The Girl With 39 Graves

by Michael Beres

  Back in his seat, teacup on the fold-down table, Guzzo stared at the bull’s-eye turbulence in the cup. He looked to the seat across from him. If he weren’t the only passenger, he might have commented, the bull’s-eye a scene from a disaster flick, a defect in one of the engines. He sipped the tea and decided perhaps he’d make another. He looked out the port window, trying in vain to spot his Orland Park neighborhood and his house through thickening clouds.

  So, thought Guzzo, what the hell’s going on? How big a stash was there to afford a private jet? When he initially signed on, he assumed he was a lone wolf. This time at the fish market Pescatore admitted there were others. When he asked who, Pescatore mentioned Russians and feds while wiping the filleting knife in an apron smeared with fish guts.

  “You’ll keep me informed?”

  Pescatore put down his knife, wiped his hands in his apron, turned to a cabinet behind him. He retrieved a cell from several and studied it a moment before handing it to Guzzo. “The latest encryption technology. I may need to call you on this one.”

  “My pockets are full of phones.”

  Pescatore turned, picked up his knife, and began filleting a fish. “I suppose that’s why you wear cargo pants. By the way, there’s something I need to tell you from my gut.”

  “What’s that?” asked Guzzo.

  “An operation wrapping up requires speedy communication. Swiss banks have become inquisitive. You’ll run into others you’ll need to eliminate. It’s almost over. Time to take care of yourself. The encrypted phone has a duel purpose—urgency toward completion and protection of you and your family.”

  As Guzzo recounted the conversation, he stared out the Learjet’s window. Cloud cover had cleared, giving him a view of farmland, irrigation circles, and other shapes. Like a puzzle, he thought. During the completion of the assignment, would he and his family be able to cash in?

  He closed his eyes and allowed the Learjet’s engines to lull him to sleep.

  Mrs. Hansen, the Green River Historical Society curator, was a tall slender woman in a circa 1950s housedress. She reminded Niki of a schoolteacher, Mrs. Stick-Up-Her-Ass.

  “Before retiring to this post, I taught high school history. Covering FDR there was brief mention of the CCC, along with all the other so-called New Deal programs. The local camps are long gone.”

  “What about structures in state and national parks. Weren’t there any here?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “The roads. My father was at Camp Manila; he spoke of roads, cattle guards, and erosion control work.”

  “They were building Flaming Gorge dam when my family moved here. Those projects are underwater. We have a thriving community catering to sportsmen and sportswomen. We left city slums behind. Here we have family values. We moved away from Detroit.” Mrs. Hansen busied herself with paperwork on the counter.

  Niki couldn’t recall if, during her phone calls, she mentioned being from Detroit. “It would be nice to speak to someone who was here during the 1930s. I realize it’s a long time ago—”

  Mrs. Hansen interrupted. “I suppose Etta Pratt.”

  “Does she work here?”

  “She manages a ride in from some of the others. I live on the north side, so there’s no way I’m giving her a ride even though she’s asked.”

  Niki could stand it no longer. “Is there something wrong, Mrs. Hansen?”

  Mrs. Hansen looked up from her paperwork. “What do you mean?”

  “A historical society should be a place for research.”

  “I do genealogical research myself. It seems to me it might be better if, rather than traipsing around looking for old work sites, some of you CCC researchers would use the Internet. The university in Salt Lake City, for example, has an extensive library of information and photographs online.”

  “I’ve been on their website, Mrs. Hansen. I’ve got every photograph from their archives on my computer. It’s in my van. Would you like me to get it?”

  Mrs. Hansen stared out the window long enough for Niki to glance there. Lazlo, Janos, and Mariya stood between the van and the motor home. “Mrs. Hansen?”

  Mrs. Hansen seemed near tears. “It’s just, during the past few years there’ve been so many of you. I’ve got work to do, and the museum’s collection is so large…”

  “I understand. You mentioned Etta Pratt.”

  “I’ll take you to the back room.”

