Dana Stabenow - A Grave Denied

“Why did you kill them?” he said. “I want answers, Virgil, and I want them now.”

Virgil looked as serene as ever. No force had been necessary in subduing him. “I have to get back to Telma now, she will be worried.”

Jim noticed Virgil wasn’t worried about Vanessa, shell-shocked and speechless, currently in the capable hands of Auntie Vi. “You should have thought of that before you killed two people and tried to kill a third. To say nothing of the dog.” Jim caught himself choking back a laugh. He wondered if he was hysterical. He knew the signs. He took a deep breath. “Let’s take it from the top, Virgil. Why did you kill Len Dreyer?”

Virgil focused on him and said gently, “Would you please see to my Telma, Jim Chopin? She should not be left alone, way out there by herself.”

“I’ll get hold of Bernie,” Bobby said. “He’ll find the Grosdidier brothers, send them out after her. We’ll bring her back to town, Virgil, and I’ll have Auntie Vi look after her. She’ll be all right.”

“I thank you, Bobby,” Virgil said, smiling at him.

“You’re welcome,” Bobby said. “Now fucking answer Jim’s questions!”

Virgil’s smile didn’t falter. He looked at Jim.

Jim sat down across the table from him. “Why did you kill Len Dreyer?”

“Because he found them,” Virgil said simply.

“Found who?” Jim said.

“The babies.”

“What babies?” Jim looked at Bobby, who pointed a finger at his ear and made a circle.

“Our babies,” Virgil said, closing his eyes, his voice dreamy. “Four boys, and a little girl.”

Jim took a deep breath, let it out. “You don’t have any children, Virgil.”

Virgil opened his eyes. “No,” he said. “None living. It is the sickness, you see.”

“The what?”

“After the babies are born. Telma…” Virgil’s face creased with sorrow. “I would try to watch, to keep them safe. But I am only one man, and I must work to make our living, so we do not go hungry, so we have a roof over our heads and clothes to wear upon our backs. I would have to go out, to do these things, and when I would come back…” He made a helpless gesture. “They would be dead.”

Jim stared at him incredulously. He felt rather than saw Bobby’s jaw drop. “Are you telling me that you and your wife had five children, and that Telma murdered every one of them?”

“Not murdered,” Virgil said vehemently. “She loves the children, does my Telma. She loves the babies. I read up on this, I know what I am talking about. It is the sickness that mothers sometimes get after the birth of their babies. It makes the mothers do strange things.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bobby said blankly.

Virgil smiled, misty-eyed. “My Telma, she is so beautiful when the babies are born. She holds them close to her. She will not let go.”

“She smothered them?” Jim said. He’d heard of similar cases, but five?

“She loved them!” Virgil said. “She loved them,” he said in a quieter voice.

“And after she killed them, you buried them on the homestead,” Jim said.

“I bury them,” Virgil said, nodding. “I make their little coffins-so tiny, they are -and I dress them in the white clothes that Telma has made for them, the little innocents. They are so sweet, our babies.”

“Five? You buried five babies?” Jim said. “For crissake, Virgil, why didn’t you try to get Telma some help after the first one?”

Virgil looked at him, surprised. “They would have taken her from me, my beautiful Telma,” he said in a gentle voice, as if explaining the matter to a child. “I cannot live without my Telma, Jim Chopin.”

“You’ll have to learn how now,” Bobby said.

“Why did you kill Len Dreyer, Virgil?” Jim said, although he thought he already knew.

Virgil’s words confirmed his suspicion. “I hire him to rototill my garden in May, but he does not dig where I tell him to.”

“He dug up the bodies instead.”

Virgil nodded. “My babies,” he said sadly, “he digs up our babies. I do not know this at first, of course, only when he comes back the next month, when I have hired him and Dandy Mike to build my greenhouse.”

His face darkened. “And then this Len Dreyer asks me for money, and I know if I do not give it to him that he will tell. He comes back every month for the money. I wait until fall, when the snow is going to fall and keep everyone home so they won’t see me, and when he comes in October-”

“You shoot him with your shotgun,” Jim said. “And then you took his body up to the glacier because you’d heard it was advancing and you figured his body would never be found.”

Virgil shrugged. “And if it were, it would be a long time, and nothing to do with me.”

“And then,” Jim said grimly, “I had the brilliant idea of hiring Kate Shugak to ask around about him. And that frightened you.”

“My Telma was upset when she came to the house, asking after Len Dreyer,” Virgil said.

“So you set fire to her cabin,” Jim said. Bobby, his face dark and his eyes narrow, sat next to him, simmering with a palpable rage.

“I set fire to her cabin,” Virgil said. “But she does not die. And then I think I should leave it alone, that Dreyer is dead, that there is nothing to connect him to me, that if I say nothing no one ever will, and me and my Telma will be left alone.”

“What about Dandy Mike?” Jim said tightly. “Why did you have to kill him?”

Virgil looked sorrowful. “I went to where Dreyer lived, to make sure there was nothing to find. He came. He wondered that I was there. He said nothing, but I could tell. I had my shotgun with me.” He patted the air next to him. “My shotgun,” he said, and looked around in some bewilderment when it didn’t materialize beneath his hand.

Bobby snapped his fingers. “That’s why you wanted to sell your property to Ruthe Bauman for the Kanuyaq Land Trust. You figured if it was designated wilderness, no one would ever find the babies’ bodies!”

Virgil looked at him. “Could you see to my Telma now, please? You said that you would, and I am thinking she is very lonely, out there on our homestead, all by her herself. It is only the babies with her now, you see.”

And he smiled.

Oh good, you’re awake.“ Kate’s eyeballs felt like they’d been sandpapered. ”You’re getting to be a regular customer, Ms. Shugak.“ A round figure beneath a starched white coat, the inevitable stethoscope draped around her neck, Adrienne Giroux had a soft voice and a gentle touch. ”If we had frequent flyer miles, you’d be eligible for a first-class upgrade by now.“

“My dog-” Kate said.

“Is fine,” Giroux said firmly. She tucked a strand of brown hair back into its twist. “The vet says she had a concussion, like you.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand how but neither of you were badly hurt.” She smiled. “Born lucky, I think is the phrase. Both of you.”

Kate blinked up at her. “Mutt’s all right?”

“Yes.”

“She’s not dead?”

“No. She’s not even hurt that badly.” Giroux smiled. “I imagine that hunky trooper of yours will bring her in at some point during your stay, violating hospital protocols right, left, and center.”

“He’s not my hunky trooper.”

“Really,” Dr. Giroux said. “My mistake.”

Kate thought back. “Dirt,” she said. “I could hardly breathe.”

“Yes,” the doctor said, “apparently-” but there was no apparently because Kate’s eyes closed and she slid gratefully back into sleep.

The second time she opened her eyes Auntie Vi was there, sewing something, her half-glasses slipping down her nose, looking impossibly dear. Kate watched, saying nothing, until Auntie Vi looked up and said, “Katya! You awake!”