CHAPTER NINE
In the Ground
Smoky gray clouds with gun metal edges blocked the full light of heaven on the day we buried Dixon Pierce. A gusting wind peeled the milk white frosting in granulated strips from the grounds of Graves’ Funeral Home, while the heat of the earth melted the surrounding roadways into shiny black frames.
Mother, Renée and I greeted attendees at the door in the chapel alcove, a confined space that smelled of molasses. The obligatory organ crooned sorrow from a glassed-in alcove to our right and behind the pews. Few visitors seemed interested in Dixon’s death beyond their perfunctory response to his status as a local business owner.
A ninety-year-old widow with stooped shoulders and starkly white angel’s hair gripped my hand like a construction worker.
“Mrs. Mills,” I said. “Glad you could make it.”
Not a single hair had changed since Grandpa Pierce’s funeral. She moved on to Renée, stopping briefly, without speaking to either of us. And then she bent her crooked body further toward Mother.
“Lucille, I don’t care what he done.” Mrs. Mills’ quavering voice rose above the soothing organ tones. “He was a good man to most of us where he could be. We’ll miss him.”
She crept away, leaving my mother staring at the empty place she’d left. Until Sheriff Ox Crandall stepped up, and Mother pinched out a smile.
I had missed him entirely, still considering Mrs. Mills’ effect on Mother. Every question the doctor had stirred yesterday crowded onto my tongue at the sight of his tan dress uniform. Before I could speak, Crandall drew up behind Mrs. Mills to guide her into a seat near the back.
I took hands automatically and nodded as the remaining guests filed by. My mind played the varying scenarios of Dixon’s death that had kept me from sleeping most of the night. Most of these included a naked orgy. None of them contained a Bible.
At ten to the hour of ten o’clock on this blustery Saturday, the director walked us up front to the family’s pew. Every eye felt like a judgment of my father’s failure as a citizen. A glowing, cherrywood casket squatted near the pulpit with Dixon’s body inside.
We sat stonily, listening to a sermon that promised life in Christ, and promised Dixon eternity with Jesus— if his heart was on the Lord when he passed. My father’s face remained partly visible and utterly still. I almost shouted that he had a Bible with him when he died, for Christ’s sake.
Mother’s chair, held fast by wheel locks, sat in the aisle next to me. Her body twitched each time the preacher said “Jesus loved Dixon Pierce.” Sometimes truth is a thing best left until after the main course.
During the endless eulogy and call for repentance I stared at the casket. I thought of my children sitting in a pew like this. Will they wonder at my motives? What had Dixon Pierce really thought of his son? Would Quentin Roger Pierce sit here and wonder if I gave a shit? Pondering these questions stirred my anger.
Guests filed by Dixon for viewing.
I determined to let go of my frustration. Why torment myself with things unsolvable?
Folks took their last gaze at the rogue car dealer who’d stolen Consumer Nationalism from this town. Doc Marcus glided past. Tony glanced at me and then into the coffin. Zachary Polson and Akira went by, one after the other. Sheriff Crandall made sure Mrs. Mills didn’t tip into the box with my father.
Most kept a respectful distance between both the coffin and each other.
When Uncle Granger came up, I knew our turn would be soon. I started to get up.
Granger leaned way over the coffin. He reached in.
I was across the small space that separated us from the display before I realized it. And then I was beside him.
Granger had his finger stuck into my Dad’s ribs.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
Granger jerked back like Dixon had bit him. “I’m— Nothing.”
“What the hell are you touching him for?” Heat rose in my neck and face. “Get away from him.”
Mother rolled up next to us. “You two realize this is a funeral?”
Her drawn lips made me angrier. “This psycho is poking my father’s dead body.”
“I’m just making sure.”
“You’re making sure?” My voice rose in pitch and volume. A line of people crowded behind us, some smiling, others staring off at the congregation. One little boy tugged at his mother’s sleeve.
“He’s dead,” Granger said. “I just can’t believe it is all.”
