Restless in the Grave

by Dana Stabenow

  Four strong, powerful women, suspended somewhere on the border between terra firma and hell. It was like something out of Euripides.

  Campbell himself stood just inside the door, out of the light, filled with foreboding and a rising tide of dismay.

  When Tina finally spoke, her voice was uninflected, disinterested, as if she were relating something that had happened to some other family in some other town. Campbell thought later that treating the story as one step removed might have been the only way Tina could face it.

  “He had all that money,” Tina Grant said. “He wouldn’t tell me where he got it from, but of course I knew it had something to do with Hugh Reid. Hugh was always around, even before, but these last two years…” She looked around at the room. “This house. The air base. All those airplanes. I used to keep the books for Bristol Bay Air, but two years ago Finn shut me out.” She opened her eyes and looked at the laptop in front of her. “He put passwords on all the accounts, and he told me he only wanted young, pretty women working at the FBO, something about eye candy for the pilots. After all the work I’d put in, I deserved to retire, he said. Take it easy, go to Hawaii or Arizona, someplace warm, we could afford it now.” She drew in a long, careful breath, and Jeannie’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “So for the past two years, I’ve been able to pick up only bits and pieces of information. Then one day…”

  Jeannie started to say something and Kate gave her a fierce glance. The librarian’s mouth shut again with an audible snap.

  “I took the ATV out to Eagle Air. I made up some excuse, I just wanted to see how the remodel was coming, something like that. It didn’t matter, Finn wasn’t there. But one of the new cargo planes was. When the pilot went inside, I looked inside one of the totes and saw the guns.”

  Kate looked at Jeannie. None of this was coming as a surprise to her.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” Tina said. “I didn’t know where they came from. I didn’t know where they were going. And then Irene…”

  “She wasn’t tracking really well after that,” Jeannie said, her voice soft but her eyes still daring Kate to say one condemnatory word.

  “They shipped her body back, and we buried her,” Tina said. “And then the letter came. It was the first time anyone told me exactly how she had died. Her commanding officer just said she’d been killed by sniper fire.”

  She fell silent again. Kate Shugak didn’t say a word, didn’t stir a muscle, so far as Campbell could tell didn’t so much as bat an eyelid. With infinite, inexhaustible patience, she waited, and sure enough, Tina Grant was compelled to fill the vacuum of silence the other woman created.

  “She might have been killed by one of the weapons her own father smuggled to the insurgents. Do you see?” Tina appealed to Campbell. “Do you see?”

  “Yes,” Campbell said heavily. “I see.”

  “You were angry,” Kate said in a neutral voice.

  “Of course she was angry,” Jeannie said hotly, “what mother—?”

  “Shut. Up,” Kate said.

  Jeannie shut up.

  Campbell wondered if he could get Kate to teach him that trick.

  To Tina again, Kate said in that same neutral voice, “You were angry. You were so angry that you decided Finn had to pay. You’ve been around airplanes all of your life. You knew just what to do to make it look like an accident. And you did it.”

  “She was staying with me,” Jeannie said, spacing the words out deliberately. “She’d just found out and she came to my house to tell me the whole story and try to figure out what she should do next. About the guns,” she said, emphasizing the last three words and looking fiercely at Campbell. “Like call you. She’d just gotten home when Tasha called to say that Finn was overdue. She had no opportunity to mess with his Super Cub.”

  Kate looked at Campbell. He wasn’t buying it. Neither was she, but she couldn’t find the pry bar that would break Tina Grant open, especially not with Jeannie Penney standing so literally and figuratively behind her.

  The door opened. Everyone turned to look.

  It was Oren.

  It was also the M4, which in the way it focused everyone’s attention seemed to walk in the door on its own.

  He was carrying it loosely, carelessly, across his body. He wasn’t really aiming it, but even Jeannie had seen enough television to recognize the curved clip of ammunition protruding from in front of the trigger guard.

  Kate’s mouth went dry.

  “Of course she killed him,” Oren said. “My loving mother. My loving father’s loving wife. Not that he didn’t deserve it. Bad man, my father. First-class, government-certified Grade A asshole, actually. But he knew how to make money, that’s for sure.”

