Pilate's Cross

by J Alexander Greenwood

  Waving a hand in front of him, he turned on his flashlight and shone it inside the cylinder. Inside, amidst what looked like the remains of a campfire, lay a small brown book. Pilate retrieved it and discovered that the book was actually a ledger, held together with a dried-out, fat rubber band. He gently brushed ashes off the book and laid it on a shelf.

  He shook the cylinder gently from side to side to see if there was anything else hidden amongst Brady Bernard’s mortal remains; he found nothing other than large roasted bone chips and ash. “Sorry, Brady,” he felt obliged to whisper.

  Pilate resealed the cylinder and put it back on the shelf where he’d found it, carefully camouflaging it with the bottles and boxes that had obscured it before.

  He tucked the ledger in the breast pocket of his pea coat and quickly put the room back together the way he’d found it.

  Pilate pulled the chain on the light bulb, slung his book bag over his shoulder, and opened the closet door.

  The two dead bodies silently witnessed him pick up the desk chair and place it under the window. Dead men—and women—tell no tales, he had to remind himself as he stepped on cracked glass, wincing at the sound as he mounted the chair to pull himself through the window. He threw his backpack outside, double-checked that the ledger was secure in his breast pocket and made his escape.

  The cold air slapped his face. The temperature had fallen by at least ten degrees, and to his dismay, Pilate saw fat snowflakes coating the ground. They’ll know, he thought, sickened by the catastrophic coincidence of show falling at just that moment. They’ll recognize my boot prints.

  After he had made it out the window, he cursed and looked around. Feeling exposed, he ran through the snowy cornfield, up the hill and back toward the scarce lights of Cross. The snow was falling in threatening flurries, obscuring his vision and forcing him to leave a mark that he didn’t want to leave. His lungs burned from exertion. He wondered if his shattered survival kit had anything that might keep him from getting lost in the snow.

  Stumbling in the dark, Pilate fell hard on his right knee and tripped into a small gulley. Cursing, he rubbed his knee, climbed out of the gulley, and continued on, a limp interrupting his gait.

  He made it back to the grove and deer stand, which provided him some shelter from the snowfall, like a tiny awning. Headlights from the county road nearby came and went. Pilate checked his watch: seven thirty. He’d been out there a long time, and the snow was falling harder and harder. It was a consolation, though, because if enough fell, it would cover his tracks and leave him untraceable to anyone investigating the mortuary break-in.

  Pilate wondered if Scovill would consider him a suspect. Thinking back to the broken glass, he remembered the glasscutter in his pocket. He wiped it off carefully of fingerprints and then used his gloved hand to toss it as far away as he could into the snowy abyss.

  As he sat there in the dark, the moon quickly becoming obscured by clouds and snow, he felt as vulnerable and alone as he had in a very long time. Standing in a grove of trees that broke up a soybean field, his teeth chattering, Pilate almost wished he could take it all back, make it un-happen. I’m not sure I can do this, he second-guessed himself. Maybe he’s right. Who do I think I am?

  He removed his gloves, laid them on his lap, then fished in his pockets for his lighter and cigarettes. He lit one, then replaced the pack and lighter. Pilate wanted to remove the small ledger from his pocket to study it in the flickering glow of the tip of his cigarette, but he couldn’t risk getting it wet in the snow. I just need to finish the damn cigarette and get back to Cross. Kate might be looking for me.

  Pilate smoked the cig halfway, put it out in the snow, and lumbered to his feet, his knee groaning. He looked down for a moment, feeling a little lightheaded. He was hungry, and he decided in that moment that nothing would be better than a heated-up can of Dinty Moore beef stew. It was good bachelor chow, something Kolchak might eat after a night of ghost busting.

  Pilate walked a few steps from the deer stand and then went back. Flicking on his flashlight, he found the cigarette butt he’d just extinguished and put it in his pocket.

  He managed to slip into Cross without being seen. He saw no cars on the road; most students were away for the weekend, likely putting off any return plans until the snow had been plowed, which could take days in a place like that.

