Tethered

by Amy MacKinnon

“No, nothing.”

  He doesn’t let go of Mr. MacDonnell’s body; he barely moves at all. I recognize that utter stillness—it’s for my benefit this time. Silence is the better option.

  “Do you have some free time tomorrow? I want to ask you a few more questions about Precious Doe. Maybe you’ll remember something, you know, shake something loose.”

  “I’ve told you everything I remember.”

  “You never know. Sometimes talking it over jogs something in the memory. Even the smallest detail could help.”

  There’s no dissuading him now; if not tomorrow, then the next day or the day after that. Now that he has me in his sights, he won’t stop until I agree. Better to avoid the barrage of calls, but first there’s Mr. MacDonnell.

  After a half hour’s struggle, we maneuver him into the body bag. Mike helps me down the front stairs while Ryan holds the door. He speaks on his cell phone, peeling strips of paint from the clapboards; a particularly long one is caught in a weed patch below the porch. “I know, baby, I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  As we wheel the body across the city street, neighbors stand with arms folded in the doorways of their own triple-deckers, watching our progress. An old man with an oxygen tank beside him sits on his front porch, his forearms leaning on a walker, a cigarette dangling from his left hand. His eyes never leave the body bag, even when he flicks the cigarette in an impressive arc onto the crumbling sidewalk. In the distance, a subway horn wails its departure. Mrs. MacDonnell does not come out to say a final good-bye; perhaps at the funeral home she will. After securing her husband’s body, I close the hearse’s rear gate, waiting for the inevitable. Mike’s voice doesn’t fail me.

  “So, tomorrow? About three all right?”

  “Yes,” I say, pulling my keys from my pants pocket. “I expect I’ll be in the basement”—I gesture to the back of the hearse—“so let yourself in.”

  “I’ll see you then.” Though I don’t look at him full-on, I can sense Mike staring past me to the apartment we’ve just left. He starts to cross the street and then turns. I could pretend I don’t notice, just get in the car and close the door. It’s already open.

  “The reverend said the anonymous caller contacted him today.”

  I wish Mike would listen to his partner Jorge, understand the finality of death: case closed. No loved one ever stepped forward to claim the unidentified girl. I imagine to her mother, to her father she was only a splinter, an irritating nuisance picked at and squeezed until all life was expunged in a moment of boil and pus. She’s dead, nothing else matters now. Case closed.

  I nod as I get into the hearse.

  But Mike persists. “The man said something about a birthmark. You remember anything about a birthmark?”

  I don’t answer Mike, I can’t say why. I don’t know if I’ll tell him about the perfect pink star I found at the nape of her neck as I stitched her. For now, I simply close the door and drive away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The granite arch at the entrance to Colebrook Cemetery sparkles under the glaze of ice, the first frost of the season. It’s as if the moon and crystals have conspired to train a klieg light on the inscription there: I AM THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. I suppose loved ones need the reassurance of a world beyond the one they have before they can go farther into this place.

  It’s after midnight, the only safe time to be here except if I need to scout a plot for a client. Even now I step lightly, my footfalls a whisper in this most quiet place. In daylight, wandering along these paths, there’s always the risk of being spotted by the family of a client. Some want nothing more than to turn their heads in polite revulsion; others long to share stories of their loved ones whose bodies now lie here instead of in the bed next to them or in the room down the hall. It’s better I come at night.

  Most of the sites here are simple. There are no towering family monuments, the kind one would expect to find in a neighboring town such as Hingham or Cohasset. The people of Whitman are plumbers and housewives, firefighters and administrative assistants; the ordinariness of their gravesites reflects the lives they’ve lived. The only exceptions are the various war memorials scattered throughout. All are meticulously kept, the flags never allowed to fade, with veteran wreaths laid each May and November without fail by an honor guard of old men wearing uniforms they can no longer button. A fair number of townspeople come to these ceremonies before lining Washington Street for the parades. All carry their own flags.

