“I guess because my feet are a little smaller than yours, Ethan, he got them all. Mackie only swatted his nose once.”
“And what did you do?”
“I hugged him, kissed his nose, and then he nearly licked my face off.” She pressed closer to her mother and whispered in a small voice, “You told Ethan what I saw them doing?”
Joanna nodded.
Autumn looked at Ethan. He saw such fear on that little face, it was like a punch in the gut. Joanna held her hand tight and said, “Why don’t you tell him about it yourself, Autumn?”
She licked her lips. “It’s too scary, Mama.”
Ethan said, “You tell me and then it won’t be so scary anymore. I promise.”
She thought about it, then slowly nodded. “I was supposed to be asleep beside Mama, but I couldn’t stop thinking about them, how scary they were, how I knew they didn’t like Mama, even though they pretended they did. And they looked at me funny, you know, trying to pretend they weren’t looking, but they were.
“Mama started moaning in her sleep, so I got up. I put on my clothes without waking her and climbed out the window.” She swallowed. “I walked to the cemetery, and that’s when I saw them, and they were digging up my daddy’s grave and there were these bodies on the ground beside them.” She was shaking, both her voice and her small body, and she pressed even harder against her mother’s side, as if she wanted to become part of her.
Joanna gathered her close, kissed the top of her head, whispered, “It’s okay, sweetie, I swear it’s okay. Ethan is—” Joanna cleared her throat. “Ethan is going to help us.”
He swallowed hard at that vote of confidence. He looked at the mother and daughter and marveled at what life had dished onto his plate in a single day. He said, “Autumn, I told your mama I’m the prince of bad and that means I can help you with just about anything. Now, kiddo, tell me who you saw out there.”
“Blessed and Grace were digging, and Shepherd was standing beside the dead people.” Her voice caught, and she looked terrified.
“Okay, Autumn, that’s enough for now. I want you to take some deep breaths and shake your arms around; it’ll loosen you up. That’s it—good. Now, let your mama talk for a while. Joanna, let’s back up. After the funeral, what did you and Autumn do?”
Joanna said, “I made some excuse, and I drove us to Bricker’s Bowl, only about a half-mile away. Like Autumn, I wanted to get away from all of them. I was tempted to keep driving west, let me tell you. I wish I hadn’t gone back there now, wish I hadn’t taken Martin’s urn to be buried in a chicken coop.”
He wondered what would have happened if she’d kept driving west. Would they still have found her just like they found her here? “Okay, after you drove into Bricker’s Bowl, what did you do?”
“Just walked around. Everyone knew who we were—how, I have no clue, but I knew they were talking about us, wondering about us, I guess, wondering, maybe, if we were weird. I’ll tell you, I don’t blame them a bit.
“We stopped at the small grocery store because it was hot and Autumn wanted an ice cream. There was a woman in there who looked at us like we were members of the devil’s fold. I’ll never forget how she stared at Autumn and said, ‘She looks just like him,’ and she crossed herself. I was appalled and grabbed Autumn’s hand to get her out of there but the woman said then, ‘I was very glad Martin es-caped. I’m very sorry he’s dead. Everyone liked Martin, but no one knew when he was going to be buried. Preacher Michael even called Mrs. Backman, but she didn’t tell him a thing.’ And then she shut up and shook her head.”
“The lady asked me what kind of ice cream I liked best,” Autumn said. “I told her I really liked butter pecan, and she said that was good because she’d just made some.”
Lula strolled into the living room, tail high. She meowed when she saw Ethan, padded quickly to him, and jumped up on his lap. She began kneading his leg.
Autumn leaned over to pat her and Lula stretched under her hand and kept kneading.
Of course Mackie wasn’t to be left out. He was soon seated on Ethan’s other leg, his claws sharper than Lula’s, who’d had a manicure only two days before when Maggie had come to clean up the cottage and managed to catch her. Mackie had escaped clean.
Autumn yawned and leaned back against her mother’s chest, all boneless, like the cats when they were with him in bed at night “Mama,” she whispered, “I think we can trust Ethan. We started to tell him about those poor dead people. I think we should tell Ethan more of it, Mama.”
19
JOANNA WAS PALE and quiet. He gave her a moment to think about what Autumn had said, and slowly stood up. “I think both of you could use a soda. How about it?”
Joanna looked at him, drew in a deep breath, and slowly nodded. “Yes, a drink would be nice. Autumn, stay here, sweetie, sit on my lap.”
When Ethan came back to the living room, he popped open the cans and passed them on. He kept his voice easy and slow as he said to Autumn, “You were telling me about seeing them burying people. Did you see how these people died?”
Those stark, unbelievable words hung in the air. Autumn stiffened up, pressed her back against her mother’s chest. Ethan sat forward, reached out his hand, and lightly touched her shoulder. “You know me now, Autumn. Your mom knows me too, in fact, she even knows I play the piano. I’ll play for you later, but first, it’s time we cleaned up this mess, and that means you’ve got to tell me what you saw. All right? Can you do that?”
Autumn gave him a long look, then said, her voice clear and steady “The people were already dead, Ethan. They were lying next to each other. Blessed and Grace were digging Daddy’s grave even deeper so those dead people would fit in it.”
“You’re sure they were people, Autumn?”
Even as she nodded, Ethan saw her small face cloud over. He knew what she was thinking:
“Could you tell how many dead people there were?” Now wasn’t that real smart, asking a seven-year-old how many bodies were piled around.
Autumn sat forward, her small hands making fists on the table, her eyes on his face. “I was so scared, Ethan, I just couldn’t think. I ran to Mama.”
Joanna said clearly, “Yes, she came to tell me what she’d seen Sheriff.”
“Did you go and look?”
“At that point I didn’t think it was necessary.”
He said, “If my kid came to tell me she saw dead bodies, I think I’d be up like a shot to see what was going on. Oh, I see, you thought Autumn was making it up.”
“No, Mama didn’t believe that,” Autumn said. “She just didn’t think I saw what I thought I did.”
Joanna Backman’s face was so leached of color he thought she’d faint. He waited for her to say something, but it was Autumn who spoke. “I wanted Mama to come with me so I could show her what they were doing, but she wouldn’t. She pulled me against her and rubbed my head and told me it would be all right, and we were leaving first thing in the morning, and I wasn’t to worry about it. I’d forget about it—that’s what she thought. But I knew it wouldn’t go away. How could it? I saw them digging up Daddy’s grave, and I saw them burying dead people in it.”
Joanna took her daughter’s hand. “She’s right. I believed Autumn was seeing something in her head, but I didn’t believe the Backmans were actually in the cemetery at that moment burying people. Autumn had just lost her father; she was grieving for him terribly. Per-haps she’d misinterpreted whatever she’d seen.”
The thick silence in Ethan’s living room was broken only by Lula and Mackie’s purring.
He said slowly, “You believed Autumn was seeing horrible things in her head because of what you’d both seen earlier that day in the cemetery? You thought she was dreaming it?”
Joanna saw incredulity on his face, heard the disbelief in his voice. She said, “That’s what I hoped at the
