Pilate's Cross

by J Alexander Greenwood

  “Sure. I’m, uh…well, I’m sorry about what happened,” Pilate said. “I hope you don’t think that uh…”

  Scovill cocked his head and looked at Pilate. “What? That you broke into your new girlfriend’s family crypt? Not fucking likely.”

  Pilate knew it was not time to argue the semantics of whether Kate Nathaniel was his girlfriend; especially since he was on a credibility-losing streak and the notion supported his alibi. “Exactly,” Pilate said, turning to look down the valley. “Wait a minute! Wait just a damn minute. Do you think the guy who knocked me off the road did this?”

  Scovill looked amused in that irritating way of his. “Well done, Sherlock.”

  “Well, that helps. How many students have trucks?” “Students?”

  “Well, you found a spirit ribbon, didn’t you?” Pilate said.

  “I also found Jesus when I quit drinking a few years ago, and I’m pretty sure He was in a tomb, too, but that don’t mean nothing,” Scovill said. “Even if we didn’t find anything in there, logic dictates that it had to be somebody from around here, one of the locals. If that’s the case, they more than likely work at, go to, or support the college in one way or another.”

  Pilate couldn’t fault his logic. It could have been a student, an employee, or a booster for that matter. Crap. “So where does that leave us?”

  “Us? I didn’t know there was an us, but it leaves you on your way back to the college, Mr. Pilate.” He turned on his heel and walked back toward the path. “With the thanks of the county for your assistance in our inquiries, of course.”

  Just as Pilate started to follow Scovill, Grif exited the crypt, blowing his nose into a handkerchief. “Sheriff, I’ll wait with Lenny for the M.E.,” he said. “When he’s done looking over the remains, I’m going to take Mom and Dad over to the home and fix them up before they’re re-interred.”

  “You bet, Grif. Just wait until Doc Hutton is finished before you move them around, okay?” His tone was uncharacteristically gentle.

  Grif nodded and looked up at Pilate. Pilate nodded, his face somber.

  “Mr. Pilate was on the road last night when a potential suspect ran his car into the ditch,” Scovill said. “He was here giving me his report.”

  “Oh, I see. Hello, Mr. Pilate,” Grif said, the weariness behind his eyes unbearable. “Good to see you again.”

  “Yes, but I’m sorry it had to be…well, under these circumstances,” Pilate said.

  “Me too. In my line of work, I’m used to seeing people in their darkest moments,” he said. “Odd to have the shoe on the other foot.”

  “Yes, well, if there is anything I can do,” Pilate said.

  “Thank you,” Grif said. “There is one favor I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind.”

  “Name it,” Pilate said.

  “Would you break the news about this to Kate for me? I am going to be a little tied up today, and it would be better if she heard details from a friend instead of through the grapevine. News travels fast and gets exaggerated around here.”

  “Sure. I’ll tell her when I get back to the office,” Pilate said, shaking Grif’s proffered hand.

  Pilate again wiped his hand furiously on his pants as soon as he was out of sight further down the trail.

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” Jimmy said.

  “Ever notice that the hottest girls in school are with the most dog-ugly, stupidest guys?” Krall said, catching up to Pilate on the oval after the sheriff dropped him off.

  “Um, no, I hadn’t noticed that,” Pilate said.

  “Where you going so fast?” Krall said, his hands jammed into his coat pockets against the cold.

  “Got a meeting with Trevathan,” he said.

  “A meeting with the dean? What’s up?”

  “What? You haven’t heard about my accident yet?” Pilate said.

  “Nope. An accident, you say? You okay?” Krall answered, stepping up his pace.

  “Fine,” Pilate said. “Some idiot ran me off the road last night.”

  “Jesus. On purpose?”

  “I sure hope not,” Pilate said, “but they knocked me in the ditch on the cemetery road and kept on going.”

  “Wow. Man, it was probably just some drunk kids,” Krall

  said.

  “Yeah, drunk and hopped up on grave robbing,” Pilate said, grasping the door of the Arts building.

