Dig Deep My Grave

by Cheryl Honigford

  The heavy metal cylinder was a comforting weight in her hands, the beam of light bright and strong against the darkness. It was so quiet here—only the subtle rustling of the leaves and the occasional hoot of an owl. Something swooped out of the darkness, gliding just over the top of her head. She ducked instinctively, the hairs on her arms standing on end.

  She’d have to spend the night. She certainly wasn’t going to drive any farther in the woods in the pitch-darkness. She couldn’t see the lake from here, but she knew it was there behind the cabin—black and fathomless, with all kinds of creatures slithering and sliding and swimming in its depths. The thought made her shiver.

  It was chilly this far north. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her. She’d finally had a chance to change out of her nightgown after securing passage northeast from Kansas City, but she’d been wearing these clothes all day. She wanted nothing more than to change, light a fire if she could manage it, and crawl into bed.

  She approached the front door, climbing up the thick wooden steps. Nothing would be turned on inside, of course—the electricity, the water. No one had been up here yet this season. But at least it would be shelter from the elements. And the bears, her mind added helpfully. She opened the screen door and was careful to not let it slam behind her. The screened-in front porch was still set for winter—the wicker furniture stacked in the corner, draped in sheets. It smelled of dust and damp.

  Vivian moved forward and grasped the knob of the interior door, realizing only when it didn’t turn that she didn’t have the key. She pushed against it with a fruitless grunt and glanced down at her feet, which rested on a woven doormat. She bent and flipped the mat over. Nothing. She felt around the top of the doorframe. Nothing. She glanced around the porch, but she had no idea whether the last person to have stayed—likely Everett last fall—had left a key somewhere.

  There was nothing for it. She’d have to break in. Her mother would kill her. Well, that would be among the smallest of Vivian’s transgressions before this was all over, she supposed.

  She picked up a rock from the ground at her feet and hefted it in her hand, bouncing it in her palm a few times, working up the courage to vandalize her own family’s property. It’s for a good cause, she thought. She hitched in a breath and tossed the rock. It smashed through the pane of glass. The noise was unbearably loud in the stillness of the nighttime forest. A bird squawked in protest and flew off from the top of a nearby pine. Vivian flinched and held still for a long moment. Nothing happened. She pulled her sleeve down over her fist and gingerly pushed her hand through the hole in the glass, reaching around inside and unlocking the door with a click.

  Vivian entered the cabin, careful to step over the pile of broken glass just inside the door. She closed the door behind her and sighed. The moon was only about a quarter full, and the trees looming over the cabin blocked any feeble moonlight there was. She’d need to find a lantern and matches. She stepped forward, glass crunching under her heel.

  She almost couldn’t bear to think about what she would do in the morning.

  From somewhere in the darkness, Vivian heard a metallic click-click, followed by a man’s calm, measured voice. “Don’t move.”

  Vivian stopped walking, stopped breathing. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. She held her hands up, the lit flashlight pointed at the ceiling. She could see nothing of the interior of the cabin now, could hear nothing but her own sporadic breathing. A squatter, she thought. Yes, she’d surprised someone who was lurking in her father’s cabin. Someone with a gun.

  “Who are you?” the gruff voice called out again.

  Vivian’s heart stuttered, half in residual fear, half in joy. She knew that voice.

  “Charlie?” she whispered.

  There was a pause, then a sigh. “Jesus, Viv.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vivian rushed forward blindly, arms outstretched. Charlie caught her and pulled her to him. They didn’t speak. He breathed into her hair, and she buried her face in his chest. She could feel the cold weight of his handgun against her shoulder blades. She squeezed him tighter and tighter until she could feel that he was real. He squeezed her back hard, and then pulled away. He moved toward the other room. She heard him fumbling, uttering muffled curses. Then there was the sound of a match, the sizzle of a flame, the faint whoomp of a gas lantern being lit.

  He came back to her, holding the lantern at waist level, the light throwing shadows up under his chin. She could clearly see bloodshot eyes, a scowl. He was not pleased to see her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.

  “I came to find you,” Vivian said. She fought to keep her voice steady. She clenched her hands at her sides. She wanted to run to him again, hug him, feel the solidness of him.

  “You’re supposed to be on your way to California.”

  “Freddy sent me a telegram, so I got off the train.”

  “Did he tell you to get off the train?” Charlie held up his free hand to stop her explanations before they started. “No. No, of course he didn’t.”

  “Not in so many words,” she said.

  “Did you tell him you were coming here?”

  “Of course not.”

  Charlie sat down heavily at the small kitchen table. There was a day’s growth of stubble on his cheeks, and a lock of greasy hair fell over his forehead. Vivian had never seen him looking so rough. He placed the lamp and gun carefully on the table in front of him and let his head fall into his hands. He spoke without looking up. “You’ve done a lot of stupid things in the time I’ve known you, Vivian Witchell. But this takes the cake.”

