A Proper Burial

By Mark G. Clemons

1999 is a challenging time for writer Mike Strack. The two-year-absent muse continues to avoid him, his wife suggests time apart to “do them both some good,” and the life he’d worked so hard to abandon in Harder, Alabama is back to haunt him with the unexpected death of his mother.

If there was one thing he could control, it was a quick burial for the recently departed. Get in, get out, wash his hands of it all. But a bigger problem is waiting for Mike and his estranged brother, Tom. They unearth a deadly secret surrounding their grandfather; one the town did everything they could to protect.

Mike finds unlikely partners in his hotheaded brother and childhood-friend-turned-police-officer Ray Slater. Armed with grit and determination, they dig deeper into the pitch-black depths of Harder, determined to solve a fifty-year-old cold case that would clear the name of the wrongly accused.

This impressive debut novel by Mark G. Clemons is packed with heart-pounding suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark G. Clemons
• Release date: Jun 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005744007

Mark G. Clemons

Mark G Clemons lives outside of Atlanta with his wife nd daughter.

Book preview

A Proper Burial

Mark G. Clemons

Copyright 2021 Mark G. Clemons

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

For Sarah

Without whom I would have never survived

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One: Sore Thumbs

Chapter Two: Mr. Fancy Pants

Chapter Three: Same Difference

Chapter Four: A Dirty Little Secret

Chapter Five: Guilty and Ashamed

Chapter Six: Blind Monkey

Chapter Seven: Hanky-Panky

Chapter Eight: Mama Told Me Not to Come

Chapter Nine: Assholes and Elbows

Chapter Ten: Digging Up Bones

Chapter Eleven: Where Oh Where is Molly Weaver

Chapter Twelve: A Proper Burial

Epilogue

Prologue

According to Tom, there’s only two kinds of people in this god-forsaken world. There’s the kind that like to walk right up on somebody’s front porch and deliver bad news to them, like a punch in the gut. And then there’s the kind that doesn’t. And the kind that likes to is usually one sorry-ass piece of work. And he believed the cop that called him that morning was sorry of the sorriest sort. In fact, according to Tom, he even said that he was sorry that he wasn’t able to be there to tell him face-to-face.

He also said he told him that nobody heard or saw anything when it happened. As a matter of fact, if some guy hadn’t ‘took his dog out to take a dump and seen the taillight, hell, she might have been up under them evergreens until who knows when’. And judging from the amount of snow that had accumulated on her tire tracks, you could tell she had been down there for a while, too. At least three or four hours, he said. But you could still make out where she had gone airborne. She had to have been hauling ass to clear that guardrail, like that, he said. Those things aren’t just put there for show.

Tom said the cop told him that she must have panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake, which according to him was not all that unusual. He had seen it at least a hundred times before. People like her come to an unfamiliar place like Atlanta and try to drive around in the dark like that, and then to throw the snow in on top of everything else, well, some folks just become plain discombobulated. Now, I didn’t talk to him, but Tom said that was the exact word that he used. Discombobulated.

He said they had to wait until the sun came up that morning and melted some of the snow before they could get the crane in there to lift the car up and that was when they found her body underneath it, just as he figured they would. You look around everywhere and you can’t find them? Nine times out of ten, they’re up under the damn thing, he said. He told Tom that none of them could figure out what a woman her age was doing driving around at night on that side of town, especially in weather like that. Hell, neither one of us could, either. And finally, he told Tom that he was sorry for his loss and he would take care of having her body shipped back to Alabama. And he should probably expect a bill from the Atlanta Fire Department because their EMS don’t work for free. That was when Tom said he hung up on him.

He didn’t call me and tell me anything about it until the funeral was already scheduled. She’d been dead for three days by then. But that was typical Tom behavior. He said he was just calling to pass along the information so I could come to the funeral if I wanted to, but he didn’t give two shits either way. Again, typical Tom.

He said the guy at the funeral home in Tacota, where her body was sent, said we wouldn’t be able to open the casket anyway because they weren’t able to fix her up too good, but once they got the juice in her, she’d keep until we got around to burying her, but he recommended that we did that sooner rather than later. I’d have to agree with him on that one. And before we hung up, Tom told me that the greedy little son-of-a-bitch was already asking about how we were going to pay for it and if she had any life insurance. They act like they’re only in it for the goddamn money, he said.

What happened after that might seem commonplace to some people. But if I hadn’t been there for it, I might not have ever believed it.

