A Living Grave

by Robert E. Dunn

“Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. But—”

  “Then I’d say I’m pretty good at it.”

  I laughed again. Then wiped my face again. “Gentlemen used to carry handkerchiefs for this sort of thing.”

  “Thank God we live in an enlightened age.”

  I laughed again but this time it wasn’t a funny laugh. “Do we?”

  “I think you need to get laid.”

  That made me choke and laugh at the same time. A bit of bile and whisky-beer bubbled up in the back of my throat. When I could talk again I asked him, “Is that an offer?”

  His silence lasted just long enough to have some meaning behind it, but not long enough to give it away. The smile that followed the silence was the kind you appreciate in the worst times of your life. “I would not embarrass you or me by offering.”

  “Saying it’s not an offer is not the same as saying you don’t want to.”

  “Honey, you’re the kind of woman that every man wants even if he doesn’t know it.”

  “Except for the—”

  “No excepting, Katrina. You are a beautiful woman.”

  That statement hung in the air between us like a lead sculpture of an elephant painted red. So heavy and odd, it had to be meaningful.

  “But?”

  “But you’re my friend. You’ve been drinking. I’m not here to tell you you’re pretty, I’m here to keep you out of trouble.”

  After a few more minutes of quiet, I said, “You’re a good friend, Billy.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he answered. It was the last either of us said until the sun came up right into my face.

  Billy was already up and out of the truck, trudging along the grass edge of the road. His attention was on the line of trees beyond the grass. Behind them was where Angela Briscoe had been killed. The trees were a straight-edged green wall, a clear line between here and there.

  Lines. Walls. Separations between one place and another, life and death, being and not—my world seemed to be crossed over with them. Not a gate in sight.

  As Billy wandered farther from the vehicles I waited and watched, trying not to think of the conversation we would have to have. Trying not to think of a lot of things, actually. That was almost a full-time job for me.

  New sun was bringing in the warmer air. At ground level the cool air, kept chill by the nearby river, was misting into fog. The walking clouds spread out until Billy seemed to be like a kid from a fairy tale walking on them. His feet were hidden and he looked to be gliding more than walking. The cuffs of his pants would be getting wet from the dew forming on the grass. When he was far enough away I slipped out of the truck. The dome light glowed, scattering its yellow aura into the rising mist.

  Billy’s cruiser was unlocked and my gun and keys were sitting on the passenger seat waiting for me. It came to me that maybe he wasn’t just strolling in the mist to take a leak. He was giving me space and making the exit easy. That thought made me feel like a one-night lover sneaking off with her shoes in her hands.

  Should I leave a note written in lipstick on his windshield?

  I smiled at the idea and wondered how long it had been since I wore lipstick. How long since I had put real effort into my look at all?

  That was another line of thought to be left behind. I grabbed what I wanted and walked on my toes back to the truck. The door closed with a soft sound that died quickly in the misty air. That only made the starting of the engine seem that much louder. It could not have made more noise if I had started the engine on a fighter plane.

  I couldn’t see Billy then and I didn’t want to. I backed the truck out until I could cut the wheel and turn around. Billy stayed behind in the mist as I drove home.

  Chapter 8

  It was a good thing Saturday was my day off because I was useless that morning. It doesn’t mean much to have a day off in a small department with a murder to be investigated. It only means that they won’t call to see why I haven’t signed in yet.

  Work was the only call that didn’t come. While I was cocooning behind drawn curtains, taking aspirin and flushing things out with sports drinks, Dad and Uncle Orson both called. I felt bad about ignoring them. Reach called several times. I didn’t ignore his calls. Each time his number showed up on the display I stared hard at the phone and flipped it off until it went to voice mail.

  The last thing I thought I wanted was quiet time to think. That’s what I was doing, though. My head was pounding from alcohol and my body was aching from sleeping in the truck. All at the same time I was ashamed, embarrassed, afraid of the past, and—with good reason—afraid of the future. Reach’s threats weren’t idle. If cops were magnets he and I would be at different poles. That seems to be where most of us are pushed by experience: to the extreme ends. As strange as it sounds to most people, it comes down to faith. A man like Reach maintains his faith in the system and that reinforces his faith in everything he does. He doesn’t have a lot of room for questions or gray areas. On the other end is someone like me that is nothing but questions and doubt in the system I serve. My faith—my small, withered, and fragile faith—is in the people within the system. Even though it has let me down far more than it has held me up, I have seen the potential. That is the divide in cops and a lot of people, I guess. It shows up in the big questions, like the death penalty. I can’t support it because I know from experience that the system isn’t perfect. Reach, I was sure, would be firmly on the side of a terminal penalty. The system must be right for him to be right and he can’t function without certainty.

  Even with all that churning in my brain, there was room for guilt. I was spending a lot of energy thinking about my problems. Under everything was the knowledge that Angela Briscoe was my responsibility now. All I had there were thoughts and suspicions, none of which made real sense. The kids bothered me. The fact that I had found out nothing about the man called Leech was beyond a bother, it was pissing me off. But, most of all, I had a feeling about Carrie Owens and her home life. I needed to know more but I was hiding in the dark.

  Guilty.

