by D. M. Pulley
PRAISE FOR THE DEAD KEY
“Fast paced, faultlessly written, and engaging, this is a page turner with a very surprising and plausible twist. There are not enough superlatives to describe this engrossing novel.”
—Publishers Weekly
EARLY PRAISE FOR THE BURIED BOOK
“An evocative, deeply-felt story of innocence lost that glows with the slow burn of suspense.”
—Lou Berney, Edgar-award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone
“A beguiling family drama that sucks you in and never lets go.”
—Simon Wood, author of The One That Got Away
“With a remarkable protagonist, a fully-rendered setting, and plenty of surprises, D.M. Pulley weaves an enthralling mystery while also showing the power of a child’s love for his mother.”
—Ann Howard Creel, bestselling author of While You Were Mine
OTHER BOOKS BY D.M. PULLEY
The Dead Key
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 by D.M. Pulley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503936720
ISBN-10: 1503936724
Cover design by Kimberly Glyder
For Jack
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Please state your name and age for the record.
“Jasper.”
“Hmm,” he mumbled.
“Jasper, wake up.” His mother shook his shoulder. “You need to get up, baby. Get dressed.”
“What?” Jasper Leary opened his eyes. It was still dark outside his window. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re goin’ up to the farm. Won’t that be fun, baby?” She flipped on the bedside lamp, blinding him for a moment.
Jasper sat up and blinked at the windup clock on the bedside table. It wasn’t even 6:00 a.m.
“C’mon, sweetie,” she called from the hallway. “Let’s go! The day won’t wait.”
He was only nine years old, but Jasper could tell by the awkward lilt in her voice that she was trying to sound cheerful. Frowning, he pulled on his clothes. He double-checked the calendar on the way out the door. It was Tuesday, August 12, 1952. His mother should have been heading to work down at the dairy that morning. She put on a strained smile for him as he stumbled out the back door of their apartment building and into their ’47 Chevy.
Be happy, he told himself, trying to shake the feeling that something was wrong. The tires squealed slightly as they pulled out of the parking lot. She hardly ever took off work just to be with him. Maybe it will be fun, like she said. He threw her an uneasy grin, but she kept her eyes on the road. Her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her brow furrowed just enough to give away an emotion somewhere between upset and anger. An emotion he wasn’t supposed to see.
Jasper had a bad habit of noticing things he wasn’t supposed to. You’re too smart for your own good, she liked to say. If he asked her why she was pretending to be happy, she might give him a worried smile and tousle his hair. Or she might smack the smart right out of his mouth. Children should be seen and not heard. Especially when his mother was upset.
Out the rear window, the smokestacks and stone towers of Detroit disappeared over the horizon. Jasper rested his chin on the edge of the passenger door and watched the rows of houses rush past his window as the sun rose behind their roofs. Tract homes gave way to walls of grain as they headed north. As his mother’s silence grew louder, Jasper couldn’t help but worry it was all his fault.
They’d almost reached Burtchville before he dared ask, “Why are we going to Uncle Leo’s?” He did his best to keep any trace of a whine out of his voice, but he couldn’t quite muster “happy.”
She sighed and pulled the little metal flask out from the bottom of her purse.
Jasper took a quick inventory of the last few days, searching for what he might’ve done or not done to upset her. He couldn’t think of one chore he’d missed. There wasn’t any schoolwork to neglect. He’d spent most of his days in the park down the street. The rest of the time he helped out in Carbo’s Bakery downstairs. Mrs. Carbo insisted he stay and have dinner when his mother worked late and his father was pulling second shift at the auto plant. He’d had dinner with the Carbo family a lot lately, but he couldn’t remember complaining.
The shadow of a barn passed over him.
His mother tipped her head back and took a long drink from the flask. Her eyes didn’t blink as they stared down the long drive down Route 25 to Harris Road. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for whatever he’d done.
She finally glanced down at him. “Wipe that look off your face. You love the farm. Don’t you, baby?”
Jasper forced a nod. He did love the farm. It was an exotic world of giant animals and loud machinery.
“Cheer up then, silly.”
Outside his window, the small shops and cafés of Burtchville came and went along with the boats dotting Lake Huron. He craned his neck as it all blew past, trying not to notice her taking another drink.
As they turned from the two-lane highway down the bumpy dirt road that led to his uncle’s farm, something on the horizon caught his eye.
“Look, Mom! A fire!”
Her eyes followed his finger pointing to smoke rising behind the thick trees on the east side of Route 25, and she nearly ran the car into a ditch. The brakes screeched. “Dammit, Jasper! You can
’t holler like that when someone’s driving!”