  Castle Rock loomed above the interstate behind the historical society building. Parked beneath a lone tree in the parking lot, a white Lincoln Navigator had its windows down. The Navigator had Colorado plates. The man and woman onboard wore colorful clothing typical of vacationers. Jennifer, an African American originally named Guinevere (smooth and white) at birth, sat in the driver’s seat. Finley (Gaelic for white champion) sat in the passenger seat. Both had short hair and were bare shouldered. They’d finished Subway sandwiches, the crumpled wrappers resting on the console, drink cups sweating in cup holders. Although the Navigator faced Castle Rock, Finley used binoculars to look back toward the historical society building.

  “What’s going on?” asked Jennifer.

  “The Gianakos woman’s inside and the others are standing around.”

  “Any other vehicles?”

  “None,” said Finley. “The SUV from this morning could be out of our line of sight.”

  “Maybe one of the crime families Jacobson said to watch for.”

  “Them, or Russians,” said Finley.

  Jennifer lifted her iced tea from the cup holder, took a sip, and put it back. “You think there’s anything to this?”

  Finley shrugged. “With budget cuts, would Jacobson put us on something spurious?”

  Jennifer smiled. “Fancy word.”

  “I’m expanding my vocabulary.”

  Finley continued watching the three standing outside the historical society building. A mild breeze blew dry air through the open windows. He glanced up at the sky, which was cloudless and clear. In the distance, 20 miles to the east, sun glinted off a jet circling to land at the Rock Springs airport and Finley went back to watching the three people.

  Chapter 24

  Work on the road between Manila and Vernal, Utah, 1939. A plan emerges from dust and heat. The Green River movie excursion looming like an ancient creature from rock shattered by powder monkeys. Seeds planted the previous night when Salvatore Cavallo claimed Barracks Three shared blame for murder. Sal didn’t belong in the CCCs; his was a different kind of family. Knowing they’d drive two work trucks on their own because not even one staff driver was available conjured up scenarios as men pickaxed blown-apart boulders.

  In retrospect, as old men, they’d think of the plan in terms of a tribe forced to defend itself rather than cowering in a cave. The busted up rocks they banged into truck beds that day were huge. Together they concluded a truck capable of carrying the rock could become a weapon.

  Quiet Paul Fontaine cut his arm on a sharp rock. After blood dried over the cut, Paul helped set the mood. “Look, it’s a map. My dried up cut’s the gorge, Green River in the bottom. Bloodstains are mountains. Town of Green River’s up here, Manila’s down here. Where blood ran onto my wrist is Vernal. Our camp’s here between Manila and the Ute Mountain Fire Lookout Tower.”

  A few nervous chuckles, but Paul was serious. “Could be a map of where the girl is, pieces spread all over. Imagine her blood drying in the sun for a day before remains were found. Imagine vultures spreading her all over the place.”

  Only Sal, laughing like a hyena at all the guys looking so serious, hadn’t heard what was said. He sat in the shade of a boulder they wished would dislodge. Later he’d meet up with the men in the tan Buick or the black Buick. Out of earshot they spoke of gangster goons and replayed details of the murder. A recent Green River newspaper in the recreation building said her na
me was Rose Buckles.

  Barracks One men, on their second tour at Manila, said Rose was a great gal. At dances there’d been more than a few scuffles over who’d dance with her. Maybe that’s why the Green River ladies auxiliary stopped having dances. Too many fights over Rose Buckles.

  The 39 minus one Barracks Three men lugging rock into trucks recalled the James Cagney look-alike district commander singling Sal out as a go-getter, and the camp superintendent giving hell to the Four Horsemen. Like the staff owed Sal and his family a goddamn favor!

  Sal called the Ukrainian-Hungarian Bela Lugosi, and the Scandinavian kid named Borg, Boris Karloff. Like calling Henry, Henrietta, after hitting him with a shovel. Repeating Henrietta over and over until the grudge match. Finally, Henry disappearing, his body probably buried at a work site, maybe that rock pile down in the gully, or a rockslide in the gorge.

