Buried Alive

by J. A. Kerley

  “The cavalry arrived just in time,” I said, feeling my head clearing. “Thank you.”

  “It was close,” Krenkler said. “Luckily we had a window into your ridiculous attempt to fly solo.”

  She nodded toward the door of the barn. Entering, surrounded by a half-dozen FBI agents, was my brother, hands behind his back. Krenkler had probably started digging into Jeremy’s background from the moment he’d stepped into Burton’s visitation. He’d told me how he’d put one over on Krenkler, asking to be part of the investigation. It appeared he’d misread the lady. His life in the forest - his life in the real world - was over.

  Jeremy said something to one of the agents. The guy looked at me and laughed. My brother shot me a wink and a wave.

  No handcuffs.

  The agent patted Jeremy on the back, nodded at me. They both laughed like I was the butt of a joke.

  “Doctor Charpentier came to us an hour ago,” Krenkler explained. “He said you were at his home earlier. You were looking for some place tucked way in the north of the county. You couldn’t raise McCoy on your cell and you thought a hiker like the doctor might know how to get here.”

  I shot a glance at my brother. “I, uh … yes, that’s right.”

  “The doctor also said you were acting pretty squirrely. He began to fear for your safety and called us. You owe him big time.”

  Rourke extended his hand and I let him pull me to standing. I closed my eyes with my hands on my knees for a few seconds, getting my bearings. My brother had walked into the lion’s den to save my life.

  Krenkler shook her head at me for a final time, then trotted over to inspect the body, snapping orders to the agents like they were errant bellhops. I went to Jeremy, now alone.

  I said, “Thanks, Doc.”

  “This has been very instructive,” he said quietly, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning against the wall, totally at ease. “I’ve been quite the curious fellow on the way here, asking the boys how they dig into people’s backgrounds and so forth.”

  “The boys?”

  “And, of course, dear Miss Krenkler. They’ve been most informative without realizing it. With a little more work I can harden my identity.”

  I shook my head in amazement: My brother had once again fallen upwards. I went outside and found Cherry about to be taken to the hospital for a checkup. The paramedics were kind enough to allow us a few quiet moments together, and I followed the ambulance to the hospital.

  Cherry’s exam and several X-rays took a half-hour. McCoy stopped by for a few minutes. After she was pronounced in remarkable shape, given her ordeal, we retreated to her home and stood in a steaming shower until the water ran cool. She poured us bourbon over ice, enlivened with a few ounces of seltzer. We sat on the porch as the stars wheeled overhead.

  “How well did you know Horace?” I asked.

  A long pause. “He laughed a lot. Bought me birthday gifts, graduation gifts. Things Mama couldn’t afford. I loved to be close to him because he smelled so good, his aftershave or cologne. I’d sit in his lap with my arms around his neck when I was little. One time I … he …”

  She fell silent, her eyes far away and looking inside.

  “Talk to me,” I said. “Don’t hide it.”

  “I-I must have been ten, eleven. My birthday party. I was sitting on his lap and spooning ice cream into his mouth. I felt his hand on my legs, then … something tickled and I wriggled away. The ice cream fell on to him. I remember seeing this startled look on his face. I thought I’d done something wrong.”

  “Do you think—”

  “I think he was testing something, that he might have even scared himself. From that point on he started telling me I’d gotten too big to hold. For a long time I thought it was because I’d spilled ice cream on his lap. Then time sped up and it was junior high school and I was in the band and on the newspaper and then high school and I was in clubs and there were boys, whoopee. College and studies came next. I really didn’t see him much after I was thirteen or fourteen, too much happening in my life.”

  “But he left you his home.”

  “Horace had changed over the years, become a recluse. His big laugh went away. He had an enlarged heart that was expanding. I’d come to visit and he really seemed to appreciate the company and, uh, and …”

  Reality crashed in and her words choked into tears. She stood and wiped them away with the back of her hand. She paced the porch until her voice was steady.

  “I can’t believe what a monster he was, Carson. What a disgusting monster. I can’t live here any more, knowing what he was. I can’t.”

