A Living Grave (23 page)

“Have a drink,” Clare said, sliding one of half-a-dozen sealed jars across the table.

I don't know how my face looked at the moment but it must have been saying something. Uncle Orson reached out and slid the jar back with the others, then said, “I think Katrina is keeping a better eye on what she drinks these days.” He grabbed an orange soda from the cooler and opened it with a rusty church key that had been dangling from the same string for longer than I'd been alive. “Isn't that right,” he said, sliding the bottle across the tabletop.

“Close enough to right,” I answered. I took a long drink.

“So are you going to marry him?” Uncle Orson asked while I had the bottle tilted up and my head back.

When I lowered the soda from my mouth I turned the bottle away and touched the back of my hand to my lips.

“So?”

“That's good,” I said in the way of pointedly not answering. Then I looked to Clare. “I've been looking for you,” I said.

“Don't bother,” he said. “I'm out of the business.”

“That's why I was looking.”

“Did you know that Clare isn't just another bootlegger?” Orson chimed in. “He's certified.”

“Certified?” I asked and I'm sure my eyebrow made a Vulcan arch as I did.

“Told you I was a teacher. Gotta do something with those summers off. I took classes in distilling and brewing. Lotta good they did me.”

“Have you found out anything more about what's been going on?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Only thing I hear is about that restaurant place and I already told you what I think about it.”

“What have you been hearing?” I asked.

“They're making over quota. That's all I know. I talked to Gabe Hoener. He was the master distiller there before he got fired.”

“Over quota? Wouldn't that be a good thing? Why'd he get fired?”

“Not like that,” Clare said. “Over state quotas. For in-house, they're only licensed to produce so much for onsite sales and enough to keep a gift shop going. They can distribute locally to wholesalers but the agreements say the distribution has to be less than fifty percent of total production. Gabe got fired for pointing that out.”

“How much more are they making?”

“He said they could do a thousand gallons a month if they wanted to.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

“That place is lucky to sell one gallon a month,” he said before taking a sip from his jar.

I took a drink from my soda, then asked, “So where's it all go?”

Clare shrugged. The motion seemed both an answer and a resignation. I finished my orange soda.

Uncle Orson tilted his head toward the screen door and followed the motion. I went with him outside to stand beside the grill. He picked up a pair of tongs and poked around at the chicken and brats. To the side was a pile of burgers keeping warm in a foil pan.

“So? You're not answering my question?” He added the brats and a couple of chicken breasts to the warming tray.

“Would you wrap up a couple of those burgers for me? I'll take them home to Nelson.”

“Home?” he asked.

“Burgers,” I said.

“You know, not answering is a kind of answer.”

“You know what's an even better answer?”

“What?”

“Hamburgers. With cheese. And a frosty mug of shut-the-hell-up.”

“I tell you,” he said. “There's no love to be had around here.”

“That's not true,” I told him and put my hand on his arm and waited for him to look me in the eyes. “I love your burgers.”

“You get your sense of humor from your father. He was never funny, either.”

“I called him early this morning. I kind of thought he might be here.”

“Nope. Not today. He's busy with work. Like it would kill him to retire.”

I reached to the overhead shelf and lifted the brick that kept the stack of paper plates from blowing away. I pulled a couple out and reset the brick. “How busy can he be?”

On his side of the shelf Orson pulled down buns and put them on the plates. “Who knows with him? He went to Washington, I think. He wasn't very clear. There's a mess between Homeland Security and DoD involving an investigation into stolen weapons. For some reason they need an old man to take care of it. Must have been important. He sounded worried.”

“He doesn't get worried,” I said, opening and laying out the buns while Orson slipped the dripping patties onto them.

“No. He just never lets you see him worried.” He hung the tongs on their hook and closed the lid on the grill before turning to face me straight on. “You know, we're not going to be around forever,” he said.

I covered the plates with plastic wrap and concentrated on what I was doing.

“You understand what I'm saying?” he asked.

“I know what you're saying but I don't really want to think about it right now.”

“There's never a good time for those thoughts. But maybe you need to spare some for the idea that someday you might have to take care of your dad instead of the other way around.”

“Not him,” I said, finally looking up. “And not you. Both of you are like rocks. You're always going to be here.”

“Rocks used to be mountains,” he said. “All of us pass.”

“Is there something you're trying to tell me?” I asked. “Something specific?”