Chapter One

Sore Thumbs

Aside from the gravediggers, everyone had left the cemetery except for my brother and me. Until I got the phone call from him a couple of days earlier, we hadn't spoken to each other since our last fistfight. That was six years before at Daddy’s funeral. We had each sworn at the time that it would be a cold day in hell before we laid eyes on the other one again. The next time I see you will be when I’m looking in your casket was what he had said. Not if I see you first, I said back. Whatever that meant. I’ll be the first to admit that it wasn’t my all-time greatest comeback, but at least I got in the last word, vowing to never see the son of a bitch alive again. Yet, there I stood, across the hole in the ground from him, watching them throw the last few shovelfuls of dirt on our mother’s casket. The tension between us was edgy and sharp, like acrimony at a will reading. There was about a fifty-fifty chance of another fight happening, depending on whether he could keep his mouth shut. And there was a better than average probability that he couldn’t. But that’s just the way things were between us back then. We had come by it honestly, though.

How come your wife didn’t show up this time? he asked. Was she sick of being around your sorry ass and needed a break?

You’d have to ask her that, Tom. But I’m sure it’s just because of last time.

Last time? What about last time didn’t she like?

Oh, you know. That whole little fistfight thing we had over there by Daddy’s grave. That kind of turned her off a little bit.

Hell, that wasn’t nothing, Brothers get into fights all the time.

Not adult brothers. Especially not at their parent’s funeral.

Whatever.

Whatever.

A dirty white truck with Entriken Brother’s Funeral Home stenciled on the doors sat idling at the edge of the graveyard. I turned and walked past it to the gravel turnaround where my rental car was parked. He hurried around from his side of the grave and followed behind me like he was afraid I was going to escape. He was only a little more than a year older than I was but always acted much older, and every time I was around him, which was seldom, I would revert to acting like the younger brother. Then I always hated myself for it afterwards. I stopped in front of my car and he came and stood next to me. We both wore black suits but that was where any similarity between us ended. Kids at school used to tease us that the milkman had been coming over while Daddy was at work. It could have been true, for all either of us knew; we looked nothing like brothers. He had a long face that came to a point at the chin, emphasized even more by his skinny mustache and pointed goatee. His clothes clung to him the way a plastic bag clings to a chain-link fence on a windy day, and more than once, people had said that he looked like a Guy Fawkes mask. His voice was nasally and had an undertone that sounded like mustard on a turd. Or maybe I made up that last part. His words seemed anxious to leave his mouth when he spoke and he had a temper that was quick and brittle. He would fight you in an instant. And those were his good points.

I noticed that your wife wasn’t here today, either, I said. Not that I would have even recognized her anyway, but I could have probably put two and two together if I had seen her with you.

Caroline’s not my wife anymore. She had no reason to come.

You know what I mean. I just thought she might have shown up. They’ve known each other since she was a baby.

Yeah, and they didn’t get along any better than me and her did.

By this point, you’re probably wondering who is telling you this. My name is Michael L. Windham. My father gave me the last name of Strack when I was born, but I changed it before I published my first book, as I thought Windham sounded a bit more dignified than Strack. At least that was the excuse I used at the time. Afterwards, I realized it had been something I wanted to do for most of my life. I was born a hundred years after the American civil war and Daddy, being the proud confederate he was, insisted on making my middle name Lee, as in Robert E. Lee. And Mother relented and allowed it, ‘just to shut him up’ she always said. I’m neither tall nor short nor handsome nor ugly. My hair isn’t thick and it isn’t thin, and my perpetual five o’clock shadow is a muted brown color. Everything about me is just pretty average, if pretty average means coming from the most screwed-up family that ever walked the face of the earth. At the time of Mother’s funeral, I was living in Chicago but had to go back down to the ass end of nowhere to bury her. The suit I wore was the same one I had worn when we buried Daddy. If you had looked closely enough, you could have probably still seen the grass stains.

One gravedigger barked something in Spanish at the other two and climbed into the idling funeral truck. The apparent second-in-command looked at the other guy with a look like Well, what are you waiting for? and the other guy dropped his shovel and ran over and got the few wreaths of flowers out of the back of the truck. He laid a single wreath on top of the grave and stood the remaining ones around the perimeter of the fresh red dirt. It only took a minute because there weren’t too many flowers there, but there were several more flowers than there had been mourners. Tom took a pack of gum from inside his coat and offered me a stick. I declined as I pulled out a pack of smokes from inside my own jacket.

That shit’s gonna kill you, he said. Just look what it did to Daddy."

