Burial Plot (A Jonelle Sweet Mystery Book 1)

by R. Lanier Clemons

  Manross saw her staring. “You want a cigarette?”

  Jonelle nodded. “Sure.” He handed the pack to her. She shook one out and put it in her purse.

  He gave her a peculiar look.

  “I’m trying to quit,” she said. “I’m down to just a couple a day.”

  “Where was I? Oh yeah,” Manross said, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth, “it’s mainly just me and Jorge, and—”

  “Don’t tell me you guys dig graves by hand,” Jonelle interrupted.

  “Hey, you wanna hear me out or what? See, this is the way it works. First we gotta measure and mark out the grave spaces before digging it out with the backhoe. And, yeah, sometimes we also use shovels. Then we shore up the sides with timber or metal struts and hydraulic jacks so it doesn’t cave in before the services. I’m telling you this ‘cause once we put them in the ground, I got no reason to take them back out again. You hearin’ me?”

  “I hear just fine. Now you hear me. I buried my husband in Perpetual Rest Cemetery, and now he’s gone. You’re the head gravedigger. You tell me—where the hell is he? If you didn’t move him, then who did? Just how hard is it to remove a body once it’s been buried? Can anybody just go in and do it?”

  Manross started walking again. Jonelle matched his stride.

  “It’s damn hard,” he said. “You gotta bring out all the excavating equipment again. It’s not exactly quiet, and then you’re left with a damn big hole. I’m tellin’ you, lady, it ain’t worth the hassle.

  “Look,” Manross continued, “sometimes, especially in a cemetery old as the Rest, when we start diggin’ a grave or when we hafta re-grade in an old area, sometimes we nick a casket and a few bones pop up. We try to put them back in the ground so no one knows the difference. But we don’t go around diggin’ up bodies on purpose. How many times I got to tell you that?”

  “Maybe it’s not worth the hassle, but is it worth it if someone paid to have it done?”

  He snorted and flicked the half-smoked cigarette on the ground. Jonelle made a mental note that it landed between some pine trees and a small pile of gravel, about fifteen feet to the south of a rundown old shed painted yellow with a green roof.

  She studied the man walking next to her. Though small, he looked fit. She could almost feel the power emanating from his wiry body. She wondered if maybe he really didn’t know what happened to Del’s body, then pushed the thought away. Manross didn’t strike her as the kind of person who wouldn’t know what was going on around him.

  She decided to approach the issue another way. “My husband may have been involved in something… uh… illegal.”

  Manross stopped near the yellow storage shed and squinted at Jonelle. The beginnings of a smile played on his lips. “Your old man was doing drugs, huh? My, my, my.”

  Jonelle glanced at the low building, then turned to face Manross.

  He sauntered over to the shed and leaned against one side, near the opening.

  For the second time since they left the clubhouse, Jonelle felt uneasy. Where are all the people? At least the man was talking, and she didn’t want him to stop. Jonelle stood in front of him.

  “No, it wasn’t drugs.”

  “Then what? Prostitution? Was the dude a pimp?”

  She shook her head but didn’t elaborate. Since Manross didn’t seem to know what Del was involved in, she wasn’t about to tell him. She changed the subject. “I discovered he hung out at the same saloon you do. The Laughing Moon Saloon.”

  Manross flinched at the name.

  Jonelle smiled at his reaction. “It’s not that big of a place, and the bartender said Del was the type of guy who grabbed attention. Are you saying you never noticed a good-looking, well-dressed black guy in that place? He would’ve stood out, considering the clientele.”

  Manross shrugged. He crossed his arms. “Mighta seen somebody look like that.”

  “Stop playing games with me. Do you remember him or not?”

  “If I seen the dude, I seen him alive,” he said, almost shouting. He lowered his voice. “I didn’t see him buried, and I sure as hell didn’t see him unburied.”

  They stared at each other.

  Jonelle thought of something else. “Didn’t you people ever think that family members or friends would ever visit the grave? What excuse did you have ready when they wondered where the body was?”

  “Hey, nobody was ever supposed…” Manross clamped his mouth shut.

