The Book of Fate

99

I know where Boyle’s grave is. I’ve been there before.

The first time was after my sixth and final surgery — the one where they tried to dig the last bits of metal shrapnel from my cheek. Fifteen minutes into it, the doctor decided the pieces were too deep — and far too small, like steel grains of sand — so better to leave them where they are. “Lay it to rest,” Dr. Levy told me.

Taking his advice, I left the hospital and had my mom drive me here, to Woodlawn Cemetery. Seven months after Boyle was buried on national television, I approached his grave with my right hand stuffed deep in my pants pocket, clutching my newest prescription and silently, repetitively apologizing for putting him in the limo that day. I could hear my mother sobbing behind me, mourning me like I wasn’t even there. It was one of the toughest visits of my life. To my own surprise, this one’s tougher.

“Stop thinking about it,” Lisbeth whispers, plowing through the unmowed, shin-high grass that wraps like tiny bullwhips around our ankles. As we approach the chain-link fence behind the back of the cemetery, I try to hold the umbrella over both of us, but she’s already two steps ahead, not even noticing the light rain. I don’t blame her for being excited. Even if she’s not writing the story, the reporter in her can’t wait to get the truth. “Y’hear what I said, Wes?”

When I don’t answer, she stops and spins back to face me. She’s about to say something; most likely, Calm down… take it easy.

“I know it’s hard for you,” she offers. “I’m sorry.”

I nod and thank her with a glimpse of eye contact. “To be honest, I didn’t think it’d — I thought I’d be more eager.”

“It’s okay to be scared, Wes.”

“It’s not scared — believe me, I want Boyle’s answers — but just being here… where they buried — where they buried whatever they buried. It’s like a — it’s not the best place for me.”

I look up, and she steps toward me, back under the umbrella. “I’m still glad you let me come.”

I smile.

“C’mon, I got a good vibe,” she says, tugging my shoulder as she sprints back out from under the umbrella. Gripping the top of the four-foot-tall chain-link fence, she stabs her toe into one of the openings.

“Don’t bother,” I reply, motioning to a mound of dirt that’s piled so high it buries the fence and leads right inside. Despite the pep talk, I still hesitate. That’s extra dirt from the graves. Lisbeth has no such problem. Ignoring the rain, which is still a light drizzle, she’s up the small mound and over the fence in an instant.

“Careful,” I call out. “If there’s an alarm—”

“It’s a cemetery, Wes. I don’t think they’re worried about people stealing.”

“What about grave rob—?” But as I follow her over the dirt mound, we’re met with nothing but the soft buzz of crickets and the thick black shadows of two-hundred-year-old banyan trees, whose branches and tendrils stretch out like spiderwebs in every direction. Diagonally to our left, the eighteen acres of Woodlawn Cemetery expand in a perfect rectangle that measures over seventeen football fields. The cemetery eventually dead-ends, with no apparent irony, at the back of the Jaguar dealership, which probably wasn’t the intention in the late 1800s when city founder Henry Flagler plowed over seventeen acres of pineapple groves to build West Palm Beach’s oldest and most lavish cemetery.

I take off for the main stone-paved path. Grabbing the umbrella, Lisbeth pulls me back and leads us to our left, behind a tall meatball-shaped shrub just inside the back fence. As we get closer, I spot another huge meatball next to it, then another, then another… at least a hundred in total, ten feet tall… the row of them lining the entire back length of the graveyard. Her instinct’s perfect. By staying back here, we’re off the main path, meaning we’re out of sight, meaning no one can see us coming. With what we’ve got planned, we’re not taking chances.

As we duck behind the first meatball shrub, we quickly see it’s not a meatball at all. Hollowed out from the back and shaped like a U, the shrub hides a collection of empty Gatorade bottles and soda cans scattered along the ground. The shrub next to it contains a folded-up piece of Astroturf that they use to cover open graves.

