Crimes in Southern Indiana Read online

  “Why you doin’ that?” she asked.

  “Done told you we gotta quit each other.”

  “But you came like you have all summer.”

  Christi lived a mile up the road from the river, walking distance. Bishop and she held a childhood crush that went from flirting to an affair.

  “I came to fish, to tell you to quit callin’ the house, showin’ up unannounced. We’re first cousins. Let’s leave it at that.”

  On wobbly balance Christi dropped her fishing rod, forced her lips against Bishop’s ruggedly aged warmth. Then she took a breath and pleaded, “Don’t do this.” He was silent. She continued: “I’ll kill her for you. I will. No more Melinda. Just Christi and Bishop.”

  Her words pulsed a threat within Bishop’s forty-plus years of understanding right from wrong. If anyone ever found out about Christi and him, they’d be forsaken by their families, their community. He’d have to use something more than words to end it, because thus far they hadn’t sunk into her understanding.

  Bishop dropped his pole, exploded his catcher’s-mitt palms against Christi’s ears. She gulped a scream. His fingers spread into her thick hair of black edged with pine needles of gray. He kicked her balance from beneath her. Guided her under the current and straddled her chest. Christi’s legs splashed. Bishop’s hands swallowed her clawing hands, which had sorted mail from eight to five Monday through Friday at the post office for twenty years. Pinned them to her throat. Watched bubbles explode into lost breath beneath the cold water, telling himself he’d no other choice, she wouldn’t listen.

  He heard a vehicle barreling down the gravel road from the valley above. Christi’s fight slowed just as the sound of the vehicle did. That damn steering squeak rang familiar, but Bishop could not place it as it meshed with the uneven rhythm that thudded and pulsed within his head. The vehicle sounds disappeared. Bishop kept Christi pressed into the flat river rock with madness chewing through his bloodstream.

  A door slammed. But his hearing played tricks with the rushing sounds of his insides and the flowing river in which he sat, and he couldn’t place its direction. He heard boots kicking gravel, the snapping of weeds and twigs. He froze, glanced up along the bank, but couldn’t locate the source of these noises, nervousness maturing in his ears and the static sounds bouncing off the river’s surface.

  When the cold current had numbed his grip to an ache and she was passive, he stood with her body floating to the surface. Her pits caught on his damp shins. He saw no movement along the weeded valley road above. He must have imagined the noises. Dragged her to the riverbank. Pulled a tin of Miller High Life from the six-pack that lay along the river’s edge. Popped it open. Downed it, wondering what to do with her body.

  He smashed the beer tin and opened another. Took a long hard sip, closed his eyes, shook his head, and laughed. Feeling the sensation from taking a life climb through his veins.

  Standing over her, he couldn’t say she’d drowned, as he took in the cellophane gaze of her open eyes. The shock that filed down her chalk white cheekbones. The bruises already forming like ink smudges around her neck and wrists. The dampness of her flower-print dress with two shapes lying beneath like perfect snowballs. He told himself, “Beautiful even in death.”

  Bishop stood remembering how his father and he had fished this area since he could string a pole and bait a hook. Remembering all of the largemouth bass, hand-size bluegill, and channel cat they’d caught. He pulled a smoke that wasn’t wet from his shirt pocket. Along with a dry Ohio Blue Tip match. Knelt down, flicked a flame. Pulled a coal with his lungs while his eyes followed the current downstream. Exhaling the smoke, it came to him like a vision from his Maker: a pit so deep that even darkness was lost, an unmarked grave for Christi.

  He walked up the dirt trail of boot prints that separated the wilted weeds littered with fish bones and rusted beer tins to the gravel of the road where he’d parked his rusted Chevy. He looked down the valley in both directions, saw no hint of a vehicle parked along either side. Started to walk down a ways but stopped. He’d no time to waste.

