The Life We Bury

by Allen Eskens

  I could see the energy drain from Carl's face as he spoke, his words falling loose and frayed from his lips. He took another sip of water and waited until his breath stopped trembling. “I thought that by going to prison, I might silence my ghosts—bury that part of my life, those things I did in Vietnam. But in the end, there's no hole deep enough.” He looked up at me. “No matter how hard you try, there are some things you just can't run away from.”

  Something in his eyes told me that he could see my own yoke of guilt. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as the silence of Carl's pause moved around me. Then Carl closed his eyes, clutched his stomach, and winced in pain. “Jesus, this cancer crap can hurt like a son of a bitch.”

  “Want me to get somebody?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, eking the words out through gritted teeth. “It passes.” Carl twisted his hands into a ball and lay still until his breathing returned to a calm, shallow rhythm. “You want to know the real kicker?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “After all that time I spent wanting to die, trying to die, it took prison to make me want to live.”

  “You liked prison?” I said.

  “Of course not,” he chuckled through his pain. “No one likes prison. But I started reading, and thinking, and trying to understand myself and my life. Then one day, I was lying on my bunk, contemplating Pascal's gambit.”

  “Pascal's gambit?”

  “This philosopher named Blaise Pascal said that if you have a choice of believing in God or not believing in God, it's a better gamble to believe. Because if you believe in God and you're wrong—well, nothing happens. You just die into the nothingness of the universe. But if you don't believe in God and you're wrong, then you go to hell for eternity, at least according to some folks.”

  “Not much of a reason to be religious,” I said.

  “Not much at all,” he said. “I was surrounded by hundreds of men waiting for the end of their lives, waiting for that something better that comes after death. I felt the same way. I wanted to believe there was something better on the other side. I was killing time in prison, waiting for that crossover. And that's when Pascal's gambit popped into my head, but with a small twist. What if I was wrong? What if there was no other side. What if, in all the eons of eternity, this was the one and only time that I would be alive. How would I live my life if that were the case? Know what I mean? What if this was all there is?”

  “Well, I guess there'd be a lot of disappointed dead priests,” I said.

  Carl chuckled. “Well, there's that,” he said. “But it also means that this is our heaven. We are surrounded every day by the wonders of life, wonders beyond comprehension that we simply take for granted. I decided that day that I would live my life—not simply exist. If I died and discovered heaven on the other side, well, that'd be just fine and dandy. But if I didn't live my life as if I was already in heaven, and I died and found only nothingness, well…I would have wasted my life. I would have wasted my one chance in all of history to be alive.”

  Carl drifted off, his eyes locked on a chickadee flitting on a naked branch outside. We watched the bird for several minutes until it flew away, bringing Carl's attention back to me. “I'm sorry,” Carl said. “I tend to get philosophical when I think about the past.”

  He grabbed his stomach again, a slight squeal of agony escaping his lips. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Instead of passing, this one grew. He had suffered spells before, but I'd never seen one this bad. I waited a few seconds, hoping the pain would pass, Carl's face contorting, his nostrils flaring as he tried to breath. Was this how it would end? Was he dying now? I ran into the hall and yelled for a nurse. She came running to his room with a syringe in her hand. She cleaned the port in Carl's IV and injected him with morphine, and in a few seconds his muscles began to loosen, his jaw unclenched, his head rolled back onto his pillow. He was a mere waif of a man, completely drained of his strength. He looked barely alive. He tried to stay awake but couldn't.

  I watched over him as he slept, and I wondered how many more days he had left—how many more hours. I wondered how much time I had left to do what I needed to do.

  When I got home, I pulled Max Rupert's card out of my wallet, the one with Professor Boady Sanden's name on it, and placed a call. Professor Sanden sounded nice on the phone and made time to see me the next day at 4:00. My last class on that Tuesday was economics, and I didn't get out until 3:30. If I had known that the lecture that day would be verbatim from the textbook, I would have skipped class and gotten to Hamline University sooner. By the time the bus dropped me off in St. Paul, I had nine blocks to go and only six minutes to get there. I ran the first seven blocks and walked the last two with my coat open, letting the cold winter breeze evaporate my sweat. I arrived at Professor Sanden's door exactly on time.

