himself, but as a courtesy, he notified us instead. I told him I'd check on it."
Martha was unable to contain her laughter. "As a courtesy? Did you believe that?"
"Hell no," Le Donne growled. "I know why he called me. He thinks this case is going to be a can of worms, and he doesn't want to get near it. So he's trying to dump it in my lap."
"And you'd like to dump it in Spencer's lap, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, but I won't." LeDonne straightened his tie. "I'm going out to the cemetery and take a look at the Underhill graves. I hope to hell I don't find anything."
"Call me on the radio," said Martha.
He zipped up his sheepskin jacket and ambled toward the door. "You bet."
A four-lane interstate, less than twenty years old, meandered through the wide valley into North Carolina with all the effortlessness of a flatland road, with mountains on the horizon only for scenery. It came out just below Asheville and would take them across the state line in an hour or so, but they were in no rush, and the old, familiar two-lane road over the mountains was their road; the new featureless swath through the valley belonged to another generation; people who were in a hurry, mostly to get somewhere else.
Taw pulled out of Tavy's gravel driveway and
turned the car away from town, trying not to
think what the trip might do to his Mercury's
suspension system. The view, though, would be
almost worth it. The old-timers still called the one-lane blacktop the Drovers Road, a fading memory of its original purpose when it was only a trail cut along the ridges. When Appalachia was the West, there had been great herds of cattle and even buffalo ranging in these mountains, fattening on the maist of the chestnut trees. Great cattle drives had followed mountain trails from Greeneville, Tennessee, to Greenville, South Carolina—more cattle than ever went up the Chisholm Trail in the farther West of the late nineteenth century. Now the road was an indifferent blacktop, meandering along the ridge of the Smokies, and crossing the state lines without benefit of a welcome sign.
The Drovers Road began as a green tunnel, shrouded by oaks from the forests on either side. If you were good at noticing things off to the side, you might see deer skittering through the trees close to the road, spooked by the engine noise. After a few miles of gradual incline, the road leveled off on the top of a long, high ridge, where overgrown fields and crumbling barns testified to the ruined farmsteads that had once crowned the heights. The meadows were empty now, but beyond them, in the distance, lay miles of golden valley, flanked by an endless roll of mountains, green with pines, hazing to blue on the horizon. It was the top of the world; and they were alone in it.
"I had a mind to live up here once upon a
time," said Taw, slowing the car to a crawl as
he looked out across the mountains. "When I
was stuck up in De-troit, I used to see this view
in every country song. When anybody said home, I pictured this."
"Why didn't you move up here, then?" asked Tavy. "I reckon somebody would have sold you a couple of acres."
"I'm too old for it now. The heights is for young people. Looking out across that empty space there to those far-off mountains is like looking into the future, and I don't want to see that far anymore. It scares me a little. I think about getting snowed in come winter, and the winds that would whip across that valley and rattle the house like a Dixie cup. I think about getting sick up here alone with no one to look in on me. And having to drive ten miles for a loaf of bread. I'm too old for it."
Tavy snorted. "Young people can't live up here, either, Taw. Too far to commute to their jobs. No school bus to take the kids to school. No phone lines." He nodded toward the brown ruin of a saltbox house. "I guess nobody can live up here but ghosts. Maybe I'll take up residence here."
Taw reddened and set his jaw. "Don't talk like that!"
"Like what? About dying? It's not exactly a surprise ending, is it? It's not like I'd live forever if I didn't have cancer. I am looking at the future out there, like you said, and that's what I see."
"I know. I just don't like to hear you talk about it. It sounds like you're giving in."
"Nobody solicited my opinion," said Tavy. "But I don't reckon I mind all that much. I'm a 311
little tired of the world these days, with its silly music and its all-fired self-important technology. It's not worth all the pain I'm having to see another few months of it, I can tell you that. I think I'd rather see what comes next."
Taw almost said, What if nothing does? but he caught himself in time. It was not a subject to speculate on with the dying.
