The Fever Kill

by Tom Piccirilli

  Crease was this close to letting out that cackle himself. His cool was mostly gone, but sometimes the coolest thing you could do was get off a chuckle at the right time.

  Reb fumbled for the handcuff keys. She wasn't going to get to him in time. The sheriff had played it wrong, he shouldn't have tried to chip away at Cruez. He could've bashed the guy in the head with a shovel all day long and not left a dent.

  Cruez, the moron, could've easily swatted the sheriff aside but he was too intent on drawing his weapon. He wasn't exactly the most adaptable guy in the world.

  Yeah, that laugh, everybody made it now and again. There always came a time when you had a what the hell moment of clarity and realized just how ridiculous your life had made you. Like him yelling about llamas.

  Oh yeah, you had to laugh.

  Crease's hands were starting to do their thing. They were pulling at the back of the chair and the wood had begun to splinter, cracking as loudly as rifle shots. The chair gave out and Crease went with it, hit the floor and tucked himself in tight, working his arms down around his thighs, his legs, his shoes. Cruez was bringing the Magnum out while Edwards continued to clobber him.

  Crease's bundle was on the table. His gun, the butterfly blade, the Bowie knife. He got his cuffed arms all the way around and out in front of him and jumped to his feet. He wasn't sure he was going to be fast enough. His hands were flashing out, the left taking the Bowie, the right the pistol. Cruez had the Magnum out but Edwards was too close to him, he couldn't quite get it pointed the right way. The sheriff finally realized he'd made a mistake and turned his own gun around in his hand, ready to blast Cruez. But the butt was slippery with blood and he couldn't get a good enough grip on it.

  And here you were thinking today that a fire would be nice. Some wine, the smell of fall wafting in around you.

  Crease tapped the point of the Bowie against the back of Edwards' hand hard enough to make him drop his slick gun. Crease gestured him away towards the couch. Then he pushed the .38 against Cruez's crotch and said, "Okay, that's enough, let's settle down now."

  "What?"

  That was about as much as you were going to get out of Cruez at a time like this.

  "Talk to me. Why are you here?"

  "I'm not left-handed."

  "I know that," Crease said. But he realized Cruez was trying to tell him more but couldn't find the words. The eyes in that bloody, misshapen head looked like holes poked into clay with a stick.

  "Tucco know you're here?"

  "No."

  "How's Morena?"

  "What?"

  "How is she?"

  "Bored."

  "What do you want?"

  The blood coated his face looking like somebody had used a roller to go straight up the middle of it. "I'm not left-handed!"

  Crease said, "You're the right hand. That's okay, everybody knows you're the right hand. You're Tucco's man. His best man."

  "Yes."

  "You're the top dog, the big cheese, right? Not me, you. You're the honcho. You're the prince of good fortune, the duke of the deal."

  Cruez's shoulders hitched as he took a deep staggered breath. For a moment he appeared to be a very large deformed child who had climbed a neighbor's fence to get his ball and couldn't find it anywhere. You never knew what was going to defuse a situation. A little extra cash, a line of coke, a well-timed joke. Whatever it took, it was usually better than the alternative.

  "Tomorrow," Cruez said, walking out the front door. Crease knew what was going to happen next and wanted to shout about it. Cruez shoved and swung the screen door opened so hard that it collapsed off its hinges. He said, "Tucco and me, we'll see you then."

  ~ * ~

  Reb was standing there in the center of the living room, arms crossed across her chest, grasping her elbows. Crease saw her again the way he had the other day, for the first time in ten years, with her storm-blown hair sweeping across her throat, her fiery eyes full of anger and faint dignity. She was taking a stand because it was all she had left. She wasn't about to run or try to make a grab for Edwards' gun on the dining room floor. That scam was over, and she'd missed the train.

  She said, "Crease, I'm sorry."

  She meant it, as much as she was able. "I still need the keys, Reb, all right?"

