Grave Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  “You’ve already seen it?” I asked.

  Ewbanks pulled a cigarette from his pocket and popped a match head with his thumbnail. He took a deep drag as if savoring our confusion.

  “Nah, I ain’t seen it, but I got a brain. Only one man it can be. Hugh Richards.”

  “State Senator Richards?” asked Tommy Lee, as amazed as the rest of us.

  “Bridges tells me you don’t believe in coincidences, Sheriff,” said Ewbanks. “Didn’t it strike you as odd that Senator Richards would go to such lengths to be buried beside Turncoat Turner? Keeping his arrangement with Pearly’s family a secret until he was dead? That first day up at the graveyard I knew something wasn’t right. I knew Richards and I knew his family. His momma was a yellow dog Democrat.”

  “A what?” asked Susan.

  “Somebody who’d rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican,” I replied.

  “Right,” Ewbanks said. “I don’t care how old the man was or how long his momma’s been dead, he wasn’t going to plant his bones beside a carpetbagger-loving Republican without having a damn good reason.”

  “That will be easy enough to prove when we see the tape,” said Tommy Lee.

  I could tell he still wasn’t sure about Ewbanks.

  “But why did you suspect Claiborne?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “I know my men,” Ewbanks answered between puffs. “They only leak what I want them to leak. But Claiborne was suddenly spewing like a busted radiator to that reporter Cliff Barringer. And then he started crawling up my back to get warrants on Clayton and Dr. Miller when there wasn’t enough evidence. That’s why I fed information to Bridges to pass on to you. I wanted someone who wasn’t under Claiborne’s nose to know what was going on. I knew you were a good police, Wadkins, for a pup.”

  Tommy Lee Wadkins, twenty-year veteran sheriff of Laurel County, stood dumbfounded. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or pissed.

  “Oh, don’t feel too bad, Sheriff,” Ewbanks said. “I didn’t have it all figured out myself. I was suspicious of Claiborne, but I wasn’t sure until Gentle Deal was killed with the same type of drugs that were missing from my evidence room. He’d been in there just a few days before with some excuse about needing to check on some evidence for an upcoming case.”

  He took another long drag on his cigarette as if contemplating how much to tell us about his thought process. “But knowing and proving are two different things. So all I could do was keep a close eye on him. Tonight I was coming in to check tomorrow’s schedule like I always do about this time when I saw Claiborne’s Crown Vic parked out back like he was trying to hide it. Then I saw Clayton’s jeep out front and knew something was bad wrong. Thanks to Clayton and Dr. Miller, evidence ain’t a problem now.”

  I was still confused. “But if Senator Richards is on that tape, why did he want us to find Calhoun’s body?”

  Ewbanks’ voice dropped and the sadness came through each word. “People are hard to figure out sometimes. Like I said, I knew Richards. In a lot of ways, he was a good man. But he was just as human and just as weak as the rest of us. When a man gets toward the end of his journey, I guess he looks back and the weak moments stand out as much or more than the strong. I feel sure he regretted to his dying day what he did and that includes getting mixed up with the likes of Claiborne.”

  “I’d have thought he’d been smarter than that,” said Tommy Lee.

  “Sex can be a powerful magnet,” Ewbanks replied. “Friend or no friend, he was a grown man and has to be held accountable for his actions. My guess is he was with Claiborne when Calhoun was killed. Probably helped bury the body. Turns my stomach to think about it. Hugh Richards did a lot of good for people around here.”

  “Why didn’t he just confess?” I asked.

  “Same reasons. He was human and didn’t want to lose his position. He surefire didn’t want to go to jail. Richards was one of the most powerful politicians in Raleigh. That’s why Claiborne wanted to get something over him in the first place. I suspect the real reason Claiborne used those women was to entrap men he wanted to control. I’ll bet he held what Richards did over his head for the rest of his career. But Richards found a way to even the score.”

  “So after he died he made sure Calhoun’s body would be found,” I said. “Claiborne would know Richards was coming after him from beyond the grave.”

