A Living Grave

by Robert E. Dunn

  * * *

  I woke the next morning to the undulations of the lake and the sound of my phone. It felt early and I was tempted to ignore the call, but it was work. The phone was in the pocket of my jacket and I climbed out of bed to get it. Everything hurt.

  It was Sheriff Benson calling. “I know it’s early,” he said without a greeting. “But I’d like you to come in and have a little talk.”

  “About last night?” I asked him.

  “About a lot of things,” he said. “As soon as you can get here.”

  I cleaned up quickly, pulling on a pair of the old jeans I kept on the boat and a shirt that I left untucked. When I got to the door of the shop there was a note waiting.

  Me and the painter went fishing. Trout for dinner. Make your own breakfast.

  It was signed simply Uncle.

  Nelson must have been stronger this morning. I hadn’t seen him after I came in last night.

  Usually weekend mornings were the busy time at the dock. I was surprised that Uncle Orson would give that up. At the same time, I wasn’t. Not for the first time I wished I was a better daughter and niece and person in general. Then I went to the truck and headed in to see what kind of music I was facing.

  As I was pulling up to the sheriff’s department there was a white sedan pulling away. That suggested to me the kind of tune I would be expected to dance to.

  The sheriff was in casual clothes, jeans and a pair of hand-stitched Mexican boots. The boots were up on his desk looking carefree, but his face didn’t match his posture.

  “Close the door,” he said.

  I did. Then I decided to beat the punch and turned to him, saying, “There’s a lot you don’t know—that Reach didn’t tell you.”

  “He told me enough, goddamn it. Enough to explain a lot. Hell, I always thought you were gay.”

  The profanity didn’t surprise me. The blunt statement about being gay stunned me. Sheriff Benson was the kind of man who fell into casual cursing whenever he got flustered or angry. But always in private and always within bounds. This was already going beyond his usual bounds.

  The shock must have shown on my face because he put his feet down and tried to physically wave it away with his hands. They looked like he was shooing flies.

  “I know. I know,” he said. “I’m not supposed to say that kind of thing and I’m sure as hell not supposed to say it to someone that works for me. But honestly, I never cared and I wish it was true after hearing what that son of a bitch has been telling me.”

  “You should let me explain—”

  He waved me off again. “You know he was here again this morning? Stirring the pot.”

  “I need to tell you—”

  “He told me. The son of a two-dollar whore stood right there, and told me that you, one of my officers, had conspired to kill a superior officer while serving in the U.S. Army.”

  “I—” I choked. Tears were welling in my eyes and the words I needed were caught in my chest and pressing against my heart.

  “Of course I understand why you didn’t tell me. He told me about the charges you filed. And he said that when the Army could find no basis to proceed with criminal charges, you made waves.” As if the word was not enough, the sheriff undulated his hands to show waves. “He said you were angry and talking to journalists and lawyers and doing everything to make the Army look bad. Then, he says, you had the bastard killed.

  “And I said ‘good.’ I told the motherfucker, ‘justice is justice,’ and ‘I have a daughter,’ and ‘if he didn’t have any charges to file, get the hell out of my county.’”

  “What . . . ?” I was confused by the tirade, and it was slow coming to me that his anger was directed at Major Reach, not at me.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you today. That man is here as part of an ongoing investigation. He came to see me as a ‘courtesy visit,’ to let me know that one of my officers is a suspect.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” was all I was able to say.

  “You’re sorry? Goddamn it,” he said. Then he added, “Goddamn it. I apologize about my language but, son of a bitch and God help me, I told the major, I hoped you did kill the man that did that to you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that ever happened.”

  He was too. I could see it in his eyes and in the tension of his body. He hadn’t asked me in to tell me that I was fired or under investigation. He called me in because he thought I should know he had been made party to my secrets. He was trying to say he was behind me, but what he had learned had wounded him. The sheriff was hiding behind anger and language. I could understand that.

