A Grave Search

by Wendy Roberts

  “What happened, Ron?”

  Various scenarios ran through my head as I considered how the high school Romeo ended up dead in a local cave. He was an experienced hiker and the trail would be considered mild for amateurs. Even if he’d been injured, he would’ve hauled ass to the main trail and been discovered. So he’d died here. It seemed more than likely he’d hiked here to a familiar place to take his own life after killing Ava.

  My cell phone rang and it was the officer who’d been assigned to babysit Ron until a forensic team could arrive. I tried to describe exactly where I was but this guy was obviously unfamiliar with the trail. I instructed him how to begin his trek from the parking lot and said I’d meet him at the metal sign. It wasn’t long before the huffing, puffing and sweaty cop met me there.

  He introduced himself as Officer Berry. It was hard to resist the urge to point out that his round, red face made him look like a ripe cherry.

  “Of all the days to be taking up a hiking,” he moaned. “Doing it in hundred degree weather would not be my choice.”

  “It’s only high seventies,” I corrected. “A lot cooler than the last few days so we should be grateful about that.”

  Officer Berry tilted his head and squinted at me in a look that was probably supposed to be annoyance but given the panting and perspiring that was going on, it just made him look constipated. “Right. You’re a hiker though so you’d think of it that way.”

  I guess I was a hiker now. How about that? The thought both surprised and pleased me.

  “Doing short hikes might help your mind make a more friendly connection to nature,” Dr. Chen said.

  When she said that I’d actually snorted. Seriously? People die in the woods. Bad things happen to people out in the woods. People like me.

  But maybe not anymore.

  “So show me where this guy is.”

  Okay, well except for the finding dead guy things. Those things still happened to me in the woods apparently.

  “It’s not much farther.” I nodded over my shoulder and started to lead the way. “It can be a bit of a challenge to maneuver around the rocks but just follow me and you’ll be fine.”

  Although it was tempting, I did not turn around every time Officer Berry cursed and grumped as we left the main trail. I went slowly so he’d have no issue keeping up, and I held branches for him and didn’t give in to the urge to let them thwack him in the face, just for fun.

  “Don’t make me give you something to cry about.”

  A long, deep scar down my back itched at the memory. I hadn’t dared to shed a tear.

  When we finally reached the cave area that hid Ron, the officer needed to take a moment. He sat down on the boulder across from the cave where I’d rested before. With his elbows on his knees he drew in deep breaths and swatted angrily at flies that wanted to taste the beads of sweat on his neck. I took out my last water bottle and handed it to him, then watched in annoyance as he drank part of it and then wasted the rest when he dumped the remaining water on his head.

  Once he’d recovered from the hike as much as possible, Officer Berry got to his feet, took out his flashlight and shined it inside the cave area where I indicated.

  “Sweet mother Mary, he’s dead as a doornail, ain’t he?”

  I considered the stretched skin and tufts of hair that remained on Ron’s skull and turned away.

  “You called it in as Ronald Low, right? I guess it could be him but we don’t know for certain.”

  “That’s the shirt Ron was wearing when he went missing.”

  “I know that,” the officer snapped.

  I had the feeling he really didn’t know what Ron had been wearing and I wasn’t trying to be a know-it-all. Not every officer in Washington State had been involved in this case and the feds had worked directly with it too. Still, I didn’t like this cop being bitchy with me just because he’d drawn the short end of the stick and had to sit here with the body.

  He got a little closer to the cave.

  “Looks like there’s a hole in the skull. Maybe he fell and cracked his head on a rock.”

  “There was no way he fell and then rolled up a rock bed inside a cave,” I pointed out, not caring if I did sound like I knew more than him now.

  “I guess an autopsy will tell.”

  I hooked my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m going to head back now. Garrett—” I stopped myself and corrected that familiarity. “Agent Pierce said that once you were here I could go and—”

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” Officer Berry asked.

  I’d turned away from him but now I looked back. “Should I?”

  “When you were working at the gas station I used to come in ’bout once a week. I live about a minute away from there.”

  “Oh ri-i-ight.” I nodded as if it was all coming back to me but—hello—people came and went all day long when I worked at the gas station and I hardly paid them any notice at all.

  “So you don’t live around there anymore, right?”

  So now we’re going to make small talk while Rock’n Ron’s body is only a few feet away?

  “I moved.”

  “Yeah, after that—” He stopped himself and his cherry face turned more crimson than it had while he was huffing and puffing. It was all coming back to him. The horrible truth of my life that had become the big news that rocked that small town to its core.

  “I’m going to head up now,” I told him.

  “So you found the body using your witching rod things?” he asked my back but I just kept on walking. I owed him no explanation. I was tired of Officer Berry.

  The walk back up the trail to my car was arduous because the sun was really heating things up now. I thought about Ron and what happened to have him wind up dead in a place he used to bring girls for make-out sessions. It unnerved me. Dr. Chen would have told me to spend a moment in quiet reflection or use the tools from my well-being toolbox but sometimes that just felt stupid.

  “Screw that,” I muttered as I pressed the fob on my keychain.

