Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery
Page 25
“Not right away,” he admitted. “But eventually the property will belong to me. After you and your momma are gone, who’s going to stop me from getting it? Nobody knows how long I’ve wanted it. Nobody knows why I want it. And nobody is going to pay a lick of attention when I become the new owner. It’s a useless old cemetery. Worthless—on the outside and above ground—to everyone but a Berger. And there won’t be any Bergers around to interfere with my plans.”
“Okay, you buy the land. What then? You still need approval to mine the uranium. All you’ve got now are some exploratory drilling permits, which might not even be valid. And even if they are, they’re not the same as being allowed to actually dig up the stuff and sell it to the highest bidder.”
Daisy was making it up as she went along, but she figured the longer she talked, the longer she survived. Carlton frowned at her.
“I can get anything approved. That’s not a problem. They trust me. The whole county does. I’ve been auctioning off their meemaws’ and pawpaws’ bedroom sets and wedding china for more years than some of them have been alive. I’ve gotten them a lousy buck for their mismatched salt and pepper shakers and another for their chipped cow creamers. I know better than anyone how to convince people to buy crap. Mining and milling equals employment. All I’ve got to say is that pulling out the uranium will bring a whole lot of jobs to this area, and everybody’ll applaud me for it. Hell, they might even raise a statue in my honor.”
“But we’re all gonna get cancer!”
Carlton snorted. “I won’t. And no one cares about that. Not at the outset. As soon as they hear the word job, they aren’t capable of thinking about anything else. So they’ll gladly give me all the approvals I need, I’ll get rich beyond your wildest imagination, and when people eventually do become sick, they’ll blame someone other than me for it, because I’ll be enjoying the good life far away from here.”
His callousness was stunning. Daisy knew what Aunt Emily would have said to him. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It was one of Aunt Emily’s favorite sayings, but Daisy doubted it would have the slightest impact on Carlton. He had probably hawked a few lame camels in his day.
Suddenly the ground trembled beneath her and large hunks of clay crumbled down from the walls around her. There was a tremendous boom, and the sky flashed crimson. It was another explosion.
“Goddammit!” Carlton jumped in surprise.
He and all the other men in the group spun away from Daisy and the grave. They turned to look at what she could only assume was the ensuing fire. The surrounding noise level quickly doubled, then tripled. There was frenzied shouting, loud intermittent crackling and popping, and grinding machinery. It was the din of chaos.
“Goddammit,” Carlton said again, only this time it was accompanied by a growl.
A new man sprinted up next to him. “Mr. Waters—” Halting to catch his breath, he glanced over at the grave and saw Daisy. “What the hell—”
“Don’t worry about her,” Carlton cut him off. “What is it, Sam? Have you figured out what’s causing these damn explosions?”
“No. But Larry sent me. There’s too much burning now. We can’t get it all. He thinks we better leave. Somebody’s going to see it.”
Carlton ran his fingers through his silver shock of hair. “He’s got a point. I don’t want that much attention. Not like this. The sheriff will come. And the fire and rescue squad. They’re going to have questions. I’m not ready for them yet. I’ve got to get the story right. I need a couple of hours to pull it all together. And then…” He let the sentence trail away.
“And then?” Sam prodded him.
Carlton turned back to the grave and looked down at Daisy. Although he no longer shone the flashlight on her, she could see his face illuminated by the red glow behind him. He was smiling at her. It was a small impish grin from one side of his mouth, but it wasn’t jolly. It was cold. So cold and utterly emotionless that Daisy found herself crawling instinctively backward, trying to get as far away from it as possible. It was going to kill her.
“What about him?” Joe asked Carlton.
“Who?”
He pointed the barrel of his rifle toward the ground in the opposite direction. “The guy I caught earlier?”
“Right.” Carlton ran his fingers through his hair once more, then he shrugged. “Throw him in with her. Two birds, one stone.”
Joe frowned. “But you just said the sheriff was going to come. He’ll find them, and they’ll start talking.”
