Grave Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  “I got the call from Hoffman Enterprises this morning. I’m driving to Atlanta on Friday like I said. I wanted your opinion.”

  He shifted in the chair and took another drink. “Then I guess I’m lucky you’re here. You know how these people operate. I’d appreciate your not mentioning anything to Susan.”

  I shook my head. I had run out of promises. “No.”

  My refusal put color in his face that the drink couldn’t. “What do you mean no? Susan plays no part in this. I don’t want her upset.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Walt. First of all, you haven’t told me any specifics about the sheriff’s visit. I do know how these people think, but unless you tell me what Ewbanks asked you, how can I know what they’re thinking? And second, anything you told them is going to require confirmation. The first person they’ll ask is Susan, and I’ll look like a jackass if she finds out I was here and didn’t tell her. You know your daughter better than I do. She’s going to be royally pissed. You’re putting me in a hell of a bind.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, and threw up a hand in surrender. “It’s just that it looks worse than it is.”

  “The gun’s yours, right? That’s the only reason I can think of that would bring Ewbanks here.”

  “Yeah. I bought it ten years ago, legal, proper, and registered.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “I lost it. That’s what happened. I kept it in the glove box of the Mercedes. I think one of the guys at the maintenance shop took it, but I didn’t have a shred of proof.”

  “Okay,” I said, finding the story plausible and convenient. “Ewbanks then asked why you didn’t report the theft to your auto insurer.”

  “Right. I said since I couldn’t be sure, I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble where a gun was concerned. I also didn’t know how long it had been missing.”

  I tested the bourbon and ginger. Walt had hit it with a heavy hand. I set the drink on the floor where I couldn’t unconsciously drain it. “A gun in a glove box is a concealed weapon,” I said. “Registering it doesn’t give you the right to carry it that way. I suspect Ewbanks didn’t like that.”

  “I’m an accountant, not a lawyer. My old car is prone to break down and I felt safer with the pistol.”

  Walt’s twenty-year-old 240-D Mercedes could be cantankerous. He once said when he drove into work on cold mornings, kids along the road would pick up their book bags thinking he was the school bus coming around the bend. Yet, Walt loved his old diesel. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked me to bury him in it.

  “Did Susan know about the gun?”

  “Yeah. I showed her how to shoot it.”

  “You’re asking me not to say anything to Susan, yet Ewbanks will go straight to her with questions about a gun and Sammy Calhoun. They’re going to blindside her.”

  Walt ran his fingers through his thin hair. “Then I should be the one to tell her.”

  It was what I wanted to hear. I asked a question whose answer I didn’t want to hear. “You never finished telling me about Sammy Calhoun. Susan met him in New York, but he wound up in a grave at Eagle Creek.”

  “Sammy Calhoun.” He said each syllable like it came wrapped in a persimmon. “My sister Cassie introduced them.”

  “In New York?”

  “Right. When Cassie worked for CBS and Susan started med school.”

  I felt a little better. Susan’s lie had been one of omission. She let me assume Calhoun had been a casual acquaintance she met through Cassie in Asheville. “Soon after Susan got there?” I asked.

  “Yes. Calhoun was a P.I. doing some work for the news division. He started asking her out. He was ten years older and knew the ropes of the city. At first, I thought he’d be good protection. Margaret had just died and losing my wife meant all of my worry got transferred to Susan. Then I’d pick up things from Cassie that Calhoun wasn’t the kind of man she felt was good for Susan.”

  “Did one of you talk to her?”

  He laughed and took the last swallow of bourbon. “You said yourself we both know Susan. How do you think she’d react to that conversation?”

  “The more you tried to interfere, the more she’d defend the guy.”

  “Exactly. She’s got my mother’s hardheadedness. Like Cassie.”

  Like you, I thought. When it comes to protecting your daughter.

  “I figured Calhoun would disappear when she returned to Asheville for her hospital residency. I just hoped she wouldn’t do something stupid like marry him.”

  “When did he arrive?”

