Caraliza (26 page)

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Authors: Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick

BOOK: Caraliza
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The one room she would never enter, the attic storeroom. Whatever was there, it did not call to her, it called to Evan, she might hear it, but he would never listen again. Her voice would call to him from that room. She would sit in the corner, pressed into the two walls until it caused her pain, and she would weep that he would not come to her and protect her, hold her, love her. Shelly refused to walk up that stair. Caraliza would go in her place and weep for her, calling for him, begging him to hurry. Something was finding its own way to the storeroom where she was hiding. If it reached her first, all would be lost. Shelly would sit at the closet her eyes slammed in fear, and listen to the heavy footsteps as they rose on the stairs to the place where Caraliza wept.

 

Permits were being approved. The basement could be dug when Shelly could arrange to have permission to cross the vacant lot behind. The owner was foreign, and very hard to reach. Shelly’s contractor kept calling with complaints, the lot owner was making it difficult to schedule any time to break the garden ground. She did not know it, but her frustration on the phone was giving Evan some needed time, to read and understand the tales hidden in the print. He nearly understood enough to make his last request, for the favor from Grandma Sareta. When Shelly was called, and asked to abandon the building for an entire week, she protested and was awful to Sareta, who remained calm, and very unmoved.
“
I will not leave now!
Ik ga niet weg nu!
” Shelly raised her voice.
“
You will leave, or we will stop your work. This is not a choice you can make. Too many in the family are tired of this dangerous plaything, that is near to killing you.”
“
Grandmother Sareta, I cannot leave now, we are about to dig the basement, and we finally are able to make this last thing happen. Why are you doing this to me now?
U heeftt geen recht dit van me af te pakken!” You have no right to take this away from me -
Shelly pleaded.
“
You. You Shelly are finally able to make this happen. We do not agree it is safe to do. If it were safe, you would be sharing more than this with Evan. That cursed building has driven him from your life; it is driving your life from you. Have you not heard the speech you use? If you do not consent, I will stop you tomorrow and you will never walk into the building again.”
“
Sareta, you awful witch! You cannot do this. I will not be taken out!
Ik zal niet weggaan!
” and the screams were filled with such pain Sareta covered her phone so Shelly couldn’t hear what the screams did to her heart as well.
“
You will leave tonight, and stay at home with your parents for the week. If you break your trust with us, Shelly Reisman, that building will come down. Do you understand? You will obey us.”
“
Sareta, please!”
“
Leave tonight, and go home. Your father will tell me you arrived.
Farschtein?
”

 

Shelly’s cries fell into the empty phone. They were delaying the garden. The garden was the key to it all taking place. A week away from the garden and the contractor might bolt the job. A week away from the closet, and Shelly might die as Caraliza had, without Yousep, without Evan. There was laughter upstairs, and Shelly nearly broke her hand screaming back and pounding her fists on the floorboards. She lifted her head and opened her eyes when the laughter stopped and the attic door closed softly.
Caraliza came down the stairs and smiled as she held out her hand. Shelly understood how Papa could go mad, she was going mad, and this girl moved the dust that hung in the air. So slight, so fragile. Shelly wished she were as beautiful to look at. Fearful, hungry, tired and dirty, yet Caraliza was so beautiful it calmed Shelly’s heart. The fragrance of fine cedar dust came with her as the angel sat next to Shelly and held her trembling hand. The dead girl smiled at Shelly and she knew in her own heart, her madness was Papa’s madness.

 

They sat together for a time and Shelly understood it was sometimes a week that Caraliza would wait to see Yousep in the window. It was not impossible to wait a week. There was strength enough for it, to wait for him. And delicate, dirty hands took Shelly’s arm and brought her into the closet again for the comfort she needed. Wouldn’t Yousep be cross, to have Shelly’s arms embrace him and not his love? But no, he understood, and would love her, and Caraliza understood and would leave them alone, as alone as Shelly wanted them to be. As the door closed behind her, Shelly felt Yousep turn and Evan kissed her mouth. This madness was sweet and she was thankful the dream became so real for her. The week would be painful and she would wait but this pleasure would be missed, Yousep would be as gentle as he had ever been with Caraliza.

 

“
Shelly, do you ever think what trouble you cause when you upset your grandmother? You should have left here three hours ago!” her father chastised her as she got into his car. He was ready to push his way into the building, but she stepped out of the darkened door just as he pulled to a stop.
“
I’m sorry you had to come get me, Dad. A week was hard to arrange, and the contractor is pissed like you would not believe.”
“
He’s hired help and I don’t care what he gets upset about, Shelly. You do not go against Sareta. I had to beg my own mother to be able to come and get you!” He glared at her. “How many times have I been sitting in this seat, saving your ass from another disaster?” Shelly just smiled at him in a very familiar, guilty way. “Will I ever be released from this tired routine?” he pleaded.
“
I don’t know, Daddy. There seems to be no one to take your place. I think you’re stuck with the trouble I cause.”
She tried to seem older than she felt. She felt the awkward teenager again, in trouble for something devastating and normal for Shelly Reisman.
“
Evan was the one who could take over for me. I could trust him. You’ve never had anyone to trust before, and suddenly he was there like magic.”
“
Can we not talk about that, Daddy? That hurts. You’re not supposed to say anything that hurts your daughter. Don’t you know that?”
He drove home and let her cry quietly the whole way. Whatever Sareta was doing, Richard really hoped Evan was at the end of it. His daughter was grieving for a living person.

