P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

“Kincaid?”

He turned back to Dalum.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you hanging around here? What exactly is it that you’re investigating here?”

Louis hesitated. It didn’t seem right, telling a stranger the intimacies of Phillip’s past. But if there was even the slimmest possibility this was Claudia’s remains, then Dalum had a right to know. Louis told the story, told Dalum about Phillip and Claudia, about the rocks in the casket, about Dr. Seraphin and the copper cans in the bowels of the hospital. Before he knew it, he had also told him about Eloise DeFoe committing her only daughter, and about Rodney DeFoe not even wanting to bring his sister’s remains home. When Louis was finished, Dalum was staring at him.

“You think your case has anything to do with these bones? Or Rebecca Gruber?”

“No,” Louis said.

“Why not?”

“Patients weren’t allowed to wear jewelry. And Claudia DeFoe died in 1972. That puts sixteen years between her and Rebecca Gruber. Too much time.”

Dalum put his hands on his hips and scanned the cemetery. “Two women dead,” he said almost to himself. “Both left in the same place. This can’t be a coincidence.”

“Chief, I have something to tell you,” Louis said. “It may not have anything to do with this, but I don’t think we can discount anything right now.”

Dalum looked at Louis.

“I was in E Building yesterday,” Louis said. “I heard a noise. I didn’t see anyone.”

“But?” Dalum said, sensing Louis had more to say.

Louis shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

Dalum took a long breath, his hands slipping into his jacket pockets. Louis knew Dalum was probably taking this personally, like it was an invasion in his small hometown. He knew, too, that it was going to be hard for Dalum to hand things off to the state or county boys. But any small-town cop who was worth a damn knew there was no choice.

A whirring noise made Louis turn.

Shit . It was Doug Delp.

Dalum spun around. “What the hell? How’d you get in here?”

Delp let the camera fall so it hung over his suede jacket. He held up his hands. “Hey, Chief. I’m just doing my job.”

“Get out of here! Pete! Escort this asshole back behind the line.”

A hulking officer appeared and clamped a mitt on Delp’s shoulder. Delp looked to Louis for help, but Louis offered nothing.

“I know you found bones,” Delp hollered as the officer gave him a shove. “I know you’ve got the whole damn county on their way down here.”

The officer grabbed Delp’s jacket again.

“Damn it, wait a minute!” Delp said. “I have information. I can help you.”

“Get him out of here now, Pete,” Dalum said.

“Becker did it!” Delp yelled. “Donald Lee Becker, that’s your guy.”

Louis and Dalum stared at Delp.

“Becker’s dead, you moron,” the chief said. “Now get out of here before I run you in.”

Louis watched the officer drag Delp off toward the cemetery entrance. Just outside the two towering pines, the officer gave Delp a shove and the reporter stumbled toward his Civic. But he didn’t get in. He just stood there, looking back at them. The officer came back, shaking his head and circling a finger near his temple as he walked past Louis.

Dalum turned his gaze from Delp. “Is that the guy who’s been bothering Alice and everyone?”

“Yup,” Louis said.

“Never seen him before. What paper is he with?”

“He’s not. He’s here to get material for a book about Becker.”

Dalum shook his head. The crime scene tech was waving him over, so Dalum left Louis standing alone at the edge of the shallow grave. Louis stared down at the bones. When he looked up, his eyes went back to the cemetery entrance. Delp was still there.

Louis walked through the brown grass and out through the pine trees. Delp watched him coming, leaning against his car smoking a cigarette.

“I saw that,” Delp said. “I saw what that cop did. You think I’m nuts. But I’m not. Donald Lee Becker is alive.”

Louis pointed back to the cemetery. “Becker is in there, Delp, has been for eight years.”

Delp stuck the cigarette in his mouth and used both hands to rummage through his pockets. He pulled out a creased photograph and held it up. “See this? This is Donald Lee Becker. It was taken at his farm up near Mason.”

“So?”

“It was taken three years ago,” Delp said.

Louis took the picture from Delp. It was a blurry black-and-white shot of a guy standing in a cornfield. “You can’t tell who this is,” Louis said.

“Eyewitnesses,” Delp said. “They’ve seen him.”

“Yeah, sharing a Slurpee at the 7-Eleven with Elvis.”

Delp snatched the photo from Louis’s hand and stuffed it back in his coat pocket. He tossed his cigarette to the dirt, unlooped the Nikon from around his neck, and aimed it toward the cemetery.

Instinctively, Louis held a hand up in front of the lens.

“Hey, man,” Delp said.

“Knock it off.”

“I got a right-”

Louis grabbed the camera. He knew he had no authority here, but the guy was a ghoul, lurking around taking pictures of bones before Dalum had even had a chance to figure out who it was.

Louis turned the camera over, looking for the latch to release the film-loading mechanism. Delp realized what he was doing.

“Hey, don’t do that, man,” Delp said, groping for the camera. “Don’t expose the film. All my shots of the asylum are on this roll.”

“The asylum?” Louis asked, holding the camera at arm’s length.

Delp put on a defensive face. “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

Louis looked hard at Delp, remembering the noise he had heard and the cigarette smoke he had smelled the day he was in E Building getting Claudia’s medical records. “Have you been inside E Building?”

“E Building?” Delp asked.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “The building Becker was in.”

Delp ran a hand across his nose. “No.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Louis asked.

Delp was quiet. Louis looked down at the camera. He hit the Rewind button and the Nikon gave out a loud whirring sound.

“What you doing?” Delp said, grabbing for it.

Louis jerked the camera away. When it was finished rewinding, he popped open the back and took out the film, putting it in his pocket.

“You can’t have that!” Delp said.

“I’ll get the other pictures back to you.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot.”

Louis handed him the empty camera. “You’re lucky the chief didn’t throw you in jail for obstruction,” he said.

“Let him. It would make a good chapter in the book.” Delp leaned against the car again. He pulled out his pack of Kools, hesitated, and held it out to Louis.

Louis shook his head. Delp lit one for himself and looked back at the cemetery.

“So how old you think those bones are?” he asked.

“No way to tell.”

“But it’s a female, right?”

“No way to tell.”

“You’re jerking my chain, Kincaid.”

Louis was silent.

“Well, they looked old to me,” Delp said. “You know, Becker was in this place from the early sixties until 1980, don’t you?”

“I don’t care.”

“Becker died here. Under mysterious circumstances, they say.”

Louis didn’t look at him. He heard a door open and looked over to see Delp putting his Nikon back in a bag on the front seat. Louis’s eyes went to the box on the backseat. It was stuffed with folders, D.L. Becker scrawled in black marker on the side. He looked away as Delp emerged.

Delp leaned against the car again, his gaze going back to the cemetery. “They don’t have any names. Did you know that?”