Over Tumbled Graves

by Jess Walter

  “Kevin?” The old man sounded worried. “I think there’s someone here.”

  “Shit. You wait here, Rae-Lynn. I’ll be right back.” She heard Kevin puff back up the trail toward the house. Rae-Lynn shifted her weight and hugged her knees into her chest and looked up the hillside. Kevin was holding the flashlight with one hand and using the other to slide his handgun into the waistband in the back of his pants.

  Forty yards above, on the bank at the edge of the yard, Rae-Lynn could hear a woman’s voice. She remembered phoning the policewoman. But was she alone? “Hey there,” the woman called down the hill. “Looking for something?”

  “Yeah,” said Kevin as he pulled himself up the trail. “My dog got out of the house. My…my dad let him out.”

  “Yes, I did,” said the old security guard. They all spoke too loudly, maybe because of the sound of the river behind them, but from Rae-Lynn’s hiding place on the riverbank, they were like mediocre actors on a stage above her. She peeked around the bush. Covered with weeds and scrub trees, the bank ran up toward the house and was crisscrossed by a couple of trails. She couldn’t see the house, only the glow of its lights, which lit up the ridge like a fire. Rae-Lynn crawled out from the bush and saw the lady cop’s silhouette and could just make out Kevin, still hobbling with his cane up the trail toward her. The old security guard stood right between them, looking perplexed.

  The lady cop held up a badge and shined her own flashlight on it. “I’m a police officer. Just wanted to see what the noise and flashlights were about.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Kevin.

  “So what’s her name?” the lady cop asked.

  Kevin and the security guard didn’t say anything.

  “The dog?” the lady cop asked.

  “Oh, his name,” Kevin said. “His name is Dutch. Dutch.”

  The old security guard took a few careful steps down the trail and put his hand out to help his son, who ignored the hand and walked right past him, toward the lady cop. When he got to the steep ledge marking the end of the yard, Kevin Verloc put his cane up above him, then used his powerful arms to pull himself cleanly onto the ledge, which was almost as tall as he was. Leaning on the cane, Kevin got to his feet. He and the lady cop stood on either end of the ledge, twenty feet apart, staring at each other.

  “Is there something else I can help you with, Officer?”

  “Maybe,” the woman said. “Someone placed a call from here to my cell phone.”

  “Oh?” Rae-Lynn could hear the edge in Kevin’s voice, and hoped the lady cop could too. She crept a few steps closer. “Who was it?” Kevin asked.

  “Don’t know. They hung up before I could answer.”

  Kevin scratched his head, then began nodding. “You know what? I’ll bet I know what happened. What’s your number?”

  The lady cop gave a number, but it didn’t sound to Rae-Lynn like the same number she’d called earlier.

  Kevin laughed. “Oh, that’s funny. That’s only two numbers off my girlfriend’s.” Rae-Lynn crept up the hill even farther and hid behind a tree, so that she could see them both, standing on the lip of the ridge, silhouetted by the lights from the house. “Yeah,” Kevin said. “I started to call her and then I hung up. I must’ve called you by accident.”

  “That is funny,” the lady cop said. “Why’d you hang up?”

  Rae-Lynn heard Kevin laugh again, a little more strained this time. “Well, see…Dutch is really her dog. I was gonna tell her that he was lost, but then I changed my mind. I got scared.”

  “Whoa, she must have been mad at you,” said the lady cop.

  “Yeah, she was pissed all right.”

  “Oh,” said the lady cop, “then you did reach her?”

  “Who?” Kevin asked. “Susan?”

  “Susan,” the old security guard repeated flatly.

  “Susan,” said the lady cop.

  “Yeah,” Kevin said. “She ended up calling me and I told her. She was pissed.”

  “Well, sure,” the lady cop said. “You lost Dutch.”

  “Well,” Kevin said. “My dad did.”

  They both laughed uncomfortably.

  “Yeah, I figured it was something like that,” the lady cop said.

  She shined her flashlight on Kevin and he flinched at the light. From below the ledge, Rae-Lynn saw the shape of the gun sticking out the back of his pants; Kevin’s body blocked the lady cop from seeing it.

