Burial Ground Read online

  “Why don’t you wait?” she asked sweetly. “He knows you. Besides, with convicts loose, they’d be more likely to talk to a woman than a man.”

  I threw up my hands. “All right, I’ll leave a note on his windshield and we’ll both go.”

  “My car or yours?”

  “Mine,” I answered, thinking at least that way I’d keep some control.

  “Right. You do have insurance, don’t you?”

  “What?” My fists balled.

  “I just mean your car’s red. That usually indicates a flamboyant personality—traffic tickets and all that.”

  I exhaled slowly. “It can also indicate somebody who got a good deal on a slightly used Blazer that happened to be red.”

  “Oh,” she said and went to lock up her vehicle.

  I speculated on how long it would take the two convicts to break into the Integra and crack the steering column.

  We nosed out onto the two-lane, and a hundred yards later turned into the yard of the white frame house with the satellite dish. Before we were out of the Blazer a man appeared on the screened porch. He had a pump shotgun in his hands.

  “Who is it?” he called. “Just stand right there where I can see you.”

  We halted.

  “My name’s Alan Graham,” I called. “I’m from Baton Rouge. We just want to ask you some questions.”

  The screen door opened and I saw the man in the sunlight for the first time. He was thin, with rimless glasses and white hair frosting the sides of his head. The sun danced off a bald skull, and there was a snake tattoo on his right forearm.

  “What about?” the man demanded.

  “We’re archaeologists,” I said. “The Dupont family hired us to look over their property for artifacts.”

  “You work for T-Joe?” He shook his grizzled head and lowered the gun. “Hell of a thing, what happened.”

  “You were here?”

  “No. I saw it on my way back from St. Francisville. Was it a heart attack?”

  “His son thinks it may have been murder.”

  “Murder? That don’t make no sense.”

  “No,” I said. “Look, Mr.—”

  “Marcus Briney.” He leaned the shotgun against the steps, next to a pair of hunting boots, and came over to shake my hand. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and khaki pants that looked like they’d just come out of the dryer. “Sorry about the twelve gauge. There’s a couple of inmates on the loose and everybody’s kinda spooked.”

  I told him my name. “And this is P. E. Courtney,” I said.

  “P. E.?” he asked. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Mine,” P. E. said icily.

  “It stands for Prudence Elvira,” I explained. “That’s why she’s sensitive.”

  “Oh.” He chuckled. “I understand.”

  I watched P. E. turn red and go rigid all over.

  “We’re looking for a friend,” I said. “Fellow named David Goldman.” I pointed toward Absalom’s house. “He came up here yesterday afternoon to talk to your neighbor, Absalom Moon, and he never came back. His Landcruiser is still in Absalom’s yard.”

  Marcus Briney laughed.

  “I wouldn’t worry. Absalom probably took your friend off in the woods. He’s a funny old nigger. If he doesn’t like you, he won’t give you the time of day. But if he takes a shine to you, he’ll do anything in the world.”

  “It’s strange they’d be gone all night and all day,” I said.

  Briney gave a little shrug. “Absalom knows these woods backward and forward. They may’ve camped out. And if there was any kinda problem, like falling down, Absalom can handle it.”

  “What about convicts?” I asked.

  The old man stroked his chin. “Those fellows are probably on the nuclear plant grounds, from what I heard. My son’s a guard lieutenant. He said the hounds picked up a scent this morning. They oughta have ’em by noon.”

  “Who are they?” P. E. asked then. “Do you know?”

  “One’s a white boy named Peterson, up for robbery. Other one’s a nigger named Green, in for killing somebody in a dope deal. Don’t know either one of ’em, though it seems like I was still there when Peterson got sent up.”

  “You were there?” P. E. asked.

  Marcus Briney nodded. “I was assistant warden. Started as a guard and worked my way up. That’s what all our family’s done, ever since they put the prison there a hundred years ago. My father was one of the first guards hired on, after the state took over the place from the old plantation. Couldn’t make it farming and took a job as a guard. Things were tough back then.” He chuckled. “Tough times and tough men, on both sides of the fence. Prisoners ex-caped and was never heard from again.” He gave a tight little smile. “Some of ’em didn’t ex-cape and they still wasn’t heard from again. In the old days they wasn’t so particular about nose counts, know what I mean.” He kicked at the dirt. “I was seven years old when my father got killed in the big breakout in ’33. The guards chased those guys all the way across the river and caught up with some of ’em in Avoyelles Parish. Shot ’em dead on the spot. One of ’em they never caught. And you know what happened to the ones they brought back alive?”

  I shook my head.

  “Parish grand jury wouldn’t indict ’em because they didn’t figure it was the parish’s business to spend money on a trial that ought to be paid for by the state.” He scratched absently at his tattoo. “Now ain’t that something?”

  “It’s something all right,” I said.

  “But, you know, it’s the life we’ve got up here,” the old man rambled. “I mean, whole families work at the prison. It’s a way of life. Most of ’em live up near Tunica. When I retired, I decided to move down here. I love this land, but that part of my life was over. Why try to stay on and be a part of it?”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Well, I guess we’ll go look around Absalom’s yard, see if we find any clues.”

