And I would try to find peace in that.
Calvin Diehl
JANUARY 3, 1985
4:12 A.M.
It was stupid, how wrong it had gone, so quickly. And here he’d been doing her a favor, the redhead farmgirl. Goddam, she didn’t even leave him enough money; they agreed on $2,000, she left an envelope with only $812 and three quarters. It was petty and small and stupid, the whole night. It was disastrous. He’d gotten lax, cocky, indulgent and it had led to … She’d have been so easy, too. Most people were picky about how they died, but all she asked was not to drown. She didn’t want to drown, please. He could have done it so many simple ways, like he’d always done. But then he’d gone to get a drink at the bar, no big deal, truckers went through here all the time, he never stood out. But her husband was there, and he was such a piece of shit peckerhead, such a little worthless rat man, that Calvin found himself listening pretty hard for what this Runner guy’s deal was, and people were telling all sorts of stories, about how the man had ruined the farm, ruined his family, was in debt up to his shirt-collar. And Calvin Diehl, a man of honor, had thought, why not?
Stab the woman through the heart on her doorstep, make this Runner guy sweat some. Let the cops question him, this sorry shit who took no responsibility. Make him take some. Ultimately it’d be written off as a random crime, as believable as the other stuff he’d pulled, car crashes and hopper collapses. Down near Ark City, he’d drowned a man in his own wheat, rigged it to look like a turnover. Calvin’s killings always worked with the seasons: drowning during spring floods, hunting accidents during autumn. January was the season for house robberies and violence. Christmas was over, and the new year just reminded you of how little your life had changed, and man, people got angry in January.
So stab her through the heart, fast, a big Bowie hunting knife. Be over in thirty seconds and the pain wasn’t bad at all, people said. Too much shock. She dies and it’s the sister that finds her, she’d made sure her sister was coming over early. She was a thoughtful lady that way.
Calvin needed to get back to his house, back over the Nebraska border, and clean his hair. He’d wiped himself down with chunks of snow, his head was smoking from the cold. But it was still sticky. He wasn’t supposed to get blood on him, and he needed it out, he could smell it in the car.
He pulled over to the side of the road, his hands sweating inside his gloves. He thought he saw a child, running in the snow up ahead, but realized he was just seeing the little girl he’d killed. Pudgy thing, her hair all still in braids, running, and him panicked, seeing her not as a little girl, not yet, but as prey, something that needed putting down. He didn’t want to do it, but no one got to see his face, he had to protect himself first and he had to get her before she woke the other kids up—he knew there were more, and he knew he didn’t have the heart to kill all of them. That wasn’t his mission, his mission was to help.
He saw the little girl turn to run and he got that axe suddenly in his hand—he saw the shotgun too, and he thought, the axe is more quiet, I can still keep this quiet.
And then, maybe he did go insane, he was so angry at the child—he chopped up a little girl—so angry at the redhead woman, for screwing this all up, for not dying right. He killed a little girl with an axe. He shot off the head of a mother of four instead of giving her the death she deserved. Her last moments were horror, nightmare in her house instead of him just holding her while she bled onto the snow and died with her face against his chest. He chopped up a little girl.
For the first time, Calvin Diehl thought of himself as a murderer. He fell back in his seat and bellowed.
Libby Day
NOW
Thirteen days after Diondra and Crystal went missing, and the police had still not found them, had still not found any physical evidence to link Diondra to Michelle. The hunt was dissolving into an arson case, it was losing steam.
Lyle came over to watch bad TV with me, his new habit. I let him come if he didn’t talk too much, I made a big deal about him not talking too much, but I missed him on the days he didn’t come. We were watching some particularly grotesque reality show when Lyle suddenly sat up straighter. “Hey, that’s my sweater.”
I was wearing one of his too-tight pullovers I’d taken from the back of his car at some point, and it really did look much better on me.
“It really does look better on me,” I said.
“Man, Libby. You could just ask, you know.” He turned back to the TV, where women were going at each other like angry pound dogs. “Libby Sticky Fingers. Too bad you didn’t leave Diondra’s with, like, her hairbrush. We’d have some DNA.”
