Burials

by Mary Anna Evans

  Carson was relaxing in a wrought-iron chair with his back to them. Mickey had taken a fatherly stance behind him, leaning against his son’s shoulder. They were looking at something, but their bodies blocked Faye’s view.

  As Faye and Alba crossed the room and as they each put a hand on the doorknob of a French door, Faye’s subconscious was saying, Something’s wrong. Look around you. Something is very wrong.

  The wind snatched the door out of her hands, banging it against the house so hard that Faye half-expected some of its panes to shatter. The sharp crack of the doorknob hitting wood got the attention of the men in front of her, and it reminded her of the thing that was very wrong about this tender father-and-son gathering in front of her.

  It was no day to be sitting outside.

  This is what had bothered her as she and Alba had made their way to the patio and Mickey and Carson. The whipping wind stirred their hair and their clothes, and it did little to cool the stifling heat. Deep in the woods, she heard a crash as a massive limb broke off a tree and fell to the ground. It was long past being an uncomfortable time to be outside. It had become dangerous.

  She had no time to ask herself why Mickey and Carson were outside in such violent weather before she and Alba passed through the open doors and stepped outside. She only had time to see that they were not alone. Kenny, still and unsmiling, was facing them.

  ***

  Mickey and Kenny hadn’t moved since Faye and Alba stepped out onto the patio. Their hair whipped in the wind, but their bodies were motionless. The two men stood just as they had, face-to-face, each of them staring down the barrel of a handgun aimed directly at the heart of his best friend.

  Both guns might as well be aimed at Carson. If Kenny shot first, the slightest quiver in his aim could put a bullet into Carson as easily as Mickey. If Mickey shot first, Kenny would shoot back, unless he was killed instantly. The aim of a wounded man was iffy so, again, he was as likely to hit Carson as he was to hit Mickey.

  “What’s happening?” Alba clutched the purse that held her own weapon.

  Kenny twitched his gun in Alba’s direction. “Put the purse down, Alba. We all know what’s in there.”

  She eased her satchel to the patio’s concrete surface.

  Both Mickey and Kenny were comfortable handling a gun. They each stood straight holding their weapons with both hands at arms’ length, aimed squarely at each other’s chest.

  Carson, sitting in a chair between them, was trembling. Faye was trembling, too. Thunder rumbled so far away that she couldn’t hear it, but she felt it in her chest.

  Faye didn’t know where she found enough breath to speak, but her voice was surprisingly strong. “Neither of you wants to pull the trigger with Carson in the crossfire. Put the guns down.”

  Yes, that was right thing to say. Both men loved Carson. He could be the key to getting them to stand down.

  And if he wasn’t the key? He still deserved to be taken out of the line of fire. Carson had lived his whole life in the crosshairs of these people. She had no doubt they all loved him—Mickey, Alba, Kenny—but that hadn’t stopped them from using him as a pawn.

  “I need you to stand down until Carson can get to a safe place.” She slid her left foot slowly forward. “Come here, Carson. Kenny and your dad don’t want to shoot you.”

  “If either of them thought shooting me would make it easier to shoot the other one, he’d do it in a minute.”

  “Carson,” Alba said, following Faye’s lead and taking a small step forward, “that isn’t true. Your father and Kenny love you. Mickey? Kenny? Don’t you? You have to stop this.”

  As Alba spoke, Faye took another minute step to the left. Alba responded with an equally small step to the right. Faye wasn’t sure what her plan was, but Alba was acting as her backup. In time, they would be standing on either side of Mickey, close enough to touch him, but what good would it do? Even if they could subdue him, Kenny’s gun would still be aimed in their direction.

  “If either of you shoot my boy,” Alba said, “you’re going to have to shoot me, too. You know it’s true. You think you hate each other? You’ve never had an enemy like me.”

  “Tell us what happened, Carson,” Faye said in the calmest voice she could muster.

