Shame ON You

by John W. Mefford

  “You know Spanish?”

  “Nada.”

  “You mean un poquito? ‘A little bit,’ right?”

  “No, I mean nada…nothing. That’s really all I know.” I was going to ask how she could live in San Antonio and not know Spanish, but we had more important things to accomplish.

  We walked to the back and then wheeled around to the other side of the house. Ivy took the lookout post, while I did the window-peering. There was a light on in the first window. As I leaned in closer, I saw that one of the shutter slats was open by about an inch. Was it broken? Didn’t matter. I could see a living room and a staircase, but no people. The living room looked like it came out of a remodeling brochure. Everything was pristine—like the furniture had barely been used. I angled my body to look more to the right side of the room. Couldn’t see much. I moved to the other side to look left.

  My heart instantly skipped a beat. It was Patterson. I waved at Ivy to join me. She looked through the window and then gave me an affirmative nod. “Any sign of Chantel?”

  “Nope.” I peered through the window again. The doctor was standing at a bar counter, pouring himself a drink. Placing the liquor bottle on the counter, he lifted the glass to his eyes, swirled the liquid, and then gulped it down in quick order. He poured himself another and did the same routine. Ivy moved within inches of my face. I whispered to Ivy what I’d just seen.

  “Is he a lush?” she asked.

  How the hell would I know that? But I said, “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just calming his nerves.”

  “Asshole.”

  I looked at her. “Me?”

  “No!” She grabbed my chin and turned my head back to the window. “Him. Keep looking. What else do you see?”

  “He’s wearing a robe and pajamas.”

  “Ew.”

  I had to agree. The cloth belt wasn’t tied, and his pajamas had stains on them. Maybe from the booze? He clumsily shuffled over to a desk and plopped into the chair. He paused a moment and then wiped his hands across his face.

  “What’s he doing now?” she asked, tapping my shoulder. “Let me see.”

  I stepped aside so she could peek in.

  “He’s just sitting at his desk. Looks a little disheveled, and he has the bitch face going on.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You haven’t heard that term?”

  I shook my head.

  “Mostly, it describes people who naturally look like they’re pissed at the world, about ready to go off on someone. Like, it’s their regular expression.”

  I shrugged, thinking that my mom might qualify. I resumed my viewing position.

  “What now?” she asked after about two seconds.

  “Hold on.”

  Patterson looked over his shoulder toward the staircase—more specifically, toward a partially open door underneath the staircase. The crack was facing in my direction, and I could see it was dark inside the small room. Patterson flipped his head back around and ran his hand across the desk.

  Wait. It wasn’t his desk that he was touching; it was a book of some kind. He picked up a pen and started writing in it. A journal.

  Every few seconds, he’d glance over his shoulder, and then go back to writing. It was the strangest thing I’d seen in a while. I moved Ivy into position so she could watch the odd behavior.

  She said, “That guy is weird, if nothing else. But I wonder what’s in the closet.”

  “Harry Potter? I have no clue.”

  She stared blankly.

  “Tell me you do know who Harry Potter is,” I said.

  She gave me a playful slap on the arm. “I think it was in book three, The Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry got so pissed off at his rude Aunt Marjorie that he put a spell on her and she blew up like a helium balloon.”

  “Impressive. You’ve grown into a pop-culture wiz.”

  She didn’t smile. “And you’ve grown into a sarcastic pain in the ass.”

  I snorted out a quiet laugh. “Touché.”

  “So, what do you think we can do…should do?” she asked.

  “No sign of Chantel here. So, we have another stop to make.”

  “Race you to the car, gimp.”

  Damn, she could be mean.

  34

  I’d never put much thought into what kind of spare tire would be appropriate for a car that was already using one that was the size of a bicycle tire.

  Then again, I’d never driven a Prius.