“Wes, these are perfect for—”

“No question,” I say, finally getting caught up in her excitement. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m putting her at risk. Checking to make sure we’re alone, I turn left, toward the center of the lot, where a glowing white flagpole is lit up by floodlights and serves as the graveyard’s only light source. But from where we are, surrounded by trees in the corner of the far end zone, all its pale glow does is cast angled shadows between the branches and across the path.

“You’re slowing down,” she says, grabbing the umbrella and tugging me forward.

“Lisbeth, maybe you should—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she insists, doubling our pace and glancing to the right, where a skinny bone-white military headstone has a crest that reads:

“He’s buried near people from the Spanish-American War?” she whispers. “You sure he’s not in the new section?”

We’d seen it when we first drove up. On our far left, past the floodlit flagpole, past the thousands of silhouetted crosses, crooked headstones, and family crypts, was a wide-open field dotted with flat ceremonial markers. Like most Florida cemeteries, Woodlawn learned the hard way what happens when a hurricane hits a graveyard. Nowadays, the newly dead get only flat markers set flush into the earth. Unless, of course, you know someone big enough to tug some strings.

“Trust me, he’s not in the new section,” I say. The further we go down the path, the more clearly we hear a new sound in the air. A hushed murmur, or a whisper. Dozens of whispers — coming and going — as if they’re all around us.

“No one’s here,” Lisbeth insists. But on our left, behind a 1926 headstone with a marble set of rosary beads dangling from the front, there’s a loud scrape like someone skidding to a stop. I spin to see who’s there. The headstones surround us. The rain continues to dribble down our backs and soak our shoulders, its mossy smell overwhelming the stench of wet dirt. Behind us, the rumble of thunder starts to — no, not thunder.

“Is that…?”

The rumbling gets louder, followed by the deep belch of an air horn. I wheel back toward the meatball shrubs just as the ding-ding-ding of the crossing gate pierces the air. Like a glowing bullet through the darkness, a freight train bursts into view, slicing from right to left, parallel with the low fence that runs along the back of the graveyard.

“We should keep going!” Lisbeth yells in my ear, leading us deeper down the path. The train continues to rumble behind us, taking all sound with it, including the rustling and scraping that would let us know someone’s coming.

What about in there? Lisbeth pantomimes as we pass an aboveground crypt with stained-glass double doors. The crypt is one of the largest here — nearly as big as a dumpster.

“Forget it,” I say, yanking her by the elbow and taking the lead. She doesn’t realize how close we are to our goal. Three graves down from the crypt, the path dead-ends at the trunk of the enormous banyan tree, which, during the day, shields every nearby grave from the battering sun. That alone makes this one of the most select areas in the entire cemetery. President Manning made the call himself and personally secured the double plot of land that now holds the imported Italian black marble headstone with the slightly curved top and the stark white carved letters that read:

“This is him?” Lisbeth asks, spotting the name and almost crashing into me from behind.

It was Manning’s last gift to his friend — a final resting place that kept Boyle out of the land of flat markers, and instead put him next to a general from World War II, and across from one of Palm Beach’s most respected judges from the 1920s. It was vintage Palm Beach. Even in death, honchos still want the best seat in the house.

Behind us, the train fades and the sound of crickets returns, engulfing us on all sides. I just stand there, staring at Boyle’s grave in the dim light.

“Y’okay?” Lisbeth asks.

She thinks I’m afraid. But now that we’re here… now that I know there isn’t a body underneath this stone… and most important, that I never put him there… My fists tighten as I reread the epitaph. Like everything in their lives, it’s polished and pretty — and a festering tumor of lies. For eight years, Manning — my boss, my mentor — for eight years, he knew I was eating shit, but he never once took it off my plate. He just served it. Day after day. With a perfect presidential grin.

My fists clench. Then I feel Lisbeth’s hand on the small of my back. She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t need to.

I take one last look around the empty cemetery. For eight years, I’ve been afraid. That’s what death does when it haunts you. But right now, as I stand here in the soft rain and bleeding darkness, I’m ready to meet my ghost. And so is Lisbeth.

We take our separate places, just like we discussed. Lisbeth looks down at her watch. All we have to do is wait.