A Grave Denied

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Are you sure about this?“ Vanessa yelled over Johnny’s shoulder. ”Sure,“ he replied the same way. ”You always start with the scene of the crime.“

“But you say Kate doesn’t think he was killed there.”

“You know what I mean.”

They hit a bump and she was almost bounced off. Four-wheelers were notoriously rough rides, and the road up to the Step was a notoriously rough road, if you could call something that was essentially two ruts with a grassy ridge between a road.

“I thought Betty Freedman was going to climb on behind me before we got out of there,” she yelled.

“No kidding. Did you tell her what we were doing?”

“No!” she said, indignantly.

“Sorry,” he said. “She was just so determined to come with. I thought maybe you said something.”

She had been hanging on to his waist. Now she removed her hands, and he felt her body, a pleasant warmth against his back, lean away from him. “You told me not to say anything. I didn’t say anything. I don’t go around blabbing our business to everyone.”

What he thought was the correct turnoff came up on their right and he took it. The road deteriorated into a six-foot-wide game trail choked with tree roots, between which someone had dropped round smooth rocks that looked as if they’d been hauled up from the bed of the Kanuyaq River. It was a jolting and extremely uncomfortable ride, and he was glad when Vanessa grabbed hold again.

It ended in a small clearing, at the center of which was a not large pile of charred timbers. He killed the engine. Vanessa climbed off. He followed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. He touched her shoulder. “Hey.”

She wouldn’t look up. He put a hand under her chin and pushed. “Come on, Van. Talk to me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, it was stupid. I know you wouldn’t tell anyone what we were doing.”

“I know how to keep a secret,” she muttered.

“I know you do.”

She sniffed, more an expression of disdain than distress. “No, you don’t.”

“Okay, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

She kicked a rock across the clearing. “Okay.”

Her hair was all messy from the helmet, but he liked it anyway. He liked most of what he saw about Vanessa Cox. She was smart, but unlike Betty Freedman she didn’t spend all day every day proving it. Johnny liked smart. She didn’t talk a lot, but then he couldn’t abide a chatterer-Andrea Kvasnikof drove him up the wall and sometimes out of the school. And when she did talk, Vanessa was absolutely honest.

Honesty was big with Johnny, maybe even bigger than smart. His mother wasn’t honest. She would have lied about Kate molesting him without turning a hair. She would have put Kate in jail if she could have. Johnny hated a liar. Vanessa didn’t play games, either, like he saw the other girls at school play with the other boys. He liked that, too.

Johnny Morgan knew enough to know he wasn’t your typical teenager. He looked around at his thirteen- and fourteen- and fifteen-year-old classmates, and knew that he was a hundred years older in experience and maturity by comparison. Most teenagers thought they were immortal, that nothing could ever hurt them, and that they were going to live forever. Johnny knew better. His parents had split up and he got stuck with his mother for too long, and then his father got her to let Johnny live with him, Johnny still didn’t know how and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He’d been living with his father, who had been big and strong and smart and way cool, at least as cool as fathers could get. And then he was gone.

Johnny saw his classmates screwing around with booze or dope or huffing, or even just not doing their homework. Why did they bother with school, if they weren’t going to do the work? Admittedly all too often boring to the point of inducing narcolepsy, nevertheless the work would pay off with a high school diploma in the end, and that diploma got you into places like trade school or college or even just a job. Not having one kept you out.

The fact that he planned on taking the GED when he was sixteen and getting an early out of high school so he could apprentice with Kate Shugak didn’t detract from this opinion.

He looked at Vanessa. There was one thing he would be sorry to leave behind with high school. In addition to her other virtues, Vanessa was kinda cute, too, with that dark hair and those big dark eyes looking gravely out at the world. His hand was still beneath her chin. On impulse he leaned forward and kissed her.

He never would have done it if he’d thought about it, and then it was too late. Her lips were soft and cool beneath his. It felt good, it even felt wonderful, but in spite of prolonged study of the tongue scene in Top Gun, he didn’t really know what to do next and he wasn’t sure he was ready for next anyway, so he pulled back and looked at her. “Are we okay?”

“I guess so,” she said slowly. A lovely wild rose of a blush colored her face. She touched her mouth with tentative fingers.

