A Living Grave

by Robert E. Dunn

  “I seen ’em around, hanging with Johnny some. First him, now us. Why don’t you do your job?”

  I was about to say something to that when a man I had never seen came up to talk to Figorelli.

  “Boss, I called the motorist-assist the insurance company said to. They’re on their way.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “That’s my driver,” Figorelli answered.

  “Did I ask you?” I turned and called over a deputy. It was Calvin Walker, the man to whom Reach had reported me. As he approached I wondered what I would have to deal with, but Calvin said nothing. “Take this guy’s statement,” I told him still with a bit of trepidation.

  “Get his IDs and commercial driver’s license checked and run him for priors.” It wasn’t until he had taken the driver away that I relaxed and turned back to Figorelli. “So your driver wasn’t in jail with you. He have an alibi for the times when Middleton was shot at and the day he was killed?” I asked.

  “He don’t need one,” Figorelli answered.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  The mechanics of investigation labored on, almost mindless. Who was known to a degree, even if not by actual name or location. Why was the real question dangling. Why is the making sense, the glue that would hold together the different people and the different crimes. There are a lot more whys in life than whos.

  I continued talking and trading insults with Figorelli, enough to know that he didn’t know how to get to the Nightriders any more than I did. I could tell by the threats. They were all bombast and wind, nothing even vaguely specific or suggesting a plan. He spoke on and on, using the phrases “When I find them” and “Those guys are gonna wish they were never born.” It was my experience that a guy like Figorelli, when faced with a known enemy, would have either said nothing or something simple. Saying, I’ll take care of it carries a lot more weight with these guys than any threat.

  Even though I doubted I would need them anymore, I told Figorelli and Cardo to stick around, then I told Calvin to make sure they did. I went to talk to the driver and asked him as much about Johnny Middleton as tonight. Most of his answers were “I don’t know.” While we talked, I looked over the parking lot. It wasn’t very full but the perimeter was lined with people looking on and taking in the activity. There were a few talking with deputies; either they thought they saw something important or their car was hit by stray fire.

  Past the edges of milling people I saw a man. He was dressed like Porter Wagoner on steroids with sequins on his Western-cut jacket and a big Stetson. It was the same man I had seen talking to Middleton in the bar the night I got into it with Figorelli. And the same one I’d seen talking to Figorelli on the steps of the RV. I was sure he was also the lawyer that had bailed Figorelli and Cardo out of jail. I still hadn’t seen his face but, even in Branson, there were not that many men dressed to star in a country music show. It was too much of a coincidence not to ask questions so I tried to catch him. By the time I got to the scene tape he was nowhere to be found.

  As I was searching faces and checking out moving cars, Billy pulled into the lot and came over. “I’m out giving tickets when all the cool stuff happens,” he said.

  “How come you’re not playing the patio tonight?”

  He nodded over at Figorelli. “The new management decided that my services were no longer required. They said they were going to put in a zydeco band. I think they didn’t want a cop around. I figured I’d volunteer for some overtime.”

  “New management? That didn’t take long.”

  “The way I heard it, they came in around noon the day after Middleton was found dead. After announcing it to the staff the first thing Figorelli did was take the mountain oysters off the menu.” He laughed. “At least the only people he fired were me and the distiller.”

  “The distiller? Isn’t that they guy that makes the whiskey?”

  “I guess they have their own guy coming in.”

  “Now that’s interesting,” I said.

  * * *

  All things are like clocks, I guess. They run down. Even the big, violent events run to a halt. It took a couple of more hours but that scene dwindled down to nothing with the removal of the RV. I played a little trick on Figorelli. The tow truck his driver had called showed up, but I directed the operator to take the land yacht to impound. Not only was it not going to be repaired for a while but the tow bill was coming out of his insurance.

  * * *

  I left the scene grinning and settling back into my original mood. If I had been in one of my bad or drinking moods I might have missed what happened next. Because I was going straight back to Nelson’s house—and his bed—I got caught up in an accident.

  In the center of the road was the carcass of a deer. To the side, across a ditch and smashed into a wall of rock, was a pickup truck. Milling around that were four kids, too many kids for the cab of the truck. I wasn’t the first cop on the scene. Billy was there and he was working over the body of someone in the ditch. As soon as my lights came on he looked up and waved me over.

  I took a moment to call in, just in case Billy had not had the chance. I renewed the request for an ambulance and traffic support.

  In the ditch was another girl. Three boys and two girls. It was obvious what had happened. The kids had all piled in the truck, girls on laps and everyone having a good time. Too good to be careful and probably too fast to see the deer until it was too late.

  I forced the standing kids to back away and get off the road. Then I knelt beside Billy. He was up to his elbows in the girl’s blood. She was young and pretty with dark hair, Hispanic or Native American looking. Most of her shirt and her bra had been cut off but Billy left part of the shirt to preserve the girl’s modesty. I thought even more of him for that.

  “Hold right here,” he ordered as soon as I was down. He didn’t wait for questions or for me to hesitate; he took my hand and put it under the girl’s arm, then wrapped my fingers around where he wanted them. “Squeeze tight,” he said. “Hard, like you’re trying to pinch it off.”