  As shocked as he might have been by what Reach had told him, I think he was more shocked when I came around the desk and hugged him. I got tears and snot on his shoulder, but he just stood there and accepted it. I couldn’t see his face. I was sure it was red with embarrassment. The world needs more men like Sheriff Chuck Benson.

  When I stopped crying, he told me I didn’t have to tell him anything. He only wanted me to know, he was behind me all the way. Then he asked where I got the shiner.

  We talked for about an hour more. I told him about the biker connection to Angela Briscoe and the follow-up work I’d done to find Leech. He knew most of it because I’d copied him on all the e-mail correspondence with the feds. Then I told him about my suspicions that the kids, Danny Barnes and Carrie Owens, knew more than they were telling me. I also shared my opinion that something inappropriate might be going on at Carrie Owens’s home. After that, I told him about keeping Billy out at the crime scene and followed up with the developments on the entirely new and confusing case of whiskey, bikers, and fine artists. I closed with a rundown of the previous night. I had to admit that I was at Moonshines with Nelson Solomon and that I’d taken him to my uncle’s and that led to why I was at his home and fighting bikers at almost midnight.

  The sheriff seemed actually glad that Nelson was with me last night. He didn’t say so, but I think he was happy to believe I wasn’t gay. He did get a little annoyed about overtime for Billy staying out at the river where Angela had been killed.

  I told him that Billy had volunteered and was on his own time.

  He asked if I thought he was the kind of boss who would expect his officers to work without pay. He wouldn’t do that to Billy or anyone else, he said, but it was his decision, not mine.

  It was a fair complaint.

  Early morning had become simply morning, so I decided to get back into work. I checked e-mail and voice messages, deleting the one from Reach without bothering to listen. As far as Angela Briscoe went, bikers and Leech had taken up most of my attention. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Barnes kid and Carrie Owens had more to share if I could shake it loose. I’d made calls to both homes and, while I was tracking down bikers, talked with Lloyd Barnes, Danny’s father. It was a waste of time. He barely knew his son’s age, let alone cared what he was doing as long as he “didn’t get trapped by some little bimbo.”

  Carrie was the key, I’d decided. I’d gone back to her house looking for her mother or father. Nothing. Each time, I left a card in the door with a note to please call. Each time I went back, my card was gone. I’d called and left messages that had never been returned. Now, sitting on my desk, were sheets on the parents that I’d requested to be pulled. They didn’t paint a pretty picture. Deputies had been called to the residence a dozen times. Carrie had a juvenile file that was mostly vandalism. Because of issues at home and because she’d gotten herself into the system, the court had assigned a caseworker. She’d be able to tell me a lot more than what was in the files. That was another round of calling, leaving a message and following up with e-mail.

  Even when there is a murder investigation there is other work to be taken care of. I went through the piles and returned the calls I’d been putting off. An hour later I was starved. Uncle Orson did say breakfast was my responsibility.

  I left the building feeling both better and worse than when I’d gone in. It wa
s a weird emotional confusion that I didn’t bother trying to work out. As much as I hated my life being put on display, the sheriff was behind me, and I’d actually gotten quite a bit of work done. So far the day was a win.

  When I pulled up to one of my favorite cafés, there was a familiar truck parked in front. I decided to join Clare Bolin and see what the special was.

  Clare was indeed having the special: three eggs, country ham, what would probably total half-a-dozen potatoes’ worth of hash browns, along with biscuits covered in sausage gravy, and coffee, black and strong. I would not have wanted to be his heart. I chose just a short stack instead. We talked a while and I learned quite a bit about his illegal hobby. The one thing I learned that seemed to have real meaning was that Clare was not the only one being muscled. All of the other guys he knew who were making and selling had been visited by one of the Nightriders. Unfortunately, what I didn’t learn was why anyone would want to cut in on such small operators.