  “Ha. Good one,” Krall said. “Oh…here.” He handed Pilate a small box. “I grabbed your wireless card and password for you. I was just headed over to your office to give it to you.”

  “Thanks.” Pilate pocketed the box, not losing a step.

  “Let me know if you have any problems getting it to work. Anyway, I gotta go meet with Lindy’s new hot-shit marketing guy. He wants to use the library as a centerpiece for his big media plan or some such shit. Fancy big-city idiot…wears a damn tie every day. See ya later.” Krall peeled off to the library.

  Pilate bounded past the dean’s office and took the stairs two at a time. When he saw that Kate’s light was on in her office. He stopped, took a breath, and knocked.

  She didn’t look up from grading papers. “Office hours are one to three today. It’s past three.”

  “Kate,” Pilate said.

  She looked up. “Hi, John.” She ran a hand through her sandy hair and put her pen down.

  “Hi. Uh, I need to talk to you,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t worry about last night. It’s fine.” She smiled, drawing those little crow’s feet Pilate so loved to the surface around her eyes. “I had a good time,” she said.

  “Me too,” Pilate said, taking the chair beside her desk. “Actually, I need to tell you about something else—about what happened last night after I dropped you off.” Pilate related his experience from last night and the afternoon. He made sure she knew immediately that her husband's casket was untouched.

  Kate listened, incredulous. The sorrow he had seen in her face the first time they met returned, and he hated that he had to tell her the ugly tale. “You must be kidding. You think our kids would break into a crypt?” Her head jerked as if she were miming spitting on the floor. “I mean, I know kids do weird shit when they’re out getting drunk or high, and I’ve even heard of kids breaking into a crypt, but ransacking the coffins? God, Grif must be beside himself.”

  “Yes. He wanted me to tell you,” Pilate said. “I get the feeling he doesn’t have it in him to talk about it just now.”

  Kate looked at her hands, her palms resting upon her lap. “Who would want to do such a thing?”

  “Kate, I’m sure Scovill will find the culprits.” Pilate rose. “Trevathan really wants to see me now. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. You better get to the dean’s office,” she said.

  “Okay. Call me if you need…anything,” he said.

  Halfway out the door, Kate called him. “John?”

  He leaned in the door. “Yeah?”

  “Why were you all alone on that road late last night anyway?”

  “Just out driving to nowhere in particular, to clear my head I guess.”

  “Clear it of what? Did something fill your head last night at dinner?” she said, her blue eyes suddenly cobalt.

  “Um…” He looked at the floor, then back at her. He pointed to his wristwatch, shrugged, and walked out.

  As he typed, Trevathan’s reading glasses, perched on the edge of his nose, reflected the glare from the computer screen.

  Pilate knocked.

  “Oh, John Pilate,” he said. “Come in and shut the door.” He typed a few more keys. “Sit down. Be quiet a minute while I finish replying to this e-mail from our fearless leader.”

  Pilate complied. His eyes being quite good, he could read parts of the e-mail from his seat. The words “fire him, misconduct, bad P.R.” and “little asshole” were prominent. Pilate’s stomach churned.

  A moment later, Trevathan finished his furious pecking of the keyboard; after a flourished stab at the enter key
he turned to face Pilate. “You are what my sainted mother would call accident prone, Mr. Pilate,” Trevathan said, taking off his glasses and tossing them atop a pile of papers on the walnut desk.

  “Yes, but I got great marks in penmanship,” Pilate said.

  “You don’t play well with others either,” he said. “John, the proper response is, ‘I know I’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here. I assure you that the accident last night was not my fault, but I do recognize that I need to be more responsible about staying out of situations that may embarrass this college’,” Trevathan said, making a steeple gesture with his hands under his chin.

  “Dean, are you telling me I’m fired?”

  He looked at Pilate with his good eye; the glassy one roamed a few centimeters to the left. Trevathan blinked rapidly for a second or two. “No, but I can assure you that the odds of your contract being re-upped are very slim at this point,” he said.

