The Witch's Grave: A Fever Devilin Mystery

by Phillip DePoy

  She sat again, a midautumn night’s queen.

  “Thursday night.” She said the words as if they opened a book.

  Andrews relaxed, and the branch sagged, creaking. I shifted on the mossy rock, trying to get comfortable.

  “Able and me,” she sighed, brokenhearted, “we had an argument. Our last words were harsh. He says, ‘What’d I care if Harding is your cousin; what he’s done is wrong!’ I told him church was not the place for such, I called him pigheaded. Then he made fun of my brothers and called them a thief, which they don’t do, they don’t steal, they catch wild swine, and it’s hard work.”

  She looked to me for agreement. I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “He was accusing Harding of something awful.” She looked around. “But I can’t see how it mattered. The dead are dead. What do they care where they leave the remains? What does corn care for a husk?”

  “You knew what Harding had done,” I guessed.

  “You can’t walk around them woods much without you come across it,” she admitted. “Me and the dog, we seen many a earthy vessel.”

  “You weren’t frightened?”

  “I always felt someone watching over me,” she said, looking around at the trees, “in these woods.”

  “But you still told Able about it. You disagreed with him.”

  “I say, ‘Let the dead bury the dead.’”

  “You wanted him to let it go. Stop his investigation.”

  “I did,” she said firmly. “But he got so angry about it. He cussed me; then he took my arms and grabbed this big old flannel shirt I was wearing, like to tore it.” She seemed about to burst. “It’s his, you know, this shirt. Anyway, he grabs it and I says to him, ‘Take your hands off me.’ He did right away and I lit out like lightning.”

  “You ran into the woods.”

  “Up the mountain,” she said. “I didn’t know where I was going.”

  “He followed you.”

  “He did.” Her voice cracked. She sipped a breath. “Wish to God he had not.”

  “What happened?”

  “He followed me. I heard him coming.” She tilted her head to one side, as if watching the events unfold in her mind. “I couldn’t see how he caught up to me so quick. I run fast, and he didn’t take out after me right away. I know that. But there he was, close behind me.”

  “You saw him.”

  “I didn’t look around,” she said very softly, “but I could hear him running, trying to catch up. He was breathing like a bellows. He never walked around the woods as much as I did, so I reckon I was in better shape. I believe it was his job which kept him indoors a lot, you know, and did not allow for exercise.”

  “But he caught up with you,” I said, trying to get her to return to the story.

  “Grabbed me from behind,” she said, “couldn’t get his breath to speak, and I punched my elbow into his guts as hard as I could.” She focused on me a moment. “If you grow up the only girl in a band of brothers like I got, you figure how to wrestle rough.”

  “You hit him in the stomach,” I said. “You didn’t turn around.”

  “Uh-huh.” She swallowed, her eyes glassing over once more. “He took a tumble, hard. Thud on his head. Made me sick to hear it. By the time I turned around, he was at the bottom of the ravine. I got my bearings.” She tried to focus her eyes on me. “I was close to your house.”

  Andrews and I exchanged a quick glance.

  “I took a tumble in my mind when I seen him lying down there. It was still dark; I could barely make him out. But he weren’t breathing that I could tell.” Her voice nearly gave way. “I couldn’t move. My gut got sucked up through my head, and I swear to this world I wasn’t there anymore.”

  “You weren’t there?” Andrews interrupted.

  “I flushed right out of my body.” Her breathing was thick and broken. Her hands trembled.

  “There was more.” I waited.

  “Uh-huh.” She gulped. “That’s how I knew I killed him.”

  “How?”

  “I seen him again, at the top of the ridge, coming my way. His ghost was playing the death scene over again, the way some revenants do.” She looked up. “They do.”

  “You saw Able running toward you?”

  “Full in the face, arms out, red as a beet, wild.” Her pitch had raised, and her head was palsied. “I was so scared. I got me a tree branch to fend it off. Swung out so hard I took a tumble backward myself. I stopped his ghost, though, and I didn’t look back. I got up and ran and ran and ran until I couldn’t move no more and I fell to the earth all done in.”