Mother grabbed his sleeve. “Would you just shut the hell up!”
I saw her mouth clamp shut, but her words seemed to hang over our tiny circle around the coffin.
Granger’s eyes watered. He stepped past Mother’s chair and marched outside.
She spun on one wheel, and whipped back to her place with a shove.
I remained, considering the off-colored peace on Dad’s face for a several seconds. He was a lot of things, most of them I didn’t like, but he was never the pasty object lying in that box. A sudden belief that God had captured my father’s soul flooded into my chest. It fostered an odd kind of hope.
At least a hundred people gathered on the frozen grass around my dad’s new home.
His casket hung on blue tarp straps above a sharply defined grave. The wind had ceased and clouds of warmed air clung to each solemn face. The whole group smelled like frozen cologne.
The preacher finished his short, grave-side recap of the earlier eulogy. The electric winch whirred. Mother supervised Dixon’s descent, as if she feared he might pop out of the casket like a bad imitation of the birthday girl.
One small cluster of mourners broke off to tell stories, inspiring bursts of laughter.
I clenched my fists in dress gloves that were too small.
Most who’d followed the procession through empty streets and onto this tranquil hillside had left their apologies, and were driving away.
Mother and Renée waited, mannequins frozen into place by the cold. Granger stood several feet behind my mother’s chair. Close enough to beg forgiveness when she’d allow it.
He seemed out of place. Shouldn’t he be standing beside the grieving family? He’d always resented Dixon’s success, but to slight him at his funeral? Oddly neurotic for a farmer. I left them to their private obsessions.
Tony stood apart from the law enforcement entourage by an imaginary wall of relationship-to-the-deceased. All of them likely had routine contact with my father, but Tony was the token for this particular lost businessman and community member.
Sheriff Ox Crandall chatted with one of the deputies. A couple of the officers nodded at me when I closed in on the group.
As much as I wanted to hear Crandall’s motives for failing to autopsy my father, I found myself drifting toward the comfort Tony could offer instead.
“I’m going to miss him,” Tony said to me.
I nodded, unable to tell at the moment if I would miss him or not. “He’s really gone.” Saying the words didn’t reinforce the believability.
Tony shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Chief Frieze didn’t make it.” He visually inspected his shoes, and then stamped his feet on the frozen grass.
“Everybody’s sure he just died of natural causes.”
“Yeah?” Tony said. “You think he looked unnatural?”
I glanced over.
He peered out from behind a hangdog expression.
I huffed. “Appreciate your humor, bud.”
Tony chuckled. “Just trying to lighten your load.”
“It’s all unnatural, Tony. Doc Marcus told me they didn’t do an autopsy.”
Tony scowled. “Say what? He was naked on his living room floor.”
“That’s what I said.”
“The boss decided that wasn’t weird enough to warrant investigation?”
I cocked one eye at my friend. “This is news to you?”
His eyebrows shot high. “Crandall’s the coroner. Doesn’t sound like his style.
”
I nodded. “Maybe so. But Frieze shut it down.”
“My Frieze?” He took a quick look around. In a lowered tone he said, “Chief Frieze told Crandall and the Doc to forego the autopsy? That what you’re saying?”
“What Marcus told me.”
Some of the guests shuffled past Mother and Granger, touching Renée on her hunched shoulder as they went toward their cars.
“Supposedly, because Mother wanted Dad buried lickety split.”
Tony shook his head. “Sounds like a damned conspiracy.”
“Raises questions.”
Crandall chatted in his jovial and countrified style across the lawn.
“It just keeps gnawing away inside.” The tension in my forehead made me realize how hard I was squinting at him. I widened my eyes in order to stretch my eyebrows.
“So Frieze stopped the autopsy?”
“Doc Marcus suggested they do one. Said his motivation was selfish.”
“Marcus wanted the autopsy?”
“Said Dixon clearly died from alcohol and drug abuse.”
“But chose not to fight the system.”