  I enlisted his help in making a survey of local producers, people he knew and the people they knew. It put me in the ethical dilemma of making a promise not to use the information against anyone whose name showed up. Knowing that I was promising on the sheriff’s behalf, as well as my own, doubled my ethical issues.

  When I left the café, Clare was still sitting there working on the biscuits and pouring down another steaming mug of coffee. Behind Clare’s truck was the white sedan. Major Reach was crossing the street with a smug look on his dark face.

  “What is your problem with me?” I asked even before he had finished crossing the street. I didn’t quite yell.

  “I’m just a man doing my job,” he answered and, I thought, doubling the level of smug.

  “We’ve been over the you-doing-your-job thing,” I said.

  “Nice eye.”

  “Yeah. Real police work is hands-on.”

  “Oh, I’m taking a good, hard look at your hands-on work, Hurricane. Don’t you worry.”

  A city sidewalk is not the best place for a confrontation, especially if you’re a public official, but I was past caring. Framed in the window of the Taneycomo Café for a full audience, I stood toe to toe with Major John Reach and told him, “If I thought you the least bit competent, or believed you had the slightest integrity, I might worry. But if you were those things you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

  Reach leaned in even closer and put his gaze even with mine. “Former Lieutenant Williams,” he said. His voice was as narrow and focused as his eyes. “You shamed the United States Army and yourself. You brought charges against superior officers without proof or witnesses, a court-martial offence, and when you lost, you took the law into your own hands. You will spend the rest of your life worrying.”

  “Is everything okay here?” It was Clare asking from behind Reach’s shoulder. “You need help, Hurricane?”

  Reach turned quickly and said, “What’s a fat-ass redneck going to do to help? Huh? She needs you to shut up and keep walking, fat man. And so do I.”

  God bless him, Clarence Bolin just smiled. He gave a friendly nod to the insignia on the major’s collar and said, “I wore that uniform too. In sixty-five, when some whites were still angry about sharing bunks and meals with blacks. I was at Ia Drang and I didn’t care that the man I pulled off the field was a black kid from Philly any more than I cared that the guy who pulled me out was another black kid from Mississippi. I wore the uniform with guys who had it a hell of a lot harder than you and they made it look better than you ever could.”

  Clare turned away from us without waiting for a response and then crossed the street to his truck and climbed in. Once behind the wheel he rolled the window down and yelled, “Hey Major.” With a wide grin spreading over his face, he gave Reach the middle-finger salute and backed the lifted truck up over the hood of the white sedan.

  “Are you going to do something about that?” Reach yelled at me as Clare drove away, still flipping the bird.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t catch the license number.”

  * * *

  When they left the pavement, my tires raised a cloud of dust that billowed and swirled behind the truck, then into my open window when I slowed down. I had called the dock with no answer, so I went with another whim and drove out to where Angela had been killed. Pulled off into the grass not far from where I had first seen Clare was Danny Barnes’s car.

  It was only the two of them, Carrie and Danny. For good reason. They were on the ground right where Angela had been lying. Carrie’s shirt was open and her loose bra was up around her throat. Danny was kneeling between her legs with his pants open. There was something in his hand and he flicked it away. They were a pair of white panties.

  For the past several years, brown has been the refuge color for my rage. Soft, bled-out colors, all from Iraq, have followed my inner turmoil projecting themselves out into the world with my anger, hatred, and pain. At that place and moment everything was different. Red—thick, rich, red spurted at the edges of my vision like the rush of arterial spray into strong wind.

  A hurricane.

  White, thin, and filmy as the young girl’s panties, flitted like a sheer banner to which I reacted with rage.

  The two colors swirled in the dark chamber behind my eyes. They didn’t mix. They whipped by, filling my vision with streaks of blood and delicate fabric.

  Then there was the screaming as Carrie was crying and pleading. The impact of each blow triggered more anger, driving my lust for the kill up my weapon and into my arms, communicating red and white into my heart. I can’t remember pulling my automatic, but I had. It fit in my hand as comforting as the rage that had settled in my chest.