  Jonelle flashed him her best gotcha smile.

  Manross smirked, and his eyes shifted to a spot over her right shoulder.

  “What’re you…”

  Hands pushed into her back, shoving her into the shed. She screamed and fell forward, hitting the side of her head on something hard. Excruciating pain erupted above her right eye. As bad as the physical pain felt, it was nothing compared to the slamming of the door and the total darkness that followed.

  As the ache flowed from her head down to her neck and shoulders, Jonelle slid all the way to the ground and lay there moaning. The clasp of her bag dug into her chest.

  A warm, sticky wetness trickled down her face, stinging her eyes. She squeezed them shut. The wetness oozed down to the edge of her mouth. She instinctively licked the spot and nearly gagged at the taste of her own blood.

  As she lay there, Jonelle became aware of the cold, musty smell of the hard, dry earth. With agonizing slowness, she opened her eyes then immediately clamped them shut again. Her breath came in short, rapid gasps. She felt the darkness pressing hard into her body. Jonelle tried to slow her breathing. She reached a hand out to get a sense of her surroundings and banged it against something sharp. She cried out and clutched the hand to her chest, rubbing it softly, eyes still closed. As the throbbing in her hand eased, Jonelle opened her eyes and struggled to her hands and knees.

  “Please, God,” she wheezed. “I don’t want to die like this.”

  She gently lifted her head and gritted her teeth against the pain. Jonelle stared hard into the darkness, hoping to see a ray of light creeping through a window, the doorway, anything. Nothing shone through. Instead, complete blackness engulfed her.

  Jonelle’s body shook; sweat poured from her forehead and stung her eyes, mingling with the still flowing blood. She didn’t know how badly she was hurt, and she didn’t want to touch the side of her head for fear of passing out.

  A wave of nausea exploded in her stomach, and she retched. She eased back down onto the dirt floor and dug her fingers into the dry ground. She scooted forward a few feet. Dirt entered her nose and mouth, and she sneezed.

  Jonelle stopped. Dammit. She could feel her heart pounding. Slow breaths. Breathe SLOW. Jonelle managed a feeble, “One and exhale. Two and exhale.” When she reached the number twelve, the pain in her chest eased. She thought of her uncle Marvin and aunt Teresa. She thought of all of her friends and the neighbors in her building. She filled her mind with memories of traveling on the Smith Island ferry and sailing on the Chesapeake Bay.

  Jonelle crept forward a few more feet. A strong gasoline odor invaded her nostrils a moment before her head bumped into something. “Shit!” Her hand reached out and felt around the object. The bottom, near the floor, was smooth and round. As her hand played upwards on the object, she made out what felt like the pedal on her uncle’s riding mower. Blinking rapidly, Jonelle turned slightly to her left to avoid hitting it again and saw a sliver of gray in the darkness.

  She crawled toward the tiny light that seemed miles away.

  CHAPTER 15

  Jonelle knelt and peered through the tiny slit in the wall of the shed. All she could make out was the green treetops in the distance.

  “Help,” she croaked. Jonelle cleared her throat. “Help me, somebody please help!”

  Jonelle shook her head. Think, girl, think!

  “Fire!” she yelled. Pause. She put her left ear to the slit, held her breath, and strained to hear something, anything. Nothing.

  Light. I need more light.<
br />
  Jonelle felt the ground around her, careful not to move too far away from her only means of escape. Her fingers discovered some old rags, plastic bottle tops, and a few loose screws. At last they settled on a long, curved metal object. She grasped it and tried to shove it through the tiny opening in the wall. Too thick. She needed something thinner and with a sharp point. Of course! Jonelle almost laughed out loud.

  The bag still clung by its strap to her shoulder. Inside was the key ring with keys to her car, house, and mailbox. She felt around and selected the mailbox key. She wedged the key into the slit, and worked it sideways and back and forth, slightly enlarging the opening. Next, she took her door key and inserted it into the now bigger opening. With both keys in the slit and the space a little larger, Jonelle picked up the metal tool, which felt like a crowbar, and tried to loosen the boards and remove one of the planks.

