A Living Grave (19 page)

“Don't use the gun,” I said. My voice was quiet and pleading. I would have begged.

“I'm making other plans,” he said quietly.

“What plans?”

He sat the wineglass down. “This,” he said. The kiss was like feeling the sunrise all over my skin. All the weight that had ever been on my shoulders went away. There was no guilt, no worry, and no plan. Not only did he open my mouth, but he put a hand at the back of my neck and pulled me in tighter by the hair. It wasn't force or violence in any sense; it was—wonderful. With his other arm he wrapped me and brought my body in tight against his.

His kiss had more fire than it ever had before. He was not just taking pleasure, he was devouring. It was like he was stealing away bits of me with his mouth to hide them away from the world.

When he started to undress me I pulled back. It wasn't just that we were still outside on the deck that had me putting the brakes on. I was less concerned with what a distant stranger might see than what I knew for sure Nelson would see. There was too much light left in the evening and I still wasn't showing my scars in full daylight. Fear or vanity? It didn't matter. Nelson didn't push. He did let me return the favor and undress him as I urged him back into the darkness of the house.

We only made it as far as the couch.

* * *

We had been there, on the couch, for a couple of hours. Air-conditioning did nothing to cool the heat we were generating. Both of us were covered in sweat. It didn't help that the couch was leather. It didn't hurt, either. He was naked. I still had my shirt and bra on. Nelson wasn't complaining. He had risen for me a second time and was close to his release. I was lying under him watching his face as he urged both of us toward the fulfillment we were craving. I made it first. When my eyes widened and my mouth opened to gasp at the moist air he looked at me with pride. It was what he wanted and perfectly all right with me. Then his rhythm caught, went out of step, his brow furrowed and eyes glazed. He pulled back slowly but I wrapped both legs around his hips and pulled him into me.

“Don't hold back,” I said. “I'm ready.” I kissed him hard, sucking his tongue into my mouth and biting gently. He moaned. His body shook slightly. I took my mouth from his and pulled him down onto me. I whispered into his ear: “Now. I want it all.”

He gave all he had as deeply as it was possible and I sighed with pleasure.

That was when the phone rang. It was the sheriff.

I
t was a strange feeling. The last thing I wanted to do was to get up from that couch and go out into the night to face another example of the worst people could be. But I went with a light heart. I went singing along to the radio, and I'm not afraid to admit it, dancing a little in the truck seat as I drove.

There was a part of me that knew that nothing had changed. There was another part that was convinced that everything had changed. Either I was psychotic or there was another reason. I wasn't so giddy yet that I would think about that other reason. For now, I would just enjoy the ride.

The drive to the call out was a quick one. When I got there the nightmare of the scene sucked my feet right back to the ground. Almost every car in the department was on-site. Lights—spot and strobe—were raking at the night like digging a hole that kept collapsing overhead. You couldn't see it but as soon as I got close I could smell the remains of gunsmoke.

When I rolled up, Byron Figorelli and Jimmy Cardo were standing with deputies in front of the RV. It was parked in the same spot I'd last seen it, in the back of the Moonshines parking lot. That RV was a drivable behemoth, the kind of mobile living space that cost ten times what most of the houses in the county cost. It was also shot to hell.

The sheriff was getting out of his car as I pulled up. He saw me and sent a deputy over before I even had the engine shut off. The deputy told me they were called out on a report of multiple gunshots about forty minutes earlier. When they arrived the RV was ventilated end to end with multiple calibers of bullets and double-aught buckshot. The witness who called it in said they saw several men on motorcycles pull into the parking lot and leave in a hurry after the shooting stopped.

I thanked the deputy and went to have a talk with Figorelli.

“Used to be a nice place you have here,” I said as I approached.

“You really are a funny girl. Must be open-dyke night at the comedy club, huh?” He laughed at his own joke. Cardo joined in with his dead-fish smile and unreadable eyes.

“Is this thing insured?” I asked Figorelli.

“You bet your pretty ass it is.”

“Then keep a civil tongue in your mouth or I'll write a report that says you got drunk and shot it up yourself.”

“You can't do that.”

“What? Only scumbags like you two can screw the system and walk away laughing? I'm in no mood.”

“You're in no mood? Look at this RV. A million-two this thing cost.”

“Why'd they do it?”

“How the hell should I know? This whole state is the armpit of the country and you ask me where the stink is coming from?”

“Do you know these bikers? Have any dealings with them?”

