Anna and her half-brother Rudy watched as their neighbor Paulie lifted Shadow’s stiff body and laid it in the deep-sided garden cart. Paulie was big for his age, stronger than both of them put together, so he offered to do the heavy lifting while his two friends mourned their pet.
“Let’s bury him down by the creek,” Anna said. “Shadow always liked to splash around there and bring back the sticks we’d throw ‘im.”
“Nah, it’s too muddy. My dad’ll tan me if I track in any more dirt.” Paulie’s father was an Iraq vet who suffered from PTSD, and you never knew when he’d change from nice dad to mad dad. “Let’s dig his grave up here on the hill. It’s close enough, and dry. You can still hear the creek and feel the cool air comin’ up from the water.”
“Yeah, and we won’t have to carry him so far. This puppy musta weighed a hunnert pounds on an empty stomach.” Rudy always looked for the easy way out. He just turned thirteen, a year older than his half-sister, but leaned toward the slow side.
“That don’t matter,” she said. “Just roll him onto this sheet and wrap him up good and tight. We can wheel him over to where we’re gonna dig the hole. Let’s all grab a shovel and get to work.”
They all had homework to do, so they didn’t have a lot of time to argue about finding the perfect gravesite if they were to get home before dark. They quickly agreed on a fine spot, around ten yards from the creek with a nice view. Paulie marked off a large triangle with shovel cuts in the dirt, and they all started digging. Each took a corner and worked toward the middle. The dirt was loose and loamy, easy to dig, except they kept hitting lots of rounded sandstone rocks. They set a few stones aside to mark Shadow’s grave after they got him in the ground.
“How deep should we go down?” Rudy asked.
“Deep enough so no critter can smell ‘im and dig ‘im up,” Paulie said. He was twelve, too, almost thirteen, and knew a lot about animals and nature. “I reckon halfway up your shovel’s handle. What do you think, Anna?”
“Yeah, you’re right. A human grave is s’posed to be six feet deep, so around three should be fine for a dog.”
They’d dug as deep down as they wanted to when Paulie lifted what appeared to be a piece of greyish bone. “Well, I’ll be. Looks like this ain’t the first dog buried in this spot.” He gently lowered his shovel beneath the bone and lifted again. The spade held the rest of a small human skull with the piece missing that he’d just pulled out. Paulie dropped his shovel and jumped back so fast he landed on his rump behind the hole.
“Holy sweet Jesus,” Rudy said. “It’s a kid’s head. Or what’s left of it. What are we s’posed to do now?”
“Just calm down,” Anna said. “So, there’s already a grave here. Let’s don’t mess up the rest of the bones. We can make the hole a little wider, enough to fit Shadow without layin’ him on top of what’s already down there.”
Paulie recovered and stood up. “Are you kidding? We’ve gotta call the cops and report a body, or what’s left of one.”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “But first, let’s see if it’s a whole set of bones or if somebody chopped up whoever this was. Then we can bury Shadow in the hole, put the bones in the cart, and take ‘em to the police station. Maybe they’ll give us a reward for findin’ ‘em.”
“I don’t think so. I like my plan better,” Paulie said. “Besides, we have to get Shadow buried. He’s already gettin’ stinky, and he’s only gonna get worse. I don’t feel like diggin’ much more, either. Let’s just make the hole a little wider, lay him in it, and cover it up. Then you can tell Daddy Jack what we found when he gets home tonight. He’ll know what to do.”
Rudy stood and watched as Anna’s stepfather cut her tale short, right after she said, “I was down by the creek with Paulie and…”
“How many times do I have to tell you, stop hanging around with those boys? You can be one of their gang for only so long, Anna. They’re getting to the age where they have just one thing on their minds, and there you are, short shorts, pretty face, and tits ready to sprout, putting temptation right in their reach.”
“We was just buryin’ Shadow down by the creek, and we found somethin’.” She lowered her head. “I don’t even know how to tempt anybody, Daddy Jack.”
“I don’t care what you were just doing. Go to your room until your mom gets home from work. And if I catch you again doing something we told you not to do, you’ll be one sorry young lady. Give me your phone, too. No crying to your friends about your mean stepfather.”
Anna yanked her iPhone from her pocket, handed it to him, and slunk off to her room. Rudy started to say something to her, but changed his mind and just stood there with his mouth open.
“What’re you looking at, dumbass?” Daddy Jack shouted to him as he stomped out the door and sat on the steps, fuming.
Paulie’s father, named Finley, but everyone called him Finn, had stared at the children from his kitchen window as they dug a hole and buried Anna’s mutt. They looked a little confused, starting, stopping, seeming to argue and, finally, they finished and climbed back up the hill, pulling the empty cart.
Finn worried about Paulie a lot. His wife, Paulie’s mom, deserted him and their son two years ago and took their three-year-old daughter with her. She’d had it up to here with Finn’s mood swings and his nightmares. He’d go back to therapy every time she threatened to leave, then slack off when times got better. But she never helped make his problems any easier to deal with. And now Finn had to raise up a boy into a man, and doing it alone scared the crap out of him. But—big but—the lone responsibility also kept him on track most of the time, having to deal with Paulie’s needs more than thinking about his own dark thoughts and feelings. He slipped back into his fears and anger only once in a long while now, and when that happened, Paulie went off and kept to himself until Finn calmed down.
