The Life We Bury (14 page)

“No, sir,” Carl said.

Gibbs's eyes went red. He stabbed the muzzle of the gun into the side of Carl's head. “You disobeyed a direct order. You're a dead man.”

“Sarge, what are you doing?” Virgil yelled from the doorway.

Gibbs looked at Virgil, then back at Carl.

“Sarge, this ain't the way to handle it,” Virgil said. “Think it through.”

Gibbs held the gun against Carl's temple, huffing through his flared nostrils like a horse ridden hard. He stepped back from Carl, the gun still aimed at Carl's head. “You're right,” he said. “There is a better way to handle this.” He holstered his side arm and pulled a knife from the scabbard strapped to his thigh. He turned to the girl, who still lay naked, half on the bed, half on the floor. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he yanked her to her knees.

“Next time I give you an order to shoot a gook…” He pulled the knife across her throat, cutting deep into the gristle and tissue, the blood spurting onto Carl's boots. “You'd better goddamn obey me.” The girl jerked and twitched as blood filled her lungs. Her eyes rolled up into her forehead, and Gibbs let her limp body fall to the floor. “Now burn this hooch.” Gibbs stepped over the body and put his face into Carl's face. “That's an order.”

Gibbs left the hut, but Carl couldn't move.

“C'mon, Hoss.” Virgil pulled Carl backward
out of the hooch. “This ain't our Alamo. We gotta keep our shit intact. Remember?”

Carl rubbed his eyes on the sleeves of his shirt. Virgil headed to the manger with his cigarette lighter in his hand.

To the north, the entire village had been set aflame; a line of villagers, now refugees, marched like condemned prisoners down the dirt road that would lead them out of the free-fire zone. Carl pulled his zippo from his pocket and touched it to the dried palm fronds and elephant grass of the hut. Within a couple seconds, flame engulfed the thatch roof, the smoke rolling off as thick as water.

Carl stepped back from the hut as the ravenous fire licked down from the roof, covering the two bodies on the floor. That's when he saw something that filled his chest with ice. The girl's hand opened; her fingers reached out, beckoning to Carl. They trembled as the girl strained to reach out. Then they curled back into her palm as the fiery roof crashed down on top of her.

I watched Lila as she read my assignment, her face wincing as she read about Gibbs raping the girl, her eyes looking up at me in disbelief after reading about the girl's hand moving as the burning hut fell in on her.

“You can see why Virgil was so adamant that Carl is innocent,” I said.

“Is this true?” she held up my assignment.

“Every word,” I said. “Virgil confirmed it. He was there. Said Carl was never the same after that day.”

“Wow,” Lila whispered. “Did you notice that the girl in Vietnam was burned in her hut just like Crystal was burned in that shed?”

“That's what you got out of that?” I said.

“It seems more than coincidental, don't you think?”

“His sergeant put a gun to his head. He was willing to die rather than rape that girl. That's what the story is about. How could that man in Vietnam be the same man who killed Crystal Hagen? If he's really a rapist and a murderer, he would have given in to the dark side when he was in Vietnam.”

“You think he's innocent?” Lila asked, her tone more inquisitive than condemning.

“I don't know,” I said. “I'm starting to. I mean, it's possible, isn't it?”

Lila considered my question for a long time before answering, rereading the last part of my assignment, the part where Carl refused Gibbs's order. Then she put the paper down. “Let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that Carl is not the killer. What does that mean?”

I thought about her question for a moment. “It means that someone else did it.”

“Of course it means that,” she said. “But who?”

“It could be anyone,” I said. “It could be some random guy walking by that saw her home alone.”

“I don't think so,” she said.

“Why not?”

“The diary,” she said. “I suppose it's possible that some random guy killed her. But if the diary holds any meaning, Crystal was being threatened. Some guy was forcing her to do stuff. That means that Crystal knew her attacker.”

“If it's not Carl,” I said, “and it's not some random guy, then…”

“If it is not Carl,” Lila said, “and that's a big if, then that leaves Doug the stepfather, Danny the stepbrother, and Andy the boyfriend.” She counted the names off on her fingers. “It could still be someone we don't know, someone that Crystal knew but didn't name in her diary—unless it's in code.”

“We have the file,” I said. “We have all the evidence in the case. Maybe we can figure it out.”

Lila turned on the couch to face me, curling her feet up under her butt. “This case was investigated by cops, detectives, people who do this for a living. We're not gonna figure anything out. It's been thirty years.”

“Hypothetically speaking,” I said.” If we were going to look into Crystal's murder, where would we begin?”