After five or six glorious miles of sprawling vistas like the view from heaven, the road began to twist downward again, between banks of pine trees, and they were enclosed again in forest, heading for the valley they had just seen spread out before them. It would take another six miles of switchbacks to reach it, though.
"Reckon we're in North Carolina yet?" asked Tavy.
"Near about," said Taw. "After that, it will be another twenty miles or so before we run into the four-lane that'll take us to Titan."
Tavy settled back in the passenger seat and closed his eyes. "Give me a shake when we get there."
In later spring even the valley would have been beautiful, with a sweep of green meadows curling around the rocky river, and cows lazing under white-blossomed apple trees, but in the last weeks of winter the fields were yellow with dead grass or brown with mud, and the black trees were bare. A crossroads hamlet huddled around a post office the size of a toolshed, as bleak as the end of the world. Taw flipped on the radio; the sightseeing was over.
Oakdale Cemetery was already tinged with green. Gold-tinted leaves sprouted at the tips of oak and maple branches scattered throughout the well-kept lawns, and green shoots of grass laced the brown stubble around the grave markers. Joe LeDonne tried not to think about why. He parked the patrol car on the circle near the new part of the cemetery, and threaded his way among the plots, reading the lettering on the bronze markers.
He avoided cemeteries when he could. Too many of his friends had ended up there well before their time, and he wondered sometimes if it was a form of arrogance to stroll among the dead, pretending that you would last forever. There was enough danger in his line of work without taunting fate. LeDonne believed in fate. In a twelve-month tour of duty in Vietnam, he had seen smarter men, braver men, and better men than himself go to their deaths, for no reason that he could discern, while he had been spared. He had learned not to question death's choices, but its presence made him uneasy. Sometimes he thought he might be an oversight and that if he got in death's way, it would notice him, and come back to tidy up the loose end.
He didn't pretend that this was just a scenic park, either. He had learned to respect death. But he wanted to get out of there before it noticed him. And before any of his old buddies dropped by for a visit. The way they did in his nightmares. Lanier or Mullins or Edmiston would appear, sometimes back in the jungle, 313
sometimes in his house in Hamelin. Sometimes the spectral visitor would be his regular old self, smiling and cracking jokes like nothing happened, and sometimes, Mullins wouldn't have a face, or Lanier would be gone from the waist down, and the sound of the Bouncing Betty would still be echoing around them. Then LeDonne would have to fight his way back from the place of dreams, and abandon his friends to the darkness. Again. Then Martha would brew him coffee, and hold him, telling him again and again that it was over, and he would nod and pretend to be convinced. Yeah, he thought, it's over, but it has a half-life of twenty years and counting.
In Southeast Asia people believed that ghosts were spirits of the dead who had died too suddenly to make the transition from one plane to the next. Those who died violently were the ones who walked. If that were true, the Underbills probably weren't resting in peace, either, he thought. But at least they didn't have to cry out for justice. Their murderer had sentenced himself and followed them into
the next world. He hoped he would find an undisturbed grave.
UnderhilL One double marker bearing the names of Paul and Janet, on either side of them two smaller plaques for Joshua and Simon. Four identical dates of death. No flowers, not even plastic ones, adorned these graves, and un-swept leaves had drifted into the plot, making the site look long abandoned. How long had it been? Six months?
LeDonne knelt on the marker, and began to 314
brush the leaves away from Josh Underhill's grave. As he did, a sharp March wind swirled a new assortment of leaves in the wake of the old ones. He pushed those aside, and examined the earth beneath. It was tightly packed. No sign of disturbance. He turned to the parents' grave, and began clearing the leaves away, using his fingers like a rake. The leaves were cold and wet, and stuck to his hand like dead skin. He shook them away, and ran his fingertips through the dirt. There was no grass beneath this leaf pile, and the soil crumbled at his touch. He brushed more leaves from the plot, and saw that clumps of clay were still heaped near the slope of the hill. This was not last year's grave-digging, done by the cemetery workmen. The soil was newly disturbed, and hastily replaced.