  The board creaked, bent inward, but held tight. Her keys dropped to the ground. “Dammit,” she hissed. She felt around, found the keys, and put them in her pocket.

  She held the tool in one hand, and worked two fingers between the opening and pulled. Nothing happened.

  “Oh, damn.” Feeling stupid on top of everything else, Jonelle realized the boards were nailed from the outside in. She took the crowbar and started pushing against the weakened board. The nails in the wood groaned but held firm.

  Jonelle turned sideways and bent her right arm. She grasped her elbow with her left hand. She shut her eyes, took several deep breaths and rammed her right shoulder into the section of board next to the gap.

  “Ow,” she yelled, as the board, still attached to the nails, snapped in two. Quickly, Jonelle pushed the broken bits apart. The opening was only about four inches wide and six inches tall, but that was big enough.

  “Fire!” she screamed again. “Somebody, help! Fire!”

  Jonelle put her ear in the opening and nearly fainted from relief when she heard the soft padding of footsteps running in her direction. She quickly turned back to the opening and saw a small man looking curiously at the shed.

  “Help me,” she said. “Please get me out of here.”

  “No pro’lem lady. You hole on, ‘k? I git you outta there.”

  Jonelle heard scraping and thumping.

  “Yeesh,” the little man said. “Whas this stuff doin’ here?”

  The man gave a final grunt as something thudded away.

  Jonelle heard the door crack open and saw blessed light fill the shed. She squinted against the glare and stumbled out into the daylight.

  “Hey, lady. Wha’ happen to your head?”

  Jonelle probed the side of her head with her fingertips. The wound felt mushy and sticky with dried blood. Her head pounded and her vision blurred.

  “I gotta sit down for a minute,” she said, slipping down onto the grass.

  “You want I should call 9-1-1?”

  Jonelle looked up at the man who saved her. She gave him a weak smile. “If you could maybe help me to my car, I should be okay. I don’t think it’s serious.”

  “Well…”

  “Really, I’m starting to feel a little better now that I’m out of there.”

  The small man looked dubious. “At leas’ lemme take you ‘round to Doc Mayfield. He’s a vet, but mebbe…” He shrugged and reached down to help Jonelle to her feet.

  “Uh, how far is this doctor?” Dizziness made her unsteady.

  “Not far, jus’ a little ways up.”

  Jonelle tried hard not to lean too heavily on her savior. She was bigger than him, and the sight they made as he struggled to help her made her smile.

  They continued up the path Jonelle had taken with Manross and he directed the two of them away from the track’s clubhouse. After a few minutes, Jonelle sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “Whew,” she said as the pungent smell of horses and manure hit her.

  The man smiled. “You git usta it after awhile. I doan even smell it no more.”

  As the smell grew stronger, Jonelle began to see people scurrying here and there. A few horses appeared, led by small men like the one leading her—to where, she wasn’t quite sure, but she felt comfortable with him.

  “By the way, what’s your name?”

  “Hector,” he replied. “And you?”

  “Jonelle.”

  They walked along in silence, and just when Jonelle was about to ask him how much farther, they came to several stalls arranged in long, narrow rows. A wide aisle separated the rows and several large horse heads peered out at her as she passed, their big, soft eyes following her movements. At the end of one group of stalls was a wooden dutch door. She froze.

  “Come on,” he said, “is okay.”

  Hector opened both halves and guided her inside. Overhead lights exposed saddles, bridles, storage trunks, and a small bathroom in the far right corner. Next to the bathroom stood a tall, thin man handing a large bottle to a young woman dressed in jeans covered by brown leather chaps. They both turned as they noticed Jonelle.

  “What’s going on, Hector?” asked the man.

  “Doc Weston, I found this lady stuck in one ‘a the sheds back there, not far from the clubhouse. There was all kindsa stuff blockin’ the door. She couldn’t git out. I heard her shout, fire, but no fire.” He shrugged. “Jus’ her.”

  The veterinarian peered at her.

  “What’s your name, Miss?”