“Ah, the magic, magic DNA,” I said. I’d stopped believing in DNA.
On the TV, a blond woman had another blond woman by the hair and was pushing her down some steps, and I flipped the channel to a nature show on crocodiles.
“Oh, oh, my God.” I ran from the room.
I came back, slapped Diondra’s lipstick and thermometer on the table.
“Lyle Wirth, you are goddam brilliant,” I said, and then I hugged him.
“Well,” he said, and then laughed. “Wow. Huh, brilliant. Libby Sticky Fingers thinks I’m brilliant.”
“Absolutely.”
DNA FROM BOTH objects matched the blood on Michelle’s bedspread. The manhunt ignited. No wonder Diondra had been so insistent she was never remotely connected to Ben. All those scientific advances, one after another, making it easier and easier to match DNA: she must have felt more endangered each year instead of less. Good.
They nailed Diondra at a money-order dive in Amarillo. Crystal was nowhere to be found, but Diondra was nabbed, although it took four cops to get her in the car. So Diondra was in jail and Calvin Diehl had confessed. Even some skeevy loan agent had been rounded up, his mere name giving me the willies: Len. With all that, you’d think Ben might have been released from prison, but things don’t go that quickly. Diondra wasn’t confessing, and until her trial unfolded, they were going to hold on to my brother, who refused to implicate her. I finally went to visit him at the end of May.
He looked plumper, weary. He smiled weakly at me as I sat down.
“Wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me,” I said.
“Diondra was always sure you’d find her out. She was always sure of it. Guess she was right.”
“Guess she was.”
Neither of us seemed willing to go past that. Ben had protected Diondra for almost twenty-five years, I had undone all that. He seemed chagrined but not sad. Maybe he’d always hoped she’d be exposed. I was willing to believe that, for my own sake. It was easy not to ask the question.
“You’ll be out of here soon, Ben. Can you believe it? You’ll be out of prison.” This was by no means a sure thing—a strip of blood on a dead girl’s sheets is good, but a confession’s better. Still, I was hopeful. Still.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” he said. “It may be time. I think twenty-four years may be enough. It may be enough for … standing by. Letting it happen.”
“I think so.”
Lyle and I had put together pieces of that night from what Diondra had told me: They were at the house, ready to run away, and something happened that unraveled Diondra, she killed Michelle. Ben didn’t stop her. My guess is, Michelle somehow learned of the pregnancy, the secret baby. I would ask Ben one day, ask for the details. But I knew he’d give me nothing now.
The two Days sat looking at each other, thinking things and swallowing them. Ben scratched a pimple on his arm, the Y of the Polly tattoo peeking out from his sleeve.
“So: Crystal. What can you tell me about Crystal, Libby? What happened that night? I’ve heard different versions. Is she, is she wrong. Bad?”
So now it was Ben wondering what happened in a lonely, cold house outside of town. I fingered the two tear-shaped scars on my cheekbone, imprints from the iron’s steam ducts.
“She’s smart enough to duck the police all this time,” I said. “Diondr
a will never say where she is.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t know, Ben, she was protecting her mother. Diondra said she told Crystal everything, and I think she meant it. Everything: I killed Michelle and no one can know. What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? She gets obsessed, she tries to make sense of it, she clips photos of her dead relatives, she reads her dead aunt’s diary until she can quote from it, she knows every angle, she spends her life ready to defend her mom. And then I show up, and it’s Crystal who blows it. And what does she do? She tries to fix it. I kind of understand. I give her a pass. She won’t go to prison because of me.”
I’d been vague with the police about Crystal—they wanted to speak with her about the fire, but they didn’t know she’d tried to kill me. I wasn’t going to snitch on another member of my family, I just wasn’t, even if this one happened to be guilty. I tried to tell myself she wasn’t that disturbed. It could have been momentary madness, born out of love. But then, her mom had had a case of that, and it left my sister dead.