  “I’m not sure. I was sitting out here watching the storm come up and waiting for Dad to come home. When he showed up, Kenny came running up yelling something like ‘I saw you leave and come back. Where did you go?’ He wouldn’t stop yelling ‘Where did you go?’ Before I knew what was happening, they had their guns out. They’ve been standing like this ever since.”

  “Yeah, Mickey,” Kenny said, “where did you go? You sure weren’t gone long. Can you tell me why your ex-wife is covered in blood?”

  Mickey said nothing.

  “Alba,” Kenny said, “would you get Emily Olsen on the phone? I want to make sure she’s okay.”

  Alba’s hand moved toward the satchel at her feet, but Mickey said, “Hold still. We already said we know what’s in there.”

  “Why wouldn’t Emily be okay?” Faye asked, sliding a foot forward. This time Kenny saw her and shook his head while glancing meaningfully at the gun in his hand.

  “Mickey said she was dangerous,” Kenny said. “He—”

  “Emily?” Carson’s disbelieving voice made it clear how dangerous he thought Emily was.

  “Mickey said word was getting around about things that happened on that last day with Sophia. He said that we couldn’t afford to let Emily tell anyone what she might remember. It could sink us.”

  Kenny didn’t look good. His face had gone gray and it was damp, too damp to be explained away by the wet wind.

  “What do you mean when you say ‘it could sink us’?” Carson demanded. “Sink who? What does Emily know?”

  Faye moved her hand in a gesture intended to communicate to Carson that he should stay put, but she did it ever so slightly. The last thing she wanted was to startle two jumpy men into shooting her.

  Carson saw the twitch of her hand. He stayed in his seat and nobody shot anybody.

  “Kenny thinks we should check on Emily. Dad? Should somebody call her?”

  “Yeah, Mickey,” Kenny said, “should somebody call Emily? Or maybe go over there and check on her?”

  Mickey said nothing.

  “Can we stop this, Mickey?” Kenny was shouting now. “It’s not like we’re hardened criminals. We’re teachers, for God’s sake. How are we supposed to know how to cover up a killing?”

  Faye heard the patter of light hail on the roof behind her and remembered that hail often preceded a tornado. Bits of ice that were hardly bigger than salt crystals stung her face.

  “What are you and Mickey trying to cover up?” Faye asked.

  “Kenny,” Mickey said, giving his gun a long glance, “you don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. So you should stop talking.”

  “I know very well what happened on that last day with Sophia, and so do you. You and I saw that bone come out of the ground. If Emily told Roy Cloud, well…you couldn’t let her do that, could you? People might’ve started wondering where that bone was. They might have started asking Emily more questions. That’s what you said last night. I told you I’d kill you if something happened to that woman.”

  Kenny glanced at Faye and Alba to see whether they believed him. “I did. I said I’d kill him and then I’d go tell Roy Cloud everything before I’d hurt Emily. Mickey, we’ve done enough. Sophia, Kira…we didn’t plan what happened to them. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we’re still to blame. The time comes when you have to admit you’ve done wrong.”

  “Done wrong? What did you do? Dad?” For the first time, Carson moved. He turned around in his chair. His face almost brushed his father’s belly.

  Mickey said nothing.

  “Mickey staye
d late that last day,” Kenny said. “He’d like everybody to forget it, but I remember. I guess he’s killed Emily now, so nobody living but me knows the rest of it, but I’m telling you now. Mickey helped Sophia dig up a treasure. That’s what it was to him. A treasure. To me, it was something holy. A beautiful little statue made by my ancestors and a double-handful of pearls. He was going to steal them, thinking I’d keep quiet.”

  Mickey broke his silence. “You were my best friend. If I hadn’t offered to cut you in, we wouldn’t be standing here. Sophia would be alive. Emily would be alive. And I could’ve used the money from selling that junk—that’s what it is, Kenny, somebody else’s trash—I could have used it to give my son a better life.”

  “Those things weren’t yours to sell. Nor mine.”

  Carson leaned back to get a clearer look at his father’s face. “Emily?”

  Mickey gave a single nod.

  More hail fell. The beads of ice had grown, but they were still hardly bigger than apple seeds. If they were to reach the size of the old pearls, each hailstone would bring a jolt of pain.

