P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

“Because Mother would rather she stay lost than be buried out here and have her grave tended by you.”

Phillip’s fist came up and before Louis could stop him, he slugged Rodney. Rodney tumbled backward into the storm door, crashing it open. Phillip moved to go after him, but Louis grabbed his shoulders.

Phillip jerked away from him, and leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Louis kept his hand on his shoulder for a moment to make sure he was going stay there, then looked at Rodney. He had tumbled down the front steps and was crawling to his feet, his fingers wiping a smear of blood off his lip.

Louis stepped to the porch. “Leave.”

Rodney touched his lip again, looking at Phillip inside the doorway. “He’s pathetic,” Rodney said.

“Leave, now.”

“You need to tell him if he keeps this up I’ll have some kind of restraining order filed against him.”

Rodney held Louis’s gaze for a long time. There was a stony coldness in Rodney’s eyes that matched the icy morning air, and Louis had a weird thought about how different the look was from Charlie Oberon’s soft sadness. And he had to wonder just who was the crazy one anymore.

“I’m going to keep looking for her,” Louis said.

“Legally, her remains belong to her mother,” Rodney said. “So even if you find her he will only lose her again. Do you really want to put him through that?”

Louis didn’t reply. Rodney turned and walked back to his car. Louis waited until he had driven away, then went back inside the house.

There was no one on the landing. Louis moved down the steps to the living room, stopping at the doorway.

Aw, man.

Frances was hunched in the chair near the television, her yellow robe pulled tight around her. Her head was down, Kleenex clutched in her trembling hand.

Phillip was standing at the window, arms folded, head bowed. And spread across the sofa and ottoman was a slew of papers and an empty manila folder. Resting on top was the admitting photo of Claudia.

Louis drew a hard breath and walked to the sofa. He started picking up the copies of Claudia’s patient file and stuffing them back into the folder. He had left the file up in the guest room, and Phillip had taken it. Louis tried not to let his anger show, but he could feel the slow burn starting across his shoulders.

“I wasn’t finished with them,” Phillip said.

Louis didn’t even look up. “I was going to show them to you when I understood them better.”

Phillip came to him. “Louis-”

“We’ll do this later, Phil.”

Damn it. He couldn’t get the papers back in the folder neatly and he finally just gathered them all up in both arms and started back upstairs.

Phillip followed him. “I read what they did to her. I saw how she looked.”

“Phil, stop.”

Phillip caught his arm. “You haven’t talked to me in days. I don’t know where you’ve been or who you’ve spoken to.”

Louis leaned against the wall, Claudia’s folder against his chest. Phillip’s eyes begged for something.

“There’s a chance she was cremated,” Louis said quietly. “I’ll be able to look at some things in a few days, and we might know something.”

Phillip nodded, trying to accept this new possibility. He slumped against the wall. “Where are you going today?” he asked quietly.

“Back to Ardmore,” Louis said.

“May I come this time?”

“No. I think you should stay here.”

Phillip looked back down the empty stairwell. “You’re right. I need to stay with Fran.” He ran a hand over his face. “I’m afraid I’ve messed this up so badly it’s too late to make things right with her.”

“I don’t think so,” Louis said.

Phillip hesitated, then gave a wooden nod. He started back down the stairs. Louis continued on up. He closed the bedroom door with his foot and dumped Claudia’s records on his tangled bedding. He sat down next to it.

He just wanted this over. He needed it to be over and he knew Phillip and Frances did, too. And for an instant, Louis considered letting Phillip believe Claudia had been cremated no matter what he eventually found at John Spera’s.

But he knew it would be no different than what Eloise and Rodney DeFoe had done, sticking Claudia away somewhere and pretending she didn’t exist.

Louis looked over at her medical records and slowly started putting them inside the folder, making sure they were straight, and hooking each paper over the metal tabs that held them in place. When he got to her picture, he kept it in his fingers for a moment.

He stared at it, trying to see some glimmer of light, a hint of the beauty that Phillip had seen more than thirty years ago, but there was nothing. He set it aside and finished putting the folder back together. Then he carried it to the dresser, slipping it in the drawer, under his shirts.

It was time to let her rest for a few days.

Dalum called later that day to tell him that the ring they had found in the grave was from a high school in a town called Napoleon up near Jackson.

“No name on it but the year is 1987 and there’s an engraving inside that might be the initials SS,” Dalum told him.

Louis was thankful for an excuse to get out of the house. “I’ll go up to the school today,” he said.

“That’s what I was hoping,” Dalum said. “Swing by and pick up the ring first. You might need it.”

The town of Napoleon wasn’t hard to find. It was a crossroads farming village less than twenty miles north of Hidden Lake, straight up Highway 50. Louis just hoped finding the owner of the class ring would be as easy.

The sprawling fifties-style high school was surrounded by corn and soy fields, with the thrusting tower of a grain elevator off on the flat horizon. The parking lot was filled. Louis swung into an empty spot and noted a sign in front of a blue Ford: RESERVED FOR PRINCIPAL WIGGINTON.

Inside, the halls were noisy and crowded with kids, and Louis glanced at his watch. Noon. He found the administration office and went in.

“I’d like to speak with the principal, please,” he told the woman behind the desk.

She squinted up at him over black half lenses. “Are you Mr. Jeffries?”

“Excuse me?”

“Bobby Jeffries’s dad. Are you him?” She pointed a pencil toward an inner room where a young black boy sat slumped in a chair.

“No, I’m here on official business.” Louis pulled out the ID card Dalum had given him.

The secretary’s eyes widened when she saw the official seal. “Goodness. Well, I’m afraid Miss Wigginton isn’t here right now.”

Louis put away the card. “When will she be back?”

“Oh, she’s got lunch watch today.” The woman leaned over and pointed her pencil down a hall. “Follow this almost to the end, turn right at the pirate. She’s in the cafeteria.”

Louis thanked the woman and started down the hall. He passed signs for the upcoming homecoming game. The float contest theme this year was kitchen appliances and signs shouted TOAST ’EM PIRATES! NUKE GRASS LAKE!

Louis followed the noise until it built to a crescendo of laughter and clattering cutlery. He turned right at the giant papier-mâché pirate.

The lunchroom was crowded and Louis stood at the entrance scanning the room, but except for a few food handlers in hair nets, didn’t see any adults. Then he spotted her, a blond woman in a red blouse sitting at one of the tables. He went over to her.

The girls she was sitting with looked up at him quizzically. “Miss Wiggs,” one whispered, nodding up.

The principal turned, looking up at Louis. She was in her fifties, an attractive woman with streaked blond hair and a guileless expression.