  “About six months later. She wasn’t glad to see him. I think he came looking for money, not knowing residents work a hundred hours a week for less than minimum wage.”

  “But eventually that changes,” I said.

  “Eventually. I thought Calhoun wouldn’t wait. I heard he moved to Texas and I thought we were done with him.”

  I stood up and walked to the far end of the sofa, away from the heat and away from Walt.

  “But you aren’t done with him. So how did that gun come to be in the grave?”

  He stared at his empty glass and shook his head. “I don’t know, Barry. Maybe Calhoun stole it from me.”

  “But he didn’t shoot himself. And he sure as hell didn’t bury himself.”

  “Ewbanks wants my fingerprints,” murmured Walt. “They must have something to match.”

  “That’s my guess. If there’s a print, it has to be in a protected spot, probably up on the clip.” I knew damn well that’s what they had.

  “So even if it’s mine, there’s an explanation. I never denied handling the gun.”

  “That’s correct. The fact that a print survived all those years in the ground is remarkable enough. No one can say for sure when it was originally made.”

  “Good.” Walt got up. “I’d better call Susan and warn her. Do you want me to say you were here?”

  “Yes. You can mention the funeral home sale. Tell her I’d planned to talk to her in person after I knew more.”

  “Okay.” Walt bent down and picked up my full glass. “Maybe you’ll feel like sharing a drink when this is over.”

  “Right, Walt.” I looked at Susan’s face smiling at me from the mantel. Somehow I knew this was only the beginning.

  Chapter 8

  I decided to brave the secondary roads and return to my cabin for the night. George Eliot, the guinea pig I had acquired when my wife divorced me, tolerated my absences as long as she enjoyed plentiful food and water. The shrill whistles that greeted my arrival told me provisions had run low and her Highness was not amused.

  “Just a second, George.”

  The cries intensified. I stripped out of my parka and let it drop to the wide plank floor. The room felt cozy, heated by propane and moistened by a humidifier. The modern interior stood in contrast to the exterior of nineteenth-century logs culled from three other cabins. A psychiatrist from Charleston had found the rustic shells while hiking the Appalachian Trail. He had arranged for their purchase and reassembly on five acres outside of Gainesboro, and then became too ill to enjoy his retirement retreat. I found his blend of old and new to be the perfect spot for me to reassemble my life.

  As I walked to the kitchen, I noticed the red message light blinking on the answering machine. I suspected Walt had talked to Susan and she had immediately called for my version of events.

  The sound of the opening refrigerator door sent George into more frantic squeals. My low-tech alarm system never failed when it came to protecting our food supply. I dropped a handful of lettuce in her cage and scratched my long-haired Peruvian pal gently behind the ears. All was forgiven, or simply forgotten in the face of the feast.

  I returned to the refrigerator for my own treat, twisted the cap off a Bud, and sat down on the sofa by the telephone. I punched the replay button. “Barry. This is Cassie. Susan’s aunt. Call me please. Don’t worry about the time. Try the cell first.” She left a string of numbers, cell—work—home, so
fast I had to listen three times to jot them down.

  I had met Susan’s aunt last Thanksgiving when we ran by Walt’s after stuffing ourselves at Mom’s table. Susan warned me she was a piece of work. Her father’s sister and her only aunt, Cassie had gone through the journalism school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and landed a rewrite job for the Associated Press. In the mid Sixties, she joined the local newsroom at WCBS in New York as an assistant producer for a throwaway early morning newscast.

  Her energy and quick wit enabled her to advance at a time when women weren’t part of the good ol’ boys’ club. She came to the attention of the network brass, who brought her into the hallowed CBS News sanctuary of giants like Walter Cronkite and North Carolina native Charles Kuralt. She was a tough-skinned, no-nonsense, hard-talking producer who could hold her own with the best of them. Must have been mountain stubbornness that served her so well.