  That was all. She was incapable of any more speech, sipping little breaths, nearly doubled over.

  I stood and took a step her way.

  The dog appeared out of nowhere, bounded in front of her, a guttural menace in his throat.

  “I only want to help,” I said to the dog calmly.

  It stopped growling.

  “I only want to help,” I repeated in slow, reassuring tones.

  It sat, its eyes still locked on mine.

  “For God’s sake stay where you are,” Andrews muttered between clenched teeth.

  His panic was a little contagious, and for a second all I could think about was the dog’s teeth.

  In that moment, Truevine stood.

  “I’ve only come back to tell you these things so I can rest,” she said, her voice more air than sound.

  “Come back?” Andrews said.

  “From the grave,” she answered.

  She was gone, the dog behind her, before I could catch my breath.

  Andrews and I found ourselves after a moment.

  “Come on,” I said, and lit out after her.

  “Wait!” he called, planted to his spot. “Damn it.”

  I didn’t stop; she was already gone into the shadows.

  I raced up the incline, bounded the short wall. There were more trees past the pile of stone and everything was black. Ahead I heard the tarnish of leaves, the sick snap of wet wood. I followed by sound more than sight.

  I knew the dog was waiting for me, teeth gleaming. I knew Truevine lived in this yard and I was a stranger. I still thought I could overtake her.

  Behind me I heard Andrews running, lungs stoking his heart.

  The path through grave markers and dead grass turned abruptly at a small sarcophagus, unusual because it was made of marble, not granite stones. The noise of her escape had evaporated ahead of me.

  The name chiseled over the entrance to the crypt was Carter. I stopped.

  Andrews caught up with me, stood panting.

  Wordlessly I jutted my chin in the direction of that name.

  He nodded. I motioned for him to go around to the back of the structure. I’d learned my lesson from Able.

  Andrews agreed and moved as quietly as he could around to the right.

  I steeled myself.

  “Truevine?” I called out.

  Whistle of the wind through the tombstones answered.

  “I don’t think she’s in there!” Andrews called in a stage whisper anyone within a hundred yards could have heard.

  I shook my head, called again. “Tru?”

  A small scraping sound came from within the crypt.

  “Everything’s all right,” I offered, my most soothing tone.

  A catch of breath assured me she was inside.

  Her voice confirmed it a second later. “Nothing’s all right.”

  “I don’t know what’s in your head, Tru,” I said, inching my way toward the entrance, “but Able’s fine.” I glanced up at the name carved in marble. “He’s not buried in there, in his family crypt. He’s with Skidmore Needle in town, very much alive. He’s more worried about you than your brothers are.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Please come out,” I encouraged her gently.

  “Because we’re not coming in,” Andrews stated flatly, his voice muffled by distance and stone.

  “Is the d
og with you?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “He does what he likes,” she answered softly.

  “Can I come in?” I took another step toward the doorway.

  The crypt seemed made of a single creamy block of marble, no seam anywhere to be found. Moss had not taken its wall as had happened with many of the other structures. The roof was marble too, as far as I could tell, and aside from a few fallen branches, it was clean. The doorway was not guarded by a gate or a door, it was an open rounded arch, and several six-inch angels, wings wide, danced around the Carter name. Smaller by a fourth than the Adele building, it seemed patrician, understated, wise in the gathering moonlight.

  The moon had come up over the mountains, past full but bright in the polished sky. Night seemed to mirror its glow, and a wide halo circled it. I only had a moment to consider that it was exactly the color of the Carter crypt when another noise popped loud from inside.

  “Truevine?” I called out, forgetting caution and lumbering through the door.

  The interior was small; the walls were thick; the last remains of generations of Carters lay hidden behind marble squares. It was little more than a long hallway with a small urn at the back wall—no windows, no back door. The ceiling was high, no opening there, no way out but the way I’d come in.

