Graveyard Fields

by Steven Tingle

  “So what about the bikers?” I asked.

  Dale shook his head. “Well, there’s where it gets a little sticky. Diana said she’d seen them bikers in the brewery a time or two talking to Cordell. But then when he went missing, they came looking for her. The one with the beard told her he’d made a business arrangement with Cordell. Paid him a lot of money but never got what he paid for. He was looking to her to make it right, one way or another, if you know what I mean.”

  “So we were on the right track,” I said. “Diana figures if she can get into her safe, she can get the pills and get rid of the threat.”

  “Yep, and when she heard you had the keys, she tapped in to you.”

  I looked over at Diana. She was sitting on the boulder with her head in her hands. She told a good story, but I was reluctant to believe it.

  “Then what?” I said. “She finally finds the keys, opens the safe, and there’s nothing in it but a GPS?”

  Dale nodded. “That’s what she claims. Said once she’d got hold of the keys, she set up a meeting with them bikers. But when she found the GPS, she didn’t know what to do. But she figured if Cordell locked it up in her safe, it must be pretty important. So she gave it to them bikers and it led ’em all up here.”

  I couldn’t help but shake my head.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Dale said. “She coulda known exactly what was in her safe and wanted it for herself. But the only people who know the truth are all dead.”

  “Skeeter’s not dead,” I said. “She could’ve asked him straight out to kill Cordell and Jeff and Becky. She could’ve told him to plant the evidence to frame me.”

  Dale filled his mouth with tobacco.

  “She burnt you and you’re still pissed, I get it,” he said. “But if she’s lying, Byrd will find out.”

  Floppy pulled out his multitool and started picking crud out from under his fingernails.

  “So what’s in them chests?” he said.

  * * *

  When Byrd finally walked across the bridge, all the deputies snapped to attention. Mike and Earl stood tall next to the bikers, while Tommy eyed Diana as if she might make a run for it at any moment. The other two deputies waited next to Skeeter. When Byrd stopped next to the two chests, Dale, Floppy, and I joined him.

  “So what do we have here?” Byrd asked.

  Dale gave Byrd a brief rundown of what had happened and of the story Diana had told. When he finished, Byrd shook his head and pointed to the chests.

  “Let’s get these open,” he said. “Earl, go get the bolt cutters.”

  I cleared my throat. “Hold on a minute.”

  I walked over to Diana and held out my hand. “Give me the keys.”

  Diana reached in her jacket pocket, then handed me the keys that had ruled my thoughts for the past week. I took them over to Byrd, who accepted them with a frown.

  Byrd cycled through the keys, selected one, and then bent down in front of the chests. It took several tries with several keys, but he finally opened all four padlocks and threw the chests open.

  I was half hoping to see bars of gold. Shiny bricks looted from Germany, flown halfway across the world and dropped onto the side of Cold Mountain. Instead I saw enough pills to keep me numb for several lifetimes.

  44

  At one o’clock the next day, I was still in bed, trying to ignore the knocking coming from the back door. After I’d spent a couple of hours at the sheriff’s department giving my official statement, Dale had driven me back to the cabin. We’d drunk beer, shot the shit, and listened to Mötley Crüe, Dokken, and Ratt until well after midnight. At which point I swallowed two pills and either went to sleep or passed out.

  The knocking was relentless. I put my head under the covers, but it didn’t stop. I finally gave up and threw on some clothes.

  When I walked into the kitchen, I saw Byrd standing outside the door. I paused for a moment, then asked him in.

  Byrd took a seat at the table while I filled the kettle with water.

  “I doubt you want some coffee,” I said.

  Byrd chuckled.

  “Actually, I’d like to try some of your beer. Deputy Johnson says it’s very good.”

  I stared at the back of Byrd’s head for a few seconds, then took a growler out of the refrigerator and two glasses out of the cabinet. I poured one full for me and one half-full for Byrd.