  When he moved his hands I noticed for the first time the one-anda-half-inch diameter branch protruding from both sides of her arm and the ragged hole it had cut going through.

  I glanced up and saw the remains of a scrub tree bent over the hood of the truck and sticking into the cab. When I looked back down, Billy was digging into a large medical case. It was the kind you see with EMTs, not the usual pack our deputies carry.

  He worked quickly without looking at me or giving any further instructions. I began to wonder if anyone could work quickly enough. My hands were getting bloody from the arterial pulse that still pumped from under my fingers. I squeezed harder and with both hands.

  Billy turned on a small but bright LED flashlight, then shoved the butt end into his mouth, smearing blood from his hands to his face. Using his head to aim, he put the beam on the still-flowing gash.

  I don’t know why he bothered; he worked mostly by feel. Pulling gauze pads, he packed them into the wound. After that, he brought out a pair of hemostats. I felt something moving before I saw what he was doing. His fingers were in the girl’s arm, under the skin and muscle, feeling for the artery.

  I became aware that he had begun talking. Not to me, to the girl. But they were words I had heard before.

  Mostly he said everything would be all right. He said it like it was a prayer as much for himself as for her.

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “We’ll take care of you.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Everything will be all right.”

  He never looked at the girl’s face. He was talking through her wounds, focusing, forcing kindness into a brutal business.

  “Move your grip up higher,” he said. He had to say it again before I came back to time and place. “Here,” he said, pointing with the flashlight, “in the armpit as high as you can, as tight as you can.”

  I shifted my grip and I felt his finge
rs follow under the skin.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he spoke softly. “We’ll take care of you.” Then a little louder: “Hah.” Under mine, his fingers pinched and pulled at the artery. He threaded in the hemostats and clamped the pulsing flow down.

  When it was done, Billy smiled at me.

  He has kind eyes.

  “I didn’t know you had EMT training,” I said.

  “Army medic,” he answered before turning back to bind the wound more.

  * * *

  Nelson was still on the couch when I returned. He was also still naked. But he had covered himself with an afghan. The big windows let in the light of the moon and stars almost like a lens with Nelson at the focal point. There were spots of blood on his cover from where he had been coughing.

  Seeing his blood put a sour charge in the bottom of my gut; the feeling of tequila on an empty stomach. He was getting better. Stronger. I could tell. He was healing. We were both healing, I hoped. But . . .

  I sat on the floor beside him and put my head into his shoulder. Sleep might have come. Instead, Nelson’s hand slipped into my hair.

  “Welcome home,” he said in a sleepy voice.

  Home. The word gave me a feeling not quite equal parts delight and panic. I wasn’t sure which was greater at the moment.

  “Busy night?” he asked.

  I nodded, knowing he could feel the motion.

  “Did you do any good?”

  “Yes,” I said. “There was a girl in an accident. Billy saved her life. I bet he saved her arm too. He was amazing. I didn’t even know until tonight that he was a medic in the service.”

  “Army?”

  I nodded again.

  “The Marines call the Navy corpsmen doc. They’re the best people in the world. The bravest.”

  “I’ve known Billy for years. How come I didn’t know that about him?”

  “Does he know everything about you?”

  “What?” I raised my head and looked at Nelson’s face in the pale light. “What do you mean?”

  “Have you told him what happened to you in the Army? A lot of us have things we don’t talk about from those times. I think every corpsman pays a price for the people he helps. If Billy had wanted you to know about that part of his life he would have told you.”

  “I only found out because he helped that girl.” I turned my back to Nelson and looked out the windows at the night beyond.

  “He’s a deputy now, not an EMT. He’s trying to leave something behind.”

  “You think that’s it?”

  “That or he’s carrying something around that he doesn’t want anyone to see.”

  I nodded at that, then said, “Secrets are hard.” The hand that had stayed in my hair pulled away. Its absence felt like a sudden silence. Behind me Nelson shifted up on the couch and drew in a breath to speak. Before he could, I said, “I’m a drunk.”

  The breath in his chest came out in a long wind. I started talking and I didn’t stop until I had told him all the events of the last couple of days.

  “You really broke his nose?” he asked when I got quiet.

  “I almost did a lot worse.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Next time I might. I almost used him for revenge against the whole Army.”

  “I know you know it,” he said. “But you really need to understand it—feel it. The Army’s not your enemy. Just a few assholes in it.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s pretty much life, isn’t it? Something wonderful except for a few assholes.”

  I smiled. Nelson’s arm wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me back against him. I put my head against his chest. Then his hand cupped my breast. It felt good.

  “I have a proposal,” he said.

  “I bet you do,” I told him and I was laughing a little. “But we’re both too tired.”

  He pulled his arm away then brought it back. In his hand was a small box. “No. I have a proposal.” Quicker than I would have thought possible Nelson sat up, then dropped to the floor beside me. At first I thought he had fallen but he was getting on one knee. Naked and wrapped up in a red, white, and blue basket-weave afghan, he asked me to marry him.