“I—I didn’t.”
She slapped at the hand still pointing up at the sky. “Just someone burning a fallow field.” But she stared at it a second too long, then took another pull from the flask.
The veins stood up angrily on the backs of her hands as she squeezed the wheel. The car lurched forward again. They rattled through the holes in the road while Jasper kept an eye on the plume of smoke. He wanted to ask what a fallow field was but thought better of it.
A mile later, they slowed down at a slight break in the plantings outside his window. There was no sign or address or any indication anyone lived there at all besides a rusty mailbox hidden in a thatch of long grass. His mother steered the car down a two-track driveway through the wildflowers and trees for a quarter mile before a wood cabin and a faded red barn appeared on either side of a small clearing.
The cabin was more of a pirate’s fort than a house. Two crooked but clean windows looked out onto a narrow covered porch. The roof was a patchwork of new and old wood shingles. Its mismatched siding was covered in fresh whitewash, and the stone chimney was smoking, even in the August heat.
His mother cut the engine, and Jasper bolted from the car. A hand-dug outhouse sat twenty feet behind the cabin. The first thing Jasper liked to do when he arrived at Uncle Leo’s was take a piss in that tiny shed just like a real cowboy. He sprinted to his sanctuary and slammed the door shut.
She didn’t call after him.
He unbuttoned his pants and plopped down onto the small round hole cut through a worn pine board. He didn’t really have to go. Half a Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog sat next to him. He ripped off a sheet and squinted in the slivers of light streaming through the door to see a picture of the latest model sewing machine. Did Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck know their pretty pages would end up at the bottom of an outhouse? he wondered and set the sheet down.
At low volume, Jasper narrated in his best radio-show voice. “The Lone Ranger moseyed over to the ol’ outhouse to answer a call o’ nature. Little did our hero suspect that trouble was brewing in town. That no-good cow rustler Butch Cavendish was sneaking up on Doc Rockford’s ranch—”
A loud slam interrupted his play. Adults were shouting.
“It can’t be helped. It’s just for a little while!”
It was his mother. Jasper stood with his trousers around his knees. He cracked open the door and could see her pacing in front of her car in a state. He pulled up his pants.
“You can’t just leave!” a man’s voice bellowed back.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to. It’s serious, Leonard. I have to get away for a while. It’s just for a few days. Okay?”
“Away from what? Althea, what the hell are you mixed up in now?” The tall shadow of his uncle grabbed her by the shoulder. “Jesus. You been drinkin’?”
“Just look after him, okay!” she shouted. “He’s a good boy. He’ll work hard. I promise. He just can’t come . . . I have to go.” She jerked away from the hand on her arm and headed toward the trunk of the car. The lid cranked open, and Jasper could see her pull a suitcase out and set it down at his uncle’s feet.
Jasper’s stomach fell. She hadn’t said anything about a suitcase. She hadn’t said anything about leaving either.
He threw the door open and ran toward her. “Mom! Mom!”
She stopped at the driver’s door and stiffened. He picked up speed and sprinted full tilt into her waist.
“Mom! Don’t go!”
She pried his hands off her middle. Gripping them too hard, she squatted down. “Jasper, sweetie, Mommy has to go. There are things she has to do that you can’t help with. I’ll be back soon.”
“No!” He shook his head violently. “I’ll be good. I promise. I won’t be smart. I’ll be quiet. I’ll do whatever you say.”
She grabbed his chin and held it firm. “I know, sweetie. You’re a good boy. You be good for Uncle Leo.”
Tears poured down his face despite his best efforts. “No. I’ll be good for you.”
Her red eyes filled up too, and a tiny hope lifted his heart. She wouldn’t leave him. She loved him. He collapsed against her, coiling his arms around her, desperate to hold on. But she untangled herself and cleared her throat. “Just stop it. You knock that off . . . or I’ll give you something to cry about. Understand?”
He sank his teeth into his bottom lip and nodded, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
Squeezing his shoulders, she held his small frame away from hers. “You mind your uncle. You be a help to him. Make Mommy proud.”
The ground sank beneath him as she let go.
“So when you comin’ back?” Uncle Leo asked, placing his heavy palm on Jasper’s shoulder.
“It’ll just be for a few days. Maybe a week or two. I don’t know. As soon as I can, alright?” Her eyes searched the field as though someone were out there. The plume of black smoke from the burning field hung over the horizon. Her lips clamped together. She wouldn’t look at him. His insides were screaming, but she wouldn’t listen. She was already gone.
“Forgive me for askin’, but ain’t you still married? What about your husband?”
“What about him?”
“Wendell know about this?”