  Apparently, we’d rolled over a nail while in Dog and Devin’s neighborhood. By the time Ivy and I made it back to the car after our surveillance of Patterson, the front left tire was completely flat. I’d changed plenty of tires in high school. I’d lived in an area with a lot of new construction, so it wasn’t uncommon to find a nail in my tire. Or my friends’ tires. I was the go-to tire-changer in the neighborhood, eventually able to change most flats in about ten minutes. That was the extent of my mechanical inclinations, though. I had no interest in cars or pit crews. But the attention from the girls was nice, indeed.

  And one special girl in particular—Denise, Mackenzie’s mother. I had found her in the school parking lot trying to change her flat tire, with little success. I jumped in to help. We had a nice conversation afterward, and just before we parted ways, she gave me a soft kiss on the cheek and thanked me. It was a sweet moment. That was just a couple weeks before our prom date—our one and only date, and the night our daughter was conceived.

  Of course, I didn’t know about Mackenzie until a couple months ago—and that discovery came at a steep price. Denise had been murdered. At times, the guilt and rage still clawed at my heart, but I tried hard to get past it. Mackenzie was good at sensing my emotional state—and with me encouraging her to move forward, to remember the good times with her troubled mother, I knew I had to do the same. Given my tendency to blame myself for everything that went wrong around me, I was still a work in progress.

  “What’s going through your mind right now?”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Just what I wanted—someone trying to poke into my business. “Nothing.”

  “That’s doubtful. By the way, you have grease all over your face now.”

  I’d done my best to wipe my hands on the grass after changing the tire. I shrugged and focused on the road. It was after midnight, but as we moved closer to campus, traffic picked up. Not surprisingly, lots of late-night partiers—which probably meant far too many intoxicated kids—were behind the wheels of cars far bigger than a Prius.

  “Make sure you park in a different place. We don’t want anyone to see us this time,” Ivy said.

  “Yep.” I parked a block down from the Austin State Hospital Cemetery. Ivy had come around to the fact that there was something strange about that mound of dirt. Patterson’s odd response to the bandana had added to the suspicions. With Patterson at home and the cops still looking for Cobb, we figured our best use of time would be to dig deeper—pun intended—into this one part of the investigation.

  The sidewalk was deserted. Cars drove by, but we waited for a lull, slipped through the gate, and quickly jogged away from the streetlights, up the incline, until we were about a hundred feet away from the street. I turned on my phone flashlight, which lit our path back to the mound of mud. Actually, it was drier now, after a full day of sun. Sitting next to it was the same shovel I’d found earlier.

  “Wait. Didn’t you leave the shovel by the tree over there?” Ivy asked.

  “Yep.”

  I moved the flashlight toward the north end of the plot. It had been dug up, at least a two-foot hole in one spot. I quickly turned my head and scanned the cemetery. Ivy pulled up next to me.

  “Do you see something?” she asked.

  I saw a bevy of tombstones of different heights and sizes. A number of trees scattered throughout made the place a little less eerie. I turned back to the mound of dirt and the hole. “Someone dug this up after we were here.” I picked up the shovel and poked the ground,
almost wondering if a hand might break through the dirt and grab the shovel.

  When you’re in a cemetery, your imagination can run amok.

  “It still could be one of the regular workers who digs graves,” Ivy said.

  “You’re not as convinced as you were earlier.”

  “I don’t know what to think, Oz.” She huffed out a breath. “We only came here in the first place because Jean had said that Chantel mentioned the word ‘cemetery.’ And we all know that her state of mind was most likely not normal.”

  I asked Ivy to hold my phone and stuck the shovel into the hole, carefully pushing the blade about six inches deep and then throwing the dirt off to the side. I leaned down and used a small stick to rummage through the dirt. What did I expect to find? A missing thumb? Another article of clothing?

  “So, based upon Dr. Patterson’s response to that bandana and his odd behavior overall, are you actually thinking that he could have buried—” She stopped short and put her hand over her mouth. I thought I heard a sniffle.

