One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  “It’ll just spoil in mine,” he said. “And I’ll have to clean it out, and I hate cleaning out the refrigerator.”

  She filled the coffeemaker with water and turned around into Frank’s arms. She had forgotten what a good kisser he was.

  Chapter 19

  “I missed you,” said Frank. “I should have mailed you all those letters I wrote. I should have come to find you in the jungle.”

  Diane looked into his eyes; they were more blue than green at the moment. “It’s good to be back. It’s good to be standing right here, right now,” she said and kissed him again.

  “Can I stay the night?” he whispered against her ear.

  “I told myself if we ever got together again, I was going to go slower this time,” said Diane. “Go places with you, get to know you . . .”

  “So can I stay the night?”

  She giggled as the kitchen filled with the aroma of coffee. How long had it been since she actually giggled?

  “What the hell? Maybe we’ll get tired of each other—then we can go on dates and get to know each other.”

  “I can tell you my deepest, darkest secret right now—you know that and you’d know the worst about me.” He rubbed her back under her shirt and his touch both chilled and warmed her skin.

  “What’s that? What’s the worst thing to know about you?”

  He pulled her closer and nuzzled her ear. “I know how to play the accordion.”

  Diane pulled back and looked him in the eye. “No, you’re kidding. That’s not true.”

  “It is.” He put his forehead against hers.

  “I’m not sure I can handle that,” she said. “What if some evening I find you playing a polka under my window?”

  “You don’t have to worry. I have it under control.”

  He kissed her again, and Diane felt the strains of “Ode to Joy” vibrating against her breasts.

  Frank stepped away, pulled out his phone and looked at the display. “Cindy,” he said, pushing the ANSWER button.

  “Hey,” he said. “How’s Kevin?”

  While he was talking, Diane filled two cups with fresh coffee and took them into the living room on a tray with cream and sugar.

  Frank came out of the kitchen holding his hand over the phone. “She wants us to come over for dinner this Saturday.” He raised his eyebrows and shrugged as he said it, smiling, perhaps at Cindy’s bad timing.

  Diane felt the hand of Mark Grayson at work. “Tell her I’d love to and I’ve got a bottle of wine I’ve been dying to open, but it’ll have to wait until I get some museum business resolved that’s hanging over my head.”

  Frank put the phone back up to his ear and repeated almost verbatim what Diane had said. He listened for several seconds. “I’ll give her that argument, but this thing at the museum really has her tied up right now. She’s not been able to go anywhere.” He paused. “I’ll do that and get back to you. Can I speak with Kevin?” The pause was shorter. “Homework, in the summer?” Pause. “Yeah, I’d forgotten about that. I’ll give you a call later.” He pushed the END button and put the phone back in his pocket.

  “I suppose you heard that. It looks like you’re right—David must want to pressure you. She was pretty insistent we come for dinner.”

  “She was asking you to convince me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not being able to talk to Kevin wasn’t a part of it, was it?”

  “I don’t know. I hope not.” Frank was pensive for a long moment. “That wouldn’t be like Cindy—unless she’s under a lot of pressure from David. I can tell her no. It’s not a problem.”

  “I don’t mind going. But let’s wait a few days and see how much pressure comes our way over it. You know, it could just be her way of letting you know that it’s OK with her if you and I are together.”

  “That wouldn’t be like Cindy either. So where were we?”

  “Drinking our coffee?” Diane handed him a cup she had dressed with cream and sugar.

  “Was that it? I thought we were going to drink it in the bedroom.”

  He took Diane’s hand, backed away and led her into the bedroom.

  A long while later, Diane lay her head on Frank’s chest, and gently stroked his skin with her fingertips. “Why didn’t you mail the letters?” she asked.

  “I wanted to—I wanted to a little too much, and it scared me. I’d been divorced from Cindy for less than two years. I’d been through some rough times. I didn’t trust myself anymore. I didn’t know what I was feeling. Why did you stay gone for so long?” he asked.