  “Maybe Horace changed at the end,” I said.

  “People like that never change, Carson. Their souls are too broken.”

  She fell into the chair and put her head in her hands. I moved close and put my arm over her shoulder.

  “Did you know Lee McCoy was on the recovery team when your uncle fell?” I asked.

  Her face turned to me, puzzled. “He never mentioned it.”

  “There’s something else Lee didn’t mention.”

  I told her a brief story about a ranger rappelling to a body in a tree and finding a scrap of paper pinned to the corpse’s ice-cream suit. I handed her something McCoy had kept for three years, figuring it might someday be needed. I’d asked him to bring it to the hospital.

  Donna Cherry stared at four words written in a whisper:

  I’m sorry for everything

  She folded the note, closed it in her hand, and we walked to the edge of the precipice, lit in the soft light from her porch.

  “Two men involved in the fight camps died down there, Carson. One created horror, the other was trapped in it. Both were looking for freedom from their pasts. Why did they both die here? What does it mean?”

  “Whatever you need it to mean,” I said. “Whatever it takes to work the magic.”

  “Magic? What do you mean by …”

  But I was already climbing the steps to her porch. I went inside and stripped her walls of the half-dozen implements used in training dogs. I took them outside and told her what they were.

  “They’re all that remains of the bad,” I said. “If you kill them properly, you can set your home free.”

  Cherry stared into my eyes for a long moment, nodded understanding. She went inside, returning minutes later in a simple gown of white. Her feet were bare in the warm grass. She was wearing Horace Cherry’s hat.

  Cherry stood at the precipice with her eyes closed for five minutes, praying or chanting or simply wishing … it was only hers to know. She bent and picked up the bite stick and flung it high and away, watching it dissolve into the night sky. One by one I watched the other angry tools disappear into the dark. They reminded me of old knives sucked beneath green waves.

  When the last device was gone, she pulled the hat from her head and launched it out over the valley. It floated on the breeze for a two-count, then tumbled into the depths. She turned to me.

  Asked, “How’d I do?”

  “Not mine to judge,” I said. “How do you feel?”

  She pulled me close. Whispered in my ear.

  Said, “Free.”

  56

  It was nine a.m. before Cherry and I rolled from bed, Cherry answering the strident phone. “Good morning,” she said. “Uh -huh. Not long, I expect. Take care.” She hung up.

  “World’s briefest survey?” I asked.

  “That was Lee. He wants to, uh, meet up for supper tonight or tomorrow, maybe turn it into drinks.”

  “I’m up for it. I’m hoping for another hike with him.”

  I had time remaining in my vacation and planned to spend the bulk of it with Cherry. She drove me to Road’s End for fresh clothes, passing Jeremy’s cabin. He was in his garden, pruning something or other. He looked up and grinned, making the OK sign. Cherry waved back and yelled a greeting.

  “You still think he’s weird?” I asked as she pulled her head back into the vehicle.


  “He saved our lives. If he’s weird it’s the best weird ever. ”

  We rolled down the lane to Road’s End. Turning the bend for the last hundred feet, I noted motion on my porch. Saw a wagging tail. Heard a triumphant bark.

  Mix-up had returned.

  He bolted for the car as we drove to the cabin. I bailed out the door while the car was in motion, thumping, patting, petting, all at once. I couldn’t stop laughing. I threw a stick, he ran and fetched. I ran in a circle and he darted between my legs, knocking me to the ground. I tumbled him over in the weeds and thumped his huge chest as he pedaled his feet at the sky.

  Something struck me as strange. Mix-up’s coat was mat-free and as shiny as fresh silk, not expected of a furry beast lost amidst a forest’s brambles and burrs. I found no mud on his feet. No ticks in his fur.

  Had he been bathed and brushed? Perplexed, I went to the kitchen and filled his food bowl. He finished half of the meal, then wandered outside.

  The way he acted when recently fed.