  Faye hoped for heavier hail. Mickey and Kenny weren’t going to be able to hold those heavy weapons at arm’s length much longer, so this standoff had a ticking clock. Maybe a hailstorm would end it before the time bomb blew.

  Through the clatter of ice, Faye heard something familiar. It sounded like Joe’s voice calling her, but that was impossible. He didn’t even know where she was.

  The voice called out a little louder. It really was Joe’s voice, but he wasn’t looking for her. He was in the yard next door, calling out for Mickey. Behind Joe’s voice, she heard a lower rumble that she recognized as Sly yelling something unintelligible. Beneath those voices was a deeper rumble. She hoped like hell that it was a train.

  There was only one thing to do and it might well get her shot. Faye did it anyway.

  “Joe! Sly! We’re back here.”

  She’d crept so close to Mickey that he flinched at her voice, but he couldn’t afford to shoot her. If he took his gun off Kenny to put a bullet in Faye, then Kenny would be clear to shoot him. Faye’s calculated risk had evidently panned out because she didn’t get shot. She was, however, close enough for Mickey to hook a vengeful foot around her leg and throw her onto her face.

  When she saw that her head was going to strike the ground, her fear cranked up a notch. Once she was unconscious, anything could happen. She turned her head just as it banged into the concrete patio, avoiding a broken nose but suffering a hard blow. Still, she hung on to consciousness.

  Sly’s voice boomed as he and Joe rounded the back corner of the house. Joe had his bolo in his hand, and Sly was carrying a tire iron. Faye wanted to tell them to drop their weapons, but she couldn’t get her mouth to work.

  “Callahan,” Sly bellowed at Mickey, “did you kill that woman?”

  Faye was so stunned by her fall that she thought he was talking about her. She tried to say, “No, he didn’t. I’m fine,” but Mickey interrupted her.

  “Which woman? I only killed two. That man in front of me killed the other one.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Joe was literally restraining his father, one hand on each shoulder. The cords of his bolo draped across Sly’s chest.

  “What other woman? Sophia?” Sly called out. “One of you killed Sophia and the other one killed Kira and Emily? Is that what you’re saying? Then I need to kill you both, but I want you to tell me who did what. If I’m going to kill a man—two men—I need to know why.”

  “Dad, don’t,” Joe said, throwing both arms around Sly and pinning his father’s arms to his sides.

  Carson was still twisted around in his chair, staring at Mickey. “Dad?”

  Kenny was taking in long drags of air. He shifted his feet into a wider stance to brace his weakening legs. Still, he gripped his gun. “I’d gone back out to the site after Mickey told me about the bones and the pearls and the little statue. I was down in the pit, trying to explain to Sophia how finding a human bone changed everything. It meant we were digging in a grave and we needed to stop.”

  “Good luck convincing Sophia of something that stupid.” Mickey said.

  “She said okay. She agreed with me. All these years, I’ve been telling you that she agreed with me.”

  Mickey was as resolute as he’d been when Faye first saw them, but Kenny’s grip was failing. He pulled the gun in, resting the hilt against his chest while still holding it with both hands. This was a terrible position for accuracy, but how good did his aim have to be at this distance?

  “I thought everybody had gone home.” Mickey said in a rational voice designed to convince them all that Sophia’s death was accidental or justified or preordained. “I’d gone to the store and bought a bag to carry the treasure in. I’d swiped her key to the shed, thinking I could grab what I wanted and be gone in maybe a minute. I saw your cars, but the shed was way yonder away from the two of you. I thought I could grab the loot and drive away before either of you knew it.”

  “A looter. That’s what you are. A scummy good-for-nothing looter,” Kenny said. “All this time, I had to pretend to be your friend and you had to pretend to be mine, because we couldn’t afford to let anybody think something was wrong.”

  The wind was drizzly and wet, but it didn’t seem to be reviving Kenny. The man was fading in front of them. “The shed door creaked. Always did. Sophia heard it and we came looking for a thief. We caught you red-handed, Mickey. It pleases me to know that she saw you for the grave robber you were, even for just that minute before she died.”

