Sunken Graves, Alan Lee [all ebook reader .txt] 📗

by signs, where the dark earth could be dug easily and secrets buried.

Dusk came early inside the wide valley, but Peter’s daughter Ann insisted she keep flying her kite on the wide green between the old horse stable and the homestead. A November wind flowed north through the basin and held her rainbow diamond fluttering seventy feet in the air, the tail whipping, until she could barely see it.

The wind played havoc with Peter Lynch’s hair. He smiled and watched Ann, one hand holding a cell phone to his ear. The reception was excellent—he’d erected a tower on the eastern rise.

Into the phone, he said, “I don’t like calls this late, Jerry. You better get me horny.”

Jerry, his office manager, his third office manager in six years, got him close.

Medical malpractice litigation is expensive and tricky. The doctors have insurance companies with deep pockets for high-priced attorneys, making the life of a plaintiff’s lawyer hell. Peter Lynch steered clear for that reason and his office manager knew it. But this was a slam dunk, sure to max out at the cap of two and a half million. A beautiful mother was dead and a young doctor had killed her, lacerating her liver during a routine cholecystectomy and letting bilious toxins leak into her system. It’d never see trial—a jury would weep at her little children.

Jerry wanted to pounce before some other greedy bastard got wind. He’d been hired in large part for his blood-thirst.

Peter Lynch listened and strolled the green, watching his daughter as Jerry finished his pitch. Within his mind, numbers and financial damages fell like plinko discs into payday slots. Except for the discs that were intercepted by Daisy Hathaway. Daisy Hathaway and her mouth and her legs intercepted a lot recently. His knees went watery.

“The case is good, Jerry,” he said. “But I don’t want it.”

Through the phone, “You’re fucking with me?”

“It’s juicy. But my mind is occupied with lovelier things.”

“Our cut would be a million, Peter.”

“No.”

“I’ll give it to Keith. He can—”

“Give it to someone else, Jerry, out of our camp, and you can spend your time wiping my ass instead. I don’t want it. We’ll take the standard referral fee. Do the math. That’ll keep you occupied with speed balls and whores for a month, Jerry.”

“You’re killing me.”

“Don’t…don’t tempt me, and don’t call again tonight.”

Peter Lynch hung up. He took a deep breath to fill his great lungs and breathe out the hate. The hate had to be kept under tight wraps.

The light in the barn extinguished and Homer Caldwell marched out. Homer was an exceedingly rare man—born with Mosaic Down Syndrome, he had grown tall and powerful instead of short; Homer was almost as tall as Lynch. He was Lynch’s full-time help at the enclave and he lived in his own three-room house behind the homestead. He was so grateful for the job and the house that he’d grown a beard in imitation of his benefactor.

Lynch referred to him as his Giant Mongoloid.

Homer watched the kite, delight on his face. He clapped for Ann and then strode with stooped shoulders into the dark to his house.

Lynch also clapped for his daughter.

“Bravo, Ann!”

“See it, Daddy? It can stay up forever.” She pointed over her head.

Lynch’s eyes left her and fixed on the headlights swiveling his way through the gloom. A car had turned off his enclave’s winding service road and onto his personal drive.

“Let’s go in, Annie, it’s cold.”

“Not yet.”

“Ann—”

“No Daddy, you said I could…”

Lynch quit listening. He recognized the vehicle. A Ford F-150.

The angry embers of Peter Lynch’s heart, always smoldering, were doused. Watching the truck, a thrill of fear and awe ran through him like a wave; he hadn’t seen his father in weeks. The risk of exposure was too high.

Lynch walked to greet him but the truck roared by on the circular drive, parking closer to Ann. Hot red brake lights and the engine died.

His father got out and greeted Ann, who warmly displayed her kite. He picked her up and they pointed together at the sky, stars emerging.

Lynch waited his turn, hands in his pockets. He was patient for no man except his father, Buck Gibbs, the chief of Roanoke County police.

Finished with his granddaughter, Chief Gibbs set her down and approached Lynch. Gibbs still wore his uniform and belt and police ball cap. From his jacket pocket he withdrew a photocopy of the note Dan Jennings had provided.

Gibbs didn’t hug his son. He waved the note and smacked it against Lynch’s chest, crinkling the paper.

Lynch flinched all over. He felt fear of no man except his father. “Hello, Chief.”

“You fat idiot.”

“I know.” Lynch nodding.

“A squirrel?”

“I know. I was angry.”

“Your fingerprints were all over this note. I had to wipe it down.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You want to go to prison? Over that girl?” Gibbs, shorter than Lynch, had a way of growling and talking so that Lynch felt he was looking up. Still a scared boy.

“You saw her?”

“Daisy Hathaway, I saw her. And now every damn officer in my department has too.” Gibbs released the note from Lynch’s chest. It fluttered and the wind caught it away. “I know you. You can’t let her go, can you.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you can’t.” He sneered the can’t. “That perverted brain of yours.”

“We’ll get married soon. I need her.”

“No you got’damn don’t.” Gibbs lowered his voice, for Ann. “You only think you do, Peter. Since you were a boy. You fixate and you break things, and I have to clean up your shit.”

Deep within the halls of Lynch’s brain, halls kept clean by an uncontrollable rage that howled through without check, Gibbs’s voice walked around at will, pointing out flaws. An intruder and Lynch had no recourse.

“You’re broken, boy. You always been broke. But now? Now you’re gonna take me down with you.” Gibbs tapped on his own chest with a finger. “I’m your daddy. Your adopted daddy. I didn’t have to take you but I did. And this isn’t how it works, Peter. Not how