  He opened his truck door, pulled the burlap sacks from behind the truck’s seat that he used for keeping the coons, rabbits, or squirrels he shot during hunting season. Grabbed the rusted log chain. Pulled a pair of pliers from the glove box. A length of barbed wire from the floorboard. He looked up and down the road once more, stood silently. A breeze scratched his face, knocked a few loose limbs to the ground from the surrounding trees with leaves turning the shade of pumpkins while his heart punched his eardrums. No one around but him. Back down along the riverbank he filled the burlap sacks with flat flint and limestone. Tied them shut. Forced them beneath Christi’s damp dress. Remembering how her skin smelled of apple cider. He coiled the wire around her frame, thinking of the way her shapes bounced and rubbed against his chest in the front seat of his truck, and twisted it tight to her flour-tinted pigment with pliers. The barbs broke her skin open, formed tiny rivers of red, coating her beauty. He reinforced the weight with the rusted log chain he wrapped around her, connecting the hooked ends into each other. He dragged her stiff frame downstream like a small johnboat until he got to the fishing hole from his youth, where Bishop remembered his father telling him, as they stood knee-deep staring into the dark green hole that melded into black, that if someone ever wanted to hide something, this would be the place.

  He wiped the wet that sprouted from his forehead, looked at her locks of hair spreading with the sound of the river rushing her dress up her thighs, which he’d run his hands up just yesterday while she unbuckled his belt, their mouths meeting, and he blinked, but her dead eyes did not, they stabbed through him. Tightened around his heart with all of their memories together. When he died, he thought, he’d be judged for what he’d done. And when that time came he’d say, “I felt I’d no other choice.” He hoped he’d be forgiven.

  He pushed her into the thick blackness. Dived in, guiding her sinking body, the cold water lockjawing his bones, burning his bends and pivots. All the way to the bottom, where his hands felt, pushed, and tucked her away beneath a smooth cliff of river rock. A space made for a human outline. With eyes closed he pushed her body until he felt rock meet his shoulders and face, both arms extended into the unknown void.

  He surfaced with his mind aching for air, lungs tight and fast expanding. Feeling as though he were breathing through a tractor’s brake line.

  Bishop sat on the bank of river sand and scattered flint, clothes dripping in the evening sun. His teeth chattering. Telling himself he had to protect his family from being shamed by his wrongs.

  Somewhere up on the road he heard the slamming of a vehicle’s door. And the faint cranking of an engine disappearing down the distance of the valley.

  Food steamed on the hickory-grained table. Bishop was out of the river stink of his wet clothes, fresh from the shower, spooning baked cabbage. Grabbing a buttered ear of corn. Then forking two fried pork chops onto his plate, wondering if his wife, Melinda, was waiting for him to confess his sins. What he’d been doing all summer after working at the furniture factory. What he’d ended today. The body he’d hidden on the river bottom.

  “Run into Fenton while you was wade fishin’?”

  “No, why would I?”

  Melinda stood next to the stove, twisted the burner knob, and ignited the blue gas flame. Knelt down with a Lucky Strike between her lips and inhaled. Her hazel eyes looked into Bishop’s blue ones. He thought maybe she could see the dead female’s soul floating within the glare of his sight.

  “He’s supposed to go fishin’ this evening down on Blue River.”

  “Didn’t see sight nor hair one, ain’t no tellin’ where that boy went fishin’. If he even went. Probably out drinkin’ with that Beckhart boy again.”

  “You’re one to talk, you been drinkin’ again.”

  “So I had me a few, I’m forty-four, not twenty and breakin’ laws.”

  “It’s the third time this week, use
d to be on the weekend.”

  “Why don’t you worry about that boy and where he’s at? I ain’t bailin’ his ass out of jail again.”

  “He should be home anytime, ain’t like he’d miss a meal his mother cooked.”

  As she spoke, they heard their son’s truck pull up outside, the wheels skidding, the steering squeak as he pulled to a stop.

  The screen door opened and slammed. Fenton stomped into the kitchen with his rusted brown layers of hair peeled back over his head. A face like Bishop’s when he was younger. Sanded to a smooth pale-wood finish. Only Bishop’s now bore the age of untreated graying lumber; sanding it would only make it age quicker.

  “Told you he’d not miss his mother’s cookin’.”

  But her words were lost as Bishop’s fork rattled against the ceramic of his plate and his chair scooted backwards, making the wooden leg bottoms scream across the linoleum as he fake-coughed and barreled to the front door. He was up in Fenton’s face, straight-eyeing him, twitching with anger. The madness Bishop had discovered at the Blue River grew into a swarm of bees being disrupted from nurturing their nest of honey. “Where you been, boy?” Bishop growled.

  Silence, then: “Drivin’.”