  Byrd held the glass up to the light and examined it. Then he sniffed the beer and finally decided to take a sip.

  “Citrusy,” he said. “Good amount of hops but not bitter. I’d say this is very balanced.”

  I lowered my eyebrows. “You’re not going to throw the glass against the refrigerator, are you? I’ve already mopped this floor more times than I care to admit.”

  Byrd made a noble attempt to smile.

  “So what can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  Byrd looked around the kitchen like he was a prospective tenant. After a few moments he finally spoke.

  “I’ve seen a lot, son. And most of what I’ve seen, I’ve washed away, like dirt off my hands. But after a while it leaves a stain.”

  That comment didn’t need a response, so I waited for Byrd to continue.

  “But I never thought I’d see one of my own go so wrong. Louis had a promising future, but he let his demons control him.”

  Some beer dribbled down my chin.

  “Louis? Skeeter’s real name is Louis?”

  Byrd nodded.

  I thought about the text I’d seen on Diana’s phone, the one from someone called Louis that said Thinking about you. The dumb asshole had it bad.

  “One of those demons is named Diana Ross,” I said.

  Byrd’s face sagged like wet laundry on a clothesline. He was exhausted. I figured that after he interviewed me and Dale, he’d spent the rest of the night talking to Diana, Skeeter, and the two bikers, trying to piece together the facts and calculate who was telling the truth and who wasn’t.

  I knew Byrd was also dealing with the realization that illegal pharmaceuticals were being trafficked right under his nose. It was the one thing he’d sworn would never happen in his county, and he’d helped facilitate it by renting a house to a dealer. That had to sting.

  “Louis confessed to the murders,” Byrd said. “He was very straightforward with me. He killed Mr. Cordell out of jealousy over the relationship with Ms. Ross. And he killed Mr. and Mrs. Ingram during an argument that transpired when Louis discovered they were bringing opioids and other pharmaceuticals into the county with intent to distribute. He’s also confessed to planting evidence here in order to implicate you. He says Ms. Ross did nothing more than ask him to help recover her property.”

  I laughed. “And you think he’s telling the truth?”

  “Son, the only time Louis lied to me was when he expressed remorse.”

  “All right, then. What about Ms. Ross?”

  “I believe she could have made better decisions, but I understand her reasoning. She was frightened, and fear can cause people to behave like idiots. But she was brave enough to let Deputy Johnson know her location after those chests were uncovered.”

  I started to speak, but Byrd raised a hand.

  “If you’re questioning her motivation, son, then think about this. Her waiting to ask for help until those drugs were uncovered was risky, but it paid off. Those drugs, and those men, are no longer a threat to this county.”

  I leaned back and crossed my arms.

  “You’re the human lie detector,” I said. “I just hope you’re not losing your touch.”

  Byrd frowned and pointed to his empty glass. I grabbed the growler and filled both of our glasses to the brims.

  Byrd took a long draw of beer, then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag. The keys were inside.

  “When I came here to question you, I believed you might still have these,” Byrd said. “At the time I didn’t know what these keys opened. But I did know they’d gotten o
ne man killed.”

  Byrd tossed the bag on the table. I picked it up and manipulated the keys through the plastic. I found the one Floppy had used to open the cabin and showed it to Byrd.

  “Why would Cordell have a key to this cabin?”

  Byrd laughed. “I like to keep things simple, son. All of my rental homes are keyed exactly the same. That’s right—every last one of them for the past thirty years. It’s saved me a fortune in locks. I used to own this cabin. Same lock as all the others. I’m sure Junebug never swapped it out when I sold him the place.”

  “So Cordell’s rental house key fits this lock?”

  Byrd nodded. He wasn’t trying to keep things simple; he was just cheap. I thought back to the root beer he’d made me pay for when we had lunch together and was reminded that the old man still owed me fifty cents in change.

