Flesh

by Laura Bickle

  The graveside service has already started by the time I join Garth and my father. There’s usually a simple blessing given by a member of the clergy. Sometimes, my dad does it. He’s an ordained minister through a mail-order church. Not today. Today, there’s a local priest holding a Bible and encouraging the family to say goodbye.

  The widow approaches the casket for the first time, and a low murmur of chatter begins among the crowd. Old people love to talk about death. I suspect it’s because it’s so close. Many of the people of a certain age are frequent fliers at funerals—we see them every month, as their pool of relatives shrinks.

  I drift at the margins of the graveside service, doing Tissue Fairy duty while my brother talks to the gravediggers, who are standing a respectful distance away with the backhoe. I overhear snippets of conversation about overdue surgeries, ungrateful grandchildren, and gossip about who has cancer.

  “Did you hear about that body they found at the river?” one woman asks, catching my attention. I pause to listen.

  “The one that turned up at the swimming hole?” another woman clarifies.

  “Yes! That’s the one. At Turner’s Hollow. I guess some kids were down there fishing when the body just floated by. One of the boys tried to hook it with his line, thinking it was a big catfish or something. I heard he thought it was Catfish Bob—that fish that teases all the fellas during the summer.”

  “Oh, my husband’s been trying to get Bob for twenty years. I don’t think he really exists. It’s all the influence of too much beer.”

  “Catfish never stop growing, you know. Have you seen some of those on television from the Amazon River? Anyway…this was most certainly not Catfish Bob!”

  “Oh, dear. The boy didn’t try to noodle it, did he?”

  I try not to roll my eyes at that. I think noodling—handfishing—is the province of morons. Who sticks their fingers into nooks and crannies in the river, hoping that a fish will mistake them for worms? I mean…snapping turtles live there, too.

  “Not when he hauled it close to shore. It flipped over, and it became apparent that it was a person. The kids ran up to the nearest house to call the Sheriff,” one of the women continues.

  “Do they know who it is?”

  “I’m betting that it’s that fella who went missing on the Beer Float earlier this summer.”

  “I thought a bunch of those kids went to Burning Man.”

  “Drugs, I’m telling you.”

  “Speaking of drugs, did you hear that the husband of one of Beryl’s grandkids stole her bottle of Percocets?”

  I listen closely to the ladies’ back-and-forth, but there’s nothing more said about the floater. It must not be public knowledge yet that the body disappeared from the morgue. I know that the news won’t stay quiet long. Nothing stays secret in Sumner County. But I hope that they can get the body back and make an arrest before word gets out, before what’s hidden becomes known. It would be bad for my family, otherwise. And also, selfishly, bad for me. I don’t want to have every kid at school asking me about the missing body. I can’t even begin to formulate a response to that kind of questioning.

  Once the last mourner has left, I gather up the flowers and the artificial grass blankets graveside. I fold the lumpy Astroturf up as neatly as I can. The gravediggers lower the coffin into the burial vault with chains attached to the backhoe, and the lid to the burial vault is dropped into place with a hollow sound of finality. The backhoe expertly returns the dirt back to the hole, compressing it with its treads. There’s always a little dirt left over, though. The Redbrier Cemetery always dumps the extra dirt over a hidden hill. Out of sight, out of mind.

  When the backhoe is finished, I approach the gravesite to replace the floral wreath. My heels sink into the naked dirt. I’m always meticulous about replacing the flowers, because someone usually comes back to make sure that everything is done. The headstone isn’t ready yet, but the flowers stand beside the temporary plastic nameplate in the ground.

  And my work is finished. Mr. Curtis is six feet under, encased in satin and wood, staring up at the flowers and the cloudless blue sky for eternity.

  A shadow passes over me. As I look up, I see a buzzard circling overhead. I squint. A buzzard shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be able to smell death through the layers of concrete and dirt.

