P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

Alice fell quiet, reading down the page. Louis edged closer, but the handwriting was small, and he couldn’t read it upside down.

“That night,” Alice went on, “she was transferred to E Building and received her first ice bath. I guess that is your answer as to why she ended up in E Building.”

“Did she ever try to escape again?”

Alice’s head came up. The tip of her nose was red from the cold. “She would not have had the chance once she went to E Building.”

Louis sank back into his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. He could see them, two young women, running through an apple orchard, desperate enough to want to be free yet incapable of finding their way. And for an instant, his image of Claudia changed to something prettier and brighter, as if her run through the orchard was the last real moment she would have before they took it all away.

“Alice,” he said, “is there any way you can get to Millie Reuben’s file?”

Alice’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I should.”

“Please.”

“I’m sorry. It was different with your friend. But there’s still confidentiality to consider.”

He didn’t press it. Alice’s gaze turned to the window. The pane had a thin layer of frost on it, blurring the trees outside. He wanted to leave, but he knew Alice expected some information from him on Charlie. But he had nothing to tell her. He hadn’t yet made it to the Ardmore Police Station to even speak with him.

The phone rang and Alice glanced at it, then lifted the receiver slowly. Louis could hear a man’s voice on the other end. Strong, but slow. Alice listened for a minute; then her face started to change as her eyes came to Louis.

“Yes, Chief,” she said. “Yes, I understand.”

She hung up.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked.

“That was Chief Dalum,” she said. “They’ve found some bones.”

The bones had been buried in a shallow grave on the north end of the cemetery. John Spera and his crew had been working nearby, exhuming grave number 978, when a brownish-colored human skull tumbled from the claw of the backhoe. Spera had promptly stopped and called Chief Dalum.

Two of Dalum’s men borrowed spades from Spera and carefully dug a wide hole around the area where the skull had been found. It didn’t take long for them to uncover a rib cage and right arm bone. Dalum immediately called the county for the crime scene investigators. No one was sure if this was a crime scene, but Dalum wasn’t going to take any chances.

Dalum had seemed surprised when Louis showed up at the cemetery entrance, but he waved to his officer to let him in. When Louis explained he had been visiting Alice, Dalum just nodded and brought him over to the grave. Now the three of them stood-Dalum, Louis, and Spera-watching as one of the technicians carefully brushed away the last of the dirt that had concealed the skeleton.

Spera suddenly turned away, going over to stand next to his backhoe operator. Louis watched him. The wind was in Spera’s face, tearing his eyes and whipping his thin dark hair into a frenzy. The man had been digging up graves for weeks now, and Louis knew there was a certain stoicism that went with that. But now Spera had the same look Alice had last week when Charlie walked from the woods carrying Rebecca Gruber-the look that came from being touched by something close to evil.

Spera had a rolled paper in his hand, and Louis guessed it was the layout of the cemetery. He walked over to Spera and asked if he could see it. Spera unrolled it and as he tried to smooth it against the side of the backhoe, it snapped furiously in the wind.

“We’re right here,” Spera said, pointing a callused finger at the grid. “Number 978 is the farthest grave at the back of the cemetery. The graves end right there. That skull shouldn’t have been where it was.”

There was a slight defensiveness in Spera’s voice, like he felt this was his fault somehow.

Louis looked north beyond the cemetery boundaries. No fence, just heavy brush, then nothing but tall trees so thick they formed a twisted wall of branches as far as Louis could see.

“What’s beyond those trees?” Louis asked.

“Farmland,” Spera said. “Apple orchards mostly.”

Louis looked back at the map, then at the spot where the bones lay. There was less than a yard between grave number 978 and the bones, but probably a good fifty feet of nothing to the north trees.

“Do you have any idea why this area from here to the back was not used for burial?” Louis asked.

“Nope,” Spera said. “I just go by the map.”

Spera rolled up the paper and walked back to his worker. Louis turned and headed to the north trees, scanning the ground as he walked. He didn’t see any stone markers embedded in the ground. There were no graves here. Just grass.

He stopped when he got to the high brush. It was too thick to venture in, and he strained to peer into it. It was wild and tangled, unlike the woods behind E Building, which were maintained by the hospital with plenty of paths and clearings.

“Kincaid, come on over here. I need you to see this.”

He headed back to Dalum. He was standing legs wide, arms folded across his jacket as he stared down at the bones, now fully exposed.

Louis guessed the skeleton was still positioned as it had been when it had been dumped and buried. On its side, legs drawn up, both arms folded to one side.

The technicians rose, nodding to Dalum, who in turn nodded to Louis. They both knelt down for a closer look.

“I’d guess it’s a child,” Louis said. “Or a teenager since the bones are small. I’d estimate the height at no taller than about five three.”

“I take it you agree with me that no way is this a patient they just didn’t happen to have a casket for,” Dalum said.

Louis nodded. “It’s not deep enough and there’s no clothing.”

“You have a guess on how long she’s been here?”

Louis looked at him. “She?”

Dalum shrugged.

“No idea, Chief.” Louis fell quiet, staring at the bones. A thought was pushing its way to the front of his brain, but it was so far-fetched he couldn’t believe it had even occurred to him. Could this be Claudia? His eyes swept over the cemetery. They were a good thirty yards from where her marker was. And it was pretty damn unlikely she would have been dumped like this and so hastily buried. But the bones did look old.

The sun crawled out from behind a cloud. Louis was about to stand up when something caught his eye in the dirt. It was a tiny flash that came to life for just an instant in the sun and was gone.

“Chief,” he said, pointing.

“What is it?” Dalum asked, squinting.

Louis carefully wedged a finger in the dirt and popped the object out of the ground. It was dirt-encrusted and he still couldn’t tell exactly what it was. He picked up a stick and used it to flick away more dirt. It was a ring.

“I’ll be damned,” Dalum said.

Louis glanced back at the crime tech, who was putting away his tools. He used the stick to scrape away some of the dirt, enough so they could see an emblem and a stone. It looked like a class ring.

“Better leave it,” Dalum said.

Louis nodded and dropped the stick, as Dalum called over the tech guy. Louis rose, brushing the dirt from his hands.

The tech guy was working on the ring now, and Louis knew it would eventually make its way into a nice clean evidence bag. Soon enough they would have a school and a date and a lead on an ID. One thing was sure right now, however. Whoever this was, it wasn’t a Hidden Lake patient, because Alice had told him patients weren’t allowed to wear jewelry.

Louis felt a strange surge of disappointment that it couldn’t be Claudia. At least he would have had something to take back to Phillip, something less horrible than one of those pathetic forgotten cans.