“Just that time has a way of running away with us all and maybe your daddy would retire, take things easier, if he felt a little more secure about you.”

“That's a vote of confidence. Are you wanting me to marry Nelson so I'll be secure?”

“No. That's just so you'll be happy. I want you to be secure so your father can get on to his happiness.”

I stacked the plates up and gestured with them. “Well, I'll be sure and let you know. Thanks for the burgers.”

“Don't go away mad,” he said. “And tell Nelson,
hey
.”

I did kind of want to be mad but it wasn't in me. It had drained out through the day. He was right, anyway. Not that being right had ever stopped my anger. I had realized, though, that I wanted to talk to Nelson; I wanted to share the thoughts I was having with him.

When I went back into the shop, Clare was no longer at the table. He was behind the counter, helping a bemused-looking man decide between mealworms and salmon eggs. At the same time he was discreetly slipping a jar of whiskey into a bag. It looked like having Clare around would help Uncle Orson's sales, if nothing else.

* * *

Nelson had been at the inside of the house like a tornado in a trailer park. There were boxes everywhere. Most were stout cardboard from the supermarket, but many were crates, wooden structures strong enough to carry gold bars. They held paintings in twos and threes. On the table were stacks of paper laid out in ordered rows, each pile bearing red tabs poking out every which way. They were all legal documents and the tabs were those little sticker things that point out the places one needs to sign.

Remaining untouched in the corner was the big easel and a work in progress. Beside that was the little stand with the single drawer. It was open and empty. I looked around through the jumble for the case with the revolver.

The sliding door to the deck stood open, letting fresh air and an equally welcome break from the heat into the room. Thinking I'd find Nelson out there, I followed the breeze. He wasn't there but he'd left something behind. A cigar butt and a Zippo lighter engraved with the Marine Corps globe and anchor.

From behind me I heard the wet spit of a pull tab being opened. Nelson was standing there in old desert camo pants and no shirt. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat that had just won the lottery.

“Are you crazy?” I asked, pointing at the cigar stub, then to the beer in his hand.

His answer was to reach out his free hand and pull me into a kiss. I didn't want a kiss. I wanted an answer, but . . .

He tasted of beer and faintly of cigar. His skin was wet with sweat and smelled musky. He'd tried to cover it with—
was that Old Spice?
Altogether it was about as manly and wonderful a mixture as I could imagine. I kissed him back—hard.

When the kiss broke, I pulled back and looked at him. I knew I wanted to be angry with him for abusing himself but I couldn't. He really did look better than I had ever seen him. The bones that had shown through were maybe slightly less defined. On his head was a definite and prickly shadow of new growth. The real change was in his eyes. There was a lively fire to them that made me think of joys I'd never imagined.

“Crazy about you,” he said.

There's something about a man with a stupid line when he doesn't know it's stupid. I kissed him again and decided not to nag about the cigar.

“You brought hamburgers,” he said, pointing at them on the table as he led me back inside.

“And you brought lawyers.”

“Don't worry,” Nelson said after turning to wink at me. “It's not a prenup.”

“Like you have anything I want,” I teased.

“That's not true,” he hit back earnestly. “You like that painting.” He pointed to one securely crated away.

“I've already got that one on a coffee cup.”

“You're breaking my heart.”

“And who said I was going to marry you?”

“Like you have options.” He grabbed up one of the burgers and pulled the plastic wrap away before burying his teeth in, chomping away almost half.

“You're in good spirits,” I said. “Mean. But good.”

“I feel good.” He spoke and smiled while chewing. Then he used the beer to wash down the food. “I mean it. Good. Like I haven't felt in a long time, good.”

“And all this?” I pointed to the piles and mess around us.

He'd taken another bite and was smiling around it. When he forced it down he said, “I'm making room.”

“For what?”

He sat the remainder of the burger down right on top of a stack of papers. The look in his eyes was not as happy as it had been.

“I've been going through them too. Thinking and remembering. They need to be someplace more suited to long-term storage.”

Nelson hadn't answered my question, but I didn't push. I was caught up in what he
did
say. It was easy for me to think of the thoughts and memories he spoke of as physical objects. They were boxes, some wrapped and secret, some worn from opening so many times. The contents were all treasures, even if some were sad. They were sitting, piled around us; the accumulation of a life. It was how I felt often. Like I lived with boxes labeled
Never Forget
or
Never Remember
.
Things That Were
.
Things That Might Have Been
.

