Bury This (12 page)

The robin looks around, hop hop, drinks under the wan washed sky.

“Well, as you might have guessed, well . . . there's been some renewed interest in the case. Your daughter's case. Since the documentary.”

Not wanting to speak. Not wanting to say it. Maybe he could just say forget it and still get away, a fluke of a visit, no big deal. It wasn't too late. Last chance. Just drop it.

“And, um, well, there have been some new developments. In the case.”

The Lt. Colonel reaches his hand over, past the coffee, past the paper, past the muffins, and puts his hand on Dotsy's wrist, now trembling.

Dotsy's lips are pressed together, her eyes staring down at the table.

“And, well, this, this isn't easy. Well, Lt. Colonel, Dorothy . . . we have reason to believe we may actually be able to solve this case. Now. With the kind of technology available today. Um. DNA testing. In particular. We think, maybe, given the right amount of information, the right tests, we might be able to get the matter resolved, finally.”

They are waiting. They are suspended. There is a question coming here.

“And, in this case, that would mean to get the right information . . . we would have to . . . um . . . get permission from the two of you to . . . well . . . exhume the body.”

Dotsy's eyes close. Keep them closed.

Outside the picture window the orange-chested robin goes hop hop hop, takes a drink, and then hop, gone away for good. And now the birdbath and the white blanket lawn and the black scraggle trees bury their heads in sorrow, suddenly alone, abandoned, and the desolate postcard wants no more to be looked at.

ELEVEN

T
he white laid out over the sloping hill, the sun just above the horizon in a yellow glow glare. Never gold, on a freeze black-tree silent morning like this. Fifteen below windchill and the tombstones sticking out of the milk-sprawl ground, sporadic. No grid here. As random the plots as the snow around them. Some trodden. Lots of visitors. Some bare as an ice rink. No visitors. Long dead. What did you make of it? Does it matter now? What did you collect? Anything good? Is it with you now?

Some buried in great grand family orchestrations, with giant granite obelisks. Fischer. Macon. Collins. We were in it together. We were a family. We meant something. Once. Some, just the two of them, husband and wife. We stayed true. We fall and rise as one.

Then, also, the lone gravestones with nothing around, no prints, nothing but the scrape-black trees and the shadows drawing long in rectangles for companionship. What did it mean, any of it? What did I do wrong, to end up alone and snow-print-less here? Or do we all end up alone, really?

Then, the angel field near the gates, reserved for toddlers, infants, and children. The ground crying, too. Don't fill me. Don't fill me with that.

And all beneath the pale, oatmeal sky with streaks of silver, streams of yellow-white strands masking sunrise. Wake up!

But no one will wake up here. A stubborn lot. The granite making stretch square shadows down the snow field. Limitless silence. A thousand questions to each stone square. No answer.

The hill slopes up from the west to the east and there, near the top, a flurry of activity around a giant orange monster, a metal dinosaur up early, grazing the grounds. A winter morning peace-killing involving five men, three squad cars, a Caterpillar, and a beige morgue van crowded around, buzzing, digging, pausing in front of, behind.

E
LIZABETH
L
YNN
K
RAUSE

J
UNE
21, 1956 – M
ARCH
13, 1978

Detective Samuel Barnett had made a visit to this cemetery, Mayview, on his fortieth birthday with his wife rolling her eyes throughout the ordeal. It was a lark, really, they'd been driving through the outskirts of town, deciding between restaurants for the evening. She'd wanted French. Mes Amis on Main. He'd wanted steak. Carter's off Fairfield. Somehow, the green grass of Mayview had summoned him through the wrought-iron gates that lazy afternoon in June.

No sooner had they turned in over the gravel dirt road carving its way through the headstones than the conversation switched suddenly from mussels to burial plots. Nancy had thought the whole thing was foolish. A macabre excursion on your birthday! But the detective had persevered, walking the grounds, finding a
nice area near the east side of the slope, the top of the hill, underneath an enormous elm. A tree trunk the size of a bathtub, spread out over the grassy slope, protective.

He'd mapped the plots, marched down to the office and bought them both on a whim. One for him, one for Nancy. You can never be too sure.

The woman on duty, a milquetoast of seventy in a gold-button navy-blue blazer, had thought it odd, too. What did it mean? These two buying plots on his fortieth birthday? Was this some sort of cry for help? A murder—suicide? What to make of it? But there was nothing to make of it, sure. The wife seemed cheerful, chiding her husband, calling him morbid. Chipper in her reprimands. No, no, it was fine. Just a husband being absurd. Trying to get a rise out of his wife. He loved her, you could tell.

It was strange, though, how he'd insisted on the Super-Deluxe Peaceful for Eternity package, treatment, tombstones, service and weekly-flower-arrangement option. It ain't cheap. Rich people had scoffed at the price, even. And for a cop . . . it did seem extravagant.

Even his wife thought it extensive.

“What does it matter, honey. We certainly won't notice.”

But, in this as in all things, he'd dug his heels in. No explanation. The Super-Deluxe it was. And would always be, for eternity.

That plot, those two plots, for future, for he and Nancy were not far, only thirty feet about, from this plot, this past plot, marked Elizabeth Lynn Krause, rest in peace.

And peace, well. Not here with the dig-dig Caterpillar, bright orange against the white sheet grade. On the side
CATERPILLAR
in
big black capitals, the only black other than the leafless trees, all watching. What's this? What's all this, this morning?

“Well, boss, there they are.”

And, turning to look, there they were, indeed. Outside the redbrick awning and wrought Mayview gates, lined up on Mayview Drive, the inevitable, complacent, stodgy pale vans with UFO antennas on top, circling around for a signal.

“Goddamn news. Buncha vultures.”