LeDonne stood up, and brushed bits of red clay from his trousers. There was no need to go further just yet. He had probable cause now, enough to start asking questions. But not of the Underhills, not yet. He would have to do much more investigating before he was ready to confront them. This crime, this sign of mental disturbance, changed everything. Now the open-and-shut homicide case of last October was beginning to look much more complex.
Back in the car he radioed Martha that he had completed the 10-96. He asked her to phone the district attorney to say that he'd be stopping by in twenty minutes. Martha wanted more information, but he signed off, and drove out of the cemetery, feeling like a trespasser. 315
Sharyn McCrumb *
After forty-five minutes of driving through the river valley, Taw McBryde's Oldsmobile passed through a row of well-kept white houses in a larger village. He slowed down, looking for signs. At a gas station and post office crossroads, a shield-shaped blue sign directed him to the interstate. After that, the scenery swept past in a featureless blur, punctuated by green road signs announcing the distance to the next three towns. Town number two was Titan Rock, home of a large and prosperous paper company. Taw speeded up to sixty-five, and even then the trucks whizzed past him.
It was after four when he took the exit ramp for Titan Rock, leaving the monotony of the interstate to the long-haulers and the commuters. In an hour it would be dark. He looked out over the dingy factory town, with its garish strip of fast-food joints and glass and neon filling stations. Everything in Titan Rock was either old and dirty or plastic, and towering over the crumbling town was the factory, a brown fortress straddling the riverbank. One mushroom smokestack was emblazoned with Titan Paper, as if there could be any doubt about it. Taw aimed the car for the smokestack, and followed the narrow streets to his destination. With one hand, he shook Tavy's shoulder. "We're there, old buddy."
Tavy was awake in seconds, alert. "Good," he said, peering up at the smokestack in front of them. "Let's go over it again."
Philip Withrow had been elected district attorney because there had been Withrows in Wake County since before the Civil War, because he was young and energetic enough to campaign for the post, and mostly because Wake County's other lawyers already had good practices and couldn't be bothered with the job. It wasn't as if the position would lead anywhere, except maybe to a job as a state senator a dozen years down the line. Meanwhile, it was a dreary term prosecuting drunk drivers, two-bit thieves, and assault cases. Like the sheriff, he tended to see the same people over and over, and he had come to the conclusion that crime ran in some families the way lawyering ran in his.
He still looked like a kid, despite his premature balding and his charcoal wool suit with the yellow spotted tie. There was a looseness about his clothes that made people think of a kid playing dress-up. He had been reading the Sharper Image catalog, trying to decide which electronic gadget he was going to give himself for Father's Day, when LeDonne showed up. He slid the magazine in his drawer, and leaned back in his red swivel chair, trying to look authoritative and calm. He didn't feel calm around LeDonne, though. He always suspected that there was a sneer lurking behind the deputy's impassive face.
"Hello, LeDonne!" he said in politician friendly. "How's business?"
"Steady," said LeDonne. "But not what you'd call predictable." The deputy ignored the leather captain's chair beside Withrow's desk, 317
and stood at parade rest, as remote from the attorney as he was from the people he arrested. "I need some advice about a point of law."
"That's what I'm here for," said Withrow happily. He had a wall filled with law books to get him out of this one. "What's your question?"
"It's two questions, really. The first one is, is grave robbing a misdemeanor or a felony?"
Whatever Philip Withrow expected, it was not this. His mouth opened and closed without uttering a sound, and for a second he stared at the deputy, waiting for the punch line. LeDonne was silent. "You're serious about this?" Withrow said at last. "Grave robbing? Oh, you mean Indian bones from an archaeological site? I think we can—"
"No, sir." LeDonne's expression did not change. "I mean robbing a grave in Oakdale Cemetery. I have reason to believe that one has been disturbed, and that bones were removed from the site."
"I think—Well, I'd have to look it up, but I think it's a misdemeanor. Teenage boys, you mean? It's like vandalism, isn't it?"
