Cemetery Girl

by David Bell

  “Why didn’t you tell the police I’m meeting Colter here tonight? You could have stopped all of this.”

  “The cops are looking for me now because of what Brooks’s girlfriend told them. I can’t make contact with them. They want to lock me up. And I wanted to come find you. And help you. After last night, with the fight and everything, I wanted to be the one to help you see this from a different angle. You’re not seeing it clearly yet, okay? But you still can. You can just get back in the car and drive her home. That’s all you have to do.”

  “It’s that easy?”

  “It really is.”

  “What about the rest of our lives?”

  “I don’t know. .”

  “You see, something happened in that house, in that basement room. Something happened that transformed my daughter and transformed my life. I need to know what it was. If it was able to so profoundly, so completely turn me off the course of my life, I need to know about it. All about it.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. . it’s gone. And you weren’t there. And whatever it is or was. . it’s not really relevant to your life now. It’s not going to change the past.”

  “What will?” I asked.

  And I meant it. What would wipe the past away, clean the slate?

  Buster pointed to the car.

  “You know what to do.”

  I moved to the back of the car and took out my keys.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Before I could reach the car, the driver’s door came open. Caitlin looked scared, disoriented, in the faint glow from the dome light. She must have slid back over the seat into the front and opened the lock. She came out into the night, looking back and forth between Buster and me.

  “Where’s John?” she said. “Is he here?”

  I nodded toward the cemetery. “He’s here,” I said, but I put my hand on Caitlin’s arm.

  “Let me go.”

  “We’re leaving, Caitlin.”

  I held on to her and released the door locks with my fob. I maneuvered her toward the backseat of the car again.

  “You promised,” she said.

  I pulled the back door open and had her halfway in when Colter came running up.

  “Hey!” he said.

  “John! John!”

  I kept my body between the two of them, felt myself wedged and pressed between their grasping forms. Caitlin cried out for him, a plaintive wailing, and I felt Colter’s hot breath on the back of my neck, smelled the onions he had eaten for his dinner.

  Then the pressure against my back eased. Colter fell to the ground and Buster stood over him. Then Buster dropped to his knees by Colter’s side, his fist going up and down like a piston while Colter squirmed beneath the blows.

  “Enough,” I said. “Enough.”

  I let go of Caitlin long enough to grab Buster’s arm, to stop his pummeling of Colter. When I had him pulled back and under control, I looked down.

  Colter was still there, his face bloodied. Caitlin slipped past me and went to the ground, cradling his face in her hands.

  “Oh, John,” she said. “John, did he hurt you?”

  But Colter didn’t take his eyes off mine. He even smiled a little, his teeth stained with blood.

  “Satisfied?” he said. “Is it over now?”

  Caitlin’s eyes were full of tears, and she sniffled in the dark, her hand now resting on Colter’s arm.

  I bent down a little, wrapped my hand around her wrist, and pulled her up.

  “She’s coming with me.”

  Caitlin gasped a little, but she didn’t resist as much as I’d thought she would.

  “We had a deal,” Colter said. “A fucking deal.”

  I pulled Caitlin toward the car, not looking back. I knew Buster was behind me, watching the rear, not letting Colter up off the ground.

  “Let me go!” she said, pulling against me. But I kept my grip-loose enough not to hurt, tight enough that she couldn’t get away. I never should have brought her, I thought. I never should have exposed her to Colter again. It was over. We were going home.

  “No,” I said. “You’re coming with me.”

  The wailing began again, but this time it was more distant, more sustained.

  I looked out to the main road. The blue and red lights strobed, approached the cemetery, and turned in. I looked at Buster, and he shrugged.

  “Abby?” I said. “She called them?”

  He shrugged again.

  Colter pushed himself to his feet. The police cars were coming toward us, blocking the way for our vehicles. There was only one way out, and he took it. He didn’t even look back. He turned and ran into the cemetery, into the darkness, past Caitlin’s headstone and into the darkening night.

  “John!” she shouted.

  Caitlin tugged against me, but I held on.

  I wasn’t going to let go.

  Epilogue

  Weeks later, I return to the park with Caitlin.

  It’s early December. The leaves are all stripped from the trees, and the first frost has already come and gone.

  It was Abby who’d called the police that night.

  It took her a while to think of it, but she, like Buster, knew me well enough to know the spot I’d pick for a meeting with Colter.

  The police arrested John Colter in the cemetery as soon as they arrived. He’d had nowhere to run, and they found him crouched behind a mausoleum. He had slipped in the wet grass and twisted his ankle, making his escape all but impossible. As Ryan had promised, new indictments were handed down against Colter, charging him with the kidnapping and sexual assault of Caitlin. In the wake of his intention to flee the area, his bail was revoked and he remains in custody at the county jail awaiting a trial in the spring.

