Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 67.

“I don’t like hunting around in such darkness.” Leo crept the truck along the deserted two-lane road. There was nothing on either side except trees.

“It’s not completely dark,” I said. “We have the chief.”

Winnemac’s cement head, lit bright, hovered above the tree line like a bodiless apparition in a horror movie. He was at least two miles away, and his unblinking concrete eyes were aimed at the river, but I felt he was watching us, angry at what we were about to do.

“Endora texted, saying it’s been delivered?” It was the fourth time I’d asked. I didn’t like skulking along the dark, deserted road, either.

“One hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of floral wreath,” he said.

“For sure, it’s going to be the biggest one there. Not to mention the only one with a big blue and orange bow.” Chicago Bears colors, an additional stroke of my genius, had been on my mind since the fireworks at Sweetie’s penthouse. “We’ll find it in a heartbeat.”

“People don’t set out such wreaths in the heat of July,” he groused, but that was from envy of my superb idea.

The Internet driving directions I’d printed that morning said to turn right. We did, and went through more woods for another one-point-four miles.

We came to an iron arch, and he parked the truck next to a copse of trees. He shut off the lights, and we got out.

There was a full moon. We wouldn’t have to risk the flashlights until we started working.

He shrugged on the backpack and took the shovel and the pick out of the truck bed. I carried the video camera.

The sign on the iron arch was readable in the moonlight. It said the cemetery grounds had been consecrated over two hundred years before. I didn’t doubt it. Many of the granite markers looked to have been shifting in the ground for a long time, and now resembled loose teeth gone crooked in a shriveling old mouth.

“We don’t belong here,” Leo whispered.

“Piece of cake,” I said.

“Piece of Ho Ho,” he said, with more derision than I thought necessary.

Our feet rustled through the carpet of rotting leaves as we moved between the markers.

“There’s not one wreath here, floral or otherwise,” he said, when we got to the center of the cemetery.

“Got to be.”

“Maybe they’re going to deliver it tomorrow.”

“Endora said it was delivered today.”

“Wait; look there.” He pointed to the far side of the cemetery. At the edge of the woods, an enormous wreath had been set up on a wire stand, though we were too far away to tell if it had a blue and orange bow.

I allowed, silently, as to how that last detail might not have been such genius anyway. The wreath looked to be the only one in the cemetery.

“No problem picking ours out,” I said, before he could say anything.

“Genius, for sure,” he said, as we walked to the wreath.

He set down the shovel and the pick, then took off the backpack.

I brushed away the cover of wet leaves with my foot. The flat marble marker was tiny, barely eight inches wide, twelve inches long. I eased down to read it.

Only the name was engraved, faint in the moonlight: ALTA TAYLOR.

“We’ll sweep the leaves back when we’re done, the ground will settle back beneath them next winter, and no one will ever know,” I said.

“More genius,” he muttered.

He started digging. The ground had hardened over the forty years, making it slow work. At least a dozen times he ran into tree roots encroaching from the edge of the woods, and had to flail at them with the pick until they broke away. Finally, after three hours, he got down to where his shoulders were at ground level.

“Grave invasion is hard work,” he said, taking a break.

“Technically, no,” I said. “There’s got to be someone buried here for it to be a grave.”

“You’re sure there’s nobody home?”

“Just an empty coffin, filled with rocks to approximate her weight. Plinnit’s DNA test proved she’s alive.”

“You said he sounded a little unsure.”

“Sisters with the same mother but different fathers wouldn’t have an exact match, but there would be some similarities. It’s why the DNA from beneath my fingernails can’t exactly match what they got from Sweetie’s hairbrush.”

“You’re absolutely sure there’s nobody down here?”

“Alta’s alive and scratching.”

He resumed digging. Twenty minutes later, at just past one thirty, his shovel rang against something metallic. He jumped back as far as he could in the small hole.

“Oh, man,” he said, letting the shovel drop.

I repeated what I’d told him, driving up. A dozen times.

“Sheriff Lishkin had been pressing all summer for the truth about what happened out at that gas station. Darlene had to pass Alta off as dead, to shut down the investigation.”

“I thought you said Alta was his daughter.”

“He was still sheriff. He needed to know what happened.”

I shined the flashlight into the hole.

He’d uncovered a small section of mottled gray metal.

“A tin coffin?” he asked.

“Cheap. The right thing to put in the ground if all you’re burying is rocks. Brush the dirt away, We’ll pop the lid, make a video showing it’s empty, fill the hole, and be gone.”

The lid was dished inward, and corroded everywhere with splotches of rust.

“We got here just in time,” Leo said, from the hole. “The lid’s about to collapse.”

I handed him the hammer and the pry bar, then shouldered the video camera and aimed the flashlight into the hole.

“They could say we staged this,” he said.

“It’s the only proof I can think of.”

“Jeez, I wish I could see better,” he said.

A huge burst of light hit us.

“How’s this?” she asked.