  Vivian felt her face flame. Stupid? It wasn’t remotely stupid. “You as much as told me you’d be here, Charlie. Why did you do that if you didn’t want my help?”

  “I most certainly do not want your help. I only told you so that you’d have an idea of where I was if I got the chance to run. I didn’t want you to worry. I suppose it’s my own fault, isn’t it? I should’ve known you’d worry and come straight here.” He lowered his chin and fixed his glare on her. “You drove here, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “By yourself? In the dark?”

  She nodded. “Just from Eau Claire.” She forced her tone to be light, but there was no “just” about it. That drive had terrified her. She’d white-knuckled it all the way, but there was no reason Charlie needed to know that.

  He shook his head. “You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed.”

  “I’m not that bad of a driver.”

  Charlie looked at her and cocked one eyebrow. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

  “Followed?” She glanced toward the shuttered front window, her stomach in knots all over again. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. What if this was all an elaborate scheme by the police to use her to flush Charlie out of his hiding spot? But that was ridiculous. No one knew she’d gotten off that train, and no one knew where she’d gone. “No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’ve been the only idiot out driving on these roads in the pitch-black tonight. I think I would have noticed headlights behind me…or anywhere.”

  Charlie considered that for a moment, his head cocked to the side. Outrage and admiration fought for control over his sharp features. “Where did you get the car?”

  “I bought it from the brother of the train station attendant in Eau Claire. I told him I needed to get to my sick mother in Minocqua as quickly as possible.” She stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated show of sadness and lowered her voice to a choked whisper. “She likely won’t make it through the night.”

  “And he bought that load of manure?”

  Vivian shrugged. “It helps if you can cry on cue.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I can’t decide if you’re brave or thoughtless.”

  “Neither,” she said. “Both.” She l
ooked down at her hands and slowly unclenched the fingers. It was going to be fine, she told herself. She’d found him. He was okay. He was alive. “I just couldn’t stay away, Charlie. Not after I spoke with Freddy, and he told me you were in trouble. How could I go on to Hollywood knowing that? I had to do something.” She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. She smiled. “I’m just so glad you’re all right. I’ve been going out of my mind the past two days with worry. Bernard was supposed to get you out of jail, and I hadn’t heard anything. I called, and I couldn’t get ahold of anyone.” She stopped speaking suddenly, afraid that all the pent-up emotion would come out as a sob.

  Charlie leaned forward. His voice was low and deadly quiet. “Bernard was supposed to what?”

  “Get you out of jail. He told me on Sunday evening that he was going to talk to the police first thing Monday morning and explain that it was all a tragic accident.”

  “A tragic accident?”

  “Yes, he was going to tell them that Hap leaned into those scissors and accidentally stabbed himself.”

  Charlie’s eyebrows rose.

  “I know. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Charlie looked at her, frowning. “And your uncle never told the police anything, Viv.”

  “Of course he did. He told me he was going to fix everything.”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “Why would he tell me that and not follow through?”

  Charlie sat back in his chair. “To appease you.”

  “Appease me?” Vivian’s stomach turned over.

  “To get you to stop asking questions. To get you on that train to California and far away from here.”

  “But why?”

  Charlie spread his hands on the table. He stared down at them for a moment. “He’s covering for someone, and it was convenient for all of the suspicion to fall on me. It was convenient for him to let me rot in jail.”

  Vivian’s mouth opened, but she could think of nothing to say. She’d had the same thought that evening in front of the radio. Bernard was covering for someone, the real murderer. And in order to do that, he’d lied to her. He had always intended for Charlie to take the fall.

  “But Freddy said they had nothing on you. He said he’d have you out in no time. So what happened? Why did you run?”

  Charlie stared at her for a long time—so long that Vivian’s stomach clenched and she had time to regret the liverwurst sandwich she’d forced down on the drive. She had the sudden, terrifying realization that he was going to tell her that he’d done it after all, that he’d stabbed Hap in a fit of jealous rage. She stared back at him, willing it not to be true.

  “They have evidence,” he said.

  “What evidence?” she whispered.

  “Well, what they think is evidence, I suppose. Someone heard me telling you earlier in the day that I was going to kill Hap Prescott.”

  Vivian blinked. “What?” But even as she was questioning it, she had a glimmer of memory. He had said something like that, but he hadn’t been serious. Had he?

  “Who?”

  “One of your aunts, I believe.”

  Oh no. “Not Great-Aunt Wilhelmina? She’s deaf as a post.”

  “Apparently she’s not. And your cousin, that whey-faced one, backed her up. She says she heard me threaten him too.”

  “Constance? But you didn’t say that, did you? That you’d kill him?”

  “I said something close enough.”

  Vivian let out a shaky breath. I’ll shut him up for good. Isn’t that what Charlie had said? But he hadn’t meant it. Certainly, he hadn’t meant it.

  “That’s premeditation, Viv. Murder 101. My fingerprints and Hap’s are the only ones on those scissors.”

  “But you didn’t do it.”