  “You okay?” It was a stupid question. Clearly, she wasn’t okay. I walked over and put my arm around her shoulder. “Damn, I shouldn’t have made you come out here, Ivy. This brings up a lot of difficult memories. You basically told me that earlier, and I didn’t listen. I can be a bit clueless sometimes.”

  She wiped her face on my T-shirt. “I’m fine.” She paused. “Well, fuck that. I guess I’m not, really. I just…it brings up some bad memories.”

  She sniffled some more.

  I patted my pockets. “Wish I had some tissues.”

  She took a few steps toward the open expanse of graves. “I have this sinking feeling that Chantel could be buried out here somewhere. I guess I felt it once I saw Patterson’s response to the bandana. I just couldn’t admit it to myself.”

  I moved up next to her, putting some of my weight on the shovel as I walked, almost as if it were a crutch. “You want to take the car and head to my place? I can dig around here a little bit and catch a cab back. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a clue that could help us piece this thing together. If nothing turns up, we can talk to Brook tomorrow and brainstorm on how we can somehow bait Patterson into making a mistake that would allow her to get a warrant. What do you say?”

  “What the fuck?”

  I turned to look at her. “Huh?” I followed her gaze just as she pointed across the cemetery.

  “Is that someone running?” She bolted out of her stance, and then a second later, I saw a flash of white moving across the top of the hill.

  I threw down the shovel and took off in a sprint. I felt an instant spike of pain in my hip, which slowed me but didn’t stop me. I caught up to Ivy, both of us weaving around a few tombstones. Keeping my eyes on the white flash, I eventually could make out arms pumping. He or she was running away from us—that much was obvious.

  Another few seconds, and the distance between us was closing even more. A burst of adrenaline zipped through my veins, which made me forget about my hurting hip and start running like hell. I glanced over my shoulder; Ivy wasn’t far behind.

  The runaway was heading toward the row of trees on the west side of the cemetery. I followed at a good clip, my eyes on the white coat, or shirt, or jumpsuit…whatever it was. What I didn’t see was the extra-wide tombstone right in front of me. I clipped it with my foot and face-planted into the grass just beyond it.

  Ivy raced right by me. I jumped up and rejoined the sprint, but I could already feel a burning sensation down my hip, into my leg. Actually, my pride hurt more.

  I willed my legs to churn harder. I took a different angle than Ivy—knowing I was breaking all sorts of cemetery rules by trampling on top of graves—but I quickly made up ground. With the person just twenty yards in front me, I saw skinny arms and legs. The person was wearing tan clothing and a cowboy hat. The frame made me think the person was female.

  The person turned as I drew closer. Screamed.

  It was a girl.

  “We don’t want to hurt you,” Ivy yelled.

  The girl looked at me and shrieked again. She cut toward the back of the cemetery, running across more graves.

  “Hold up.” Like she’s going to do that, Oz. Maybe I was telling myself to “hold up”—my leg was beginning to feel like it was dragging an extra fifty pounds.

  There were more trees at the back of the cemetery. I couldn’t let her reach those trees. The runner might know the woods far better than we did—which was zero—and then lose us. We’d let Melvin slip out of our hold, hadn’t been able to nail Patterson, and had almost been killed trying to follow him. We were a freaking PI circus. Other than learning from Jean that Chantel was alive, at least at the time, we’d really accomplished very little. Oh, and let’s not forget Ally—the unsolved mystery that started a decade ago and weighed on my mind on top of everything else. I couldn’t help but think that the disappearances of Chantel and Ally were connected.

  Too much guessing, not enough evidence.

  I was not letting this runner get away.

  Maybe this was Chantel. If so, our prayers would be answered.

  But why the hell would she be running through a cemetery in the dark of the night?

  Probably not Chantel.

  The ideas raced through my mind as quickly as my feet covered the ground. Okay, my ideas were faster. But I dug deeper, found a new gear, and pushed myself up the hill, all the while thinking what it would be like to see Marilyn Gibson’s face once we brought Chantel home.

