Tom Piccirilli - November Mourns

“What killed her?” he asked.

“The autopsy didn’t reveal any cause of death,” Dave told him.

That stopped Shad, made him turn and cock his head. “The hell’s that mean?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“My father suspects she was murdered.”

“I know. He spreads his suspicions high and low around town. But officially her death is listed as ‘by misadventure.’”

Shad waited, counting the snap of his pulse to ten while Dave patiently influenced himself upon the world. “What?”

“Death by misadventure.”

It could get like this at the oddest times. He wished he had a cigarette-this was the kind of circumstance where a guy would take a drag, allow the seconds to roll by while he kept his lungs busy, then let the smoke out in a thin stream, everything cool and hip and effective.

He fought to make his voice casual. Never any show of consternation, especially with someone that much bigger than you. “Dave, are you going to keep making me say ‘what the goddamn’ all day long? Or will you just lay it out?”

“We don’t have any answers.”

“I got that much.”

“Misadventure means it’s an accident we can’t explain.”

“And that’s an official report?”

“Yes.”

“You guys really cover your asses.” No matter how hard you tried, you’d never figure out the carefully constructed mystification of the justice system. “If you can’t explain it, then you don’t know she was actually killed.”

“That’s right.”

“Her heart simply stopped.”

“That’s right.”

“For no reason.”

“That we can ascertain.”

“So why’s my father say she was murdered?”

Dave’s expression didn’t change but he settled back on his feet, and the slight adjustment in his body language let Shad know he felt a touch embarrassed. Not for himself, but for Pa. You had to have been around Dave Fox for most of your life in order to pick up on little things like that, and even then you wouldn’t know what it really meant.

“She had a scratch on her cheek,” Dave said. “He takes it to mean she was attacked.”

Shad searched the deputy’s face and came up empty. “And you do too?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, you didn’t.” Dave made you fight for everything, but his silence still gave him away occasionally. It was one way he could stay true to himself and still let people know what was on his mind. “Doc never cared much for moon, he’s more of a Jack Daniel’s drinker. I’d come across him on the lower banks while I was hauling whiskey, out cold with his feet in the water.”

“He’s got bunions.”

“I’d stop and pick him up, drive him home before he floated off. His wife always tried to pay me forty dollars when I’d bring him inside. I’m not sure how she arrived at that price.”

Telling Dave pretty much what he thought of old Doc without having to come right out with it.

But Dave Fox would never talk out against someone in authority, not even against the sheriff, who everyone knew was on the take. He drew his line in the sand and kicked the shit out of everybody to one side and let everyone on the other side slide.

“Who found her?” Shad asked.

“I did. She was lying there, like I said, as if she were sleeping.”

“What made you think to look all the way out here?”

“I looked everywhere. I started when your father called at about ten o’clock or so, and discovered her at four-fifteen in the morning.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

“No.”

Shad thought about his sister so far from town, in the night, alone, surrounded by darkness. How different would it have played out if he’d been home? Maybe the same, except he would’ve been the one to find her.

He could imagine himself there beside her. Hear himself groaning, cradling her, kneeling in the dirt with her body in his arms. His breath hitched until he was almost snorting. His hands clasped into fists as if he were trying to grab hold of her, there on the ground, and pull her back toward him.

He started to walk up the road and Dave fell in line beside him. They worked their way toward high ground that was dense with oak and heavy underbrush. Farther off, near the ridge, the willows loomed and swayed in the crosswinds.

He’d missed too much in the two years he was gone, and it was hobbling him. There would’ve been more boys around, a part-time job, other activities. He didn’t know Megan well enough anymore, and nobody was filling him in.

“She was seventeen,” he said. “She wouldn’t have come up this way alone.”

“I talked to her friends, classmates, and the closest neighbors. They all said she wasn’t seeing anyone. Had no beau. Did she ever write you and say different?”

“No. She never wrote me. I told her not to.”

“Why?”

“It would’ve only made it harder.”

The closest neighbors were more than a mile off through the fields in any direction from Pa’s house. They wouldn’t know anything. Who were the girls she used to be friendly with? He couldn’t remember.

“Maybe a new boy,” Shad said.

“If so, nobody ever saw them together.”

“A party?”

“I checked with all the parents. No one was gone for the night. No parties. One of the kids would’ve mentioned it.”

“A bonfire that night? In the fields?”

“No signs of one at all. No fresh tire tracks, no ashes, no trash. Somebody would’ve said something.”

“Even if they were trying to hide her death?”

With a slow, heavy breath Dave tried to reach out with his own will and composure and calm Shad down. “What group of teenagers can keep their mouths shut about anything?”

None. Shad realized it but was already grasping for whatever he could. In the can, locked down with assholes and killers everywhere, he never lost his confidence or ease. Now, standing here, he knew he was shaking apart inside. It was almost enough to scare him, but not quite.

“Was she raped?”

“No. There was no indication of a struggle.”

“Did you…?”

“You need to stop acting like a private eye, Shad Jenkins. You’re not very good at it. Stop asking so many questions.”

“You’re right,” Shad admitted, “but it’s not going to happen. Did you talk to Zeke Hester?”

“He was in Dober’s Roadhouse, same as every night. Drunk and causing his usual misfortunes and woe. Had one altercation with the bartender, threw a pool cue across the room.”

“He likes throwing things. The day I broke his arm he took off his boot and hurled it at my face.”

“He’s a sniveler, but twenty witnesses put him there until closing at two A.M. His mother says he got home quarter after. He tripped over her loom and busted her paint-by-numbers picture of Elvis and Jesus smiling on a cloud.”

“Not Conway Twitty?”

“I know Elvis when I see him. So Old Lady Hester hit Zeke with an iron skillet and he passed out on the living room rug. And she’s not covering for him. His mama hates him even more than you do.”

“Maybe.”

Mags’s hand, waving to him from the corner of his eye, snagged his attention. If he turned his head, he’d lose her, so he froze, kept her in frame. Dave kept going for another yard, then stopped and looked at him. Shad tried to inspect her nails, see if they were broken or caked with grime, maybe somebody’s skin.

It took a few seconds to slip into the shrouded, quiet place inside himself where he could handle whatever life threw at him. He couldn’t get all the way there, but the effort helped, even as Megan’s fingers flitted at the edges of his vision. Her hand looked clean. She drew it away.

Much calmer now, he asked, “Anything else out there? In those woods?”