Like I give a shit what it did to Daddy.

Oh, you’d give a shit if you’d been there and seen the way it ate his ass up there at the end.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

Whatever, hard-ass.

He put a stick of gum in his mouth and wadded up the wrapper and put it in his pocket. A rusty, cast-iron fence limped around the circular driveway. Granite baby angels cavorted in silent perpetuity among crumbling spires that leaned into the ground across the gravel parking lot. Splotches of withered white grass grew between the stones. Several crows landed in the grass next to Mother’s grave.

Well, I guess that’s that, he said and rubbed his hands together.

I guess it is.

I lit a smoke and put the pack back in my pocket. It’d been a long couple of days. But every time I had been back home it had seemed that way. Both times.

What now? he asked.

Nothing now. If you mean for us to do. It’s done.

You know what I mean.

Well, I’m headed back to Chicago and you’re going back to doing whatever it is you do. And I guess I’ll see you again the next time you call and tell me somebody else is dead.

Hell, there ain’t nobody left that’s worth calling you about. He turned his head to the side and looked out across the graveyard. Probably nobody you’d bother to come back down for at least. Nobody else important is still around.

Where did they all go?

Just died off or moved away or got locked up. Aunt Mona was out in Texas with her family the last I heard. And John Thomas probably won’t ever come back from Hawaii.

I can’t say that I blame him.

"I actually thought Mona might have shown up today, but she didn’t.

Did she at least send any flowers?

I didn’t look through them, he said and looked back at me. Like you give a shit, anyway.

What about Uncle Harold? I asked, trying to keep my cool.

Hell, nobody’s heard from him in years. He was in Miami the last anybody knew. Nope. Everybody’s gone but me and you.

Is that supposed to make me feel special or something?

I could give a shit how you feel.

I thought for a second about putting my cigarette out in his eye, but instead I said, I thought Mother said we still had a cousin or two floating around.

Piss Can’s locked up over in Elmore county. He’s the only one I know of.

What did he do?

Dumbshit broke in a house up in Decatur. Guy was sitting in there waiting on him with a twelve-gauge pepper shaker. Held him until the law showed up.

What a dumbass.

Nobody ever accused him of being bright.

He sure wasn’t anything like his Daddy.

You can say that again.

The funeral truck clattered past with the rakes and shovels in the back. The low guy on the totem pole rode in the middle between number one and number two. Number one gunned it and white smoke billowed out of the tailpipe as he pulled out onto the highway.

You think she’d want to be put here? Next to him, I mean, I asked.

I didn’t get much chance to put any thought into it, the way she died all of a sudden like that. And you weren’t exactly around for me to ask your opinion, were you?

Here we go. I was wondering what was taking you so long.

Taking me so long for what?

For you to get to the part where you tell me how awful I am.

I just said you weren’t around. Take it however you want to. I couldn’t care less how you do.

Of course, you couldn’t. You know you've been waiting for the opportunity to tell me what a terrible son and god-awful brother I’ve been. And she hasn’t even been in the ground for five minutes. Just come on out and say it.

You’re the one that said that. Not me. I’m not going to have a fight with you this time. He paused for a few seconds." I’m not trying to blame you for anything, asshole. I’m just saying that I did the best I could on a short notice, and this is where everybody else is buried and he was her husband, so this is where I buried her. Like you give a shit, anyway."

Just forget it. It was only a question.

Hell if I even know why you came back. Once you get back up north, you’re never even gonna think about it again, anyway. I almost didn’t even bother to call your ass.

Yeah, but you did.

Yeah, I did, and you haven’t even shed a single tear since you got here, so I can’t imagine that you care where she’s put.

Is that what you’re wanting? Me to cry? Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you. I haven’t shed a tear about anything in a long time and it would take a hell of a lot more than one of them dying to get me to.

See what I mean? Always Mister I-Don’t-Give-a-Shit. Whatever, Mike. At least it was a proper burial.

Proper, my ass, I laughed. Call it whatever you like, but I wouldn’t say there's a single thing proper about anybody being buried next to that miserable son of a bitch.

Well, next time you can handle it, then, he shot back. Besides, that’s just her body. She’s gone on to a brand new life in a whole lot better place than this, and you can be damn sure that he’s not there with her.

I kind of rolled my eyes and shook my head. Almost stupefied.

You’re kidding, right? Please tell me that you don’t really still believe that happy horseshit.

You’re goddamn right, I believe it.

I flipped my cigarette on the gravel and ground it out with the toe of my shoe.