“If it were me,” Lila said, “I'd begin with the boyfriend.”

“Andy Fisher?”

“He was the last person to see her alive.”

“What would we ask him?”

“You keep saying
we
,” Lila said, an incredulous smile crossing her face. “There is no
we
. This is your firing squad.”

“I don't know if you've picked up on this, but you're the smart one here,” I joked.

“So, that would make you the pretty one?” she said.

“No, you're that one, too,” I said, watching for her reaction—a smile, maybe a wink, some sign that she heard my compliment. Nothing.

I'd been dancing around Lila ever since I first saw her in the hallway, trying to get past the wall she had put up, the wall that kept me at arm's length, the one she tore down for Jeremy the first day they met. I wanted to see her laugh and have fun with me like she did with Jeremy. But all my subtle compliments and attempts at humor fizzled like wet firecrackers. I had been contemplating a more direct approach, one that would ensure a response one way or another; I was going to ask Lila out on a date. As I joked about her being pretty, it dawned on me that now would be as good a time as any. I stood and walked to the kitchen, having no reason to do so other than to execute a cowardly delay tactic. Once I had a little distance between us, I stumbled into my speech.

“You know…I've been thinking…I mean…I think we should go out.” I blurted it out, catching her by surprise, her lips parting as if to speak, then pausing, as if she was unsure of what to say.

“Like, on a date?” she said.

“We don't have to call it a date.”

“Joe, I'm not…” She looked down at the coffee table, her shoulders slumping forward, her fingers picking at the material of her sweatpants. “This was supposed to be just a spaghetti dinner, remember? Nothing more than that.”

“We can go to an Italian restaurant. It'll still be just a spaghetti dinner.”

Silence filled the room. I noticed that I was holding my breath as I waited for Lila to respond. Finally, she looked at me and said, “I can get extra credit if I go see a play for my American Lit. class. It's playing the weekend of Thanksgiving. I can get two tickets for that Friday. This is not a date; it's just extra credit. That's the deal. Are you okay with that?”

“I love plays,” I said. In truth, I had never actually seen a play other than skits and vignettes that the drama club put on at the pep rallies back in high school. “What's the play called?”

“
The Glass Menagerie
,” she said.

“Great,” I said. “It's a date…I mean…it's not a date.”

We found Andy Fisher through an alumni directory on his high school's Facebook page. Andy, who now went by the more adult name of Andrew, had inherited an insurance agency from his father, operating an office in a strip mall on the east side of Golden Valley, Minnesota.

Andrew Fisher had not aged well. His boyish locks were gone, replaced by a monk-like bald spot that covered most of his crown, spreading from the back of his head to the front, leaving a thin wisp of hair that curved along the top of his forehead like an old picket fence. His waistline bulged against an overworked leather belt, and dark lines formed permanent crescents under his eyes. He sat in a cheaply paneled office, its walls lined with undersized hunting and fishing trophies.

When we walked in, Andrew came into the empty reception area to greet us, his hand thrust out in front of him to shake mine. “What can I do you for?” he said, with the gusto of a salesman. “No wait, let me guess.” He glanced out the plate glass window at my rusted Accord and smiled. “You're looking to buy a new car and need an insurance quote.”

“Actually,” I said, “we were hoping you'd talk to us about Crystal Hagen.”

“Crystal Hagen?” The smile vanished from his face. “Who are you?”

“I'm Joe Talbert. I'm a student at the U., and this is…um…”

“I'm his classmate, Lila,” she said.

I continued, “We're doing a story on Crystal's death.”

“Why?” he said. “That was so long ago.” He looked almost sad for a moment, then he shook the memories away. “I've put that all behind me. I don't like talking about it.”

“It's important,” I said.

“How can it be important?” he said. “It's ancient history. They caught the guy: Carl Iverson. He lived next door to her. Now I think you should leave.” He turned his back on us and started walking into his office.

“What if we told you that we think Carl Iverson might be innocent,” Lila said, blurting out the words without any forethought. We glanced at each other, and she shrugged. Fisher stopped in the doorway to his office, took a deep breath, but didn't turn toward us.

“All we want is a little bit of your time,” I said.

“Why won't this ever go away?” Andrew whispered to himself as he walked the rest of the way into his office. We didn't leave. He sat at his desk, surrounded by dead animal heads, not making eye contact with us. We waited. Then, without looking up, he lifted two fingers and waved us in. We entered and sat in the client chairs across the desk from him, not sure how to begin the conversation. Then he spoke. “I still have nights when I see her in my dreams, the way she was back then—sweet…young. Then the dream turns dark, and we're at the cemetery. She's sinking into the ground and calling my name. That's when I wake up in a cold sweat.”