  I expected the law professor to be old, with receding gray hair, a bowtie, and wearing a camel's-hair jacket, but Professor Sanden met me at the door to his office in carpenter-blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and loafers. He sported a thin beard, had a touch of gray in the temples of his otherwise brown hair, and shook my hand with the grip of a construction worker.

  I had brought the folder of materials with me—the one that I'd shown to Detective Rupert. Professor Sanden cleared a space on his cluttered desk and offered me a cup of coffee. I liked him right off. I didn't tell Professor Sanden that Carl had been paroled from prison, remembering how that information stunted Max Rupert's enthusiasm. I didn't want Professor Sanden dismissing my argument simply because Carl was no longer in prison. I started my presentation with the photos of Lockwood's window. “Interesting,” he said.

  “It gets better,” I said, pulling the diary pages out of the file, laying them out in front of him, leading him through the progression of diary entries, explaining how the prosecutor used them to paint a false picture and convict Carl Iverson. Then I showed him the deciphered entries, with the name of the killer spelled out. He cocked his head and smiled as he read about DJ.

  “DJ: Douglas Joseph. That makes sense,” he said. “How did you figure out the code?”

  “My autistic brother,” I said.

  “Savant?” Professor Sanden asked.

  “No,” I said. “Just lucky. Crystal Hagen had a typing class that fall and she based her code on that sentence…you know, the one that has every letter of the alphabet in it.”

  Professor Sanden rolled back through his memory. “Something about a lazy dog, right?”

  “That's the one,” I said. “That was her code: her enigma machine. Once we discovered the key to the code, the answer appeared in black and white. The way we figure it, Doug got Danny to go along with the lie about them being at the dealership. Danny hated his stepmom, and we know that the marriage was rocky. Maybe Doug told Danny that he was covering for something else.”

  “Like what?” Sanden asked.

  “According to Andrew Fisher, Crystal's boyfriend at the time, Mr. Lockwood used to go to strip clubs behind his wife's back,” I said. “Maybe Doug got Danny to go along with the lie because Danny thought he was protecting his dad from getting in trouble for something like that. Besides, no one suspected Doug. The police locked on to Carl Iverson right away. Everyone thought Carl did it.”

  “It makes sense that it was the stepfather,” he said.

  “Why's that?”

  “He was close to her—in the same house. They're not related by blood, so he can justify his impulses toward her. He used the secret that he discovered to gain power and control over his victim. One of the keys to being a successful pedophile is to isolate the victim, make her feel like she can't tell anyone. Get her to believe that it'll destroy her and her family, that everyone will blame her. That's what he was doing. He starts with the glasses, using the threat of that crime to get leverage over her, to get her to touch him. Then he has her do more, crossing each new boundary with small steps. The sad thing here is that Crystal's salvation, her learning that she could
turn the tables on her stepfather, ensured her death. There was no way he would let her have that kind of power.”

  “So how do we get this guy?” I asked.

  “Were there any bodily fluids in evidence? Blood, saliva, semen?”

  “The medical examiner testified that she was raped; they found traces of semen inside her.”

  “If they still have the sample in evidence, we might be able to get DNA. The only problem is: this was thirty years ago. They didn't have DNA evidence back then. They may not have saved the specimen, and if they did, it might be so deteriorated that we can't use it. Moist specimens don't store well. If a bloodstain stays dry the DNA will last for decades.” Professor Sanden punched the speakerphone button and dialed a number. “Let's just give Max a call and see what he has over there.”

  “Boady!” Boomed the voice of Max Rupert. “How's it hanging?”

  “You know me, Max, still fighting the good fight. How about yourself?”

  “If I get another murder case, I'm gonna kill somebody,” he said, laughing.

