Isolated Judgment

by Jonathan Watkins

  “Well,” she started, “as long as we don’t conceal evidence ourselves. We’re already forbidden from revealing anything about Daniel, since His Honor would be a suspect in the murder and his sheltering Ludolf would put him in legal jeopardy. But he has voiced his intention to commit a felony by burying Daniel...”

  Darren shrugged.

  “Still forbidden from disclosing that,” he said. “Unless he’s telling us he’s rushing out to murder someone, the rules are clear: We can’t disclose. You need an imminent threat to life or serious bodily injury. I’ve turned it over a few times, too. Finding Daniel’s killer and not talking to the cops doesn’t put us in any violation. I just want to know if you’re comfortable, Izzy. Because I’ll walk out of here with you if you’re not.”

  Judge Prosner interrupted them with a thin, dry chuckle that was closer to a wheeze than real laughter. Issabella and Darren turned to look at him in surprise.

  “Amazing,” he scoffed. “You sat in that disbarment hearing and couldn’t remember the first thing about professional duty. Now you’re asked to conceal knowledge of crimes and the ethical guidelines materialize without effort.”

  While the frail old man continued to chuckle softly underneath his blankets, Darren cast Issabella a final unvoiced question that said, Well? Are we doing this?

  Issabella patted her mouth with her napkin, then tossed it down on top of her plate. She favored him with a broad smile.

  “You know, someday we’re going to have to work together on a case that actually involves going to court.”

  “Just to see what it’s like?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess anything’s possible, kid.”

  * * *

  Ludolf had managed to get Daniel halfway into the metal wagon he’d hooked on to the back of the big yellow riding lawn mower before he stopped, hunched over and violently threw up all over his boots.

  He shook with the convulsion, made a desperate gasp for air and threw up again. It went on like that until there was nothing left to expel, the convulsions growing weaker, finally stopping.

  He wiped his chin with his sleeve and leaned one hand on the edge of the wagon for support. His vision was swimming and for a moment he was certain he was going to lose his legs and slip down into the sand. He shot an accusatory glare at Daniel.

  You see? Even dead you are a nuisance to me.

  He knew it wasn’t fair. It had been more than sixty years since Ludolf had handled a dead body, but it was the sort of experience that, once done, lost its initial disquieting, unreal nature. Among the ruins of Vienna, Ludolf had seen enough dead bodies that such experiences had become mundane and horribly ordinary. It wasn’t handling Daniel that had him seasick and shaking; it was the whiskey that lawyer had poured down his throat.

  “All smiles, that one,” he mumbled, and carefully climbed up into the wagon. “You are lucky you did not meet him, Daniel. You are too simple for smiling snakes. He would have said ‘hello’ to you, and you would confess every bad thing you ever did.”

  He bent over, got his big hands under Daniel’s shoulders and heaved the body the rest of the way into the wagon, so that only Daniel’s calves and feet dangled over the lip. Ludolf stepped down out of the wagon and looked at the tennis shoes on Daniel’s feet. He knew that Daniel had bought them in a shop on Put-in-Bay at the beginning of the summer. They had been a shiny white the first time he’d come out to the work shed in May to tell Ludolf that he meant to help with the grounds work. Now they were almost entirely green from a summer’s worth of using the push mower to get those areas Ludolf couldn’t reach with the rider.

  “I told you to buy real worker boots. I told you again and again. Who buys shiny new shoes to ruin in the grass? Only you, Daniel, that is who.”

  One of Daniel’s socks was white and the other blue. A faint smile touched Ludolf’s lips, and he tugged the ends of Daniel’s pants down until they covered the socks. He walked the few steps to where Daniel’s body had been pinned to the beach. After he had yanked the sword free from Daniel, using both hands and getting his legs soundly under him to accomplish it, he was surprised by how little blood was visible in the sand. Most of it, he realized, had soaked down into the earth.