  I try to pinpoint what the buzzard is targeting as I step over the rows of graves. The old ones are uneven and sunken, but he’s fixated on a newer part of the cemetery. I pass plastic flowers and scraggly grasses. It’s easy to tell who is forgotten and who is remembered. Fresh graves are usually remembered, old ones forgotten. It’s part of life.

  The buzzard is circling above, but there’s another bird on the ground now, walking among clods of dirt. My brow wrinkles. There should be no uneven dirt here. The buzzard gazes at me, entirely unafraid as he stands over a hole, right over a grave that should be freshly closed. It’s so new that grass seed is still scattered on the earth. It’s still too soon for a gravestone to be installed. I remember it from just a week ago.

  I step beside the buzzard and peer down. Where there should just be flattened dirt, there’s a hole. The hole goes a long way, deep and wide. I can see a broken bit of grave liner lying beside me on the ground, a concrete shard.

  I want to back away, but I’m as fascinated by the bird walking around the hole, peering into the blackness.

  Without thinking, I reach into my coat pocket. The charm is there, and my thumb grazes it. But it offers no comfort this time. It only brings anxiety when I touch it, opening up a black hole into the ground like the one yawning before me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I think what we have here is a grave robber.”

  Sheriff Billings stands inside the yellow crime scene tape strung around the disturbed grave. My mom paces beside him, taking notes. She’s wearing a pair of pink polka-dotted rubber boots. She is clearly the paragon of crime scene fashion.

  “Great,” she sighs.

  A deputy pokes his head up over the edge of the grave. His hat was left hanging on a nearby tombstone to keep it clean. A camera has been carefully placed beside the grave, full of pictures, and a closed fingerprint kit is perched beside it. “There’s no body down here, Sheriff. Just a broken-up coffin and some concrete.”

  My mom squats and peers into the dirt. “Awesome, Kevin. Just awesome.”

  “Do you know the story on this guy?” the Sheriff asks.

  “Yeah. He’s one of ours. Thirty-year-old man, dead in a car accident. Jesse Cormac,” my mom says. “It was an OMVI. Highway Patrol brought him in, so you didn’t see him. The body was pretty well beat up, so we did a closed-casket burial on him. No amount of makeup was gonna make him look pretty.”

  The Sheriff frowns. “This close to Halloween, I’d normally write kicking over tombstones as a prank. But someone went to a whole lotta effort to break into a grave. And got violent with you, Doc.”

  “You think it’s the same guy? Or guys?” I squeak.

  “Possibly. And your funeral home is the common denominator.”

  “Well, we are sort of the only game in town,” my mom says.

  “Could be coincidence. Might not be. Gotta be careful,” he says. “I’m gonna do some investigation to see if these bodies might be related, somehow.”

  “Any prints come back from the crime lab?” my mom wants to know.

  Sheriff Billings nods. “We only got prints from your family. Except for some partials in slime on the inside of the door.”

  I swallow. “I saw that the other night. I…I thought that intestinal gas caused the Dearly Departed to swell up and blow.”

  “Yeah. We found a few more prints in slime around the Body Shop. No way to wrestle around that stinking corpse without making a mess. But…” The sheriff rubs his pornstache. “The partials we got were murky, but the state crime lab thinks they all belong to the same person. Travis Jackson.”

  My mom’s brow wrinkles. “That’s the university ki
d that went missing on the Beer Float, right? The one we were expecting the floater to be.”

  “Yeah. I think we’ve got a tentative positive ID here. State crime lab’s got his prints from a drunk and disorderly prior and feels that it’s a match, but—”

  “Hey, boss.” We all stare down into the hole, where Deputy Kevin pops his head up like a gopher. “Look at this.”

  Ordinarily, we’d haul the coffin up with a coffin lift, but it’s too damaged to load safely. Once the police finish with the scene, it’s going to have to be brought up in pieces, manually. The deputy lifts the top half of the coffin lid with gloved hands. It’s not a fancy coffin, with walnut and brass trim, like Mr. Curtis had. This one is simple. There are scratches on the lid.

  “Maybe these are tool marks,” Deputy Kevin suggests. “Marks from whatever the guy who exhumed the body used to break in.”