“She calls your name?” I said. “Why? You didn't do anything wrong? Did you?”

He looked at me coldly. “That case messed up my life.”

I know I should have been more sympathetic, but to hear this guy moan “poor me” kind of rubbed me the wrong way. “It kinda messed up Crystal Hagen's life, too,” I said. “Don't you think?”

“Son,” Andrew held up his finger and thumb to mark an inch. “You're about this close to getting your butt kicked out of here.”

“That must have been a terrible time for you,” Lila interrupted, speaking in a comforting tone, cognizant that honey will better attract the bear.

“I was sixteen years old,” Andrew said. “It didn't matter that I didn't do anything wrong. People treated me like a leper. Even though they arrested that Iverson guy, there were all these rumors floating around
that I killed her.” The muscles in Andrew's jaw twitched as a flash of emotion passed through his cheeks. “The day they buried her, I went to toss a handful of dirt on the coffin…after they lowered her casket down. Her mother shot me a cold stare that froze me in my tracks—like Crystal's death was my fault.” The corners of Andrew's mouth dipped down as if he were going to start crying. He took a moment to gather himself. “I've never forgotten that look—the accusation in her eyes. It's what I remember most when I think about the day we buried Crystal.”

“So people thought you killed Crystal,” I said.

“People are idiots,” he said. “Besides, if I was gonna kill anybody, it would've been that damned defense lawyer.”

“The defense lawyer?” I said.

“He's the one who fed the rumor that I killed her. He told the jury that I did it. That son of a bitch. It was in the papers. I was sixteen for god's sake.”

“You were the last one to see her alive,” I said. Andrew narrowed his gaze at me and for a second I thought I had blown it. “We read the trial testimony,” I added.

“Then you know that I dropped her off at her home and drove away,” he said. “She was alive when I left.”

“That's right,” Lila said. “You dropped her off, and if I recall, you said she was home alone.”

“I never said she was alone; I said I didn't think anyone else was home. There's a difference. The place seemed empty to me, that's all.”

“Do you know where her stepfather was?” Lila asked. “Or her stepbrother?”

“Now how would I know that?” he said.

Lila looked at her notes, pretending to refresh her memory. “Well, according to Doug Lockwood's testimony—that's Crystal's stepfather—he and Danny were at his used car dealership when Crystal was being murdered.”

“That sounds right,” he said. “The old man ran a used car lot. He licensed Crystal's mom and Danny both as dealers so that they could drive any car on the lot. All they had to do was put dealer plates on the car.”

“Danny was a dealer, too?”

“Only on paper. As soon as he turned eighteen he got his dealer's license. He was one of those kids on the cusp. His birthday was near that cutoff where he could either be the youngest kid in his class or they could hold him back a year and he'd be the oldest kid in his class. They held him back.” Andrew leaned back in his chair. “Personally, I always thought Danny was an ass.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, to begin with, that family argued a lot. Crystal's mom and stepdad were constantly yelling at each other, and it was usually about Danny. Danny didn't like his dad marrying Crystal's mom. The way Crystal told it, Danny treated her mom like shit—kind of went out of his way to cause fights. And then there were the cars.”

“Cars?” Lila asked.

“Because Danny's old man ran that car lot, Danny got to pick any car on the lot to drive to school. When Danny was a senior his dad flat out gave him a car—this cherry Grand Prix—as an early Christmas present. It was a great car, but…I mean…it's one thing to act cool in a car you bought and fixed up yourself, because that says something about you. It's your car—you earned it. But he drove around like he was hot shit in a car that his daddy gave him. I don't know. He was just an ass that way.”

“What was the stepdad like?” Lila asked.

“A real wing nut,” Andrew said. “He used to act all religious, but it seemed to me that he used the Bible to back any argument he wanted to make. There was this one time when Crystal's mom found out that the old man had been visiting a strip club. He tells her about how Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors—like that made it okay for him to be tucking dollar bills into G-strings.”

“How did he and Crystal get along?” I asked.

Andrew gave a polite shudder like he'd just bit into an undercooked trout. “She hated him,” he said. “He used to belittle her using lines from the Bible. Most of the time, she had no idea what he was saying. One time, he told her that she should be thankful that he was not Jephthah. We looked that one up.”

“Jephthah…That's from the Bible?”

“Yeah, from the Book of Judges. He sacrificed his daughter to God so that he could win a battle. I mean, who the hell says stuff like that to a teenaged girl?”