  I followed Mix-up outside to the porch, where Cherry was smoothing the fur on his broad back. A strange thought touched my head. I’d handed Cherry two dozen LOST DOG posters to disperse. But the only posters I’d ever seen were ones I’d distributed. The only calls I had received were from people who saw posters I’d put in place.

  And why was Cherry always so optimistic about Mix-up’s return?

  “Good doggie…” Cherry said, now scruffing Mix-up behind the ears, his favorite site for attention. But I had been with Cherry when Mix-up disappeared, my mind reasoned. We’d been on the run all day.

  “He’s a good doggi-woggie …”

  But… that six-second call from McCoy a half-hour ago. Was it really about going out to eat? Just saying How about we all head to a restaurant for supper some night this week? took about six seconds. And that was as stripped down as a telegraph message, without the standard pleasantries associated with Lee McCoy. And how did Cherry’s response - “Uh-huh. Not long, I expect” - fit with McCoy’s message?

  My head tried a sample dialogue.

  McCoy: “I’m sneaking the dog back to Road’s End. You’ll be at your place a while, right?”

  Cherry: “Uh-huh. Not long, I expect.”

  Was I over-analyzing? Had my Detective Meter gone to overload mode?

  I watched Cherry smiling and patting Mix-up’s flank. His tail whisked at her face; his clean, fluffy tail. She scratched him between his cow-sized eyes. Patted his belly, which he loved. She rubbed Mix-up’s ears. My mutt looked ready to ascend toward canine Nirvana. When had Cherry found time to learn his special spots?

  “Uh, Donna,” I said, swallowing hard and walking closer. “I’ve got a question …”

  But if Cherry and McCoy had dognapped Mix-up, it was because they needed me on the case, doing what I did best, right? It just made sense: I was, after all, the hotshot hard-on from Mobile. In hindsight, I expect I’d have done the exact same thing if faced with the prospect of losing me.

  “What, Carson?” Cherry said, turning the beautifully idiosyncratic eyes my way. Was that a shadow of guilt in the left one?

  “I, uh - say, how about we head over to the skylift for another ride?” I took her hand and lit up my most sincere smile. “I just purely love that thing.”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To the librarians in the Powell County and Wolfe County Public Libraries in eastern Kentucky, keepers of the lighthouses. To the exceptional folks at the Aaron Priest Literary Agency. To Julia Wisdom at HarperCollins UK for her overview and suggestions. To Anne O’Brien for sharp-eyed editing. And to the professional staff at Kentucky’s Natural Bridge State Resort Park, whose multi-faceted programs are instrumental to my knowledge and appreciation of the Red River Gorge.

  About the Author

  J.A. Kerley worked in advertising and teaching before becoming a full-time novelist. He lives in Newport, Kentucky, but also spends a good deal of time in Southern Alabama, the setting for his Carson Ryder series, starting with The Hundredth Man. He is married with two children.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Also by J.A. Kerley

  The Hundredth Man

  The Death Collectors

  The Broken Souls

  Little Girls Lost

  Blood Brother

  In the Blood

  Coming soon from HarperCollinsPublishers

  The next thriller in the series featuring

  Carson Ryder, the detective with a unique

  perspective on serial killers

  Enjoy an excerpt now

  1

  Three Weeks From Now

  There’s something I got to give you, Harry, something important…

  It was hotter than a potter’s kiln in Harry Nautilus’s attic. Sweat rolled down his face and into his eyes. He ducked under a joist, pushed past a broken kitchen chair he’d forgotten to repair, came face to face with a wall of cardboard cartons.

  I got everything I need, Zing. Lay back and relax

  The cartons were packed with outsized clothes. A year ago Nautilus had been ambushed by a blow to the head and nearly killed. During his convalescence he dropped thirty pounds he’d been trying to lose for ten years. A heavy-shouldered man of six-four, he was determined to stay at two hundred ten pounds. Still, he’d been unable to donate the duds to Goodwill, which he took as subconscious admission his former body was biding its time within. He shouldered aside the cartons and kept moving ahead.

