Graveyard Fields Read online

  I would have told Floppy to shut up, but I was too busy fighting sleep. The pills and beer combined with Floppy’s bizarre story and my anger at Diana were making my head spin. I placed one arm across the table and lay my head down in its crook. Floppy could ramble as long as he wanted; I just needed a short rest. I was imagining two young boys filling up a backpack with gold bricks when Floppy said something that snapped me back to sobriety.

  “What did you just say?” I asked.

  “I said that woman’s been in the bathroom a long time.”

  I jumped up from the table and hurried through the bedroom. I knocked on the bathroom door, but there was no answer.

  “Diana?” I said, knocking a second time.

  I put my ear against the door and could hear water running but no other sounds. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I stepped back and raised my foot to kick in the door but found it hard to balance. My head was spinning and my brain felt as if it had shrunk to the point where it might come loose and roll out one of my ears.

  I yelled for Floppy, and in a few seconds he was standing beside me.

  “Help me kick open that door,” I said.

  “Is she okay?” he asked.

  “Just help me!”

  Floppy put his hand on my shoulder. “Ain’t no reason for that,” he said. “Kickin’ in the door will most likely split the doorjamb; then you’ll have to replace it, and that can be a real pain if you don’t have the right kind of wood—”

  “Open this door!”

  Floppy reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the largest multitool I’d ever seen. He turned it over in his hand a couple of times, then flicked open a long steel hole punch.

  “This is how you open these kinds of doors when they’s locked,” he said.

  He put the skinny steel rod into the hole cut into the center of the doorknob. I heard a soft click, and when I twisted the knob, it turned effortlessly.

  “See, these kinds of push-button locks have this small hole on the one side so you can—”

  “I know that,” I yelled. I pushed past Floppy and opened the bathroom door a few inches.

  “Diana?” I said.

  When I didn’t get a response, I opened the door fully and stepped inside. The bathroom was empty but the sink faucet was running. Floppy stepped in next to me, and we both looked around.

  “She ain’t in here,” he said, as if I needed confirmation of the obvious.

  I pulled the shower curtain back just in case Diana was hiding in the tub, which was all I could think to do at the moment. She wasn’t there.

  “Guess she went out that window,” Floppy said.

  I looked at the small open window on the opposite side of the bathroom, where a pale-yellow curtain flapped lazily against the cool fall air. I tried to think about what was going on, but my head wasn’t ready to cooperate. The thoughts were coming slow, a series of blurry pictures I couldn’t bring into focus. Why would Diana disappear through my bathroom window? Had she seen me from the kitchen scrolling through her photos and text messages? Was she so embarrassed that she’d lied to me that she’d climbed out the bathroom window rather than face me and admit the truth?

  Then a small glint of clarity began clicking through my synapses. I hurried back into the kitchen and examined the table.

  “Motherfucker,” I yelled.

  Floppy wobbled up next to me.

  “You oughtn’t to say fuck,” he said. “Now, it ain’t as bad as saying goddamn, but it still ain’t a good word to say. Dale says fuck all the time on account his vocabulary ain’t as extensive as mine. I say sumbitch sometimes, but that’s about as far—”

  I grabbed Floppy’s shoulders and shook him like a vending machine that had cheated me out of a dollar.

  “Where are the keys?”

  Floppy looked down at the table and rubbed his head.

  “Well, if you’re talking about them keys that I had earlier, they was right here,” he said. “That woman was messing around with them while you was in the other room. Who were you talking to in there anyways? Did you know the government can listen in to any call you make from a cell phone? I don’t have a cell phone myself because—”

  I stomped on the linoleum.

  “Shut up. Please shut up. I need to think.”

  Through the exhaustion and numbness, I could come up with only one idea. I didn’t like it, but it was going to have to do.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “She couldn’t have gotten far.”

  Floppy’s face lit up like a slot machine hitting a jackpot.

  “I’ll drive,” he said.

  I walked over to the sink and splashed some cold water on my face.

  “You’re going to have to.”

  * * *

  The two of us limped down to the clearing where Floppy’s car was parked.

  “This old Rabbit don’t look like much,” he said, “but she’s got some special modifications. She’ll blow the doors off just about anything on the road.”

  Floppy slung himself in the driver’s seat. When I opened the passenger side door, I didn’t like what I saw. The seat had been removed to make room for a large Igloo cooler held in place with two bungee cords. I glanced at the back seat, but there was no back seat either. It had been replaced by what looked like two miniature hot-water tanks.

  “You can sit on this,” Floppy said, hitting the top of the cooler with his fist. “It’s sturdy; you won’t hurt it.”

  I climbed in and straddled the cooler. As I shifted my ass to try to find a comfortable position, Floppy reached under his seat and pulled out a red bungee cord with metal hooks attached to each end. He secured one hook to a metal ring next to his seat and then handed me the other end of the cord.