“Right,” Carlton said again. “Except we can’t shoot them.”
Daisy exhaled a shaky sigh of relief. They weren’t going to shoot her and Ethan. Sheriff Lowell would come. He would find them. Everything would be okay.
“But she knows what you’ve done,” Joe argued. “They’ve seen what we’re doing here.”
“Right,” Carlton agreed a third time, calmly. “That’s why we can’t just shoot ’em and leave ’em. We’ve got to get rid of ’em completely.”
Her heart froze. Everything would not be okay. On the contrary, it was going to be the exact opposite of okay. They were going to get rid of her and Ethan. Completely.
She huddled into the back corner of the grave. What could she do? Daisy’s eyes flew around frantically. Was there any way out? The walls were high, and the clay was flat and solid. There weren’t many holes or ledges to hold onto, at least not that she could see. The light was poor at best, just what was cast off from the fire and a flickering flashlight or two. She thought she might be able to climb up if she had enough time, but she certainly couldn’t do it with all the men standing around the edge. They would never let her make it to the top. Maybe when they were gone. Carlton had seemed to want to leave.
There were some scuffling and dragging sounds, then a black shadow blocked the scarlet sky. Daisy looked up at it, and as she did, the shadow rushed down toward her. She scrambled to get out of the way. It landed close to her with a heavy thud. Her first reaction was that Carlton and Joe had dropped something into the grave that would hurt her. It was how they were going to get rid of her. But an instant later the shadow shuddered and groaned, and she realized it was Ethan.
Daisy hurried over to his side. When she saw his face, she gasped. The man hadn’t exaggerated. Joe had messed Ethan up good with the butt of his rifle. There was a welt the size of a potato on his forehead. His left eye was swollen shut. And a long gash ran from his temple over his cheek down to his jaw. It was bleeding heavily. For once she was glad she couldn’t see well. She was pretty sure the injuries were far more severe than they appeared in the darkness. And she didn’t know how else he was hurt. They had kicked him so hard, and there was the fall.
At least he was breathing. Daisy could feel his pulse, and Ethan moaned slightly. She wished she had a piece of cloth to put on his face to slow the bleeding, but she had nothing other than her hands. She lifted his head into her lap, hoping the elevation would help a little. His blood felt warm and sticky as it coated her palms. She tried to wipe it away, but it just kept coming.
A flashlight clicked on. Daisy looked up hurriedly. There seemed to be fewer men at the top of the grave than before. The flashlight clicked off again.
“Now that we’ve got that taken care of,” Carlton drawled, “let’s go talk to Larry. I’m afraid we don’t have much time. We have to decide what equipment we need to take and what can stay behind.”
“He’s over by the…” Sam began.
She didn’t hear the conclusion of the sentence, but Daisy could tell from the way the voices dropped that Carlton and Sam had turned around and were walking away from her. A tiny wellspring of hope bubbled in her veins. They were leaving. They were leaving while she and Ethan were still alive.
Joe called after Carlton. “So what do you want me to do with them?”
Daisy pressed her lips together so fiercely waiting for the answer, she tasted blood.
CHAPTER
29
Deafness, blindness, and muteness followed. Daisy lost every sense all at once. She was going to die. Not in fifty years. Not with a chubby grandchild perched on her knee. Not with a bouquet of stargazer lilies pressed to her nose and an extra-large piece of peach pie in her hand. She was going to die here and now, in a lonely corner of the Berger cemetery, at the bottom of a dark hole that had been dug for somebody else. At least she wasn’t alone. At least she had Ethan with her. But she found no comfort in the fact that he was going to die too. He didn’t deserve such a miserable fate any more than she did. It shouldn’t be his time either.
Then she screamed.
“CARLTON!”
Daisy had never screamed so loudly or fervently in all of her life. But it was in a desperate attempt to save that life. And Ethan’s.
“CARLTON!”
