The Burial Society

by Nina Sadowsky

  “What happened to Uncle Frank?” Natalie asks.

  Before answering, Jake’s eyes dart around the hospital room, shades of mint green and peach. Who in their right mind picked that revolting combination?

  “He didn’t make it,” he finally replies.

  Natalie gives a mute nod. She’s very pale. She gestures for the cup of water sitting on her bedside tray. Jake lifts it so she can sip through the straw.

  “We don’t have to talk about it, Nat.” God knows if I never even think about any of this again, it would be just fine.

  Her fingers pluck at his arm. “I need you to understand what happened,” she implores.

  Jake feels something shifting, a fissure cracking open. He wants to avoid its slippery edge at all costs. He shifts uneasily in his uncomfortable institutional chair. The scent of hospitals—disinfectant, urine, blood, and suffering—fills his nostrils, makes him feel queasy. He’s not sure he can bear to hear the details, but doesn’t he at least owe that much to Natalie?

  “Okay,” he relents.

  In low tones, Natalie recounts the thought process that led to her suspicions.

  “I couldn’t really believe it, you know? But I knew you couldn’t have killed Dad, like they kept saying. And I never believed the idea it was a random mugging. So I pushed Uncle Frank…” Natalie’s wide gray eyes fill with tears as she continues. “About Le Boy Bleu, about that man hired to stalk Daddy…”

  Jake takes her small hand in his large one.

  “And, Jake, he just snapped. I wasn’t even scared of him, not at first. He was pathetic, whimpering about how Daddy never appreciated all the things he’d done for him.” Natalie’s hand grips Jake’s tightly. “And then…then…he admitted he killed Will Crane! He said it was yet another thing Daddy didn’t understand.”

  For a moment the heady whoosh of blood in Jake’s ears obliterates all other sound. He had been so sure Crane had killed their father. So sure that the man who had stolen their mother was walking the earth free, mocking them.

  “What? When?” he finally chokes out.

  “Back then. Right after Mom…”

  “But why? Why would Uncle Frank kill Crane?”

  “He said he went to confront him about Mom. That Crane admitted killing her! But mocked him, said he’d never be caught. Uncle Frank said…that he lost his shit. Killed him. Dumped his body. But that he did it to ‘claim justice’ for our family. And that I should be thanking him. That we all should.”

  Jake’s head is swimming. “But that letter Crane sent…”

  “Uncle Frank wrote it. To cover his tracks. Jake, it was like a stranger was talking to me. The crazy in his eyes…”

  Jake has to look away from her. “But why did he kill Dad?”

  “He admitted killing Crane to Daddy. He wanted him to know what he had done for him. He was proud of it. But Daddy was going to turn him in. Of course he was. Daddy wanted to do the right thing. So Uncle Frank killed him!” Natalie’s voice breaks. “When he started talking about Dad, I started crying, Jake. And Uncle Frank got so mad! He kept saying I should be grateful. To him. That Dad should have been grateful.”

  She gestures for another sip of water. Jake obeys.

  “I had the knife in my pocket, you know, the one you let me keep that night at dinner?”

  Jake nods. He remembers all too well.

  “I wasn’t going to use it or anything.” Natalie looks at him with imploring eyes. “I just thought it might make me feel safer, you know….But he kept yelling at me to shut up! He grabbed me, hurt me. I just tried to back him away from me, but then he grabbed for the knife and…”

  Natalie dissolves in tears. Jake stands and wraps his arms around her birdlike body. He stares down at her bandaged forearms.

  Defensive cuts, the doctor had said. Sustained in fighting off their uncle. Before the fucker succeeded in plunging the knife just below her rib cage, lacerating her liver.

  It was a miracle she’d had the strength to pull the knife out and retaliate. Luck (if you can call it that) that she’d severed an artery in Frank’s neck before he could wrest hold of the knife and stab her again.

  “It’s okay, Nat,” he soothes. “It’s all over now. You’re going to be all right.”

