A Living Grave

by Robert E. Dunn

  Carrie crossed her arms and looked back at the storefront, then to the sky and back to the ground. “She wasn’t my friend, okay?”

  I wondered if her surliness was about guilt or fear. “Even if she wasn’t, wouldn’t you want to help find her killer?”

  “What would I know about it?”

  “I’m not saying you know anything about it. But you know something about that man, Leech.”

  “So?”

  “So it might help me to understand what happened if I knew something about him.”

  Her arms were crossed over her chest and she kept looking off into the street or into the store window, avoiding me and the word. Afraid of being caught talking or hoping for rescue? “Carrie—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Remember what I said about trust, Carrie. You can trust me. I just want to help you.”

  “No one helps anybody. I’ve got my own help and it’s none of your business.”

  “What help, Carrie?” No answer. “Can you tell me why you need help?” She looked ready to cry. “Does it have something to do with this Leech?”

  Carrie reached down to the car hood and, with a finger, wrote the name in the grime. Leech. As soon as it was complete she swept away most of the word with the palm of her hand. “You don’t understand anything,” she said.

  “Help me to understand, Carrie. I’ve been looking for him. Can you tell me his real name?”

  She grinned like she knew a secret but only for a second before she dropped it and said, “No.”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  She nodded, then quickly said, “That’s not why I can’t tell you. I don’t know.”

  “Is Danny afraid of him too?”

  Carrie nodded again.

  “Has he threatened you?”

  “Why can’t you just catch him and put him in jail?”

  “Because I need information. I don’t know if he did anything. I don’t even know his name.”

  “He killed Angela.”

  I looked at her and she turned away to look at the dirty car hood again.

  “Do you know that for sure? Did you see it?”

  Still looking down, she shook her head.

  “Do you know anything I can use in court?” I asked.

  “I know he’s bad. I know he did it.”

  “How?”

  “I just do. Because I hate him.” Then she looked up and past me. Danny had just come out of the hardware store with a bag. She leaped at him.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. The question was quiet and addressed to Carrie, but he wasn’t taking his gaze off of me. Carrie whispered something to him and his eyes turned down to look at the hood of his car. The L was still there with the lower point wiped away. “We have to go,” he said.

  I didn’t stop them.

  * * *

  Nelson Solomon was still in the hospital. A nurse at the third-floor desk pointed to an open door at the end of a long hall. As I approached I heard a raised voice coming from inside saying, “You act like everything’s a big joke. I’m tellin’ you this guy will gut you like a fish and smile the whole time.” The voice was thick with a meaty sound that matched the accent that sounded halfway between Brooklyn and New Orleans. I stopped in the hall and listened at the door.

  “What?” Nelson asked. “Are you trying to do me a favor?”

  “Someone needs to. But I ain’t doin’ it.”

  “You aren’t living up to your reputation,” Nelson said and I could hear the humor in his voice.

  “That’s business. This ain’t.”

  That’s when I walked into the room expecting to see someone more in line with the biker look. I was surprised to see someone who looked like a fireplug with a gin-blossom nose and wearing an expensive suit.

  “Hello,” I said, more as an announcement than a greeting.

  Nelson smiled. The other guy looked like some men I had seen when something explodes nearby. Instantly ready to fight.

  “Hurricane,” Nelson said. “I mean, Detective Williams.”

  “Whatever,” the other guy said. Then he brushed past me leaving the room.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Nelson answered. “Some people want to buy something from me. I’m not in the mood to sell.”

  “Not enough money?”

  “More than enough money. But money isn’t everything, is it?” He asked the question with the kind of tone that implied humor, but there was nothing funny about it.

  He turned to look out the window. The view was mostly of a parking lot and traffic, but beyond that were trees whose green heads looked like a sea spreading out to the horizon. He was like a sailor watching the sea move, but caught between memories of journeys taken and dreams of those that would never be. “Mr. Interesting,” I said to his back.

  He didn’t turn right away, but in the faint reflection on the glass I saw him smile.

  “I’ve been waiting for the nurse,” he said.

  “Time for your sponge bath?” That time it was me trying to be funny and not quite getting it right. Hospitals always put me in a weird state of mind, but I was in a proper enough state to instantly regret the joke.

  “Only if you’re offering,” he answered and when he turned there was anything but regret on his face. “But mostly I was wanting to get out of here.”

  “I just came from your house, Mr. Solomon,” I said, trying to bring it back to business. “There was another biker there.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “What?”

  “The house. I had it built a couple of years ago. It’s one of those semi-prefab things, a log cabin with all the logs cut in a factory and delivered on a truck. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “It’s a beautiful home but I didn’t go inside. There was no break-in. But it concerns me that two club bikers have turned up with you apparently in their sights.”