  My throat was parched and my head filled with questions about Ava and Ron. What the hell had happened? I’d started out not wanting to get involved in this messy case but suddenly it felt important to find Ava and untangle this big mess. With the vents of the Jeep pointed full onto my face, I drove back in the direction of I-5 and found a fast-food place close to the highway exit.

  Inside, I went to the washroom and splashed cold water on my face. Then I ordered some food and took it to a corner booth out of the sun. I nibbled at the burger and fries but the grease wasn’t sitting well with the heat. As I sipped the Coke, a gnawing need in my stomach made me wish it was a nice pinot grigio or even a cheap chardonnay.

  Scrolling through my phone I leisurely checked my emails. Every week my website www.DivineReunions.com garnered a number of legitimate requests to find the remains of loved ones. It also attracted quite a few nutjobs who wanted me to repent my pact with the devil.

  “You keep messing with the occult so I’m just gonna beat that devil out of you!” Grandma snarled.

  I’d almost died as she tried.

  God, I wanted a drink. Just one. Bottle.

  Continuing through the emails it was easy to delete the crazies. Every week though I found myself turning legitimate people away and it hurt me to do it. Many of them were grieving parents or spouses just wanting to bury their loved ones. Unfortunately, most were just too far away. My fee plus airfare and accommodations was a small price for many seeking that elusive closure. A few months ago I’d happily traipsed away from my Washington home to Florida, Maine and North Dakota. It had been a nice way to run away from my troubles by flying across the country for a day or two of dowsing. It was an adventure in the beginning but then the hotels got lonely and the minibars were too tempting.

  Unfortunately, no matter how far
away I roamed, the skeletons in my own closet were waiting to greet me when I got back.

  As if conjuring my damaged soul made it so, an email reminder of an upcoming appointment with Dr. Chen appeared in my inbox. Therapy was good. It kept me from drowning myself in the hooch my body craved. But that didn’t mean I enjoyed it any more than a monthly root canal.

  Just before I closed my emails another message popped up. A woman looking for the body of her teenage son who’d thrown himself into Snoqualmie Falls in a fit of despair a couple months ago. Witnesses saw him go over but searchers had been unable to locate his remains.

  “Why do they always have to be in the water?” I grumbled.

  Suddenly I was aware I’d spoken out loud in the crowded burger joint, and I sheepishly looked up only to lock eyes with someone across the room.

  Katie.

  Goose bumps covered my arms as I looked at her. We were the best of friends from the time my mom dropped me at my grandparents’ farm when I was six until last year when our entire world burned to ash.

  We were both frozen in stunned surprise. She was not the Katie I remembered. Gone was the fancy blond updo and sexy clothing. All that had been replaced by a fast-food worker’s gray uniform with orange trim and blond locks in a tight ponytail with four-inch dark roots. The usual look on her face of impish mischief coupled with a fiery playfulness was replaced by this woman who looked afraid to even say hello.

  “Hey!” Katie suddenly called out and waved to someone working the counter. “I’m on break, okay?”

  I was wrong about her being afraid to talk because she was walking toward me, and I was the one feeling like a cornered animal wanting to bolt from my hard plastic seat before she got to me.

  “Hi. I’m Katie Cole.” She picked my limp hand up from the table and gave it a firm shake before sitting down across from me. “I don’t think we’ve met but I can tell already we’d like each other.”

  I just stared at her, mouth agape, trying to find words for the bizarre greeting but none came.

  “I just figured since we haven’t seen each other for so long and since you never returned my texts or calls months ago that we should just start new, you know?” She picked up my Coke and took a long drink until she was noisily sucking air from the bottom of the cup.

  “I don’t have the same phone number as I used to.”

  It was a lame excuse. Katie’s number hadn’t changed and she’d also emailed me through my website. I’d ignored all contact.

  I shook my head then, knowing I owed her more.

  “I’m sorry.” I blew out a breath. “I guess I just needed to, you know, close some doors after everything.”

  She leaned back in the booth trying to look cool in her burger uniform. Remarkably she somehow pulled it off.

  “Look at me.” She waved a hand over her body that was a little rounder and softer than when I last saw her because she’d picked up the pounds that I’d shed. “Have you ever seen me so glamorous? Isn’t this just a kick in the head?”

  Abruptly, she threw back her head and guffawed, then snorted with the unladylike laughter that I’d always found so contagious. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but join in. I stifled a giggle with my hand but the harder I tried not to laugh, the more chuckles bubbled up until it was a full-on belly laugh that attracted sidelong glances from the other burger eaters.

  “It’s a little surreal seeing you flipping burgers,” I admitted after the laughter subsided.

  “Oh hell I’m nothing as glamorous as a burger flipper. I have the joyous job of being the lobby cleaner and bathroom wiper. I take out the trash. I aspire to be the burger flipper.”

  I smiled at her and barely contained another giggle. It had been forever since I’d laughed like that. I was surprised my body remembered how.