  “Mrs. It’s Mrs. Jonelle Sweet.” Jonelle didn’t know why she added the Mrs. She usually didn’t.

  “You should see a doctor, Mrs. Sweet,” he said.

  “I know that. I will. But if you could just, I dunno, give me something that would help steady me so I can make it back to my car. I have a friend waiting.” She looked at the bottle he had handed to the girl.

  The doctor turned back to the young woman and said, “Just give the colt twelve Bactrim pills twice a day in his grain for ten days. I’ll check on him again in two weeks.”

  The girl took the bottle and, with a sideways glance, hurried past Jonelle and Hector.

  Doctor Weston walked up and touched the side of Jonelle’s head.

  “I’m Mike Weston, resident vet here at the track. Hmm,” he said, probing around the gash on Jonelle’s head, “doesn’t appear too deep. I’ll clean it out with some betadine and get a better look.”

  He walked over to the tiny sink. From the cabinet below he grabbed a clean sponge and ran it under some warm water. On top of the sponge he poured a deep reddish-brown liquid.

  “Step over here, please, where I can see better.”

  Jonelle did as he requested, noting with relief the door to the tackroom was still wide open. She flinched as he pressed the cool sponge against her head.

  “Would you like to tell me what happened?” he asked, gently using the sponge to clean out the wound.

  “It was just a stupid accident. I’m a bit claustrophobic, and I just panicked a little is all.”

  “Uh huh.” His pale blue eyes scrutinized her. “Well, this is just a bad scrape, not so deep after all. Still, you need to keep it clean, and if you start to get headaches or experience dizziness or nausea, you get yourself to a doctor, understand?”

  Jonelle nodded, then winced as pain shot above her right eye. “Gotta not do that for a while,” she murmured.

  “Stay right here. Be back in a sec.”

  The doctor went out a side door and came back with gauze and a roll of white adhesive bandage.

  “I’m wrapping the wound with this to keep it clean. The gauze will protect it, and the vetrap is self-adhering, so you needn’t worry about it falling off. That’s the best I can do.”

  As the doctor wrapped her head, Jonelle said, “You’ve done more than enough. How much do I owe you?”

  The doctor waved her off. “No charge. I don’t usually treat people. But,” he said, looking into her eyes, “somebody tried to hurt you. Maybe you need to contact the police to find out who… and why.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that,” she said. She w
ondered, even as she said it, if she would really do anything of the sort. Feeling much better, she looked at Hector who still had a slight frown on his face.

  She took a deep breath. “Thanks, Hector, I’m sure I can make it back to my car.”

  “I think mebbe I come, jus’ in case.”

  As the two headed for the stable door, the doctor called to her. “You take care of yourself, young lady.”

  Jonelle smiled. “Will do, and thanks again.”

  Hector and Jonelle walked along in silence.

  After a few minutes passed, Jonelle said, “Doctor Weston wouldn’t take anything, but you really saved my life, so I want you to have this small token of appreciation.”

  Jonelle pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of her purse, leaving her with about two dollars and some change left.

  Hector’s eyes grew wide. He shook his head. “Hey, no. I jus’ wanted to help.”

  “And you did. Please take it. I’d feel horrible if you didn’t.”

  “Well, I dunno.”

  “I insist. Here. Please take it.”

  Hector reached out and took the bill. He folded it neatly and put it in his jeans pocket. “Okay, but I walk you all the way to your car.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  They chatted amicably as Hector guided Jonelle back through the fence and around the clubhouse. He told her he did odd jobs at the track. “Sometimes when one of the exercise riders doesn’t show, I can do some of that. I like it. Is more fun, and more money,” he added with a gleam in his eye.

  He held onto her arm as they made their way toward the big open lot where a handful of cars still remained.

  Jonelle spotted her Jeep and observed Adrienne pacing back and forth. She could tell, even from a distance, that her friend seemed annoyed. “I’m okay now, Hector,” she said. “See that woman in pink over there?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s my friend, and she’ll drive me home.” Jonelle didn’t want to explain what happened in front of Hector. Too late.