The next day, Friday, Anna, Rudy, and Paulie met in the cafeteria at school, in a far corner, where they could talk privately over lunch. Anna told Paulie that her stepfather wasn’t interested in what she had to say about the bones, but she didn’t tell him why.
“I thought about it a lot last night,” Anna said, “and I decided we should go see Reverend Banks, tell him what we found, and ask him what to do. We don’t know if a crime was committed, and if we go to the sheriff, he might get mad at us for wasting his time. But if the reverend goes to see him, that’s another thing.”
“You always want to be the boss of us, Anna,” Rudy said. “Who died and put you in charge?”
“Chill, Rudy,” Paulie said. “You got any better ideas? Besides, she’s right. Banks coaches our church’s basketball team and we practice tomorrow morning. I’ll ask him can he meet us afterwards, and y’all show up around 11. Good to go?” He slapped his right hand on the table, palm down. Rudy frowned and put his hand over Paulie’s, and Anna, all smiles, laid hers on top of the pile.
“You tell it, Anna,” Paulie said as the three kids sat in Reverend Banks’ office after the practice session.
She related the story of what they’d found while burying Shadow. Banks asked a lot of questions about what they did afterward and who they’d told.
“We didn’t tell nobody because we were afraid to get in trouble,” Paulie said. “That’s why we came to you. We knew you’d know what to do and not blame us.”
“It’s a sad story, unfortunately, one I can relate to. I lost a child myself to illness a few years back. And you three found the remains of someone else’s child, whose parents surely grieved like I did for mine. Well, if we find foul play, and we don’t know that we will, the good Lord will punish whoever needs it. It’s not my place to pass judgment. I’m glad you told me. Let me decide when I should call the sheriff and what I’ll say to him.”
“See, I told you,” Anna said. “The reverend knows what to do. So, let’s let him take care of it. Will you please tell us what happens with the sheriff, sir?”
“Why thank you, Anna, I will. Please stay behind for just a minute. I have one more thing to ask you. Boys, you can go now, and don’t say a word about this to anyone until I tell you to, okay? We’ll see you in church tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Paulie said, and Rudy waved to the man on their way out.
“Anna, you’re not making any of this up, are you?”
“Of course not. No sir. Why would I?”
The reverend stood up, went behind Anna’s chair, and spoke into her ear. “Oh, sometimes young girls want some attention, and they do or say things to meet with me. Are you trying to get my attention, dear?”
She scrunched down into the armchair to make herself smaller and said, “No sir, I’m not.”
He laid his finger on her shoulder and stroked the strap of the training bra beneath her thin polo shirt. She felt the heat coming from his hand and tried to stand up, but he held her down with both hands on her shoulders.
“I have to go now, sir,” she whispered.
The reverend bent down and kissed the side of her neck, then released her. “All right, Anna. You’re a very nice young lady, a very pretty one. Thank you for coming by to see me. My door is always open if you need some help.”
Anna walked out of the building as fast as her legs could carry her and caught up with Rudy and Paulie waiting for her outside.
“Your face looks splotchy,” Rudy said. “Did he hit you or something?”
“Or something is right. That creepy preacher slobbered a kiss on my neck. We need to tell somebody else about those bones because that perv can’t be trusted.”
“Should we go to the cops ourselves, like I said yesterday?” Paulie asked.
“I still don’t think that’s a good idea.” Anna paused to calm down and give the matter some more thought. After a couple of deep breaths she went on. “I tried to tell Daddy Jack about the bones last night and he got mad at me for hanging out with you guys. How about we go to your dad, Paulie? He won’t take it out on us, will he?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes he gets madder than you’d ever believe over almost nothing. Worse than your stepfather.”
“Well, this isn’t almost nothing. It’s a big deal. And it can’t wait. I don’t trust the reverend anymore, and I don’t know where we could go next. Please, can we?”
Finn brought four cans of Dr. Pepper out to the porch and handed one to each of the kids who sat waiting for him. He popped the top on his own, drew a sip, and asked in a serious voice, “So who called this meeting, and what can I do for y’all?”
This time Paulie took the lead and related the story of the burial and the bones.
“I happened to look out the kitchen window and saw you burying Anna’s pet,” Finn said. “I’m sorry, Anna. And you too, Rudy. Shadow was a fine dog. But tell me more about the bones.”
“We just saw the head, the skull, and we knew it was from a little kid,” Rudy said.
“So, I decided we ought to go tell Reverend Banks and see if he could help us, tell us what we should do,” Anna said. “And that was a big mistake.”
“Why?” Finn asked.
“Because first he said it was God’s job to take care of it, and then he kissed me.”
“He what?” Finn stood up and gripped his own arms. He forced himself to recall his therapist’s advice, to focus on doing good for others and forget himself in this moment. “He kissed you! What did you boys do?”
“The reverend shooed them out before he did it so he could get me alone,” Anna said.
“Did he do anything else? Touch you anywhere?”
