The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

by C. J. Box

  He made the girls a special supper of buckwheat cakes dredged in molasses, and as darkness fell, he told them a story about how lonely Aunt Lottie would be tonight if they didn’t come again, and how she said she would make gingerbread and keep it warm near the fire just for them. He had told Lottie only that he was feeling the need to make frequent trips to the church. Assuming his need was of a spiritual nature, she was happy to tend to the girls. Let her think what she will, William thought. When Callie asked him about the tools he was assembling in the wagon before they left, he told her he would be digging potatoes and hoped she would forget his answer before she had a chance to tell Lottie that he was digging potatoes in April in a churchyard.

  He left them on the warmth of Lottie’s hearth, without tears this time, a fact he was grateful for. As soon as he was a good half mile from Lottie’s place, he stopped the wagon and reached under the seat for the jug of rum he’d stowed there. His nerves, which had been none too steady all day, were beginning to work on his hands, making them tremble a bit as he thought of the job he’d cut out for himself. He had shoveled tons of soil without a thought, but now it would be a delicate operation, else he could harm the boy further, a thought that sickened him. He held the jug in his hands, waited for the first swallow to settle, then took another drink. That would be all for a while. He could not afford to get drunk, at least not until his evening’s work was done.

  Pulling up in front of the church, he was relieved to find it dark and silent—​no late-night parishioners seeking guidance such as Lottie imagined him to be. He waited in front of the building for a moment to be sure no one was coming down the road from either direction, then got down from the wagon and took hold of the reins. With the lantern held high in one hand, he led Gus around to the rear of the church and pulled the wagon up as close behind the back wall as he could get it. Any late-night traveler riding by must see nothing but a dark church and an empty graveyard.

  Tying Gus to a pine at the corner of the building, he took the tools and feed sack and carried them down to the boy’s grave. Coming back to the wagon, he picked up the jug and finally the lantern, which he turned down to a flame the size of a feather tip.

  He stopped at Hannah’s grave for a moment and wondered if she knew what he was about to do and if she knew, did she approve. But he could feel nothing of her tonight, only the darkness and isolation of the place, and he wondered if his nerve would hold out for the duration of the task.

  Bidding her farewell for now, he lifted the lantern and the rum and walked downhill to the soggy ground where Johnny Grant lay buried and where Johnny Grant would soon not lie buried, courtesy of William and his shovel.

  Taking another drink before he began, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and put the jug down close by. Then he picked up the shovel and set to work.

  * * *

  He rose late the next morning and, after a breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee, went to work on the second part of his plan. Today he would cast the bait. This could involve one stop or many, depending on how long it took him to find his prey. He hoped it would only involve one stop—​the sawmill where Eddie Bishop was known to show up on occasion and work. No matter what, William intended to keep hunting the boy until he found him.

  He had left the girls at Lottie’s overnight and stopped by to see them and to spin another lie to Lottie. His conscience, which had lain dormant for weeks, had begun to prick him, but the lying would soon be done. The plan would come to its conclusion tonight, either to success or failure. Either the prey would take the bait or not, either the boys would both come or not, either the words of confession would be spoken or not. He challenged God to make it happen while dismissing the hope that he would. He had once beseeched God to stop Hannah’s bleeding and beseeching had proved useless. He doubted a challenge would go much further, but it was the closest he could get to prayer.

  His first stop, at the sawmill, came to nothing. Wendell Pike’s father was just finishing up a small order and had not needed extra manpower. Eddie Bishop, if he had come, had not been needed and had not stayed. William thanked the man, said he’d consider the price for boards they’d discussed, and left, marveling at the ease with which he was concocting and delivering lies.

  He tried the gristmill next, with no luck, and then the tannery, in case Eddie or Wendell was passing time there and jawing with some of the other boys, and then the store, where he was told Eddie had come and gone after doing some business. Everywhere someone would listen, William spun his tale, the one he wanted spread around until it would be impossible for Eddie Bishop and Wendell Pike not to hear it, even if they didn’t hear it from him. Figuring he could never be so lucky as to find Eddie or Wendell at the tavern, William went in anyway to get himself a drink and spread his bait around a bit more. When he found Eddie Bishop inside, kneeling over a game of marbles, William made a tentative pact with God to reconsider his new faithlessness.

  Having found his prey, he looked about for a suitable ear to hear his tale. The tavern was not thickly crowded, with it being the middle of a working day, but there were a few men like himself, slaking their thirst before or after attending to business, and a group of ne’er-do-wells over in the corner with Eddie, some engaged in and some watching the game in progress. William ran himself a mug of rum, took a chair at a table as close to the marble group as possible, and began speaking with great drama to a man he had never seen before in his life.

  “Traveler?” he asked, turning his chair so his voice would be projected into the marble corner.

  The stranger nodded. “Passing through on my way to Charleston.”

  “You wouldn’t be Johnny Grant’s uncle, then.”

  “Never heard of him,” the stranger said. “My name’s Davis.”