Carlton didn’t reply. Nor did anybody else. Daisy stared at the top of the grave. There was no one there. All the men had disappeared. There was still noise. There was still fiery reflection. And there was still a lot of yelling. But it was all off in the distance. At the edge of the grave, there was no movement and no sound.
Daisy cleaned the blood from Ethan’s jaw and temple as well as she could with the hem of her shirt, then carefully set his head down on a little incline of clay. She stood up. Carlton was gone and wouldn’t return. She was convinced of that. But what about Joe? Where was he? She had to talk to him. She had to persuade him not to do what Carlton had said. There had to be a way to stop him from burying them.
“JOE!”
Was he getting a shovel?
“JOE! JOE!”
Was he getting other men with lots of shovels? Once more Daisy’s eyes flew frantically around the walls that trapped her. There was only one possible route for escape. Up. She had to try it. She had to try it now. No one seemed to be watching. It was a tiny open window that might slam shut at any moment.
Her fingers were wet with Ethan’s blood. As Daisy wiped them dry on her already stained shirt, she searched through the darkness for a place to start. There were some small cavities in the clay as a result of the explosions. She found a spot for one hand, then the other. And she began to climb.
It was tough going. One of her arms worked much better than the other. Her weaker arm smarted terribly, and the muscles strained to the point where they felt like they could snap in half. Daisy guessed it was because of how her arm had been twisted under her when she fell, but she forced herself to ignore the throbbing. She understood what would happen if her arm suddenly gave out or she lost her grip. There would be another fall. Another hard landing. And she would have to start the climb all over again. Precious seconds would be irretrievably lost. Precious seconds that could very possibly mean the difference between survival and entombment.
Daisy glanced down at Ethan. He lay in the same position as when she left him. There was no more moaning. She wondered how much blood he had lost. But a part of her was glad that he wasn’t awake. He couldn’t feel the pain or know that he might never feel anything again.
With each inch that she progressed, the sky became brighter. The air seemed somehow fresher. Daisy had a bit more hope for success. The edge of the grave was now clearly in sight. Like the glittering summit of a mountain, the peak was almost within her reach. Just another couple of minutes, another foot or two, and she would be at the top. She could get out, and she could get help. Then it wouldn’t matter if Joe brought a shovel. It wouldn’t matter if he and the other men brought a dozen shovels. She would be gone. They wouldn’t be able to bury her or Ethan.
There was the hum of an engine. Daisy didn’t pay any attention to it. She knew they were moving equipment and machinery. Carlton was trying to hide what he could, as quickly as he could. But he wouldn’t be able to hide it for long. Sheriff Lowell and the Glade Hill Fire & Rescue Squad would be there soon. The hum was getting louder. It was accompanied by the grinding of metal and the dry crunch of earth. It was a strange noise, but she didn’t think about it. She was too close to freedom to focus on anything else.
Her weak arm felt like it was going to shatter into a hundred pieces. She had smacked her knees against the clay wall so many times, they had become swollen and ached. But it wasn’t important. Nothing was important except escaping from the grave. The engine sounded awfully close to her now. Daisy wondered if they were driving the machinery next to the grave, or maybe even right over it. Would they see her climbing? Should she wait to go further until they had passed? She decided that she had better peep out before jumping out. Better to be safe than very sorry. Joe and the other men still had their AR-15s.
Stretching her hand up, she touched grass. It was warm, soft, wonderful grass simply because it wasn’t clay. Like a prairie dog slowly poking its head out of its burrow, wary of lurking predators, Daisy raised her eyes cautiously over the edge of the grave. She expected to find fire, hustling men, and lots of commotion. They were all there, but she didn’t see any of them. The only thing that she saw was the bulldozer. And the dirt. The towering mound of dirt that the bulldozer was pushing straight toward her.
