The Grove Read online

  The air in the grove felt ten degrees cooler. I stopped in the middle of the trees and glanced up at the shimmer of leaves rattling in the breeze. The sound was calming, and I stood for a while just listening and breathing and watching the early evening light filter through the branches.

  I noticed a few empty beer cans on the ground and kicked a couple of them into a pile in case I decided to come out later and pick them up.

  It was a ridiculous thought. I kept searching.

  Something on the other side of the grove caught my eye. I didn’t recognize it at first. When I got closer I saw that it was a purse, striped pink and blue, like ribbon candy. I picked it up. There was weight to it, and I looked around to see if anyone was there. I knew I was alone, but something in me needed to make sure.

  I examined the purse. It was unmarked and looked brand new. I set it on the ground, unsnapped the latch, and checked inside.

  The first thing I saw was a smaller bag, the same design. There were several makeup tubes inside.

  I reached back into the purse and came out with a few pens, a checkbook, a wallet.

  I opened the checkbook. The bank was local, and according to the registry the balance in the account was twenty-seven dollars and change. I dropped it back in the purse, then grabbed the wallet and took out the driver’s license.

  The girl in the license photo had dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was young and she was smiling. Her name was Jessica Cammon. I read the date of birth and did the math in my head.

  She was sixteen.

  I looked around at the scattering of beer cans and shook my head. If I found out my sixteen-year-old daughter had been drinking in secluded cornfields—

  I stopped myself.

  After a moment I thumbed through the rest of the wallet. There were thirteen dollars inside and several pay stubs. I pulled one out and read the name: The Riverbank Café.

  I’d been to the Riverbank Café several times. I looked closer at the driver’s license photo, wondering if I’d seen her there. I couldn’t place the face, but it was a long time since I’d been there. Maybe she was new.

  I slid the license back into the wallet and returned it to the purse. I thought about going to the Riverbank Café for breakfast tomorrow. Going there would keep me out of the grocery store for another day. Besides, it would be fun to see the look on her face when I dropped her purse on the counter.

  I knew what I should do was take it to the address on the license and hand it over to her parents. Tell them where I found it and let them handle the situation. But it wasn’t any of my business. I figured I should just find her and return the purse.

  Her parents could ask the questions.

  I snapped the bag closed without looking at anything else. The sun was beginning its slow drop toward the horizon, and soon the sky would fill with a heavy red haze. If I didn’t get back to the tractor soon I’d have no choice but to finish tomorrow. If that happened, I figured I’d call Greg and tell him to bring his truck out after all. We’d have it done in twenty minutes.

  I started back toward the ravine, taking one last look over my shoulder. When I did, I noticed something lying in the corn just past the trees, but I couldn’t tell what it was from where I stood.

  I moved toward it.

  The wind had picked up, and whatever it was danced back and forth in the breeze. It looked like a dark jacket or a shirt caught in the corn.

  I crossed the grove and stepped out into the sheltered area just past the trees. Taking a few steps closer, I stopped.

  What I’d seen was a waitress uniform from the Riverside Café, a black dress with a gold stripe running along the hem. I recognized it immediately.

  The girl wearing the dress was on her side facing into the field, away from where I stood. Her dark hair was matted to her head, and her legs were folded up toward her chest as if she were sleeping. One arm was stretched out in front of her and the other was down along her side, the palm facing the sky.

  Even without seeing her face, I knew.

  CHAPTER 4

  When I got back to the house, I was out of breath and covered in mud. I’d fallen in the ravine and hit my head on a half-buried rock. I could feel the steady warm flow of blood running down my cheek.

  I ran to the kitchen, dialed Greg’s number, and let it ring. There was no answer. I hung up. I looked at the clock above the stove. It was almost eight. I doubted he’d still be at work, but even if he wasn’t, they could track him down.

  I didn’t want to talk to anyone else.

  I opened the cabinet where Liz kept the phone book and pulled it out, scanning the first few pages for the Sheriff’s Department. When I found the number I picked up the phone and started to dial.

  Halfway through, I stopped.

  Why would I only talk to Greg?

  A thought flashed in the back of my mind, brief but sharp. It wouldn’t let me call.

  It happened again.

  I stood in the kitchen, blood on my face and the phone pressed against my ear, unable to move, trying to push the thought away.

  “No.”

  My voice was soft, a whisper against the receiver.

  The thought flashed again, and this time there were images, bad images. I tried to close my eyes, but it didn’t help.

  It happened again.

  It wasn’t possible.

  The girl hadn’t been out there for very long, that was obvious, but that didn’t mean she’d been out there last night. It didn’t mean that I’d seen her and confronted her, or that I’d—

  No, it wasn’t possible.