  “That’s the way I read it,” said Ewbanks. “Any hint before then as to what he had in mind would have sent Claiborne up to Eagle Creek cemetery to get those bones out of there. Claiborne had no clue what Richards was planning until you unearthed that skeleton.” Ewbanks shook his head. “I’m afraid Richards didn’t foresee his scheme would cost the lives of Gentle Deal and Skeeter Gibson. I can’t believe he would’ve wanted it to go down that way.”

  “So now the whole story comes out,” Susan said.

  “Maybe.” With that cryptic comment, Hard-ass Hor-ass led us to his office.

  As we walked across the parking lot to the jail, I pulled Susan close to me. “You were amazing. Coming up with that cell phone ruse on the spur of the moment.”

  “Spur of the moment? I first thought about it as Claiborne pulled me at gunpoint out of the jeep, but the phone had already died. I did press the redial button after he knocked out the guard, hoping the battery had regained enough energy to at least make a brief connection.”

  “I feel like an idiot for suspecting Ewbanks.”

  “We knew Ewbanks was a fox,” said Susan. “But fortunately he turned out to be one of the good guys.”

  The old fox ordered up some coffee and sent for an 8mm video player.

  When it had been powered up, he stubbed out his cigarette and cleared his throat. “This could be pretty graphic,” he said. He looked at Susan and actually blushed.

  She remained calm. “Do you think Barry should leave?”

  I was so happy to see Susan trying to shake off the trauma of the shooting I let her jab at me go unanswered.

  The tape played like a cheap porno flick. Calhoun must have activated the camera over several of the escapades, maybe with a motion detector. First we saw Richards with a woman, and then Claiborne with another. There was nothing erotic about it. The senator seemed to be a pathetic old man, barely able to perform. Claiborne had to have the women tell him how good he was.

  The scene with Gentle Deal was the most disturbing. Richards had her strip nude. She was crying. “You won’t tell my daddy, will you?” was all the girl could say. The senator started fondling her, and then stopped. It was as if her tears had shed her years, and he suddenly saw her for the child she was. As he was telling her to dress, the tape ended.

  “That’s that,” said Ewbanks.

  Tommy Lee, Susan, and I sat silently. Ewbanks ejected the cassette.

  “Proof enough, don’t you agree, Sheriff?” he asked, looking at Tommy Lee.

  “Yeah,” said Tommy Lee. “It’s clear Claiborne killed Calhoun, Gibson, and Gentle Deal. The tape shows why. Each had to be silenced as they became a threat.”

  “And now Claiborne’s gone to face the ultimate judge and so has Richards.” Ewbanks held up the tape. “So I don’t see where this has any purpose now.”

  He set the videotape on the floor in front of his desk. He looked at each of us. No one said a word. Then he stomped the heel of his boot down, smashing the black cassette into a mangled pile of splintered plastic and twisted tape. There would be no graphic revelation of what happened in that room seven years ago, no tantalizing excerpts to boost news ratings, no bootlegged pornography showing up on the Internet.

  As I watched Ewbanks destroy the tape, I wondered about his motives. I felt sure they were in part to save the good name of an old friend. An old friend who had disappointed him, but in a way tried to redeem himself. Ewbanks must have thought he’d paid enough for his sins.

  As for me, I didn’t give a damn about the good name of Senator Hugh Richards or how much he had to pay. Destroying the tape was fine with me. Gen
tle Deal had a grandmother in Tennessee.

  Chapter 24

  We spent the next half hour deciding how to release the story. At least Saturday would catch the local news media understaffed and without the resources to do much more than digest and regurgitate the information given them.

  I insisted on honoring my pledge to Melissa Bigham for an exclusive. Since we were past her deadline, Ewbanks had no problem stonewalling as much information as he could. Sunday morning The Gainesboro Vista would break the major details without knowing that a videotape had ever been found.

  Ewbanks had only one request. He didn’t want Cliff Barringer given any information. He planned to tie the reporter up as much as possible with questions about his meetings with Claiborne. It’s one thing to protect a news source, but it’s another to have been the patsy for a murderer. Claiborne had brought Barringer’s name into play, and Ewbanks encouraged me to let Melissa Bigham know the obnoxious leech had been duped.