  “You don’t want to come in for some iced tea?” Briney asked.

  “Thanks,” I answered. “Another time.”

  I started away, then turned.

  “By the way, I was talking to Carter Wascom yesterday, and he seemed to think there was some kind of plot to keep him from telling the truth about the bayou pollution.”

  Briney rasped out a laugh. “Yeah. Carter probably thinks Martians kidnapped Elvis.”

  “You think Carter could kill anybody?”

  Another laugh. “Carter? Did you look at his hands? He never touched nothing rougher than a silk bedsheet.” He lifted his own gnarled hands. “Not like these.”

  “You’ve killed people?”

  “You’re damn straight. In the war. And if those inmates come around I won’t blink an eye.”

  “Well, nice talking with you, Mr. Briney.”

  “Same here, Mr. Graham. You, too, Miss Prudence,” he said.

  She spun on her heel and was closing the door of the Blazer before I reached it.

  “Old geezer,” she muttered. “Racist.”

  “Him or me?”

  “Very funny. I especially liked the Prudence part.”

  “Well, what does the P. E. stand for?”

  “None of your business.”

  I pulled up next to the Integra.

  “Well, it’ll take more than you or me to keep old-timers up here from saying nigger,” I told her.

  “Spare me the sociology lesson,” she said, getting out.

  “I’d as soon spare you, period,” I muttered.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To look around the yard. David’s missing, remember?”

  I left her staring at my back and went around the house. There was no telling when the sheriff’s department would get here, if ever, and it wouldn’t hurt to see what I could turn up.

  “Wait a minute,” she called after me. “I’ll help.”

  “I can’t possibly see how,” I said under my breath.

  The yard behind the house told m
e nothing. The grass was mostly gone, and chickens flapped away as I approached. The footprints of several people mingled in the dirt, but I couldn’t tell whose they were. At the rear of the yard, entwined in vines and high grass, was the rusted hulk of a sixties-vintage Fairlane. I peered inside but there was nothing of interest Then, to the side of the car, I saw a path heading into the forest. There were foot marks indicating someone had used the trail, but I wasn’t enough of a tracker to know whether it had been a day or a week ago.

  “Where are you going?” P. E. asked.

  “There’s a trail. I thought I might walk in a little ways. You’d better stay here, with those high heels.”

  “Just a minute.” She went back to the Integra and I saw her reaching behind the seat. She dropped something onto the ground and stepped out of her shoes. Then she took off the black jacket and locked it in the car.

  “Now,” she said as she came across the yard. I saw she’d changed the spike heels for flats. So the girl had some sense…

  I started down the little trail, ducking under the low branches. If they’d come this way, David had been hit in the face by tree limbs just as I was being hit. There was an especially low one ahead, and as I bent under it the notebook slid out of my pocket and fell onto the ground.

  When I stooped to pick it up, my hand froze halfway down.

  Beside it, in the dirt, was a mechanical pencil of the kind I’d seen David use in the office, in his drafting.

  Now there was no doubt: He’d come this way.

  SEVEN

  I lunged forward, eyes searching the ground for more clues. He’d been on this path, and that probably meant he was somewhere in these woods. I’d gone another hundred feet when I heard her calling out behind me:

  “Wait.”

  I halted. So she was finding the going a little tough, was she?

  “If you can’t keep up—” I started but she cut me off:

  “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have a map?”

  I turned around slowly, sweat dripping from my forehead.

  “I don’t have a map,” I said, angry that she’d caught me out. “Do you?”

  “In my car,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  And she was gone. I stood in the shade, brushing a mosquito away from my eyes, and wondered what she’d come back with. A map of the plantation trail, maybe, issued by the West Feliciana Chamber of Commerce…

  When ten minutes had passed I decided she couldn’t find it and was relieved. Then I heard the brush crackling and a figure in designer jeans and cotton work shirt emerged, carrying a map tube and a small backpack.

  I must have gaped because she felt it necessary to explain:

  “I thought I ought to change clothes if we’re going to make an expedition out of this.” She eyed my slacks and guayabera. “Don’t you have any clothes in your Blazer?”

  “These’ll do,” I muttered.

  “Fine. You want me to lead?”

  “That’s okay.” I preceded her down the trail. There was deer sign and once I saw a spent shotgun shell, but it could have been there for six months. Twenty minutes after we started, the trail ended at a gully. The sides were hung with kudzu and at the bottom, fifteen feet below, was a narrow stream. I bent to study the edge and saw undeniable scuff marks.

  “Somebody climbed down here,” I said.

  She unscrewed the top of the plastic map tube and drew out a rolled-up topographic sheet.

  “We’re right here,” she said, pointing at a dashed blue line that cut through high hills.

  I nodded. “I think you’re right.” My eyes went west on the map, to where, just beyond the next ridge, the land fell into a flat coastal plain a mile wide that ended at the river. Part of the plain appeared detached from the mainland by another dashed line, like a barge anchored against the shore. A few jeep trails showed as broken lines on the green paper. It was a lot of territory to cover. My better judgment told me to go back, wait for the law. But, damn it, with all the deputies tied up in the search for convicts, it could be hours before they mounted a search, and meanwhile David was out there.