  A hand gripped my arm and pulled. Someone screamed at my ear. It didn’t match my violence. It was not the screaming of rage but of fear. More. Terror.

  The words came to me as if shouted from a great distance and into the wind.

  “Please.”

  I struck again.

  “Please,” she said. Carrie. She was pleading. She was begging me. “Stop. Don’t hurt him anymore.”

  My voice swam up through fluid, a river of blood and white satin. I barely heard it say, “He won’t hurt you again.”

  “He didn’t,” she cried. “He wasn’t hurting me. I let him. Please.”

  When I broke the surface of the river I felt the colors, like physical currents flowing away, down my shoulders and off my body. I held Danny by the collar and my weapon in my hand. Both were bloody.

  “Please. We were just fooling around.”

  * * *

  The sheriff held my service weapon dangling from a finger in the trigger guard as the ambulance pulled away. All lights and the siren were on.

  “Tell me again,” he said.

  I did. From the moment I had pulled up to the moment I had called in for EMTs and backup was laid out like a series of film frames whose sum were so much more devastating than any individual image. The sound of my own voice was hollow. But even the cotton batting I seemed to be hearing through allowed the shame into my ears.

  I told him how I had found the two in the woods and right on top of the still bloody leaves where Angela Briscoe had been murdered. I told him also of the girl’s bare breasts and disheveled clothing, Danny’s open pants and the panties, tossed aside. My belief that Carrie Owens was being raped and would be murdered, just as Angela had, sounded foolish to me in the retelling. By the third time I related the story it sounded like lunacy.

  Sheriff Benson asked if I was all right. He spoke in the same kind of voice I imagined him using to speak to the Briscoe family.

  I nodded. I was tired of talking. But there was still something left unsaid. I could feel it in the sheriff’s posture. A weight that he despaired of hanging on me. Was I primed by experience to expect rape when there was none? Was my judgment impaired? Was I dangerous?

  The weight remained on his shoulders and the questions stayed unasked. I was grateful for that. Officially, though, he had to place
me on suspension.

  When everyone had gone, I stayed there standing in the dirt road leaning against the fender of my truck. It should have been one of those moments of evaluation and reevaluation, what my grandparents had called “a come to Jesus moment.” It might even have been. If it was, I didn’t remember it. When I leaned up against the truck it was late morning and the next time I looked up it was afternoon. The sun had shifted in the sky and shadows had begun to appear like rot under the day. I had the feeling that my thoughts had been deep and memories had played over bare nerves, but that was it. A feeling.

  Since I couldn’t conjure the memories I decided to kill the feeling.

  The tailgate of the truck made a perfect spot to sit and sip from the jar of Clare’s whiskey. I wish I could say I sipped.

  Once again, time disappeared. When it returned it was carried on the soft, almost silent, tread of the sheriff’s road tires, not the ground-gnawing rubber of Humvees. He stopped but remained in the SUV as my father got out. When Dad had my keys in hand he waved and the sheriff went the way he had come.

  The jar beside me was well on the way to half gone. Sun and shadows had shifted again. My father poured the whiskey out onto the road and then sat beside me, allowing more time to pass while I cried. Then he drove me back to the dock, taking a very long way around and going slow while I slept.

  * * *

  The day had shifted into early evening by the time we got back to the dock. I was all cried out but still drunk and sleepy. We pulled up and parked well away from the dock gate so as not to disturb Nelson, who was seated on a kitchen chair in the middle of the parking lot painting. He smiled at me and rose when I melted out of the truck, but sat again when my father held up his hand and took me under his arm. Half guiding me and half shoving, he got me onto the dock, through the shop, and onto the houseboat without a word. Once he had me in the bunk he removed my boots and covered me.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, candy corn.” The nickname always made me smile. He had called me that one Halloween, saying I was the sweetest and silliest thing. Then he said, “I’m sorry about everything, but we’ll make it right.”