  The previous night pulled their lives inside out. Many found strands of red hair in work slacks. Others found strands hidden in corners of footlockers, some of the hair with pieces of scalp. The way Sal raved about Rose’s hair had those who didn’t find strands figuring they would eventually. Who the hell’d believe CCCers? “Hey, you gotta do somethin’ about this guy in our barracks…Please, Superintendent!”

  At lunch break, several huddled behind the GMC. Eventually all 38 swung by because the water jug was there. When it was obvious Sal grabbed lunch and was off by himself, the kid from Chicago nicknamed Silent Joe Palooka, who’d had some college classes, spoke up.

  “If we say something, we’re in trouble with staff and the goons. If we keep quiet, he kills another girl or someone else. Therefore, we’ve got to do something.”

  Quiet Paul Fontaine with dried blood on his arm looked off into the distance. “He enjoyed it. Everyone’ll be busy with FDR’s war and he’ll be out there. We got no choice. He’s worse than a wild horse.”

  The Buick had been a furnace. After putting on fresh clothes, both washed their shirts, slacks, underwear, and socks in the motel bathroom sink and hung them to dry on the hitching post railing out front. It was a bone-dry breezy night. They sat on folding chairs outside, sipping bourbon and watching their clothes dry.

  The stocky man looked to the room next door and the empty parking spot in front. “Where’d Manny and Al go?”

  “Arrowhead.”

  “Probably hotter than hell. I’m glad Sal got talked into the movies.”

  “Maybe he’ll get in a rhubarb with whoever hit him up side the head.”

  “You sure it was a guy slugged him?”

  “We gotta think of ourselves. I’m glad we got new plates on the car.”

  “It’ll be eggs and coffee back in Brooklyn. This place gives me the creeps, especially after that thing with the girl.”

  “Did the boss say anything on the phone about knowing the kid was out that night?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Manny and Al talk to Rosario and we talk to Big Sal.”

  “Big Sal’s got no clue. His Uncle says shake up the barracks leader and we got no choice.”

  “Maybe we should mention the pills to Big Sal.”

  “I sure ain’t gonna be the one.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit’s the only word for this mess.”

  Late afternoon, the town quiet. Hardware store, Nan’s Drug and Sundry, and the IGA already closed. The setting sun reflecting pink off the canyon. Because the Green River movie house lobby lights were already on, the old man knew Tom had let himself in early. Tom’s rear end in work pants stuck out of the closet beside the inside door to the ticket booth.

  “Working on your amplifiers?” asked the old man.

  “I think a twin power triode tube blew.”

  “Okey-dokey,” said the old man.

  Tom spoke from the closet as the old man walked by. “It’s okay, got some spares.”

  “Fine and dandy,” said the old man. He went behind the concession counter, turned on the light for the popcorn machine and, glancing at the closet, grabbed a Power House bar. He opened a drawer beneath the cash register and pulled out the candy inventory sheet.

  Tom spoke from the closet. “It’d be nice to have a relative die and leave me fortune like that Longfellow Deeds character.”

  “Only ones dying around here are kids.”

  “Yeah, Rose was swell.”

  “But if someone did leave you a fortune, FDR’d figure out a way to grab it.” The old man waited. He liked saying things about FDR and getting reactions. “So, Tom, what song you playing on that thing tonight? No alligator swing racket and no Negro jazz.”

  “I thought ‘Stardust’ would be nice ‘cause the sky’s clear enough to see Utah. Tell me again why we’re open on a Wednesday night.”

  “District CCC commander talked to the mayor. Guess it’s a special treat.”

  “You think CCCers had anything to do with Rose?”

  “Doubt it. The mayor says have a movie tonight to show the town isn’t paranoiac.”

  “Para- what?”

  The old man loved showing off his vocabulary. “It’s when folks are frightened of things that shouldn’t frighten them.”