  I closed my eyes and tried to bring back anything from the night before. All I had was a confusing haze of images and words, then nothing until I woke up that morning covered in mud.

  It happened again.

  The thought was enough to move my hand holding the phone back toward the cradle.

  I crossed the room to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. I opened it and took a drink, then held the cold bottle against my forehead.

  When I pulled it away, it was bloody.

  I reached for the towel over the sink and ran it under cold water, then pressed it against my forehead, wincing.

  I’d caught kids in my field before, but I’d never been angry about it. All I’d ever done was ask them to leave. No fights, no problems.

  But how would this look?

  Greg and I had been friends since grade school, and thanks to my father’s drinking, I’d spent more time at his house than my own. He’d been there through all the bad times, and we were as close as brothers. But finding a dead body on my property the day after I’d waved a gun at my wife and threatened to kill her wouldn’t look good.

  He’d have questions, and not just him.

  A lot of people would look to me, and everything from the past would come up again.

  I wished I’d never gone out there.

  I considered waiting it out, pretending I’d never found the body. I didn’t think I had anything to do with the girl, and since no one else knew I’d been out there or what I’d found, all I had to do was keep quiet.

  I thought about it for a minute, but inside I knew it wasn’t an option. I had to call.

  Whatever followed would follow.

  I went back to the counter and reached for the phone to call Greg. Before I could pick it up, it rang.

  I didn’t move.

  My throat was tight, and I felt my heart drill against my ribs. After the fourth ring, I picked it up.

  “Hi, Dexter.”

  It was Liz.

  I carried the phone to the table, sat down, then leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Each second that passed I cursed myself for not saying anything, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m OK.”

  The wind blew the curtain back from the window, and I glanced up and saw the grove in the distance. I looked down at my hands on the table, saw the dried blood under my fingernails
, and squeezed a fist.

  “What do you need, Liz?”

  “Same thing I needed last night. Half my clothes are sitting in the closet over there, all my books—”

  “Come get them, I won’t stop you.”

  “That’s what you said before.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did.”

  I heard the unmistakable scratch of a cigarette lighter followed by a long exhale.

  “When did you go off your medication?”

  “When did you start smoking again?”

  She didn’t answer, and for a moment neither of us said a word. After a while, Liz spoke.

  “That’s a serious decision, Dexter.”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation. You’re the one who walked away.”

  “Is that what this is about? I leave so you stop your pills? How long have you been off them? A week? Two weeks?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “It’s cowardly, that’s what it is.” She exhaled into the phone. “You think you’re the only one who lost something in all of this?”

  She didn’t wait for me to answer.

  “Clara was my daughter, too, and I feel it every day, as much as you, but that never enters your head. Nothing matters to you except you.”

  I kept quiet.

  “I tried to keep things together with us,” Liz said. “You can’t say I didn’t try.”

  “You didn’t try that hard.”

  “I tried as hard as I could.”

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  Silence.

  “What did you do, Dexter? Did you try?”

  I didn’t answer her. I tried to remember the sound of Clara’s voice. It was getting harder to do these days.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?”

  Liz’s voice sounded tired. I knew whatever answer I gave wouldn’t matter, so I kept it to myself.

  She waited for me to say something. When I didn’t, she said, again, “I need to pick up my things.”

  “Do you remember the bracelets? The ones she made out of all that string?”

  “Dexter.”

  “I lost every one she gave me.” I laughed. “She must’ve made hundreds of those goddamn things. Used to find them all over the house, but now I can’t find one of them. I’ve looked everywhere, under furniture, rugs. Not one.”

  “Dexter.”

  “Hard to believe there’s not a pile of them lying in the corner of some closet somewhere.”

  “I have a couple.”

  “They were all over the place, and now—”

  “I can give you one.”

  I ran the back of my hand across my cheek. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “I’ll give you one of mine.”

  I paused. “I’m sorry about last night. I promise it’ll be OK next time.”

  “It would be better if I came by when you weren’t around. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to see you right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  “It was a bad night, that’s all.”

  She started to say something, then stopped. “Do you remember last night at all?”

  “I know what I did.”

  She paused. The next time she spoke, her voice was quiet.

  “Did you black out?”

  “I told you, I know what I did.”

  “That’s serious, Dexter, you know that.”

  I felt the anger build in my chest, and it took an effort to push it back.

  “I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  “How do you know? How do I know? You’re not on your pills, and if you’re blacking out you have no idea what you might do.”

  “Liz.”

  “Did you forget what can happen?”

  “It’s none of your goddamn business.”

  I heard her take the phone away and then the sound of her crushing out her cigarette. When she came back to the phone, her voice was calm.

  “OK, it’s none of my business, but you didn’t see how you were acting last night, and I did. I haven’t seen you like that since—” She paused. “In years.”