  “Out with that Beckhart boy again, don’t you work no more?”

  Fenton shuffle-danced around his father, insolently staring back into Bishop’s eyes, and his boots trailed mud across the scuffed linoleum to the sink. Melinda shook her head. Fenton turned on the water and began lathering the bar of soap in his quaking hands. He’d watched his father wring many a chicken’s neck, shoot rabbit and squirrel. Divide their white bellies with a blade in one hand while the fingers of his other hooked and ripped out their purple and opal guts. He’d done the same with bass and bluegill. Forms of life taken to place meat in the freezer or on the table. He crimped his eyes shut, knowing he’d never seen his father take the life of a person until today. And driving the back roads of the county for the past hour, he tried to make sense of what his eyes had watched his father do, murder Christi.

  Between the Formica counter and the pearl fridge, Fenton said, “I was off from baggin’ groceries today. So I went drivin’ around the county.”

  Bishop spoke before he thought and asked, “Where at around the county?”

  Fenton hung the towel back on its hanger, imagining how cold that water must have been, blanketing those forty-year-old bones. Watching from the dying weeds had stiffened his own into a totem pole of panic. He turned and stared at this man he’d called “Father” for twenty years, wondering what drove him to kill his own. A disagreement? Money? He couldn’t see that, he’d never witnessed a cross word between them. Always laughing and cutting up. Christi was the only female he knew that drank beer, fished, and even went hunting.

  At that moment Fenton told Bishop, “I’s down around Blue River, stopped to see you—”

  And Bishop saw it in Fenton’s eyes, fear of what he’d seen his father do, and he raised his voice and said, “Around Blue River? Been out drinkin’ and drivin’ again, ain’t you?”

  Melinda stood blank, paralyzed by the tension in the air, closing in and suffocating each of them, and she demanded, “Fenton, you gonna answer your father?”

  Not believing the reaction from his mother and father, Fenton stood confused by his own name. His lips formed an expression as though he’d eaten a spoiled piece of fruit that had rotted his insides. And Fenton tried to finish, said, “I seen you down in Blue River dragging…”

  Stepping closer to Fenton, Bishop focused on the bottle of Early Times behind him on the counter, cut him off again, louder, with “Boy, you are sick, comin’ in here liquored up ’fore the sun has even set, ain’t learned your lesson yet, have you.”

  Fenton tried to speak again. “I seen what you did…”

  Hard and rough as droughty earth, Bishop’s palm drew blood from Fenton’s mouth. Bishop pinned Fenton against the counter. Ashes and tobacco dispersed as Melinda dropped her remaining cigarette to the linoleum. Bishop reached over behind Fenton to the counter. Grabbed the Early Times. Pushed it to Fenton’s face.

  “You seen what I did, been nice if you’d helped me.”

  Melinda shrieked, “Seen what? What’d you see, Fenton?”

  “Seen his father bust his ass is what, damn catfish jerked my ass off balance. Near busted my head open. I tole you why I’s piss-and-pour wet when I come home. ’Course our boy here was too busy nippin’ the bottle to come help his old man.”

  Bishop inhaled the air from Fenton’s busted lip, smirked, and said, “I can smell it on you strong as fresh-spread manure on a field.”

  And he could. Fenton had tossed down a few skunk beers he’d hidden beneath his seat, trying to calm his nerves after what he’d witnessed his father do. And quick as a copperhead’s fangs delivering venom to its prey, Bishop balled his left hand into Fenton’s T-shirt. Swung him around in a broken circle and into the kitchen table, which scooted across the linoleum along with steaming food and plates. Melinda screamed, “No! Stop!” Fenton came quickly from the table. Met Bishop’s backhand. Fear pushed him out the screen door. Blood warm like bacon grease dripped from his nose. He stepped to the gravel-mortared surface of the sidewalk. Barefooted, Bishop followed behind, cursing, “Run, you spineless son of a bitch, run.”

  How much had his lazy useless drunk of a son seen, heard?

  Bishop twisted the lid from the bottle of bourbon. With a Walker hound’s bite he clamped down on Fenton’s shoulder, spun him around.

  “You wanna drink, then have at it.”

  Bishop flung bourbon into Fenton’s bloodied face, stinging his nose and lips.