  She rode the tumultuous waves of countless management changes and survived the passing of the crown from Cronkite to Rather. Then eight years ago, she quit. Burned out and aged out, she had come back to the mountains to find herself. She had been fifty-three, and as she succinctly told Susan, “tired of seeing the fucking world through a god-damned TV monitor.” Aunt Cassie could wilt a fleet of sailors’ ears.

  Four months later, she went to work at NEWSCHANNEL-8, trading in the big rat race to be queen of the local news scene. The station owner wanted her to shake up the town and “knock the pompous newspaper on its ass.” She proceeded to do just that by launching an investigative series that exposed a cozy relationship between the highway contractors and transportation department officials. Bid-rigging. The impact of her report resounded all the way to the state capitol at Raleigh. Cassie became a force to be reckoned with—a force I would have to reckon with.

  I knew her call had to do with Sammy Calhoun. There was no other reason she would seek me out so urgently. Walt’s revelation that Cassie had introduced Calhoun to Susan made me anxious to talk to her as well. It was only a few minutes past nine. I picked up the receiver and heard Susan’s voice in my ear.

  “Barry?”

  “Yes.”

  “The phone didn’t even ring.”

  “I just picked up the phone to call you.” I rubbed my nose to keep it from growing. “Did your father reach you?”

  “He doesn’t know about the photograph.” She hid the question in the statement.

  “Neither Sheriff Ewbanks nor I mentioned it,” I confirmed. “I didn’t see a need to alarm him. What did you say?”

  “That he shouldn’t have lied.”

  I stood up and walked with the cordless receiver to the front window. The moon gave the snowy landscape a bluish glow. An animal track crossed the footprints I had created minutes earlier, the only sign that the outside world wasn’t frozen in time. Inside, I waited for Susan to unfreeze the conversation.

  “Dad didn’t lose that gun in his Mercedes. No one stole it. I gave it to Sammy.”

  My chest tightened. I didn’t like where the conversation was headed. “Are you sure you should be telling me this?”

  “Who else can I tell? My father just cut me off, claiming he distinctly remembers losing the pistol. I know him. That means he distinctly remembers not losing the gun and he’s trying to protect me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why didn’t you tell Ewbanks my picture was in the wallet?”

  “I just couldn’t imagine you tied to something so horrible.”

  The faint warble of a sigh came through the phone. “That’s what I keep telling myself.”

  “When did you give Calhoun the gun? Sometime in New York?”

  “Hmmm,” she murmured, realizing her father had brought that part of the story out in the open. “No, not then. He asked me for it here, a few days before he left for Texas.”

  Except he never made it, I thought. “Maybe you should come forward now,” I said. “Tell Sheriff Ewbanks what happened. At least it accounts for the gun being in Calhoun’s possession.”

  “I don’t want my father to get in trouble if I contradict his story.”

  It was a little late to worry about that. Walt’s testimony would crumble with Susan’s first truthful answer unless she perjured herself. “The sheriff saw your photograph on your father’s mantel. He didn’t say anything, but the look he gave me left no doubt he recognized it.”

  “He didn’t say a word?”

  “Ewbanks is backtracking,” I said. “He’ll piece together whatever he can, and then hit you and your father with it.”

  She mulled over her options. I imagined her sitting amid the feather angels, realizing no choice was a good choice. “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to Ewbanks tomorrow.”

  “Tonight,” I insisted. “It’ll disarm him. Your father called you about the sheriff’s visit. You told him about loaning Calhoun the gun, and you contacted the proper authorities immediately. What can Ewbanks say?”

  “He’ll want to know about my relationship to Sammy.”

  “Then tell Ewbanks as little as possible.” I forced a laugh. “You didn’t shoot him.”

  “But I wanted to.”

  Again, the empty silence was filled with my unasked questions.

  After a few seconds, she said, “I’ll think about it, Barry. You’re probably right.”

  “I’m right about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I love you.” Fortunately I got the words out before I could think how corny they might sound.

  “I love you too,” she said softly. “I really do. Let’s talk tomorrow.” She hung up, and I wanted to drive through the snow to be with her, protect her with more than words from a past unearthed in a mountain cemetery.