  I could picture the reunion in their front yard. Marilyn would break out in tears, and then Adam would wrap his arms around both of them. And then they could begin to heal. That’s all I really wanted. A happy ending for everyone.

  But what about Ally?

  Then again, the girl running away from us may not be Chantel. She could be some college kid pulling off a sick prank. Or maybe it was some type of sorority hazing situation. Or worse, maybe this girl was high or just plain nutso and got her jollies by digging up graves.

  Had she been digging up a grave? The mound of dirt—was that a grave?

  I caught a glimpse of a full moon just over the drapery of dense foliage, casting a spindly darkness onto the cemetery grounds. The girl ran into the shadows, but I was now only steps away from reaching her. Ivy yelled something behind me, but I didn’t stop. Leaping over a tombstone, I dove for the girl, stretching out my six-foot-three frame as far as possible. My chest slammed against the ground just as my fingers grasped part of her foot. She tumbled to the grass like a bird that had just lost its wings.

  I pushed myself upward as Ivy raced by me.

  “Watch out! She might have a weapon!” I said.

  Ivy dropped to her knees as the girl writhed in pain, rolling onto her side, facing away from us.

  “Chantel? Is that you?” Ivy’s voice quavered as she gasped for air.

  I kneeled down next to her and the girl.

  “Chantel?” Ivy said, touching the girl’s arm. “We’re here to help you.”

  No response. The cowboy hat rolled off and exposed a head of hair that was cut very short. I pointed at her hair, but Ivy ignored me.

  She jumped over the girl and leaned close to her face. “Chantel? Is it you? We’re not here to hurt you. We want to help. Your parents hired us to find you, bring you back home.”

  The girl began to cry. Her body shook. Was she crying because she was hurt? Ivy and I glanced at each other. I had no idea what to do, how to handle the situation.

  I finally noticed her clothing—she was wearing a pair of beige scrubs, although the sleeves and legs were both rolled up, revealing a bony frame. I thought about calling the police and letting them handle it. They could figure out if she had escaped from the state hospital.

  The girl grabbed her shin and then her shoulder.

  “Is it her?” I asked, getting impatient.

  “I don’t know,” Ivy said over the groaning sobs. “I can’t get a good enough look. The hair’s cut off,
so it’s hard to say.”

  Ivy began to rub the girl’s arm. Slowly, the soothing movement appeared to work. A few moments passed, and the crying died back to an occasional gasp.

  Then she spoke. “You talked to my mom?”

  “Yes,” Ivy said, her eyes on me.

  It was Chantel.

  “What’s my mom’s name?” she asked.

  “Marilyn. And your dad’s name is Adam. They’re very kind, sweet people. But they’re distraught right now. We need to get you cleaned up and take you home.”

  No response.

  “Chantel? What’s wrong, dear?” Ivy was so comforting. She really knew how to connect with those who seemed like they were barely hanging on.

  “I…” the girl started to say.

  “What are you doing in the cemetery? We need to get you home so you can heal.” Ivy glanced up at me. “Ozzie, would you get the car and bring it to the gate?”

  “Are you sure you can handle everything here?”

  “I’m not some mental case, okay?” Chantel said. She tried to push herself up. Got halfway and stopped. Tears and snot coated her swollen face. She began to shake her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Why—” Ivy stopped and changed course. “Where have you been all this time?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re right. For right now, let’s just get you up, make sure you’re not hurt, and then we can call your parents.”

  “Fuck that!”

  “What’s wrong, Chantel?”

  She got to her knees and turned to look at us. “I’m not going anywhere until I find my sister’s grave.”

  35

  Chantel confessed that she’d taken a hit of acid earlier in the day. She’d convinced herself, she said, it would help give her energy and focus. But she soon realized that she’d been lying to herself…again, for about the millionth time in the last ten years.

  Sitting up with her arms wrapped around her thin legs, she stared out across the cemetery. Ivy sat next to her, legs crossed, her shoulder touching Chantel’s. Chantel had begun to open up, including admitting that she believed she was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.