P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

He threw himself off the ladder, hitting a thick layer of crusty snow, and he wanted to just lie there, but he didn’t, and he crawled a few feet, then pushed his body up onto all fours, gulping in the air. He stayed that way for a long time, afraid to open his eyes, afraid it was all a dream. His hands grew cold in the snow.

Slowly, he rose to his knees and looked out at the cemetery.

Everything was iced over, silvery white under a generous moon, all of it still and unmoving and pure. And it was beautiful.

The light was pale pink, the morning rising as if it were coming from a deep sleep. Even the voices seemed hushed, and the footsteps in the snow were a soft steady crunch, like something brittle and fragile was breaking under the ground.

Louis stood wrapped in a blanket, someone else’s shoes on his feet, gloves on his hands. His body still trembled, but the cold was gone, leaving nothing inside. He watched the police work, watched as they disappeared in and out of the hole in the ground like roaches scrambling from the light.

Chief Dalum stood nearby, silent now, long ago giving up trying to urge Louis to go to the hospital. Louis had asked about Charlie, but Dalum hadn’t known anything. Didn’t know where Charlie was or why he hadn’t delivered the message.

“Bloom is here,” Dalum said suddenly.

Louis looked toward the cemetery entrance. Detective Bloom was hurrying toward them, his face red and wrinkled from sleep, his coat open, shirt half tucked in. Another man struggled to keep up with him, talking quickly as they both made long strides across the snow.

Bloom stopped at Louis, silencing the other cop with a wave of his hand. Louis looked at him for a moment, then away.

“What the hell were you thinking going down there?” Bloom asked.

Louis stared at the hole in the ground, pulling the blanket tighter. He heard Dalum say something to Bloom, and then the two walked away. Bloom came back a few minutes later, head down, and he blew out an apologetic breath.

“You need to see a doctor,” Bloom said.

“When they find her.”

Bloom glanced at the hole. “We have someone working on the electricity now. If she’s down there, they’ll find her.”

“She is there,” Louis snapped.

“Wasn’t what I meant, Kincaid. Any idea who it was?”

“No.”

A uniform waved at Bloom. “Lights are on down there,” he called. “At least in some places.”

Bloom gave him a nod, then looked back at Louis. “You warm enough?”

Louis ignored him.

Bloom motioned toward the hole. “You feel like showing us anything?”

Louis didn’t move. Bloom waited for an answer, but Louis couldn’t give him one, couldn’t even take a step toward the hole. There was a part of him that knew how that looked, that it looked weak and frightened, but he just couldn’t do it.

“Look,” Bloom said, “I’ll have one of my officers drive you back to Adrian.”

“No.”

“What the hell do you want me to do with you then?”

“Just leave me alone.”

“If you won’t see a doctor, then I need a statement and I need it quick. Anything you can tell us might help catch this guy.”

“He’s gone.”

“How do you know that?”

Louis spun to him. “Because I fucking know. And I know what’s behind all this, too. I know what they were doing here and why they were doing it and why they had to hide it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Louis almost said it. Almost told him about the babies and the experiments, about Ives and Seraphin, but something stopped him. It was a small, instantaneous flash of clarity that he knew he should listen to. If he told him what he knew, Bloom would think he was crazy, really crazy.

But there was one thing he could tell him. “His name is Buddy Ives,” Louis said. “He was a patient here.”

“I guess you just fucking know that, too?”

“His handprint is on the damn door down there-just like the one he left on the E Building wall.”

Bloom fell quiet, his gaze drifting back to the lift. He let the silence fill the moment, and Louis finally looked away from him.

“I guess we owe you and Charlie an apology,” Bloom said.

“You’ve seen Charlie?” Louis asked.

“Yeah,” Bloom said, his voice edged with embarrassment. “When he showed up at the security gate yesterday afternoon my officer arrested him.”

“ Arrested him?”

Bloom’s hand came up. “We told him three times to stay off the grounds. We had no choice.”

“You stupid son of a bitch.”

“Hold it right there, Kincaid.”

“Was the cop fucking deaf?” Louis said.

Bloom put a hand on Louis’s chest, but Louis pushed it off, losing the blanket as he stepped into Bloom. Bloom grabbed Louis’s arm and tried to turn him, but Louis twisted away and his arm came back to take a swing, but he never made it. He was pushed down into the snow, a dozen hands keeping him there. He jerked back, trying to push himself up, but he had no strength, and he finally went limp under their pressure.

Bloom’s mouth came down to his ear. “Please,” he said firmly. “Don’t do this. Let us help you.”

Louis lowered his head, taking a moment to close his eyes and calm himself. Then he gave Bloom a nod and the hands left his back. Bloom and Dalum helped him to his feet. Louis wiped his face and stared at the ground, trying to sort his thoughts, but he couldn’t. Things still didn’t seem right.

A cop handed him the blanket and Louis took it and put it around him. He just looked at the snow, his mind almost as frozen as his body.

A radio went off somewhere close by and Louis thought he caught something about a girl and he was at the edge of the hole before Bloom. Two uniforms and a man in a CSU jacket stood at the bottom.

“We found a body,” one of them called up. “It’s bad.”

Louis stared at the man, anxious to know more but afraid of what it might be. Afraid the woman he heard dying was Alice. Or even Dr. Seraphin.

“What did she look like?” he asked.

The crime scene investigator glanced at Bloom for permission to answer and Bloom gave him a nod.

“Twenty-maybe,” the man said. “Long brown hair, hundred ten, hundred fifteen pounds.”

Louis stared down at the man’s face, seeing the emptiness in it as he went on, talking about things Louis had to concentrate on to understand.

“She was nude, beaten some, then burned, maybe with a cigarette, and it looked like someone tried to dig out her insides, Detective.”

Louis turned and walked away, stopping ten or fifteen feet away from the hole. He could feel his mind shutting down, filling itself with a cottony darkness.

After a few seconds, Bloom came up behind him. “You ready to leave now, Kincaid?”

“Yes.”

“Stay at the station house until I get there. If you want a doctor, have the officer call one. We’ll take care of it.”

Louis nodded and headed toward the gates of the cemetery.

Charlie was in a cell, sitting on a single bunk, his back to the wall. It looked like a temporary holding cell, but it was locked, officers working nearby, phones ringing and computers clicking.

A cop unlocked the door, swung it open, and left. When Charlie didn’t move, Louis stepped to the cell.

“You can come out now, Charlie,” Louis said.

Charlie looked up at him, then down, embarrassed. “Is Miss Alice here?”

“No,” Louis said. “But she’s coming to pick you up.”

“I’ll wait here. It’s cold out there.”

“Can I come in and wait with you?” Louis asked.

Charlie didn’t answer, but he scooted over on the bunk. Louis went in and sat down next to him. He was still shivering a little, but he wore a Michigan State Police sweatshirt now, given to him after he had taken a shower in the cops’ locker room.