The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

by Laura Lippman (ed) (epub)

  So that’s where he was headed. It was an easy walk of about a half mile along the ridgeline. At least it was easy when there wasn’t high snow to slog through. But a boy’s urges are strong at that age, and an extra half mile of trudging through snow was a small price to pay.

  He’d made it about halfway there, keeping his eyes down and following a set of deer tracks, when he heard something at the bottom of the slope. The slope that fell away from his house. Len had spent enough time in the forest to know the difference between the natural sounds of the woods and those that were manmade. And this sound was definitely human. He couldn’t discern it exactly, but whatever it was, there was the distinct sound of metal occasionally glancing against something hard. Maybe it was another piece of metal, or rock perhaps. Regardless, Len knew it was a sound that wasn’t supposed to be there, and it disappointed him because it might disrupt his plans.

  With every step he took, the sound seemed to get louder. A rhythmic sound that kept an almost perfect cadence. Len slowed and walked as quietly as he could. Before long, by keeping his eyes trained down the mountainside, he was finally able to locate the noise. At the base of the hill, smack in the middle of the forest, were two figures. One was a hunched-over woman wrapped in a shawl, and the other was a thin young man, about the same size as Len, standing by her side as she worked at a bare patch of ground, dropping mounds of dirt onto the otherwise white blanket of the woods. The sound was slightly delayed as it carried up the hillside, but Len saw that the woman was diligently digging a hole. After a few more shovelfuls, she passed the handle off to the boy, and he took over.

  Len stopped and kneeled in the snow, hiding behind the large trunk of a pine. He was thrilled and exhilarated, and it took no time before the cabin and magazines no longer mattered, because once he settled in, he realized that there was a third figure among the other two. But this third figure was slightly off to the side, lying in the snow, motionless and, from what Len could tell, facedown. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on down there. And of course Len knew exactly who the people were. At least, at that time he knew who the two people still alive were. It would take another week of reading the newspapers and asking innocent questions of his parents about what had ever happened to Johnny’s father, over on the other side of the hill, before Len put it all together.

  But at that moment he was mesmerized. A dead body. Two people, a mother and son, obviously trying to get rid of that body. Judging by the trough in the snow that ended at the man’s feet, the trough that wound through the trees and back toward Johnny’s farmhouse, the man certainly hadn’t walked into those woods on his own. It wasn’t like Johnny and his mother had found the man lying there while out looking for their own Christmas tree. No, he’d been dragged, and whatever they were up to, it was sinister.

  Len watched the rest of the process with that same exhilaration. The pair struggled mightily to pull the body toward the hole, each grabbing an arm as if it were a heavy piece of furniture with no good holds, and finally rolled him into the rectangle they’d excavated. They both collapsed next to the grave once they’d dropped him in, not out of any grief, it seemed, but simply out of pure exhaustion. There was no telling how long they’d been working, but considering they’d dragged him through the snow a good half mile from the farmhouse—assuming that’s where he’d died—then dug a deep hole in frozen ground, it was no surprise they were worn out.

  They rested for only a few minutes, each of them taking snow and stuffing it into their mouths like handfuls of popcorn at the picture house. Len couldn’t discern their words as they talked, but he imagined the conversation. Before too long they slowly got up and labored at refilling the hole. When they were close to finished, Johnny reached down and grabbed something about the size of a large cigar box. He opened the lid, took a peek inside, then carefully placed the box in the grave. He and his mother finished filling in the hole, then covered it with soggy leaves before finally tossing snow over top and smoothing it out as best they could. As if frosting a cake.

  If Len hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes, he’d have never noticed the area looking strange or out of the ordinary, except maybe the trough of snow that snaked through the trees. But a little wind or another snowfall would take care of that in no time. No, all things considered, Len thought they’d covered their tracks pretty well.

  He waited until they’d both walked away and headed home before he left his perch behind the tree. He immediately dashed to cut a Christmas tree as quickly as he could. He’d learned early on that being privy to other people’s secrets could work to his advantage. He’d used the method repeatedly when he had dirt on his sisters. Dirt that they didn’t want their parents to know. So he could never be too sure when he might be able to use Johnny’s secret, but he knew he’d keep his mouth shut. Having a secret as big as this one, he felt sure, was something he could certainly use someday. Not to mention, as soon as he felt it was safe, he planned on finding out what was in that buried box.

  That winter had been an especially brutal one for Johnny and his mother. It seemed that every time the snow had almost melted away, another storm would dump another foot. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. With every storm, the fresh snow helped hide the secret.

  Before they’d buried Martin, along with the money, Johnny’s mother had decided to keep four hundred dollars, which they could use for expenses—unpaid bills, groceries, getting the car fixed. They had no idea if the money had been marked by the bank, but by using a twenty here or there down at Henry’s General Store, they didn’t figure they were in much jeopardy of getting caught. The sheriff had stopped by a couple of times—the first time only three days after Johnny had shot his father—to inform them that they hadn’t been able to locate Martin. He said he imagined Martin had probably either frozen to death or bled to death (or a combination of both) and his body would most likely be found in the spring melt.