  All of that aside, when I fell back to sleep on the couch I was thinking about color. When I woke again my first thought was again about color. This time, though, it was a thought that had a handle on it. Something the therapist had said—if I wanted the color to come back into my life, I was going to have to put it there. It wasn’t going to come on its own.

  Screw feeling sorry for myself. Screw living in the dark haze of other wars. Definitely screw you, Major John Reach. And Nelson Solomon . . .

  I didn’t finish the thought but I smiled in the gloom at where it was going. In the end it was the romantic thoughts about Nelson that got me up off of the couch, not the guilt. Still, I didn’t go to him. I went to work.

  With nothing more to go on, I followed my list of known members of the Ozarks Nightriders. Over the next two days I drove about 500 miles checking off the names one by one and adding new ones that I’d gotten from the interrogations. No one talked about Leech. Of course, most of these men wouldn’t tell a cop anything on principle. Aside from that, the ones who talked acted like they didn’t know anyone called Leech. I was beginning to wonder if Carrie and Danny were wrong about the biker they’d pointed out. Or had they lied?

  It was still very possible that Leech was just the kind of guy the rank and file didn’t talk about. And I didn’t exactly have a significant sample to work from. Out of the handful of names and addresses I had, only five produced a club member. Of those, only three dropped new names and locations. I went from one end of the county to the other and slipped out of my jurisdiction more than once.

  While I drove from one biker’s trashy hovel to another, wondering what these guys had against taking out the garbage, I worked the phone. Wading through the alphabet soup of government agencies, I requested information from DEA, FBI, ATF, and Bureau of Prisons. I was dreading what my in-box would look like when I got back to the office.

  I could say the driving
, the phone, and the lowlifes served to keep my mind off of my problems, but I’d be lying. The activity did help me ignore most of them and that was almost as good. Sometimes the mind, maybe even the heart, does its best work when we take off the reins and let it run free. My mind didn’t solve any great problems, but when I pulled back into my driveway, stinking and tired, I wasn’t entirely afraid of my feelings for Nelson Solomon anymore.

  * * *

  By the time I stepped back out of the house, showered, shaved, and powdered, as my mother used to say, the summer evening was blooming. Since I was taking a chance already, I went all the way and wore a skirt. It was hidden in the back of my closet and took some effort to find. It was long and white, Western-styled with ruffles and turquoise beading. Above it I put on a matching turquoise shirt and a wide brown belt with a big silver buckle. Below, I wore lacer boots. My gun and badge went into a handbag. That part left me feeling naked.

  Opting for surprise—and denying him the chance to say no—I didn’t call Nelson. If he had company or was mad about how I had left him last time, I had a good-cop-just-checking-up-on-a-crime-victim excuse rattling around in my head. Feeble, I know, but you work with what you have sometimes.

  When I stepped out of the truck at Nelson’s place I was suddenly self-conscious. Hair, makeup, dress—none of that was how I had seen myself in a long time.

  What if he laughed?

  Then there were the bigger issues.

  What did I hope would happen?

  Maybe we were the perfect pair. I was running from life and he could be running out of it. It was a cruel and self-serving thought. But what kind of woman opens herself to a relationship with so many questions? I hated the fear I felt and the indecision. Truth be told, if I wasn’t ashamed of myself for wanting to run again, I would have.

  Nelson didn’t come to the door when I knocked. I rang the bell with the same result. It took a hard conversation with myself to convince me that Nelson was not standing behind a curtain watching me. I tried the knob, sure that nothing would happen. What kind of idiot would leave the door unlocked after being stalked by violent bikers? Apparently an artist and ex-Marine.

  One step inside the house I was sure he was here and I was afraid he was dead. It smelled like sweat and old vomit.

  “Whoever you are, go away.” Nelson’s voice came from the couch. “Unless you’re finally here to kill me. Then come on in.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how. The thought came to me that I could still leave if I said nothing. My feet never got the message. I kept walking into the room until I stepped around the end of the couch.

  Nelson was lying on the leather cushions, shirtless and dripping with sweat. On the floor beside him was a trash can with a frothy, stinking fluid standing in the bottom.

  “You’re expecting someone to come kill you?” I asked.

  “You came back,” he said. His voice was flat and tired-sounding. There was no telling from the tone if he was glad I had returned or angry.

  “I wanted to see how you were doing,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie. “Do you need help?”

  “Do I look like I need help?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You do.”

  “Well, you look nice.”

  I was glad he noticed and said it, but immediately I felt bad for feeling good about anything. “Thank you. I thought I should come check up on you.”

  “I’m sorry about the other day,” he said.

  “You’re sorry?” I asked. “Why? I ran out. I’m sorry about that. All of it.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. You were the one put on the spot. That was my fault.”

  “Not entirely,” I said. After that I had nothing to say. I simply looked at Nelson and he looked at me.

  He tried to smile but it didn’t seem to be in him. Then he said, “It was my fault. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Hell, if I didn’t stink so bad, I might try to kiss you now.”

  “If you didn’t stink so bad, I might let you,” I told him. It was a small confession, but for some reason it must have been important. After that everything seemed okay. If not okay, at least normal. Nelson really did smile and puffed out a rasping laugh that smelled of roadkill.