  Then the lady cop shined the light on the old man. “You’re a security guard,” she said as if something had just dawned on her.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where?”

  He looked at Kevin before answering. “All-Safe Security, ma’am.”

  “My company,” said the son.

  “You work in a mall?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said. “He works at a mall.”

  “I see,” said Caroline. “Well, good luck finding your dog.”

  No one said anything else and the lady cop began walking away. Kevin turned his head halfway toward the bank below him. Twenty yards away, Rae-Lynn slumped behind her bush and put her head in her hands, willing herself to scream for help. But the lady cop just kept walking away and no sound came.

  53

  The doubts ran through her mind faster than she could name them. It was too dark. She was too far away. Her hand was too sweaty to hold a gun. Caroline concentrated on the side of the house. Maybe ten more steps and she would be in the shadows, away from this man and his father. If she got to the car, she could call for backup on her radio or her cell phone and then hurry back. But she didn’t want to let him out of her sight. She wiped her right hand on her pant leg. Nine more steps. So what—call 911 first? Dupree? Spivey? Blanton? Eight more steps. Goddamn it! Was time slowing down, or her thoughts rushing ahead? She urged herself to not look scared, but the side of the house seemed to be a mile away. Seven steps.

  Why the hell hadn’t she checked in with the dispatcher before walking around the side of the house? Or at least brought her phone? But it wasn’t until she stood on that ridge that she remembered giving Jaqueline her cell phone number all those weeks ago, and it wasn’t until she saw the security guard that the truth hit her like a slap. Six steps. As soon as she saw the guy with the cane, she should have gone back to the car. She could feel his eyes on her back right now and wondered if he had a gun. Five steps. She swung her head back and to the right, just enough to see Verloc on the lip of the ridge, his arm coming up and the fear exploded in her head, and at first she thought the woman’s voice might be her own.

  “Oh God! Help!” The voice was faint, coming from down the hillside but it distracted Verloc just enough. Caroline dropped her flashlight, dove, and rolled into the shadows at the corner of the house, coming up on one knee, squared back toward Kevin Verloc. There was a pop and her flashlight jumped in the air and spun around backward. It took Caroline a second to put together what had just happened; no one had ever fired at her before. From the ridge, Verloc swung the gun from right to left, squinting into the bright lights coming from the picture window. He didn’t seem to know whether he’d hit her, and he strained to see into the shadows.

  “Please don’t go!” yelled the woman again.

  Verloc spun his head to look down the hill and pointed the gun down toward the woman’s voice. “Shut up!” he hissed.

  “Put the gun on the grass!” Caroline yelled. Supporting her own gun with her left hand, she put the barrel’s sight right in the middle of Kevin Verloc’s broad chest and leaned her shoulder against the wall to steady herself. “Put the gun down!” He had fired. She could shoot him at any time.

  “Kevin? It’s over.” The old man moved toward his son. “Put it down.”

  Kevin Verloc looked back at the house. She could see that he was trying to follow the sound of her voice. His eyes traced the clean line of the shadow from left to right and settled on the corner where Caroline crouched with the gun. Without knowing it, he was staring directly at her.


  “Put the gun down,” she said again, her voice steady. I can do this, she thought. I’ve done this before. She closed her left eye.

  As he stood in the glare of the lights, the gun at his side, Verloc’s right arm twitched once, as if the muscles had been alerted of his intentions. Caroline took a deep breath, then blew it out, ready. The gun’s sight sat squarely in the middle of his shirt; she felt dialed in, concentrating so hard, she anticipated his movement before it began. You can do this. He began to lean forward, his arm tensing, when the girl yelled again.

  “Please. Help me!”

  He yelled over his shoulder through clenched teeth. “Goddamn it! Shut up!”

  “Please,” the girl cried again from the riverbank.

  Kevin spun toward the river and waved his gun down the bank. “Shut! Up!” Caroline had begun to squeeze the trigger when she saw that Kevin had planted his cane too far forward. The dirt on the embankment gave way beneath the cane and Kevin looked down, then up quickly at his father, his eyes pleading. His knees were locked and he was powerless to stop falling. He let go of the gun and the flashlight and his arms went out to his sides and it looked for the briefest moment as if he might try to fly. His head moved from side to side, and Caroline could see on his face a look of wonder as he pitched forward, over the embankment, like a diver. There was a snap, like a tree branch breaking and a soft thud and then a scream, a little boy’s scream: “Da-a-a-ad!”

