A grave denied (32 page)

What he thought was the correct turnoff came up on their right and he took it. The road deteriorated into a six-foot-wide game trail choked with tree roots, between which someone had dropped round smooth rocks that looked as if they’d been hauled up from the bed of the Kanuyaq River. It was a jolting and extremely uncomfortable ride, and he was glad when Vanessa grabbed hold again.

It ended in a small clearing, at the center of which was a not large pile of charred timbers. He killed the engine. Vanessa climbed off. He followed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. He touched her shoulder. “Hey.”

She wouldn’t look up. He put a hand under her chin and pushed. “Come on, Van. Talk to me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, it was stupid. I know you wouldn’t tell anyone what we were doing.”

“I know how to keep a secret,” she muttered.

“I know you do.”

She sniffed, more an expression of disdain than distress. “No, you don’t.”

“Okay, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

She kicked a rock across the clearing. “Okay.”

Her hair was all messy from the helmet, but he liked it anyway. He liked most of what he saw about Vanessa Cox. She was smart, but unlike Betty Freedman she didn’t spend all day every day proving it. Johnny liked smart. She didn’t talk a lot, but then he couldn’t abide a chatterer—Andrea Kvasnikof drove him up the wall and sometimes out of the school. And when she did talk, Vanessa was absolutely honest.

Honesty was big with Johnny, maybe even bigger than smart. His mother wasn’t honest. She would have lied about Kate molesting him without turning a hair. She would have put Kate in jail if she could have. Johnny hated a liar. Vanessa didn’t play games, either, like he saw the other girls at school play with the other boys. He liked that, too.

Johnny Morgan knew enough to know he wasn’t your typical teenager. He looked around at his thirteen- and fourteen- and fifteen-year-old classmates, and knew that he was a hundred years older in experience and maturity by comparison. Most teenagers thought they were immortal, that nothing could ever hurt them, and that they were going to live forever. Johnny knew better. His parents had split up and he got stuck with his mother for too long, and then his father got her to let Johnny live with him, Johnny still didn’t know how and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He’d been living with his father, who had been big and strong and smart and way cool, at least as cool as fathers could get. And then he was gone.

Johnny saw his classmates screwing around with booze or dope or huffing, or even just not doing their homework. Why did they bother with school, if they weren’t going to do the work? Admittedly all too often boring to the point of inducing narcolepsy, nevertheless the work would pay off with a high school diploma in the end, and that diploma got you into places like trade school or college or even just a job. Not having one kept you out.

The fact that he planned on taking the GED when he was sixteen and getting an early out of high school so he could apprentice with Kate Shugak didn’t detract from this opinion.

He looked at Vanessa. There was one thing he would be sorry to leave behind with high school. In addition to her other virtues, Vanessa was kinda cute, too, with that dark hair and those big dark eyes looking gravely out at the world. His hand was still beneath her chin. On impulse he leaned forward and kissed her.

He never would have done it if he’d thought about it, and then it was too late. Her lips were soft and cool beneath his. It felt good, it even felt wonderful, but in spite of prolonged study of the tongue scene in
Top Gun,
he didn’t really know what to do next and he wasn’t sure he was ready for next anyway, so he pulled back and looked at her. “Are we okay?”

“I guess so,” she said slowly. A lovely wild rose of a blush colored her face. She touched her mouth with tentative fingers.

He’d thought he was in love with Kate, but in his heart of hearts he’d always known that Kate was unattainable, a goddess who would always be out of his reach. Vanessa was here and now. He wanted to kiss her again and see what happened, but they had come there on business. He reminded himself of that, several times, and cleared his throat. “Okay. Let’s look around and see what we can see.”

She followed him to the remainder of Len Dreyer’s cabin. “What are we looking for?”

He said, and hoped it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, “Clues. Something that will give us a lead on who killed Len Dreyer.”

“I thought you said his name was really Leon Duffy.”

“I did. It was. But everyone in the Park knew him by Dreyer, so let’s stick with that.”

“Hasn’t Kate already been here? And her boyfriend, that trooper guy?”

“He’s not her boyfriend,” he said curtly. Kate might not be destined for him, but that didn’t mean she was destined for Chopper Jim Chopin, either.

“Oh. I thought—well, the way they acted that morning at your place and all. I thought they were, well, you know.”

“Well, they aren’t.”

“Oh.”

He bent over to pull at a piece of what might once have been a two-by-four. “Sometimes people just kiss. Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything.”

There was a brief silence. “You mean like when we just kissed?” she said. “Did that mean anything?”

He straightened right up and looked at her. She looked as grave as ever, but he could see the hurt in her eyes. “It meant something.”

“What?”

Sometimes honesty and directness were overrated. “I don’t know,” he said testily, “it’s the first time I ever kissed anybody.”

“Oh.” Her voice was much softer this time. “Me, too.”

He dared to look at her again. “You didn’t mind, did you?”

She shook her head. Her hair fell across her face so he couldn’t see her expression.

He summoned up all the Achillean courage it takes for a fourteen-year-old boy to admit his interest to a specific girl, and to her face at that. “I liked it.”

She was motionless, her hair still hiding her face.

Somewhere between bold and desperate, he said, “Could we, you know, do it again sometime?”

She looked at him then. The blush was back. “Yes,” she said, and smiled.

He felt a wave of relief, quickly followed by a wave of anticipation, as quickly succeeded by another wave of apprehension. His tongue felt suddenly too large for his mouth and his feet too heavy for his ankles. The sun, already brighter, took on a particularly golden hue, the sky seemed bluer, and birdsong sounded especially harmonious. Except for the magpies. A bunch of them, quiet until Johnny and Vanessa had proven themselves no threat, were yak-yakking and chittering and squalling off in the brush. “God, they’re noisy,” he said, mostly as a way to lift a silence that seemed to suddenly weigh a ton.