He’d thought he was in love with Kate, but in his heart of hearts he’d always known that Kate was unattainable, a goddess who would always be out of his reach. Vanessa was here and now. He wanted to kiss her again and see what happened, but they had come there on business. He reminded himself of that, several times, and cleared his throat. “Okay. Let’s look around and see what we can see.”

She followed him to the remainder of Len Dreyer’s cabin. “What are we looking for?”

He said, and hoped it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, “Clues. Something that will give us a lead on who killed Len Dreyer.”

“I thought you said his name was really Leon Duffy.”

“I did. It was. But everyone in the Park knew him by Dreyer, so let’s stick with that.”

“Hasn’t Kate already been here? And her boyfriend, that trooper guy?”

“He’s not her boyfriend,” he said curtly. Kate might not be destined for him, but that didn’t mean she was destined for Chopper Jim Chopin, either.

“Oh. I thought-well, the way they acted that morning at your place and all. I thought they were, well, you know.”

“Well, they aren’t.”

“Oh.”

He bent over to pull at a piece of what might once have been a two-by-four. “Sometimes people just kiss. Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything.”

There was a brief silence. “You mean like when we just kissed?” she said. “Did that mean anything?”

He straightened right up and looked at her. She looked as grave as ever, but he could see the hurt in her eyes. “It meant something.”

“What?”

Sometimes honesty and directness were overrated. “I don’t know,” he said testily, “it’s the first time I ever kissed anybody.”

“Oh.” Her voice was much softer this time. “Me, too.”

He dared to look at her again. “You didn’t mind, did you?”

She shook her head. Her hair fell across her face so he couldn’t see her expression.

He summoned up all the Achillean courage it takes for a fourteen-year-old boy to admit his interest to a specific girl, and to her face at that. “I liked it.”

She was motionless, her hair still hiding her face.

Somewhere between bold and desperate, he said, “Could we, you know, do it again sometime?”

She looked at him then. The blush was back. “Yes,” she said, and smiled.

He felt a wave of relief, quickly followed by a wave of anticipation, as quickly succeeded by another wave of apprehension. His tongue felt suddenly too large for his mouth and his feet too heavy for his ankles. The sun, already brighter, took on a particularly golden hue, the sky seemed bluer, and birdsong sounded especially harmonious. Except for the magpies. A bunch of them, quiet until Johnny and Vanessa had proven themselves no threat, were yak-yakking and chittering and squalling off in the brush. “God, they’re noisy,” he said, mostly as a way to lift a silence that seemed to suddenly weigh a ton.

“Yeah,” she said. She stooped to pick up a warped saucepan blackened by fire and knocked it free of ash. “I didn’t like him.”

“Who?”

“Len Dreyer.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t remember him,” he said, surprised.

She was silent for a moment. “He did some work out on the place for Uncle Virgil, like I told you,” she said finally, “with one of those machines with a claw on the back of it.”

“A backhoe?”

“That’s it. He was breaking sod to make the garden bigger. It was big enough already, I thought, especially since I have to weed it.”

“You do?”

She nodded. “And it’s like an acre.”

“With vegetables, I bet.”

She nodded again.

“That you have to eat later?”

“Yeah.”

“That totally bites.”

“No kidding. And then later that summer he and Dandy Mike came out to build a greenhouse for Uncle Virgil. Anyway, I didn’t like him.”

“Why not?”

Another magpie flew overhead in a flash of ink blue and white, and there was a temporary increase in caw-cawing volume.

“He looked at me funny.”

Johnny was looking at a shard of mirror, the mercury almost all gone. This looked too much like Kate’s cabin for comfort. Then Vanessa’s words registered. He dropped the sliver of glass. “What?” he said.

She shrugged, uncomfortable. “He looked at me funny. And he touched me.”

“What do you mean, touched you?” Johnny heard his voice getting louder, saw her flinch, and made a conscious effort to lower it. “Vanessa, Len Dreyer didn’t do anything to hurt you, did he?”

“No.” But she avoided his eyes.

The rage surprised him with its immediacy and strength. “Vanessa?”

