An Unsettled Grave

by Bernard Schaffer

  “I don’t like rum and Coke,” Eubanks said.

  “It’s an old family recipe,” Carrie said, grabbing two bottles off the shelf. “It’s special, trust me. What were you drinking before?”

  “Gin and tonic.”

  “Ugh,” she said over her shoulder as she poured various liquors into a tall glass. “I drank gin once and thought I was going to be sick for a week. It tasted like the Great Depression.” She grabbed a straw and stirred.

  “What in the world is in that?” Eubanks said, eyeing the yellowish brown concoction in her hands.

  “That’s a secret,” Carrie said, setting it in front of him. “Go ahead and try it. It’ll put hair on your chest.”

  Eubanks pointed at his neck where thick tufts of hair sprouted and said, “I think I’ll be okay on that end.”

  “Well, if you don’t drink it, I’m going to have to tell everybody you were a sissy.”

  Eubanks snorted with laughter. “Good luck with that.”

  He picked up the drink and raised it to his lips, and Carrie cried out, “Hang on!” She dug in her pocket, fishing for the pack of gum. “I almost forgot the most important part.” She held a stick of gum out and said, “You have to chew this first.”

  “Why?”

  “The residual flavor. It’s a big part of it. Come on, take it. Just chew it a few times and spit it out, then drink.”

  Eubanks leaned sideways to look past the double doors, checking for Paul. The bartender was nowhere to be found. “Oh, what the hell,” he said, taking the gum between his teeth. “Just chew a few times?” he asked.

  “Just like that,” Carrie said, reaching for a napkin. “Make sure you get it on both sides of your mouth. Spread that flavor all over the place.”

  Eubanks chewed, and when Carrie said that was enough, he bent forward and spit the gum into the napkin on the table. He picked up the glass, swallowed a mouthful of her mixture, and gagged, clutching his throat. “Christ, that’s disgusting,” he rasped, spitting the rest out of his mouth across the bar.

  Carrie snatched the napkin holding his gum off the bar and ran to the other end of the bar. The man slumped over bounced up from his booth, throwing back his hood to reveal his shining bald head. Steve Auburn thrust a paper envelope toward Carrie, and she dropped the napkin and chewed-up gum inside it.

  From his seat, Fred Eubanks watched this unfold in slack-jawed astonishment. Steve Auburn closed the envelope and stuffed it in his back pocket, eyes fixed on Eubanks, daring him to make a sudden move.

  “Steve?” Eubanks said, blinking in confusion. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Carrie shoved the double doors open and stuck her head into the kitchen. “All done, Paul. You can come out now.” She walked past where Eubanks sat and said, “Nice meeting you, Fred. By the way, I’m Detective Santero, and you’ll be seeing me in a few weeks with an arrest warrant for the rape and murder of Hope Pugh.”

  “Who?” Eubanks said, laughing. “Rape and murder? What the hell are you talking about?” He looked at Auburn. “This is some sort of joke, right?”

  “Is it, Fred?” Auburn asked. “We found semen from the crime scene, and you just gave us a DNA sample. Are they going to match?”

  People moved back as Eubanks got down from his stool. He raised his voice so everyone could hear him. “Are you seriously accusing me of that crime? Do you realize I will sue you and everyone you know for even suggesting such a thing?”

  “Come on,” Auburn said, leading Carrie toward the exit.

  “Anyway, you can’t use that gum as evidence,” Eubanks called out. “You didn’t get it from me legally. That’s called entrapment.” He pointed at the other patrons. “You all saw that. You’re all witnesses. They just tried to entrap me.”

  “You spit it out, genius,” Carrie said from the door. “That’s called abandonment. I can use that all day.”

  The door closed behind them, and reopened seconds later, with Fred Eubanks bursting through it. “Steve? Hang on,” Eubanks said, racing after them across the parking lot. “Steve, come on, quit fooling around. You know me. Everybody knows I’m not the kind to hurt anybody.” His voice broke as he said, “You can’t do this to me! I have a family. I have a daughter. Steve, please.”