  I let that sink in, then said, “Can I ask you something?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think I could’ve hurt someone last night? Really hurt someone?”

  She didn’t answer right away, and I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. After a moment, she said, “You scared me last night. You were a different person.”

  “But do you think I could’ve—”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  CHAPTER 5

  I didn’t call Greg.

  After Liz hung up, I stayed in the kitchen and stared out the window at the darkening field and the cottonwood grove in the distance. I thought about what she had said.

  I had no memory of the previous night, that was true, but I knew with every part of me that I hadn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t know how the girl wound up in my field, or who’d killed her, but I was sure it had nothing to do with me.

  Still, once the news got out and people in town heard where they’d found the girl’s body, the rumors would be everywhere.

  No one around here forgets.

  Over the years I’d become accustomed to the stares and whispers when I went into town. They’d tapered off since Clara but never completely stopped. All it would take to bring them back was a spark.

  Like another murder.

  I got up and took the Johnny Walker bottle from the cabinet above the refrigerator, then went outside to sit on the porch. The sun was almost gone, and the sky was red and heavy. There were several dark clouds to the east trailing thin blue curtains of rain. I sat on the steps and drank.

  Lightning flashed, and I thought about my tractor. It was going to get wet sitting in the ravine, but there wasn’t anything I could do. Calling Greg to help wasn’t a good idea. We went back a long time, but if he thought I had anything to do with the girl’s death, everything we’d been through together wouldn’t matter.

  Telling him wasn’t an option unless I could prove that I wasn’t involved.

  I took another drink and watched the cottonwoods in the grove fight against the wind.

  Could I prove it? There had to be something out there that pointed away from me, something I’d missed. If I could find it and give it to Greg, then I could show him—

  No, that was a bad idea.

  Anything I’d come across, someone with training would also find. I’d just make a mess out there, probably without accomplishing a thing.

  Still, the idea wouldn’t go away.

  Bad ideas rarely do, with me.

  When we were kids, Greg fell out of an oak tree we’d been climbing in front of his house and snapped his leg in two places. I remember seeing the bone sticking through the skin and knowing I had to do something. His parents weren’t home at the time, so I ended up carrying him for two miles on my back to Dr. Whitfield’s house for help.

  When we finally got there, Dr. Whitfield braced Greg’s leg and drove us both down to the hospital. I stayed in the waiting room until Greg’s parents arrived. When they did, I told them what’d happened.

  I exaggerated Greg’s injury and the difficulty of carrying him all that way to make myself sound more heroic. When I finished the story, I was beaming.

  Greg’s father looked down at me, frowning. “Why the hell didn’t you call from the house? Why do all that for no reason?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  When we got to see Greg, his parents commended him on his bravery and told him how proud they were of him for enduring the pain of being carried so far with a broken leg.

  I kept quiet.

  Later, back at his house and alone, Greg thanked me.

  “I would’ve done the same thing,” he’d said. “I didn’t think of the phone either. Don’t let it bother you.”

  I didn’t believe him. Greg was always good under pressur
e. Greg was always good at everything. That’s just the way things were.

  Me? I was the crazy one with the alcoholic father. It wasn’t until high school, when I’d learned I could hit a baseball better than anyone else, that people began to notice me for something positive, and eventually things got better.

  I met Liz, I had scholarship offers from several schools, but best of all, I stopped being Donald McCray’s messed-up kid for a while.

  Then everything crumbled.

  And now it was all crumbling again.

  No, I couldn’t call Greg, and yes, investigating the girl’s death was a bad decision, but it was the only one I could see.

  I capped the bottle of Scotch and slid it into my pocket then started for the break in the rows of corn that led out to the grove.

  I thought again about my new plan and wondered if going off my pills might be affecting my judgment.

  I didn’t like the answer that came to me, but in the end, I decided it really didn’t matter.

  CHAPTER 6

  The girl was on her side, facing the corn. Her hair, falling over her face like a veil, shimmered with movement. As I got closer I saw the flies, thick and black, covering the ground by her head.

  I stepped over her and the flies scattered, revealing a dried yellow trail of vomit running into the dirt. There was no blood that I could see, and her uniform looked clean, no rips or stains.

  I waved more flies away, then bent over and ran a finger along the girl’s forehead. I wanted to push her hair back from her face, but it was stuck to the dried vomit on her skin. The sound of it tearing free made my throat clench.

  The flies gathered around my feet as I knelt over the girl. Her lips were purple and cracked. One of her eyes was half-closed; the other, milky and gray, stared toward the sky. The black makeup under her eyes had clumped into the lashes and smeared against her pale blue skin, making her look as though she’d been crying.

  Once again, I slid a finger along her forehead, looping her hair behind her ear. There were three small silver rings in her earlobe and another through the cartilage at the top.