  “Put this over your legs,” he said. “They’s a bracket over by the door. Hook this to it. You’re gonna wanna be strapped in.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but I followed the instructions. Floppy turned the ignition, and the Rabbit sputtered and jerked. After a few tries the car came to life, and I saw a plume of black smoke rise in the reflection of the side mirror. Floppy revved the engine a couple of times, and the car shook like a dragster on the starting line. The engine was deafeningly loud, and I wondered what type of “modifications” Floppy had made to it. My biggest fear was that the car would explode and Floppy and I would end up in pieces scattered through the woods.

  With the bungee cord secured across my legs, I wrapped my fingers tightly around the cooler’s side handles. I turned to look at Floppy. He was now wearing a pair of dark wraparound sunglasses and grinning wildly. He grabbed the gearshift, a small rod that rose between the seats with a black eight ball on its top, and wiggled it back and forth.

  “This car’s a stick?” I asked. “How do you drive a stick with your bad leg?”

  Floppy cackled like a frightened hen.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “You just hold on.”

  35

  The Rabbit took off like most rabbits do—abruptly. We tore down the gravel drive at a pace that would have made even Dale clench his ass cheeks together. As we bounced down the drive, I flashed back to a bar I used to frequent back in Charleston. The place featured an old, dusty mechanical bull that served more as decoration than as challenge. But every so often someone would get tipsy enough to climb on top of it and yell for the bartender to throw the switch. Three seconds later the unlucky drunk would be lying flat on the bar’s hardwood floor. Maybe they could have lasted longer if they’d had a red bungee cord wrapped over their legs.

  * * *

  When we hit 276, Floppy turned left toward Waynesville and pushed the Rabbit to the point I thought the doors might shake off. Floppy’s right leg, the good one, was furiously working all three pedals: accelerator, clutch, and occasionally, but not often, the brake. I looked out the window as we passed the campground where I’d first laid eyes on Dale. As I watched the RVs fly by in a blur, a terrible thought went through my foggy bra
in—I was most likely going to throw up.

  “Can we catch up to Diana without killing ourselves?” I said.

  “You’re safe with me,” Floppy said. “I used to drive short track; I know what I’m doing.”

  As we entered the passing zone by the golf course, Floppy buried the accelerator into the floorboard and pointed to his right.

  “I used to scuba dive in them ponds out there,” he said. “I’d sneak out late at night when nobody’s lookin’ and dive down and find all kinds of golf balls. Them balls is like white gold. People pay a dollar apiece for them things. Can you believe that? I don’t scuba dive no more on account I heard somewhere the air in them scuba tanks can make your lungs swell up like you’ve been breathin’ paint thinner, but that’s where I used to do it. Right over there. Look.”

  Floppy pointed again, but I was too frightened to look anywhere other than straight ahead.

  We rounded a sharp curve without slowing down, then raced past Cruso’s lone gas station. While Floppy rambled on about a two-dollar scratch ticket that had produced an eight-dollar profit, the car began to sputter and jerk. A part of me hoped we were about to break down. It would end our chance of catching up to Diana, but it would also end the chance of me being found dead strapped to an Igloo cooler.

  As the engine hiccupped, Floppy pumped the accelerator like he was trying to stomp out a small fire.

  “C’mon, girl,” he said.

  Soon the car was roaring again and Floppy patted the dashboard as if it were a loyal dog that had just obeyed a command.

  “Sally runs on old cooking grease,” Floppy said. “I go around to them fast-food restaurants like Hardee’s and such and get the old grease they fry food in. It ain’t no use to them. They just give it to me. I let it settle in some tanks I got back at my garage to get the little bits of food and such out of it. It’s clean fuel and it don’t cost me a cent. Of course, I had to modify Sally’s engine, but that ain’t no big deal for someone like me. Yeah, I’ve done all kinds of stuff to ole Sally here. Even welded together a pressurized pipe for her back bumper. Got an air nozzle on the side, so if I was to get a flat tire, I could fill it up from that bumper. I tell you, Sally’s something special.”

  Floppy turned to me as if we were out for a leisurely Sunday drive.

  “Sally’s the name of my car. In case you was wondering.”

  We took a small curve, then entered a long straightaway where a patrol car with its lights ablaze barreled toward us. Floppy tapped the brake, and my ass slid forward on the cooler until the bungee cord pulled tight across my waist. The patrol car streaked past us, then spun around in the middle of the road and gave chase.

  “Dagnabbit!” Floppy said. “Them boys ain’t got nothin’ better to do than pull me for speeding?”

  Floppy slowed down, then pulled into a dirt driveway and turned Sally off.

  “Now you let me handle this,” he said. “I know how to talk to the authorities.”

  A few seconds later Dale was standing next to my window. He jerked my door open, but when I tried to get out of the car, the bungee cord was pulled so tight I couldn’t unhook it from the bracket.

  “Get the fuck out,” Dale said.

  My brain was still foggy, and the bungee cord was like duct tape trapping me against the cooler. Dale watched me struggle for a few seconds, then pulled out a pocket knife and held it uncomfortably close to my bad leg. When he slit the cord, it separated with a loud thwack. The tension snapped it upward, where it smacked Floppy in the face.

  “Dang it, Dale,” Floppy yelled. “You got no business stoppin’ me. I was driving at a speed safe for conditions. And you ruined my best bungee cord. I’m going to the station and fill out a report.”