  Byrd and I drank in silence for a moment. I still couldn’t figure out why he was sitting at my kitchen table. He’d already questioned me the previous night about everything that had transpired, including Perry and Greg attempting to fake my suicide. Dale had surely backed up my story. I didn’t have anything more to offer.

  “So did you come up here just to try my IPA?” I asked.

  Byrd dragged his eyelids up to half-mast.

  “You were right thinking these keys led to a fortune,” he said. “Just not the kind of fortune you imagined. I hope now you’ll wake up from that dream of finding lost gold.”

  “There never was no fucking gold,” I said, quoting Dale. “Is that what you want to hear from me, Sheriff?”

  Byrd nodded, grabbed the evidence bag, and shoved it back into his coat pocket. He then stood up and walked to the door.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What about Perry and my brother-in-law?”

  Byrd let out a long sigh. “According to Jack, they’ll be transported back down to Charleston day after tomorrow.”

  Jack Emory, I thought. Byrd’s Charleston PD buddy and the man who’d first raised Byrd’s suspicions about me.

  “Who is this Emory guy, anyway?” I said. “Why did he tell you to keep an eye on me?”

  Byrd crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. “The first time I met Jack was at a conference over in Charlotte. That had to be, I don’t know, what, ’97, ’98? He was with Charleston’s Central Investigation Division at the time, but do you know where’s he’s been working for the past three years?”

  Byrd was kind enough to stay silent while my foggy brain worked it out. It took a minute, but when it finally hit me, it made perfect sense.

  “Internal Affairs,” I said.

  Byrd snickered. “That’s right. When I heard Deputy Johnson had been spending a fair amount of time with a former Charleston police officer, I called Jack to see if he knew you. Jack didn’t, but he told me the grapevine down there was buzzing with rumors about that storage unit robbery. Later on, when I told Jack that you’d mentioned Internal Affairs was looking into it, well, let’s just say he was mighty surprised.”

  “Because they weren’t, right?”

  Byrd snickered again. “Right. But hearing that sure sparked his interest.”

  I leaned back and shook my head. I’d thought my sending an email to Perry about his gray Audi was what had spooked him into coming to the cabin to shut me up. But it was the living maze of the department that had sent him into a panic. The walls he was used to climbing over or digging under had begun to move in directions he couldn’t outmaneuver, and Perry needed to silence me before someone found me and started asking questions. That’s why he’d kept saying “things have changed.”

  Byrd opened the door and then looked back at me. “Those two men will be charged for what happened here. No one’s above the law in this county. You’d do well to remember that.”

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, someone in a rollback tow truck came and picked up Perry’s Audi. I watched from the deck as the driver attached a winch to the car and slowly rolled it up onto the truck’s bed. The whole process took less than three minutes. I was glad I’d paid cash for the Mercedes. If I’d been making payments on it, someone would have been tasked with hauling it away on a similar truck in a couple of months when my money ran dry.

  When the truck was gone, I opened the laptop and sent an email to Laura. I told her Greg and Perry had been arrested and why. I told her the truth about everything and that I would call her tomorrow at noon. I asked that she please answer the call.

  After that I pulled up Google and searched for attorneys in Charleston, South Carolina. A senior detective with the Charleston PD had shot me in the leg. That had to be worth something.

  Epilogue

  The next day was Thanksgiving. I crawled out of bed around ten, drank half a beer, and swallowed half a pill. I showered, shaved, then checked the laptop. The same spam emails and no new Facebook friends. Status quo.

  * * *

  At noon I pulled into El Bacaratos. I dialed Laura’s number, and she picked up on the first ring. When I heard her voice, a weight fell from my shoulders. We talked for almost an hour, and by the time I hung up, I felt things were going to be okay. She’d forgiven me, and that was all I needed.

  Laura was going to have a tough time. There was no way she would stay with Greg. My sister was forgiving, but she wasn’t a fool. She’d been right to distrust Greg enough to suspect he was having an affair. In a way he was. He had betrayed my sister the same way Perry had betrayed me.