  Once Melissa’s story broke, Susan would call Cassie and give her an exclusive TV interview.

  “Tell her you want strong backlight,” I said. “Shows off your hair.”

  Even Ewbanks laughed. The strain of the ordeal needed relief. All of us knew how close Claiborne had come to getting away with murder.

  I took Susan back to my cabin. We’d retrieve our things from the hunt club over the weekend. Lying in bed, we quickly found ourselves picking up where we’d left off on that lumpy sofa. Because we’d been a split second from death, life felt all the more precious. The beat of her heart became a marvelous sound that converged and merged with mine, and the tender warmth of flesh against flesh buried the ache that had been unearthed in that mountain church cemetery. Afterward, we slept clinging to each other, afraid to let go, afraid for what might have happened.

  The next morning I met Melissa at the paper. I was pleased to discover she’d invited Annette Nolan. The old woman had left her goats on the mountainside long enough to participate in the culmination of the story she’d given Sammy Calhoun a thousand dollars to investigate. Annette and Melissa would share the byline. The younger reporter was giving her mentor the national exposure that would complete her career.

  At four in the afternoon, Cassie Miller called me from NEWSCHANNEL-8 to say Cliff Barringer had been fired by Nelson Darius. She was so happy she forgot to cuss.

  With the close of the Calhoun investigation, I focused my energy on coming to grips with Hoffman Enterprises. Sunday, I reviewed the figures and the notes I’d taken during my meeting with Carl and Josh. Under closer scrutiny, the numbers swung wildly depending upon the value of the stock and the expense of getting Mom a place to live and Dad into an assisted living community.

  I spent the next two days making drop-in visits at several facilities in the Asheville area that were recommended for Alzheimer’s patients. The complexes sported names like Dogwood Estates, Rhododendron Ridge Manor, and Tranquility Forest. Too bad The Last Resort had already been taken. Each was decked out in holiday décor. Christmas music played in activity rooms and on elevators, cafeterias served special menus, and church youth groups offered a perpetual parade of choirs and gift bearers to ensure the forgetting weren’t forgotten. Beneath the veneer of happy times lay the inescapable core of vacant eyes and bewildered faces. Dad might be headed to that final state of mind, but what would the move do to my mother? Would Dad’s professional care be liberating or usurp her role as wife and loving companion?

  I asked Mom if we could invite Uncle Wayne to lunch on Christmas Eve and approach the future as a family. She fixed Cornish hens, and my father was delighted to have “a tiny chicken” on his plate. After the meal, Mom left Uncle Wayne and me with a fresh pot of coffee and took Dad upstairs where he could watch TV in the den.

  “Now whatever’s good for your mother and you is good with me,” said Wayne.

  “I want your opinion too,” I insisted. “It’s not just about the financial side. I want everyone comfortable with our decision.”

  “You’re the one with your career ahead of you. Certain decisions shouldn’t be made by a committee, even if it’s all family.”

  “Hoffman’s giving me a three-year contract and the authority to hire one full-time and one part-time employee with benefits. That protects you and Freddy.”

  “What if one of us doesn’t want to stay three years?”

  “No one has to, but I’d sure like things to stay the same for awhile. People in this town look to you now that Dad can’t be the public face. When Mom and Dad leave the funeral home, your presence will be a comfort.”

  Wayne’s coffee cup clattered against the saucer. “Leave the funeral home? I thought you were using the sale money to get your Mom some help?”

  “Hoffman doesn’t allow on-site residents. We’ll need to get Dad into a care facility and find a place for Mom nearby.”

  “Nearby to what?” asked my mother. She came in the kitchen carrying a manila file folder.

  I slid back in my chair as she sat down. The conversation wasn’t proceeding like I had planned it. We were jumping straight to the most difficult part.

  “Nearby to Dad. I’ve been looking at possible options for him, and I know you’ll want to be as close as possible.”

  “Then you think we should sell?” she said.