  Diane didn’t say anything for a long time. Instead of answering, she kissed his chest, then his lips.

  “If this is a way of getting out of telling me, it’s very charming.” He slid both arms around her and pulled her on top of him. “And it will work.” He kissed her again.

  It was dark in the jungle. One bright spotlight illuminated a circle of the dark gray-green foliage, then another, darting around like the eye of a predator. The music crept in from the distance. Diane heard it and ran toward it. She kept running, and it grew louder and louder until she was surrounded by the engulfing, deafening strains of “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Where was it? She had to find it. She stopped, looking around her everywhere for the source of the music. The ground; it was coming from the ground. She knelt and dug in the hard jungle soil with her hands until they were bleeding. Fingers dug into her shoulders, dragging her back. No, she screamed. No!

  “Diane, Diane. Are you all right? Diane.”

  It was still dark, but she could see the bright moon shining through an opening. She sat up, confused for a moment before realizing she was in her bed—with Frank.

  Frank reached over and switched on the lamp at her side of the bed. “Are you all right? You were crying in your sleep.”

  “I’m fine.” She was cold and shivering. She hugged the bedcovers around her body. “It was just a nightmare.”

  He cleared his throat to get the sleep out of his voice. “You want to talk about it?”

  “I just need to get a drink of water.” She slipped out of bed and grabbed her silk robe hanging on the footboard.

  She took a bottle of water from the kitchen and went into the living room with it and sat on the sofa, pulling a soft faux zebra throw next to her to snuggle up against. Frank came in wearing jeans and an open white shirt. He sat down on the couch beside her.

  “I know something bad happened in South America,” he said. He hesitated, as though looking for words. “Something you haven’t wanted to talk about, and I understand that. Sometimes mistakes happen. . . .” He trailed off, as if the words he finally found were inadequate.

  “Mistakes?” Diane watched him and took a sip of water.

  “I’ve heard,” he started uneasily, “that there was some mistake that led to a tragedy, and you lost your job. Whatever happened made it difficult to find another one for almost a year.”

  Diane’s heart was still pounding from the dream. “You heard that from your friend Izzy?”

  “He heard things. I think he just wanted to give me some kind of heads up.”

  “I saw him the other day. We had a break-in at the museum. I felt then that he had some issue with me.”

  “He just wanted me to know everything.”

  Diane shook her head. A smile that felt more like anger than humor played around her lips. “That couldn’t be true. If he really wanted you to know everything, he would have checked his information. It’s what I would have done for a friend. And you believed him. Is that why you kept asking me if I was sure about my calculations?”

  “If I had any serious doubts about you, I would have never asked for your help. I told him he probably didn’t have the whole story.”

  Diane looked at Frank for several seconds, his mussed hair, sleepy eyes. Last night was the first really happy moment she’d had in a year. Maybe Gregory was right; she should at least confide in Frank.

  “He didn’t have any pa
rt of the story right. There was a tragedy last year—a massacre at a mission across the easternmost border from Puerto Barquis in Brazil, in the Amazon. It happened not because I made a mistake, but because I did my job too well. A job I didn’t lose, but resigned. Wait here a moment.”

  She went to her nightstand in the bedroom and opened the drawer. It contained only photographs, some in frames, others loose. She brought them back to the living room and curled up at the end of the couch, holding the pictures to her chest.

  “Puerto Barquis is a country not many here are familiar with. Early in its history the border started on the west coast and stretched eastward into the Amazon jungle. The coastal port has since been claimed by another country, so it’s now landlocked. The population is composed of Spanish, Portuguese, Germans, Native Indians and various mixtures. It’s been ruled in recent history by a series of strong men, the latest one, Ivan Santos.”

  His name felt like a sharp rock in her mouth and didn’t slip easily from her tongue.

