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She isn’t afraid but she’s running on pure adrenaline. I can hear it in her voice. How long will this terrifying night haunt her?
That’s a problem for later. Right now, I need to move. While she retrieves the metal detector, I run in my house and take one of my pills that keeps my heart rate and blood pressure lower.Shoveling for hours isn’t exactly an approved exercise but it needs to be done.
Calli meets me beside the barn as I’m connecting the log hauler to the new ATV. I hand her a couple of pain pills and a bottle of water. “Take these, sweetheart.”
She swallows them with a slight grimace. “Where do you want to bury him? Behind the cabin?”
“No, at the perimeter of the graveyard. I’ll show you.” After we get the supplies we need loaded onto the ATV, she climbs on behind me. Her arms wrap around my middle, and I take a moment to squeeze her hand. It feels like I’m functioning on auto pilot mode as we make our way back through the forest and field.
It’s all happened so fast. We’re heading out to pick up a dead body—a man I killed—and bury him on my property. Surreal isn’t a strong enough word. Not one ounce of me regrets it.
“Will you look for the gun and phone while I get him chained to the hauler?” Calli nods and turns on her metal detector. The faint beeps play as I wrap the chains and straps around the body, strapping it to the hauler like I’ve done so many logs.
My stomach flips at the way his head hangs, dangling to look at me with open blank eyes. Before Calli can see, I toss a tarp over his top half.
“Got them,” she says, returning with the gun and phone.
“Good. Let’s go.”
The trip back through the forest is uneventful. The creek is low, and I make sure to cross at a spot that the hauler had no problem handling before. The last thing we need is to get stuck. A bitterly cold wind strikes us as we pull into the clearing of the graveyard, and I feel Calli press her face into the back of my coat.
We’ll be warm soon enough. Digging is hard work.
I park the log hauler in the trees at the edge of the graveyard. It isn’t hidden. I’m not worried that we’ll be interrupted but this is going to take a while and we don’t need to look at him.
“Right beside the other bushes? Is that what you’re thinking?” Calli asks.
“Yes, it won’t look like the ground has been disturbed in a strange spot if the police end up investigating us. We’ll plant more bushes over him. In spring, he’ll be covered by foliage.”
She nods and tosses me a pair of gloves, then puts hers on. “We should burn him like he did your poor bees.” I’m glad she’s angry. It’s as good a way to get through this night as any. “We only need to put him about three feet down. That’s deep enough to keep animals from digging him up.” She shrugs when I look at her with my eyebrows raised. “I watch a lot of crime shows.”
“Good to know.”
We start digging and it goes a little quicker than I anticipated. “We’re lucky only the top crust is frozen,” I remark, stepping on the blade of the shovel to drive it deeper. “Another month and the ground would’ve been too solid.”
Calli nods, wiping sweat from her forehead and leaving a streak of dirt behind. We’re both covered in grime. I’m surprised to see her lips tilt into a grin. “Remember the day I brought you the cobbler?”
Of course I do. I remember the fear on her face at the sight of the burlap bundles and shovel, and how we laughed after I explained what was going on. “You said burying people is more of a winter activity.”
She gestures to the snow flurries with a chuckle. “I was right. This would be awful in the heat.”
Maybe she will be okay after this. Maybe we both will.
The moon rises as we work, casting a blue hue over everything. It makes me think of the first night I brought Calli to the firepit. She was afraid to walk through the graveyard alone.Now she’s burying someone here without any qualms. Life is so twisted sometimes.
“I think that’s good enough, don’t you?” Calli says, flopping down to sit alongside the grave and blowing out a harsh breath.
Assuming he hasn’t gone into rigor, and we can bend him a little to stuff him in, it should work. “I think so.”
She guzzles her water then holds it out to me for a drink. A sudden realization strikes her. “Arlow, your heart. Are you supposed to…this is too much, isn’t it?”
“The list from the cardiologist didn’t specifically say no murder or body disposal.” She gives me an exasperated look. “I’m fine, Peach. And we’re almost done. Filling it in will be easier and we have all night. I’m not in danger.”
After a moment of thought, she seems to realize there isn’t any other choice and nods. She waits by the grave while I move the log hauler over. There’s no good way to release the body and it plops to the ground once the chains are undone.
“Wait,” Calli says, when I start to roll him into the grave. Her face crumples in disgust as she searches his pockets and pulls out a wallet. “We don’t want to leave identification on him.”
“Good thinking.”