  “I killed him, Jake. I’m a killer now.” Natalie stares at him with stormy gray eyes, daring him to still love her.

  Guilt and gratitude war inside Jake. He allowed Natalie to slip that knife into her bag.

  The knife that saved her life.

  The knife that made her a killer.

  There’s always something hidden.

  Layers we can’t see.

  Isn’t that why we spin stories?

  To fill in the gaps?

  Answer the questions?

  And still our anxious hearts.

  Let’s go back in time, just a little bit.

  She was pissed. Fucking over it. Her hands shook as she inserted the key into the ignition. How infuriating to be treated like a child by Brian. Dismissed. Ignored.

  I’m getting out of here.

  Unexpected tears spilled hotly down her cheeks; a throbbing headache took root in the center of her forehead. She shook her pill bottle from her bag onto the passenger seat, unscrewed the cap, and popped one dry.

  She couldn’t wait to see Will. To feel his hands on her body. His mouth on her mouth. Wrapped in his arms, she knew she’d feel safe. She never thought she would fall in love again. She couldn’t believe she had.

  A flirtation that turned into conversation that turned into a stolen kiss. A solemn first fumble, and then pure joy—laughter and connection and fucking awesome sex. Mallory was giddy with it all. Glowing. Alive like she hadn’t been in years.

  It wasn’t without cost. What pleasure is? Betraying her husband, keeping secrets from him, all of that didn’t sit lightly on Mallory, even though surely they would both acknowledge the marriage had been over for years.

  And anyway, even Steven, right? She was certain Brian had strayed at some point, what with all his travel. Of course he had. But that was hardly the point. It was more that the two of them would always be linked through Jake and Natalie. It would be better if they could remain friends. Mallory felt magnanimous in the bloom of her new romance. There was enough love for all.

  The only question was timing.

  Jake was off at NYU already, his own life started. Mallory worried more about Natalie, still in high school and always more delicate; it had been a big point of discussion with Will, regarding any kind of official announcement.

  But it wasn’t like either Natalie or Jake would be loved any less.

  Love begets love. There was enough love for all. Mallory fervently believed this.

  Something pulpy and bloodied reared up suddenly in the glare of her headlights. Mallory swerved to avoid hitting it. Too big to be a squirrel. She hoped it wasn’t a cat.

  There was enough love for all, but someone was angry at Mallory. At least it felt that way. First there was the bouquet of dead roses left on her windshield. Mallory shrugged that one off. But next, her car was viciously keyed while she was at the movies. Six days later, she awoke, padded to the front door to bring in the newspaper, and found it and the front stoop splattered with what appeared to be blood, the word bitch drawn in thick, sticky, red capital letters. Mallory quickly disposed of the sodden paper and washed away the blood with furious blasts from the hose before Natalie was even awake.

  The incidents pointed to someone who knew her schedule, who was lurking somewhere just on the periphery, waiting. Watching.

  Her anxiety over it all had made her sick, vaguely nauseous all the time, exhausted.

  After the blood-splashed doorway, she’d confided in her friends at the shelter. To her unease, they took it all very seriously. Mallory realized she’d secretly hoped for dismissiveness as a form of reassurance.

  Instead, Ivy gave Mallory a darknet contact for someone who might be able to help, for the first time confiding in her how
the organization used certain shadowy channels to help women and children reinvent their lives.

  Mallory had reached out. Received a brief, anonymous reply stating her case was under review. Yesterday a second email arrived. It instructed her to come to the gift shop in the Westport Historical Society tomorrow at noon; her contact would find her there.

  It had been over a week since the blood. Nothing had happened since then. Maybe it was over. Maybe the blood and the withered roses and the keyed car weren’t even connected. Maybe all of Mallory’s terrible speculation about the possible culprit could be put to rest. She felt a little silly about having put the whole thing in motion.

  Anyway, she could decide if she would go tomorrow. In a matter of minutes, she’d be at Will’s house. Mallory’s heart thrummed with possibilities.