  The sheriff was sitting on the couch. He'd grabbed the wine on his way over and was drinking from the bottle, a little out of sorts. Reb got the keys and uncuffed him, her and Edwards trying not to act like they'd just been smacking him around a few minutes ago. Maybe the sheriff knew he'd been out of his league tonight. Crease was from a different world now.

  "He really gonna bring llamas down from Canada?" Edwards asked. "Probably loaded with dope, right? That's how they do it? Open 'em up and stuff in the balloons and then stitch them back up again."

  "From what I see, you two are about perfect for each other. How about if you just tie the knot and let everything else drift away, huh?"

  "I asked," Edwards said. "She told me no."

  "I didn't tell you no," Reb said. "I just wanted more time. I said to let me think about it."

  "It's been fourteen months. If you've got to think about it more than a day or two, the answer is no."

  "You asked three other women to marry you the same year. So how serious were you?"

  "Very," he said, not sounding very serious about anything at all. Right then, Crease saw so much of his old man in Edwards that he had to draw the back of his hand across his eyes just to shake off the vision.

  Crease told the sheriff, "The sister, go send someone to talk to her. You won't even have to shake it out of her. Just show up and she'll spill everything."

  He put his gun in its holster, got his jacket on and put the knives back in his pockets. Reb floated up behind him. Her breath on his neck did nothing to him. She put a hand on his wrist in some kind of display that neither of them would ever understand. He turned and spotted his dried splashes of blood on the corridor wall and thought it was just as well that he was getting the hell out of here.

  The powerful feeling that time was running out filled him with an electric rush of trepidation. Both he and Tucco had reached the end of their patience. Still, he had one last thing he had to figure out.

  Edwards took a long look, pulled a face, and shook his head. "What the hell are you all about?"

  Crease said, "A guy who makes jigsaw puzzle dogs to hang on the wall is gonna ask me that?"

  Chapter Fourteen

  When you didn't know what to do, where else did you go? Only one place left that mattered. You went to visit your father's grave.

  The one good thing about having the old man die in such shame, covered in vomit, in the gutter, the town shunning him, is that Crease never got the feeling that his father was judging him. Whatever wrong Crease did, however crazy or stupid he got, the old man's ghost wasn't about to point a finger. Sometimes that didn't mean anything, sometimes it was all that mattered.

  He parked and found his way to his father's grave again, each step somehow riling him, the pressure building. He had to finish up this thing with the little girl's death, and then he could settle down to finishing matters with Tucco. Despite the events of the last couple days, his resolve still seemed to be waning.

  The awareness of his own inadequacies really was annoying the hell out of him. He wondered if, given the same circumstances, the same facts and conditions and respective positions, his father could've figured out what had happened to the money. He was having more and more trouble imagining his old man in his prime. Strong, fit, sharp, before the liquor and sorrow and his own fear wore him down into a pudgy, wet sack.

  The old man's grave, which had been sunken in the last time Crease visited, had now been restored by Dirtwater. New sod had replaced the patchy yellow grass. The large round rocks had been reformed into a kind of small cairn, surrounded by fresh flowers. The largest rock was on top, and painted on it in a child's handwriting was his father's name embellished with a picture of a
yellow sun and a bird and smiling kid walking a dog.

  A small wave of sentimentality swept through Crease's chest. He started for Dirtwater's small house but before he was halfway there, he saw the caretaker and his son raking graves in the distance. He altered course and when the boy, Hale, spotted him, he waved. Crease waved back. The kid touched his father on the elbow and Dirtwater turned and grinned.

  Crease said to them, "Thanks for fixing up the grave, I appreciate it."

  Hale said, "Your face, you've been fighting. Who did that to you, if you don't mind me asking?"

  "I don't. It was the sheriff."

  "My father hates him."

  "Yeah."

  "My father says you're the one who broke his nose, is that true?"

  "It is."

  "Was he paying you back for that?"

  "For that and some other things."