  I went back to the door and pushed it wide open. At the other end of the room I pushed open the door to the deck. Then I went through the room opening up windows. The temperature climbed quickly, but a nice breeze started clearing the house of the sickroom smell.

  “Can you get up?” I asked Nelson.

  “If I have to,” he responded without moving, except to put an arm over his eyes.

  “You do.” Taking the trash can away, I sat it out on the deck. “That’s horrible. What did you eat?”

  “Half a beer and some Vienna sausages.”

  That almost made me throw up.

  “If you get clean I’ll see what’s decent in the refrigerator.”

  “Good luck with that,” he said, still not moving.

  He was right. There was nothing in there but condiments and stains. Men always seem to manage to be men.

  “How do you live like this?” I asked him. It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it as soon as I said it. Nelson’s dry, weak laugh made it even clearer. “I’m going to get some groceries in here.”

  I started for the door but stopped when Nelson pulled himself up on the back of the couch and said, “Don’t. Please. Don’t go.” He squirreled around, using legs and arms to pull himself upright. When he finished, tired and breathing hard, he patted the cushion beside him. “Sit here, by me,” he said. “Just for a minute.”

  It took a minute for me to make up my mind and move to the couch. When I sat beside him, Nelson didn’t reach for me or even look at me. He was staring at the painting in progress that was sitting on his easel.

  “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m better,” he said. “Feeling better, stronger.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I am. I’ve turned a corner.”

  “What corner?”

  “See that painting?” he asked me.

  I nodded but it didn’t matter. His eyes and thoughts were elsewhere.

  “That—is a desperate painting.”

  I looked but I didn’t understand. It was a lake scene with a small boat in the water. There was something uneasy about the painting, but I couldn’t say what. For a long time we stared at it together, and I imagined seeing different things. Just when I stopped thinking about the image and started thinking again about Nelson and how he must feel, something struck me. There were no people in the picture. The boat was by itself in the water. Adrift and untethered.

  Small things fell into place. Everywhere, light dappled the water like the sun had been broken into shining pieces and scattered to float on the lake. Everywhere except in the shadow of the boat. It was more than that. The boat itself should have been vibrant in the sunlight, bright red to just above the waterline, stark white above that. The boat was as muted as the dark green water in its shadow just as if the boat were in a shadow itself. If you thought it out, the light didn’t work. If you simply saw it, you could understand. The boat carried something invisible.

  “I’m not going to die from cancer,” Nelson said.

  My hair stood on end and something like a wind ran across my skin. Even in the rising heat of the room, I shivered. The sensation spread until it touched me intimately, creeping with airy pleasure across my breasts and down my belly. The last traces of it tingled and faded at the same time like the tiny ghosts of a million ants dancing on my scalp.

  “I’m glad,” was all I could say.

  “I mean it,” he told me. “I know how scary the thought can be. Sickness. Lingering. You don’t have to be afraid of that.”

  “Who says I’m afraid?”

  “Why wouldn’t you be? I am.”

  Sometimes, I realized, men can surprise the holy hell out of you.

  “How about you let me take you to that dinner we talked about?” he asked
.

  I looked him over, thinking that was the craziest idea I’d ever heard. In a way he looked stronger than I’d seen him in the hospital, even considering that he still looked horrible, but a gown and IV can make any man look worse. In fact, he looked almost exactly the way he had lying in the dirt at the side of the road, like he’d just been beaten.

  He must have been reading my thoughts, because as soon as I said, “You’re crazy—” he shot back, “This isn’t chemo. This isn’t even about being sick.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “This is sitting alone and feeling sorry for myself.”

  “It’s a hell of a pity party.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice lately.”

  Haven’t we all? I thought it but I didn’t say it. What I did say was, “I’m not so sure you’re up to it.”

  “Getting up’s not a problem.”

  Sometimes men don’t surprise you at all.

  “Please,” he said. “I can’t stand sitting alone any more. I can’t stand my own company. I just want to get out and be around a little life and I’d love to do it with you.”

  Sometimes they do surprise you.

  “You need a shower,” I told him.

  “Sponge bath?”

  “You couldn’t handle a sponge bath.” He looked like a kid whose birthday had been cancelled. “Get into the shower.” As soon as he started to smile, I said, “Alone.”

  He went. He was slow and weak, but he went.

  This time I stayed out of the room. If I had gone in there I would not have run out again. However, I wasn’t ready for what would have happened.

  While he showered with the doors open—an invitation if I’ve ever seen one—I closed the doors and windows I had opened and let the air conditioner bring things back down. For the rest of the time I stared at the painting on the easel. Some of the time I spent trying to understand what Nelson had done. The remainder I spent trying to understand why. When he came back into the room I was still looking at the painting.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I answered with a kiss. It was deep and wonderful. With my arms around his neck I crushed my body against his and felt the heat there. When he breathed I could feel the rise of his chest against my breasts. I didn’t let it break until I felt something else begin to rise against my leg. Even then I sucked his tongue into my mouth and nibbled it gently before moving away. It was a good kiss, full of meaning and promise.