  Cassie Miller answered on the first ring of her cell phone. “Barry,” she snapped, “what’s going on?”

  Caller ID. Hearing my name blurted out instead of hello always startled me.

  “Barry?” she repeated, this time a question.

  “Yes. Have you talked to Walt?”

  “You’d think Walt would talk to me. But no, I have to call him because I learn my brother’s gun is a god-damned murder weapon from an anonymous tip to the newsroom. A tip to that asshole Cliff Barringer of all people. Walt told me you were there. You seem to be popping up everywhere.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to hear your version of what happened so I can verify Cliff’s information before I air it.”

  I gave Cassie my rundown of Ewbanks’ visit, omitting the details of the photograph on the mantel and the sheriff’s reaction to it. If Susan was going to approach Ewbanks, I didn’t want Cassie breaking the story on the eleven o’clock news.

  “What are you putting on the air tonight?” I asked.

  “Believe it or not, more than I want to. If I hold back, it looks like I’m shielding my brother. The competition, both the newspapers and other TV stations, would have a field day.”

  “Do I have to be mentioned?”

  “You have something to hide?”

  I could see her reporter ears perking up. “No. I was at Walt’s getting some financial advice. Nothing to do with this. But people will make the wrong assumptions because I’m dating Walt’s daughter. There’s no reason to bring Susan into it.”

  “Uh huh,” she said skeptically. “And you found the remains and you show up in the home of the owner of the murder weapon. Quite a coincidence. I don’t like coincidences.”

  The statement could have come straight from the lips of Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins.

  “Who was Sammy Calhoun?” I asked. “If I’m going to be nailed by a coincidence, then I’d like some information.”

  “Sammy Calhoun was trouble.” Cassie’s husky voice descended to a growl. “Look, I don’t have time to go into it now. I’ve got a newscast to put together. I’ll be back at work tomorrow after two. Talk to me then.”

  “And tonight?”

  “You and Susan aren’
t in the story. Since the tip to Barringer didn’t mention you, I’ll keep it that way. But don’t screw me over on this, Barry.” The phone went dead.

  Cassie wasn’t mad at me. She was mad because she didn’t know what was going on. For a news reporter, there’s no worse predicament.

  I took a slow swallow of my beer and settled back in the sofa cushion. Who had called the newsroom? As cagey as Ewbanks was playing Susan’s picture, I couldn’t believe he would have leaked information to a television station. Was Bridges sharing the case’s progress beyond Tommy Lee? And who was this Cliff Barringer that Cassie Miller called an asshole? His source might be Bridges or anyone else in the sheriff’s office.

  By tomorrow, Susan should have talked to Ewbanks and her story would explain both the gun and her photograph. The big question was, would Ewbanks see her story as an explanation or an implication?

  Chapter 9

  The next morning I allowed extra time for the drive to town, but discovered I had the road to myself. Most county people were still digging out or taking care of the livestock whose winter grazing pastures lay smothered under a frozen barrier.

  When I arrived at the funeral home early, Mom made an egg and sausage breakfast casserole, and we sat at the kitchen table with Dad. Our conversation consisted of sporadic threads that abruptly snapped and then veered off on whatever tangent next broke from his tangled memory.

  Uncle Wayne and Freddy Mott arrived in time to finish the coffee and casserole and to hear Dad mix his recollection of JFK’s death with the current plot of “General Hospital.” Freddy had been with us part-time for over ten years. He also worked as a carpentry handyman, specializing in odd jobs for wealthy retirees, but with their understanding that his funeral duties took priority. Since most of his clients were at the stage of life when funerals were as common as an afternoon of golf or an evening of bridge, Freddy could juggle building and burying with their cooperation.

  I studied the faces around the table. We worked well together, providing comfort and consolation to our community. Even Dad showed no signs of anxiety when the five of us were together. What impact would Hoffman Enterprises make on this scene?