  I pull my wool coat tight, nearly twice around me, and tuck my hands under my arms, a slim flashlight at the ready. In the distance, toward the rear of the grounds, twin spots of light appear. I step off the path, become one with the shadows, careful to quiet everything about me. Though this area is dense with trees, I can’t risk the flashlight; I know these paths well. Teenagers won’t be here now. In late spring and through the summer though, I often see them testing each other’s will with blindfolds and beer. Other nights, young lovers can be seen straddling someone’s gravestone and each other, professing their eternal love. They might hear the occasional scuff of my shoe or sense my presence, but they always attribute it to the ghost of whomever they set out to disturb. During these evening rounds, I check in on those gravesites that aren’t tended by family or friends. Headstones may need to be realigned, litter and weeds cleared; it’s the job of the groundskeeper, true, but it’s my duty. Not everyone has a loved one.

  Moonlight sluices through the naked limbs of the grand oaks that shield this place, dappling the concrete pathway with both gloom and shafts of light; plenty enough for me to make my way toward the far boundary of the graveyard. As I near the rear entrance, not twenty feet from Precious Doe’s grave and just to the right of the weeping willow, there are the headlights from a car parked in the back lot. The engine’s off. There’s the soft thud of footsteps on wet turf, the snapping of twigs. I slow my approach, and then his figure emerges from the dark, a loping shadow in the car’s beams. I know whose burial plot is head to toe with Doe’s. It must be him.

  Ducking behind the town’s war memorial, an enormous slab of granite with a rough-hewn top, like a page torn from death’s own ledger, I flatten myself there, become smaller, translucent. Mike stops one row forward. I’m mindful of my breath (one-two-three, breathe) so he won’t see the rise of vaporous puffs above me, a ghostly image.

  He shuffles his feet through the layers of leaves that have gathered against the mound that’s his wife’s grave. Time has softened its features; it’s now a gentle rise of grass instead of scarred earth. Doe’s appears the same. Of course it does.

  Time drifts by—five minutes? Ten? My breathing’s finally slowed. My thighs ache from crouching so long, my hands have grown numb. When I reach to steady myself, each blade of grass is an icy spike, a thousand pinpricks of cold. He must feel it. Every so often I check on him, but Mike has barely shifted. Tracing the letters engraved within this memorial helps return the flow of blood to my fingers. Though there isn’t enough light to see the words, my fingertip can read them. DEATH CANNOT KILL THEIR NAMES. I already know the image carved into the top, two red roses (adoration). It’s a thoughtful gesture by the town to memorialize the soldiers, but they’re wrong: death ends everything. Precious Doe’s name died with her. Her story, too. Wishful thinking and a granite stone cannot revive a life.

  Her headstone is unlike most of the children’s here. It’s a standard upright, Colonial Rose granite—no hearts or angels etched into its face. No whimsy at all. The only adornments are the words Precious Doe in curvy script across the top, a poem by Emily Dickinson below that. I don’t need to trace the letters with my fingers to read them:

  So has a Daisy vanished

  From the fields today—

  Blooming—tripping—flowing

  Are ye then with God?

  It still seems fitting.

  In the next instant, the wind picks up, creating mini funnel clouds of detritus; leaves scrape along various headstones and then rest aga
inst them when the breeze stops. All’s quiet again until a terrific crackling breaks the silence that smothers this place. I peer around the edge of the monument and watch as Mike swipes at the dead leaves with his foot.

  “Jesus, they’re everywhere,” he says.

  His gaze settles on Precious Doe’s headstone, just beyond Jenny’s, filled just weeks after hers. His shoulders sag, his head bows. He’s caught in a beam of moonlight with the spindly branches of the willow drooping over him, a million fingers reaching to pluck him away.

  “God,” he cries, lifting his head toward the skies, “they’re everywhere!”

  He turns his attention back to his wife’s site, his gestures becoming frantic. He falls to his knees, and his hands are claws, tearing the leaves from Jenny’s grave; then he crawls to Doe’s, raking at the earth until only jaundiced grass is visible. His breath comes in great heaving gulps, rapid and unsteady.

  I wonder what it would cost each of us if I were to reveal myself. But he can’t see me—he’s no longer here anyway.

  I pull back, crouching lower against the ground; I don’t want to know any more. He inhales, quick and ragged, strangled gasps, and then nothing. It’s a hateful sound. The crisp air is pungent; his efforts have churned the scent of wet earth and rotting compost. I concentrate on that and not the reason for the sudden quiet. If only I were Linus, I could step out and tell him everything would be fine, just fine—and he might believe me. My fingers weave themselves into my hair, twist around and around, until relief descends.