  “My god, Fred,” Auburn whispered. “It was you. How the hell could you do something like that?”

  “I was a kid!” Eubanks shouted. He sank to his knees on the asphalt and buried his face in his hands. “Just a dumb, stupid kid. It was an accident. I didn’t know any better. Please, I’m begging you, don’t do this to me.”

  “Your daughter, were you good to her when she was little, Fred?” Carrie asked. “You give her a childhood filled with birthday parties and hugs and stuffed animals?”

  “Of course I did,” Eubanks said. “All of that.”

  “So, she grew up happy, right?”

  “Because she had a good dad. I am a great dad,” Eubanks said. “Ask anyone.”

  “Here’s what I wonder sometimes, Fred. When a little kid gets murdered, what are they thinking about? Are they thinking about all of the parties and hugs and stuffed animals, or is it just blind terror? Do those few moments of torment erase all of the good that was in their lives? Because we tell ourselves it doesn’t. Whenever some kid gets killed, we tell ourselves they had great lives right up until then, that we’ll try to focus on the good stuff. But in reality, they’re not thinking about any of the good things when it happens. They die in fear, and torment, and that’s it. You murdered Hope Pugh, Fred. We both know it. You raped her, then you killed her, then you hid her body out in the mountains. And you spent all these years pretending it didn’t happen, hoping this day would never come, but guess what? It did. Now you’re fucked.”

  Eubanks sobbed into his hands. His gold bracelet and watch jingled as his body jerked back and forth. “Oh my God!” he moaned between his fingers. “God, please help me Lord Jesus! Please, help me, I beg you.”

  Carrie leaned back on the hood of her car, folded her arms, and looked down at him. “You want help?” Carrie asked.

  “Yes, anything,” Eubanks said. “Please.”

  “Tell you what,” Carrie said. “If you mean it, and you really want help, I will make you a onetime offer. Do not piss me off, and do not try to negotiate with me, or it’s off the table. Ready? You give us a written statement tonight saying it was an accident. Saying you didn’t mean to kill her. I’ll even let you write a letter of apology to her family and say you were just a dumb, scared kid who made a mistake. I’ll make sure the district attorney and the judge both see it, but you had better tell us every single thing that happened that night.”

  Eubanks wiped his face on his sleeves, leaving them dark and stained. “You’d do that?”

  “As long as you cooperate,” she said. “Do you agree to go back to the police station, not in custody, and give us a statement of your own free will?”

  “I’ll do whatever I can. I have to think about my family,” he said, getting up from the ground.

  “Get in your car and wait for us back at the station, then. You okay to drive? You want a coffee?”

  Eubanks ran his hand through his sweaty hair and took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “I just want to get this over with.” He fished in his pocket for his keys and headed for his car. He stumbled as he walked, dazed like a heavyweight who has just been knocked into oblivion but doesn’t have the sense to fall.

  Steve Auburn leaned on the hood of Carrie’s car, watching as Eubanks drove out of the parking lot toward the police station. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re going to do him the favor of letting him make a written confession?”

  “I didn’t lie,” Carrie said. “The first people I’m going to show it to are the DA and the judge. Right after I convince them to try him as an adult and send him to prison for the rest of his life.”

  “We’ll have enough to arrest him tonight,” Auburn said. “Soon as that confession is signed.”


  “Let’s wait,” Carrie said. “Do the forensics on his DNA sample. Take our time writing the criminal complaint. With a case like this, it’s better to go slow and have all our ducks in a row.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Auburn whispered. “After all this time.” He looked up at the night sky, staring deep into the cosmos. “You seeing this, Pop? We did it.” He dug in his pocket for his cell phone and said, “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  Carrie watched him press his phone to his ear as he walked away, going back across the parking lot to where his car was parked around front. “Mom?” Auburn said, his voice quivering with excitement. “You awake? I never thought I’d be able to tell you this, but I want you to know something. I closed Dad’s last case.” Carrie could hear him choking up, telling his mom, “The Pugh girl. The last thing he was working on before he passed. I just caught the man who killed her.”