“He wanted to,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “One time when we were out in the garden alone, he offered to teach me how to run the backhoe. He pulled me up in front of him on the seat. And while we were moving and my hands were on the controls, he, well, he touched me, or he tried to.” She made a vague motion toward her chest. “Here. And, you know. There.”

The rage was so strong it was making Johnny sick to his stomach. “Didn’t your uncle and aunt see?”

“There’s trees between the house and the garden. Besides, I don’t think Aunt Telma ever looks out a window. And Uncle Virgil was in his shop.”

“God, Vanessa, I’m so sorry,” he said. “What did you do?”

“I jumped off.”

“You jumped off? While the backhoe was still moving?” She nodded, and he fought to repress a smile. “Good for you. What did you do next? Did you tell your Uncle Virgil?”

She hesitated.

“You didn’t tell him? Vanessa, why not?”

“I just-I didn’t want to talk about it. It was so-ugly. And I don’t talk to them anyway, and they don’t talk to me. I just made sure I was never around when he was there. Uncle Virgil got mad when I skipped the weeding, but I didn’t care.”

“Vanessa,” Johnny said, his voice very stern-did he know it sounded very much like his father? -“you don’t understand. Guys like that, they do that kind of stuff all the time. I heard Dad and Kate talking about it once when they didn’t know I was listening. Those people, they’re sick and they can’t be cured, they can only be locked up. And they can only be locked up when somebody like you steps forward and makes a complaint.”

“He’s dead now, isn’t he?”

“Oh yeah, he’s dead, and whoever killed him tried to kill Kate.”

“And you,” she said in a very small voice.

“And me,” he said.

A couple of jays flew overhead, toward the noise the magpies were making. Moments later, a raven glided by, high and graceful. It lit in the topmost branch of a spruce tree and let loose with a series of caws and clicks. Soon after, another raven showed up, and then three more.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he said, still angry. He’d like to roast Len Dreyer over an open fire, but since Dreyer was dead and Vanessa was alive, she made a better target.

She swallowed. “I’d just got here. I didn’t want people to meet me and think, oh yeah, that’s the girl who got molested.”

A tear slid down her cheek, and it destroyed him. “Oh, hey,” he said, all anger gone. “I’m sorry, Vanessa, I’m so sorry.” He put his arms around her and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I was mad. I’m sorry you had to go through it, and I’m sorry you didn’t have anyone to tell. I wish Len Dreyer was alive so I could shoot him again.”

Her voice was muffled against his jacket. “It’s okay. I was mad, too. I still am.”

“Good. It’s good to be angry. And you did the right thing, running away. Smart. And he never caught you again.”

“No. Never came close.”

“Good. Good.” They stood together in silence.

The magpies were squabbling again, interspersed by the harsh call of the jays and the clicks and croaks of the raven. A high raptorial shriek pierced the air, silencing them all. A moment later, they started up again.

“What’s going on with those birds?” Johnny said. He pulled away from Vanessa and walked into the brush, following the bird sounds, which got louder and more frantic as she approached.

Vanessa stood where she was, a little forlorn. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and began to follow him, only to halt in her tracks when he came barreling out again, nearly trampling her in his haste. His eyes were wide and his face was white. “What?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Another body,” he said, breathing hard.

“What?” She didn’t understand. “What do you mean, another body?”

“Somebody else dead. Another man.”

“What? How?”

He swallowed convulsively. “The birds have been -the birds- he’s pretty messed up. But I think he died the same way Dreyer did. There’s a big hole in his chest.”

Her knees began to shake, and with an effort of will she steadied them. “Do you know who it is?”

He shook his head. “I think so, but like I said, the birds have been – ” He swallowed again.

She stared at him, her lips parting.

He took her hand and pulled. “Come on. We’ve got to find Kate. Or Jim.”

Four of the six-man construction crew was beavering away at the framing, while the other two were unloading more two-by-fours from the back of the flatbed truck that had followed the backhoe into the Park. As fast as they could unload it, the framers were able to keep up, and kept the unloaders hopping.

