Cemetery Lake (19 page)

Cemeteries don’t get a lot of foot traffic in the middle of the week, and I’ve had this area all to myself.

The phone starts to ring. I flip it open.

‘Fuck you,’ he says. ‘You murdered my boy, and you think you

have something to trade?’ His words are slurred, and I realise whatever bar he dragged himself out of to take my daughter away he has crawled back in to.

“I didn’t kill your son.’

‘He’s dead, ain’t he?’

‘Bring back my daughter and we’ll talk about it.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. I want to make a trade.’

‘Trade? You have nothing that I want.’

‘That’s what I thought at first. Until I started playing your

game. The digger wasn’t that hard to use. I got the hang of it in the end.’

‘Where are you?’ he asks.

‘I’m where you were ten years ago,’ I say, and I hang up.

A few seconds later the phone rings again. I switch it off

There’s a tap outside the shed and I’m thirsty, but I don’t want my lips to touch anything that Sidney Alderman’s lips might have touched. I climb down from the digger and step into the shade.

I start going through the tools. Gardening equipment, mostly,

but some carpentry stuff as well. Could be that twenty years ago and in a different life, Alderman had a hobby. Maybe he and

his son would hang out in the shed and make wooden stools or

birdhouses, and they’d shoot the breeze with small talk about

angles and mitre cuts and joints. There are power tools for every occasion too. I ignore them all and pick up a shovel.

I carry the shovel back to the grave rather than taking the

digger. I rest beneath a tree that shelters me from the sun. I try not to think about the last twenty-four hours that have led me here, then I realise it’s actually the last two years that have done it. I wonder if the man I was back then would ever have thought of pulling the sort of crap he’s able to do now. I hope not, then I figure that if I was going to hope for anything it’d be that the last two years never happened.

That immediately leads me to start thinking about Quentin

James. I have had two lives — the one before meeting James,

and the one after — and I have been two separate people. I guess in a way that makes us similar. There was Sober Quentin and

Drunk Quentin. There was probably a third Quentin too. One

who recognised the change, but one who was kept quiet with

beer and sports TV and mortgage payments. There is a third Tate — one who can’t say no to whatever the hell it is that I’m doing now. I felt so many things when Quentin told me he was sorry,

but pity wasn’t one of them. I don’t feel it now either.

It takes Alderman thirty minutes. The sun is a little lower

but no less hot. The beaten-up SUV comes along the road, the

sun glinting off the windscreen, which is the only clean surface on the vehicle. The vehicle sways left and right as he struggles to control it.

I don’t move. He parks as close as he can get, and when the

door opens he steps out and pauses, looking around for what

I can only guess is me. He doesn’t see me. He has to pass through the section of trees where I’m sitting but still he doesn’t see me.

He approaches the grave slowly, swaying slightly as he walks,

as if the world is dropping away from beneath him with every

footstep. Me, I’d have been running. He reaches it and he stands at the edge and he looks down and he does nothing. Just looks

into the earth and sways, staring, just staring, until finally he climbs in.

I move towards him. The angle increases the closer I get,

allowing me first to see the opposite edge of the grave, then

Alderman’s head, and then the rest of him. He’s in there trying to pry up the edge of his wife’s coffin, but it’s difficult because all of his weight is on the lid. My shadow moves across the casket and he notices it. He looks up, having to twist his body to do it, which is a little awkward for him. He’s straddling the coffin like a horse, except he can’t get his legs over the sides. He’s looking up into the sun and has to hold a hand up to shade his eyes.

‘You fucker,’ he says.

‘Where is she?’

He gets to his feet, and has to reach out to steady himself

against the dark walls. I show him the shovel.

‘You think I’m afraid of you?’ he asks. ‘You think I haven’t

been waiting for something like this?’

I smack him in the side of the face with the shovel — not hard, but hard enough for him to fall back, his legs coming up and his head bouncing into the coffin.

‘Jesus,’ he says, touching his face. He leans to his side and spits out some blood, then wipes his hand across his mouth. ‘Fuck.’

‘Where did you put her?’

