"Quit fucking around, Walter. She won't be warm long. Just throw some dirt on her."
He got up and walked over to the shovel.
"I'm gonna need your help with Orson," I said.
Walter threw several scoops of dirt on top of Mary. Then he tossed the shovel onto the pine straw forest floor, and we walked back towards the highway. As we neared the trunk, I dug for the cold keys in my pockets, wishing the latex gloves were warm in addition to their flexibility. I unlocked the trunk and opened it once more. Orson lay motionless in the same position his late wife had left him. We laid him out in the grass. As Walter closed the trunk, I knelt down and dug two fingers into Orson's neck and waited.
"He's got a pulse," I said. "He's probably in a coma. Take his legs."
There was an overwhelming sense of relief when we dropped Orson on top of his wife. Even as Walter reached for the shovel, I unloaded the eight remaining rounds into Orson's chest, thinking of the hell he'd created for me. There was no place for sadness as I ended my brother's life. He'd killed our mother; he'd tortured and killed others. How could I not feel a tinge of joy as his body shook at the impact of each hollow point tearing through him?
We packed the dirt, stomping on it and smacking it with the head of the shovel. When the ground was level again, we gathered handfuls of dry pine needles and covered the bare dirt.
As we walked away, back through the trees, I marveled at how we'd left no trace of the hole, or the people beginning to freeze just inches beneath the surface. We neared the highway, and I could no longer see that small space between the pines, the gravesite of my brother. It was all smooth, pine needle forest floor now, and even if someday I wanted to see this place again, I doubted if I could ever find it.
We loaded the shovel and flashlight into the trunk and had climbed back into the Cadillac when I noticed headlights in the distance. I sat in the driver's seat and had put the keys into the ignition when the car rushed by. My head turned, and aided by the enormous moon, I saw that the brown vehicle was a police car. It continued on for several hundred yards, but then brake lights exploded through the darkness, and the car turned around in the empty road.
"You gotta be kidding me," Walter said, as he looked back. "You don't think he saw us?"
My heart raced as the police car sped back towards us and then pulled slowly onto the shoulder. Its lights began blinking, and its siren rang out for a split second, then silence.
"I'll talk," I said. "We're lost--get the map out--trying to find a place to stop for the night." I turned on the interior lights as Walter fumbled around for the map. "Hurry up. He doesn't need to see you looking through the glove compartment." In the rearview mirror, I watched the police car come to a stop several yards behind the Cadillac. The officer remained inside for a moment, and I assumed he was running our license plate through a computer.
"Your gun," Walter said. "You should've put it in the trunk with mine."
As the officer stepped casually out of his car, I dug through my fanny pack for the second clip. I found it, released the empty magazine, and popped the new one into the Glock. I chambered the first round and shoved the gun between the seats.
"What are you doing?" Walter whispered.
I could hear the officer's footsteps in the grass, and in the mirror I watched him approaching cautiously, his hand on his holstered weapon.
"I'm not going to prison," I whispered. "Look at the map, he's here."
There was a soft tapping on the window. I took a deep breath and turned with a smile to face the officer. I pushed the button to lower the window but nothing happened.
"Just a moment," I said, chagrined. The officer's brow wrinkled as I turned the key back. Then I lowered the window and frigid air slipped into the car. "What can I do for you, officer?" I asked, looking into his chiseled, emotionless face. He couldn't have been over thirty. He wore a tight-fitting jacket over his uniform and a toboggan reached down and covered his ears.
"You folks having car trouble?" he asked. He lifted his flashlight and inspected the front and then the backseat, awaiting my reply. I was so thankful we'd put the shovel in the trunk.
"No, sir. Just a little map trouble." Walter made a rustling noise to draw attention to the large map of Vermont spread across his lap.
"Why you parked so far off the road? Trying to avoid being seen?"
"No, sir," I said. "Just trying to avoid getting hit."
The officer nodded but pursed his lips as if he believed otherwise. "I need to see your license and registration," he said.
"No problem. Walter, get your registration for the man," I said, reaching into a pocket for my wallet. "It's his car," I said with a nervous laugh. "I'm on driving duty now."
The man's face didn't even register that he'd heard me. I pulled out my wallet, and as I slid my driver's license from the clear, plastic panel, I realized I still wore the latex gloves. I pretended I was having trouble getting my license out and made a weak attempt to pull a glove off. It wouldn't budge. Sweat had cemented my skin to the rubber.
Walter laid the registration in my lap, and I took it and my driver's license and handed it to the officer, quickly withdrawing my hand the moment he had the papers within his grasp.
"Wait here," he said, and he walked back to his patrol car and climbed inside.
"He suspects something," Walter said. "He asked why we were parked so far off..."
"And I told him why we were parked here." I rolled up the window. "There's no way he suspects what we've actually done. No one would."
"What if he wants to search the car?"
"A very respectful, Bill of Rights-oriented, no fucking way."
"We'd get the chair for this," Walter said, after a moment.
"That really helps." I remembered my gloves again. The officer stepped out of his car and shut the door, so I pulled like hell and squeezed out of them. I put them under my seat and rolled the window back down.
"Your gloves were on?" Walter was incredulous.
The officer returned and handed back my license and registration. "Where you folks coming from?" he asked as I returned my license to my wallet.
"Bristol," I said. "Just up the road."
"I know where it is."
"We came up here for the week to see the countryside, and now we're trying to find Middlebury." I'm talking too much, I thought.
"Oh." The officer smiled. "Well, just get back on the highway and head that way." He pointed down the road. "It'll take you right through downtown. Not more than five miles away."
"Fantastic," I said. "You've been a great help."
"You folks have a safe night," he said. Then he turned and walked away.
We waited as the officer climbed into his patrol car and drove away, back towards Middlebury. It seemed his red taillights were visible for miles as they dwindled away down the lonely highway. The relief was indescribable. I could see it in Walter's face, too. But we said nothing. Tired, hungry, and tense, we were beyond verbal expression, the air between us so thick with reality, we didn't disturb it with words.
We sat in the dark for several minutes after the police car was gone, staring down the road, into the woods, into nothing. The moon continued to rise above the mountains, and it had just reached into our shadows when I started the car and drove back towards the inn.
# # #
The sun crept up over the Atlantic, its rays gliding gently across the water, into the coast, and over the Green Mountains. They warmed the window near my bed, brightened the room, and turned the morning sky from black into royal blue. I burrowed deeper beneath the quilts, shielding my eyes from the new, morning light. With the blankets over my head, I shut out the sun and slept until I woke from restfulness alone, not the piercing rays which showered in between the curtains.