“Yeah,” she said. She stooped to pick up a warped saucepan blackened by fire and knocked it free of ash. “I didn’t like him.”

“Who?”

“Len Dreyer.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t remember him,” he said, surprised.

She was silent for a moment. “He did some work out on the place for Uncle Virgil, like I told you,” she said finally, “with one of those machines with a claw on the back of it.”

“A backhoe?”

“That’s it. He was breaking sod to make the garden bigger. It was big enough already, I thought, especially since I have to weed it.”

“You do?”

She nodded. “And it’s like an acre.”

“With vegetables, I bet.”

She nodded again.

“That you have to eat later?”

“Yeah.”

“That totally bites.”

“No kidding. And then later that summer he and Dandy Mike came out to build a greenhouse for Uncle Virgil. Anyway, I didn’t like him.”

“Why not?”

Another magpie flew overhead in a flash of ink blue and white, and there was a temporary increase in caw-cawing volume.

“He looked at me funny.”

Johnny was looking at a shard of mirror, the mercury almost all gone. This looked too much like Kate’s cabin for comfort. Then Vanessa’s words registered. He dropped the sliver of glass. “What?” he said.

She shrugged, uncomfortable. “He looked at me funny. And he touched me.”

“What do you mean, touched you?” Johnny heard his voice getting louder, saw her flinch, and made a conscious effort to lower it. “Vanessa, Len Dreyer didn’t do anything to hurt you, did he?”

“No.” But she avoided his eyes.

The rage surprised him with its immediacy and strength. “Vanessa?”

“He wanted to,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “One time when we were out in the garden alone, he offered to teach me how to run the backhoe. He pulled me up in front of him on the seat. And while we were moving and my hands were on the controls, he, well, he touched me, or he tried to.” She made a vague motion toward her chest. “Here. And, you know. There.”

The rage was so strong it was making Johnny sick to his stomach. “Didn’t your uncle and aunt see?”

“There’s trees between the house and the garden. Besides, I don’t think Aunt Telma ever looks out a window. And Uncle Virgil was in his shop.”

“God, Vanessa, I’m so sorry,” he said. “What did you do?”

“I jumped off.”

“You jumped off? While the backhoe was still moving?” She nodded, and he fought to repress a smile. “Good for you. What did you do next? Did you tell your Uncle Virgil?”

She hesitated.

“You didn’t tell him? Vanessa, why not?”

“I just—I didn’t want to talk about it. It was so—ugly. And I don’t talk to them anyway, and they don’t talk to me. I just made sure I was never around when he was there. Uncle Virgil got mad when I skipped the weeding, but I didn’t care.”

“Vanessa,” Johnny said, his voice very stern—did he know it sounded very much like his father? —“you don’t understand. Guys like that, they do that kind of stuff all the time. I heard Dad and Kate talking about it once when they didn’t know I was listening. Those people, they’re sick and they can’t be cured, they can only be locked up. And they can only be locked up when somebody like you steps forward and makes a complaint.”

“He’s dead now, isn’t he?”

“Oh yeah, he’s dead, and whoever killed him tried to kill Kate.”

“And you,” she said in a very small voice.

“And me,” he said.

A couple of jays flew overhead, toward the noise the magpies were making. Moments later, a raven glided by, high and graceful. It lit in the topmost branch of a spruce tree and let loose with a series of caws and clicks. Soon after, another raven showed up, and then three more.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he said, still angry. He’d like to roast Len Dreyer over an open fire, but since Dreyer was dead and Vanessa was alive, she made a better target.

She swallowed. “I’d just got here. I didn’t want people to meet me and think, oh yeah, that’s the girl who got molested.”

A tear slid down her cheek, and it destroyed him. “Oh, hey,” he said, all anger gone. “I’m sorry, Vanessa, I’m so sorry.” He put his arms around her and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I was mad. I’m sorry you had to go through it, and I’m sorry you didn’t have anyone to tell. I wish Len Dreyer was alive so I could shoot him again.”

Her voice was muffled against his jacket. “It’s okay. I was mad, too. I still am.”

“Good. It’s good to be angry. And you did the right thing, running away. Smart. And he never caught you again.”

“No. Never came close.”

“Good. Good.” They stood together in silence.

The magpies were squabbling again, interspersed by the harsh call of the jays and the clicks and croaks of the raven. A high raptorial shriek pierced the air, silencing them all. A moment later, they started up again.

“What’s going on with those birds?” Johnny said. He pulled away from Vanessa and walked into the brush, following the bird sounds, which got louder and more frantic as she approached.

Vanessa stood where she was, a little forlorn. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and began to follow him, only to halt in her tracks when he came barreling out again, nearly trampling her in his haste. His eyes were wide and his face was white. “What?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Another body,” he said, breathing hard.

“What?” She didn’t understand. “What do you mean, another body?”

“Somebody else dead. Another man.”

“What? How?”

He swallowed convulsively. “The birds have been —the birds— he’s pretty messed up. But I think he died the same way Dreyer did. There’s a big hole in his chest.”

Her knees began to shake, and with an effort of will she steadied them. “Do you know who it is?”

He shook his head. “I think so, but like I said, the birds have been — ” He swallowed again.

She stared at him, her lips parting.

He took her hand and pulled. “Come on. We’ve got to find Kate. Or Jim.”

Four of the six-man construction crew was beavering away at the framing, while the other two were unloading more two-by-fours from the back of the flatbed truck that had followed the backhoe into the Park. As fast as they could unload it, the framers were able to keep up, and kept the unloaders hopping.