  Dale ignored Floppy as I got out of the car. I bent over and put my hands on my knees, fighting the waves of nausea.

  Dale took a step back. “Are you going to puke again? ’Cause I still ain’t kicked your ass for the last time.”

  I stood upright and tried to pull myself together. I needed to tell Dale what was happening, but I wanted to get the facts straight. I wanted him to know I was telling the truth and telling it accurately.

  “Listen closely,” I said. “Diana knows Cordell. I think they may have even been dating. Floppy took the keys from the sheriff’s office. One of the keys on that ring opens the door to your cabin. Diana stole the keys and took off. And Byrd is involved in all this somehow.”

  When I was finished rambling, Dale spit a few ounces of brown fluid onto the dirt driveway and rubbed his head.

  “Are you drunk?” he said.

  I took a few deep breaths and tried a technique I’d learned at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. The instructor had told us that if we were in a situation where we felt anxious or panicked, we should breathe deeply and try to find our “center,” a theoretical location that existed somewhere in our sternum. Once we’d located this place, we should imagine it filled with a ball of energy radiating a calming white light, then expand that ball of energy until it encapsulated our entire body in peace and tranquility.

  I closed my eyes and found my center. There was indeed a ball of energy there. It was huge and glowing bright red. I tried to turn it white, but it wouldn’t change. My ball of energy was beyond my conscious command. Like a lot of things in my life, it controlled me rather than the other way around.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Dale yelled. “Open your eyes and tell me what the hell is going on.”

  I gave up on the energy ball and repeated everything I’d just said, as slowly and calmly as I could.

  “Are you fucking serious?” Dale said.

  “I’m dead serious. Floppy brought the keys to the cabin and used one to unlock the door. Then Diana took them and disappeared out the bathroom window.”

  Dale bent down and sneered at Floppy through the open car door. “I knew you had them fucking keys.” He then looked back at me. “But why would Diana take ’em?”

  I hesitated a moment. “You’re not going to want to hear this,” I said.

  Dale smacked the top of my head. “I don’t want to hear any of this.”

  “Diana took those keys because they unlock a shitload of gold.”

  Dale laughed so hard I worried he might swallow his tobacco.

  “Oh, for the love of fuck, Davis, there ain’t no gold.”

  Floppy threw open the driver’s side door and came around next to me. He rubbed a red mark on his cheek and stared at Dale with disgust.

  “That gold is real,” Floppy said. “You know it is. Your daddy helped steal it.”

  Dale took a step toward Floppy. “I’m gonna jerk a knot in your ass if you don’t shut the fuck up.”

  “Your badge don’t scare me. We’re kin, and that means we’s equal.”

  My nausea was starting to pass, but my head felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. I also felt like I had been transported to another dimension. I’d just raced down a curvy two-lane road on an Igloo cooler and was now standing between a skinny man dressed in head-to-toe camouflage and a fat man dressed in a tobacco-stained deputy’s uniform listening to them to argue about whether or not a treasure trove of gold had fallen from an airplane in the 1940s. Maybe the town should change its tagline from Cruso: 9 Miles of Friendly People Plus One Old Crab to Cruso: Get Ready for Some Weird Shit.

  “If my daddy had stolen that gold,” Dale said, “I’d be living on a beach knee-deep in pussy, not chasing your dumb ass all through Cruso.”

  “Hang on,” I said, trying to wriggle my mind from the vise. “Let’s think about this. Whether or not the gold exists doesn’t really matter. But those keys obviously open something worth killing for. And Diana wanted them bad enough to disappear with them.”

  “Why did you say Byrd’s involved in this?” Dale asked.

  “ ’Cause he helped your daddy steal that gold,” Floppy said.

  Dale put his hand on the grip of his side arm.

  “Floppy, I will shoot
you dead right here,” he said. “Kin or not, I will lay you out in this driveway if you say another word about that fucking gold.”

  Floppy huffed and looked down at the dirt, where Dale’s tobacco spit had now formed a large brown puddle.

  “Byrd came to question me this morning,” I said. “I told him the truth. And when I told him about going to Cordell’s house and someone shooting at me, he said that Cordell didn’t own the house, that he did.”

  Dale shook his head. “I told you Byrd owned rental houses around the county. Him renting that house to Cordell don’t mean shit.”

  “Floppy told me that Byrd used to own your cabin,” I said.

  “Yeah, he sold it to Daddy a few years back. That don’t mean shit neither.”

  “Well, one of the keys on the key ring unlocks the cabin door. And when Byrd was questioning me, he pulled his gun and asked me where the keys were. He seemed much more interested in finding the keys than finding out who killed Cordell.”

  Dale spat out another load of liquid and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. He looked at me, then at Floppy, then back at me again.

  “None of that means shit,” he said, but I could tell he was unconvinced.

  “It means something,” I said.

  Dale rearranged his face back to its normal smug look. “If you weren’t answering Byrd’s questions, then I ain’t surprised he pulled his gun on you. I’d a done the same thing.”