  From the kitchen, Melinda yelled, “Stop!” Bishop raised his voice, told her, “Stay out of it.”

  The madness from the Blue River ripped through Bishop’s body. He punched Fenton off the sidewalk. In his mind Fenton was no longer his kin, he was like Christi, a threat to his everyday existence. He’d remove his tongue or even kill him if that’s what it took.

  Bishop clamped his left hand onto Fenton’s throat. Slammed him against an elm tree within the yard. Fenton’s face boiled red. Air punched up from his lungs, rushed from his broken lips.

  Bishop turned the bottle upside down with his right, parted Fenton’s lips with his left, emptied the bourbon down Fenton’s blinking eyes and spitting mouth.

  “Like that, boy? Wanna drink, come home disrespecting me, get your mother all upset. I’ll teach you.”

  “Stop, you bastard.”

  Bishop dropped the bottle. Pulled his Case XX knife from his pocket. Thumbed the single blade, which had skinned and gutted many a coon, squirrel, and rabbit.

  “Say ahhh, boy!”

  Fenton’s hands channel-locked around Bishop’s soup-bone wrist while he glanced down at the ground. He saw Bishop’s bare feet and he stomped.

  Bishop cursed, “Bastard.” Dropped the knife. Stepped backwards, lifting his feet as if standing on molten lead. Fenton followed him like a pig wallowing in shit. Stomping his feet. Drove a fist underneath Bishop’s jaw. Teeth gritted and chipped down onto tongue. Bishop spat blood thicker than brown gravy. Fenton grabbed the empty bottle of Early Times. Exploded it across Bishop’s face. Dropped him to the ground. Where he hunched on all fours, shaking his head and spitting blood.

  Confusion and anger pumped Fenton’s heart. He raised his boot into Bishop’s ribs. Watched the red spit from his mouth. Fenton thought of the truck he’d parked down from the Blue River at the old barn used by Rudy Sawheaver for sheltering his hay. Then he’d walked down to surprise his father but instead he got the surprise. Seeing Bishop knee-deep in the green river, the surfaced body between his father’s legs.

  Hidden by the dying weeds, Fenton watched Bishop drag the body to the riverbank. Taking in glimpses of the pale female’s flesh, the flower-print dress, drenched locks the color of soot that clung to her face. His vision blinked and pieced together glimpses of their cousin Christi.

  Fenton kept dr
iving his boot into Bishop’s ribs. The veins in the side of Bishop’s neck grew as thick as earthworms discovered beneath rotted wood. He raised a hand to his throat. His face swarmed into a fire barrel of red. He heaved and gasped. Fenton remembered Bishop dragging Christi’s body down the river current until he lost sight of him. Fenton stood within those weeds frozen by panic.

  Bishop twisted his graying madness up at Fenton, who’d raised his knee. He drove his boot down into Bishop’s face, dropped down and knelt beside him, put his mouth to his father’s ear and said, “You tell me the truth of why you murdered Christi, tell me.”

  Bishop’s outline was granulated rock, spread out facedown without movement. Blood drew a puddle around the shape of his skull onto the earth. Fenton touched his father’s neck, got a pulse but no answers.

  From behind him the wooden screen door slammed. A hard thud met the rear of Fenton’s skull. Vibrated a black pain throughout. Taking away his sight and kneeling posture. Dropped him to the earth beside his father. It was the butt of a .12-gauge held by his mother, Melinda, who stood questioning what her only child had done.

  “It’s been over a week and that cousin of your father’s is still missin’.”

  “She’s in Blue River somewhere, you’d not even known she was missin’ I hadn’t told you.”

  “Boy, we drug that river for two miles up one direction and two miles down the other. Through every bend and split they is. Ain’t found shit.”

  “I watched my father load her body with rock, wrap her with a log chain, and drag her down the river.”

  “I don’t buy that, them two never held a cross sentence to one another. If anyone killed you-all’s cousin I believe it was you.”

  “Why would I kill her?

  “Got me. Lust, money. Maybe she seen you do something you wasn’t supposed to be doin’.”

  “Like what?”

  “Guess we’ll never know ’cause she ain’t nowhere to ask. All I know is when we brought you in, you was whiskey-soaked belligerence. Deputies found some empty beer cans on your truck’s floor. Pack of smokes under the seat, same brand we found down along the riverbank.”