  I need you to get in my closet there, Harry. Grab out that brown box in the corner, would ya?

  Nautilus palmed sweat from his brow. The roof angled low at back and he duckwalked the final few feet to a dark corner, reaching a small green box, metal, no larger than a shoebox. When he reached for the box, his hands faltered.

  What the hell’s in here, Zing… a brick?

  He closed his eyes and forced his fingers to close around the box. He backed out of the corner and retreated down the staircase, closing the attic door. He took the box to his office and set it on his desk while he patted his face dry with a bandana.

  Above Nautilus’s desk, the wall was a montage of commendations, certificates and awards. Three medals of valor. Two awards for Officer of the Year, one as a patrolman, one as a detective. There were certificates of advanced training from the FBI. Recognitions from neighborhood associations. Letters from schoolkids thanking him for visiting class. There was a picture of a young and uniformed Nautilus laughing as his eight-year-old niece tried on his street-cop hat. Centering the wall was an eight-by-ten photo of Nautilus standing beside Carson Ryder, his partner and friend of many years. They were jointly holding a framed certificate.

  What do you want me to do now, Zing?

  The picture was from a few years back when the pair shared Officer of the Year status. Harry Nautilus was in a dark suit ironed hard as masonite, his wide black face somber behind the bulldozer-blade mustache, eyes stern and official. Ryder’s white linen sport jacket was rumpled and his tie hung askew, his belt buckle an inch off center in the jeans. His dark hair looked like someone had wounded his comb. Still, he was standing straight with his usual semi-smirk replaced by a serious and suitably dutiful face. However, as Carson’s left hand held the framed commendation, the right one had snuck up to put rabbit ears behind Nautilus’s head.

  Open the box, Harry. Careful now …

  Nautilus felt guilt pool in his gut and he turned his eyes from the photo. His heart had started racing. He took a deep breath and opened the box, removing a zip bag brittle with age. The bag tore, pouring forth the smell of steel and gun oil. He pulled out a greasy towel and folded it open, revealing a black 40-caliber revolver. It had a five-round magazine and a one-inch barrel. The stock grips had been replaced with fingerprint-resistant burlap, now rotted into threads.

  Nautilus ran his thumbnail over a depression in the frame of the revolver where a serial number had once resi
ded.

  Jesus, Zing, what is this? What happened to the…

  The number seared away with acid.

  You know what it is, Harry. What it’s for.

  The gun came from Zing Johnson, Nautilus’s long-time mentor in the Mobile, Alabama, Police Department. Harry Nautilus was thirty-two years old the day he’d received the weapon. Zing Johnson was fifty-one, seventeen days from his death by cancer.

  I don’t want the damned thing, Zing. I don’t even want to look at—

  Johnson pushed up from the bed, the stink of disease rising from his loose skin like hot fog. Shut up and lissen, Harry. I ain’t got no time left to fuck around. You’re one of the few men able to understand a gun like this means there’s no options left. I can trust you with it.

  Nautilus had nodded at Johnson and put the weapon back in the box, thinking first chance he got he’d throw the damned thing off a bridge into the bay. Johnson fell back into the covers, his strength depleted. Standing, bidding his friend farewell, Harry Nautilus went to the door with the box beneath his arm.

  Harry? Johnson rasped, struggling upright again. Nautilus turned, eyebrow up in question.

  You know that if that gun is ever used, the user will never be the same again. You know that, Harry, right?

  Nautilus sighed and set the gun on the desk, staring at a blunt machine modified for one mission: Deliver death and disappear. The weapon had bided its time in his attic for over fifteen years, Harry Nautilus never truly understanding what Zing Johnson had been talking about.

  Until yesterday.

  2

  Present time

  Spring in coastal Alabama is a violent time, weather-wise. Two inches of tumultuous, lightning-driven rain in an hour is not unusual, nor is it rare for blue to rule the sky shortly thereafter, as if all has been forgiven. Gulls return to the air and the foaming whitecaps on Mobile Bay settle into a mild green chop beneath warm breezes built for sailing.