  Whenever I ask Ryan about the possibility of a conviction, he hedges his bets and reminds me that sometimes plea deals have to be struck, especially when eyewitness and forensic evidence remains slim. Caitlin refuses to testify or admit anything, and I try my best to believe that John Colter no longer exists.

  The murder of Tracy Fairlawn remains unsolved, although it is widely suspected she was killed by John Colter. Murder charges may still be forthcoming against him.

  Jasmine, the cemetery girl, has never been found. Ryan suspects she’s a runaway, and it seems little effort is being expended on tracking her down.

  For a while after Colter’s arrest, I found myself in trouble with the prosecutor’s office. They were displeased with my actions on those nights, and they contemplated pressing charges against me. Obstruction. Witness tampering. Assault. In the end, they did nothing but scare me. When news of the arrest reached the public, popular sentiment turned my way, and the prosecutor’s office, facing an election year, decided against continuing their pursuit of the father of a kidnapped and confused child.

  My family was not so forgiving. It took less than forty-eight hours for Abby to move out-taking Caitlin with her. They made temporary quarters in dormitory-style housing at Pastor Chris’s church. Abby has filed for divorce, which I have no plans to contest, but I see Caitlin just about whenever I want, especially on weekends.

  Caitlin is not allowed to have any contact with John Colter while he is in jail. No letters, e-mail, or phone calls. To do so might lengthen his sentence, and as far as we can tell, neither he nor Caitlin has violated those terms. She continues with her therapy-both with Dr. Rosenbaum and with Susan Goff-and no doubt receives plenty of unsolicited help from Pastor Chris when she’s at the church.

  I’ve brought the situation up only once with her, just a week after John Colter’s arrest.

  “He ran away in the cemetery,” I said. “He didn’t try to help you.”

  “He was scared. The police were after him.”

  I should have let it go, but I had to know one more thing.

  “So what are you going to do now?” I asked.

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to wait for him.”


  Buster and I have spoken to each other only once since that night. He, too, faced more heat at the hands of the prosecutor’s office in light of his connection to Loren Brooks. But after careful examination and investigation, it was determined that Buster had broken no laws.

  He called me one night, out of the blue, the phone ringing late while I was reading in bed. He didn’t identify himself when I answered, nor did he ask how I was doing or waste any time with pleasantries. He jumped right in.

  “Why did you grab Caitlin and take her away with you that night at the cemetery?” he asked. “You seemed determined to hand her over.”

  I took my time answering. While I thought about it, Buster waited patiently. He didn’t push me or hurry me along.

  “I didn’t plan to give her away,” I finally said. “In the end, my instincts as a father are stronger than anything else. I could never let my daughter go with a man like that.”

  There was another long silence. Then Buster said, “That’s about what I figured.”

  He hung up, presumably satisfied.

  Caitlin and I often walk in the park. We don’t talk about everything that happened there, but I take it as a good sign that she’s willing to go back. She may be returning there out of a sense of nostalgia for its associations with John Colter, but whenever that thought enters my head, I chase it away. Instead I choose to believe that this is a step toward the future and not a glance back at the past.

  On this particular day, we sit on a bench near the walking and jogging trail. Fewer people pass this time of year, the cold having chased all but the hardiest of exercisers indoors. The tips of my ears and my cheeks tingle. My hands are balled into fists inside my pockets. I notice, for the first time, that Caitlin no longer wears the topaz necklace, her birthstone, the one John Colter gave her while he was holding her. I take it as a small victory, although I don’t comment on it.

  From where we sit, I can see the cemetery. The spot on the ground where I wrestled with Colter and, beyond that, where Caitlin’s headstone once stood. It’s gone now, removed in the wake of Colter’s arrest.

  I’m enjoying the day, enjoying what little time I have with Caitlin even now.

  I’ve almost allowed myself to relax, to believe that our life is returning to some semblance of normal-or what normal will be for us in the future.

  And when my guard is sufficiently lowered, Caitlin jumps up from the bench.

  It takes me a moment to process the speed of her movement and the direction she’s heading in.

  She’s running toward the cemetery.

  Running away from me.

  I follow, calling her name, my breath huffing. Little puffs come out of my mouth and disappear in the air.

  But just as quickly as I start, I understand.

  I can’t believe what I’m seeing-but I understand.

  Caitlin stops in the middle of the park. She goes down on one knee.

  There’s a dog jumping against her, licking and pawing at her. A very familiar dog.

  And when I get there, when I come alongside of them, I watch with the dog’s stunned owners, an elderly couple holding an empty leash. They’d apparently adopted Frosty from the shelter and attempted to make him their own, but now they seem to realize he isn’t their dog anymore.

  And he never was.

  Caitlin’s face is streaked with tears, but she’s smiling as the dog licks them away.

  “You’re home, Frosty,” she’s saying. “Oh, my Frosty. You’re home. You’re home.”

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