  “Oh,” William said, and held out his hand to the man. “Will Gibson’s the name. Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Davis. Not that I’m trying to meddle in your business, but we’re expecting a visitor to the neighborhood and I thought you might be him, seeing as how I didn’t know you. Pretty important man coming here, as I understand it. Coming here to do a sorrowful thing, though.”

  “Is that right?” Davis said, and William could see he had aroused the man’s interest, as he had hoped to. “And what would that be, if you don’t mind telling it.”

  “Don’t mind a bit, seeing as how everybody will know it sooner or later. This gentleman who’s coming here, Beau Grant’s his name, he had a nephew here name of Johnny Grant, who was robbed and killed a couple of weeks ago. Cut down in the road just like a dog and left to bleed to death. The poor boy didn’t have his right mind and didn’t have any relations here, so he was buried in a soggy old grave behind the New Hope Methodist Church and we all thought that was the end of it. But that was before his Uncle Beau got wind of what happened.”

  Davis sat up lazily in his chair and scowled at William. “If the boy didn’t have any relations, then who told his uncle?”

  “Well,” William said, thinking fast and cursing the stranger Davis for being so quick-witted, “one of the women of the church, who knew about this uncle, she sent him a letter about it. And just the other day she got one back.”

  William looked over to the marble corner and saw Eddie had lost his turn and had moved back a bit from the group. Judging from his intense frown, William assumed he was concentrating on something other than marbles.

  The stranger nodded as if that were the close of the subject and swilled his drink. William continued as if he’d been asked for more.

  “Seems like this uncle, Beau Grant, is a wealthy man and didn’t like the notion of his blood kin being cut up and left to die and then buried in swamp ground. He’s a good man, this uncle is, because he hardly knew the boy and knows he didn’t have a thing to his name hardly except what the thieves took off him, and of course that’s gone. Not a thing left on the face of this earth but that row of gold teeth in his mouth,” William said. “After all,” he added, and chuckled, “what thief w
ould have thought of opening up a boy’s mouth and plucking out his gold teeth, even if they would bring a pretty penny?”

  The stranger was looking at him as if he were daft, but William plowed on, rewarded by Eddie’s rapt attention. The boy was now clearly paying no mind to the marble game in front of him.

  “So what Beau Grant’s fixing to do is only because he wants the boy to rest in peace in a nice place and near to one relative at least. He’s expected sometime tomorrow, and he’s going to dig that boy up and take him back to his own home and put him in the family burying ground up where he lives near Richmond. Coming all this way to carry that boy to a proper grave, that’s a good man.”

  Davis nodded in agreement. “Train? Ugly work to carry a body that far any other way.”

  “Horse and wagon,” William said without thinking, then quickly set out to cover his mistake. “He is a rich man; in fact, he paid for those teeth, but he wants to keep the boy in his hands and under his care all the way. Feels like he’s suffered enough at the hands of strangers. So tonight will likely be the last night that poor boy will spend in his grave behind the church, God rest his soul. His uncle will have him up by tomorrow night and on his way back home.” William spoke the word tonight a little louder than the rest and hoped the gears would start turning in Eddie’s head.

  “Well, he’s a better man than I am,” Davis said, and finished his drink. “I can’t say I’d be real eager to dig up a body that’s been put down for weeks and tote it a couple of hundred miles with me on the back of a wagon. A grave’s a grave, regardless of where it is. Why go to the trouble, especially since he hardly knew the boy?”

  “It’s just the kind of man he is,” William said, and rushed to finish his speech because the stranger was brushing off his coat and pushing back his chair. “And it won’t be that much trouble, not with the kind of spring we’ve had. It’ll take some time, that’s true, but the earth’s neither crusty dry nor heavy sodden. ’Course where the boy is, the soil’s damp all the time and it would be a lot quicker job for two men than one. But I expect Mr. Grant can get some help if he needs it. Good luck to you, sir,” he finished, and stood up himself. “I hope your business goes well in Charleston.”

  Mr. Davis nodded in response and made his way out of the tavern. William walked over to the keg, ran himself another rum, and sat back down at the table. He could not have asked for the second part of the plan to run more smoothly. The bait had been cast and he just had to wait and see if the fish were biting.

  He stretched his legs out under the table and leaned back in the chair, sipping at the rum and watching Eddie reenter the marble game. It was with great satisfaction that William saw him lose his turn right off.

  * * *

  The hours before dusk had to be filled, so he filled them with his daughters, playing games and telling stories between the chores that could not be postponed. Finally, when the shadows were slanting long and narrow, he told them another story about how Aunt Lottie would need them for just one more night, and then she’d be all right on her own, and they could sleep in their own beds at home once again. He dropped them off with little fanfare, except for Lottie’s questions, which he pretended not to hear. Tomorrow he would tell her everything. Tonight he had nothing on his mind but capturing his prey. Again the church was dark and the churchyard empty when he got there. Riding around to the back, he dismounted, shouldered his shotgun, and scanned the woods that surrounded the small burial ground. If the Reverend Brown had gotten there first, he had hidden himself well. William saw nothing but tree trunks and undergrowth dissolving into blackness.

