pot of coffee in the kitchen. Both men drank it black.

  Jennings had thirty minutes before first bell. He thought August looked strong and competent, a little like the guy who played Mad Max in a recent movie.

  He said, “I didn’t know private detectives were a real thing.”
/>   “We are few. Only five in Roanoke and we mostly hire out to lawyers.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Stuff people don’t want to do, or can’t. Stuff cops can’t do. Sometimes, as is the case with Peter Lynch, we don’t get good results.”

  “What results did you want?” said Jennings.

  “To provide irrefutable evidence of the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “That Lynch is a criminal. And worse, a killer.”

  August had said the exact words Jennings wanted to hear. “He is. I see it, it’s all there.”

  “A lot of us see it. But can you prove it?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  The man drank some coffee and set the mug down. “I got advice for you. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t work on it,” said August.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “You’ll get killed. From what I saw in California, he’ll string you up like a fish or burn you alive.”

  “Jeez, August.”

  Hook in her mouth.

  “That’s how at least two of his alleged victims went out.”

  “I’m not worried about that.”

  “You’re an impressive looking guy, Jennings. The most impressive I’ll see all day. But you should be worried. Lynch is a murderer. You aren’t.”

  “You know he’s a murderer?”

  “I know. So did a couple homicide detectives in California. But we couldn’t scrape together enough evidence to make the district attorneys twitch. We’re professionals, paid to do this, and we struck out.”

  “The man should be in jail,” said Jennings.

  “Absolutely. Yet he’s not. What’s that tell you?”

  “You didn’t look hard enough.”

  “That’s not it. Trust me, I’m great at this.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because he’s great at this too. That’s the whole deal. He’s good at hurting people and not getting caught. Tell me what you know,” said August.

  “He hits his kids.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Not yet. I know he beat his wives.”

  “But you can’t prove it.”

  “He’s corrupt. And I think he killed a podcaster recently,” said Jennings, his neck reddening.

  “Maybe, maybe not, Jennings, but you can’t prove it. So unless you plan on cold blooded murder, you’re stuck.”

  “If you came to piss me off, it worked.”

  “Listen.” August released a sigh and he nodded at Jennings’ prosthetic. “You’re military, right?”

  “I was.”

  “Looks like you ran against some overwhelming firepower.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s not fair, is it.”

  Hell no it’s not fair.

  “What’s that have to do with Lynch?” said Jennings.

  “Because you’re in the same situation as when you lost your foot. You’re in a bad spot and outgunned. You keep going, you’ll get hurt again. That’s not fair but that’s the way it is. You ask me, he’s not worth your life.”

  “Who says I’m outgunned?”

  August finished his coffee. He got up and poured more. Jennings had forgotten his.

  “I say you are. And I’m on your side. I see your special forces tattoo, but all those muscles and combat training don’t matter right now.”

  “Against an overweight attorney they do.”

  “It’s not just you versus him,” said August. “Here’s the story. A few years ago, Kabir hired me for two weeks with the same concerns you have. I gave him sixty hours, twice. Worked my ass off. But then he was out of money, so I gave him another week on the house. I liked the guy and business was slow. We still couldn’t prove much, especially if Kabir wanted to keep his new journalism job in Richmond. So he gave up. But I didn’t. I kept going. And I found out something that I decided not to tell Kabir.”

  “Why not?”

  “You met Kabir?” said August.

  “I did.”

  “Where?”

  “A restaurant in Richmond.”

  “Was he paranoid?”

  Jennings nodded. “Very.”

  “He made you drive to Richmond and call him for the name of the restaurant? Was he worried he’d be recorded? Worried someone would kill him?”

  “Yep.”

  “Kabir went all-in on the story. Drained his finances. Drove people nuts. Lost his job. Had to move. Years later he’s still paranoid. Lynch didn’t kill Kabir but he wrecked him. Make sense? I didn’t want to make it worse for the guy. You’re not careful, the same thing could happen to you.”

  “Tell me what you found out.”

  “You know who Buck Gibbs is? The chief of police?”

  Jennings flashed back to the police station, the day his truck was vandalized.

  “I know him,” said Jennings.

  “That’s Peter Lynch’s daddy.”

  Blood rushed loud in Jennings’ ears. “No chance!”

  “It’s true. I confirmed it.”

  “Gibbs is Peter Lynch’s father?”