LeDonne shrugged. "That brings me to the second question. I have reason to believe that the graves were opened by the deceased's next of kin. Now, does that mean that the bones are the property of the heirs, and is it in fact not vandalism or theft at all in that case?"
Withrow leaned his head back and exhaled a long, loud breath. "Okay. Tell me who we're talking about and what has happened." When 318
LeDonne finished explaining in his precise, emotionless way, the district attorney sighed again. "I could look it up if you're dying to know, LeDonne. But all you really need to know is this: There's no way we're prosecuting on this one. Make it go away, you hear? Get them counseling. Get them to commit themselves. Whatever. I don't want to be the first east Tennessee D.A. to make the supermarket tabloids. Just make this one go away."
It was after four-thirty in the gathering twilight when the two old men stepped into the reception area of the Titan Paper Company. They were nicely dressed, with dark ties and suit jackets, and they were smiling pleasantly at Sarah Watkins, the receptionist, weary with the boredom of her undemanding job. She wanted nothing more than to beat the traffic out of the plant's parking lot, and get to Food Lion before nightfall. Visitors, at least, would take her mind off the second hand of the clock. She summoned up a smile. "Can I help you all?"
"I was hoping we might catch Roger," said Taw McBryde, returning the smile. "Mr. Sheridan, that is. I've got an old friend here who'd like to see him. We're just back from the doctor's in Charlotte." He nodded toward Tavy, inviting the receptionist to understand the finality of this visit. "We can't make the stockholders' meeting, but since we were passing through, we thought we'd drop in and say hello. Now don't tell me the old rascal is busy." He twinkled at 319
her, sharing the joke on self-important old Roger.
The receptionist looked doubtful for a moment, and her gaze wandered to Tavy, looking gaunt behind a bony smile, and clutching a paper bag to his chest. "Brought him a little something from home," he said hoarsely. "You don't reckon he's too busy for that, do you?"
Sarah Watkins grinned. "Well, he's by himself, anyhow, and his phone light's not on. Shall I announce you, or do you want to surprise him?"
By now Taw had spotted the hallway that she had glanced toward. There was no one else in the reception room. No guards anywhere. Not much crime in Titan Rock, he reckoned. "We'll sneak on back and surprise him," he whispered. "We can't stay too long,
anyhow."
They hurried off down the corridor before she could think better of the unannounced visit. The walls were lined with pictures of old men in suits—the board of directors, maybe, or past presidents of the company. They look about the same age as Tavy and me, thought Taw McBryde. Maybe that's why the receptionist let us through. To a gal her age, all old men must look alike. He kept hustling down the hall as fast as he could without looking suspicious. If he stopped to think, he might realize the folly of their intentions. There was no use asking Tavy to reconsider, though. Planning this day had kept him alive for weeks now, while his skin faded to transparency with illness, letting the rage shine through him like an aura. They were 320
in it now. As they reached the door bearing Roger W. Sheridan's brass nameplate, Taw slid the pistol out of the pocket of his jacket.
The siege was accomplished in less than a minute. One moment Roger Sheridan was standing at his door, trying to figure out who his visitors were, and the next instant he had a gun in his ribs, as he spoke into the intercom telling Sarah that he wasn't to be disturbed.
"Who are you?" he asked, staring up at his captors. He was a short, stocky man in his early fifties, red-faced, with eyes like huckleberries. Droplets of sweat trickled down his shiny forehead, and his expression was a study in outrage mingled with terror. Taw didn't think Roger Sheridan was a good bet to make sixty-five, a fact that cheered him. His contempt for the pompous little man made it easier to hold the gun steadily and convincingly against his temple.
"Who are we?" Tavy repeated. "We live downstream from your paper company, that's who." He looked around at Sheridan's show-place office. A well-carved Thomasville desk and bookcases gleamed with furniture polish, and the red-and-gold fabric of the tapestry sofa matched the drapery material covering a Pal-ladian window. Sheridan was sitting at his desk now, while Taw stood beside him, holding the gun. Tavy sank down in the visitors' chair, holding the paper bag between his knees, breathing a little heavily from the exertion and excitement.
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