Graveyard Fields Read online

  39

  Dale was still seething when we pulled onto the dirt road that led up to the cabin. I was seething too. Skeeter was guilty of much more than just keying my car and being an all-around asshole. And as much as I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat, I’d now have to let Byrd deal with him. I was also going to have to let Byrd deal with Charleston. I hoped his buddy Emory was on the level and not part of whatever Perry and Greg had going. Crossing my fingers was about all I could do.

  As we ascended the dirt road, Dale gave me my orders: “Don’t go in the cabin. If there’s evidence in there, you don’t need to touch it and I don’t need to find it. Just get in your vehicle and follow me to Daddy’s. Got it?”

  I nodded reluctantly. I’d been proactive enough for the day, and I wanted my pills. But what the hell. I could sit at Junebug’s and get numb off Dale’s beer stash.

  When we pulled into the clearing, Dale slammed on the brakes, and my chest pressed hard against the seat belt.

  We both stared forward for a moment without saying a word. When Dale reached down and put the car in reverse, I grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on,” I said. “We don’t know what’s going on here.”

  Dale bristled. “The fuck we don’t! I’m backing down the road and calling Byrd.”

  I looked at the gray Audi parked next to my Mercedes.

  At least Perry was making himself known rather than sneaking in during the middle of the night to slit my throat. Although maybe not seeing it coming would have been better.

  “Look,” I said. “I could be wrong about everything. I could be wrong about Skeeter and Diana, and I could be wrong about Perry too. I saw a car like his that night at the storage unit, but that doesn’t mean it was his car. And even if it was, it doesn’t mean he’s the one who shot me. And if it wasn’t him, I need him on my side. So before you go calling in the cavalry, let me talk to him and see what’s what.”

  “So you’re going up there to have a talk with the man who might have shot you while I wait here in the fucking car?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re gonna get yourself killed, that’s what’s gonna happen. And then I ain’t never gonna be able to rent this cabin ’cause of people worried about ghosts and shit.”

  I smiled. “I love ya, buddy.”

  Dale snorted. “Get out ’fore I shoot you myself.”

  When I opened the door, Dale grabbed my arm.

  “Hang on,” he said. “You think this Perry man’s got something to do with Skeeter?”

  It was an interesting thought. But the idea of Perry and Skeeter being connected seemed pretty farfetched, even for Cruso.

  “No. Now give me fifteen minutes. If I’m not back by then, call for backup.”

  Dale filled his mouth with tobacco. “You’ve got ten.”

  * * *

  As I walked around to the back of the cabin, I scanned the trees, just in case Perry was hiding behind one. But all I saw were a few squirrels scampering over the fallen leaves like furry little psychos.

  I stopped at the door and looked through the panes of glass. Perry was sitting at the kitchen table. Had I forgotten to lock the door earlier, or had Perry picked the lock? It wouldn’t be difficult for someone like him.

  When Perry noticed me, he nodded and smiled. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Then everything went dark.

  40

  When I opened my eyes, I was facedown on the linoleum floor. It was a good thing I’d mopped it after spewing my Mexican buffet across the kitchen. My jaw felt like I’d been worked over by a Confederate Army dentist, and my mouth was coated with the metallic taste of blood.

  I was about to roll over when a sharp pain shot through my side. I buckled and curled up like a baby at nap time. The second kick caught me in the stomach. I spit blood on the floor, then put my hands over my face. The third kick almost pushed my palms through my cheeks.

  “That’s enough,” I heard Perry shout.

  I lowered my hands and opened my eyes. Greg was standing over me.

  * * *

  A few moments later I was sitting at the table wiping my mouth on a bloody shirt sleeve. Perry was across from me and Greg was leaning against the refrigerator. They were both wearing gloves.

  So much for that last bit of hope that Perry was innocent.

  I looked at Greg and smiled.

  “You’re pretty feisty for a guy in a coma.”

  Greg didn’t answer, so I turned to Perry.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” he said. “I really thought I could keep you out of it, but things have changed.”

