Bury This (9 page)

And Shauna, wondering now, why haven't they asked me to sit down? Why haven't they asked me to take off my coat? Why are we not all sat down around the fire sipping cocoa? Why am I not welcome here?

Why are these kids here? These four dumb, smug, Gap catalog kids? Why are they looking at me like a problem to be solved? Something to be dealt with? Why the formality? Oh, yes, Shauna. Shauna, would you like some coffee? What's with all the coffee? Is there a fucking exam in the morning? Geesh.

Well, no matter. Dots will open the present and all will be forgiven. Good old Dots will preen and primp over the vase and then these little fuckers will part like the Red Sea and, next thing you know, we'll all be singing carols together, exchanging stories, laughing by the fire.

And Dorothy Krause does open the gift, taking the box out of the royal gilded festive bag and placing it square on the countertop.

There it is now, the crystal vase, with roses etched on the side and, now for the kicker, the roses themselves, in the gift bag, waiting in the corner. Bright red roses for the glass rose vase. See. I thought it out.

The little brats are scurrying to get it all together, make it nice for Dotsy Katy is cutting the flowers and arranging them in the vase, how nice, how pretty, just so.

“What a thoughtful gift. How gorgeous, these roses.”

But somehow, even as they thank me they are shrinking back, pulling away from me, I am out of the circle. Something to be kept on the other side, something to be quarantined.

Maybe if I show the roses to the Lt. Colonel, maybe then there'll be the respect. These guys just don't know the pecking order, see? These guys just don't get it.

Reaching for the glass rose vase with new-cut scarlet roses, Shauna Boggs grabs it out of Katy's hands and holds it up from the kitchen, for the Lt. Colonel to see.

He's watching the game, third and goal in the fourth quarter, eyes glued to the screen, the announcer a delirium of hurried excitement. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen? This could be the game . . . !

And from the other room, “Lt. Colonel? Lt. Colonel?! Look what I brought! Look at your present, for you and Dotsy!”

And the Lt. Colonel can hear noise and turn his head slightly, but that's all he can do, third and goal, fourth quarter, past the two-minute warning.

And Brad, Katy, Lars, and Danek can stand there, but that's all they can do, watching Shauna Boggs, they-call-her-the-blob, holding up the wet glass vase, teetering, water dripping down the side, from the newly cut fresh red roses.

And you can't reach out in time, how could you, to grab the slippery vase from Shauna Blobs teetering in her cheap black parka. You can't grab it in time, from the clumsy meat hands on that sloping meat body and so, as you all watch, standing there like perplexed shepherds, the crystal vase with Christmas crimson roses slips out of her piggy hands and onto the floor in a thousand little pieces and glass shards and glass shards with roses and red petals and thorns and thorns with glass shards and water shards and a deadening silence.

In the background, Favre makes the catch and the announcer squeals in ecstasy and Lambeau Field explodes in a fever pitch of yellow and green. But the Lt. Colonel is left out in the cold, sitting abandoned in the living room, a solitary figure, staring into the kitchen at the three-hundred-pound girl in a parka, a shuddering girl, suspended in glass shards and thorns and beaten-up roses.

FOUR

A
mackerel sky in tendrils over the lake, the lake frozen over in white, tucked in from the lighthouses heralding Lake Michigan. Muskegon Lake ice fishing. Perch. Walleye. Northern pike. The best of the first and last ice pan-fish. Detective Samuel Barnett leaving early morning, 4
AM
for blasted sakes, tiptoeing out, trying not to wake his wife breathing deep snug under the quilt.

Out on the lake, in his makeshift tin-pan shack with heater. A hole in the ice and nothing doing, sat freezing his ass off on the bench, nothing but this Old Style to keep him warm. Goddammit, he shoulda brought two sausage sandwiches, not just one. The wife had offered two, just in case, honey. But no, no, being a stupid little boy kid husband, not wanting to be that known, that predictable, he'd refused. Trying to play the man. And now starving, starving between these flimsy walls of aluminum grating, no more sausage sandwiches and not even noon, hell with it. What a dumb fuck. He might as well relent. The wife was right. Two sausage sandwiches, not just one.

Over the milk pebble sheet, a charcoal-black figure, a lone wanderer over the splat clear rink, coming closer, closer, closer, a gnat,
then a cockroach, then a monkey, then a man. Now, a uniformed man outside the shack. A knock on the
rin-tin-tin
aluminum.

“Detective?!”

A sigh, what now. Can't I just have one day? Is that asking too much?

“Detective Barnett? You in there?”

Of course I'm in here, dumb-ass, where else would I be?

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Can I come in?”

“Might as well.”

A scutter and a clang off the
ting-ting
grating, careful of your feet, that ice is no joke. Breath now in vapor gusts, in-out in-out, vapor gasps made of words, out of breath, gushing.

“Detective, there's someone down at the station. Wants to talk to you.”

“Well, it's Saturday—”

“I know. I know. That's what I said, sir. I sure did. But they wouldn't have it. Said it had to be you they talked to, wouldn't leave even.”

“Well, what the hell?”

“You got that right, sir.”

Air in puffs, made of ice.

“That sandwich place open?”

Heading back over Shoreline in the Ford Crown Vic, limited slip rear differential and boy do you need it. Even a barely there wisp cloud day like this the ground goes ice snow sludge slop pebbles ice again. You just never know what's down deep underneath.

The station empty, dark in mint-gray chrome, one fluorescent spotlight over the far chrome desk in green-gilled yellow. Sitting there, facing away, a fat-shirt with a bald head, one hair over the bald circle forehead wrong ways. His parka, forest green, draped over his lap. Nervous.

“Hi there.”

“Hello. Hello, Officer.”

“Nice day.”