  Ludolf bent over and heaved the sword up into his hands, careful not to touch the blade where it was red. He used the edge of one of his soiled boots to kick around the sand until there was no blood visible at all.

  He was poised to toss the sword into the wagon, but stopped. Daniel’s face was contorted in pain and shock, his final expression as the sword went through him. He had round, soft cheeks and a sparse beard that Ludolf had always suspected was Daniel’s attempt at making himself look as if he had a chin.

  A deep sigh rustled through Ludolf like a gust of autumn leaves. Gently, he laid the sword across Daniel, so that the handle was on his chest and the blade extending down the length of him. He lifted Daniel’s hands and laid them over the handle. Finally, he pushed the dead man’s eyes closed.

  “Even a fool deserves better than this,” he said. “But this is the truth of the world, Daniel. These knights and dragons you play at...only children’s stories. I tried to tell you this. There are no rewards for the good. You only learned this now, I think.”

  He spared Daniel a gentle pat on the shoulder before mounting the mower and slowly driving them away from the beach. The burlap shield Ludolf had constructed the night before, when the Judge had specifically detailed the steps they would need to take to keep the authorities from swarming the island, was already disassembled and back in the work shed.

  As the riding mower and its unlikely cargo disappeared up into the woods, it left behind nothing but an empty little stretch of sand, with no sign of the violence that had been committed upon it.

  Ludolf continued along the narrow, rutted path he’d created decades ago, and that he still halfheartedly maintained. Originally, he had cleared the path so that the Judge could jog a circuit around the island. Three failed attempts, and the young then-lawyer had abandoned the plan altogether, accepting that the cramping pain in his thigh was permanent. Judge Prosner would eventually rely on a cane, then two, and finally the wheelchair he was bound to now. The jogging path, like the Judge, had deteriorated. There was no sign of the gravel that Ludolf had poured over it during its construction, and its once reasonably level surface was now a crazy series of dips and bumps.

  As they rumbled slowly along into the northern stretch of trees where Ludolf intended to bury Daniel, the late afternoon breeze gusted and rose. Ludolf glanced nervously at the sky. His mind filled with images of a rainstorm, and he peered back at Daniel.

  “That would be my luck,” he mumbled.

  When he guided them off the path and into a small clearing among the towering beech and elm, Ludolf’s scowl deepened. He shut off the engine and stared at Darren Fletcher, who was leaning against a tree a few feet from where Ludolf had stabbed a shovel into the earth before fetching Daniel’s body.

  “What are you doing?” Ludolf snapped. “Lurking about where you should not be?”

  Darren grinned and scratched idly at his whiskers.

  “I prefer to think of it as palely loitering. Lurking’s for thugs with beady eyes, don’t you think?”

  “I think I want no word games with you. I have work to do.”

  “You’d better hurry, or it’s going to be wet work.”

  Ludolf bent over and lifted the shovel. He stared at the grass under his feet, and cursed himself again for letting the lawyer get him so drunk. He’d slept most of the day away, but his stomach was still a rolling, green storm and he was more achy than usual.

  “I need no audience for this. Go away.”

  “You’re in good shape, Lou. But you can’t dig a hole that big on your own. Not before the rain rolls in.”

  The lawy
er was right about that. The wind was steady now, gusting and blowing through the trees. It kicked at the ends of Darren’s suit coat and made the long curls of his hair whip around in front of his eyes. Ludolf stabbed the shovel’s tip into the earth and placed his boot on it.

  “It is for me to do. Go away.”

  Darren reached down in the tall grass around the tree beside him. He came up with a blue-handled shovel from Ludolf’s work shed. Ludolf saw it and stopped.

  “You would do this? I think not. I think you play more games, and I will not play them with you.”

  “I have questions,” Darren said. “Not games. I dig with you and you answer them. It’s a fair bargain, Lou.”