  Laura would be alone, but she was strong; she could handle herself. For a moment I thought about packing up my stuff and heading to Folly Beach to offer my support. But she didn’t need me coming back down there with all my baggage. She would be better off without someone to babysit. Plus, I had a new babysitter. And he liked beer as much as I did.

  * * *

  When I turned into Junebug’s driveway, I pulled over next to the Johnson family graveyard. I got out of the car and stepped over the low fence that bordered the small plot of land. There were six tombstones in all. Three were so old and worn that the engravings had become practically indecipherable. I rubbed my hand over one and traced 1923 with my finger. The newest-looking tombstone belonged to Dale’s mother. It was a rectangle of gray granite with a spray of red plastic carnations jutting out from its base. The etching read:

  Margaret Ann Johnson

  Devoted Wife and Mother

  1940–1995

  It seemed strange to me for a graveyard to be sitting on private property. I wondered how Dale felt about having to drive by his mother’s final resting place every day. I wondered if he even noticed it anymore or if the graveyard was just a benign patch of rocks that his conscious mind chose to ignore each time he passed by.

  I’d visited my parents’ burial site only once. Unlike Dale’s mother, my parents were buried in a cemetery as big as a golf course. I remembered driving through the gates and getting lost along the ribbons of asphalt that snaked around hundreds of tombstones and mausoleums. When I finally found my parents’ graves, I spent five minutes silently apologizing for all the grief I’d given them. I told them I was sorry for missing their funeral and promised to try to be a better man.

  I haven’t fulfilled that promise, but at least I haven’t forgotten it. I guess there’s something to be said for that.

  I stepped away from Dale’s mother’s tombstone and over to a rounded slab of cement worn down by the elements. Its face was unmarked, and I rubbed the smooth top of the stone while wondering who was buried beneath its weight.

  “Get outa there!”

  I turned around to see Junebug standing by my vehicle, a single-barrel shotgun parked across his shoulder.

  “Hey, Junebug. Sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

  Junebug jerked his head.

  “Get on up to the house. We’s about to eat.”

  * * *

  “I don’t understand people who don’t deep fry their turkey,” Dale said.

  We were sitting at a rickety wooden
table in Junebug’s kitchen. Dale had more food on his plate than anyone should eat in a single sitting. Despite that, I knew he would be having seconds.

  I was drinking a cold pale ale. It was Dale’s own recipe, and it was surprisingly good.

  “Sorry about earlier, Junebug,” I said. “I was just curious about the graveyard.”

  Junebug shrugged and stabbed at a piece of dark meat.

  “What are you talking about?” Dale said.

  “On my way in, I stopped at the family graveyard and looked at the tombstones.”

  Dale grinned. “Little freaky, ain’t it?”

  “Who’s buried in that unmarked grave?” I asked.

  Junebug didn’t answer, and Dale looked over at him.

  “That’s Ol’ Gerald, ain’t it, Daddy?”

  Junebug grunted and shoved a quarter pound of sweet potatoes in his mouth.

  “You said you never got around to carving the stone.”

  Junebug grunted again.

  “So that’s Floppy’s grandfather buried there?” I asked.

  Junebug lifted his knife and pointed it at my chest. His eyes were full of fire.

  “You stay outa that graveyard. Ain’t got no reason to go messin’ ’round in there. I see you in there again, I’ll shoot ya, you hear me?”

  Dale laughed. “Shit, Daddy, with that old shotgun, you couldn’t hit a cow if you was standing next to it.”

  Junebug kept the knife pointed at my chest. “You hear what I said?”

  As Junebug continued to glare at me, I felt as if someone had flicked a tuning fork in my chest, and the vibrations coursed through my entire body. A new dot had appeared and suddenly connected to a bunch of others. It formed a picture that was still a little fuzzy, but if I focused just right, I could make out a few clear outlines. I saw Junebug and Byrd as middle-aged men with shovels in their hands. They were making a pact. Maybe it was the same pact they’d made as kids.