Looked like progress to Jim, and he turned and looked down the hill. Spruce, birch, and alder interrupted now and then by a cluster of mammoth cottonwood crowded the hillside. The dark green roof of the Niniltna Native Association offices was about a thousand feet down on the left, and after that it was pretty much all trees for half a mile until they ended abruptly in the airstrip, a jumble of Niniltna rooftops, and the Kanuyaq River. It was a bright, clear day, the sky washed clean by a morning shower, and everything looked as bright and shiny and inviting as a king salmon hitting fresh water for the first time.

The foreman came up to him, a thickset man in his middle thirties with big, calloused hands and brown skin that was half race and half making his living outdoors in all weather. He removed his hard hat, revealing a head shaved down to the skin, and wiped his arm across his forehead. “If the weather holds I don’t know why you can’t be in by this time next month. It’s not that big a project.” He spat. “You say something about a house?”

“Yeah, Jim,” a voice said, “you say something about a house?”

He looked around to see Dinah standing next to him, a smile that was a little more nasty than it was nice on her face. “Haven’t got a site for the house yet,” he told the foreman.

“Really?” Dinah said innocently. “What about that acre you bought from Ruthe, down on the river? Plenty of room for a decent size house, I’d‘ve thought. You’ll want three bedrooms, of course, one for you and the missus, one for your office, one for hers.”

“Missus?” the foreman said. He was from Ahtna, and Ahtna knew all about Chopper Jim Chopin. The foreman was married with three children, and like many such had given the occasional wistful thought to the freedom of his bachelor days. It comforted him to know that Chopper Jim was out there living them for him, and he was caught between amazement and a slight sense of betrayal at the thought that his idol might have fallen from his pedestal. He couldn’t prevent a look of deep reproach.

Jim set his teeth. “Is there something I can help you with, Dinah?”

She gave him a sunny smile. “Now that you mention it, yes.” She motioned him to one side. “It’s about Kate.”

He was immediately wary and it showed.

She flapped a hand. “Calm down. This is about her cabin.” Her voice sunk to a confidential murmur. He listened, his suspicions gradually fading. At one point he held up a hand. “Wait a minute,” he said, and went to talk to the foreman. “Okay with him,” he said, coming back a few moments later. “Turns out a while back Kate helped find his sister when she ran off to Anchorage.”

“We’ll get a lot of that,” Dinah said. “Good, great. I’ll talk to Auntie Vi and Bernie. How about you?”

“How about me? How about I get back to work?”

“How’s it coming? Any breaking news on the Len Dreyer/ Leon Duffy front?”

He sighed deeply. “So, you’ve heard.”

She gave him a look of total scorn.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said.

“A lot of people are upset about his record.”

“They worried about their kids?”

“I was just up at the school. I did a video for the freshman health class and I took it up for the teachers and the principal to preview. They’re all talking about Duffy.”

“Maybe that should be my next stop.”

“Maybe it should. I would think a pissed-off parent would have the best motivation for murder in the world.” She added, “And there have already been a few parents up there, banging around, wanting to know what’s being done.”

“Great,” he said.

“They’re scared,” she said, somber, “and I don’t blame them. They’re terrified what horrible things might have been done to their children, what they might have allowed to happen. And when you live in the Park, this kind of thing is such a shock. There are so few of us in such an enormous space, we depend so heavily on each other. You just don’t think the neighbor who repairs your roof at cost plus a cord of wood is going to attack your child when your back is turned. No, I don’t blame them,” she repeated. “If Katya-he was on our roof for four days straight, Jim. If Dreyer had touched Katya, if he had even looked at her the wrong way, I would have burned down the house with him on top of it. And that’s only if Bobby hadn’t gotten to him first.”

She spoke with an intensity and conviction that demanded both belief and respect. He touched her shoulder, a gesture of comfort. After a moment she was able to smile. “Sorry. It just gets to me.”

“Which parents were up to the school?”

Dinah thought back. “Cindy and Ben Bingley. Demetri Totemoff. Arlene and Gerald Kompkoff. Billy and Annie Mike. The Kvasnikofs.”

“Which Kvasnikofs?”

Her brow creased. “All three couples, I think, and Eknaty Sr. and Dorothy, as well.” She counted mentally. “And a few I don’t know.”

He wrote the names down on a list. She watched him. When he was done, she said, “Jim, what if one of them did it? What if one of them killed Dreyer?”