  He led Gus into the woods on one side, and after tying up to a sturdy persimmon tree, he stepped back into the clearing. Following along the edge of the woods, he turned to look where Hannah lay but dared not stop because the cover of darkness was complete, and his prey would be eager for their treasure. Stepping back into the forest just behind the boy’s grave, he squinted and finally, some twenty feet in, caught sight of a glint of metal. Stepping another yard sideways, he saw a faint glow emanating from behind a large tree trunk. Moving forward as quietly as he could, he walked in toward the light and found the Reverend Brown sitting cross-legged beside an ancient oak tree, his Bible open on his lap. Next to him, hidden from direct view by the massive trunk, a kerosene lantern was glowing. Sitting beside that, wedged upright into the oak leaves, was a silver flask.

  “Didn’t know you were a drinking man, Reverend,” William said, settling down on the ground across the lantern from him. “Hope I haven’t driven you to it, with this scheme of mine. You’re a good man to help me.”

  “You haven’t driven me to anything, William. I drink hot coffee even when I’m not spending a night in the woods trying to catch two killers. I just hope we won’t be needing that.” He nodded toward the shotgun over William’s shoulder. “And call me Mark, if you don’t mind. Seems like we’re going to be here too long to stand on formalities.”

  William was struck dumb for a moment and then extended his hand as if he’d just met the man. “I never figured on you having a first name somehow. Stupid of me.”

  “That’s all right,” the preacher said, and offered his hand in return. “Lots of folks feel that way. Coffee?” he asked, and lifted the flask.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” William said, and took a drink. It was perfect, lukewarm and strong. “How long have you been here, Mark?” He said the name only with difficulty, as if breaching a taboo.

  “I got here just before dark and checked inside the church to make sure it was empty. Found this spot and got settled in about a half hour ago. I expect we’ve got a long night ahead of us. You got the boy . . . up all right?”

  “Yep,” William said, remembering the soft resistance of the shovel tip when it met flesh. “The poor soul was put down in a sheet, not even a decent coffin.”

  “That’s a shame, but made your work last night easier. You find the new spot all right?”

  “I found it,” William said, remembering himself pulling the boy’s body behind him, his handkerchief up to his nose. “Don’t you suppose we ought to turn that light down, Reverend—​Mark, in case one of them is sharp-eyed and looks this way?”

  “There’ll be time enough for that. We’re liable to be here a couple of hours before they come and I’d planned on doing a little studying. We hear anybody coming, we can put it out in a second. You couldn’t see it from the back of the church, could you? I couldn’t when I looked.”

  “No,” William admitted. “And I reckon we’ll hear them long before they could see us.”

  The Reverend Mark Brown nodded and they said a few more things and then the preacher looked back down to his Bible. William moved back and leaned against a tree trunk. He closed his eyes, better to hear any hoofbeats in the distance, but all he heard was a chorus of spring peepers filling the night air with their singing.

  * * *

  He had not realized his own fatigue. Coming out of a restless sleep, he checked his watch and found that an hour and a half had passed. The sight of the minister still bent over the Bible in his lap gave William such a feeling of annoyance that he had to look elsewhere. Stretching out flat, his fingers interlocked under his head, he gazed up into the overhead limbs. After a few moments, his eyes got used to the dark and he searched out star patterns in the sky. He tried to find Virgil the sky bear but could only see scattered stars against a backdrop of eternal blackness.

  And yards away from him, Hannah lay under the earth, just as isolated as any star overhead, her coffin nailed shut tight, another world of eternal darkness. Knowing the preacher was still reading, wasting the light of a lantern to study the meaningless ancient words, William felt his blood begin to run a little faster, his mind become a little sharper. He sat up and stretched his legs.

  “Mark,” he said, still with difficulty because the existence of a Christian name made the man harder to hold at arm’s length.

  The preacher stopped reading and looked ov
er at him. “Yes?”

  “How old are you?”

  He closed the Bible, leaving a twig to hold his place. “Twenty-four.”

  “You don’t have a wife, do you? Or children?”

  The younger man smiled. “Hard to have one without the other.”

  “But you don’t have either.”

  “No, I don’t. Hope to, someday.”

  “You hope to,” William repeated, feeling that some blister in his soul was about to burst and it would kill him if it did and kill him if it didn’t. The preacher’s face was earnest, interested, innocent of life as it really was. William knew now his goal was to erase that look on the younger man’s face and replace it with one that reflected life on earth.

  “So,” William continued, pausing briefly as they both heard a horse coming down the road. The hoofbeats rose and then fell away into the night. After a moment the spring peepers, who had hushed for the disturbance, started their chorus again.

  “So,” William repeated, “you don’t have a wife. If you did, would you love her?”

  “I hope so,” the younger man said, and laid the Bible on the ground beside him. “That is the main idea on entering into marriage, I think. At least, in most cases.” His tone was still conversational, jocular; it was a lighthearted chat with a parishioner.

  Around them the forest was teeming with life, with the singing of frogs and the stealthy movements of animals who lived their lives after dark and crept about the forest floor unseen. Even the treetops swayed gently in the night breezes, stoic and silent but alive nonetheless, the stream of life flowing into them from the dark earth below. This was the land of the living.