  “During his rule he massacred thousands of the native population, along with hundreds more who either disagreed with him or were in the way. I won’t go into the whole history, but he was deposed and Barquis had its first free election, watched over by the United Nations. Xavier Valdividia became the first legally elected president, and he had a very good chance of holding on to power. But Santos and his henchmen and his spies inside the government were waiting and plotting for any opportunity to retake control.”

  Frank sat silently on the couch facing Diane, listening to what she was saying, a deep crease between his eyebrows. He took a sip of the water she’d left on the coffee table and passed it over to her. She took a long drink.

  “I worked for World Accord International. My team collected evidence—we excavated mass graves, interviewed witnesses, discovered and photographed and examined secret torture rooms. We amassed a mountain of evidence about atrocities that Ivan Santos was claiming never occurred, and we were connecting it to him. World Accord was hoping he would be tried and imprisoned so he would no longer be a threat to the elected government of Barquis.

  “While I worked there we often stayed at a mission just across the border in Brazil. Our World Accord team shared food, blankets and medicine with them in exchange for their hospitality. Over the years the mission had taken in countless refugees from Puerto Barquis.”

  Diane stopped talking. Her eyes filled up with tears. Frank reached for her hand and squeezed it, but didn’t speak. That was a trait Diane admired in him; he knew when not to speak, when to just be there. She took a framed photograph, looked at it a moment and handed it to Frank.

  “That’s me and my daughter, Ariel.”

  Frank looked at the photograph and back at Diane. He opened his mouth to speak, stopped and looked back at the photograph.

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter,” he said. “Where? . . .” he started to ask, but stopped. Diane could see the confusion in his eyes.

  “I have to tell you about Ariel—then you will understand.”

  Chapter 20

  It was several moments before Diane could continue her story, Ariel’s story. She stared out the window at the dark tree line. Beyond, she could see the glow of the city lights—not bright, but enough to know something was there.

  “Let me make us some coffee,” said Frank. “We could both use some.” Diane nodded.

  She listened to him in the kitchen—pouring the water, opening the cabinets, turning on the coffeemaker. It started to rain. Diane hadn’t remembered rain in the forecast. The drops spattered against the window, blurring the bright moon. The sound on the roof drowned out the few road noises present at that time of night.

  Frank came into the living room carrying two cups of coffee. He’d added cocoa to hers, and it tasted rich and sweet. She took several sips, not thinking about anything but the taste of the chocolate-spiked coffee.

  “About four years ago—this was after we were together . . .” She started to say after we broke up, but they’d never really broken up. She went to her job in the jungle, and he stayed at his in the city. When they parted it could have been for a weekend or forever. Neither of them said any of the things people were supposed to say to each other when they were parting. They’d had an odd relationship. No, not odd. Purely sexual? Not exactly that either, but Diane smiled inwardly at the thought.

  “We used the mission as an unofficial base,” she said. “I was there making plans for our investigations. There were several possible mass grave sites that I wanted to look at in Barquis. Outside the compound one day, I came upon this little three-year-old girl on the edge of the forest. She was dirty and crying. That wasn’t a particularly unusual occurrence. God knows there were too many orphans, but she was different. When she looked at me, she smiled the biggest smile you’ve ever seen and had the prettiest velvet black eyes. I picked her up and carried her into the mission. The sisters tried to find parents or relatives, but no one came forward. I spent all my free time with her, and as time passed and they were still unable to find her parents, I decided to adopt her.”

  Tears welled up in Diane’s eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. “I should have just taken her out, smuggled her to the United States or somewhere safe. I had the connections, I should have done that. But I was going to do everything legally. That’s what we did—follow the rule of law. We were so self-righteous. If I’d been a good mother, I’d have gotten her out.” Diane collapsed in tears, spilling the photographs onto the couch and floor.

  Frank picked them up and put them on the coffee table then sat closer, pulling Diane to him.