  “I know it’s quick. And it seems impulsive, maybe even foolish, but I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  I didn’t answer. He opened the box and revealed a ring with a stone as large as my badge. When I continued not to answer, Nelson said, “But you’re obviously not so sure . . .” There was a touch of humor in his voice as if he was not surprised at my silence. He put the box, still open, on the coffee table. “I’ll just set this here and let you think.” Then he stood and pulled the cover around himself, watching me.

  Finally he stepped back and said, “You have a lot of thinking to do, I can see.” The humor had gone from his voice. “It’s late and we’re both tired.” He stepped farther back. “I’ll be in bed if you want to come up and talk.”

  To my shame I let him go without a word. Everything felt so heavy.

  Chapter 17

  Once again I was driving deserted roads in the smallest hours of the morning. I told myself I didn’t know what I was looking for. That might have been half true. I didn’t know specifically but I knew I was looking for some place to put my fear and anger. That was the surprising part. I was angry. Nelson had asked me to marry him and I was angry. The confusion I felt at that added more fuel until my spine felt like a column of steam ready to burst from my ears.

  After several silent miles, fire caught my attention. Big yellow flames that danced like gypsies in the darkness. Color. Life. Rage. I could almost hear the clattering spin of fortunada’s wheel.

  The flames I saw were coming from a familiar bit of woods. Only a couple of days before I had been there talking to Clare. It was his camp on fire.

  Hitting the gas and my emergency lights at the same time, I rushed to the break in the trees and fencing that I knew would open onto a rutted dirt track. As I drove I tried to call in for support but I couldn’t keep control and dial at the same time, so the phone got tossed. Off the main road and onto the rough trail I pushed my truck faster than I should have. Rocks heaved up from the annual freeze-and-thaw cycles filled each rut. Some were big enough to crack open an oil pan. Many were sharp enough to cut through the sidewall of a tire.

  As I got closer the road became visible, twin depressions of clay and stone meandering in a long arc around a copse of old trees. The fire ahead backlit the oaks and scrub brush. Before I got to the final turn, other lights, headlights, came on. Their beams were blue and white straight-edge beacons both cutting through and made crisply visible by the smoke. Light was followed by noise as motorcycles, many with open pipes, howled into life. As I passed around the last screen of trees the bikes were screaming right at me.

  Law-enforcement personnel are discouraged from using our vehicles as a weapon except in cases of stopping another fleeing vehicle. That’s to say car-on-car. In no case would it be considered proper to use my truck as a battering ram against a motorcycle. In these instances, where it is a cop’s word versus a running arsonist wanted for questioning in a shooting—well, they’ll take my word that he hit me.

  I twisted my wheel and darted the truck headlong into the two lead bikes. One of them was clipped and shot spinning into the grass. The other hit slightly inboard of my driver’s-side headlight and was flung up into the windshield. It was Cotton Lambert.

  He rolled off the hood of the truck and into the dark grass before I could get stopped. By the time I did stop and get out, he was back on his feet.

  I’d like to say I was worried that they had harmed Clare. I’d like to say I believed that the Ozarks Nightriders and Cotton Lambert in particular had done more than property damage to an illegal moonshine operation to which I had turned a blind eye. I’d like to—I can’t. I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was thinking of dust and brown wind that crawls over your skin and embeds itself in open wounds.r />
  Cotton took a swing at me. That was all I wanted and less than I needed. I had come out of my truck with my automatic holstered and my baton in my hand. That was the same as saying, “Let’s dance.”

  Cotton’s punch was a rocket aimed right at the left side of my face. To meet it I raised my left fist and caught my wrist at his elbow and pressed out at the same time as I stepped in with my left foot at 45 degrees. By the book. As I turned his arm out I opened my hand and let it slide down until I closed my fingers on his wrist. That’s when I brought my baton down from my right shoulder onto his bicep. He was lucky. I had a choice of his bicep or his elbow. Following through, I released his arm and held the baton with two hands sliding my right in a little to allow the butt to protrude. I pulled back, twisting with my hips to add power and drove the butt up into his abdomen.

  In my head the blood was rushing like rivers of anger. I heard every rapid beat of my heart thrumming like a dynamo and I felt good. Honestly, I wanted more. If Cotton had had any sense he would have gone down and stayed there. He didn’t. Bent double, he charged, lifting me off my feet and slamming my back against the truck. I brought the baton down on his back, butt first, a small steel fist going hard into the meat between the spine and the shoulder blade.

  When he let me go I raised up for another strike, this one falling on the left trapezius as hard as I could bring it. He screamed, clutching at the impact point. His body was shocked by the pain, his back arched and his legs locked straight. I took advantage and kicked my heel into the inside of his right leg. He was down, screaming through his pain, and no more threat to me. But he still managed to call me a name. It was one short, ugly, hateful word that I won’t tolerate. And I’ve been called a bitch more times than can be counted.

  I broke his jaw.

  Everyone else was gone. It was just me and Cotton out there: Him under the headlights and me under the stars. The other bike that I had hit had been able to get away. At least I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find Clare, either. It was just the still that had been hurt. The flames were from a mixture of gasoline and alcohol. I wondered what Clare would think of the awful liquids that were running into the small stream beside his camp.