  Caroline ran toward the edge of the lawn, pointing her gun at the security guard. “Get down!” she yelled, but the old man was running to the edge of the bank too.

  “Kevin! Kevin?”

  He was lying on his stomach on the ground five feet below. One leg was twisted behind him like it belonged to an empty pair of pants. And he was crying. “Dad. Why did you let this happen to me?”

  The old man slid down the ledge and reached his son. “Kevin.”

  Caroline picked up the flashlight and shined it over the ledge. Where he had landed two trees grew out of the same trunk and Caroline could see what had happened. Kevin’s leg had become wedged between the two thick trees and had snapped as he fell. It was broken at the calf; the bone had torn through his skin and his pants. “Can you lift him up here?” Caroline asked the security guard. The old man nodded.

  He lifted the younger man by his armpits. Kevin just whimpered. When he had Kevin leaning against the embankment his father pushed from below. He flopped on his back onto the lawn. Then his father lifted himself up.

  “Drag him up here.” Caroline gestured with the gun, and the exhausted old man dragged Kevin by his arms a few feet. Then he fell to his knees.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Caroline. Then he looked toward the bank. “I’m so sorry.”

  Caroline moved closer. “Put your hands out to the sides.” Both men did.

  Caroline moved to the edge and shined the flashlight down the hill. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” came a tiny voice.

  “Are you Jacqueline?” She corrected herself. “Are you Rae-Lynn?”

  There was a pause. “Yes.”

  “That was brave, what you did. Why don’t you come up now?”

  “Shoot him first.”

  “I can’t shoot him, Rae-Lynn. Now walk up here. Come on. I’ll help you.”

  She emerged from a scraggly tree halfway down the bank and wiped at her eyes. She was even smaller than Caroline remembered. She wore torn jeans and a yellow T-shirt with a big sun on it. She had no shoes on. She moved slowly up the trail in the hillside until she got to that last, steep ledge—rimmed with tall grass—that marked the end of Verloc’s yard. The ledge was as high as she was. She paused, too tired to use her arms to pull herself up. Caroline turned back to see Verloc and his father still lying on their faces, their arms out to the sides. She put the gun in her left hand, set the flashlight down, and got on her knees. She reached down and extended her right hand, and this seemed so familiar to her, the river babbling sixty yards below them, that she was convinced if she just waited long enough her entire life would circle back around and she would be walking with her father across the Monroe Street Bridge to get bagels.

  Behind her, she heard Kevin, no longer crying. “I want to talk to Curtis Blanton,” he said, with a calm that chilled her. “I’ll only talk to Blanton.”

  His voice stopped Rae-Lynn cold and she stared at Caroline’s extended hand. She seemed even too tired for this, but finally she reached out and Caroline lifted her the way you’d lift a child, standing and pulling her over the ledge and into the yard. Once there Rae-Lynn burst into tears, and tried to pull away from Caroline toward Verloc. Caroline held her back easily. She couldn’t weigh ninety pounds.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  Rae-Lynn nodded and wiped at her eyes. “I can’t find my shoes.”

  Caroline slipped out of her tennis shoes and slid them over to her. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” She stepped into them. “They’re big.”

  “I need you to do me a favor,” Caroline said. “Okay? Are you up to that?”

  Rae-Lynn nodded again.

  “I don’t want to leave these guys alone,” she said. “So here’s what I want you to do. My car is in the driveway. There’s a pocket on the back of the passenger seat. Do you understand so far?”

  Rae-Lynn nodded again.

  “Inside that pocket are some handcuffs.” She looked over at Kevin and his father. “One metal pair of handcuffs and a bunch of plastic ones, like garbage ties. I need you to bring me the metal handcuffs and some plastic ones too. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah,” Rae-Lynn said. Caroline stood on the ridge, staring at the two men on the ground, listening to her own breathing. She looked over her shoulder, across the river and downstream. She could see a tiny bank of lights where the Dateline crew was apparently still filming. Christ! Had they even heard the gunshot? She was still staring across the river when Rae-Lynn returned and handed over the cuffs.