  Dirtwater's gestures grew much clearer to Crease as the man shadowboxed and gave Crease the thumbs up. "He wants to know if you got some good licks in."

  "Not today, but I did knock him down a few times yesterday."

  "He's glad. So am I."

  Hale searched Crease's eyes. The kid had a great sensitivity to body language and expression, thanks to his father. "You know something about the girl, don't you? Something you didn't know the last time you were here." Eight years old and his acumen was on the money. Crease got a good vibe from the kid, but still it was spooky. For an undercover narc, the worst person you could run into was somebody who could read your face as easily as this kid could.

  Dirtwater's dark eyes showed a dogged interest. He made an "out with it" gesture and Crease didn't quite know what to say.

  So he knew who the 'flappers were. It didn't change anything. Nothing was going to happen to the old broad at this date, with her in assisted living. The insanity plea would actually work in her case and she'd get sent right back to where she was now anyway. He could only hope every criminal he ran into would have such a case of conscience that they locked themselves away.

  He halfway hoped that Dirtwater had somehow stolen the cash. There was a certain balance to that. His only friend left in town, the man who cared for his father's grave. The money could've gone to a down payment for his house. Cello lessons for Hale. A college fund, special medication he needed. A kidney transplant. Crease was bushed thinking about who else's hand might be in the jar. It could be anybody. Cruez's entrance today reinforced the fact that you couldn't shove Tucco out on the rim for too long before he got tired of being pushed. The rest of the questions surrounding Mary Burke might have to take a back seat, forever.

  "He says you look like you need a glass of whiskey."

  "I don't drink," Crease said.

  "He says he didn't know that, but maybe you need something. Some food? My mother made a roasted chicken last night, there's still some left."

  Crease still hadn't met Dirtwater's wife, didn't even know her name. She might be someone he'd once known well, she might have had a great impact on his life. But the thread that connected them was too tenuous and he'd never find out for sure.

  "You want to see her grave again, don't you?"

  "Yeah, I think I do." He didn't know why, except he felt the road coming to an end and he thought he'd get just as much out of spending time standing over her grave as standing over his father's.

  Dirtwater and his boy walked side by side with Crease. He felt Dirtwater's intense inner strength again. It defined the man even more than his face and body did. How many shovelfuls of dirt had he pulled out of graves and then stuck back in? Laid out end to end he'd probably dug enough earth to take him to the west coast. He didn't know much about the man at all, but at the moment Crease felt very much like the gravedigger might be his only friend in the world.

  Dirtwater put a powerful hand on Crease's back and patted his shoulder. It was somehow an action that reminded Crease of his father, even though his father had never done it to him. Dirtwater's deeply expressive gaze told him volumes about love and loss and the desolation of the dead. The gravedigger cocked his chin towards his house, mimicked drinking, trying to get Crease to come along for a couple of beers.

  "He wants you to—"

  "I know, but I don't think I can today."

  "Why not?"

  "Something's gnawing at me and it won't stop."

  "What is it?"

  "That's a good question, kid. I hope to find an answer in the next couple of hours."

  Hale nodded sagely, and so did Dirtwater, both of them ancient in their ways and manners because being a part of the dead didn't have to wear you down.

  Crease followed Dirtwater and the boy, doing his best to move like them, wafting between headstones, skipping over roots. The man's power drawing him along.

  They came to Mary Burke's grave again. Hale had placed fresh flowers on it.

  "You did nice, Hale."

  "Thank you."

  No matter where you went you always came back. They stood like that for a while again. Sam Burke had been unable to face the truth, and had sacrificed himself to his perpetual lie. Her aunt was dying by inches afraid of light. Reb had betrayed him for loot she could make herself on a good weekend in Tucco's club. The wind's sad whistling drew Crease's attention across the cemetery.

  "You think she's happy?" Hale asked.

  It must've been a subject that wasn't supposed to be breached, because Dirtwater placed his hands firmly on his son's shoulders, shook his head at the boy.