  By mid-March the snow had indeed disappeared, but his mother advised that they leave the money where it was for the time being. They were in no need at the moment, and the longer they let things settle, the safer they’d be. But that all changed after the engine on the recently repaired car seized in late April. It had to be towed down the mountain to a mechanic in Floyd, who informed Patricia that the car was ruined and beyond repair. Since she had to have a car to get to and from work, the solution was obvious.

  “You need to go out there and dig the box up,” she informed him after he’d gotten home from school. “I think we’re safe now anyway. Besides, I’d rather have it hidden in the house than all the way out there in the middle of the woods. Or maybe we could stash it under the chicken coop. Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure that out. What’s important is that we have it nearby.”

  He grabbed a shovel from the shed, slung it over his shoulder like a hobo with a bindle, and set out through the woods. It was a perfect spring day, warm with blue skies and a bit of a breeze rustling the tops of the mostly leafless trees. The poplar leaves were as big as squirrels’ ears, and the oaks had already formed their pollen-filled strings, reminding Johnny of pipe cleaners, which drifted to the ground when the wind gusted. Johnny enjoyed the walk, loving the woods as they came back to life after the winter. He even loved the mud and muck of a bog he had to tramp through to get to his father’s burial site. The beginnings of skunk cabbage had sprouted, their little green heads starting to poke through the mud, and Johnny stamped on every one he saw, sending off a strong, pungent odor.

  When he made it to a dumping ground where old-timers had tossed their steel beer cans, brown medicine bottles, and rusted appliances, Johnny took a left and headed toward the foot of the hill. He’d always been fascinated with the dumping ground, wondering who had put all that garbage there. There were no houses around, other than an abandoned cabin on the ridge, so he’d never been able to figure out why anyone would have chosen that place to dump their trash. Regardless, as a younger boy he’d enjoyed rummaging around t
he dump site, imagining in his boyhood fantasies that he might discover some sort of hidden treasure.

  But today, as he left the dump behind, he was in search of an actual hidden treasure. He was excited to uncover the iron lockbox, open it, and run his fingers all over that beautiful cash. The cash that would buy him some decent clothes so he wouldn’t get made fun of at school every day. The cash that would enable him to purchase candy bars and maybe even the occasional T-bone steak. The cash that would send him to Virginia Polytechnic Institute and get him out of the poor, depressed confines of Pleasant Grove. Confines that offered no sort of future. In short, the cash that would insure that he and his mother would escape poverty once and for all.

  So he was excited to dig up the money, get back home, and count it. Over and over. Just sit there and stack each and every bill into little piles, the same as he’d done that day on his bed. The events of those few days, of the truck crashing, of him taking the money, of finding out the man’s identity, of then blowing the guts out of that same man, his father, of dragging him through the snow and burying him in a makeshift grave, all of those events had haunted him. But it had gotten better with every passing week. The memories weren’t quite as sharp, the guilt subsided, and there was always that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s what really made it easier to deal with. That, and knowing that his father would have most likely killed him and his mother if he hadn’t pulled the trigger. That’s certainly the way his mother had rationalized it to him on those cold nights when they’d huddled around the woodstove and the subject had come up. They’d talked about it often for the first few weeks, until finally his mother had laid down an ultimatum, saying it was time to move forward. What was done was done and they had to try to forget about it. To be thankful that Johnny’s sorry excuse for a father had at least been able to provide them with something before he died, especially considering that for the past fourteen years he’d never given them as much as a penny.

  But as he neared the spot where he’d buried both his father and the money, his excitement turned to dread. The idea of being alone in the woods with the body of his dead father didn’t seem so appealing. Yes, the day was beautiful, but deep in the woods it was almost impossible to see the sky. And every time the wind blew and the tree limbs slapped against one another, eerily clicking and clacking, he shuddered. Because of the wind, he realized he couldn’t tell if other people might be shuffling around in the woods. Might be hiding, waiting to jump him and steal the money.

  And even worse was the realization that he was about to dig up a grave. His father’s grave. Yes, the iron box was right on top and he shouldn’t come close to the decaying corpse, but what if the ground had shifted? What if the box had sunk during the snowmelt, when the soil had gotten soft and saturated? What if he glimpsed his father’s dead face, the flesh rotting and peeling from the skull? What if there really was such a thing as ghosts?

  At the foot of a steep hill, Johnny located the area where he and his mother had dug. He’d always been good in the woods, knew how to remember landmarks, and in this instance the landmark was a maple with a forked trunk. When he’d originally picked the spot, he’d stood with his back to the tree before walking six paces. Then he’d started digging.

  But he didn’t have to recount his paces this time because, much to his surprise, the dirt still looked relatively fresh. Dead, windblown leaves had covered the area, but if someone who was really an expert in the woods—like the sheriff, for example—had seen the partially exposed patch, they would have easily recognized that it wasn’t natural. That something was off. Which bothered him. If the sheriff decided to get a search party together sometime soon, the grave might be detected.