  I couldn’t believe I was looking at the man I had trusted for so long. Diana’s betrayal was nothing compared to Perry’s. I’d known her for only a couple of days before stumbling across her web of lies. It made sense that she could fool me during such a short time. But Perry was someone I’d cared about for years, and now he was almost unrecognizable. He looked the same, but he was not the man I’d once known. He was like a loving father suddenly lost in the wilderness of dementia, and I wanted to shake him until he changed back into the man I could depend on.

  “Yeah, I’d say things have changed,” I said. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  Perry nodded. “I could have killed you in that storage unit,” he said. “But I shot you in the leg and made sure you made it to the hospital.”

  I laughed. “Oh, is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  Perry stared at me blankly. He looked tired, almost defeated.

  “So, how long have you been running your game?” I asked.

  Perry didn’t answer, so I kept going.

  “Just so I have this straight, Greg was never in a coma, right? Was that just a ruse to keep me scared and keep me quiet? And what did you guys tell Laura? That it was my storage unit?”

  I could imagine Greg telling Laura that he’d discovered I was into some shady business. He’d probably told her he’d lured me to my own storage unit to confront me but that once we were there, things took a nasty turn. I’d lost my temper and beat Greg, and then some dealer or junkie I’d been associating with had shown up and shot me. No wonder Laura had told me to stay away.

  Perry sighed. “Like I said, things have changed.”

  At that, Greg walked over to the other side of the kitchen and picked up a small duffel bag from the floor. He unzipped it and pulled out a long length of rope.

  “Where do you want to do this?” he said.

  Perry sighed again, then stood up and moved behind me. I looked at my watch. I’d been inside the cabin close to ten minutes. If Dale was going to storm in with guns ablaze, he was going to have to hurry.

  “C’mon, Davis, stand up,” Perry said.

  I hesitated for a moment, then felt the barrel of a gun press against the back of my head. I slowly rose to my feet, and Perry led me across the kitchen. When we reached the door to the basement, Greg opened it and descended the stairs. Perry gave me a gentle push with the gun barrel, and soon all three of us were standing in the damp chill of my brewery.

  I watched as Greg threw an end of the rope over one of the thick wooden beams that ran along the basement’s ceiling. He then looped the other end around itself and tied it off.

  “A rope and a rafter,” he said. “I told you that was what you needed.”

  Greg formed a noose while Perry held the gun to my head.

  “Am I killing myself out of guilt?” I asked.

  “You couldn’t stand the pressure,” Greg said.

  “Davis.” The voice came from the kitchen.

  Greg glanced upward, then dropped the rope and pulled a gun from his coat pocket.

  Perry put his mouth to my ear. “Don’t move. Don’t speak.”

  I heard Dale’s heavy footsteps cross the kitchen floor. Perry pushed me underneath the stairs, and Greg joined us in a tight huddle. A moment later I heard the basement door open and the top step squeak under Dale’s weight.

  I didn’t
know what to do. If I yelled, Perry would put a bullet in my head, but if I didn’t, Greg would grab Dale at the bottom step and turn this into a murder/suicide. The angel and devils were silent, and my temper had been frightened into submission. I was paralyzed.

  I could tell Dale was trying to tiptoe down the stairs, but each step groaned as he descended. When he stepped onto the dirt floor, his back was to us. Greg jumped out from the behind the stairs and pressed his gun between Dale’s shoulder blades.

  “Drop it,” Greg said.

  Dale growled and dropped his service weapon onto the floor. Greg kicked it away, then pushed Dale against the cinder-block wall face first.

  Perry exhaled, and his breath smelled like sour milk. “Go stand next to him,” he said to me. “Face the wall.”

  I limped over to Dale and pressed my nose against the cold concrete.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  When he didn’t answer, I turned to him. He looked like he was in the middle of passing a kidney stone.

  “So what now?” I yelled.

  Perry’s fatigue was turning into frustration. “Just shut up, Davis,” he said.