  “Oren,” Campbell said in a voice that was just this side of soothing, “why don’t you hand over the rifle.” He put out his hand.

  “Lots and lots of money,” Oren said, stopping just out of reach and taking a long pull on the bottle of beer he held in his other hand. It was obvious that it was not his first of the evening. Kate could smell the alcohol oozing out of his pores from six feet away. “I drove Dad out to the hangar that morning. Taxi service. It was about all he trusted me to do. But what the hell.” He gestured with the carbine. “It kept me in beer and basketball. One time he even got me courtside seats to a Laker game. Laker side, too, must have cost a fortune. Jack Nicholson was yelling so loud, he spit on me. I didn’t wash for a week.”

  “Put that gun down, Oren,” Jeannie said sharply.

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch,” Oren said. “And you, shut your fucking dog up, too.”

  Not that drunk, Kate thought, and took a firmer hold of Mutt’s mane. Mutt had been growling since Oren walked in the door. Kate believed in Mutt, but she believed even more in the stopping power of the M4 Oren was holding so carelessly in his hands. “Stay, girl,” she said. “Quiet, and just … stay.”

  The slavering roar died to a rumble, but it didn’t go away completely. To distract Oren’s attention, Kate said, “Did you see your mother sabotage the Super Cub?”

  Oren gazed at her blankly, the resemblance between himself and his mother never stronger. “No,” he said. “Didn’t have to. Had to be her. She hated him. I didn’t like him much myself, but she’s always hated him. She never would have married him if her parents hadn’t made her.” He burped, loud and long, and added as an afterthought, “She hated us, too.”

  Tina didn’t say a word.

  “All except Irene,” Oren said. “The golden girl. Evelyn was always just going to keep her head down, and I was always going to be the family fuckup. But Irene, it was her self-appointed destiny to make Daddy and Mommy proud. Even if it killed her.” A tear ran down his cheek. “And then it did.”

  Jeannie looked at Tina, who seemed incapable of speech. “Oren—”

  “I said shut the fuck up!” He raised the gun in her direction and everyone cowered, Kate included. The safety had to be on that thing, to not punch holes in everyone and everything in that room at such rough and inexpert usage. Didn’t it?

  She sneaked a quick glance at Campbell. His face was set like stone. The sight did not reassure her.

  Mutt continued to growl low and deep in her breast and strain against Kate’s hand. “Stay,” Kate said, hoping very much that Mutt wouldn’t let Kate just pull all the hair out of the back of her neck and attack the crazy little bastard anyway.

  She saw a shadow move in the hallway. She looked away immediately, but she thought it might have been Fred Grant.

  And then, for a very brief moment, she wondered why she was so sure it was Fred Grant.

  “It about killed her,” Oren said. “Irene. When I told her where the money was coming from.”

  Those words did seem to reach Tina. Her brow puckered anyway.

  “Jesus, Mom, didn’t you ever wonder why she volunteered for a second tour? She wanted as far away from here, as far away from Dad, as far away from you—” He spat the word out. “—as she could get.”<
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  “That’s not true,” Jeannie said, her voice quiet now. “Tina, it’s not true.”

  “Sure it is,” Oren said. “That’s the other thing I’m good for. Sh-sounding board for my sisters. Dad, too. They could tell me everything because they knew I wouldn’t tell anybody.” He laughed. “Who would listen?”

  “I’ll listen,” Campbell said. “Hand over that weapon and I’ll listen to anything you have to say, Oren.”

  “You know what she wants to do, don’t you,” Oren said. “She wants to give it aaaaaaall back. First she’s going to catch them all, of course. She’s just waiting for the last pilot to come through so she can get his name. But then she’s going to give back all that lovely money Dad ripped off from some old rich broad who’s too crazy to spend it herself.”

  He took another drink, or tried to. The bottle was empty, and he tossed it behind him. It shattered on impact and everyone jumped. “S’why Evelyn went out there the other night. I told her about that thumb drive of Dad’s and she was determined to find it and get rid of it. She doesn’t want to go back to being broke anymore’n I do.”