“I know, Dinah. You have to remember that whoever killed Dreyer tried to kill Kate, too. And would have gotten Johnny as a bonus if he’d succeeded.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. And he won’t.” He tucked the notebook away.

“Jim-”

She might have said more but for the four-wheeler roaring up, Johnny Morgan on board with Vanessa Cox clinging on behind. They veered off the road so abruptly that Jim and Dinah leapt back out of the way. The four-wheeler locked up and skidded sideways, sliding to a halt just inches away.

“Watch it, damn it!” Jim started to say, and then he got a good look at Johnny’s face. “What’s wrong?” he said instead.

Johnny swallowed hard, an agonized expression on his face. He opened his mouth and nothing came out.

Without knowing how it had happened, Jim found Johnny’s shoulders between his hands, Johnny’s feet dangling a good foot above the ground, and Johnny’s face, even whiter than it had been, two inches from his nose. “What. Is. Wrong,” he heard someone say from very far off. The hands gripping Johnny’s shoulders gave him a shake. It didn’t look like much of a shake, but Johnny’s head jogged back and forward again. “Where. Is. Kate,” he heard that other person’s voice say, louder now.

“Jim. Jim, let the boy go. Let him go now. Jim! Let the boy down, damn it! Jim!”

He felt a sharp pain in his knee and looked down with some astonishment to see Dinah pulling back to kick him again. “I’ll do it!” she said fiercely. “Put the boy down!”

He looked back at Johnny and realized it was his own hands holding Johnny in the air. “Oh,” that other voice said. “I’m sorry.”

He lowered Johnny to the ground without letting go of him. “I’m sorry, Johnny.” It hardly seemed adequate, especially when he looked over Johnny’s shoulder to see the Cox girl, her face as white as Johnny’s, still on the seat of the four-wheeler with her arms wrapped around her middle looking like she was going to vomit. “Christ,” he said. His hearing came back suddenly. “Christ,” he said again. “I’m sorry, Johnny.”

Some of the color returned to the boy’s face and he looked at Jim like he was seeing a human being instead of a monster. Jim knew a keen and sudden shame. “I’m sorry as hell, kid,” he told him. “What’s wrong?” He tried not to cringe while waiting for the answer, and didn’t question the wave of relief that threatened to swamp him when Johnny did.

“There’s a body,” Johnny said, “a man.”

“Dead?”

Johnny nodded.

“Where?”

“Up at Len Dreyer’s cabin. In back, in the woods. The magpies… the ravens…” He turned and took two steps and threw up neatly onto a currant bush just leafing out from the bud.

Jim waited until he was done and produced a handkerchief that he kept in reserve for moments like these. Johnny wiped his mouth and blew his nose and held it out. “Keep it,” Jim said. “Do you know who the man is?”

Johnny nodded. “At least I think so. Like I said, the birds… I think it’s the chiefs son.”

A cold knot grew in the base of Jim’s stomach. “Which one?”

Johnny looked confused. “I don’t know. The one who’s always around. The one who wanted to work Len Dreyer’s case with you. The one with all the girlfriends.”

“Dandy,” Jim said.

Johnny nodded. “He’s been there a while. Long enough for the…”

Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “I got it.”

Johnny took a wavering breath. “I think…”

“What?”

“I think he was killed the same way Dreyer was killed. He had a hole in his chest. A big hole. He…” He shook his head and went over to the four-wheeler and sat down. The Cox girl hid her face against his shoulder.

“Son of a bitch,” Jim said. He wheeled for his vehicle.

Dinah trotted next to him. “Jim – ”

He had the door open and one foot in the Blazer. “Want to tell me again why I shouldn’t be looking for Dreyer’s killer, Dinah?”

She flushed. “No,” she said tightly. “I wanted to know who was going to tell Billy and Annie.”

He was shamed, and rightly so. “Ah, shit,” he said. “Okay, look. Take those two kids home to Bobby. Tell him and no one else. No one, Dinah, you hear?” He pulled himself inside the cab and reached for the keys. “If it really is Dandy, I’ll tell Billy and Annie myself.”

And then he stamped on the gas pedal and got away from the devastating sympathy in her big blue eyes.