  I could hear the rope being pulled across the wooden beam. I figured the murder/suicide idea was now Perry and Greg’s official plan. I’d be found swinging from the ceiling, and Dale would be lying on the dirt floor with a bullet in his skull. I wondered if Byrd would think I had killed Dale in a fit of anger when he’d tried to stop me from ending it all. Then Byrd would search the cabin and find the evidence Skeeter had probably hidden. I’d be guilty of four murders. Five if I counted myself. Not too bad for a guy who could hardly summon the courage to eat a full meal.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a low rumbling noise coming from outside the cabin. At first I thought the cavalry had finally arrived, but the sound was oddly familiar, like a bulldozer running at full throttle. It grew louder and louder until it seemed it would bust through the cinder-block wall. Then all the sudden it stopped.

  “Who is that?” Perry said.

  I didn’t answer, even though I knew exactly who it was.

  “Fucking shit,” Dale said.

  Perry ran over and shoved his gun into Dale’s back. “Who’s out there?”

  “It’s my cousin,” Dale said through clenched teeth.

  “Is he armed?”

  I whispered into the wall. “Only with his mouth and a multitool.”

  “Neither of you move,” Perry said.

  I twisted my head around and saw Perry and Greg take a position under the steps. Perry noticed me and pointed the gun in my direction.

  Upstairs I heard a knock at the door, followed by the sound of footsteps across the linoleum floor.

  “Hey! Anybody here?” Floppy yelled.

  The footsteps continued through the kitchen and on into the living room. Perry’s eyes followed the sound across the basement ceiling. I listened to Floppy make his way through the house, hoping he wouldn’t check the basement. I didn’t need to be guilty of another murder.

  Soon I heard the basement door open and Floppy hopping down the stairs. When he reached the dirt floor, I turned my head to face him. He stared at me as if I had just asked him the square root of his zip code. He looked over at Dale, who was still facing the wall, then back at me.

  “Y’all playin’ a game?” he said.

  Over Floppy’s shoulder I saw Perry and Greg moving forward from under the steps. Greg came up behind Floppy and put the barrel of his gun to the base of Floppy’s skull.

  “Do you have a weapon?” Greg said.

  What happened next was a blur. In one fluid motion Floppy spun around on his good leg and raised his elbow as if it were a battering ram. The force knocked the gun out of Greg’s hand, and it scurried across the floor into a dark corner of the basement. Floppy then spun back in the opposite direction, striking Greg in the throat with the edge of his open hand. As Greg staggered backward, Floppy chopped his neck again. Perry slipped around Greg and raised his weapon. Floppy jabbed his arms toward Perry, then scissored his hands around Perry’s wrist. A second later Floppy was holding Perry’s gun. I glanced at Greg, who was facedown on the floor.

  Dale rushed over and put his boot on Greg’s back. I heard a grunt and saw Perry throw a jab at Floppy’s face. Floppy dipped to the side, then grabbed Perry’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Perry howled in pain. Floppy threw an arm around Perry’s neck and squeezed. Perry stared directly at me. His eyes were wide and frantic. Then they closed, and Perry went limp. Floppy released the pressure, and Perry fell to the floor next to Greg. Floppy handed Perry’s gun to Dale, then casually hopped over to me.

  “Who are those guys?” he said.

  41

  Ten minutes later two deputies arrived. Dale had called for backup before coming in to look for me, but I doubted they would have shown up in time to save us. I guessed I owed Floppy my life. Dale did too. I was grateful, but I knew it would burn Dale’s ass for years to come.

  The deputies were followed by four volunteer EMTs. Greg and Perry were still out cold. After checking vital signs, the EMTs put both men on orange folding stretchers, then hauled them up the steps.

  The deputies bagged Perry’s and Greg’s guns along with the rope. They chatted with Dale for a few minutes, then went upstairs to wait for Sheriff Byrd.