  “You understand,” Oren said, peering at them earnestly, “the crazy broad doesn’t need it. Dad and Hugh said she didn’t even know she’s got it. But good old Mom’s gonna give it all back.” There was a wealth of drunken contempt in the look he bent on his mother. “Dear old Mom’s gonna put everything up for sale. The hangar. The planes. The base. She’s gonna give back all the little businesses Dad ripped off from all those dumb bastards in town. One big Kmart Special.” He looked at his hand and seemed puzzled that there was no bottle in it. “No matter that the rest of us will go hungry, dear old straight-arrow Mom has to make it all right.”

  Kate looked at Tina. “So that’s why you wanted my rent up front in cash.”

  Oren burped again. “’Course it was. Mom wouldn’t let Evelyn or me or Uncle Fred touch any of the money Dad had. She wouldn’t, either. I will, though. I served enough time for it.”

  He saluted Tina with the M4 and Kate managed not to flinch. Another shadow moved in the hall. What the hell was Fred Grant doing out there, waiting for Godot? Maybe the shadow had been only her imagination, or maybe he was as paralyzed by the big black cannon being waved around by the drunken little dweeb as the rest of them. She caught Oren’s eye and said, “Big talk from a man who still lives with his mommy.”

  Oren looked ugly. When the barrel of the M4 began to swerve in Kate’s direction Tina stood up and pushed away from the desk, crowding Jeannie into the left-hand corner of the office. In a purely instinctive move Kate felt herself crouching, preparing to launch herself into the opposite corner where the desk might afford her a little cover, too.

  And then as she was moving she saw the shadow in the hallway coalesce to slip soundlessly inside the door of the office. There was no way Oren could have seen him or heard him, but a sound like furniture being shoved across the floor came from the hallway behind the shadow. Oren did hear that, they all did. He swung around, rifle at the ready, just before the shadow reached him. A second more and it wouldn’t have mattered. A second more, and everyone would have lived.

  Kate, frozen in midleap, felt time slow down again in the same horrible way it had only that morning in that bedroom in Adak, only this time it was as if everyone was moving through thick tar. Campbell was reaching for his sidearm in slow motion, Tina’s arms were spreading in front of Jeannie, over her shoulder Jeannie’s mouth was opening wide, Mutt’s ears were taking forever to lay themselves flat against her head. In the hallway Fred Grant stepped forward into the light, face pallid, eyes staring. But then who was it who had come into the room?

  Recoil from the first shot pushed the barrel up out of the inexperienced hands holding it. It kept climbing, high and right on full automatic, the first round impacting the shadow, the second the doorframe next to Fred Grant’s head. Fred Grant flinched from the flying splinters, the film playing in Kate’s head still running at half speed. She had all the time in the world to watch, her head following the trail the bullets left up the wall, across the ceiling, down the left-hand corner behind the desk.

  The recoil that pushed up the barrel also pushed Oren’s body around to his right. His balance was already unsteady from the alcohol, and the recoil made him lose it altogether, but not his grip on the trigger. He fell backwards, the bullets still spraying out of the rifle, breaking a recessed light above the bookshelf, shattering an ivory otter on a shelf below, breaking a shelf in half and sending a dozen books to the floor. One of the books caught a bullet and shredded into confetti, exploding into a cloud of white bits of paper. Tina was hit by one of the last fired, high up on her left side, going through her to shatter the window behind the desk.

  The casings were spitting out to Oren’s right rear and as he moved they arced in Kate and Mutt’s direction. Mutt tried to dodge them by jumping in several different directions at once and instead got in their way, her startled “Yip!” cutting through even the deafening sounds of rifle fire when one hit her square in the nose.

  Some malign chance of physics caused one of the casings to ricochet off the back of Kate’s collar and fall down inside her shirt. It was hotter than hell and felt like it was raising blisters on the tender skin of her back, and time resumed its normal flow with a vengeance. She couldn’t remember screaming, which Campbell later assured her she did, but she definitely remembered dancing around trying to pull the hem of her shirt from her jeans to let the casing fall out.