  “Hang on a sec.” Katie got up and walked behind the counter. She returned with a large container of French fries dumped on a tray next to a lake of ketchup. “Never thought I’d see you walk in here,” she admitted around a mouthful of fries.

  I thought briefly of confiding in her about finding Rock’n Ron and then I pushed that aside.

  “How have you been?” I asked, both wanting to know and dreading the answer.

  “I’m going to give you the CliffsNotes answer to that question.”

  We shared another quick giggle because, in school, CliffsNotes had taken on a comical meaning because Katie had occasionally banged a guy in class named Cliff.

  “So the short version ’cause I’ve only got a fifteen-minute break.” She dipped three fries in the ketchup and stuffed them in her mouth. “Shitty. That’s how I’ve been. My life has been a shit storm of epic proportions.”

  “That’s too bad, Katie, I’m sorry—”

  “After everything happened...you know...” She waved a hand at me and I nodded because, yeah, I lived it too. “I went about doing regular stuff, right? Figured best way to get over things was to live my life like all that horror movie stuff never happened. I played and partied like all was good.”

  I nodded.

  “But then the universe had to kick me in the vaj while I was down, you know?” She snorted derisively and ate a couple more fries. “Mom died. Had a heart attack right in the middle of giving someone a color.”

  The news hit me like a punch in my sternum.

  “Jesus, Katie, I’m so-o-o sorry.” I closed my eyes and thought about Katie’s mom. I could almost smell her Opium perfume. She’d run the salon in our small town and, growing up, she’d offered me a glimpse at the closest thing to a normal family life.

  “Yeah, it sucks big-time.” Katie picked up my Coke to drink, remembered it was empty and put it down again before adding, “Then I found out the salon and our house were both buried in debt up the poop chute. I’d seen the foreclosure notices on the kitchen table, you know? But Mom never said anything and, besides, she’d been in bad spots before and always managed to pull off a save at the last minute. Not this time. Couple days after her funeral I was out on the streets.”

  I wanted to tell her I would’ve helped her out if I’d known but we both knew that wasn’t true. I’d been in the hospital trying to hang on to the threads of my own sanity.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated because I couldn’t think of anything else. “I liked your mom.”

  “Yeah, well, I couch surfed awhile until everyone got sick and tired of me. There’s only so long people will let a grown woman cry about being an orphan.” She smiled the kind of grin that could turn into tears but then shoved more fries into her mouth. “So now I work part-time at a clothing place in the mall and then I snagged this job a couple months ago. Between the two jobs I’m hanging in there. Got a roommate at a place out this way. Of course working these jobs is just temporary. Denny’s going to try and get me a job at the casino as a waitress. Good tips and all...”

  Her voice trailed off wistfully.

  “That would be good,” I said.

  I found myself wondering if she and Denny were a couple now and then I was angry because why should I care?

  For a couple more minutes I just watched her eat her fries and then my phone chirped with a text from Garrett wanting to meet and discuss Rock’n Ron. I replied telling him I’d call him in five minutes.

  “Sorry,” I told Katie, hating myself for apologizing yet again. “But I’ve gotta get going.”

  “Oh sure.” She finished off her fries and licked the salt off her fingers. “You still with that guy? The FBI agent?”

  I nodded.

  “I worked at Big Al’s Diner for a bit. Saw your guy blow in and out of town a couple months ago.”

  I tilted my head and frowned at her.

  “Yeah, he stopped at Big Al’s for a coffee during the couple weeks I worked there. I got fired the next day because I slept in. This is one of the things I learned the hard way a
fter Mom was gone and I had to fend for myself. Apparently when people hire you they expect you to actually show up at a specific time.”

  She chuckled and then paused and looked at me. I realized she was expecting me to laugh along with her but I was still focused on Garrett being in my old stomping grounds and not mentioning it. Mind you, he was an FBI agent so most of what he did wasn’t stuff he shared with me.

  “Too bad you got fired.” I gave Katie an encouraging smile. “I remember how much you loved the French toast at Big Al’s whenever you were hungover.”

  “I know, right? It was the best.” She sighed and for a second we shared a look that said this was like old times. “Yeah, your guy was sitting in a booth with a guy and I heard the name Arsenault. Made me think of you.”

  “Arsenault?” I sucked air into my lungs in surprise as my old surname slapped me hard in the face. “Who was he with?”

  “Jesus. I dunno. Some suit.” She tucked a strand of hair back into her ponytail and then slid out of the booth.

  “So, did you say hi to Garrett when you saw him?” I asked, getting to my feet.

  “Nah, I made sure he didn’t see me. All those memories, right?” She made a big display of shuddering in disgust. “Still trying to keep them away.”

  I knew all about that.

  “You call me and we’ll do coffee, okay?” She abruptly leaned in and gave me an awkward one-armed hug.

  “Sure.” I stared at her back as she walked away leaving me with a ton of questions and only one place to go for answers.

  Once I was back in my Jeep I called Garrett.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m at a burger place just off I-5,” I answered. “Near exit 242.”

  My head was swimming with questions about Katie and someone named Arsenault but I didn’t want to ask him over the phone.