  “You’re bound and determined to make this official, aren’t you?” He stepped away from the window and turned to face me. For the first time I noticed the pole and the bag it was holding that dripped clear fluid through a needle into his arm. Nelson saw me looking. “This,” he said, showing off the arm with the IV needle taped over his vein, “has nothing to do with yesterday.” The thought made him smile at something. I couldn’t see what it was but I could see the way his gaze focused elsewhere. “But it seems to have everything to do with tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked before my mental train pulled into the station.

  Understanding must have shown on my face because he didn’t explain and I didn’t say anything. Still, he nodded, a silent acknowledgement. Mr. Solomon had been sick before the biker got hold of him. Everything fell into its unpleasant but inevitable place as I looked him over again. Loss of weight. Newly bald head. Blood. And worst of all, the look of resignation in his eyes. It wasn’t pitiful at all, just kind of sad, like someone who has to leave home for a place and a duty he can’t get out of.

  If I had to guess, I would have said that the medicine in the IV was some kind of chemotherapy. I didn’t want to guess.

  Before I could say I was sorry or think of any other words to hide behind, he said, “Now. About that sponge bath . . .”

  We laughed together, but it was short-lived. Nelson covered his mouth and hurried into the bathroom. Even though he took the extra time to close the door, I could hear him vomiting. When it was over I heard water running and the brushing of teeth before the door opened again.

  “I thought you would be gone,” he said as soon as he came out.

  “Told you, I’m not very delicate.”

  “Well, that makes one of us.” He smiled again and it was a wounded look, the kind to follow a shameful confession. “I would have been here today anyway getting the drip. Because I was unconscious yesterday they wanted to keep me overnight. Two birds, one insurance bill.”

  “You got your ass kicked yesterday and spent today on chemo.”

/>   He nodded and the shame was lingering.

  “Then you hit me up for a sponge bath almost as soon as I walked in the door. I’d say you don’t have a delicate bone in your body.”

  His smile then was genuine. He grinned as a matter of fact. It was the kind of a look that sits well on a man and that makes a woman proud to have put it there. I had to remind myself that his smile was not the reason I was there.

  “Can you tell me about the bikers?”

  “I would if I had anything to tell. I’ve seen some around but my first conversation with one was yesterday.”

  “And that little spot of land you were on?” I asked.

  “Like I said, the bank owns that and I had permission from Jack Elliot, the manager, to be there.”

  I pulled the folded paper from my pocket, the one with Cotton Lambert’s picture on it, and handed it over.

  Nelson held it up in the light from the window. As he did, the short sleeve of his hospital gown rode up and revealed a tattoo on his shoulder. It was a small EGA—eagle, globe, and anchor. Marine.

  “That’s the guy,” he said, handing the picture back. “You get him?”

  “No. But I expect to run him down pretty quick. Are there any other areas that you’ve been painting lately?”

  He hesitated and thought. I could see a question in his eyes and thought for a second that something had sparked a connection that would make sense. I was wrong.

  “Is there a Mr. Hurricane at home?” he asked me.

  My answer was no answer. “Other places you’ve been painting?” I reminded him.

  Either I was completely transparent—and that I doubted—or my face gave away something without the rest of me knowing it. Nelson nodded again. This time it was a knowing, satisfied bob of the head. “All over,” he said. “Pretty much anyplace I can get interesting views of the lake. I’ve been doing a lot of painting.”

  “Do you know anything about bootlegging?”

  “Bootlegging?” He sounded completely surprised by the question. “Do they still do that?”

  I nodded.

  “Why? You can go into any liquor store and buy whatever you want.” I was about to answer but the aspect of his face changed. He looked like he was concentrating hard on something. For a moment I thought he was going to admit something or give up a piece of information. Instead, he put a hand over his mouth. His concentration was all in keeping himself from throwing up again. After a moment, he said, “I have a friend that might know something.”

  That’s something cops hear a lot. Not just, I have a friend but I know someone who knows someone or I read about this one crime . . . It’s the flip side of what Clare Bolin had said when he was pointing the finger at the sex offender in the neighborhood. People want to help and they always try to fill in the gaps when they don’t have actual information. It’s a weakness we exploit in interrogation, but in the initial questioning phase it tends to produce useless information.

  So instead of asking about his friend, I described the area where Angela had been found and asked if he had been painting around there. It was a question that had to be asked because of the overlap of the cases more than any thought he was involved. He answered no. When I asked if he knew Angela Briscoe he said the same. His negative responses were believable more because of how he looked than what he said. It would take a strong person to lie that well when he was looking like he had to puke again.

  “I’ll let you get back to resting,” I said and folded the picture back up to tuck it into my pocket. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “What? No sponge bath?”

  Again, I almost put my foot, boot and all, in my mouth. I started to say that he might not be up for it. The unintentional double entendre caught my attention just in time. Instead, I told him that his truck was impounded and where it could be picked up.

  “I’ll need a ride,” he told me. There was nothing coy about the statement. It was both fact and hope. “I get out of here this afternoon.”

  “Maybe you’d rather—”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “The impound closes at five.”

  “Then maybe I’ll need a ride home.”