  “The president of this college is very public relations-vigilant, and you have managed to create or be a party to a least two incidents that have reflected negatively on this college.”

  “Have I performed my duties poorly? Have I missed one class? Have you received one complaint about me from students?” Pilate’s voice rose in anger.

  “No, no, and no,” Trevathan said, “but that doesn’t matter anyway if the boss thinks you’re a liability to his grand plan.”

  “I can go to the union,” Pilate said.

  “Yes, but you have no real standing, no history here or anywhere else.” Trevathan sighed. “Besides, Lindstrom keeps the union president’s balls in a jar on his desk next to the vase with the faculty senate’s dentures.”

  “So I’m screwed?” Pilate said.

  “Not quite,” Trevathan said. “We still have two months left in the semester. Keep a low profile, stay out of trouble, and you might get some summer classes and an offer for next fall. Look, for precisely the fact that you are a good, solid teacher—which are in short supply here because Lindstrom has scared most of them away—I can beg poverty and get him to forget about canning you, but that won’t happen if you fuck up again.”

  “I didn’t fuck up. That car ran me off the road.” Pilate raised his voice. “That jerk in the bar hit me without provocation. You were there. You saw it.”

  He nodded. “Why the hell do you think I’m fighting for you?”

  Pilate let out a choppy breath, and his eyes watered.

  “John, just lay low,” said Trevathan in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Stay out of trouble. Stay home nights. Grade your papers,” Trevathan said. “Watch TV. Read a book. Hell, write a book for all I care. Just stay out of trouble.” He coughed into his clenched fist.

  “So I’m to be a prisoner in my own apartment?” Pilate said. “What’s next? Is Lindstrom going to tell me who I can eat lunch with? Who I can talk to? Maybe I should check in before I jack off?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Trevathan said, expressionless.

  Pilate seethed, looking out Trevathan’s office window a moment, taking notice of the slowly fading sun. “I’m sorry.” He rubbed his forehead with a shaking hand. “It’s been a hard year.”

  “I know.” Trevathan’s tone was fatherly. “This too shall pass.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a job at some diploma mill in the Caribbean. I can write you a letter. On the other hand, maybe you can just tend bar on a beach and enjoy the scenery. I know a nice place.”

  Pilate rolled his eyes.

  “How’s your car?”

  “I think it’s okay. Jimmy’s giving it a onceover to be sure.”

  “Good. Why don’t you go home?” Trevathan stood up.

  “Nowhere else to go, is there?” Pilate managed a half-hearted smirk as he opened the door and strode into the hallway.

  “Who likes conch fritters anyway?” Trevathan said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Pilate lay on his couch smoking, a vodka and Sprite nearly untouched on the coffee table. His answering machine had cheery news: He had cracked the radiator against the tree, and

  Jimmy would have his car for a few days. I really am a prisoner.

  Looking at the ceiling, his thoughts turned back to the cemetery. Why, he mused, would someone be searching long-dead bodies? And for what? Just the bodies of the undertaker and his wife were disturbed. Clearly they were the ones the grave robbers were searching for. But why?

  Pilate sat up, drank some of the vodka, and tapped his ashes into a black ceramic typewriter-shaped ashtray his grandfather had given him. The face of the frustrated novelist young Pilate idolized flashed through his mind. He pushed out the maudlin memory, focusing again on the cemetery, and he picked up his phone and dialed.

  “Hey,” Krall said, answering without saying hello. “Hey,” Pilate said.

  “You asshole. Why didn’t you tell me about that grave robbing thing today? Shit, I thought we were friends,” Krall said.

  “I was going to, but Trevathan wanted my ass in his office, so I had to hurry,” Pilate said. The real reason was that he’d been so disturbed by the whole thing that he wasn’t ready to talk about it.

  “Besides, I figure if somebody farted in this town, you would have smelled it before I could tell you.”

  Krall laughed.

  “Has this sort of thing happened before?” Pilate asked. “Farts?” he said, then laughed at his own childish joke. “Ha. Seriously, the grave thing,” Pilate said.