  A few minutes go by, a rustling of clothing, and then a flash of blue sirens and more headlights pour in from the back lot. A car door opens. A man’s voice calls, “Is that you, Mikey?”

  Mike fumbles getting to his feet. I can’t help but look as he rubs his temple. “Who’s that?”

  The man makes his way toward us, toward Mike, his flashlight burning into Mike’s face. Mike raises his arm to shield his eyes and turns in my direction. His forehead is smeared with dirt and there’s a scrap of leaf in his hair. I want to wipe both away so the cop won’t see them. Not everyone knows this side of life.

  “It’s me. Bully.” He walks the few yards to where Mike is standing, the patrolman’s thumbs hooked into his belt, his bulky chest overwhelming his too short legs. What height he has is in an extended torso; his face droops with loose cheeks and fleshy eyelids befitting his nickname. “Saw a car in the lot and wanted to make sure it wasn’t those teenagers tipping gravestones again. You okay?”

  “Fine.” Mike’s voice is steady, his head bent. “I was driving by and thought I saw some kids myself.”

  Bully adjusts his belt lower along his gut; the leather chafes audibly against a jangle of metal. He looks off to where the rest of the graveyard is obscured by darkness. “You should have called us. It’s out of your jurisdiction.”

  They settle into an awkward pause with only the thrum of the cruiser’s running engine and the occasional static of the police radio to fill the night. I watch as the cop’s gaze wanders over to the headstone. He looks to where his own feet are planted and then stumbles back, off of the mound. “Coming up on three years, huh?”

  Even in the half-light, I can sense Mike stiffen.

  “You’re sure you’re okay? You need a ride home tonight?” Bully leans in and sniffs the air.

  Mike shakes his head. The cop steps forward, lifting a stunted leg, and then remembers to survey his footing. He stays rooted, reaching instead to grip Mike’s shoulder; thinks better of it. “Hey, we’re still playing poker at Jimmy’s. Every Friday. You should come by, have a beer. He TiVos the Patriots.”

  “Yeah.”

  Bully waits a moment too long, looking to Mike for guidance. “Okay, then.”

  We both watch him get into his cruiser and drive away. Mike’s shadow, thrown by his car lights, is within my reach. I could touch it. Stretch and reach. Instead, I release a fistful of hair to the wind blowing in his direction. My foot slips from under me, sending a wayward acorn skittering, and Mike whips his head around. Both of us freeze an instant, wait. Then he clears his throat and heads back to his car. It isn’t until he turns the corner, his sedan’s lights casting shadows elsewhere, that I can breathe again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I hear them walking along creaking floorboards upstairs while I finish Mr. MacDonnell’s makeup. The sensible shoes of those milling outside are visible through the basement window, small mountains of cigarette butts and crumpled paper cups gathering at their feet.

  They’re here for the old woman; she has a two-day wake. Long ago, not really I suppose, a person could get an afternoon off from work to pay his respects to the dead, and then a full day to attend the funeral. In the last decade or so, wakes have been confined to one day, with funerals held the next. The standard hours for wakes were two in the afternoon until four, a two-hour interval so loved ones could gather their bearings, and then six until eight to accommodate those who slipped out of work early. But now, families are requesting four-hour marathons. I’ve heard Linus try to dissuade them, explain the sheer physical and emotional exhaustion that comes with standing in receiving lines for hours—they seldom end promptly—greeting familiar faces from the present and confronting ghosts from the past. There usually isn’t time for even a humid roast beef sandwich.

  The old woman is from a different generation, though, a period when a life and a death were honored. It helps that most of the mourners are elderly themselves and therefore able to attend afternoon showings, eager for a chance to gather with friends, whatever the circumstances.

  Turning back to the body before me, I wonder about the paradox of Mrs. MacDonnell, her bruises still visible when she met with Linus to discuss the arrangements, choosing one of the more expensive coffins for her husband. A new Velcro suit, too. I imagine Mr. MacDonnell didn’t own many, if any at all.