  Which made it impossible for me to understand why I was alone.

  “Dev?” Andrews called after a moment.

  “Come on in,” I sighed.

  His face appeared in the doorway, backlit by moonlight.

  “Where is she?” he whispered. “Where’s the dog?”

  “Not here,” my voice cracked.

  “What do you mean, ‘not here’?” He took a step in. “Did they get past you?”

  “No.”

  “Then …” his voice trailed off.

  A few moments’ examination of the place yielded no explanation of the girl’s disappearance, no hole in the wall, no skylight. The only way in or out was the arched entrance.

  “All right then,” Andrews said, brushing off his hands, “I think now would be time for dinner. Etta’s lunch is a dim memory. Was that today? Seems like a week ago.”

  He turned and exited the tomb.

  “We have to … at least we should go back and tell Rud what’s happened,” I said, following him. “What she said.”

  “I’m not sure what she said.”

  “I can’t quite get it right in my mind either,” I had to admit. “We’re tired and hungry and it’s been a really long day.”

  He trudged ahead of me silently.

  The trail back was quiet enough to make us both uncomfortable. We’d grown used to the wind and the night noise. Everything was still, waiting. I was glad to see the Adele building appear in the slant of moonbeams.

  “It’s just occurred to me,” I said to Andrews as we neared the door, “that we don’t know what families are buried in this building.”

  “What families?” Andrews repeated. “I assumed since it was so close to your grandfather’s grave—”

  The door creaked open, silencing him.

  “Sh.” Rud held his index finger to his lips.

  He stepped outside with us, pulled the door closed behind him. His face seemed made of smoked glass in the silver light. It was deeply creased around the eyes, the jaw unshaven, the lips dry and cracked.

  His camel hair coat had once been fit for opera, fine dining, the Ritz. He wore it now as a wound, wincing as he walked. His hair was cut short by a pair of scissors, an obviously homemade bit of grooming. He did not sport new sneakers; his feet were sheathed in duck hunting boots, expensive, relatively new—watertight and warm even in subzero temperatures. He had not cut himself off from the world entirely; the boots seemed the sort that might have been purchased through a catalog.

  He stood silent, waiting for us to speak.

  “We saw her,” I began.

  “But she didn’t come back with you.”

  “She talked. She does seem to think she’s dead.”

  “Her mind,” Rud said, struggling for a way to say what he was thinking, “has always been a delicate place.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but not one given to complete delusions, nothing of this variety.”

  “Something happened to her,” he snapped. “She needs help.”

  “And you can’t get close enough to do anything yourself,” Andrews interjected.

  Rud’s head spun around so fast his neck popped. “You can go home now.”

  Home clearly meant Atlanta, not my house.

  “Gladly,” Andrews told him pleasantly. “Although I’d have to say that your permission wasn’t the thing holding me back.”

  Rud took a step.

  “We were just going to go for dinner,” I intervened. “Check in with Skidmore. We’ve been out all day, a long cold day. We’ll be in better shape tomorrow.” And I’ve really already done what I set out to do, I thought. I’ve found Able; that’s all Girlinda wanted.

  I tried to tell myself that the rest was inconsequential, but I knew I wouldn’t ignore an overwhelming desire to see these events to their conclusion. Even Andrews, I was betting, would not be willing to let things go.

  Rud seemed to sense something of my thoughts.

  “Rest is good,” he sighed, clearly a man who could not find repose of his own.

  “We’ll come to the caretaker’s cabin tomorrow,” I said reassuringly.

  “Early,” he grunted.

  “As soon as I’m up,” Andrews told us both pointedly.

  Andrews was a late riser, left to his own devices, and it was clearly his intention to stay in bed through the next morning. I let the issue be for the moment.

  “Everyone’s asleep in there?” I asked Rud.

  “Some are,” he said, his voice sinking back into his throat. “Sleep comes hard to May, for one. She knows she’s safe, but she won’t close her eyes until she’s certain everyone else is out.”