 

Sareta stood in the garden at the back of the shop looking at the patch where the roses had grown. She still remembered them; they grew lush and fragrant until she raised children of her own, nearly until the shop was closed and the roses died from lack of care. Nothing was left of them. She could not believe they were about to open the ground there, and it was expected to be a grave. The years nothing was done there; protecting the horrors that came before the silence and neglect. Sareta waited for the police, and for Evan. An operator with a tiny digging machine arrived well before the others. Sareta explained where they would be digging, and the trailer could be pulled across the vacant lot. The police department hired him and he would wait until they arrived to move anything, lest he get into serious trouble. That meant he sat on the porch and waited, while she gazed into the empty windows on the back of the building, waiting and dreading. The Reisman Portraits had nothing to say as Sareta waited.

 

Shelly would not understand this, this horrible digging to find bodies. Sareta hoped they found nothing, but feared what that might mean as well. No good outcome. She hated such things. She was there an hour, and impatient as hell when the others began to arrive. Evan was the last to come through the alley. He waited on the street until he was certain Shelly had not come back. Oddly enough, he and Sareta were read their rights, which amused Sareta a great deal and seemed to lighten her mood. If this were indeed a grave, it would become a crime scene again.
The small backhoe was being brought into the vacant lot and the police asked Sareta to give her statement, to explain why she believed there were bodies located at the back of the old family building. She introduced Evan and explained his research into the history and the crimes, which occurred seventy-five years before. Evan produced copies of the police reports, and the photograph of Yousep, smiling at this spade in the very spot where they now stood. The authorities considered his work thorough, and insightful enough they were ready to begin. But they had not been told why. Why did the family now need to know the answer to this riddle? Because, Sareta explained, this garden was about to be excavated in a renovation, and the secret still existed; she could not bear the damage to her family if a renovation turned up a body where none was supposed to be. It would halt family plans, which were more than half a year in motion. She would rather the police have their way, and find something, than for anything be accidentally found. It was properly planned. Evan was sickened again from the thought of what they might see.
The operator began his work by mere inches at a time; the ground was stripped away and scrutinized for human remains as each pass was made. It was going to take hours.

 

Sareta invited Evan inside, but he declined, as she suspected he might. She went no further into the building than the studio, he watched her as she peered out the window at the work being done. Once he saw her at the window, talking on the telephone. The backhoe removed nearly two feet of soil the entire width and length of the rose bed. Nothing had been found but some bricks and bits of wire. As the machine was making gentle passes, which would lower the hole to nearly three feet, one of the officers at the edge near the shovel sang out. The ground was distinctly different from the layers above. Evan wondered what that might mean as two other gentlemen waved the shovel back, and they stepped into the hole, to prod the ground with long slender poles. They passed back and forth, talking quietly as they pushed the poles into the ground and discussed what they felt with their fingertips on the poles. They marked an area on the soil, took a few samples of it into some bags, and directed the operator where to make his next strokes. Two feet further down into the area they probed and marked, something was seen which Evan did not want to hear mentioned. They pulled up a portion of bone.

 

Sareta came back out onto the porch, and peered into the hole from above. The shovel was again pulled back and the operator was asked to turn it off and wait. Several people climbed into the pit and Evan saw photographs being taken and very small scoops of dirt being removed every few moments. Every activity stopped suddenly, and another person was called over to the side of the garden pit. He nodded his head; he was the district coroner. They unearthed a human skull. They covered it gently with dirt, marked the spot with lime dust, and brought the shovel back into the area. The operator made more strokes and enlarged the area either side, to the size one might suspect would contain two human forms. Nothing more was found, down to the level of the skull. The police released the operator a final time and bid him wait until the surrounding area was probed, within half an hour he was loading to leave, and Evan watched as more digging was done by hand and more photographs were taken inside the grave.

 

It took four hours to remove the remains. Evan barely moved the entire time. Sareta had only gone inside to watch once more. They did not speak to one another as the grim work progressed. The police were careful to probe the very bottom and the sides of the grave, and were satisfied; no other person was to be found. Evan was sick with confusion. The questions were burning him. Was it female or male? What was the age of the person buried so horribly there in the forgotten garden? The coroner did not know. Seventy-five years of exposure in only four feet of earth, the remains were nearly disintegrated. The skull could not come out of the grave intact, there were pieces of bone, and bit of pieces of clothing. But from the parts they pulled whole from the soil, the coroner was near certain they found a male.
Evan could only guess, he had met Yousep at last, but the girl was not there. She might never be found and never allowed rest. Evan felt he failed Shelly. The secret was only partly revealed. Yousep had been buried only steps from where his life ended, and mere inches from where his angel had taken his heart. The girl was not resting with him. They could not offer either spirit any release.

 

Evan was suddenly subjected to many questions. He may not have solved the crime, but he found one of the victims. The police were anxious to hear any other theory about the murders. He told them all he learned - a suspect lived directly across the street; he disappeared as well, driving suspicions to a fever pitch in the neighborhood. Evan told them the basement dwelling had been searched many times, even for another suspected disappearance. The police thanked him and several of the officers walked through the alley, headed to the other building on the other side to see what remained of the basement stair.
The coroner was talking quietly with Sareta while the site was being photographed a final time, and the forensic equipment taken out to the curb and the waiting vans. Sareta took Evan by the hand as he approached and the coroner finished his remarks to them both. The remains would be studied to determine the age and verify the sex of the deceased. If it was indeed the correct age as the missing Yousep, the coroner wanted to know if the Reisman family would take possession of the remains. Sareta assured him the Reisman family would spare no expense to find the boy's relations, and restore him to them for proper burial.

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