KAREN
ONE WEEK LATER
I’ve been to more funerals in my life than I can count on both hands. That’s age. Funerals come with the territory. Though I saw a share of those when I was still young. My parents. My husband. My daughter.
They say that, as you grow older, you grow numb to loss. I think you get numb to the idea that you are standing in line, and some people are picked out sooner than others. “It’s time” is a more relevant expression when you are in your seventies than when you are in your twenties.
Yet, this funeral is unusual. Only a handful of us are gathered here, the ones who are part of this story. The story is dark.
The sky is clearing up as we stand at the cemetery and watch the casket being lowered into the grave. It started drizzling a minute ago, then stopped suddenly, as if the weather decided to grieve but then changed its mind.
There was no service. No speeches. The casket is a simple brown one. No one claimed the body, so the state is paying for the funeral. The body stays here, in Burnville. The irony, huh?
There’s no headstone and might never be. But a handful of us will never forget the name.
James Derek Sickler.
My twenty-five-year nightmare fits in this one shabby casket. Life is, indeed, strange.
Derek’s body was found in the creek not far from the Blains’ farm. I know that’s Donna’s doing. And she couldn’t have done it without help.
Steve stands behind me, and as they start shoveling soil onto the casket, his duty belt makes a clicking sound as he moves closer to me and puts his hand on my shoulder.
There’s a mutual agreement that Derek deserved being tossed around this town like the scoundrel he was.
Birdie? When Josie told me Birdie’s story, what really happened decades ago, my hair stood on end.
Some of the quietest people hold the biggest secrets.
Hers were evil. There’s no proof she killed my Alysha, Dougie, Sarah Holes, or even Derek, though his DNA was found in her trunk as well as in the freezer at her farm.
Mallory Blain will forever go down in this town’s history as a serial killer.
I look at Josie staring at the casket, and my heart clenches. She’s trying to be so strong, but I see tears in her eyes. She’s sad she never got to know her father. I’m glad she didn’t. We are looking at this from different experiences. That’s life.
There is only one bouquet of flowers by the grave. Only one line on the accompanying card: From your children.
And that’s another story.
Two weeks ago, when the chief and Donna stopped at my place, the chief broke the news that the DNA found in Derek’s place was a paternal match with Josie’s.
It also got a match in the system from a criminal record in Florida.
Rika’s. I couldn’t believe it. Sure, things happen.
Sure, Victoria moved out right when I went to jail.
She had a boyfriend right away in college, married him within a few months, and gave birth to Rika.
Who would’ve thought that Rika wasn’t his?
It turned out, Rika knew all about it. She’d done a DNA test for her father as a present a couple of years ago, and it didn’t match hers. Smart girl. She told Donna, of course.
As if sensing my thoughts, Donna steps closer. “How are you, K?”
“Fantastic,” I say, and both she and the chief snort, silently chuckling.
The man soon to be six feet under is the father of our beautiful granddaughters. I’m willing to show some respect. At least enough not to spit on his grave.
Officer Miles walks up to us. “Good time to talk about the case?”
“There won’t be a better time,” Donna says and cheers him with the tumbler of spiced rum in her hand.
This investigation is far from over.
“So, they did the autopsy, right?” the officer says.
“Derek’s body was frozen for some time. There’s no way to tell when he died.
He had severe blunt-force trauma. He was hit with something that broke his bones.
Possibly a car. He didn’t die from the impact, though.
He was stabbed to death while he was still alive. ”
“She is a psycho,” I say, meaning Mallory Blain.
“Definitely,” Donna confirms.
“His body was found in the creek, at Mallory’s property. That’s what bothers me.”
“You’d think the psycho would’ve hidden it better, huh?” Donna asks.
“Right?” The officer glances at the chief, who only squeezes my shoulder. “In plain sight. I don’t get it.” He shifts his eyes from me to Donna, then back to me. “But his DNA is all over Mallory Blain’s car and the freezer.”
“Right.” I shake my head.
“Unbelievable,” Donna agrees and takes a loud slurp from her tumbler, then lights a cigarette. Ain’t no party like a funeral.
I stare at the grave that’s already filled up with dirt. I’m acutely aware of Steve’s hand on my shoulder. It feels protective. Always has.
“Anyway, that’s all for now,” the officer says.
“Any update on the bullets that killed Mallory?”
He shakes his head in disappointment.
That’s the question we are all left with. I didn’t ask Donna about Derek’s body or if Steve was involved. For the first time, I didn’t control how things played out.
The two shots that killed Mallory Blain before she had a chance to shoot Josie though? It wasn’t any of the officers at the farm. Not Donna, who was among them. No one was near Birdie and Josie when the shots were fired. No gun was found. No gun residue on Josie’s hands—of course, they checked.
A mystery, really.
Someone saved Josie’s life and ended the psycho. I’m not going to dwell on it.
Josie walks up, limping, her left foot in a cast. “Any updates?” she asks the officer, and he shakes his head.
All of us are silent for a moment, the only sound is the soil being shoveled to close the grave. Somehow, the sound is comforting. It’s closure, no pun intended.
“How are you feeling, Grams?” Josie asks. If people don’t stop asking me this, I will start carrying a banner that says I AM FINE!
“Peachy,” I reply. “Did you talk to Rika yet?”
Josie glances at me, then Donna. “No, not yet.”
I’ve been in the hospital for a week. They wouldn’t let me go. Trust me, I tried to escape. Even tried to talk Donna into helping me get away from there.
“I ain’t your accomplice, K. Not in this one.” She laughed. “If anything, I’ll barricade the door or sleep on the floor, blocking it.”
So I stuck it out. But yesterday, they finally released me, so I had a talk with Josie. About the DNA. Hers. Rika’s.
She cried. She talked. She smiled. She cried more. She sat with me on the couch and looked through the old pictures of Alysha and Victoria. She asked questions about them, more than she’d ever done before, and I answered all of them. Good, bad—it’s all in our kids.
And then Josie brought her guitar and played for me. That’s when I cried. Old age does that, gets us soft in the heart.
“You should go talk to Rika,” Donna says, waving her away. “Go. Nothing for you here anymore. Your grandmother and I are doing a Sacred Burn tonight, then dinner, all of us. But this mope-fest”—she nods at the grave—“is over.”
Josie chuckles, limps off toward Rika, and the two of them walk toward the parked cars as Donna and I watch them.
“Rika tells me Josie is quite a star,” Donna says.
I nod. “That she is. Needs a kick in the butt now and then. But she’ll be fine.”
“Am I not invited to dinner?” the chief asks.
“You are always invited,” I say. “Stop by.”
“How is your back?” Donna asks him.
“It’s all right.”
I give him a suspicious glance over my shoulder. “What happened to your back?”
“Old bones, old moans.” He winks at me, then exchanges looks with Donna.
I bet.
“Got a good remedy for that.” Donna toasts at him in the air with her tumbler. “You come to dinner, Chief. And bring that homemade brew you make. Haven’t had that in…decades.”
We all smile.
I realize I’m looking forward to the dinner. Like the good old days.