  “Max, I got you on speakerphone. I'm here with a kid named Joe Talbert.”

  “Hi, Joe.” The words popped out of the speakerphone like we were old friends.

  “Hi…Detective.”

  “I've been looking at Joe's evidence here,” Professor Sanden said, “I think he has something.”

  “You always do, Boady,” Rupert said. “I brought our file up from the basement and took a look through it.”

  “Any fluids?” Sanden asked.

  “The girl's body was burned in a tool shed or garage or something like that. Her legs were mostly burned off; the fluids in her had boiled. The lab could ascertain the presence of sperm, but the sample was too far gone to get anything beyond that. The killer was a non-secretor, so there was no blood in the semen. As far as I can tell, there were no slides preserved. I called the BCA, and they don't have anything either.”

  “BCA?” I said.

  “Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Professor Sanden said. “Think of it as our version of CSI.” He turned his attention back to the phone. “No blood stains? Saliva?”

  “Every shred of her clothing burned up in the fire,” Max said.

  “What about the fingernail?” I said.

  “Fingernail?” Professor Sanden sat up in his chair. “What fingernail?”

  Suddenly I felt as if I were part of the conversation. “The girl's fake fingernails. They found one on Carl Iverson's back porch. Doug must have put it there to frame Carl.”

  “If the victim lost her fingernail during a fight, there may be skin cells on it,” Sanden said.

  “There's no fingernail in the file,” Rupert said.

  “It'll be in the B-vault,” Sanden said.

  “B-vault?” I asked.

  “It's where the court stores evidence that's been admitted in trials,” Sanden said. “This is a murder case, so they'll have kept it. We'll send a runner to get a swab from Iverson and get a court order to have the fingernail tested. If there is DNA on that fingernail, it'll either prove Iverson's guilt or give us ammunition to reopen the case.”

  “I'll fax the evidence inventory sheet over for your motion,” Rupert said.

  “I appreciate the help, Max,” Sanden said.

  “Don't mention it, Boady,” Max said. “I'll get it ready.”

  “See you at poker Friday?” Sanden said.

  “Yep, see you then.”

  Professor Sanden cut the connection. I thought I understood what would happen next, but I wanted to confirm it. “So, Professor Sanden—”

  “Please, call me Boady.”

  “Okay, Boady, if this fingernail has skin cells on it—they can get DNA from that?”

  “Absolutely, and probably some blood as well. It sounds like it's been kept dry. There's no guarantee they'll find DNA, but if they do—and it's not Carl Iverson's—we should have enough here with the diary and stuff you found to get our foot in the door and maybe vacate his conviction.”

  “How soon will we know?”

  “We're probably looking at four months to get the DNA test back, then a couple more months to get into court.”

  My heart sank and I dropped my head. “He doesn't have that long,” I said. “He's dying of cancer. He may not be alive in four weeks, much less four months. I need to exonerate him before he dies.”

  “Is he a relative?”

  “No. He's just some guy I met. But I need to do this.” Ever since Lila broke the code, the memory of my grandfather in the river had been visiting me in my sleep, kicking through my mind whenever I let my thoughts rest. I knew that nothing I could do would change that past, but it didn't matter. I needed to do this. For Carl? For my grandfather? For me? I didn't know. I just needed to do it.

  “Well, that may be tricky.” Professor Sanden tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought. “We could use a private lab, which might be faster than the BCA, but even with that, there's no guarantee.” He tapped some more. “I can try and pull in some favors, but don't get your hopes up.” He frowned at me and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess, all I can say is, I'll do what I can.”

  “Short of the DNA test, is there anything we can do, maybe just with the diary?” I asked.

  “The diary is great,” he said, “but it won't be enough. “If this Lockwood guy jogged into court and confessed his sins we could move faster, but short of that, all we can do is wait for the DNA results.”

  “Confession…” I said the word quietly to myself as a thought began forming, a dark and reckless thought, a thought that would follow me home and poke at me with the persistence of a petulant child. I stood and reached across the desk to shake Boady's hand. “I can't thank you enough.”