Detective Barnett had thought this pre-morning, just-dawn excursion might throw them off, but even as he turned, there they were, scurrying toward him through the snow. One in an emerald suit dress and heels. Heels! In this snow. One in cargo pants holding the camera, clamoring over the gravestones toward him, barely audible, just within earshot and getting louder, inescapable.

“Detective! Detective!! What do you hope to find this morning? What do you hope to uncover? Have there been any new developments? Is it possible you missed something, Detective, back then, when you were a rookie?”

That last one an ice-pick stab through the eyes.

And behind him, the Caterpillar roaring, stop go stop go start dig, the giant orange claw eating into the snow, devouring the dirt.

Detective Barnett blindsided in the snowdrift. Oh Lord, please don't let me lose my job. Please let me be right. Please don't let me lose my job for this. And then: Well, if I do lose it, at least I got the Super-Deluxe Peace for Eternity package. Bought and paid for.

TWELVE

A
midnight light of metal and blue, reflecting tables and cabinets, mirrored surfaces. A nighttime fun-house off limits to the public. A secret retreat from the crowds. The room made green from an overhead fluorescent light, industrial light, light to perform surgery. Death-surgery, after-surgery, death-light on a body decomposed.

You would have to cover your mouth and nose here. There was no way around it. No time to be brave. Cover up.

The coroner in lab coat and glasses, a diminutive, balding man who'd chosen a life of cutting open skin, cutting lines and looking in, a shut-in. A shut-in, excited now, having called the detective at a too-late time. An after-hours revelation, can't hold it in.

“Detective. Detective Barnett?”

Back at the house, the flannel sheets can't cover up the noise.

“Hold on. Hold up a second.”

Tiptoeing out of bed, into the hallway. Don't wake the wife.

“Detective Barnett. I think you better come down here.”

“You know what time it is?”

“I know. I know, but I just—I thought you'd want to see this.”

Detective Barnett closing his eyes. Christ. This would be the last year. Maybe. Twelve after midnight and now you call.

The autopsy room housed in the basement. A floor of sea-foam tiles, walls of ivory. Every table a silver slab, the light buzz a drone. Come in. Come in through the glass doors. Come in. Look here.

On the table, under the fish-gill light, a white sheet laid over, thank God. Cover your mouth, cover your nose, cover your eyes.

The bald head leading him to the microscopes. A presentation. Slides of glass with labels, DNA, hair, saliva, specimens, put them under the lens. Look. Look here.

“This, Detective, this is what I wanted you to see.”

PART IV

ONE

S
hauna didn't mind coming back to the Green Mill Inn, she'd gotten fired but who gives a fuck. Beth was here and that's all that mattered. She'd gotten her the job, why shouldn't she be here? Anyway the boss only came round on Fridays.

What did she care if little miss nitwit worked here now? She could just imagine her daydreaming her shift away. That was all Beth did . . . daydream. Wander around, lollygag by the railroad tracks. Dreaming. Singing. Doodling. Tethered ever so softly to this world, always seeming one heel here and one tiptoe into the next. Teetering soft between streetlights and thunderheads.

An apparition.

A lily-face.

A never-was-here-after-all.

She would do whatever Shauna wanted, whatever she asked. When they were together, Shauna had the power. Simply by degrees, by sheer fact, of being of this earth. Here. Feet firmly on the ground.

Where Beth could be found floating halfway to space . . . Shauna would reach up and grab her down. Come back. Come here. Let me teach you this earth language, these rules of engagement.

And you would think Beth would be grateful but she exhibited no signs of it. Anymore than an ant would be grateful not to be killed. No, she had no idea. Didn't care. Didn't seem interested, really.

The world outside her head, her eyes, was a mystery. A confusion. But nothing to be marveled at. Any more than you would marvel at a pit of mud. Yes . . . it held secrets . . . but no allure.

In this way, it was easy to hold down the fort in this brown wooden office for eight hours straight. Quite simply, she wasn't there.

Yes, the phone would ring but at that moment she'd be in Africa. She'd answer the phone but even that was a play of its own. Now the phone is in Dubai! Now I must answer before three rings, or the sultan will die!

Yes, a customer would come in, but at that moment, she'd be in Nepal. Of course she'd answer all the questions, give change for the soda machine, but really she was giving directions up the mountain, charge for the Sherpa, knowing full well they'd never make it down Everest.

In this way, all the world was at play for Beth Krause, revealing itself in shatter clouds and dialogue overheard—a face there, a name there—but never anything too detailed. Never anything bolted to the ground. She had always lived in the sky. And if she was inside, the sky was one wall away, just a ceiling—easily removed, a tin box around her—lift it up.

She never really saw Shauna, or her boss, or anyone.

She had a habit of giving everything away. It mystified her mother until she saw the good in it. It never ceased to amaze
Beth, the delight in someone's face over a knickknack, a throw-away, a trinket. None of these things meant anything to her but they meant so much to someone else, how could she not give them away?

Leaning in over the metal mint reception desk, Shauna took a conspiratorial tone.

“I got a secret.”

“Here we go . . . ” Beth breathing out.

“No, I do . . . I got a secret and you're gonna die.”

Shauna had been saying something but what? It didn't matter. It was an endless series of dramas with her. A moment's theater. A fight. A rage. An indulgence. And then nothing. A constant scratch at the top of the coffin, buried deep underground. A hopeless, aimless desperation. A fury.

“Don't you want to know his name?”

“Whose name?”

“My guy.”

“What guy?”

“My
boy
friend.”

Shauna was wearing a purple top with orange, pink, blue, red stripes. No shoulders. A drawstring around the neck, keeping it up. Just. If she had a mother she would not be wearing that top.