“I know you think you're getting better—”

“I
am
better,” he said.

After a long, thoughtful time I said, “I can't watch you die.”

“That's not what I want. I want you to watch me live.”

“What if these are just a few good days?”

“What if?” he said like it was a curse. “You can't live a life worried about all the what-ifs, because that's all there are. What if something good happens? What if something bad happens? News flash, Katrina Williams: They will happen. They have happened and will continue happening. I can make you a promise, though.”

“What?”

“No matter what if—I promise that cancer won't kill me.”

“How can you promise that?”

“Because this is my life—this is our life—and I'm bigger than cancer.”

He smiled. It was so warm and confident it could not be doubted, but still . . . I flashed on an earlier thought I'd had on the deck:
There's something about a man who believes his own foolish lines.

“I don't know . . . I don't know if I'm capable . . . I'm afraid I can't be here with you. For you.”

“It's not for me, Katrina.” He smiled like he had a secret thought, then he said, “Katrina. My own hurricane. You are a wild bluster. You blew into my life and changed everything.”

That was the first time I was proud to be called Hurricane.

“I'm not so selfish to have asked you to marry me if it was for my sake,” he said. “It's not for me, it's for you.”

“I don't understand.”

“You know the difference between you and me?”

I shook my head.

“I've been fighting to live. I think you've been fighting . . .” He thought about it. Then he shrugged weakly like he was giving up the search for the words he needed and said simply, “not to.”

It was like being slapped.

“You think I want to die?”

This time it was his turn to shake his head. “Not wanting to die is not the same as wanting to live. Really live.”

I wanted a reason to strike out at him. I wanted to conjure the anger again and shout, to scream how wrong he was.

But he wasn't. The real shame is that, until the last few days, everyone had seen it but me. At least I saw it then. I kissed him and told him that I loved him. Then I told him I would marry him.

I
slept in Nelson's bed for the first time that night. We were naked and close, whispering words that disappeared in the dark. Meaningless sound, endearments, and soft breath that held back, at least for me, the smallest worry. All the world melted away in our lovemaking. Nelson had opened not just the sliding door but most of the windows as well. The night carried clean heat and ripples of chill that washed the atmosphere of the house.

Everything about the night brought my skin to life. Everything made me smile. At one point, I had a secret thought.

The wheel spun in my favor
.

I didn't say it out loud. Nelson would have thought me crazy. I wasn't so sure myself. Did insanity feel like happiness? Was it simply insane to be happy in this world?

When we were spent and tangled in stillness, I quietly said, “I'll never fall asleep.” Then we were both out.

I didn't dream. That's to say, I didn't dream so I could see. My dreams were only feelings of warmth and safety within the void. I awoke with the creeping sunrise. My mouth was hot and dry. It felt like a monkey had been sleeping within it and smelled like it too.

It didn't matter and I couldn't wait. I woke Nelson. It wasn't easy but I got him to open his eyes and look at me. I asked him, “Do you still promise?”

“I promise.”

Then I kissed him with my monkey mouth.

Sunday was like a cauldron into which we both dropped words and feelings, memories and expectations creating a spell of good feelings. We never left the house. I helped Nelson crate more of his work and I told him everything about Leech. The open, breezy windows of the house were like a single Cinerama screen on the world around us. Above, the sky was the color of old jeans with tufts of tangled white thread wearing through. Below, the rippled lake was catching sun on one angle and sky on another. Filling everything between sky and water were the trees. From far away there were only greens, but closer . . . reds and oranges mixed with yellow flipped at the tip of a branch that barely broke the frame of the window. A large white oak had begun turning.

* * *

From famine to feast, as they say. When I made it into the office Monday, my in-box was stuffed with responses from the previous week's calls and e-mails. There were notes from Family Services and multiple e-mails with attachments from the City of Branson, county, and state liquor-control agencies. The documents concerning Moonshines I forwarded to the sheriff and to the district attorney. I would go through them for information to connect dots between people but I was not qualified to make judgments about the legalities of the contracts. That would be someone else's job.

It was Carrie who I was most interested in. I had an e-mail confirming there was a file on her and the family with the Missouri Department of Social Services. That was basically all it said. That wasn't news to me. When I called, the social worker assigned to her case wouldn't talk to me on the phone. I gave my badge number and asked her to call me back at the sheriff's department number but she said no. She would not talk to me without meeting in person first. Some people are too good at their job. I had to go into Branson to meet her at the county office.