  Ludolf heaved a shovel-full of earth to the side. He repeated the process five more times, before stopping and nodding his head once in Darren’s direction. Darren hung his suit coat across a low branch, rolled up his sleeves and began to mark off the border of the grave by stabbing his shovel into the earth repeatedly, until a Daniel-sized rectangle was visible.

  “You will ruin those expensive shoes.”

  “Maybe. Are we going six feet?”

  “Don’t be a fool. That is some rule for cemeteries, not for us. We will go until it is deep enough.”

  They dug, each from separate ends of the rectangle.

  “Nothing was stolen last night?” Darren said.

  “No.”

  “I looked around the house. I didn’t see any signs of someone trying to get in.”

  “Nor did I. The greenhouse and the beach. Nothing more was disturbed.”

  “So you think someone rowed themselves out here just to murder Daniel?”

  “I won’t guess. He is dead. That is the only certainty. Here, see how I do this? Not straight up and down. Make it slope just a little, or we risk it all falling in and we dig a second time.”

  “We’ll need to make the hole wider, then.”

  “The hole is big enough. Just do as I say, Daniel, and stop—”

  Ludolf caught himself, and was suddenly still. He felt foolish. Darren didn’t pause in what he was doing, and didn’t look at the old groundskeeper. Ludolf waited until he realized his mental slip was going to go by without comment, then began to dig again.

  “He liked to help me,” he said. “He had soft hands and didn’t know what he was doing. He was suited for the kitchen and pushing his uncle from room to room. But he was often appearing in my shed to help. He did not deserve this.”

  “Most people don’t. Some do, but not most.”

  They dug in silence for a long time, the wind snaking around them, growing angry and loud. As the clear September sky darkened into a slate-gray sheet, they began to glance at it suspiciously and their efforts took on a more hurried pace.

  “Why is it called Wailing Isle?”

  “Wait a bit, you will see. This wind will tell you.”

  When the first drops of rain touched their heads and hands, both Ludolf and Darren were soaked through with sweat and drawing raggedly for air. Errant clumps of earth had stained their clothes, and they paused to stare up at the expanse of thunderclouds pushing the sky to darkness.

  “We are deep enough,” Ludolf decided, and stabbed his shovel into the earth. “Come, help him into the hole.”

  He climbed up into the wagon and was getting his hands under Daniel’s shoulders when he stopped and stared at Darren. The lawyer had not moved. As the rain began to come down in earnest, Darren stared across the grave they’d dug. His mouth was set in a resolute line.

  “What are you doing?” Ludolf snapped.

  “Swear to me he has no other family.”

  “What? Have you lost your—”

  “I can’t put him in there if there’s someone out in the world who will be worrying.”

  “Yes, I swear. I swear this to you. Now, come!”

  They had him between them, Darren at the ankles and Ludolf carrying Daniel under his shoulders, when the wailing began. Darren froze, his head swiveling left and right like a rabbit who suspects he has just heard a distant flap of wings.

  “What is that?”

  The wail rose in the air, growing louder, sometimes dipping and then rising, but never ceasing. It ran with the wind, piercing the little clearing and rushing around the two men. It sounded like the plaintive cry of a grieving woman, a long and mournful sadness given pitch and volume.

  “The Wailing Isle,” Ludolf explained, and he allowed himself a small, satisfied smile at Darren’s blatant discomfort. “I told you the wind would explain. A tiny cavern of crystals, like they have on Put-in-Bay. But not big like theirs—very small, big enough for a rabbit to nest, but no more. The wind goes in a hole, into the little cavern, and when it comes out it is the wail of a woman. You understand?”

  “I guess—”

  “Here, set him in before he slips.”

  The storm was wholly upon them now, and when Daniel was dropped into the grave, his body splashed in the water that had already pooled there. Ludolf hurried over to the wagon and took up the sword. He was ready to lay it down across Daniel again when Darren put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. Darren’s hair was plastered over his forehead, and rain ran freely down his face. His shirt was a second skin pasted against him.

  “Whose sword is that, Lou?”