  Floppy stood by my brewing setup and examined the equipment. When I saw him slip my hydrometer into his pocket, I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m glad you showed up when you did,” I said.

  Floppy shrugged and picked up an empty growler.

  “You can pay me back with some beer,” he said. “But good beer, not that pinecone stuff. You know, my granddaddy used to make ’shine way back when, and he said good ’shine was as hard to make as French wine. Now, I don’t drink wine, ’cause it makes my head hurt real bad, but one time a buddy gave me some dandelion wine, and I tell you what, that stuff was real good.”

  Dale walked over to us and slapped Floppy on the back of the head. “Go upstairs and bother Mike and Earl.”

  “You ain’t the boss of me,” Floppy yelled.

  I put out my hand. Floppy stared at it for a moment, then shook it firmly.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Floppy sneered at Dale. “I’m going upstairs on my own volition. I don’t want to be near you no more.”

  Floppy turned to leave, then hesitated for a moment before turning back around. He reached in his pocket and pulled out my hydrometer.

  “I don’t need this,” he said.

  * * *

  When Floppy was gone, Dale filled his mouth with tobacco, then jabbed a stained finger in my face.

  “You almost got both of us killed,” he said.

  I sat down on the bottom step and looked up at the beam I would have been hanging from had Floppy not arrived just in time to turn the basement into a dojo. I thought about Laura and what her reaction would have been to my “suicide.” I guessed it would have depended on the story Greg and Perry fed her. Although, based on my past history, I doubted she would have been shocked.

  “Them dudes is lucky Floppy showed up,” Dale said. “ ’Cause I woulda ended up killing ’em both.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Yep. Good thing. Now let’s focus on the other problem at hand. Somewhere in this cabin there’s probably evidence that implicates me in three murders.”

  Dale spit on the dirt floor.

  “Don’t do that,” I yelled. “This is my brewery.”

  Dale kicked some dirt over the small puddle of tobacco juice, then glanced over at the piece of plywood leaning against the wall.

  “That wouldn’t be a bad hiding place.”

  I nodded. “It’s where I hid beer from you.”

  Dale gave me the finger, then grabbed the sides of the plywood. He slid it along the wall, revealing a white plastic bag, tied at the top, with the words Thank You written in red on the side.

  “I doubt that
’s full of guacamole,” I said.

  Dale opened a pouch on his duty belt and removed a pair of surgical gloves. He stretched them over his hands, then carefully untied the bag. I walked over and stood next to him.

  The bag contained a nine-millimeter handgun, a cell phone, and a small resealable baggie filled to the brim with white, bar-shaped pills. The devils took notice: Xanax, 2 mg.

  Dale exhaled sharply. “These ain’t Tylenols.”

  I shook my head in confusion. I’d been expecting the gun and the phone, but the baggie of pills threw a wrench in my theory. “Where would Skeeter get those pills?”

  Dale thought for a moment, then began nodding his head as if all the gears in his brain were finally turning in unison. He held up the baggie and smiled. “This is the gold.”

  The gears in my head creaked and groaned. Drugs? Was that what everyone had been searching for?

  “I see it like this,” Dale said. “Them hippies were all dealing, and maybe Diana was too. She latches on to Skeeter for, I don’t know, maybe protection, or to have an in with the department, and then things turn sour and he takes out Cordell and that couple.”

  Dale was onto something. He’d said himself that Skeeter acted like judge, jury, and executioner. If he’d known Cordell and Jeff and Becky were dealing, he’d have thought killing them was justified, especially if he’d felt they were somehow a threat to Diana. I’d thought he’d killed them over gold, but drugs was much more likely.

  “So Skeeter kills them and then confiscates the drugs,” I said. “He wouldn’t sell them, because in his mind that would be wrong. So he dumps them in the bag with the other evidence and plants the bag here.”

  Dale nodded.

  “Skeeter must have taken the pills off Cordell when he killed him,” I said. “Jeff and Becky and Diana thought the pills were locked in the safe, and that’s why they were searching for the keys.”