  Not only was she in love, her volunteer work at the shelter had really stimulated something within her. She was going to go back to school, work part-time while she did. She was practically done raising Jake and Natalie and she’d done that more or less single-handedly. Wasn’t it her time?

  New love. New career. New chances. She deserved that, didn’t she?

  I’ll go home before the kids wake up, be there for breakfast, she promised herself. I’ll talk civilly to Brian, I’ll work it all out.

  Enough love for all.

  Here’s the thing, you see, I’m not some kind of saint or savior.

  I only wanted to save myself.

  Sydney Fletcher arrived in New York, only to promptly be put in storage again. I’m burning any trails that might link me back to Paris. Too many people looking for me there.

  I’m glad to be back in Manhattan. I like the easy anonymity. But I find myself thinking in French and having to work to speak in English. It made me feel a half-step behind, at a disadvantage, except when I successfully used my “Parisian charm” on the gruff Israeli guy from whom I bought two off-market laptops this morning.

  I can’t stay in New York for long, though. It’s another place with too many ragged endings. But likewise, I can’t move on anywhere until I know. From my midtown hotel it’s an easy ninety-minute drive to Westport, Connecticut.

  In the cool hush of my air-conditioned hotel room, I surf the Internet, combing for any and every scrap of information I can find about the Burrows murders.

  The story has been covered internationally, of course. How could the press resist? It was a family tragedy so salacious it made even the most fucked-up among us feel a little bit better about our own miserable lives.

  There’s a rehash of the details of Brian Burrows’s murder in Paris alongside an appreciation of his architectural career (including a sidebar profile of the “troubled” canal Saint-Martin renovation, repeating most of the dark history Lilja had given me about the site).

  There’s an interview with Victor Wyatt, finally milking his fifteen minutes of fame as the “dupe” who unwittingly followed Brian in furtherance of Frank Burrows’s murderous ends.

  There’s a profile of Frank’s self-righteous ex-wife, Della, regretful that her daughters would from here on in be branded and shamed by the “vicious actions of that horrible man” (even as she shops her side of the story for a TV deal).

  Mallory Burrows’s disappearance is resurrected and rehashed too, of course, the linked tragedies charted and dissected.

  I’ve read everything available. Straight news coverage. The accolades and memories from Brian Burrows’s colleagues and peers. The pundits and psychologists. The specialists on family violence. The experts on international law.

  The Burrows children, Jake and Natalie, declined all interviews after releasing a prepared statement through a lawyer, although that hasn’t stopped wild speculation about the impact of the tragic series of events on these two young people, the poisoned fruit of a deadly family tree.

  It’d been simple enough to find out that one Lawrence Finley worked with Frank Burrows at Good Hair!! Easy too to learn that Finley had also attended the trade show in London that had brought Frank overseas.

  An old friend of mine in New York, Paco Rodriguez, was good enough to do a little legwork for me. Paco informed me that since the story broke, Finley has been basking in the tarnished reflection of notoriety: happy to tell his tale of unwitting participation in a homicide to anyone willing to buy him a scotch.

  I enter a sports bar on West Forty-seventh Street, around the corner from the offices of Good Hair!! It’s the place in which Larry Finley has been dining out, or should I say drinking out, on his peripheral involvement in the Burrows family tragedy.

  The bar is as expected. Banks of television screens. Neon signs advertising beer and liquor. Jerseys and pennants flaunting New York team insignias. I spot Finley immediately. He’s redder and fatter in the face than he is in the pictures of him I found online; the drinking and boasting are taking their toll.

  I sidle onto a barstool a couple of seats down. Finley pulls off his thick-framed black glasses and gives me an appreciative glance.

  I’ve dyed my hair blond. Finley likes blondes, I know (but I was also ready for a change for a whole host of reasons). I’m wearing tight jeans and a low-cut blouse, an opal necklace with an ornate setting nestled provocatively right above my cleavage, drawing the eye.

