The Altar Girl: A Prequel

CHAPTER 31

The ride was interminable. The driver never surpassed the fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit on Route 2. Meanwhile, I relived memories of tossing the first handful of dirt over my father’s grave, the unpredictable gush of tears as my abusive husband’s casket was lowered into the ground, and Father Yuri telling me both times that it was God’s will.

The Ukrainian Cemetery of the Holy Ghost was built in an undeveloped forest thirty miles outside Hartford because the land in Hebron was cheap. When I rounded the bend toward the entrance and saw that all three vehicles’ taillights had disappeared, I continued past the cemetery for a quarter of a mile. Then I pulled onto the edge of the woods and parked on the side of the road.

I climbed a small embankment to even ground and hiked two hundred yards through the woods. The property appeared to be four acres in size with a thousand graves. The high ground on the northern side was filled, but there were still plenty of unfilled lots on the south side closer to the main road. The sedan was parked in the northwest corner of the cemetery by the groundskeeper’s hut. I’d been in that hut many times. It contained a storage shed and an office with cedar siding on the inside. I’d stood beside Father Yuri as his altar girl while he prepared for more funerals than I could remember over a five-year span. Maybe that’s why I associated the smell of cedar with tears, mourning, and closure.

A light came on in the office. A shadow moved against the walls. It was the man with the turned-up collar. He was removing his hat and coat. I still couldn’t see his face or figure, only an amorphous black silhouette. The light in the office would prevent him from seeing out the window. There was no risk that he could see me. I guessed Donnie Angel and the other three men were in the shed or digging my brother’s grave, but I didn’t take it for granted.

I weaved my way up a modest incline toward the hut, choosing the path with the highest tombstones, the ones that afforded me some cover. I hunched as I walked to minimize my exposure. My gun — yes, it was my gun now — felt cool and lethal in my hand. It gave me a sense of omnipotence. I’d been striving to become emotionally invulnerable, to cease to be affected by my relationships with my family. The gun imbued me with a different form of self-confidence. The kind that could get me killed or land me in prison for life if I wasn’t careful. I took some solace in knowing that I was still self-aware enough to understand that.

Somehow, I still ended up walking past my husband’s grave first, on the low ground, and my father’s grave second, on the high ground. I didn’t know if this was a function of familiarity, guilt, or a tug from the afterlife. I found myself speeding through “Our Father” twice, one prayer for each of their souls. I didn’t believe in the afterlife anymore — did I? — but I was programmed for prayer from youth. There was nothing an altar girl could do about it.

I heard noises coming from the storage shed. Donnie Angel and the other three men emerged laughing about something and headed to the office. I assumed Marko’s grave had been dug. Meanwhile, the mysterious man in the office disappeared from sight. Another light had come on in the western side of the hut, where the bathroom was located. As soon as the other four men entered the office, I sprinted the final fifty yards from the window to the eastern side of the hut. I wondered if I should have called the police now, or waited for Marko to arrive. I still had no evidence of a crime having been committed, other than my assault on the man in the vineyard. I reminded myself that Marko’s safety was my primary concern. As soon as I saw his car approaching, I would race toward him and warn him it was a trap. That they were going to kill him.

I knelt down behind a tall headstone and caught my breath. Thirty seconds later, I lifted my head around the granite block enough for my right eye to see past it. I scanned the area surrounding the hut and found what I was looking for. A mound of dirt was piled high beside a grave. But a headstone stood in front of that plot, implying someone was already buried there. I glanced toward the office. One of the men had pulled out a bottle. Another was passing glasses around.

I crawled on my hands and knees and read the inscription on the headstone.

Renata Clara Zen. Born 1917, Died 1979. I didn’t know the name or understand the significance of the headstone, but I knew there was one. Donnie Angel hadn’t chosen it at random. I glanced in the unearthed lot. A layer of dirt covered the casket but I could make out its outline. And then it hit me.

It was a woman’s grave.

Marko’s body wouldn’t fit in the hole atop the casket. But mine would.

Marko wasn’t coming. The grave wasn’t for him.

It was for me.

I suppressed a sense of doom and scurried back to my hiding place. I put my gun in my pocket and whipped out my cell phone. I managed to punch in a nine and a one before I heard the metallic snap of a pump-action shotgun.

The man I’d hit with the rock stood above me. He told me to give him the phone. I did.

“Where’s my gun?” he said.

I gave him the gun. When the polymer grip slipped out of my hands, some of my confidence went with it. But not all of it. I still had my wits about me.

I stood up.

He punched me in the jaw.

Pain shot through my nose. My eyes watered. I staggered backward but a gravestone kept me upright. Good, I thought. I hadn’t fallen. I’d kept my balance. That was a victory. A small one, but nevertheless a victory.

“That’s for hitting me in the face,” he said.

He escorted me to the hut. When I stepped into the office, Donnie Angel was seated in a folding chair sipping an amber liquid from a masonry jar.

“Home girl,” he said with his trademark smile. “Been waiting for you.”

A briefcase stacked with bills lay on a desk to his left. Two other men flanked him. They were also drinking.

Water gushed through pipes. Someone had flushed the toilet.

The doorknob turned. The bathroom door opened. The person who’d been wearing the coat with the turned-up collar stepped out and revealed himself.