“Yep. Dixon had eczema, pretty severe during the dry months of winter. Then he came in with influenza symptoms he couldn’t get rid of. Doc thought maybe the lotion he’d prescribed was interacting with the over-the-counter topical Dixon liked to use.”
“Was it?”
“Shouldn’t have been. Doc prescribed an anti-emetic and an anti-diarrheal and told him to stop the eczema lotion for a few days. At least until the flu passed.” I checked on Crandall once more.
Tony spat. “Rat bastards.”
“Doc couldn’t figure anything out. Said medicine can be capricious. I really don’t know anything new.” My chest refused to accept that the vast history of disease held nothing for me. I turned toward my family.
Mother held her head straight and high. Granger nodded and glad-handed the queue. Renée kept her face buried in her palms.
“Want to hear something really weird?”
“Weirder than a conspiracy?” Tony snorted. “Try me.”
“Doc wanted to do the autopsy to solve this, what he called, conundrum. He says, ‘It troubled me the more that Dixon believed the flu symptoms, the eczema flaring up, all coincided with his conversion.’ Like that.”
“Conversion?”
“Marcus told me Dixon had found God.”
“How’d that happen?”
“That’s what I said. He laughed.” It made me smile, how angry I’d been at the Doc. “I wanted to punch him at first.”
“Mighty Christian of you.”
We both laughed.
“Then he told me a rather persistent co-worker pressed Dixon into going to church. Coincides with Akira’s story. From the shop. Doc thought Dixon was looking for change. Maybe even redemption.”
“Everybody says he died from alcohol and drug abuse.”
“Doc says he thinks Dixon stopped drinking for a time, and then had a relapse.” My head bobbed in recollection to Marcus’s as he presented the ideas rolling around inside of him. “Some alcoholics have trouble, physiological problems I mean, getting off of drink. Dixon may have, though his body didn’t show signs of extreme alcoholism.” The reverie ended. My head seemed light. The Bible, the flu, eczema, and a vision of my bar-hopping dad singing in church. I stomped my feet in the frozen grass.
“That’s a tough break,” Tony said in a soft voice. “Makes the whole thing a little harder.”
Tears threatened to break out and freeze against my skin. “His hands were rougher than I expected.”
“What’s that?”
“Doc’s hands. Like a farmer’s.”
“Connor?” Tony’s voice charged with righteous anger. “Why wouldn’t you feel messed up? They just put your dad in the ground. The worst relationship in the world becomes a giant question mark when the dirt hits the box.”
The three strangers representing the remains of my family began moving away from the gravesite. Granger turned his head in our direction. He looked so much like my father for an instant.
My heart expanded toward explosion. I raised my hand quickly, stopping the howl of anguish from escaping, and waved to indicate I’d catch another ride home. “I don’t even know those people.”
“Every family’s lost at times like this,” Tony said.
“Not like this one. This one is like a bad television show, where the dad gets murdered and nobody’s the wiser. And the whole thing stinks until the last member falls.”
“Come on, Connor. Murder’s a strong word.”
“No autopsy, Tony? A naked man dead in the middle of his living room floor and no autopsy?”
He inspected the ground for some logic. “I’ll give you that it’s unusual.”
I snorted some frozen air. “You say unusual like it’s normal.”
“Crandall was just following protocol.”
I checked to see if the Sheriff heard that. Maybe I should just step over there and ask?
“And Chief Frieze, well, he probably didn’t feel it was so unnatural for a partier like Dixon. I didn’t. And your mother wanted it finished. That’s not so hard to believe.”
“What was the hurry? You saw the layout in Dixon’s apartment. If he’d been holding the Bible it might have been weirder.”
Crandall had begun separating from the others, angling toward his truck.
A need for answers tugged at me.
“Frieze isn’t much of an answer man.”
“So you asked?” I could run over there. Catch Crandall right now. Demand an answer.
“No reason to. I tried to find out what I could. The party line said it looked like a heart attack. I bought in.”
The Sheriff’s truck cranked and blew a puff of white smoke from its rear.