  “Oh, some kids got caught kicking over gravestones a few years back, just punk drunk crap like that,” Krall said. “I think I heard that some Goth gang broke into one of the crypts once, too, but they just smoked pot, burned a few candles, and acted depressed about their mascara. They didn’t disturb the coffins.”

  “Well, nobody smoked pot in there this time, I don’t think,” Pilate said.

  “Lenny told Lonnie Porter down at the store that you were up there helping the sheriff,” Krall said, his voice rising an octave. “Were you really in there?”

  “Lenny can talk?” Pilate asked. A beat.

  “Yes, Krall. I was up there getting my car out of the ditch, and the sheriff picked me up and dragged me in there,” Pilate said. “But let’s keep that quiet on campus. I don’t need the rumor mill going.”

  “Too late, man. I already knew you were there, and I know Lindstrom’s ears have reported in to command central,” Krall said.

  “True.” Pilate recalled his conversation with Trevathan.

  “So what did you see?” Krall sounded like an anxious teenager digging for details on a buddy’s first screw.

  “What else did Lenny say?”

  “Not much,” Krall said. “As you know, he’s a man of few words. From what I could glean, a couple coffins had been smashed in. I think he said Martin and Millie Nathaniel’s? Anyway, they said it looked like someone was searching the coffins for something.”

  “That was what it looked like,” Pilate said. “Were they buried with expensive jewelry or something?”

  “Doubt it—especially not with a body in a crypt. That’d be so much more vulnerable to theft than a body in the ground. Poor Grif. This has to be hard for him, having to put his own folks back together.” Krall actually sounded sincere.

  “Yes,” Pilate said, recalling Grif at the crypt earlier. “How’s Kate?”

  “Fine. I told her.” Pilate kept his tone neutral.

  “Well, she and Kara are really all Grif has left, ya know?” “Yeah.”

  “She may need someone to lean on,” Krall said. The leer in his voice was impossible to miss.

  “You’re a dick, Krall,” Pilate said.

  “You know your own kind, I see,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s go down to the bar and get a drink. Birds of a feather oughtta drink together, don’t ya think?”

  “Can’t. Presidential house arrest.”

  “Fucking Lindstrom,” Krall said. “I can come by.” “I’m kind of tired anyway, Krall.�
��

  “Well, is your Internet card working?”

  “I haven’t used it yet, but that’s not a bad idea. It’ll help me kill time here in solitary.”

  “Glad I could help. Check out some porn and let me know if you hear anything new—or see any videos worth checking out.”

  “Will do.”

  After Pilate hung up, he gulped down his drink, lit another cigarette, and lay back on the couch. He surveyed the room, his eye landing on the worn copy of Modern Criminal Investigation.

  Pilate grunted, fetching the wireless card from his coat pocket. He plugged it into his laptop and typed in the password Krall had scrawled on the box: “poontang.” He rolled his eyes, sighed and followed the instructions.

  Once he was online, Pilate retrieved the e-mail from his personal account. A lot of spam had clogged his inbox. After spending about twenty minutes filtering out the junk mail, he focused on the e-mail from his friends and family.

  His parents had written a short, sweet note of encouragement about his “new adventure,” advising him to “keep his eye on the ball.” Pilate was confident his father had written that one.

  Pilate wrote back to his parents and a few other friends, then surfed some blogs and news sites for a while. Within an hour, he had tired of surfing and turned off the computer. He wasn’t even slightly tempted to click through porn sites—at least not yet.

  The next morning, Pilate rose early after a fitful night in bed. Around six thirty, he journeyed across the chilly oval to the cafeteria, frost crunching under his feet.

  In the cafeteria, about twenty student zombies milled down the serving line, pointing and grunting at the sight of French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, or Froot Loops.

  Pilate ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee for himself, then took a seat alone by a window overlooking the oval.

  Halfway through his eggs, he spied Jack Lindstrom making his walk from the modest president’s residence at the south end of the oval to his office in the admin building at the north end. He walked with a spring in his step. Thinning hairs on his head waved in the breeze.