  Carrie got into her car and sat, not turning it on. Her breath was cool against the windshield, fogging it as she breathed. A couple came out of the bar, hugging one another and laughing as they headed for their car. Carrie shivered and buttoned her shirt. She grabbed her coat from behind her seat and put it on. She started the car, turned on the heat, and let it warm her bare legs.

  She drove past the couple as they were leaning against their car, kissing, their eyes closed, hands clasped, lost in one another. Carrie turned on the radio and sang to herself as she waited to turn out of the lot to go back to the police station. She didn’t know the words to the song, but the sound of her voice filled the empty space in her car.

  CHAPTER 28

  On the night before Hope Pugh’s funeral, Fred Eubanks lowered his glasses and peered at the computer screen in his bedroom. He clicked on his My Seller’s Account, his legs bouncing up and down as he waited for the page to load. “Come on,” he whispered, then read the screen and shouted, “Two sales! That’s what I’m talking about.”

  Both of his gold Rolex watches had sold. It was no surprise. They were his most valuable items, worth thousands of dollars apiece. He’d almost strangled the We Buy Gold assholes for the price they offered him for his bracelets and rings. Fucking junkie enablers is all they were. He clicked on the sales page and froze. They had to be the wrong numbers, he told himself. He took off his glasses and pressed his face close to the screen, wanting to read it with his own eyes.

  Three hundred fifty for the first Rolex, and five hundred dollars for the second. “No way,” he said. “Fuck that.” There was no button to cancel the sale. He clicked around until he found the Customer Service page. There was no phone number or e-mail address. Just FAQs that said nothing, followed by questions reading, Was this information helpful?

  He bellowed and threw his keyboard across the room, smashing it against his wife Karen’s assortment of perfume bottles, sending them scattering. He picked one up; it was a quarter empty and four years old. A $180 bottle of Chloe bullshit he couldn’t sell. Next to it was a $585 bottle of Tom Ford bullshit he couldn’t sell. You’d think she’d fucking use one up before buying four new ones, he thought, hurling both bottles at the dresser mirror. Shards of glass flew.

  Her spending had them so overleveraged he couldn’t even take a loan out to pay his attorneys’ retainer. They’d been all smiles when he met with them the day after he’d been formally charged, telling him they’d get right on it, and he assured them the check would clear. It didn’t. He’d managed to get a little more work out of them in the ensuing two weeks, but now they weren’t returning his phone calls.

  Eubanks sat on the bed, holding the sides of his head.

  The phone rang on the nightstand. Wiping sweat out of his eyes, he picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

  “It’s your brother. How are you?” Ritchie asked.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s great,” Eubanks said.

  “That’s good to hear, Fred. I wanted you to know we prayed for you at my congregation tonight. We prayed that the Lord will deliver you from the hands of your accusers. We prayed that the light of God’s mercy will shine on our entire community.”

  “Sounds good,” Eubanks said. “Listen, I have to get going.”

  “We’d like you to come to the house tomorrow during the funeral. We’ll pray for that poor child and her family, and you will feel the blessing of Jesus himself when you surrender yourself to him.”

  “I have to meet with someone about my case tomorrow,” Eubanks said. “But I appreciate it.”

  “Another time then, brother. Remember, the Lord is here for you when you are ready for him.”

  “Thanks,” Eubanks said, and hung up the phone.

  He went back to his computer and clicked New Message. He typed in the names of his attorneys and wrote: Guys, just letting you know the sales went great! I will have your money as soon as it comes through. Not sure how these things work, I never sold anything online before haha. Glad to still have you on my side. Let me know how things are proceeding.

  Eubanks picked up the phone again and dialed his mother-in-law’s house. It rang five times and he hung up. He called it back, letting it ring longer, and it went to voice mail. He called again. His wife picked up and said, “I told you I’d call you. My mother doesn’t want you calling here.”

  “Karen, I need to talk to Jesse. It’s important.”

  “She’s busy right now,” she said.

  “Yeah, does she like having a cell phone? Because I pay for that. Does she like driving a car? Because I pay for that, too. Tell her to pickup the goddamn phone.”