“Yes. Yes it is. Very nice day. No snow yet.”

“Yup. That blizzard's coming in though, ought to be here tonight.” Detective cozy-talk.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. They said three feet in Milwaukee, so . . . ”

Better just sit down. Sit down, act casual, pretend to look through paperwork. Official.

“Detective. I have something to report.”

Keep your eyes on the desk, act unmoved, calm. Professional.

“Some information.”

“M-hm. M-hm. Go ahead.”

“Well, it's just, uh. I saw that film. That one in town. On the girl. You know, the students did that film. And, um. I just thought, maybe . . . well, maybe there was something you should know.”

Oh my Lord. Is this it? Is this the guy? Holy shit. Where's my gun?

“Oh, okay. Well, shoot.”

Get out the pen and paper. Don't let him see. Keep him calm. Maybe it is him. A confession! Oh, fuck, where is my goddamn gun?

“Did I get your name? Sorry, I just, you know, I was ice fishing. Trying to catch some perch, bring home to the wife. And I, uh, guess I'm, well . . . still out there on the ice. Shame on me. What was, what was your name again?”

“Eric. Eric Walter. Um. I live down on Cheney. Down by the diner, off of Route 31.”

“Oh, okay. CJ's, right. Is that a good diner? I drive by there all the time, always wanted to stop.”

“Yeah, it's good. Real good. They got, uh, pierogis. Real good pierogis. The owner's wife's Russian, so . . . ”

“Oh, that sounds good. My wife made some pierogis a couple months back.”

Motioning to the rookie cop. Stay where you are. Stay put. Act casual. Don't leave. Don't make a fuss.

“It's just that. That girl. The Krause girl?”

“M-hm?”

“Well . . . I met her.”

“M-hm.”

Stay where you are, act normal. Nothing special.

“I met her a few days before she disappeared . . . before, you know . . . ”

“M-hm.”

“And I woulda come in. Woulda said something but . . . I tell you what, I was so damned scared somehow it'd get turned around and . . . all of a sudden I'd be the one, I'd be like a suspect . . . so . . . I just. You know, I just stayed put.”

“Mm.”

The green-muck light overhead. Rookie cop on the seat behind, metal seat, trying not to listen, trying to stay still.

“And well, I'm just. Well, I'm ashamed of myself. That I didn't come forward. Ashamed that. Maybe I coulda helped.”

“M-hm.”

“That poor girl. And her family and all. Seem like real nice people.”

The buzz of the light overhead.

“And how did you come to meet her exactly?”

Careful now. Don't seem too interested. Don't scare him off.

“Well, it was. I mean, it was . . . it was late. It was a Friday night, late, and I was coming home from work. I got a store, up on Main. Walter's Tackle and Bait. That's my store. Maybe you been there?”

“I have been there! Sure have. Come to think of it, I think I got some hooks there last month. I always lose my hooks, you know. Every season the wife puts 'em away. Trying to keep things neat, I guess. And then I just lose them. Gotta buy 'em all over again. Wait a minute—are you in cahoots with my wife?”

A sly smile from rookie cop, from behind. A little laugh. Keep things light. Keep things easy here. Reel him in. Don't let him get away. Reel him in like that perch you missed out on.

“Oh, no sir. We run an honest business. Might not run too long though, with that Walmart and all . . . ”

“Oh, I know. It's a shame, isn't it? Just a damn shame . . . So, it was late, you said?”

“Yeah, it was late, down on Route 31, down by Dreamers. And I was coming home, I see this girl and, I mean, it is cold
outside, must be ten below. And, this girl is in nothing but a denim skirt and a pullover, walking down the road, stumbling even.”

“M-hm. Down by Dreamers?”

“Yup. Well, I was worried about her, worried she'd freeze, out there like that. So, I gave her a ride.”

“Uh-huh. Was she hitchhiking?”

“No. No, sir. She, she was just, well. She was drunk. I mean, she was a little girl, real petite and . . . I mean it was like . . . she didn't know where she was practically. Like it was all a joke or something.”

“M-hm.”

“And so, I mean, I couldn't even get out of her, you know, who she was, where she was going, her address. Nothing. And she just kept laughing. Real weird. Like laughing, cackling almost. And then crying. The next second. Just, back and forth. Just . . . crazy.”

“Huh.”

“I mean I couldn't tell if it was like . . . she was crazy or, you know, crazy drunk. But, I mean, she passed out. She just blacked out right there in the car.”

“M-hm.”

“And, I mean, I couldn't just leave her in the car, 'cause, well . . . I mean, she woulda froze.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So . . . I took her inside, took her home, put a blanket over her and just thought, you know, when she wakes up, when she sobers up, I'll just find out where she lives and take her home.”

“You took her to your house?”

“Yessir. I did. I didn't know what else to do.”

“Okay, and then . . . ”

“Well, I woke up, real early, you know, to check up on her. And she was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yessir. She was just . . . gone.”

“You mean like—”

“—Like she wasn't there. Like she split. And that woulda been, let's see, Saturday morning. Around six o'clock. Six
AM
.”

“Six
AM
. Saturday.”

“And then, a few days later, there I am watching the evening news. And there she is. Disappeared. Dead. And, well, I just . . . I mean, I just went white. I just, I just couldn't believe it.”

“M-hm. I see. Well, we're gonna need a written statement. We can, uh, go through it with you, of course. If you don't mind. Just a formality, really.”

“I understand. I understand, Officer.”

“One more thing. Can you remember anything else? Anything else that might just stand out?”

“Well, yeah. There was one thing. She kept . . . she kept going on and on about this locket. Like she has this locket and she kept taking it out and crying even. I mean, and even when she went to sleep, she had it in her hands, like grasping it.”