  Caroline tossed the metal handcuffs to the old man. “Put these on him,” she said.

  Paul Verloc got to his knees and grabbed his son’s arm. “I’m awful sorry, Kevin,” he said. He closed the cuffs around Kevin’s right wrist, then his left. When he was done Paul slumped back down on his stomach, turned his face away from his son’s, and put his own hands behind his back. Caroline kept the gun on Kevin’s head as she came over. She put her knee in Kevin’s back and tightened the handcuffs until he winced.

  “Where is Curtis Blanton?” Kevin asked again, becoming frantic. “I know he’s in town. Is he coming here? Does he know about me?”

  She looked down at him lying on his stomach, his big back and arms seeming doughy and restricting. When she saw the bone sticking out of his leg, snapped like a twig, it nearly made Caroline sick.

  Then she put the plastic cuffs on Kevin’s father and pulled them tight.

  “It’s my fault,” the old man said.

  When they were both cuffed Caroline slumped, her heart pounding against her chest. She put her gun in her shoulder holster under her jacket and stood for a moment, listening to the water. “Okay, Rae-Lynn. I need you to call 911 now. Rae-Lynn?”

  But Rae-Lynn was edging away from her, staring up at the house. Caroline followed her eyes. A tall, square-shouldered man was emerging from the shadows on the side of the house, and even before he was in the light Caroline knew it was Lenny Ryan.

  She felt in her jacket for her gun without looking away from him, but her hand became tangled in the holster, and she had to look down before ripping the gun out and she didn’t quite have it when he swung and hit her in the face, lifting her off the ground and dumping her along the edge of the hillside.

  She sat up immediately, dazed, and had no idea where her gun had gone. In the light she could see Lenny Ryan, clean-shaven again and leaner than before, wearing his khaki pants and black shirt again, his hair stubble-short and dyed blond. He stood over Kevin Verloc, his fists clenched. “Rae-Lynn!” Caroline screamed. �
��Go!”

  Rae-Lynn ran right out of Caroline’s shoes toward the house and Lenny Ryan watched her go, then brought his eyes down again. “Kevin Verloc?” he asked.

  “Get down on the grass!” Caroline said as she pulled herself up. She felt woozy and her mouth was full of blood. “You’re under arrest.”

  “This has nothing to do with you,” Ryan said, without looking back at her.

  Caroline felt through the grass for her gun but it wasn’t there. Her hand fell across the old man’s flashlight. “I’m a police officer. You are under arrest!” she yelled again.

  Lenny Ryan put his foot on the bone sticking out of Verloc’s pant leg, parallel to the ground. Ryan pushed it into the grass. Verloc cried out in pain and Caroline was sure he would pass out. But Ryan lifted his foot and looked over at the old man.

  “I asked you a question,” Ryan said. “Which one of you killed my girlfriend?”

  Caroline took two steps and swung the flashlight as hard as she could. Her shoulder vibrated as the flashlight cracked and the batteries flew out and only the shell was left in her hands. Ryan lost his balance and pitched forward several steps, but didn’t fall. He turned back and seemed shocked that she had hit him. For a moment they were quiet, and again the only noise was Verloc’s whimpering and the river at her back. They stood in a triangle, Verloc squirming on the ground, Caroline and Lenny equidistant from him and from each other. They were both gasping for breath. Caroline wondered if Lenny would agree with her that our lives have a way of eddying back on themselves, offering us the same view over and over, daring us to get it right just once.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Ryan said finally.

  “Good,” Caroline said, her voice seeming to come from somewhere else.

  Then Ryan winced, as if the pain from the blow to his head had just reached him. He patted the side of his head and brought his hand forward. The blood glistened in the lights from the house. He started for her. Caroline took a step back, then swung the flashlight again. Just a metal shell now, it whistled as it cut the air. The black tube hit his hand with a slap and he caught it, pulled it away, and threw it to the ground. Then he shoved her with one hand and she fell onto her back again, next to the old man.