‘Fuck you,’ he says. ‘Is my wife in here? Is she, you piece of shit?’

‘She’s there, and unless you want to join her you’re going to

tell me where you put my daughter.’

‘Your daughter? How about you tell me where my son is?

Or have you forgotten? He’s down at the fucking morgue!’ The

words forced from his mouth are surrounded by booze and

spittle. ‘Yeah, he’s getting cut to pieces with fucking bolt cutters and blades, and you know what? You want to know the fucking

punch line? You put him there!’

There’s no point in arguing. No point in telling him over

and over that I did not shoot his son. Casey Horwell has already convinced him otherwise.

‘My daughter. Where is she?’

‘You shot my boy.’

‘Tell me!’

‘You’ll never find her.’

‘Goddamn you,’ I say, and raise the shovel as if I’m about to

hit him again. He flinches away, and I take a step back. ‘Goddamn it,’ I repeat, and I throw the shovel at him. I throw it hard. The shovel head hits him in the shoulder and bounces onto the coffin lid. Alderman falls back and braces himself against the wall. He starts massaging the impact point on his body.

I curl my hands into fists; I’m shaking, and I’m not really sure exactly where this anger is going to take me. The bottom of the abyss is waiting.

Alderman picks up the shovel and uses it to get to his feet.

He reaches for the edge of the grave. I figure he must be drunk, because he puts his hands over the edge as if he thinks he can pull himself out and not have anybody try to stop him. I squeeze my foot down on his fingers. He pulls them back, raking the skin off the back of his hand. He looks up at me as if he’s the victim here, as if he’s done nothing wrong. There is a patch of blood starting to spread on the shoulder of his shirt and now on his hand.

‘The girls, what happened?’

‘What girls?’

‘What girls do you think I’m talking about?’

He shrugs, but he knows. “I had nothing to do with them.

And nor did Bruce.’

‘He buried them. He admitted to that. Did he kill them?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Or did you kill them?’ I ask.

‘This is bullshit. All you’ve done is kill my son and you don’t even know why’

‘How about you explain it to me?’

‘You’re asking the wrong man.’

‘Who should I be asking?’

‘Who the hell do you think? Your pal Father Julian. Go ask

him all about it.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Fuck you. I’m not saying another word until you let me out

of here.’

I back away from the grave.

‘Where the fuck are you going?’ Alderman calls out.

I don’t answer him. I walk over to his SUV It’s dusty and

there are several rusting stone chips across the front of it. The driver’s door is open and there is a ‘ding, ding’ sound coming from the dashboard — his keys are still in it. I pop open the back door. My daughter is sprawled out in the back beneath a dark

blue tarp, her hair all matted and limp, her favourite dress in better condition than her body. Her little body has been ravaged by decomposition. I lean against the SUV and I keep my eyes

downcast, fighting the nausea, not wanting to look at her face because much of it has gone. It has rotted away, leaving a mask of such horror that all I want to do is scream. She should be in school right now. Should be two years older. Should be looking forward to going home and getting her homework out of the way

so she can spend time having tea-parties with teddy bears. Jesus, this world is so fucked up that it’s starting to make me think what Bruce Alderman did last night isn’t such a bad option.

I close the door. I walk back to the grave. Alderman is still

making his way out of it. He’s struggling because the dynamics are difficult for him. He’s drunk, his body can’t perform as well as a younger man’s could, his shoulder hurts and his fingers hurt, and he’s having difficulty getting up over the edge. He needs to be taller or stronger or younger or sober, or he needs a ladder. He looks up at me.

‘You son of a bitch,’ I say.

‘So I was wrong. So you did find her.’

‘It’s time you gave me some answers,’ I say, and I reach down

and grab a handful of his hair in one hand and the front of his shirt in the other. I pull him up hard, wanting it to hurt, and he grunts as his body is dragged over the edge of the grave.

‘Ah, fuck, slow down, damn it,’ he says, but I have no intention of slowing down.

“I didn’t kill your son,’ I say, and I keep pulling him upwards.