  Eubanks rocked back and forth, waiting for his daughter to pickup. When she did, she didn’t say anything. “Hey, sweetie,” he said. “How’s it going over there? Your grandmom driving you nuts yet?”

  “It’s fine,” Jesse mumbled.

  “Listen, I just need to set a few things straight, okay? I know you heard a lot about this in the news, but I want you to hear the truth from me. From your dad. Can you listen to me for a minute please?”

  There was no response.

  “I didn’t kill that little girl,” Eubanks said. “I never touched her. I was never anywhere near her. That’s the truth. I swear it on my life. I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles. Those cops, they set me up. First, they got me drunk, and then they conned me into signing some bullshit statement. I didn’t even read it before I signed it. My mistake, okay? I trusted the cops to be good people, and now I gotta pay the price for it. It happens to people every day in this screwed-up country, but this time, it happened to me.”

  “The news said the police have evidence it was you,” Jesse said.

  “Of course that’s what the fake news says! All they want is to make money. Nothing else happens around here, and I’m a big name, so as long as they keep doing stories about me, people will keep watching.” He bit his lower lip, hoping she’d say something. “Listen, you believe me, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know, Dad,” she whispered. “Grandmom said—”

  “Forget what she said. That crazy old bat’s had it in for me for years. All I care about is me and you. What you think, and whether or not you believe me. Do you?”

  “I guess so,” Jesse said, keeping her voice down.

  Eubanks clenched his mouth together to keep her from hearing him sob. “That’s all I needed to hear. I love you, baby. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, and hung up.

  He hung up the phone and lowered his face into his hands.

  * * *

  The lights from the office of Eubanks Insurance spilled out onto Auburn Street. An occasional car drove past, its headlights reflecting off the dark windows. Inside, Fred Eubanks was crouched on the floor, pulling everything out of his safe. Protected documents for his clients. Social Security numbers. Bank account details. Everything had value if you knew how to find the right buyer. It might take him some time, but he’d figure it out. He heard the office door open and stuck his head up above his desk. “We’re closed,” he said.


  The shabbily dressed, bearded man standing in the entrance didn’t move. Eubanks was about to open the desk drawer where he kept his pistol when the man said, “Hello, Fred. Been a long time.”

  Eubanks dropped the papers and stood up, squinting to see better. “Do we know each other, friend?” He moved around the front of his desk and leaned back against it, better able to make out the details of the man’s face. “Holy shit,” he said. “Piss Face?”

  Jacob Rein sat down on one of the chairs and folded one leg over the other. He pressed his fingers together under his chin, revealing the wide, circular scar that wrapped around his left wrist.

  “Wow, you look like hell,” Eubanks said. “I guess time hasn’t been too good to you. I heard you were a cop, then you got locked up. How was prison?”

  “I don’t recommend it,” Rein said. “How are you?”

  “I’m good,” Eubanks said. “I’m great, in fact. I guess you heard about this bullshit case the cops are trying to put on me. I just got off the phone with my legal team, and man, what we are going to do to them in court is going to be disgusting. They’re going to be begging for mercy. I’m going to sue the shit out of every single person involved in this. They’ll have to rename Auburn Street to Eubanks Street. You’ll see.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they did,” Rein said.

  The way Rein’s eyes stayed on him was infuriating. The calm way he sat there, staring, was enough to make Eubanks want to pull out the pistol and shoot him on the spot. “You just come to stare at me or did you have something you wanted? I’m a little busy, and don’t really have time to shoot the shit, even with an old friend like Piss Face.”

  “I just came to see whether or not you were the kind to make it through this,” Rein said.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Of course I’m going to make it through this. I just told you my attorneys are—you know what? Just get out. I don’t have time to talk to you.”

  “You asked about prison. I’ll tell you. It can be hard in there, for anyone,” Rein said. “The isolation. The loneliness. Being cut off from the ones you love, not being there to protect them or provide for them. I was only there a little while, but the time I lost and the things I missed, I’ll never get back.”