Is that a woman’s face ?
The light wavered then slowly began to sink into the ground.
A cloud moved over the dappled moonlit sky then passed.
Kristin stood on the spot and dropped to her knees. She couldn’t help herself. Her hands moved over the ground, pushing layered years of forest debris and decay away. How long she did it, she couldn’t tell.
Then something hard scraped her hand.
She cracked a fingernail trying to pry it out.
It was encrusted with dirt. It was too heavy for a small stone.
She turned on the little LED flashlight she had brought along and tried to brush away what was concealing the heavy object. The light’s purple-blue glow finally reflected off metal: a stainless steel class ring.
She flipped her cell phone and pressed the auto dial.
A sleepy young man’s voice answered.
“Jensen. Who’s calling?”
“Beau, I found her!”
Dies Irae
“Get the ground radar over here!”
She was wrapped in a blanket. She had sat there, not moving from that hallowed ground, until she heard the voices and saw the bobbing flashlights coming toward her. Now Beau hovered over her, checking for signs of hypothermia.
“She’s okay, guys.”
Jake Williams and a staff photographer came over.
“You’re Miss Kristin Belmont?”
She nodded. She was too tired to speak.
Flashes went off in her face.
“Hey, guys, leave her alone for awhile.”
Williams smiled at Beau.
Now tell me you ain’t smitten by the dame, kid.
“We’re getting a reading! There’s metal down there, too.”
The sound of shovels and gentle hand digging were lullaby to the girl. She leaned against Beau, now sitting protectively beside her, and closed her eyes. It would only be for a moment.
“There’s bones—human!”
The shout startled her awake.
“Let the FBI forensics team handle it. Are they here yet?”
Helicopter blades whooshed through the night air.
“They’re gonna have to land in the field. Give ’em a yell.”
She stumbled, as she tried to get to her feet.
He caught her. She was like a feather in his arms.
“I want to see her! Let me go over there, Beau.”
More footsteps: Men and women in dark jackets with FBI emblazoned on the backs, carrying lab kits.
“It’s all yours.”
“Know who it is?”
Kristin moved unsteadily toward them, light reflecting off the ring she held in her outstretched right hand.
“It’s Lauren Fletcher.”
Then she collapsed.
“You’re gonna be okay, Kris.”
She opened her eyes. Her hands felt smooth linen sheets over her body. Peering down at her was a worried young male face.
“Where…?”
Her mouth was dry. So was her tongue.
He pressed the up button on the hospital bed and she felt herself sitting upright. He held a glass of water to her lips.
“Easy, take it slow. Sip it, don’t gulp it.”
It felt good going down. The roof of her mouth no longer felt like dried glue. She looked at him and tried to smile.
“Who ya callin’ Kris, big boy?”
He bent over and kissed her forehead.
“Where am I, Beau?”
“University Hospital. You kinda crashed up there on ol’ Bluff.
“Did they…?”
“FBI’s got the remains at the state forensics lab at the Chief Medical Examiner’s office in Richmond. The bones are definitely young adult female. We’ll know more in a little while.
“How did they get there so quickly?”
“Your friend, the Director of Alumni Affairs.”
By the way, what damned fool stunt put you on top of a mountain last night?”
“Last night?”
“Yeah, you’ve been out for a whole day.”
She tried to get out of bed.
“I want to see Dad.”
“Whoa, girl, you don’t have … any … clothes … on … uh...”
He managed to throw a sheet on her just in time.
“Beau, I do believe you’re blushing! Haven’t you ever seen a…?”
“Yes, I have, dammit. Now, put your clothes on and let me know when you’re dressed.”
He ran out of the room to the sound of her laughter.
“Dad, I know you can’t hear me but, well, we found her. We found Lauren.”
I can hear you just fine, girl.
“I’m going to tell Sheriff Fletcher. We think we know who did this but I can’t tell you yet.
“Beau, his eyes fluttered! Is he able to understand me?”
She bent over the still body and kissed her father then turned away crying.
“Hey, kids, thought I’d find you here.”
“Are you following us, Jake?”
“Would I do that, Beau?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, just for that I won’t tell you what a little birdie told me.”
They stared at the old reporter and waited.
“Okay, okay, here it is. One of my sources tells me there was something unusual stuck in one of the victim’s vertebrae.”
“Come on, Jake, don’t stretch it out.”
“There was a broken off saber tip lodged in the girl’s first lumbar vertebra (back bone).”
“Yes, Special Agent McCreedy, the Armory keeps records of any damaged weapons. Since we keep firearms and military weapons for training purposes, it’s the law. Let’s go over to the Armorer’s office.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, sir.”
“Yes, sir. Here it is. For that year, let’s see: one saber was turned in just before graduation that looked damaged and repaired. Here’s the cadet’s signature sheet.”
The Commandant blanched as he read the name.
“Are you gentlemen here for the class reunion?”
“Uh … no, son.”
The flashed badges startled the young gatekeeper at Moody Hall.
“Has this person signed in yet?”