  Dodging main streets and sticking to alleys, Pilate finally managed to get into his apartment around nine p.m. He stripped off his clothes, tossed them in the hamper, and threw his potentially incriminating boots in the back of his closet.

  He draped the pea coat over an old kitchen chair he’d rescued from a curbside trash pickup a few days prior.

  Chilled and hungry, Pilate opened the can of stew he’d been fantasizing about during his cold journey. It looked a lot like dog food, but he yearned for it nonetheless. He dumped it in a pan and turned on the range. A check of his phone revealed that Kate had indeed called a couple of hours earlier, but she hadn’t left a message. He went to the bathroom, took off the long johns, and stepped into a scalding shower.

  His knee was tender and already bruising from the fall he’d taken in the gulley, and his ankle was stiff, but neither was too painful unless he put all his weight on them. He slipped on some sweatpants and a Cross College sweatshirt, ran a comb through his hair, and went to the kitchen.

  The aroma of the dog food-looking stew made his stomach growl. Bachelors can’t be choosy, he mused as he stirred the chunks of alleged beef around in the gravy and mushy vegetables, then ladled the stew into a chipped bowl. He slathered some bread with margarine, poured a glass of milk, and sat down to eat.

  Pilate polished off the stew, bread, and milk in less than five minutes. He put the dishes in the sink and was reaching for the ledger in his coat pocket when a loud knock on the door shattered his peace.

  He went to the door, trying not to limp. He looked out a small window by the door and saw the unmistakable shape of Sheriff Scovill standing there. Der Komissar’s in town. Uh-oh. Wincing mentally, he opened the door. “Sheriff? Come in, come in,” he said, trying to sound more hospitable than suspicious. “Is Kate all right? What?”

  Scovill stamped his feet and removed his hat. His squinty eye regarded Pilate’s sweatpants, shirt, and wet hair. “She’s fine,” he said. “Haven’t you talked to her?”

  Pilate gestured for the sheriff to have a seat on the couch. “Not since earlier today. She and Kara were pretty tired, and I thought I would let them get some rest. I was kind of tired myself.”

  “Do you always shower at night?”

  “Um, no,” Pilate said, reaching for a cigarette, “but I didn’t shower this morning and felt a little scummy. Didn’t want to go to bed without cleaning up.”

  Scovill nodded. “So after the hospital today you just came home?”

  “Yup,” Pilate said, quickly changing the subject. “I guess you heard they induced a coma for Grif,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Yep. I just checked, and he’s still under,” Scovill said. “Now I guess all we can do is wait and see.”

  “Well, as frustrating as it is, that is probably the best thing for Grif right now,” Pilate said.

  “Strange days.”

  “No doubt.” Scovill sat still for a moment, regarding Pilate. “Sheriff, did you come here just to interrogate me about my bathing habits, or is there something else I can help you with?”

  “Well,” he said, “I really came to ask if you’ve given anymore thought to why Grif got banged up.”

  “I’m at a loss, other than the fact that Grif must have something that somebody else is willing to go to macabre lengths to obtain,” Pilate said.

  “Have something or knows something,” Scovill added. “Well, yeah.”

  “So anyway…” Scovill stood up. “We may get eight inches tonight. We may have to close school Monday if we can’t get the salt trucks and scrapers moving.”

  Pilate also stood. “Well, I woul
dn’t complain. I could use a day off.”

  “What, after lying around here all day eatin’ dog food and smelling scummy?” Scovill said.

  “Well, actually, Sheriff, I did take a walk around town this afternoon, so I’m a little worn out.”

  “I see. Cold day for a walk though,” he said, looking past Pilate at the pea coat on the chair.

  “Well, I needed some air. Needed to clear my head.”

  Scovill put on his hat. “Understandable.” He went to the door. “If I figure anything out or think of anything, I’ll call you,” Pilate said.

  Scovill’s squint regarded Pilate. “You do that.” He went back into the snow as Pilate closed the door behind him.

