Bury This by Andrea Portes Page B

Wake up!
    But no one will wake up here. A stubborn lot. The granite making stretch square shadows down the snow field. Limitless silence. A thousand questions to each stone square. No answer.
    The hill slopes up from the west to the east and there, near the top, a flurry of activity around a giant orange monster, a metal dinosaur up early, grazing the grounds. A winter morning peace-killing involving five men, three squad cars, a Caterpillar, and a beige morgue van crowded around, buzzing, digging, pausing in front of, behind.
    E LIZABETH L YNN K RAUSE
    J UNE 21, 1956 – M ARCH 13, 1978
    Detective Samuel Barnett had made a visit to this cemetery, Mayview, on his fortieth birthday with his wife rolling her eyes throughout the ordeal. It was a lark, really, they’d been driving through the outskirts of town, deciding between restaurants for the evening. She’d wanted French. Mes Amis on Main. He’d wanted steak. Carter’s off Fairfield. Somehow, the green grass of Mayview had summoned him through the wrought-iron gates that lazy afternoon in June.
    No sooner had they turned in over the gravel dirt road carving its way through the headstones than the conversation switched suddenly from mussels to burial plots. Nancy had thought the whole thing was foolish. A macabre excursion on your birthday! But the detective had persevered, walking the grounds, finding anice area near the east side of the slope, the top of the hill, underneath an enormous elm. A tree trunk the size of a bathtub, spread out over the grassy slope, protective.
    He’d mapped the plots, marched down to the office and bought them both on a whim. One for him, one for Nancy. You can never be too sure.
    The woman on duty, a milquetoast of seventy in a gold-button navy-blue blazer, had thought it odd, too. What did it mean? These two buying plots on his fortieth birthday? Was this some sort of cry for help? A murder—suicide? What to make of it? But there was nothing to make of it, sure. The wife seemed cheerful, chiding her husband, calling him morbid. Chipper in her reprimands. No, no, it was fine. Just a husband being absurd. Trying to get a rise out of his wife. He loved her, you could tell.
    It was strange, though, how he’d insisted on the Super-Deluxe Peaceful for Eternity package, treatment, tombstones, service and weekly-flower-arrangement option. It ain’t cheap. Rich people had scoffed at the price, even. And for a cop . . . it did seem extravagant.
    Even his wife thought it extensive.
    â€œWhat does it matter, honey. We certainly won’t notice.”
    But, in this as in all things, he’d dug his heels in. No explanation. The Super-Deluxe it was. And would always be, for eternity.
    That plot, those two plots, for future, for he and Nancy were not far, only thirty feet about, from this plot, this past plot, marked Elizabeth Lynn Krause, rest in peace.
    And peace, well. Not here with the dig-dig Caterpillar, bright orange against the white sheet grade. On the side CATERPILLAR inbig black capitals, the only black other than the leafless trees, all watching. What’s this? What’s all this, this morning?
    â€œWell, boss, there they are.”
    And, turning to look, there they were, indeed. Outside the redbrick awning and wrought Mayview gates, lined up on Mayview Drive, the inevitable, complacent, stodgy pale vans with UFO antennas on top, circling around for a signal.
    â€œGoddamn news. Buncha vultures.”
    Detective Barnett had thought this pre-morning, just-dawn excursion might throw them off, but even as he turned, there they were, scurrying toward him through the snow. One in an emerald suit dress and heels. Heels! In this snow. One in cargo pants holding the camera, clamoring over the gravestones toward him, barely audible, just within earshot and getting louder, inescapable.
    â€œDetective! Detective!! What do you hope to find this morning? What do you hope to uncover? Have there been any new