“He knows he can’t take care of Jasper on his own. The man’s helpless. Can’t even boil water. Besides, he’s workin’.” She shook her head. The truth was Jasper’s father had stormed out after a fight the night before last and hadn’t come home yet. “This isn’t about him, okay?”
“Well, what’s it about then? Althea, what are you runnin’ from?”
She just hung her head and climbed into the car. Through the open window, she whispered so Jasper might not hear, “Just keep him safe, okay? Promise me you’ll keep him safe. Don’t let anything happen to him.”
Jasper didn’t know what he’d done, but it must have been something awful. She wouldn’t even look at him. A sob swelled up, choking the air out of his throat until he couldn’t breathe.
Uncle Leo’s voice sounded like it was coming from another room. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? Of course. He’ll be fine. Won’t you, son?”
As the man thumped his shoulder with his giant hand, Jasper’s throat closed tighter. Maybe he’d stop breathing altogether. Maybe then she wouldn’t go.
But she did.
Everything grew dim as the Chevy disappeared up the two-track drive.
“Jesus, Althea,” a voice muttered somewhere far away. “I swear to God, some cows should just be shot.”
CHAPTER 2
Where did you grow up?
Jasper sank onto his cousin’s bed, with his suitcase heavy on his lap, and stared at the floor. She was gone. To keep himself from falling through the floorboards, he replayed the argument between his uncle and mother over and over. It’ll just be for a few days. Maybe a week or two. I don’t know . . .
“Hey, you just going to sit there all day?” His cousin Wayne poked his head into the tiny alcove that was his room. He was twelve years old, and Jasper could hear the teasing in his voice already. The older boy pulled the suitcase onto the dresser and yanked him off the bed. “What’s with the long face? Ain’t you glad to see me?”
Wayne dragged him through the curtain that separated the boy’s bedroom from the rest of the cabin. A wood-fired stove, hanging pots, a baker’s rack, an icebox, a washtub, two rocking chairs, and a narrow bookshelf were all crammed along four crooked walls. A large kitchen table sat in the middle. Uncle Leo and Aunt Velma’s tiny bedroom was tucked away in the back corner behind a closed door. Behind the curtain, Wayne’s feather bed was pushed against the east window. Jasper felt claustrophobic in the cramped space. He could barely breathe.
“How long you stayin’?”
“Not too long. Maybe a week?” Jasper tried to sound happy about it. He couldn’t look Wayne in the eye knowing his own were red with tears. She hadn’t told him about the suitcase, Jasper thought bi
tterly. It was as bad as lying.
“Hey, you wanna go see somethin’ gruesome?” Wayne nudged him in the shoulder. “Come on! I’ll show ya.”
Jasper followed Wayne out the door and across the yard. The sun blazed high in the sky above them, but he felt cold. His eyes fixed on the spot in the driveway where the taillights of the car had pulled out of sight. Uncle Leo was nowhere to be seen. Wayne tugged his arm to keep him moving.
He pulled Jasper through the open door of the two-story barn, past the cow stalls and the goats, to the pigpen in the far corner. Bright stripes of sunlight fell onto the dirt floor through the open gaps in the wood siding. The smells of manure, sweat, and hay mixed with the flies buzzing through the air. A big black one landed on Jasper’s arm. He didn’t bother to swat it away.
“Come look,” Wayne whispered, squatting down over a dark spot in the straw thatch outside the door to the pigpen.
Jasper obeyed and sat down on his haunches next to his cousin. There on the ground lay a wet mass of slime, gray noodles, and blood. There was a halo of matted fur beneath it.
“What is that?” Jasper asked, squinting at the pile. It looked as though an alien life-form had slithered out of a meteor.
Wayne picked up a stick and poked at the slime. “A rat. See the tail? Lucifer must’ve got him.”
Jasper found his own stick and began prodding the gray noodles that he now understood were entrails. “Lucifer did this?”
“Not like the devil, dummy. He’s a barn cat. Watch out for him. He’s the meanest one you’ll ever meet.” Wayne rolled up his sleeve to show Jasper three pink scars running down his forearm. “This is what happened when I tried to pet him once. You only try to pet Lucifer once, that’s what Pop says.”
Jasper nodded and looked back down at the disemboweled rat. “Where did the head go?”
“That’s how you know it was Lucifer. He never leaves the heads. I don’t know what the heck he does with ’em.”
“Are you two going to just stand there starin’ at the dirt or give me a hand?” Uncle Leo climbed the fence from the outer pigpen and clomped through the mud over to them.
Both boys stood up.
“Good. Wayne, go and grab me that curved knife over there.”