I stomped my foot to knock the cold loose. “It looks like. And then there’s dear Uncle Granger poking his dead brother to make sure he’s dead.”
Tony guffawed.
“Funny, but damned suspicious too.”
“Sorry. I can’t imagine anyone being so bold. Those long hours alone on the farm must have bent his mind a little. Probably just his way of grieving.”
“That’s part of the problem. He doesn’t seem to be grieving. It’s more like he’s waiting for my mother to turn and throw herself into his arms. Now that his only obstacle is out of the way.” The rising of my own voice spooked me. I shook my head and put the heels of my hands over my eyes, pressing at them to push the demons back inside.
“You better be okay in there, Pierce,” he said. “I don’t like the sound and I don’t like the look.”
I waved a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m not going to jump in the Yellowstone River just because my dad did.” As the words came out, my connection to Dixon Pierce welled over. My throat filled with sorrow until I couldn’t prevent it from pouring out. Tears spilled into my palms. Shame at losing control wasn’t strong enough to stop the flow. A hollow, choking sound came up from my chest.
Tony’s strong hand took ahold of my shoulder. “I gotcha, bud,” he said, and he wrapped the other arm around me.
Old spice filled my nostrils. All my life, or most of it, I’d been waiting for Dixon to hug me and tell me I was worthwhile. Every time I thought we might be getting close to that, some monster of life would raise its head and away he’d go. Either on some personal mission for success, or chased away by my mother, or focused on some new girlfriend. Now he lived in a wood and steel case behind a locked door, waiting for someone to pile on the dirt. Waiting for Jesus to come back and give him a reprieve from his mistakes.
I longed for Dixon Pierce’s embrace. If I thought I could get it, I’d open the box myself. But I knew that chance was gone. I’d have to settle for Tony’s. I pressed into him, gripping him as tightly as I dared. It lasted maybe thirty seconds. And then I stepped quickly away.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“It’s
okay. It’s going to be okay, Connor. You’ll make it through this.” Tony’s smile made me believe it.
“Yeah.”
The last of the taillights rolled out of the cemetery.
I wiped at my eyes. The tears had burned frozen lines into my face. “I’ve got to find out what happened, Tony. Whatever was going on in his life before he died, I’ve got about five days.”
Tony didn’t argue this time.
“He was killed. I can feel it. And if I’m wrong, I need to know how he spiraled into that hole over there.”
“You’re really nothing like him,” Tony said.
“I wish that was an absolute truth.” I surveyed the valley that shared this hill full of graves with anonymous houses and stubby winter grass. A vision of Sharon popped into my mind. I’d reveled in her without thinking a thing about my wife or my children. The memory of her sweet musky scent invaded me, and I suddenly recalled how Jasia’s smell of jasmine had propelled me back to her house yesterday. All while Nansi tucked the children into bed, read them a story, and tried to push betrayal and loneliness from her heart.
“I’m a lot more like him than I ever hoped to be,” I said. “If I don’t find out how to stop it, my boy will be standing here in twenty years with the same questions. My darling little girl will be sitting in that chair over there, where Renée sat, wondering why she feels so bitter. And so alone.”
Tony stood quietly beside me and my father’s new consorts, as we let the light breeze paint cold truth into our hearts.
CHAPTER TEN
Montana Men
We left the dwindling crowd, many with drinks in hand, at the VFW Hall and drove the twilight tinted streets toward the police station. Deep dusk was settling in. The blue-tinted shadows created the effect of an unfinished puzzle.
Tony did not agree with my plan to ambush Sheriff Crandall, but decided he could drop me off on his way home. Assuring him I only wanted to ask the question, I hopped from his rattling Blazer into the frosty evening.
A kindly, Spanish woman buzzed me inside the basement, after she had made a quick check with Ox Crandall.
He greeted me just inside the outer door, a burly wrestler with a meaty grip and friendly eyes. He’d undone the top buttons of his shirt since the service. Tufts of gray and brown chest hair poked out.
Murder of the Prodigal Father Page 10