  “Let me see that.” My mom peers at the piece of wood, and I do, too. The scratches are on the slightly concave side.

  Mom keeps staring at them.

  “Well?” the Sheriff asks.

  Mom finally looks up. “These scratches are from the inside of the lid.”

  *

  “If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

  Gramma has always said this is an absolute, immutable truth of the universe. And my mom is pretty pissed. Pissed that someone is screwing with her, with us, with our livelihood. And pissed that she doesn’t know what’s going on.

  Mom is stomping around downstairs in the Body Shop, bitching at the state crime lab on the phone. My dad is in the parlor, trying to smooth things over with Jesse Cormac’s family. The dead were supposed to stay down, and if they didn’t, there was bound to be wailing and hysteria and blame cast, regardless of whether it was warranted or not. I could hear the complaints about the grave not being sealed properly, the speculation about animals. The Sheriff’s deputies showed up at Cormac’s wife’s doorstep, and she went nuclear. I overheard that she had to be tranquilized and taken to the hospital.

  My dad is reassuring Cormac’s father that we will be happy to reinter him, free of charge…whenever the body is found. Being the fount of diplomacy he is, my father’s voice is even and monotonous. A big contrast to my mom, who’s pounding her fist on the table.

  Gramma is handling the anxiety the only way she knows how, by cooking. She’s already made three loaves of bread, ham, chocolate chip cookies, and deviled eggs. Garth and I sit at the kitchen table, picking at our ham sandwiches and staring at each other. It’s tense boredom, and it crackles around us, like static. I don’t like this much activity at home, this many living people freaking out. I’m used to being the most wired person in the room. And that is not the case now.

  “This is driving me batshit,” Garth says, pushing away from the table. “I’m gonna go into town.”

  Gramma gives him the stink eye. “You remember what the Sheriff said…”

  “Gramma, it’s broad daylight. It’s Sunday. Town will be crawling with the church crowd. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll go with him,” I chirp up. “I need to go to the museum to do research for a school assignment.”

  “We can’t be prisoners in the house,” Garth adds. “Not while Charlie’s academic future hangs in the balance.”

  Gramma rolls her eyes. “Finish your lunch, and then you can go. But be home by dark.”

  She turns her back to us. Garth snatches the last part of the sandwich off my plate and stuffs it in his face, grinning.

  “Done!” I announce, sliding away from the table to put the empty dishes in the sink.

  “Hmpf.” Nothing gets past Gramma, but sometimes she pretends that it does. “Don’t forget to pick up milk. And something for dinner.”

  “Haven’t you cooked everything in the house?” Garth sighs.

  “Yes.” Gramma looks at us like we’re stupid. “So go get more.”

  I grab my purse and sneakers and am on Garth’s heels as he heads down the stairs. I can hear our folks on the phone, and the time to go is now, when they can’t interrupt what they’re doing to bitch at us.

  Garth breezes through the front door, and I slip out behind him. My dad turns around just as the door is closing.

  I scurry to catch up to Garth’s long-legged stride. He swings into the driver’s side of his pickup truck, and I clamber into the passenger’s seat. He’s got the engine started before my dad can come to the door, and slings his arm around the middle seat and is backing out of the driveway before anyone could even think of stopping him. I’m still struggling to get the door shut by the time we reach the mailbox.

  “Freedom!” he shouts.

  It does feel good. I roll down my window, even though the air is a bit crisp, just to feel it blow in my face. My arm dangles over the edge, and I follow the air currents with my cupped hand, feeling the air push against my skin.

  “You really need to go to the museum?” my brother asks.

  “Yeah. I want to apply for an internship.” I glance down at my jeans and dirty sneakers. “I’m not really dressed for it, but…”

  “An internship would be cool. Would get you out of the house.”

  I make a face. “Well, if I could work it around cross-country, yeah. Do you think Mom and Dad would mind?” It occurs to me that I haven’t asked their permission.