He braces both his hands over my hands to relieve the pain

that must be flooding through the top of his head. I can hear

scalp and hair beginning to tear.

When he’s out far enough, he gets his knees on the ground

and stops trying to hold onto my arms. Instead he twists his head, pulls down on my hand and clamps his teeth over my thumb.

‘Shit,’ I say, and I pull back my hand, but it’s no good. He’s biting hard, trying to sever the thumb.

I can’t crash my knee into his chin because it’ll push his teeth all the way through. Instead I let go of him and hit him. His head moves, making his teeth rip at my thumb like a great white shark sawing through its prey by shaking its head. So I push forward.

We both stumble, and a moment later we’re falling through the

air.

And back into the grave.

Mostly I land on Sidney Alderman. My elbow crashes into the

coffin and my thumb is jarred from his mouth. My knee hits

the wall, but the rest of me lands against the old man so the impact is cushioned. Alderman isn’t so lucky. He doesn’t have anybody to land on. Just his wife, except that her years of offering any support are over. So he lands hard up against the wood with the shovel beneath him — harder, I imagine, than if he were falling in there by himself. Because I’m falling with him, there’s my weight and there’s momentum and the laws of physics, and they all add up very badly for Sidney Alderman. His head bounces into the

edge of the coffin.

I push myself up, bracing my hands against the dirt walls and

the coffin. Blood is pouring from my thumb. The edges of the

bite have peeled upwards, revealing bright pink flesh. I reach into my pocket for my handkerchief and wrap it tightly around the

wound. It doesn’t hurt, but I figure in about twenty seconds it’s going to be killing me. I get to my knees and shake Alderman

a little. There is no response, so I shake him harder. When he doesn’t stir, I take the next step and search for what I’m beginning to fear, putting my fingers against his neck. Blood starts to leak onto the coffin. The lid is curved slightly, so the blood doesn’t pool; it runs down the sides and gets caught in a thin cosmetic groove running around the edge of the lid. Drop after drop and it starts building up; it climbs up over the groove and soaks into the dirt.

There is no pulse.

I start to roll Alderman over, but stop halfway when I see the damage. The tip of the shovel is buried into his neck, its angle making it point towards his brain. His head sags as I move him, and the handle of the shovel rotates. His eyes are open but they’re not seeing a thing. I let him go, and he slumps back against the coffin. My hands are covered in his blood. I stare at them for a few seconds, then wipe them on the walls of the grave, then stare at them some more, before shifting my body as far away as I can from Alderman, which isn’t far. I wipe my hands across the wet earth once more and clean them off on my shirt. All the time

I keep staring at Alderman as if he’s going to sit up and tell me not to worry, that these things happen, that it could’ve happened to anybody.

Jesus.

I climb out of the grave. It’s a lot easier for me than it was for Alderman because I’m working with a whole different set of dynamics. I lie on the lawn, staring up at the sky that is just as blue as it was when I was sitting in the digger, digging up the grave.

Jesus.

I get up and start staring at Sidney Alderman from different

angles that don’t improve the situation. I try thinking about

Emily, looking over at the SUV which is hidden by the trees,

knowing she’s in the back, hoping her presence will make things seem better than they are. Hoping to justify Alderman’s death by thinking he deserved it. I try this, but it doesn’t work. It should do. But it doesn’t. He deserved the chance to tell me everything he knew about the dead girls, and those dead girls deserved that too. I think about Casey Horwell and I wonder how she’d react if I called her and told her where her story had led. I figure she’d be thrilled — it’d give her the airtime she is desperate to get.

I walk over to the trees so I can see both the grave and the

SUV I look from one to the other. Is there a next step? I figure there is. There always is. I have, in fact, two first steps to choose from — the problem is each one heads in a different direction.

The first one requires me to reach into my pocket for my

cellphone and call the police. Only I don’t. They’ll say I wanted this to happen. They’ll say Alderman pushed me too far, and that I reacted. Only they’ll say I had time to calm down, because there were several hours in between Alderman taking Emily out of the ground and me putting him in it. Hours in which I dug up his