  And then Campbell finally got himself airborne and hit Oren Grant with all the force of his six-feet-two-inch, 180-pounds mass and both men flew horizontally across the floor and into the opposite bookshelves with a crash that knocked more shelves down, books cascading afterwards. A falling clock made from a slab of jade hit Oren in the head and he finally lost his grip on the trigger and the shooting mercifully stopped.

  Later Campbell told Kate that it had taken only a few seconds to empty out the thirty-round clip of ammunition. It had felt like much, much longer. They also discovered that Oren hadn’t stopped firing, he’d only emptied out the clip.

  Campbell looked up from the floor and said something to Kate. “What?” she said. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t hear her own voice, either. There was a faint drift of smoke, and the room smelled funny, almost sweet. She looked at Campbell and tried again. “What?”

  She felt a cold nose press into her cheek and looked down at Mutt, staring up at her with anxious yellow eyes. A wet tongue followed the nose, and Kate realized she was still in a half crouch, ready to leap. The muscles in her thighs began to tremble. When she realized that, all her muscles began to tremble in unison.

  Campbell finished cuffing Oren Grant. “Check on Tina,” he said, and this time she heard him.

  She stood up on shaky legs and went around the desk, hoping no one noticed that she was using it to hold herself up.

  The two women had slid down the wall into the corner. Tina was cradled in Jeannie’s arms, her back against Jeannie’s breast. The bullet looked like it had shattered the entire left side of Tina’s torso and Kate couldn’t believe she was still breathing, raggedly, bubblingly, but breathing. There was nowhere she could see to apply pressure, there was just too much torn flesh, too much bone showing, too much blood.

  Jeannie was covered in it, bits of it staining blond hair, matte skin. A piece of something indescribable was caught in her left eyelash. She looked up at Kate, her eyes pleading.

  “Are you hurt?” Kate said.

  Jeannie shook her head, dazed. “I … I don’t think so. No. Tina shoved me out of the way, and then I guess she fell on me.”

  “Tina,” Kate said.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered. Her skin was pasty white, her lips blue.

  “Tina,” Kate said, “did you kill your husband? Did you kill Finn?”

  “I told you,” Jeannie Penney said fiercely through her tears. “She was spending the night with me. She’d had a fight with
Finn and she came over to my house. It wasn’t the first time.”

  Kate looked at her and knew she would go to her grave swearing it was so.

  Tina’s eyes opened suddenly. She looked straight into Kate’s, opened her mouth, and died.

  Kate stood up, feeling suddenly and completely exhausted.

  “Oh Jesus, Moses, Jesus,” she heard Campbell say, his voice on the edge of agony.

  She went around the desk to find Campbell holding the shadow in his arms, the shadow who was Moses Alakuyak, who had taken two shots, also on his left side, one lower and one higher than Tina’s. His blood was splattered over the doorframe all the way out into the hall. It had saturated Liam Campbell from his hair to his boots.

  Oren had pushed himself up on his left side, his hands restrained behind him. “The family fuckup fucks it up again. If Dad could only see me now.”

  Kate imagined the toe of her boot kicking in his front teeth and found her leg drawn back to do it before she managed to get herself under control. “Shut up,” she said. “Just shut the fuck up.”

  She turned and saw Fred Grant standing in the doorway. “And where the hell were you?” she said. His eyes were wide and staring, speechless at the carnage in the office of his brother’s house. He was evidently incapable of reply.

  “I fucked up,” Moses said. “Shit, Liam, I so totally fucked up. All those years practicing form and I couldn’t take down a useless little shit like Oren Grant.”

  “I think Oren had help,” Kate said, still looking at Fred Grant. In a sudden moment of clarity, she distinctly remembered the sound of furniture being moved across the hall floor just before Moses had slid into the room. Someone bumping into the corner table, perhaps, the one with Irene’s picture on it. Just enough sound, just loud enough to alert Oren, the crazy guy with the weapon, before the old ninja came into the room like an avenging archangel. And was slain for it.