  “I’m going down,” I said.

  “Do you want me to go first?” she asked, and I could tell she was serious.

  “I can manage,” I told her. “Just wait here at the top and then you can follow me.”

  I grabbed a tree root and lowered myself gingerly, hunting for a foothold against a small sapling part of the way down. The soil was wet from being in the shade and as I transferred my weight to the small tree I felt my foot starting to slip. I reached for a branch hanging out over the chasm and felt it bend. My foot slipped away from the sapling and I fought to regain my purchase. I wedged my foot between the tiny trunk and the bluff and then, to my horror, felt the sapling give way. I plunged down but something caught my free hand.

  “Hang on,” P. E. Courtney said.

  I lashed out with my foot, found a small niche in the soft earth, and then launched myself over to where I could grab another root. This time the root held and I was able to lower myself to the bottom of the gully.

  I looked down at my slacks: They were smeared with red clay, and water was seeping into my shoes. Worst of all, P. E. Courtney was picking her way down as daintily as a veteran rock climber.

  A few seconds later she landed beside me, on the wet gravel.

  “Oh,” she said. “You have on low quarters. Your feet are getting wet.”

  I looked down: She’d changed footwear again, this time to low hiking boots.

  “It’s happened before,” I said. “Look.”

  She stared down where I was pointing. It was a pair of deep impressions, now filled with water.

  “Somebody crossed here,” I said.

  “Your friend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But it had to be. And as I searched the gravel on this side I saw other marks, too many for one person.

  Either he’d been following someone or they’d been following him.

  I considered the steep face of the gully opposite.

  “He couldn’t have gotten up there,” I said. “He has to have followed the stream to a place where the banks were lower.”

  “You want to split up and each take a direction?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “We stick together. One lost person is enough.”

  “I have a compass,” she said.

  “Good,” I growled. “Because I don’t.”

  Not that we’d need it following a stream. But I didn’t like what I was feeling about this place. And I was beginning to think maybe P. E. Courtney might be able to handle herself in the woods after all.

  We followed the little trickle north, the bluffs on our right side. My feet crunched into the gravel, and a couple of times I had to step quickly to keep from sinking. I no longer saw any more boot marks and began to wonder if I’d made the right decision: What if he had gone the other way, toward the confluence of the two streams? And the truth came to me suddenly: He hadn’t had a map, so, of course, there was no way he could have known.

  Damn. She’d been thinking straight and I hadn’t. Why the hell hadn’t she said something? Was she just being nice, catering to my male ego? P. E. Courtney didn’t seem the type, yet…

  The sound of a limb breaking tore my thoughts back to the here and now. A huge bough came crashing toward us and I lunged against her, driving her away from the danger. A half-second later the great limb landed in the water two feet away, showering us with droplets.

  “My God,” she said, getting up slowly from the gravel verge. “I didn’t even see that thing …”

  Maybe it was the fear in her eyes, but for the first time I thought I detected a crack in her East Coast veneer.

  I reached out a hand to help her up and she took it, then, as she steadied herself, let go quickly and started to brush herself off as if she were afraid some telltale trace of weakness might still cling to her.

  Now I looked down at the pie
ce of wood that had almost killed us.

  “I didn’t hear the limb break,” she said. Then, seeing me staring at it, she took a step closer: “What’s wrong?”

  “You didn’t hear it because it didn’t break,” I said. “At least, not just now. Look at the ends.”

  They were fungus-covered. The huge trunk had been lying on the ground above, long enough to be infested with rot.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said under my breath.

  “What?”

  That was when we heard the crackle of sticks breaking somewhere on the edge of the cliff above us.

  I grabbed her hand and jerked her forward. “Now!”

  Soil was cascading down from where someone stood on the edge above us, hidden by the forest shadows.

  “I don’t guess you’ve got a gun in there someplace,” I said, nodding at her pack.

  She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  The footsteps were definite now, crunching the dead leaves and twigs of the forest overhead. I searched the defile in front of us for a way to go, but there was no choice except forward.

  At that second another log came crashing down from above and I grabbed P. E. and pulled her after me into the streambed. The cold water filled my shoes, but that was the least of my concerns: If we stayed close to the bluff on the right, we were prey for whatever got thrown down on us, but here, out from under the edge, we could be picked off by a gun.

  “This way,” I said, pointing ahead. We ran upstream to a place where the left bank was low and she scrambled up it easily. I followed and, touching the grass on the top, crawled behind a log.

  The echoes of our splashes died away and gradually the sounds of the forest returned to normal. I pointed at the cliff face across from us.

  “They’ll play hell getting down that.”

  “So what do we do?” she asked. “We need to get out of here and get help.”

  “Where’s your phone?” I asked.

  She fished it out of her pocket and punched in 911.

  Only static.

  I watched her put it away, chagrined. “I say we go to the island and hike out on one of the jeep roads the map shows. Whoever that was will probably go back.”