  “Nah. They’ll think it’s great. Dad will probably have you do some genealogy stuff for him. He loves dusty old stuff like that.”

  I pick at a bit of deviled egg on my T-shirt. I’m gonna make a terrible impression. “Do you, uh, mind driving me?”

  “Not at all.” Garth doesn’t press me about getting my driver’s license. My mom took me out to practice driving in the school parking lot one weekend, and I had a major panic attack. He hasn’t mentioned that, though, and is being really cool about it. I want to do it, but I just don’t think I want my mom to teach me. She pumps this invisible brake on the passenger side and hisses whenever I touch the wheel.

  “What are you gonna do while I’m at the museum?” I ask.

  “Well, I gotta get milk or Gramma will kick my ass. But I think I’m gonna hit the record store.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “Will you feel safe and secure by yourself if I drop you off at the museum?”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh my god, yes. There’s nothing there but black-and-white photographs and arrowheads.”

  But I know that’s not true.

  Anticipation builds in my chest as we wind through the two-lane roads toward town. The Halloween pranks are beginning in earnest; I count ten smashed mailboxes.

  Halloween is like that around here. I think it’s because we’re so far away from a real city. We’re an hour from the nearest one, St. Clairesville. The hamburger joint and the record store close at nine here in Mooresville. Heck, the nearest hospital is forty-five minutes away. So there’s not a whole lot to get into, unless you create trouble for yourself. And people do. A couple of years ago, some guys hoisted their passed-out-drunk friend’s car up on the roof of a barn and left it there—with him in it. Cattle have turned up inside houses, and somebody burned a grain silo to the ground at least once. Dad says that it’s been like this ever since he could remember. It’s like Halloween has a hold on people, and they’ve gotta get their tricks out on others before the others get to them.

  We coast into town, Garth’s metallic skull charm bouncing against the windshield as we thump over the rutted brick streets. Dad hates that charm, says it’s unprofessional. Garth has to remind him at least once a week that it’s his truck. He lets me off at the curb in front of the museum, after checking the sign to make sure it’s open.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he calls as I head inside.

  I give him a little wave through the glass door, and he peels away.

  At the entrance to the museum, I’m confronted by dust and silence. I can feel the charm in the hip pocket of my jeans, cold against my hip bone. Part of me wants to slip into the restricted area and return it
, but part of me wants to keep it—a larger part. And that part knows that I’m playing a dangerous game by coming back.

  “Can I help you?”

  I jump. I whirl around, my hair slapping my face. Mr. Haskins is holding a dust mop and a bucket. Not very museum-directorly.

  “I, uh…was with the class that came by last week. My name is Charlie. Charlie Sulliven.” I extend my hand to him.

  Mr. Haskins puts the bucket down and shakes my hand. He actually seems pleased to see me. I’m betting there hasn’t been anybody else here all day. “Hello, Charlie. Are you related to Ron Sulliven?”

  “Yes, he’s my father.”

  “Oh, that’s great. Ron’s really good with the genealogy. He helped one of our board members figure out a roadblock on her family tree.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Did you come to get something for your dad, or are you working on your class assignment?”

  “I’m working on my project, but…” I bite my lip. “I was wondering if I could apply for the internship?”

  “Oh!” Mr. Haskins leans the dust mop against a cabinet.

  I take his reaction to mean there’s a problem, and I start to backtrack. “I totally understand if it’s filled, but I thought I’d check…”

  “No! Not at all!” Mr. Haskins raises both his hands and makes a placating gesture, as if I’m a wild unicorn who might vanish. “Stay right there while I get an application!”

  He scurries away, but I can hear his voice in the next room. “Don’t go anywhere!” he calls to me.

  I gaze up at the ceiling, squinting at the sunlit dust motes, then down at the floor. An antique baby carriage is parked in a corner. It’s rusty, but it has such a strange shape and scale. Like it was made for a doll. The ruffles, which I assumed were once white, are now tea-stained and ragged. It looks like something that belongs in Miss Havisham’s house.