  Faye held out her hand. Carson grasped it and she felt the comfort of human contact. The instant she thought it was safe, she planned to yank him right out of that chair and onto the ground beside her.

  “Maybe I was a thief that night, Kenny, but it was you who tried to kill me. It wasn’t so smart to sling that heavy toolbox at my head, was it? All I did was defend myself. I put up my hands to block the blow and Sophia was standing in the wrong place. It wasn’t me that killed her.”

  “It was an accident. It—”

  “You weren’t so sure it was an accident that you wanted to chance ending up on Death Row. You know we do more executions here in Oklahoma than just about anybody. Hell, we invented lethal injection. Could’ve happened.”

  “You could’ve wound up on Death Row instead of me,” Kenny said, “depending on what we said and what the jury believed. All these years, I thought we got away with it,” Kenny said. “I’d almost put it out of my mind until your own son got the excavation reopened.”

  “Leave my son out of this.”

  Kenny looked at Carson sitting vulnerable between them. “He’s been in it since the beginning. You had him out at that site so much, filling his head with how glorious it was to dig up the past. He’s never wanted to be anything but an archaeologist. He was bound to dig up what we did someday.”

  “That was a cute idea you had on the first day, Kenny, telling me to scare my son off from his own excavation with gunshots while you pretended you were a victim. You know that? You’re a great victim. You thought a few loud noises would get Carson to give up his project, but you should have known better. He’s no victim. Those warning shots worked great in the daytime, but not so great at night when I couldn’t see that Kira was running toward me instead of away from me.”

  “I just wanted you to scare her away long enough for me to get the evidence out of the hole.”

  “I did. And I did it for you. That toolbox was full of bones and it had your name on it. Might’ve even still had Sophia’s blood on it.”

  “And it might’ve had your fingerprints, so don’t tell me you did it just for me.”

  And now Faye understood what box had held the bones.

  “If my son wasn’t so bullheaded and so damn book-smart, we wouldn’t be standing here. If he was smart in
the other ways besides books, the bullets would have scared him off. Kira and Emily would still be alive.”

  Carson’s face was unreadable. He was listening to his father brag about how smart he was, while simultaneously saying that Kira and Emily would still be alive if he were a quitter.

  “The first two deaths were accidents,” Kenny said, “but Emily Olsen was a sweet, harmless human being, and you killed her in cold blood. Nothing will ever be right again.”

  And then Kenny crumbled. His body spasmed, both hands went to his chest, and the gun dropped from his hands. He fell to his knees and was still falling when the bullet struck him.

  The most obscene instant for Faye was the tiny hesitation between Kenny’s collapse and the sound of a gunshot. It was a gap in time that told the difference between a reflexive jerk on the trigger and a measured, studied squeeze. Mickey had watched a man he’d known all his life begin to fall, he had thought about what to do next, and then he had pulled the trigger.

  That silent instant before the gunshot was the sound of premeditation. It left no doubt that Faye had just witnessed murder in the first degree.

  Faye yanked on Carson’s arm and he leapt in her direction. For an instant, they were side by side on the ground, staring at Kenny’s crumpled body. Then Mickey grabbed Faye by the leg and yanked her toward him, dragging her over the hard wet concrete patio.

  Faye could hear Joe and Sly running toward her, and she could hear the word, “No.” The humming in her ears was drowning out all other sound.

  Or maybe it was the roaring of the wind that filled her ears. The rain had stopped, and the hail, or maybe it had all blurred into the black spots in front of her eyes. The clouds were blotting out the sun just as fast as shock was blotting out her mind.

  Mickey jerked Faye to her feet. She felt a cold hard circle pressing against her temple. The strength in her legs left her, and she would have slumped to the ground if Mickey hadn’t held her up with one arm wrapped around her chest. Keeping her body between him and the cluster of onlookers, he started backing away from Alba, Carson, Joe, Sly, and the body of Kenny Summers.