  “Don't thank me yet,” he said. “A lot of stars have to align for this to work.”

  For the next few days, as I struggled to catch up on homework in my other classes, I remained distracted by two thoughts that turned in my head, flipping back and forth like a tossed coin. On the one side, I could wait. Professor Sanden had pulled the chocks out from under the wheels of Carl's case and things were moving. The fingernail would be sent in for DNA testing. If Crystal fought with her attacker, the DNA would belong to Doug Lockwood, and that evidence, along with the diary, would exonerate Carl. But that path would take time—time that Carl Iverson didn't have. I saw Professor Sanden's efforts as a Hail-Mary pass at best. If he could not get the DNA results back in time, Carl would die a murderer—and I would have failed.

  On the other side of that flipping coin lived a rash idea. I needed to know that I did everything that I could to help Carl Iverson die an innocent man in the eyes of the world. I could not stand by and watch him die a murderer knowing that I might have changed that. This was no longer about getting an A on my project. It wasn't even about my naive belief that right and wrong should balance out in the end. This had somehow become about me, about when I was eleven and watched my grandfather die. I could have done something, but I didn't. I should have at least tried. Now, faced with the choice to act or to wait, I felt I had no choice. I had to act. Besides, what if there was no DNA on the fingernail? Then all the time spent waiting would have been wasted.

  A thought as small as a strawberry seed began to grow in my mind, a seed accidentally planted there by Professor Sanden. What if I could get Lockwood to confess?

  I turned on my laptop, searched the Internet for the name Douglas Joseph Lockwood, and found a police blotter announcing his arrest for DUI and another site with the minutes from a County Board of Commissioner's meeting where a Douglas Joseph Lockwood had been given notice of being a public nuisance for having junked cars on his property. Both websites gave the same address in rural Chisago County, just north of Minneapolis. The DUI entry gave his age, which fit. I wrote the address down and laid it on the kitchen counter. For three days I watched it pulse like a beating heart while I talked myself into—and out of—tracking down Doug Lockwood. Finally, it was a weatherman who tipped th
e scale.

  I turned on the news to have some background noise while I did homework, and I heard the weatherman announce that a record snowfall was on its way to bitch slap us—my words, not his—with up to twenty inches of snow. The talk of snow made me think of Carl, how he yearned to see a big snowstorm before he died. I wanted to go see him, to see the joy in his eyes as he watched the snow. I decided that before I went to see Carl, I would track down Douglas Lockwood and take a shot at getting him to confess.

  I approached my plan to meet Douglas Lockwood the way someone might approach a sleeping bull. I paced a lot, thinking and rethinking the idea and trying to screw up my courage. My legs twitched as I sat in my classes that day. My mind drifted, unable to pay attention to the lecture.

  I went to Lila's apartment after class, to tell her about my decision to drop in on Lockwood and maybe to give her a chance to talk me out of it. She wasn't home. My last act before I left was to call Detective Rupert. My call went to voicemail, and I hung up and put my phone in my backpack. I told myself that I would simply drive out to Lockwood's house—drive past it to see if he still lived there. I could then report back to Rupert, although I strongly suspected that Rupert would not care enough to act on what I learned. He would want to wait for the DNA results. He would go by the book and get nowhere until after Carl Iverson was dead. So, armed with my digital recorder, my backpack, and absolutely no semblance of a plan, I headed north.

  I listened to loud music on the drive, letting the songs drown out my doubts. I tried not to think about what I was doing as the six lanes of blacktop turned into four lanes, then two, and eventually I turned onto the gravel road leading to Douglas Lockwood's house. In the thirty minutes it took me to drive there, I went from skyscrapers and concrete to farm fields and trees. Thin gray clouds draped across the late-afternoon sky, and the weak December sun had already started its descent in the west. A light drizzle had turned to sleet, and the temperature dropped sharply as a northerly wind heralded the coming of the winter storm.