  Charlie stared at her, her unasked question hovering in the air between them: Did you?

  “Of course I didn’t do it. But I couldn’t just sit there in that jail while I was framed for a murder I didn’t commit.”

  Vivian stared at him for a moment, her heart pounding with relief. He didn’t do it. Of course he didn’t do it.

  “But how did you manage it…the escape?”

  Charlie leaned back in his chair. “It was surprisingly easy, actually. Once I was officially charged with murder, they decided to transfer me to the county jail. I’d made friends with the men escorting me. Not a bad lot, those two. I managed to convince them that I’d behave, so they agreed not to cuff me. About ten minutes in, I told them I had to go to the john something terrible. So they let me, pulled over at some lonely country service station. I hopped out the back window of the restroom and took a car parked out behind the service station and just drove away. I don’t know how long it was before they realized they’d been had. Long enough for me to get a good head start, I suppose.”

  Vivian shook her head. “Took a car… You stole it?”

  Charlie shrugged with one shoulder.

  “Where is it?”

  “I dumped that one not far away and picked up another. That car is a quarter of a mile further down the road, hidden under some brush. You passed right by it on your way in. You didn’t see it?”

  Vivian shook her head.

  Charlie went on. “Baby Face Nelson spent time up at Lake Como. That was before the feds got him in, what, ’34? Even the police had a sort of hero worship for the guy, and I think they lumped me in with that kind. The glamorous gangster type. Actually, I think they wanted to believe that I’m like a detective from the pictures.”

  Vivian could barely hear him through her swirling thoughts. How could he be so casual? What a mess. What a completely unmitigated mess. Suddenly, the dam burst. Every bit of frustration and terror and fear she’d been feeling for the past two days came out at once. This was insanity, and there was no way that any of it could end well. Charlie was wanted for murder. He was on the run. She had to prove he didn’t do it. She had to, but how? She slumped and buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

  Charlie pushed his chair back abruptly, and Vivian glanced up. He grabbed the gun and slid it toward himself over the tabletop. Charlie put a finger to his lips. There was a moment of silence, and then a metallic rattling came from just outside the door. Vivian’s blood ran cold. She’d been followed.

  Charlie stood, gun held at his side. Vivian started to get up, but he pushed her back down into the chair as he slunk to the back door. Glass crunched under his heel as he opened the door and slipped outside.

  She didn’t know what to do. She was frozen to the chair, afraid to think, to move, to speak. What if the police had followed her here? She’d signed Charlie’s death warrant. She watched the open back door, her ears trained for any noise. A loud, rattling bang exploded outside. The breath stopped in her throat.

  A man’s shape appeared in the open doorway.

  “It’s me,” Charlie said.

  Vivian let her breath out in a whoosh, but she couldn’t reply. She just stared at him in silence, waiting for him to tell her the cops had the place surrounded. The jig was up.

  “Raccoon,” he said, putting the gun on the counter with a sigh. “Rooting in the garbage cans, hoping some morsel was left behind by whoever had been here last.”

  Vivian jumped up and launched herself into his arms. He caught her ungainly mass of limbs and swept her up off her feet. He held her so tightly that she thought her ribs would crack. She latched her arms around his neck and lifted her face to his. He kissed her hard. It hurt, mashed her upper lip to her teeth, but she was glad for the pain. That pain meant they were alive; it meant they were here together.

  “I’m glad you found me,” he whispered into her hair. “I thought I might never see you again.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his neck…and took in the sharp smell of fear. Charlie was afraid. She rested her forehead ag
ainst his chest and matched her breathing to his. He was alive, and she was here with him. That’s all she would allow herself to think. Nothing else mattered at this moment. Then he carried her to the bed in the other room.

  • • •

  Vivian stared at the rustic cabin ceiling, one arm thrown over her forehead. She couldn’t sleep, and she could tell by Charlie’s shallow breathing next to her that he couldn’t either. She spoke before she could second-guess herself.

  “Let’s get married,” she said. “Now. Tonight.”

  The bedsprings squeaked as Charlie turned on his side to face her. She could feel his warm breath on her shoulder, but he didn’t answer. She couldn’t read his expression in the dim moonlight. Then the bed springs squeaked again as he rolled back onto his back and sighed with exasperation.

  Her face grew warm with indignation and embarrassment. “You don’t want to marry me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  He reached up and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “You and I both know what this is. An offer to save my hide…if it comes to that.”

  That’s not the only reason, she thought but didn’t say out loud. Charlie would never believe it. She’d spent the better part of the past two months rebuffing his proposals. Why would he believe she’d changed her mind so suddenly about something so important?

  “I’m marrying you,” she said in a tone that brooked no arguments. “I’ll go out right now and find a justice of the peace.”

  “Wake him up and bring him groggy in his nightshirt and tasseled cap to marry us in the middle of the night?”

  Vivian nodded. She sat up and began trying to untangle herself from the sheets.

  “This isn’t a Laurel and Hardy short,” he said.