Well, I hope you’re right, because I could sure as hell use a brand new life for myself. Not that I’ll probably ever live to see it.

Probably neither one of us will. Just as well. I’m not so sure I could take another. I feel like I've lived two or three already.

I reached into my pocket and took out the key to the rental car. An unmarked police car sat idling in the parking lot of the Methodist church across the road, a leftover from the small funeral procession, I assumed. Or maybe the cop knew that when the Strack boys got together, there was a good chance of a fight. For a second, I thought about Tom and me growing up in the Church of God down the road from where we lived, and me sitting in the back row holding hands with Cindy Turner while the preacher spoke in tongues and the rest of the congregation whooped and hollered. And how Tom had always sat by himself when we got older. And how he had always been a sore thumb, even back then.

Well, anyway. You’re probably right, Tom. There’s probably not anybody left worth calling about. Hopefully there won’t be a next time.

I walked around to the driver’s side and grabbed the door handle. Tom walked closer and stood beside the car.

You know? He got to where he wasn’t so bad the last few years he was alive. You just weren’t around to see it. At the end there when he got that cancer. It just gutted him so quick, and he was so weak and humble. Hell, I actually got to where I felt sorry for him.

Well, that makes one of us.

You’ve always got to be the hard case, don’t you? I remember when you were no more than six or seven years old, standing up to him. It’s no wonder he was so hard on you.

Somebody had to do it. Neither of you were going to.

So now it’s my turn for you to make me feel like shit, huh?

A cloud moved in front of a sun that was as fragile as the peace between the two of us. A crow eyed us from the graveside and the day turned colder and grayer.

Well, there’s no sense in this shit, I said. We went through all of this at his funeral and it’s just going to get ugly again. Or uglier, if that’s even possible. It’s no wonder Katy refused to even come down here with me.

I reached out my hand and Tom just looked at it.

What am I supposed to do with that? he asked.

Not a damn thing, I guess.

Well, I don’t know what your plans are or when you’re planning on leaving, but here’s a key to the house if you want to run by there and see if there’s anything you want to take.

He reached in his shirt pocket as he spoke and took out a key. I reluctantly took it from him.

I wasn’t planning on going by there. I’ve got to fly out bright and early, I lied.

Well, you’re going to suit yourself just like you always have. I’m just giving you this so you can’t say you didn’t have the opportunity after I have the rest of her stuff hauled off to the dump.

Jeez, Tom. Can’t you do it? I don’t have time for this shit.

I’ve already gone over there and got everything I want to keep. And it seems like you could do this one little thing, goddammit!

He almost turned purple when he said that.

Alright. Keep your shirt on. I’ll run by there, but I can’t imagine there being a single thing there that I’d want.

Whatever. Anyway, I went by there and turned the heat up so you won’t freeze your ass off while you’re in there. Just make sure to turn the thermostat down to about sixty if you leave and shut off all the lights.

"What do you mean if I leave? Like I’d stay there."

I could tell he had more he wanted to take out on me and wasn’t going to let me off the hook too easily.

So, you just got here last night with a ticket to fly out tomorrow morning, huh?

Yeah, like I said. Bright and early. It was all I could get.

Well I guess that works out just perfect for you, then, seeing as to how much you hate it down here.

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back and said, Jesus Christ, Tom. I thought we weren’t going to do this. I just need to get home.

You always did look out for you first, didn’t you? Leaving here like you did and me holding the goddamn bag with them. Even back then, you were like that.

Hell, Tom. I wasn’t like anything. You could have left too. God knows why you stayed around here.

Because I had no place else to go. But don’t let me hold you up no more. I know you’ve got some really important shit to get home and do.

I don’t usually give a shit about what anybody thinks about me. A wise man told me once that opinions were like assholes: everybody had one and they all stunk. And in my opinion, Tom’s opinion especially stunk. But nonetheless, he was starting to piss me off. I tried to keep a lid on it because he was my brother, and also because I figured that was probably the last time that I would ever see him.

Come on, Tom. Don’t act like that.

I’m not acting like anything. You show up the night before the funeral and haul ass as soon as it’s over. Like your life is so much more important than everybody else’s that you can’t even be bothered with your own goddamn family. You act like you can’t even spend five extra minutes talking to your only brother that you haven’t seen since God knows when.

Oh, God knows when, alright. When we buried Daddy and you started the same bullshit that you’re trying to start right now. That one ass beating wasn’t enough for you?

"You know you’re full