  I flip through the pages of Nature’s Bounty for something appropriate to bury with Mr. MacDonnell: Adonis (sad memories), foxglove (insincerity), or perhaps a simple pine bough (pity)? No, marigolds (cruelty in love) would be best. Though the marigolds’ fragrance can smart, I don’t worry that someone will detect them. The funeral bouquets will more than overwhelm one small clump.

  I brush his eyebrows, wiry and unruly, snipping stray bits I’d missed earlier. With his shave and trim, I’m able to glimpse the man Mrs. MacDonnell met before their lives together led them down the same beaten path I imagine their parents walked before them.

  As I comb his hair one more time, there’s a knock at the door. It’s precisely three. When Mike opens it, he hesitates before stepping in. I’m a rubber band curled around a child’s finger ready to spring, but he doesn’t notice. He’s wearing his usual uniform of a jacket and tie, gun at his hip, and badge clipped to the front of his slacks. Above the cloud of formaldehyde, I can smell his soap, crisp and sensible. I use the same. My fingers itch to touch my hair. My eyes seek the spot on his temple where the smudge of dirt was, but it’s free of the earth he disturbed last night. He’s carrying a tattered manila folder, bound with several elastics. His eyes stray to the worktables, lost and unfocused. I don’t interrupt; it will be a moment or two before he returns to the present.

  There are few bereaved family members Linus allows into this room. Without exception they’re immediate family, and only if preparations haven’t yet begun on the body. That day, Linus accompanied Mike when his wife lay atop my worktable. As Linus guided him over, Mike remained stoic, never even reaching out a hand to caress his wife’s cheek. Linus stood a step behind Mike, one hand at the small of Mike’s back. With the other, he cupped the crown of Jenny’s head, stroking her matted hair, disregarding the blood, and then he spoke in that low rumble: “It’s okay, she can hear you. They both can. Let it out now, let it out.”

  I didn’t see Mike’s face—I slipped out of the room without looking—but I still remember his keening as I hurried down the hall.

  “Nice coffin,” Mike finally says, his eyes lingeri
ng over Mr. MacDonnell, two fingers scratching at a spot on his own stomach. “Guess we’ll never know if love or guilt bought it.”

  I unclip the paper bib from around Mr. MacDonnell’s neck and discard it along with my gloves. I’m finished with this body.

  Walking over to the counter, I open Precious Doe’s file box. There are before and after photos, a guest book, a funeral card, and a bit of hair. Linus says he keeps these mementos in case someone steps forward and cares to have a record of the deceased’s passing. It’s without a complete lock, though. Her killer left only a few sparse strands, bits I shaved away when I stitched her. It was then, with her hair gone and complexion blanched by death, that I saw the birthmark. If the M.E. had taken the time, had not been distracted by temperamental refrigerators and leaky roofs, an impending OSHA review of workplace safety, he would have found the birthmark first. Shame no one ever takes the time anymore. Not even for a murdered little girl.

  “As you can see, there’s nothing new in here,” I say, but still Mike wanders over, removing each article, studying them as if for the first time.

  “Do you have any photos of her lying on her stomach or sides?”

  The M.E. determined her body had been in the woods for two icy days, exposed to the elements, though remarkably untouched by vermin. “Just this.”

  Hands at his hips, lips pursed. I know I must be careful. I’ve attended some pickups where Mike is still there, speaking with a lover or friend of the deceased. He has a way of encircling someone with questions, slowly, quietly, until a grief-stricken boyfriend suddenly becomes wild-eyed, ensnared in the noose Mike’s tightened around his neck. More than once, I’ve been sent away and the medical examiner’s been called back.

  “Mind if I show you the autopsy photos again? Like I said, it might jog something free.” Mike is already pulling the elastics from around the folder, but his eyes never leave me.

  He spreads a series of photographs along the counter. There are fifteen, all of little girl Doe damaged beyond recognition. The pictures are taken from various angles, some revealing her more pronounced injuries. In others, one could be forgiven for mistaking her for a castoff doll. The most haunting pictures are the ones that show the simple gold stud in her left ear, a gesture some adult made to enrich her life. Her right lobe was too damaged by the attack to have held on to something as fragile as an earring. In my peripheral vision, I can see Mike watching me, studying me, as I view the M.E.’s photomontage.