  These new thoughts, of getting caught, suddenly superseded his previous ideas about ghosts and rotting flesh, so he immediately stuck his shovel into the earth, amazed by how soft it was. How easy the digging was. He’d only been working for five minutes when he felt and heard the steel of his shovel clink against the lockbox. And what a beautiful sound it was. It was the sound of a cash register sliding open, offering up its riches.

  Johnny dug around the perimeter of the box, then got on his knees, grabbed the edges, and shifted it back and forth as he loosed it from the rich, dark soil. He brushed away the dirt, then unstuck muddy clumps and clods attached to the hinges. When it was nearly clean, he blew across the top as if extinguishing a candle, removing the last tiny particles. He then lifted the clasp.

  And that’s when, as he raised the lid, he would have much rather seen ghosts and goblins and wicked spirits rise from the ground than what he saw instead. He would have rather smelled his father’s decaying flesh, would have rather had witches creep from behind the trees and boil him in water. Because the box was empty. The cash, all of those crisp twenty-dollar bills, was gone. What he saw instead was a vacuum of empty space. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Johnny rapidly closed the box, then opened it again as if prying apart an oyster shell, hoping that he’d been mistaken and this time he’d find the pearl. But there was no pearl. He immediately tossed the box to the side and began digging around in the dirt with his hands. His fingers worked through the soil, spraying the surrounding dead leaves as he pawed at the ground like a dog after a bone. Maybe, he thought, somehow the money had fallen out when he’d dropped it in the hole. Maybe the money hadn’t been in the box to begin with, though he was positive it had been. He remembered taking one last glance before carefully setting the box in place. He searched all around, digging deeper and deeper, not even caring if he ran into the remains of his father. He frantically slung dirt out of the hole, ripping earthworms in half, scratching his fingers against small stones until they bled. But it was no use. The money was gone.

  He almost vomited as he dejectedly filled in the hole as best he could. But his effort was halfhearted. He knew he had to make the scene look perfect. Knew he couldn’t afford to be lazy, but he simply didn’t care. At that moment prison sounded like as good a place as any to spend the rest of his days. When he’d finished sprinkling the area with clumps of dead leaves, he grabbed the box and shovel and turned to go, his mind racing with various scenarios. But there was only one answer, and rage and anger grew as the idea became more and more of a reality. There was only one possibility. Only one person could have known about the money. Only one person could have taken it.

  He gripped the handle of the shovel tightly as he stormed off back toward the house, feeling the weight of the spade as it hung over his shoulder behind him. It would make as good a weapon as any. And if his mother didn’t ’fess up immediately, he decided, he might just bring the edge of that heavy blade down and across her neck. Because she’d betrayed him. He knew it for a fact. As the demons swirled in his brain, they convinced him that his mother had double-crossed him. They also convinced him that he’d be a fool if he let her get away with it.

  NANCY PAULINE SIMPSON

  Festered Wounds

  FROM Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

  SHE DIDN’T FLINCH none. Gag neither. I’ll give her that. But after looking flinty-eyed at the body for a minute or more, both of ’em still as stumps, she did stare me straight in the face while we talked, so as not to get another eyeful by accident. That staring was, I figure, more discomfiting for me than seeing a corpse was for her. Our county nurse, Miss Haseltine Polk, is as fine-looking a woman as you’ll find anywheres. I’d never yet been close enough to see that her eyes are green and sparkly, like a bitters bottle. The wavy dark hair, mostly tucked under a poufy crocheted hat, I’d noticed more than I care to admit.

  It had been a godsend she’d drove by within shouting distance while I was there. I was down in the creek bed under the trestle bridge, where some colored boys had come across the body an hour afore. The boys had been fishing and were so affrighted by what they found, they flagged down a passing farmer, showing themselves to be in no way responsible for whatever had took place or they’d have surely run away instead.
The farmer found me at the railroad depot, buying a box lunch, and I ran right over to the livery to borrow a horse.

  I was taking in first impressions of the nattily attired body when I saw her whipping by on the roadbed above me in that little two-wheeled pony trap she favored for unpaved roads. Her dog, a pink-nosed white bulldog she called Gumbo, for no good reason I could think of, rode in the trap beside her. He spotted me afore she did and barked to help me get her attention.

  She hopped down that rocky red-clay bank light as a fairy, only stopping to gather up some excess skirt and tie together the ends of that long blue cape she wore when she was on official county-nurse business. Her dog whined and wriggled around in the pony cart where she’d ordered him to stay. The pony was indifferent.

  I took off my hat and stationed myself between her and the body to give her time to steady herself on that slick, oozing creek bank before I revealed what I wanted her to see. Her job was mostly checking on the bedridden and the newborn, but I knew that upon occasion she assisted old Dr. McQuinney in some right gruesome undertakings. If what he was doing required four hands instead of two, and there weren’t no man around with a strong stomach.

  I was pretty sure she knowed who I was. But I hooked my thumb under my gunbelt, pushing my coat front aside to reveal my badge. I have to pin my badge into the thick leather of my gunbelt ever since the cheap safety catch on the badge back broke off. I can’t pin it to my lapel no more without risking losing it or wounding myself. Might as well get used to it. I’ll have my first set of false teeth afore the county buys me a new one.