  Finley is happy to preen and puff for me. He always knew something was off about Frank Burrows, he says, with the cockily brilliant hindsight of a man who never actually thought any such thing. He never would have suspected Frankie was a murderer, not that, but peculiar, yes, that he always knew.

  It turns out Frank had done more than use Finley’s credit card and name to book Victor Wyatt. He had also swiped Finley’s passport and used it to travel to Paris and back the day he killed his own brother. Finley had no idea, of course! Frank had lifted the passport, used it, and slipped it back into Finley’s hotel room without him even noticing. But of course after, well, everything came to light.

  Finley’s story seems to confirm Natalie’s: Frank Burrows murdered his brother in a premeditated act of violence, having finally confessed to murdering Mallory’s lover, Will Crane, three years prior in revenge for her death. The chances were old Frankie had been madly in love with poor Mallory.

  But something doesn’t sit right with me. It all feels so convenient, a dead man’s confession tidily wrapping up this whole grisly chapter.

  In my experience, things are rarely that neat.

  Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. All we have is right now.

  Amara, Natalie’s day nurse, had offered up this affirmation in her sweet West African singsong on a daily basis, encouraging Natalie to stay focused on her recovery.

  She’s a very kind woman, Amara. She’s washed Natalie and changed her bandages, helped her to the bathroom, brought her things to read and treats to eat. Natalie feels a great deal of warmth for Amara.

  Yesterday is history.

  When the worst has happened, things have to get better, right?

  Right.

  Tomorrow is a mystery.

  When Natalie confided in Amara that she was experiencing a sense of reinvention, Amara nodded understandingly. The next day she brought in a small stack of biographies in English: Mata Hari, Coco Chanel, Marie Curie.

  Natalie devoured the book about Mata Hari. Talk about reinvention! Pampered daughter, unloved wife, heartbroken and heartless mother, exotic dancer, lover, celebrity, and possibly a spy! The controversy fascinates Natalie. Was Mata Hari a wily seductress who used her charms for betrayal? Or was she railroaded by the government to cover up high-level collusion and corruption?

  The book about Coco Chanel also resonated. Natalie thrilled to the words depicting a woman of iron determination and impeccable standards, far ahead of her time and steeped in controversy. Many lovers. Nazi collaboration. Ruthless in business. An artist, just like Natalie. And also a survivor. A survivor at all costs.

  Natalie had dutifully studied Marie Curie in elementary school, but this new biography opened her eyes. Aft
er Marie’s first husband died, she not only won a second Nobel Prize, but she also embarked on an affair with a married physicist that sent the gossips’ tongues wagging.

  All of these women made history. All of their lives involved scandal. Natalie is grateful. Amara has been so very perceptive in her choices.

  Natalie closes her suitcase and zips it shut. She looks around the peach-and-mint room that has been her home these past few weeks.

  She lived. There must be a reason.

  She’s ready to begin writing a new story of her own.

  If you weren’t looking for Haven, you’d never find it.

  In fact, it’s designed so that if you are looking for Haven, you’ll never find it.

  There’s no sign on the door. No phone company listings. All bills relating to the property are issued to and paid by an off-site company called A-One Detail Work, no mention of Haven anywhere. Payroll is issued from behind the same blind.

  The staff is trained to be completely discreet. Referral is passed along a tattered trail of abused spouses, furtive and stealthy. All of this secrecy is necessary. So often it could mean the difference between life and death.

  Haven is a way station. A short-term solution for women and children who need to disappear. I’ve called ahead to the shelter’s director, Ivy Phillips, knowing all too well how the appearance of any stranger can affect the women and children housed there. When you’ve lived your life in fear, anything can make you flinch.

  Ivy’s possessed of broad shoulders and broader hips; she looks substantial, comforting, no-nonsense. She ushers me into her cluttered office and sweeps a basket of knitting off the guest chair, looks about for a clear place to put it, finds none, and then resignedly balances it atop the mountain of papers on her desk. She gestures to the now open seat, then plants herself in the swivel chair that tilts precariously behind the desk. She shifts the knitting basket slightly so she can see me clearly.