“I seen 'em around, hanging with Johnny some. First him, now us. Why don't you do your job?”

I was about to say something to that when a man I had never seen came up to talk to Figorelli.

“Boss, I called the motorist-assist the insurance company said to. They're on their way.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“That's my driver,” Figorelli answered.

“Did I ask you?” I turned and called over a deputy. It was Calvin Walker, the man to whom Reach had reported me. As he approached I wondered what I would have to deal with, but Calvin said nothing. “Take this guy's statement,” I told him still with a bit of trepidation.

“Get his IDs and commercial driver's license checked and run him for priors.” It wasn't until he had taken the driver away that I relaxed and turned back to Figorelli. “So your driver wasn't in jail with you. He have an alibi for the times when Middleton was shot at and the day he was killed?” I asked.

“He don't need one,” Figorelli answered.

“Not yet,” I said.

The mechanics of investigation labored on, almost mindless.
Who
was known to a degree, even if not by actual name or location.
Why
was the real question dangling.
Why
is the making sense, the glue that would hold together the different people and the different crimes. There are a lot more whys in life than whos.

I continued talking and trading insults with Figorelli, enough to know that he didn't know how to get to the Nightriders any more than I did. I could tell by the threats. They were all bombast and wind, nothing even vaguely specific or suggesting a plan. He spoke on and on, using the phrases “When I find them” and “Those guys are gonna wish they were never born.” It was my experience that a guy like Figorelli, when faced with a known enemy, would have either said nothing or something simple. Saying,
I'll take care of it
carries a lot more weight with these guys than any threat.

Even though I doubted I would need them anymore, I told Figorelli and Cardo to stick around, then I told Calvin to make sure they did. I went to talk to the driver and asked him as much about Johnny Middleton as tonight. Most of his answers were “I don't know.” While we talked, I looked over the parking lot. It wasn't very full but the perimeter was lined with people looking on and taking in the activity. There were a few talking with deputies; either they thought they saw something important or their car was hit by stray fire.

Past the edges of milling people I saw a man. He was dressed like Porter Wagoner on steroids with sequins on his Western-cut jacket and a big Stetson. It was the same man I had seen talking to Middleton in the bar the night I got into it with Figorelli. And the same one I'd seen talking to Figorelli on the steps of the RV. I was sure he was also the lawyer that had bailed Figorelli and Cardo out of jail. I still hadn't seen his face but, even in Branson, there were not that many men dressed to star in a country music show. It was too much of a coincidence not to ask questions so I tried to catch him. By the time I got to the scene tape he was nowhere to be found.

As I was searching faces and checking out moving cars, Billy pulled into the lot and came over. “I'm out giving tickets when all the cool stuff happens,” he said.

“How come you're not playing the patio tonight?”

He nodded over at Figorelli. “The new management decided that my services were no longer required. They said they were going to put in a zydeco band. I think they didn't want a cop around. I figured I'd volunteer for some overtime.”

“New management? That didn't take long.”

“The way I heard it, they came in around noon the day after Middleton was found dead. After announcing it to the staff the first thing Figorelli did was take the mountain oysters off the menu.” He laughed. “At least the only people he fired were me and the distiller.”

“The distiller? Isn't that they guy that makes the whiskey?”

“I guess they have their own guy coming in.”

“Now that's interesting,” I said.

* * *

All things are like clocks, I guess. They run down. Even the big, violent events run to a halt. It took a couple of more hours but that scene dwindled down to nothing with the removal of the RV. I played a little trick on Figorelli. The tow truck his driver had called showed up, but I directed the operator to take the land yacht to impound. Not only was it not going to be repaired for a while but the tow bill was coming out of his insurance.

* * *

I left the scene grinning and settling back into my original mood. If I had been in one of my bad or drinking moods I might have missed what happened next. Because I was going straight back to Nelson's house—and his bed—I got caught up in an accident.

In the center of the road was the carcass of a deer. To the side, across a ditch and smashed into a wall of rock, was a pickup truck. Milling around that were four kids, too many kids for the cab of the truck. I wasn't the first cop on the scene. Billy was there and he was working over the body of someone in the ditch. As soon as my lights came on he looked up and waved me over.

I took a moment to call in, just in case Billy had not had the chance. I renewed the request for an ambulance and traffic support.

In the ditch was another girl. Three boys and two girls. It was obvious what had happened. The kids had all piled in the truck, girls on laps and everyone having a good time. Too good to be careful and probably too fast to see the deer until it was too late.