Marion Combs, of the Missouri Department of Social Services, was a sharp woman of about fifty. Blonde, but the color was fading away. She didn't dye it and something about that made her seem both tougher and warmer. Her eyes were blue and had a way about them that said little gets past. Immediately I knew she took her job and the kids assigned to her seriously.

“You look like someone who had a good weekend,” she said as soon as I had introduced myself. Then she laughed at the look on my face. “Don't mind me. I get used to reading faces because almost everyone I meet in my job is hiding something. Like your job, I guess.”

“At least in my job if they lie I get to beat it out of them,” I said as I sat beside her piled desk.

Marion laughed again, then pointed a sharp, pink nail at me. “You have a reputation for such things,
Hurricane
.”

“I have a tough time getting away from that.”

“Don't try,” she said. “There are much worse things to be known for than being a tough cop. Chuck hasn't fired you yet, has he?”

“Sheriff Benson? No ma'am, he hasn't, but I think at times it crosses his mind.”

“I can call him Chuck. He was my beau once upon a time.” Her smile was like an old photograph. It told the story of a lost moment. Then it faded and she asked, “You know why he won't?” I shook my head but Marion wasn't waiting for me. She went right on answering her own question. “Because you're the one cop in the county that everyone knows and is afraid of.”

“I'm not sure that's such a good thing,” I said.

“It is,” she stated with complete certitude. Turning to paw through file folders on her desk, Marion shifted to the task at hand. “Now remind me: Which of my kids were you needing to know about?”

“Carrie Owens,” I said.

She stopped digging and leaned back in her chair. “I don't need the file to talk about her. Wouldn't do much good. Almost nothing in it. Nothing on the lines, that is. Hers is sort of a between-the-lines kind of case, you know what I mean? What's she done? What do you need to know?”

“Abuse?”

“That's—between the lines. But I believe so. If I could prove it or if she would speak up, I'd have her out of that house.”

“I actually think she might be counting on someone else to get her out.”

“Who?”

Marion's blue eyes grew wide as I told her what I knew about Leech. When I finished, she went back to the piles on her desk and grabbed a thick file. From that she pulled a sheet of notebook paper with
Leech
scrawled over it in thick, scratchy letterings all made with different pens. She turned it over and on the back there was the same little verse that Billy had quoted to me. Below that, in a neat, girlish cursive unlike the bold strokes on the other side, were three lines.

* * *

* * *

I liked Marion and meeting her had kept my mood up even after learning what I had about Carrie. Truthfully, though, my joy was buoyed by more than the new friendship. I had fallen for Nelson like a schoolgirl and was enjoying the drop. It was hard to focus on work and the things I needed to do. I wanted to check in on Clare and to make an appearance at Moonshines. I hadn't done anything on the investigation into the great RV shoot-out. Not that there was a lot of investigation needed. I was pretty certain who had done it; it was bringing them in and finding a witness to speak up that was the trick. That probably wouldn't happen now that the feds were involved and looking at the Nightriders for their own purposes.

Dad used to tell me: Line your problems up, largest to smallest. Then he went on to tell me that largest didn't always mean biggest. Sometimes the largest problem is a little thing that's important. So I went to Carrie Owens's home again wondering if, this time, I would get inside the front door.

I needn't have worried. Doors were not the issue. As soon as I pulled onto the street I could see a knot of people on one side watching the three on the other. Carrie, her mother, and a large man who looked like a Neanderthal with a cheap suit and cheaper haircut were in the yard yelling—make that
screaming
—at each other. The Neanderthal had to be the errant dad come home.

No one paid any attention to me as I pulled up, then got out of the SUV.

“I hate you,” Carrie wailed in a cracking voice. “I hate everything about you. I just want to be left alone.”

Her parents were ignoring her cries, too involved with venting their rage on each other.

“You make her like this,” the mother shrieked. “You love her too much and coddle her, you make her a baby just like your little pet and you set her against me. How can I live with her when you're gone? You're always gone.”

The father was flailing his arms like the words coming at him from both sides were physical blows that had to be deflected. He didn't scream, he bellowed. “I earn a living and I love my daughter. I'm a good father. What's wrong with that?”

“You love her more than me, that's what's wrong with it. You're wrong. Your love is wrong. Everything is wrong about you.”