“Oh, yes, sir. See that gentleman by the appetizer table? That’s who you’re looking for.”
“Son, we don’t want to intrude. Could you ask him to step out here?”
“Yes, sir.”
They heard the annoyed voice and the young man’s measured answer: “Sir, they’re government types. Must be something important?”
“Oh, well, that’s different.”
They watched him move toward the doorway and step into the foyer. His uniform would have done justice to an emperor.
The two men saw the other one’s name tag and nodded.
“General Passelman?”
“Yes, I’m Montgomery Passelman. What can I do for you?”
“Sheriff, Sheriff Fletcher!”
She pounded on the door while Beau shifted from one foot to the next.
“Dammit, quit makin’ so much noise, girl. Come in.”
The door swung open, and the old man sat staring up at the two for the second time in two days.
“Kristin, why all the fuss?”
“Sheriff Fletcher, we…”
“We found Lauren.”
The gravelly voice of the man in the wheelchair became a hoarse whisper.
“Where … where was she?”
Kristin and Beau steered the wheelchair to the little front room and sat down on one of the side benches. Kristin saw the haggard look on their host’s face.
“She was buried in a place she loved—up on Bluff Mountain.”
“What happened to her?” He was crying now.
They both took turns filling in the details. When they had finished, Kristin put her hand on the old man’s shoulder.
“We found her killer. He’s probably the one who killed Ashbu
rn, too.”
Fletcher’s body trembled.
“I want to see him. I want to see the man who killed my Lauren.”
“Yes, sir. He’s being arraigned at the courthouse today. We’ll take you.”
“Let me change outta these old clothes. I owe it to my daughter and wife to look decent.”
“Do you need any help, sir?” Beau heard the agitation in the older man’s voice.
“Don’t even think about it, Jensen. I ain’t a cripple, least not my hands.”
They sat and waited. They heard the electric shaver hum and the rush of water in the bathroom. Ten minutes later, a different man wheeled himself into the room.
“You look great, Sheriff!”
“Yep, I can still fit in my uniform, can’t I?”
“You look just like when you gave a talk at my school.”
He smiled. “Beau, you remember that, huh?”
“Yes, sir!”
He didn’t ask to be helped into Kristin’s rental SUV. Arms trained over years easily hoisted him into the back seat. Then Beau folded his wheelchair and put it in the hatchback trunk.
The street in front of the courthouse was a zoo of activity as they pulled up. TV crews and reporters milled around the front steps. They turned as Beau got out of the car, removed the wheelchair and set it up by the back passenger side door.
“Look, it’s Sheriff Fletcher!”
He barely had time to hoist himself out and into his chair before he was surrounded by the feeding-frenzied fourth estate.
“Sheriff Fletcher, Sheriff Fletcher, do you know General Passelman? Do you think he killed your daughter?”
This he was used to. How many times had he done this when he brought a perp to justice? He raised both arms, palms outward, the universal gesture that said “slow down, folks, slow down.”
“Thank you for your concern. No, I have never met the general. I would certainly like to do so. But, it is up to our justice system to determine his guilt or innocence.”
Come on, Fletcher, you never believed that. But the public eats that crap up.
A well-dressed civilian followed by a tall, uniformed man came to the doorway of the courthouse and walked down several steps. The reporters turned and more questions got hurled in their direction.
Fletcher knew this gambit as well: the highly-paid attorney representing the well-known perp, protesting the innocence of his client from the courthouse steps.
He studied the military man, his lawman’s senses well-honed to the other’s body language, the unspoken words of innocence or guilt.
Passelman spotted the disabled lawman stationed in his wheelchair on the sidewalk.
Piece of cake, Monty, just keep smiling.
“Please, please, let me talk with Lauren’s father. I never had the chance to offer my condolences when his daughter went missing.”
He walked confidently down the stairs.
I was always good at drill.
He reached the wheelchair-bound lawman and extended his hand. His face, well-schooled in dealing with military brass, assumed look number three: concern and empathy.
Fletcher took the man’s outstretched right hand in his … and knew.
“Sheriff, let me…”
He felt the big hand tighten its grip on his. He felt himself being pulled closer to the man whose daughter he had butchered twenty-five years ago.
He heard the shouts.
What are they saying? I can’t seem to hear them.
A .45 caliber revolver makes a thunderous noise.
He hadn’t heard the cocking of the trigger in the din of the crowd.
He couldn’t hear the clicks as the gun’s cylinder rotated with three successive strikes of the firing pin.
General Montgomery Passelman III felt his legs dissolve as the first bullet severed his spinal cord. He felt nothing as the second bullet pierced his aorta. He was no longer alive as the third bullet blew his now-bloodless heart out through his back.
Witnesses in the crowd later described the sheriff sitting there holding Old Betsy in his left hand. They thought he said one word before slumping forward, sliding to the ground dead.
“Lauren.”
Dies Illae
“How’d you find it, Beau?”
“Newspaper morgue had the records of her burial.”
They had attended the double funeral of Sheriff and Lauren Fletcher and were on one final mission.