  “Diane, I’m so sorry. These past few days must have been a nightmare. If I’d known . . .” He was silent for several minutes. “Please . . . can you tell me about her?” he said at last.

  After a moment, Diane straightened up and reached for her coffee. It was lukewarm and tasted sweet mixed with her salty tears. The photographs lay on the table and she picked them up, shuffling through them, pulling some out to show Frank.

  “She was the sweetest little girl and very smart. The nuns named her Anna, but when she was four she told me she wanted to be named Ariel, you know, after the Little Mermaid. She said she wanted a brand-new name—Ariel Fallon.

  “I kept her with me when I wasn’t going to dangerous places. I took her for a short trip down the Amazon River.” Diane cast a glance at her stereo. “Ariel loved music. I bought her this CD player.” She smiled, remembering the steady supply of batteries. “Batteries don’t do well in the jungle and it was hard keeping her in batteries. I burned a CD of her favorites. She liked ‘The Mighty Quinn,’ ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight,’ the one by the Tokens—she was very specific in her musical tastes. But her favorite was ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King.’ She’d turn up the volume so loud you could hear it all over the compound and into the jungle.

  “I watched her grow, watched her little personality blossom. We’d made these plans. I told her all about the United States, about snow and Disney World, the Grand Canyon, the Smoky Mountains. I ordered these mother-daughter dresses. It took so long for them to arrive, I thought she’d be too big when they came. But hers fit perfectly. We’re wearing them in the photograph.” She showed him the silver-framed photograph of the two of them, hugging, smiling in identical dresses.

  “At the time, I was corresponding with Milo and agreed to accept his offer to come to the museum. I thought it would be the most wonderful place to raise her. During that time, I didn’t visit the U.S. When I came back, it was going to be with her.”

  “What happened?” asked Frank.

  “What happened.” Diane sighed and rubbed her eyes and pressed her forehead with her fingertips. “We’d been there three years, and my team and I had made a lot of headway collecting damning evidence against Santos. We thought President Valdividia would arrest him. We overestimated the president’s power. He was afraid. We were coming back from the capital, and about three miles from the mission we heard gunfi
re. There’s no going fast on those roads. As we grew closer we heard ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ wafting through the jungle.”

  Diane stopped, unable to speak for several moments. “When we finally got to the compound, Santos had . . . he had . . . had killed everyone in the compound, including . . . There was blood everywhere. He had already taken most of the bodies. That’s the way he liked to do things—bury his atrocities in hidden mass graves. We found Ariel’s CD player in the middle of the compound, set on repeat so that it played ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ over and over. He’d left her . . .” Diane’s mouth quivered and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “He’d left her bloody little shoes with the CD player. She must have been so scared, and I wasn’t there for her.”

  Diane curled up in a ball, clenched her fists, trying to breathe through the sobs. Frank pulled her against him again and stroked her back. It was several more minutes before she could speak again, several minutes of trying to breathe deeply, trying to stop the flow of tears. When she began again, her voice was a tremor. “All that death was aimed at me because I’d nailed his lies—but I hadn’t counted on his vengeance. I thought maybe Ariel had run and hidden in the jungle. There were often survivors from his massacres. That’s how we found eyewitnesses. I ran through the bush yelling for her, looking everywhere until they—my friends—dragged me away.”

  Again they sat in silence. Frank rested his chin on the top of her head as they sat intertwined on the couch. Diane listened to the rain’s steady drive on the roof.

  “I said some insensitive things about how I’d go crazy if I lost Kevin, especially like George lost Jay. I’m so sorry—I had no idea.”

  “You didn’t know. Very few people here do.”

  Diane shifted and lay her head on his shoulder and looked through the photographs of Ariel. Besides grief, the worse feeling was the regret at not just taking her and leaving. Why did she wait for the damn paperwork? Ariel could be here, right now, with her.

  “Gregory—he was my boss—changed out teams. My objectivity was compromised along with everyone else’s on my team. I took a leave of absence for a year.”