  "He doesn't like me asking questions like that. It upsets some people. I ask about heaven and God and if dead people are awake or sleeping. I can't help it. I can't help thinking things like that. My mother says it's because little boys aren't supposed to be around death all the time."

  "It's not that," Crease said. "It's just that nobody has any of the answers, and they usually don't like to be reminded."

  "You don't mind, do you?"

  "No. I've been around a lot of death too. I've been curious on occasion."

  "He says he can still see your sadness, but there's something else to it."

  Like you didn't have enough on your mind, the kid had to just keep on spooking you.

  "He says you're getting back to who you're supposed to be."

  "That so?"

  "It is."

  "Maybe he's right. Maybe not."

  Crease stared into the boy's eyes, seeing the child he was in there. You could witness a lot in Dirtwater's face, and you could see as much, maybe even more, in his son's. The whispers of the wind made him turn his face aside, wondering what his old man would have him do now. Give up and run for it? Ambush Tucco while he was asleep in Morena's arms? Dirtwater stepped up, as if knowing Crease's thoughts and wanting, in some way, to take the place of his father. It could get on your nerves, all this silence.

  "You know what happened to her?"

  "Mostly."

  "Maybe that'll make her happy."

  "I don't see how."

  "He says that maybe you're thinking about it in the wrong way."

  Crease figured that was probably true. "Okay, so how should I think about it?"

  He kept his eyes on Dirtwater while the man spoke tohis son in a language that wasn't language. He kept his eyes on him even while the boy talked. "You know who did it?"

  "Yeah."

  "You know why?"

  "Yeah."

  "What's left to learn then?"

  "What happened to the money."

  "Does that matter now?"

  "Only because it caused all the trouble in the first place. It was my father's destruction. I'd like to find it and burn it, if I could. But I don't know who stole it."

  Some mysteries you're not meant to answer. Some of them are supposed to continue on and on, marking your life.

  "He says maybe somebody didn't steal the money. Maybe something else happened to it."

  "What else could happen to it?"

  "He doesn't know that, he's just offering a suggestion."

  T
here would never be an end to this for him if he couldn't track the last piece of the mystery. He wouldn't be able to face Tucco with his head clear and his hand ready, not with the little dead girl in his back seat and Teddy hissing in his ear. The goddamn fifteen grand would be his finish too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Five hours she'd had on the loose.

  He'd made an understandable mistake. He hadn't gone far enough when he was play-acting around here before. He'd stepped into his drunk father's shoes and imagined himself being Edwards at the door, but he hadn't thought enough about the girl.

  Six years old.

  Your aunt lets you off at the far end of the abandoned mill, tells you to shoo. Gives you a little push.

  A six-year-old, you don't realize how sharp they are at first. They constantly surprise you—how much they hear, how much they know that you never expected them to pick up.

  Mary Burke would've heard her aunt and Purvis discussing the cash. How important it was to them, how much they needed it to get out of debt, make the guys who'd taken Purvis' leg leave them alone once and for all. On the drive up to the mill they were probably laughing, talking about resettling somewhere, raising a family of their own. While Mary was in the back taking it all in, knowing that her aunt had just traded her in. For what, Teddy? Why is this happening? For some short green, Mary, that's the truth of love.

  You're six years old. Teddy's giving you good advice but it isn't enough. You see your aunt walking away, getting back in the car. She's angry, there's something that's upset their plans.

  Would you walk into a deserted mill, no matter what she'd told you? Hell no. You'd follow your aunt.

  He saw Sarah Burke and Daniel Purvis getting into their car and pulling away onto the logging trail, heading back to town. Mary would start running after them, maybe crying.

  You race along the trail for as long as you can, but soon you tire and the car is long gone. The forest is terrifying in its dark implications. You're alone and wailing and Teddy's abruptly gone silent.

  What do you do, even if you are a smart six-year-old? You're still a baby. You hunch down and sob, waiting for somebody to come find and help you. Where are Mommy and Daddy?