Carrie was still standing but she looked limp and crumpled. Over and over she said, “I hate you,” but her screams had withered into wet sobs.

I thought the worst was over. They all looked wounded and spent. I should have been able to step in and talk, get them all separated and cooling down. This might have been the perfect time to get some truth, but it didn't happen that way.

Mr. Owens heard the shift in his daughter's voice from anger to despair. He turned to it and reached out to her. At the same time, several things happened and I had no way of telling what started the other or if there was some kind of emotional spontaneous combustion that flared from the smoldering heat.

Mrs. Owens darted forward with a voice that sounded like she had been gargling glass and snarled, “Don't touch her.”

Carrie's voice exploded into a knife-edged wail as she screamed, “No.”

The father didn't yell anymore: He swung out with fists that looked to be as large and hard as frozen turkeys. Carrie fell to the ground, pushed rather than punched, but still hit hard. Mrs. Owens caught the back swing of knobby knuckles against her temple and went down even harder.

I didn't talk then. I jumped in and hit the big man in the small of the back with my lowered shoulder. He shrugged me off and kept his feet. I almost fell but managed to keep my feet. It would have been better if I had fallen. Owens caught me by the hair, then pulled me in front of him while pushing my head down at the same time. Then his huge right hand smashed against my ear.

The blow was glancing but I heard the fireworks bursting in my head. When he struck, he released my hair. Either he thought I was done or he realized I was not his wife. It gave me the moment I needed to bring my weapon out and step back into a two-armed stance. My head was spinning. I needed the footing of the stance just to keep from falling. If I had to pull the trigger there was no telling what I might have hit. Probably nothing I aimed at. Luckily, I didn't have to find out.

Mr. Owens froze when the pistol was pointed at his chest. And when I commanded him to get on the ground, he did so. That was when I noticed the silence. Carrie, her mother, and her father on the ground were all looking at me like I was William Shatner beamed down among them.

I was grateful for the quiet. Once Mr. Owens was cuffed I left him there and called for transport and a deputy to take statements. I wouldn't be able to write anything until I saw fewer than five of everything. I also asked Darlene to call Marion Combs to tell her that I had arrested Mr. Owens and that Carrie probably needed some help. I didn't say that what I had heard confirmed our suspicions, but I was feeling pretty sure—with her father in jail—Carrie might feel better about talking to someone.

I was high on adrenaline and self-congratulation. One from the violence and the other from getting an abusive parent away from a child. The high dulled the grinding pain at my temple and carried me back to the sheriff's office with a song in my heart. Other people have MP3 players. I had personal playlists of songs locked in my head to fit most any mood I'd ever been in. Songs—like magic bookmarks on my emotions popping into focus like old friends to say: Remember this feeling. For a long, black period it had seemed to fail me. I was noticing more and more that it was cropping up again. As I drove with my windows down and a hand out in the hot wind I realized that the song in my head was “Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO. That had always been my happy, proud, and pleased-with-myself song. I thought I had lost it.

When I pulled into the parking lot I was still high on myself and the music of Jeff Lynne. If I hadn't have been so high I might have been paying more attention. Moon was just outside the doors of the jail talking with someone I couldn't really see and didn't really want to. There were other things on my mind. The two men were talking and Moon was shaking his head. My assumption was that the other man was also freshly released and asking for either money or a ride. I parked the SUV and sat for a moment with my head tilted back and my eyes closed. It felt good to just feel good for a minute. When I accepted the real world again and opened my eyes Moon was walking away alone. The man he had been talking to was leaving the lot in a hurry. Even through the tinted windows on his car I caught the flash of silver jewelry and a wide-toothed grin. The same man I had seen outside the hospital and at Moonshines.

Even through my good mood that nagged at me. Perhaps I should have listened.

Inside the station I sat at my desk and stayed there for only a few minutes. Nothing, not the grinding ache in the side of my head or the good feeling of putting Owens away, could keep my mind off of the previous day. Is it any surprise that phone calls and paperwork couldn't hold my attention?

I checked out and went to get some lunch. Since we had eaten the greasy burgers and delivery pizza all weekend I sacrificed and picked up a couple of salads and went to share with Nelson.

Sometimes sacrifice has its rewards.

Nelson didn't want food. When I came into the house he was working at the easel. He and the painting were both bathed in sunlight. The smile that crossed his face when I came in was brighter, though. Then it changed into a smile that had a touch of the night in it.