  Tom backed out of the closet, stood wiping one hand on his trousers and holding a sleeved record in his other hand. He turned and walked to the counter. “I thought the mayor was suspicious of those boys.”

  “Maybe. Amplifier fixed?”

  “I’m gonna try it.”

  “Not too loud.”

  “Can I make it loud tonight?”

  “Sure, no one will be in town but them boys. Might as well give them a nice sendoff. Who’s singing the “Stardust” song?”

  “Hoagy Carmichael.”

  “Good, his voice is assuaging.”

  “Assuaging?”

  “It means to bring comfort, what this town needs after what happened to Rose Buckles.”

  Tom pulled the record from the sleeve and held it up to the light. “They had another church service for Rose this afternoon?”

  “Those things are more for people left behind than victims. In a couple weeks the local pastors will call it quits. It’s nothing like all the services we had for the big war.”

  “I wonder when the next war’s gonna be.”

  The old man smiled. “FDR won’t take us to war. He wouldn’t dare jeopardize our peace.”

  “Jeopardize or not, my dad says we’ll go to war eventually. I figure I’ll be a radio operator in a bomber.”

  “Well, good luck. I still say FDR won’t go to war. You going to try that out now?”

  Tom held the record sleeve in one hand and the record in the other. “Oh yeah, Hoagy Carmichael with his deep, soothing, crooning, and assuaging voice. Too bad Billie Holiday doesn’t have a version.”

  When Tom went to the record player in the ticket booth, the old man reached for the Power House candy bar he’d hidden at the side of the cash register and took a big bite.

  Windless, waning moon already set, starlight shadows in rock and shale. Shine of the Green River at the bottom of its gorge spindly and black, awaiting smaller gorges cut over time to feed it. Occasionally, when a sudden storm pours over rock, small gorges come alive like blood veins feeding a heart downstream. One dry mini gorge is alongside the road from Green River to Manila. Some local maps call it a gully, others a ravine. A two-foot culvert, put in during washout road repair, is down ten feet in the ravine. A section north of the culvert is so steep someone placed several half-foot warning rocks at the edge. A sagebrush lizard rests motionless atop the largest warning rock, a black shadowbox image in starlight. A flash of light in the distance startles the lizard into a slither down to the bottom.

  From deep in the ravine, the blinding light that frightened the lizard came closer, rays descending the down slope like a parent in a lighted hallway opening a
door to check a child. Theoretically, lizards have no such thoughts. But humans do. Young men far from home to earn 30 dollars a month with 25 sent to family might think of parents checking on them.

  An engine being gunned followed the light, then the squeal of brake shoes on pitted metal drums echoed into the ravine and far away into the distant gorge. Dust, plowed by skidding tires, advanced into the headlight beams. The engine stopped, the headlights stayed lit. Young men’s voices, some testing lines between puberty and maturity, cried out.

  “Shit! We’ll all be dead!”

  “Not yet!”

  “Come on! He’s a live wire back here!”

  “You saps are good as dead!”

  “So’s your old man!”

  “Did you spoon before you used the shiv?”

  “Fuck you! She was a flat tire! I didn’t do nothin’!”

  “That ain’t what you said last night!”

  “My dicks’ll get you!”

  “How many did daddy send?”

  “Fuck you!”

  Young men shadowboxed in headlights. Several grabbed one man and threw him into the ravine. Arms, legs, shoulders, and dust.

  “Attaboy! Break a leg!”

  A scream, followed by, “Hey! My shoulder! You guys leave me here you’re dead!”

  Shadowed figures slid down the slope then climbed back up. Rocks bordering the edge of the ravine were kicked down. There was so much dust the twin headlights of the truck resembled movie projectors with busted films. Voices became quieter.

  “Now what? I’m not drivin’ it in there.”

  “Everyone here will push.”

  “Can’t we wait for the other guys?”

  “No.”

  From down in the ravine, “Hey! Get me outta here!”

  From the edge, “For the girl! Now, push!”