“Did you ever talk to Danny or to Doug about what happened that day?” Lila asked.

“I never talked to anyone about it. I gave a statement to the cops and then I tried to pretend it didn't happen. I didn't talk about it again until the trial.”

“Did you watch the trial?” I asked.

“No. I did my testimony and left.” He looked down at the desk the way Jeremy looks away from me when he doesn't want to answer a question.

“You didn't go back to watch any of it?” I pressed.

“I saw the closing arguments,” he said. “I skipped school to watch the end of the trial. I thought the jury would have a verdict right away like they do on TV.”

I tried to remember if I'd read the closing argument in the transcript. “I assume the prosecutor talked about Crystal's diary in his closing.”

The blood suddenly drained from Andrew's cheeks, his face turning the color of plumber's putty. “I remember the diary,” he said, his voice now lowered to a whisper. “I didn't even know Crystal kept a diary until that day when the prosecutor summed everything up for the jury.”

“The prosecutor argued that Mr. Iverson was making Crystal do things to him…sexually, because he caught you two…you know.”

“I remember,” Andrew said.

“Did Crystal ever talk to you about that?” I asked. “About getting caught or Mr. Iverson threatening her? I mean that never made much sense to me. The prosecutor went on and on about it. The jury bought it, but you were there. Is that what happened?”

Andrew leaned forward, rubbing his palms into his eyes, his fingers extending up to his bald head. He slowly dragged his fingers down his
face, over his eyes, down his cheeks; then he folded them together to form a steeple on his lips. He looked back and forth between Lila and me, contemplating whether to tell us what weighed so heavily on his mind. “Remember me telling you about waking up in cold sweats,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” I said.

“It's because of that diary,” he said. “The prosecutor got it wrong. He got it all wrong.”

Lila leaned forward. “Tell us,” she said in a sweet, consoling voice, coaxing Andrew to unburden his soul.

“I didn't think it was important; I mean…it shouldn't have been important. I didn't know until I went to the trial and watched the closing argument, what they said about Mr. Iverson catching us: Crystal and me…” Andrew stopped talking. He was still looking in our direction, but he averted his eyes as if he was ashamed of whatever secret he had been keeping.

“What about Crystal and you?” Lila said.

“It's true,” Andrew said. “He did catch us. Crystal was creeped out by it. But at the trial the prosecutor made such a big deal out of it, saying that Crystal thought her life would be ruined because of us getting caught having…well, you know. He told the jury that she made a diary entry on September twenty-first, saying that she was having a very bad day. He said she was freaking out because Mr. Iverson was blackmailing her or something. That entry had nothing to do with us getting caught having sex.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“The twenty-first of September was my mother's birthday. Crystal called me that night. She wanted me to meet her. I didn't. I couldn't. We were having a party for my mom's birthday. Crystal was going out of her mind.”

“Crystal told you why she was freaking out?” I asked.

“Yes.” Andrew stopped talking, turned his chair around, pulled a tumbler and a small bottle of Scotch out of the buffet behind him, poured three fingers of liquor into the glass, and drank half of it. Then
he put the glass and bottle down on his desk, folded his hands together, and continued.

“Crystal's stepdad had some really great cars on his lot, one in particular: a 1970 Pontiac GTO, bronze with a spoiler on the back. It was a beautiful car.” He took another drink of his Scotch. “One night around the middle of September, Crystal and me were talking about that car. I was telling her how I wished I could drive a car like that, how unfair my life was. You know, normal high-school stuff. And she says that we should take the GTO for a ride. She knew where her stepdad kept the spare keys to the office and where the car keys were kept in the office. All we had to do was return everything to where it was. So we take my crappy Ford Galaxy 500 to her stepdad's lot, and it was just like she said. We found the keys to the GTO and took it for a spin.”

“You were a sophomore?” Lila said.

“Yeah. I'm also one of those cusp babies, like Danny. I got my license that August after I turned sixteen.”

“Car theft?” I said. “That's what she was upset about?”

“It gets worse,” he said. He took another deep breath, letting it go with a sigh. “Like I said, I only had my license for about a month, and I never drove a car with that much power. I couldn't help racing from stoplight to stoplight. We were having a great time until…” He finished his drink, licking the last few drops from his lips. “I was flying down Central Avenue, probably doing seventy miles an hour—God, I was stupid. The tire blew out. I tried to hold it together, but we crossed lanes and skidded into the side of a car: a police squad car—empty—parked in front of a deli. Later, I read in the paper that the cops were in the back of the deli dealing with a break-in, so they had no idea we smashed into their car.