  Chapter 6

  Sheriff Benson had told Mr. and Mrs. Briscoe to expect me. They were grief-stricken but gracious, offering tea while we sat in the small family room stuffed with matching floral sofa and love seat. The walls were cluttered with family pictures that showed Angela’s entire life from birth to just weeks before her death at thirteen.

  I was there for most of an hour with the meat of the time spent in long pauses and painful inward-pointing blame. Parents who lose children violently rarely remain married. The loss is a hard wind on a strong tree. At first they cling, needing the comfort of each other, but slowly seams appear that no one ever suspected. The only thing stronger than the guilt is the need to blame. Even when the person responsible is caught and punished, it’s not enough. It’s almost as if love demands personal responsibility. Either one partner blames the other or one, or both blame themselves. The truth is that their love for each other becomes the mirror of loss and no one can look into that for very long.

  As I sat with the parents of Angela Briscoe I was witness to the opening of the first seams. Mary Briscoe was holding a photo of her daughter. Whenever her husband, David, leaned her way or put an arm around her, she protected the picture. In private, he had probably told her to put it down. I imagined he thought it was unhealthy for her and she wondered why he wasn’t showing more pain.

  David Briscoe turned from his wife and looked right into my eyes and asked me, “Was she raped?”

  I shook my head and dropped my eyes to his hands. They were twisted into each other like knots. “We don’t think so,” I said as I brought my gaze back up to his.

  “Don’t think?”

  “There will have to be lab work, medical inspection. That happens up in Springfield. But there are normal indications we look for. There was nothing like that.”

  “I was just . . . thinking . . .” he said, picking through his word choices carefully. “Wondering . . . maybe if she had . . . If it had happened. . . there might be DNA. If there was, then you would catch him for sure, wouldn’t you? Now there’s a chance you won’t. The sheriff said things. He wouldn’t promise us. He said things like, do our best and never stop trying, but that’s not the same as saying the bastard will be caught. Not the same as saying the man that killed my daughter will pay.”

  In his face I could see both the fire that burned and the need he had to throw on more fuel. David Briscoe believed—had to believe, I guess—that the fire could be stoked high enough to consume the pain, then die. He didn’t understand that it would linger within him forever, a furnace within his heart.

  “Kill him,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “If you find him. If you get the chance. Think of my baby girl and pull the trigger on the son of a bitch. It would be the right thing.”

  “I understand, sir,” I told him. “But you need to put those thoughts out of your head. They won’t help anything.”

  For the first time Mary looked me in the eyes. “Can you promise?” she asked.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Promise that you will catch this man.”

  I wondered about the strength of Chuck Benson, an elected sheriff who wanted everyone to be happy and like him. He looked into those same eyes and refused to promise. It was the right thing, but it had to be hard. I know how hard it was for me. I changed the subject.

  “Do you know anything about the motorcycle club called the Nightriders?”

  “Motorcycle club?” Mr. Briscoe asked, and it was more than a question.

  “What would we know about a motorcycle club?” Mrs. Briscoe said with almost no meaning or inflection. She was looking at Angela’s picture again.

  “You mean bikers,” he said. “There’s been one around. I’ve seen him. Is that the one that did this?”

  “We don’t know,
Mr. Briscoe,” I told him. “We have to look at everything.”

  “I should have known,” he said. “A man should know when things are wrong. When people like that show up, nothing is ever the same.”

  “When have you seen a biker, Mr. Briscoe?” I asked.

  He looked down at his wife, who seemed to still be ignoring us in favor of the photograph. “Sometimes at night,” he said. “You can hear the engine at all hours, fast and loud. She didn’t hear it. She sleeps—heavy.” There was a note of accusation in his voice and on his face.

  I wondered if by heavy, he wanted to say “sedated.” Pills or drink? Either way, it was a source of friction that was only going to heat up between them.

  “What nights did you hear it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, finally looking up but not at me. He was looking out the window to the front yard and street. It was easy to imagine him, in the middle of the night, watching for a noisy motorcycle. It was easy to imagine that he was wishing he knew then what he thought he knew now. “All hours. Any night. Whenever. I heard it several times but only saw him once.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Big guy. About all I can say. Even at night his arms were bare. He wore one of those biker vests with patches all over it.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

  He shook his head and simply said, “They’re all criminals. Sons a’ bitches.”

  I asked him some more questions about bikers and moonshine and the name Leech. I asked about the kids that I had seen the day before and Carrie Owens. He had nothing good to say. He seemed to feel about teenagers the same way he felt about bikers. In all, I was there a couple of hard hours asking intrusive questions about their life and their daughter. In the end, I got what you usually get in these situations: Angela was well liked and friendly; she had no known connection to criminals or drugs; she took cookies to a retirement home at least once a month and sang songs to the residents. A perfect daughter.

  At the bottom on my notes I again wrote the name Leech then underlined it with thick black marks. The biker was the only connection I was finding.