  “It looks like it can give you the financial security you need.”

  She looked at her brother, and then let her gaze wander over the kitchen she had ruled her entire married life. “Financial security isn’t worth the cost of breaking up a family. If you think selling is the best thing, then your father and I will find a place we can live together. Tranquility Forest has some small cottages where couples can live.” She opened the folder and pulled out a brochure identical to the one I’d collected on my visit. “It’s,” she searched for the word, “nice.”

  “Bunch of old people,” said Wayne.

  “I’m an old person,” said Mom.

  Old but full of life, I thought. She could still be a bundle of energy. The folder showed me she had been actively investigating housing possibilities and had been able to find only one. What effect would living in the midst of caregivers and disintegrating personalities have on her? How would her vital spirit survive?

  “I don’t know, Mom. That’s a pretty drastic change for you.”

  “As drastic as giving up my husband?” The tears brimmed, but she willed them not to fall. “I’ll be fine with him. It’s what works for you and this community that’s important.”

  The community we served. That had always been Mom and Dad’s priority. How would the community adjust to a funeral home that became a funeral corporation?

  “Uncle Wayne will provide the continuity,” I said. “I can be the person responsible for any changes Hoffman requires. The people here don’t look at me the same way.”

  “What put that idea in your head?” asked Wayne.

  “Watching you all my life. I’ll never have the trust you and Dad have earned.”

  “That’s foolish talk,” he protested.

  There was no sense arguing with him. We agreed that after Christmas, Mom and I would look for more housing possibilities. Maybe we could find an option with a better mix of independent living and professional care.

  For a few minutes, the three of us sat quietly, each lost in private thoughts.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll see who it is,” I said.

  Libby Metcalf stood on the front porch. Her blue cloth coat was pulled tightly around her waist, and the afternoon chill had turned her cheeks and ears into red ornaments. She clutched a small green package in her bare hands.

  “I hope I’m not bothering you,” she said. Her smile wavered as she glanced past me into the empty foyer.

  “Not at all. Come in.”

  “I’ll just be a moment.”

  I led her into the parlor. The gas logs burned brightly in the fireplace and the Christmas tree’s white lights sparkled off the brass ornaments.
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br />   “Your decorations are so beautiful,” she said. “I thought maybe—” she stopped as the words caught in her throat.

  Mom and Uncle Wayne entered.

  “Can I take your coat, Libby?” I asked.

  “Would you like some hot coffee?” added Mom.

  “No, really, I’ve got to get back home, but I just wanted to say thank you.” She handed me the package.

  “For me?” I asked, feeling stupid saying it because the small gift tag read “For Barry Clayton.”

  “Yes.” She looked at the tree. “I thought maybe there would be room.”

  The green foil paper was well taped, as was the box it concealed. Inside, I found a brass oval Christmas ornament framed by angel wings. It held the picture of two boys, arms around each other’s shoulders with bright smiles for the camera. They stood in front of a Christmas tree.

  I couldn’t get any words past the lump in my throat. I sat on the sofa and she joined me.

  “You were so kind,” Libby said. She took the ornament from my hands and let her fingers caress the protective glass. “They warned me at the hospital that I shouldn’t try to see them again. That the damage had been too great. You proved them wrong.”

  I looked up at Uncle Wayne. Even after forty-five years in the funeral business, I could see this mother’s words touched his heart.

  “I had help,” I said. “We wanted you to be comforted.”

  She gave me back her treasure. “I know. And I thought maybe no one ever tells you how much that means. Everything is so overwhelming when what you love most is stripped from you. But you really cared. I could tell that. You made the difference for me. I just wanted to say that in person. Now I can remember them with a peace that you made possible. I thought maybe you would hang this each year and remember them as well?”

  She looked at me, hope suspended on her tear-streaked face. I saw in her features all the Appalachian women who pioneered these mountains, raised their children, and bore the hardships that nature relentlessly thrust upon them. Theirs was a heritage that would not show up on a Hoffman Enterprises balance sheet. Who would a grieving mother be looking at three years from now?