  Pilate watched Scovill’s truck pull away through the snow. He crossed the room to the pea coat, which was damp and glistening from the melted snow on the shoulders. He retrieved the ledger from the pocket. He blew some ash from it and dusted it off with a paper towel. He then put the paper towel, which had bits of Brady Bernard on it, aside. He would flush it later. The fat rubber band broke when he tugged it. He put that aside, too, and then opened the pages.

  Inside was a standard, lined business ledger with numerous entries of numbers next to various initials like “O.O.”, “M.N.”, “J.S.” and several others. It could be a gambling book, for all Pilate could tell. Of more interest were the scraps of paper tucked between the pages. Many of the yellowing pieces of paper also contained numbers and letters. In the back of the ledger, tucked between the last page and the back cover, was a neatly typed letter:

  Dear Marty,

  Well, by now you have this letter, so you know what I did…and I guess you have a good idea why. Wally should have just left me alone. After all my years at Cross, I deserved to stay.

  So, after I write this, I am tucking it in my jockey shorts, because I know it will be you who will find it when you prepare me for the funeral. No need for an autopsy since it’s clear how I ended this, so Dr. Tandy won’t have any need to look in my drawers.

  First off, there’s a ledger I stole from that jackass Olafson. He never could keep his mouth shut when he was drinking, and when he fucked my wife, he talked too damn much. She told me everything before I kicked her cheating, two-faced ass out of my house.

  The ledger is an accounting of all the money he was getting from his black market car racket.

  It’s all in there—cars stolen by Negro kids in the city who drove them out here to the sticks and passed them on to Olafson’s son. Ollie Jr. stripped them down and sold the parts. Scovill gave them cover and made sure parts they couldn’t sell ended up at the bottom of the river by Patterson Point. There’s also a Negro boy chained inside a stolen ‘57 Chevrolet at the bottom of the river. He got crossways with Olafson’s thug namesake last year.

  I figured I ought to tell you about this, since you’re a decent fellow and I know you’ll tell the state patrol since we can be assured our beloved sheriff will cover it up.

  Anyway, don’t judge me too harshly for what I’ve done. Wally and Gareth were supposed to be my friends. I guess a white man really does skin his friends.

  Warmly, Brady

  “God,” Pilate said, putting the pieces together. So Bernard killed his bosses for firing him and tried to take down the guy who screwed his wife on the way out. Something went wrong though. Martin Nathaniel got scared and never revealed what he knew— that our current Mayor Olafson, as a young man, under orders from his father, murdered one of his car thief conspirators. “Whoa,” Pilate said. He read the bizarre letter again and again.

  He pondered whether he should call Kate and tell her. She might go off half-cocked. Besides, this implicates Scovill’s father. That puts the sheriff in the untrustworthy category for good, as far as I'm concerned.

  He picked up the phone. “Krall? John Pilate. We need to talk.”

  “Okay.” Krall sounded tired and hung over.

  “I gotta come over,” Pilate said. “John, can’t this wait? It’s not a night fit for man or beast,” he said.

  “Can’t do this over the phone, Krall.”

  Pilate heard a muffled sound on the receiver, as if Krall were covering the phone so he could speak to someone without Pilate hearing. “Okay, John. You got any snowshoes?”

  “I’ll manage,” Pilate said.

  Pilate trudged the half-mile or so to Krall’s ramshackle Victorian pile on the east side of Cross. Snow covered the flaking paint and pathetic rock garden that was a favorite receptacle for students’ empty beer cans, tossed from cars. Knocking the snow off his boots, Pilate saw two sets of tracks leading away from the porch into the street. He didn’t have to knock, as Krall was standing in the doorway, watching for his approach.

  “Lo and behold, the human icicle!“ Krall bellowed. Pilate brushed past.

  Krall closed the door behind him. “Here. This’ll warm your bones.”

  Accepting the brandy, Pilate sipped it before taking off his coat, and then he took a seat beside the fireplace. “Thanks. I needed that,” he said.

  “On the house,” Krall said, plopping down on an overstuffed couch that served as a resting place for stacks of newspaper, magazines, and at least three books all lying spine up. “So, what’s all the late-night mid-blizzard commotion about?”