  “Do you know about the murder?” I thought to catch him off guard with the sudden change of subject.

  “I do.” His voice didn’t change one iota; his eyes were still; his breathing never altered. Years of practice masking anything internal had allowed him to shift gears without skipping a beat.

  “I’d like to know how,” Andrews said. “And what you know, exactly.”

  “It was in all the papers,” Rud sneered slowly, not even looking back at Andrews.

  Our town didn’t have a paper. Most news was disseminated through church bulletins and gossip, the latter being the faster, more reliable method. I was certain the press in surrounding towns had gotten wind of what was happening over at the mortuary. It might have even made Atlanta television. But that had nothing to do with Rud.

  “We need to let Skidmore know everything,” I insisted.

  “I don’t have any information that would help in that regard,” Rud said like a man being interrogated.

  Impossible to read, his eyes were absolutely vacant.

  “All right, then,” I said, “we’ll be off. We have a little hike back to my truck.” I looked around. “Glad there’s a moon out. See you in the morning.”

  “Or sometime tomorrow.” Andrews, true to his evening’s pattern, was slow to follow. I could almost hear his brain trying to figure out why I wasn’t asking more questions. But he was either willing to trust me or too tired to care.

  He waited until the truck was in sight, close to the Angel of Death, before he spoke up.

  “You keep doing that,” Andrews said. “First you let the Deveroe boys get away with hanging your friend, you don’t tell Skidmore, then … I don’t know, you leave off questioning everyone just when the answers would be juicy. What the hell?”

  He was exhausted, famished, disturbed by the sight of so many bodies, baffled by the encounter with living ghosts. Everything about the day, the Adele community more than most, had long since lost all reality.

  “Things don’t boil here,” I said slowly. “They simmer.�
�

  “Like the food at Etta’s.” Hard to tell if his smile was motivated more by hunger or derision.

  “The fact is,” I went on, unlocking the truck, “you can’t just jump at anything in this town. It’ll run away. You have to approach things on the diagonal, saunter up to them, talk about the weather before you ask about the murder. Things here take time.”

  “Things are buried deep,” he countered. “That’s what you always say.”

  “People keep themselves locked,” I agreed.

  “So it takes a while to dig them up,” he went on, his voice stammering. “Except of course for Truevine Deveroe, who doesn’t seem to have been buried deeply enough.”

  His laughter exploded and was contagious. The day had taken its toll, and we were hysterical for a span of five minutes before I started the truck and pulled away from the cemetery.

  Etta’s place was closed by the time we got into town, much to the vocal dismay of Dr. Andrews. Most of the town was dark. We went to Skidmore’s office, one of the few bright windows on Main Street. He was waiting for us.

  Able was in lockup, dead asleep. He’d told Skid he wanted to stay in a cell. He was exhausted, and jail was the only place he felt safe enough to close his eyes.

  We filled the deputy in on most of what had happened—omitting certain wayward members of our cast, commenting on the cemetery’s caretaker.

  “Maybe I should have mentioned you might run into Rudyard Pinhurst,” Skid said when we stopped talking. “How’s he holding up?”

  “He knows about the murder,” I said, “Maybe I’ll speak with him again, but he seems much more concerned about Truevine than anything else. I don’t think he’ll talk about what more he might know until we settle that.”

  “So you don’t believe that she’s dead?” Skid’s voice was flat, but his eyes sparkled.

  “I’m keeping an open mind.” I returned his gaze.

  “You saw her up there earlier today?” Andrews asked Skidmore. “That’s what Dev thought you were saying when we left.”

  “I saw her.”

  “Well, why didn’t you get her?” Andrews appeared to be growing increasingly amazed at everyone’s lack of sense.

  “I saw her,” Skid said calmly. “Then she disappeared. I was looking where she’d gone when Dev called with Able cornered in the crypt. She was gone. Like a ghost.”