“No, well, yes. He rubbed my bra strap, then he held my shoulders down while he kissed me on my neck, right here.”
“Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay. Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. First, I’m going to call the sheriff and ask him to stop by. Then, Anna, I’m going to ask your mother and Jack to join us. That way you all can tell your own sides of the story one more time, about the bones you found and about what the reverend did.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” Paulie said.
“Thank you, Mister Miller,” the other two echoed in unison.
A policeman wearing gloves and a face mask excavated the bones and placed them in a metal box. Then he dug a second hole and carefully reburied Shadow in it. A police lady who was with him boxed up lots of dirt from the first hole to examine for any clues that might have been left behind.
The remains of the small child were taken for DNA testing, and she turned out to be Finn’s daughter, Michaela Miller, age three at the time of her death. The police chief called Finn in for questioning and released him on his own recognizance, pending further possible action.
Reverend Banks denied making advances toward Anna, but when she confronted him directly, in front of her stepfather and the sheriff, he broke down crying and saying how lonely he was and what a tempting young girl Trisha was.
Daddy Jack shook his head and laughed angrily, barely restraining himself from attacking the man. “Can’t even get the names straight, can you, you perv? Trisha was Finn Miller’s wife. Is that who you thought of when you forced your filthy mouth on my little girl’s neck?”
Banks turned white. He felt all eyes watching him. Including God’s. “All right. I’ll admit it. I’m in enough trouble. But first, get everybody else out of here and I’ll tell you my side of the story.”
Daddy Jack and Anna stepped out to an adjoining room where her mother sat waiting for her on a long padded bench. She’d rushed to the station from her double shift at the veterans’ hospital as soon as Jack called her. Anna sat down and her mom wrapped an arm around her and Anna sank into her cuddle. Then, in the other room, the reverend proceeded to confess.
“I’ll let Finn off the hook here. I had an affair with Miller’s wife a couple years back. She told me she’d had enough of his moods, promised again and again to leave him. She finally did, and carried one of their kids away with her, the girl. I didn’t know where they went off to. Then a month or so later, she called me and told me Finn took Paulie to the beach or someplace for a few days. I met her and she said she still loved me, pulled out a key to her house and wanted to go in and retrieve some pictures of her son that Finn wouldn’t let her have, and asked me would I come with her. So I did.
“We wound up rolling around in her old bed, and in the heat of the moment, we forgot about Michaela. She’d wandered out of the house and down to the creek, and a while later we found her floating there, bruised and drowned. Trisha went almost crazy. I dug a grave and buried the girl. I never dreamed anyone might find her body down there in such an out-of-the-way place.
“Anyway, I often counsel people going through hard times, people who are real upset, so I carry some mild tranquilizers on me all the time. I gave a few of them to Trisha and she calmed down, not much, but some, and then she took off. I never saw her again.
“Oh, and yeah, I kissed Anna. I didn’t mean her no harm. I imagined what she’d be like when she grew up, and I wanted to let her know I cared about her, that’s all.”
The sheriff told Finn about the reverend’s confession, and that, of course, exonerated him as a suspect. And that the department was trying hard to find Mrs. Miller, but so far no luck. The sheriff researched many charges he could recommend against the reverend, and he had to determine which would wield the most impact without putting any of the children through the wringer. So far, he’d come up with child endangerment, concealment of a crime, desecration of a body, drug possession, sexual assault, and more. In the end, it would be the prosecutor’s job to decide, but he’d be sure to include all the input he’d gathered into his report.
Finn organized a belated funeral for Michaela, presided over by the youth minister now that Reverend Banks was out on bail and keeping a low profile, and attended by Paulie, Anna and Rudy, their parents, and some friends. It was a somber affair, but less so after all this time as Finn’s wound had healed into a tender scar. He’d given up hope a long time ago of ever seeing his wife and daughter again, and he was staying in therapy, taking his meds, making peace with what happened, for his own sake and his son’s.
When the service ended, they all went back to the Miller home where the church women laid out a generous spread. Finn excused himself and went to the garage for a moment. He returned with a brown lab puppy in his arms, and he winked at Daddy Jack as he handed the squirmy dog to Anna.
“I know you’ll never forget Shadow, and I won’t either. If not for him, I’d never know what happened to my daughter. But this here pup needs a good home, and I thought maybe you might want to give her one. Whatta you say, Anna?”
“Can I have her, Daddy Jack? Please? She’s such a honey. I’m even going to call her that.”
“Sure, sweetheart. You can keep your Honey. I’m sure you and Rudy will take good care of her.”
Daddy Jack pulled Finn aside while the kids gathered around the dog. “Thanks for stepping in, Finn. I guess I could use some parenting lessons. How did you get them to open up to you about what they’d found?”
“I just listened, Jack. Just listened.”//
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Ann Bowen is the author of a medical time travel trilogy, a short story collection about people in challenging circumstances, and a serialized beach read. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and, most recently, in Mystery Tribune, Chamber Magazine, Idle Ink, Unlikely Stories, and Commuterlit.com. She has taught short story writing, and she leads a critique group of short story writers for the Atlanta Writer’s Club. You can connect with her at www.patriciabowen.com.
About the Author