  Pilate explained, between a few of Krall’s interruptions, what had happened. When he got to the part about breaking into the mortuary, he stopped. “Anyway, I found this.” He produced the ledger and the letter and handed it to Krall.

  Krall took the items and immediately read the letter. His mouth moved in spots as he read, his face a roadmap of surprise and excitement. He let out a long, low whistle and set the letter down on the coffee table between them. “Jesus.”

  Pilate nodded. “Do you mind?” He held up a cigarette.

  Krall waved at him in assent. “John, this is quite an artifact.”

  “Yes, it answers a lot of questions,” Pilate said, exhaling his smoke into the fireplace.

  “It would seem so,” Krall said, his fingers steepled together before his face. “But why now? What’s going on here that is making Olafson want to find this now? I mean, how would he know it even exists?”

  “Not sure. I mean, certainly he can read, and the historical documents state that Martin Nathaniel last had possession of Bernard’s ashes and no one had claimed them, but surely they would have gone after them sooner than this.”

  “Well, that fire that took out the mortuary a few years ago was pretty suspicious. Sheriff Scovill Sr. signed off on it as being a lightning strike, but that seems to be a pretty lame excuse to me,” Krall said.

  “Exactly. Maybe they thought they’d knock out any evidence with a fire,” Pilate said. “But what I still go back to is, why now?”

  “Somebody…” Krall paused a moment, looking at the fire. “Somebody musta stirred up some shit. Somebody must’ve done something to get ol’ Ollie thinking he’s on the spot and about to be dropped in the grease.”

  “But who? And why?

  “Think, Professor. The land deal.” Krall smacked his hands together. “Who is the only one standing between Ollie and his golf course dreams?”

  “Lindstrom!“ Pilate said. “Shit. So you think he started mouthing off? But how would he know anything?”

  “Shit, John. He doesn’t, but he’s heard the rumors, and Lindstrom may have done some digging. I mean, everyone in town thinks there’s something suspicious about Marty Nathaniel’s death.” He scratched absently at his ear. “You put the right rumors in the wrong ears, and people have a tendency to get nervous— especially if they have something to hide.”

  “Brilliant. Lindstrom played them,” Pilate said, lighting another cigarette.

  “Gimme,” Krall said, snatching the cig away and puffing on it. “You don’t smoke,” Pilate said.

  “I know,” Krall said, sucking on the cigarette.

  “Lindstrom knows Ollie has ties to the Klan and God knows what else,” Pilate said. “From what I h
ear, the Klan ruled around here until the eighties.”

  “The eighties? For shit’s sake, Pilate, they still do,” Krall said, hopping up to retrieve a book off a shelf.

  “There’s no Klan anymore,” Pilate said. “Just the NRA.”

  “They may not call themselves Klan, but the guys who were in the KKK are still running things in this town. Look.” Krall opened a Cross Public School yearbook and pointed at a photo of several young men with the words “Cross Cavaliers” printed above it.

  “What the hell were the Cross Cavaliers?” Pilate said.

  “You mean Klavaliers, a social club,” he said, making air quotes. “They helped keep the community clean…and I’m not talking about picking up litter. They kept everything white and pure and clean, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “I get it,” Pilate said. “KKK.”

  Krall stabbed at the photo with his bony finger. “Yeah but look at the members.”

  Pilate looked at the faces and then read the caption. “Some of these names are familiar…Olafson, Mostek, Kennedy…Nathaniel. Oh my God! That’s Grif Nathaniel with Ollie Jr. Shit, Krall. What are we on to here?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s something.” Krall closed the yearbook. “They were all tight back then. Looks like something really bad happened and Marty and Grif got a bad case of the shakes.”

  “Or developed a conscience,” Pilate said.

  “Right. You freaking liberals,” Krall snorted. “You’re all so damn trusting of the good in people.”

  “Krall, do you think Scovill knows about this?”

  “I really don’t know,” he said. “Morgan’s a decent fella, and I would really hate to think he’d cover anything up. Then again, the memory of his father is important to him. His dad died of diabetes a few years back, and Morgan just idolized that man. When he got elected sheriff three years ago like Daddy dearest, it was the proudest moment of his life.”