  “Shut up, I am hurrying to be done.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “It is Daniel’s! It is Daniel’s sword, and I will not deprive him of it!”

  Ludolf yanked his shoulder free of Darren’s grip and laid the sword across Daniel again. He stepped down into the grave and set the dead man’s hands once more over the hilt of the blade. He spared a moment to straighten the body, so that Daniel was more or less composed.

  Filling in the grave was a rushed and filthy business. Their feet made wet, sucking sounds inside their shoes as they heaved the muddy mound back into the ground. The sky jumped with lightning and threw shadows in odd directions. The mourning wail continued on, and neither man spoke until the grave was filled and tamped by their footfalls across it.

  “I will return,” Ludolf said as they laid the shovels in the wagon. “When it is dry, I will lay more earth and use the tractor’s wheels to make it firmly packed.”

  “Why did Daniel have a sword?”

  “He played at it,” Lou said, and mounted the riding mower. “Games of knights and dragons. Child games.” He started the engine. “Thank you for helping.”

  “Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. Ever.”

  Darren turned and retrieved his suit coat. He held it above his head as an impromptu umbrella and rushed off through the sheets of rain, toward the house. Ludolf watched him go, then turned and stared at the black, rain-pocked earth.

  “I’ll have proper words of farewell for you tomorrow, Daniel. You will not mind the wait, I think.”

  * * *

  Issabella started awake and sat straight up, scattering the pile of papers she’d collected. She stared dumbly around the room and felt a thrill of fear at not recognizing where she was.

  That fear rose to a near panic when she registered that someone was screaming and that this was what had woken her. A woman. A woman was screaming outside.

  She was on her feet, shaking the sleep-grogginess off, searching without knowing what she was looking for. Her purse was resting on top of an antique dresser in the little bedroom. As she reached for it, the room was bathed in a sudden flash of light. The thunder chasing its heels detonated, so near that the window in front of her vibrated. She cringed away at the prospect of it shattering inward. The thunderclap rolled, reverberated, faded and was once more replaced with the incessant, mournful wail of the woman.

  “Izzy.”

  She screamed and spun around in wild-eyed alarm.

  Darren was
standing in the doorway, looking like he’d entered a mud wrestling match, and lost. He was barefoot and holding his ruined shoes and socks in one hand. His other hand was held up palm-first in front of him, as if to ward away the panic whirly-gigging around inside her.

  “You scared me to death!”

  “I saw that.”

  “Who is that?” she demanded, and pointed out the window into the storm. “Is...is that a person?”

  “Some geological thing. Just a little cavern. That’s why they call it Wailing Isle. Are you okay?”

  Issabella looked around the bedroom. Papers were scattered across the bed, some of them on the floor. There were posters for heavy metal bands taped to the walls, and a pile of unwashed clothing in one corner. Various weird knickknacks were set here and there: a metal beer stein with a hinged lid, a velvet bag full of multisided dice, a small amount of marijuana and a pipe stored in an ornate wooden box, some pewter figurines of dragons and what Issabella guessed were orcs or goblins or...whatever. Aside from those things, Issabella had found very little of interest in Daniel’s room. There was a laptop she hadn’t poked around at yet, and the various papers she’d collected into a pile before she...

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, and shivered against a creepy-crawly feeling that ran up her spine.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I fell asleep for a minute on Daniel’s bed,” she admitted miserably. “I was sleeping on a dead guy’s bed. I...I need a shower. I need a shower so bad.”

  Darren put his free hand on her shoulder and grew an amused grin.

  “He didn’t die in the bed, kid.”

  “Still. It’s gross.”

  Another flash of lightning lit the room and chased the evening darkness away. She saw Darren clearly in that moment, then the afterimage of him as the darkness rolled back in with the thunder.

  “You look terrible,” she said. “What the heck have you been doing?”

  “I got caught in the storm. You know, once it blows over we should get out of here. We’ll need Ludolf to captain the boat, but I can probably talk him into... Why are you staring at me like that?”