  “Step-father or something like that. It’s a legend that everyone’s forgotten about. I stumbled across it. Goes like this. The Lynch boys get orphaned when they were little. Peter and Francis. Kicked around the foster system a couple years. A new cop named Buck Gibbs, barely out of high school, finds them. The boys were one of those awful cases we see, the kids technically in foster care but realistically on their own, malnourished and beaten, living in a flea-infested trailer with no floor. Gibbs takes them home and raises them in the mountains. That’s the legend, and I had two old-timers swear it’s true.”

  “How does no one know?”

  “It’s unofficial. It’s nowhere on paper. They pretended it didn’t happen and so did the courts. I think it was a temporary arrangement that stuck. They don’t act like family, though, so everyone forgot. I’ve been inside Gibbs’ office. No pictures of them. Ask him if he’s got kids and he says no.”

  Jennings’ mind returned to the photograph he’d been staring at last night. The pixels snapped into focus. Buck Gibbs wasn’t standing with the sheriff or the attorneys. Gibbs was standing with Francis’ wife.

  Like he was family.

  That’s what bothered him as he fell asleep.

  “Who knows?” he said.

  “You and me. Some old guys. The sheriff of Roanoke City, but she doesn’t care. Being family isn’t illegal.”

  “How could Gibbs take children and nobody notice?”

  “Foster care forty years ago, Jennings. It was an underfunded disaster. They didn’t have the internet and cell phones tracking parents. Even today, there are children in Appalachia the system doesn’t know about. The social workers were relieved a cop was involved and their case load got lighter. I think he forged school paperwork in Craig County.”

  “Why…” Jennings head swam and he stopped to regroup. “Why would Gibbs keep it a secret?”

  “I don’t know. He might’ve been doing the right thing but it bit him. Maybe Peter is such a train wreck that he could collapse Chief Gibbs’ reputation and career. You’d have to ask Gibbs.”

  “Wish I’d known this before I met with Gibbs.”

  “About what?”

  “I told him the case against Lynch should be reopened.”

  “Oh hell, Jennings.”

  “Everyone’s terrified of Lynch so I went straight to the top.” Jennings made another connection and it nearly knocked him over. “And two days after I met with Gibbs, two cops pulled me over and threatened to kill me if I didn’t back off. I assumed Lynch had done it. But maybe it was Gibbs.”

  August cursed and drank some coffee.

  Then, “Who pulled you over?”

  “Guy named Hudson.”

  “I coulda guessed that. Listen, Jennings.” August set his empty mug into the sink. “This world we live in, it isn’t fair. And this is one of those times
. Gibbs has been doing this forever, longer than you’ve been alive. He’s the chief of police and he’s old and powerful and his cops love him. One of his son’s a judge and the other’s a rich lawyer, and so they get to do what they want. Their family is a forgotten secret and I bet they’ll fight like hell to keep it that way. All Gibbs has to do is ask one of the cops in his good ol’ boy club to mess you up and they will, no question asked.”

  “He’s a murderer! He beats his kids! I won’t do nothing.”

  “You were in the military, Jennings. There’s something called a tactical retreat.”

  “You mean close my eyes and pretend he isn’t hurting people.”

  “I mean, don’t die. You’re no good to anybody buried. The wheels of justice grind slow.”

  Jennings held up his hands, like, What’s that mean?

  “It’s a misquote of Wadsworth—the mill of God grinds slow but grinds exceedingly fine. If God grinds slow, then you do too. Means you get up tomorrow and you do your best and you don’t die. You grind it out and eventually Lynch makes a mistake.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time. Lynch is after a fellow instructor at the school.”

  “After her?”

  “Pursuing her. Wants to marry her. If he’s a killer and I can’t go to the police about it…what do you expect me to do?”

  “For one thing, don’t let them get married. He only hurts women who can’t complain. And remember, you’re no good to her dead.”

  Jennings scrubbed a hand through his hair and made a growling sound. “We’re not solving anything and I have class.”

  “Before you do anything…aggressive, run it by me. You get hard evidence or wild ideas, let’s look at it together.”

  Jennings provided no answer other than a grunt.

  At his car, Mackenzie August paused to look at the school grounds. There was a chance his young son would attend Valley Academy one day.

  But not if Peter Lynch still terrorized the place. The man was in the business of ruining beautiful things. He was already rattling Daniel Jennings, that was obvious. The boy was so young and the injustice ate at him, a trait August liked but might prove fatal.