I forced the standing kids to back away and get off the road. Then I knelt beside Billy. He was up to his elbows in the girl's blood. She was young and pretty with dark hair, Hispanic or Native American looking. Most of her shirt and her bra had been cut off but Billy left part of the shirt to preserve the girl's modesty. I thought even more of him for that.

“Hold right here,” he ordered as soon as I was down. He didn't wait for questions or for me to hesitate; he took my hand and put it under the girl's arm, then wrapped my fingers around where he wanted them. “Squeeze tight,” he said. “Hard, like you're trying to pinch it off.”

When he moved his hands I noticed for the first time the one-anda-half-inch diameter branch protruding from both sides of her arm and the ragged hole it had cut going through.

I glanced up and saw the remains of a scrub tree bent over the hood of the truck and sticking into the cab. When I looked back down, Billy was digging into a large medical case. It was the kind you see with EMTs, not the usual pack our deputies carry.

He worked quickly without looking at me or giving any further instructions. I began to wonder if anyone could work quickly enough. My hands were getting bloody from the arterial pulse that still pumped from under my fingers. I squeezed harder and with both hands.

Billy turned on a small but bright LED flashlight, then shoved the butt end into his mouth, smearing blood from his hands to his face. Using his head to aim, he put the beam on the still-flowing gash.

I don't know why he bothered; he worked mostly by feel. Pulling gauze pads, he packed them into the wound. After that, he brought out a pair of hemostats. I felt something moving before I saw what he was doing. His fingers were in the girl's arm, under the skin and muscle, feeling for the artery.

I became aware that he had begun talking. Not to me, to the girl. But they were words I had heard before.

Mostly he said everything would be all right. He said it like it was a prayer as much for himself as for her.

“It'll be all right.”

“We'll take care of you.”

“Don't worry.”

“Everything will be all right.”

He never looked at the girl's face. He was talking through her wounds, focusing, forcing kindness into a brutal business.

“Move your grip up higher,” he said. He had to say it again before I came back to time and place. “Here,” he said, pointing with the flashlight, “in the armpit as high as you can, as tight as you can.”

I shifted my grip and I felt his fingers follow under the skin.

“You're going to be fine,” he spoke softly. “We'll take care of you.” Then a little louder: “Hah.” Under mine, his fingers pinched and pulled at the artery. He threaded in the hemostats and clamped the pulsing flow down.

When it was done, Billy smiled at me.

He has kind eyes
.

“I didn't know you had EMT training,” I said.

“Army medic,” he answered before turning back to bind the wound more.

* * *

Nelson was still on the couch when I returned. He was also still naked. But he had covered himself with an afghan. The big windows let in the light of the moon and stars almost like a lens with Nelson at the focal point. There were spots of blood on his cover from where he had been coughing.

Seeing his blood put a sour charge in the bottom of my gut; the feeling of tequila on an empty stomach. He was getting better. Stronger. I could tell. He was healing. We were both healing, I hoped. But . . .

I sat on the floor beside him and put my head into his shoulder. Sleep might have come. Instead, Nelson's hand slipped into my hair.

“Welcome home,” he said in a sleepy voice.

Home. The word gave me a feeling not quite equal parts delight and panic. I wasn't sure which was greater at the moment.

“Busy night?” he asked.

I nodded, knowing he could feel the motion.

“Did you do any good?”

“Yes,” I said. “There was a girl in an accident. Billy saved her life. I bet he saved her arm too. He was amazing. I didn't even know until tonight that he was a medic in the service.”

“Army?”

I nodded again.

“The Marines call the Navy corpsmen
doc
. They're the best people in the world. The bravest.”

“I've known Billy for years. How come I didn't know that about him?”

“Does he know everything about you?”

“What?” I raised my head and looked at Nelson's face in the pale light. “What do you mean?”

“Have you told him what happened to you in the Army? A lot of us have things we don't talk about from those times. I think every corpsman pays a price for the people he helps. If Billy had wanted you to know about that part of his life he would have told you.”

“I only found out because he helped that girl.” I turned my back to Nelson and looked out the windows at the night beyond.

“He's a deputy now, not an EMT. He's trying to leave something behind.”

“You think that's it?”

“That or he's carrying something around that he doesn't want anyone to see.”

I nodded at that, then said, “Secrets are hard.” The hand that had stayed in my hair pulled away. Its absence felt like a sudden silence. Behind me Nelson shifted up on the couch and drew in a breath to speak. Before he could, I said, “I'm a drunk.”