She tried to leap out of the way. Daisy made one feverish attempt to get her body up onto the grass and roll to safety. But there wasn’t enough time. The bulldozer was already too near, and the dirt started pouring into the grave with the force and speed of a torrential waterfall. She lost her hold on the clay and tumbled downward. Like a battered tennis ball, she bounced from one wall to another. There was dirt in her eyes, dirt in her nose, and dirt streaming into her clothes.
With all her might, Daisy struggled against the flow. She fought to keep her head up and breathe. She seemed to be swimming in it, paddling furiously against the tide. Except it was a rip current, sucking her inexorably away from shore. The pounding dirt was pulling her to the bottom. To the bottom of her grave. And there was absolutely nothing that she could do to stop it.
They were burying her, and they were burying Ethan somewhere below her. They were burying them alive. Daisy’s mouth filled with dirt, and she began to choke. Within seconds she was gasping so violently, it felt as though every cell in her body was on the verge of bursting. She was suffocating under a mound of Pittsylvania County clay. She clawed wildly at the walls, searching for a pocket of air. When she found one, she gulped what she could. Instinct told her it wouldn’t last long. The dirt was crushingly heavy. She couldn’t see, and she could only partially move. But she could still dig, and that was what she did, thrusting her arms forward and kicking her legs together below her like a flipper.
It was impossible for Daisy to tell if she was making any progress. She knew she was going up, but she had no way of knowing how far she needed to go. The dirt had to end somewhere of course. The question was whether she could get there before her air and muscles gave out. Her strength was already beginning to fail her. She felt her legs sag uselessly beneath her as though they were no longer attached to her body. She forced her arms to keep working, using every bit of energy she had left. Except the gasping had started again—and her head was pounding in agony—and instead of pushing dirt away from her face, now something was pushing it at her.
All of a sudden, there was a light. It was a dim red glow, followed by a hand. She reached for it. As her fingers grazed the palm, it grabbed her. It pulled, and she crawled, until she could crawl no more. That was when it lifted her. The dirt fell away like a coat of chain mail, and she was free. Rick’s arms were wrapped around her. Daisy coughed, and her body shuddered with such exhaustion it seemed as though her spine might crumble. But Rick held her tight and upright. Then came his drawling voice.
“Looks like you owe me one, darlin’.”
CHAPTER
30
“Have you decided o
n a name for the bakery yet?”
Daisy raised her head from the stack of paperwork in her lap. She was sitting in one of the white pine rocking chairs on the back porch of the Tosh Inn. Aunt Emily stood in front of her with a sweating glass of lemonade in each hand.
“No. Brenda wants to keep it H & P’s, in memory of Hank and my daddy and to thank Hank for leaving the diner to us in his will, but—” She hesitated. “I think maybe it’s time for a change. A new business should have a new name. A fresh start all around.”
Aunt Emily nodded approvingly. She set one glass on the little table next to Daisy, then settled down with her own glass in the neighboring rocker. Daisy shifted in her seat to pick up the lemonade with her left hand. Her right arm was in a sling. It still hurt on occasion, but the pain was now just an annoying twinge compared to what it had been a week earlier.
“How are you coming with those?” Aunt Emily gestured toward the papers as half of them tumbled to the porch floor.
“I’m seriously beginning to hate forms.” Daisy pushed the rest of the stack out of her lap. “Forms from the hospital for my momma. Forms from the government for closing the diner and opening the bakery. Forms from the sheriff and a bunch of mining bureaucrats for the mess in the cemetery. Forms, forms, forms. I’m supposed to go back to the doctor for one last look at my arm, and I really don’t want to because it’ll mean more forms.”
“Wait until you get older.” Aunt Emily chuckled. “It only gets worse. Forms and bills. That’s what our existence on this earth boils down to at the end.”
“Don’t even get me started on the bills. How Brenda and I are going to buy the supplies we need to bake anything and sell it is a mystery to me.” Daisy lifted the lemonade to her lips. She was expecting a pleasant mix of sweet and tangy but got a mouthful of lighter fluid instead. “Lord almighty, Aunt Emily! What did you put in here?”