The marker along the rural route, courtesy of the late J.B. Huffman, declared the resting place of Ottie Cline Powell. Huffman had memorialized the child in his booklet Little Boy Lost in the Mountains of Virginia back in 1925.
But the whereabouts of Ottie’s mother remained a mystery.
Kristin was a driven woman. She had to find the grave site.
Beau gave in.
He drove her to an isolated area and began to count off his footsteps until he suddenly stopped.
“It’s supposed to be here, Kristin.”
She removed the gold locket from her blouse pocket and knelt down on the dry earth. Beau handed her a small garden trowel, which she used to dig a shallow hole in the dirt.
She placed the locket in it and covered it up.
Jensen could barely hear her whispered words.
“Your son needs you.”
Beau helped Kristin to her feet. He stared in wonder at the young woman he had met only days before.
Call it hunch; call it intuition, he knew: this was the woman he would marry one day.
His cell phone buzzed.
“We’d better get back to the hospital. Your dad’s taken a turn for the worse.”
Transcendence
She sat in what the hospital staff called the Go to Jesus room. Large hospitals always maintain a few to warehouse the terminal patients, the ones with no time left to be transferred to a hospice center.
“Beau, he’s smiling.”
“It’s almost as if he’s reached some closure and knows it.”
She started to cry.
What could he say? Once more he resorted to the only helpful response he knew: he held her.
They make a handsome couple, don’t they, Gus?
My Kristin was always a beauty. Her guy looks pretty decent, too. And that reminds me, mysterious spirit guide, what now? Are you my Virgil, come to lead me to the underworld of Hades?
Wrong sex, big boy.
My Beatrice? Never thought I’d wind up in Paradise.
Ever so slowly the raven-haired girl appeared before him.
Do I look like a Virgil to you, Brother Rat?
Oh, God! Lauren!
You can be so dense even when you’re dying, Gus.
So, you’re the one playing my Ghost of Gustmas past, huh? But, who’s the kid next to you?
Don’t you know me, sir?
You’re little Ottie!
Yes, sir.
Ottie, what really happened to you? Can you tell me?
Spirits have ears and Gus leaned over as the little boy whispered in his.
Never would have guessed that, kid!
Hey, doofus, remember me?
Ashburn, Donnie Ashburn!
It’s almost over for me, Gus. To steal a quote from that bastard, Passelman, there’s just one little loose end. Come on, guys, I’ll show you.
“Miss Mayhugh?”
“You the guy they call the Commandant?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The distinguished soldier stood in the entryway to the little antique shop in Lexington.
What do I say? What can I say? Even ’Nam wasn’t this bad.
“Well?”
He cleared his throat.
“What happened to Cadet Ashburn was a singular and tragic event in the history of our school. We, the entire board, wish to reinstate your … uh … nephew on the rolls as an honored cadet.”
“Huh, won’t do him no good. He’s been dead twenty five years.”
Yes it will , Ma! Listen to him. He’s going to clear my
name!
She stood there, listening to what only a mother’s heart can hear.
“Miss Mayhugh, are you feeling well?”
“Uh … yes, Mr. Commandant. On behalf of Donnie, I accept.”
Way to go, Ma!
Well, Gus, Lauren, I gotta go. See you shortly.
Bye, Donnie.
Okay, Brother Rat, you ready now?
Why is he a rat, Miss Lauren?
Because he’s a VMI graduate, Ottie.
I don’t get it.
Well, I’m a Brother Rat, too.
But, but, you’re a girl!
Perceptive little tyke, isn’t he? Listen, kid, it’s a title, a badge of fellowship and honor for surviving the rigors of our school. At VMI, any member of your class who makes it through the tortures of the Rat Line and then Breakout is your Brother Rat for life.
And afterwards, too, Ottie.
What about me?
What about what, squirt?
Are you going to leave me?
Aren’t you coming with us, Ottie?
I can’t, Miss Lauren. I haven’t been able to find my mama.
Hmmm. Lauren, how does this sound to you? What say we make Ottie, here, an….
Even spirits can whisper.
Two shadows nodded.
Okay, kid, listen up. By the power invested in me and Lauren by … what power do we have, Lauren?
He did make it through his own forest Rat Line, and Bluff Mountain was his Breakout, Gus.
That should do it.
Okay, then by the power invested in us as Brother Rats, and being dead as well, we—Lauren Fletcher and Augustus Belmont—hereby make you, Ottie Kline Powell , an Honorary Brother Rat!
Uh, maybe that should be Ratling?
Shut up, Gus!
Oh, wow!
The kid looks good in ducks and dyke, doesn’t he, Lauren?
Ottie, Ottie, liebchen!
Mama? Mama, Mama, look, look at me! I’m a Brother Rat!
Look at him run!
That kid would have beaten the pants off us in obstacle course, Gus.
He made it up a mountain.
Our mountain awaits, Brother Rat.
Race ya to the top.
You’re on, slowpoke.
Hey, wait, Lauren, the kid left us something.
Shoes: Tails from the post Page 8