I hope to never see Crystal again, but if I do I’m glad I have a gun, let’s put it that way.
“You really give her a pass?”
“I know a little bit about trying to do the right thing and fucking up completely,” I added.
“You talking about Mom?” Ben said.
“I was talking about me.”
“You could have been talking about all of us.”
Ben pressed his hand against the glass, and my brother and I matched palms.
Ben Day
NOW
Standing out in the prison yard the other day, he smelled smoke. Smoke was floating on a current of air about eight feet above his head, and he pictured the field fires of autumn, back when he was a kid, flames marching across the soil in flickering lines, burning away what’s not useful. He’d hated being a farm kid, but now that’s all he thought about. Outside. At night, when the other men were making their sticky sounds, he’d close his eyes and see acres of sorghum, rattling at his knees with those shiny brown beads, like a girl’s jewelry. He’d see the Flint Hills of Kansas, with their eerie, flattened tops, like each mound was waiting for its own coyote to howl from it. Or he’d close his eyes and picture his foot, slopped deep in mud, the feel of the earth sucking him in, holding on to him.
Once or twice a week, Ben had a giddy moment where he almost laughed. He was in prison. For life. For murdering his family. Could that be right? By now he thought of Ben, fifteen-year-old Ben, almost as his son, an entirely different being, and sometimes he wanted to throttle the kid, the kid who just didn’t have it in him— he’d picture shaking Ben until his face blurred.
But sometimes he was proud.
Yes, he’d been a whimpering little worthless coward that night, a boy who just let things happen. Scared. But after the murders, something fell in place maybe. He would be quiet to save Diondra, his woman, and the baby. His second family. He couldn’t bring himself to bust out of that room and save Debby and his mom. He couldn’t bring himself to stop Diondra and save Michelle. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything but shut up and take it. Stay still and take it. That he could do.
He’d be that kind of man.
He’d become famous because he was that kind of man. First he was the bad-ass Devil-daddy, everyone twitching to get away from him, even the guards spooked, and then he was the kindly, misunderstood prisoner. Women came all the time, and he tried not to say too much, let them imagine what he was thinking. They usually imagined he was thinking good thoughts. Sometimes he was. And sometimes he was thinking what would’ve happened if that night went different: He and Diondra and a squealing baby somewhere in western Kansas, Diondra crying mean tears in some tiny, food-grimed cell of a motel room they rented by the week. He’d have killed her. At some point, he might have. Or maybe he’d have grabbed the baby and run, and he and Crystal would be happy somewhere, her a college graduate, him running the farm, the coffee maker always on, like home.
Now maybe it was his turn to be out and Diondra’s turn to be in, and he’d get out and find Crystal wherever she was, she was a sheltered kid, she couldn’t disappear for long, he’d find her and take care of her. It’d be nice to take care of her, to actually do something besides shutting up and taking it.
But even as he was thinking this, he knew he’d have to aim smaller. That’s what he learned from his life so far: always aim smaller. He was born to be lonely, that’s what he knew for certain. When he was a kid, when he was a teenager, and definitely now. Sometimes he felt like he’d been gone his whole life—in exile, away from the place he was supposed to be, and that, soldier-like, he was pining to be returned. Homesick for a place he’d never been.
If he got out, he’d go to Libby, maybe. Libby who looked like his mother, who looked like him, who had all those rhythms that he just knew, no-question knew. He could spend the rest of his life begging forgiveness from Libby, looking out for Libby, his little sister, somewhere on the outside. Somewhere small.
That’s all he wanted.
Libby Day
NOW
The curlicues of the prison barbed wire were glowing yellow as I reached my car, and I was busy thinking of all the people that had been harmed: intentionally, accidentally, deservedly, unfairly, slightly, completely. My mom, Michelle, Debby. Ben. Me. Krissi Cates. Her parents. Diondra’s parents. Diane. Trey. Crystal.
I wondered how much of it could be fixed, if anyone could be healed or even comforted.
I stopped at a gas station to get directions, because I’d forgotten how to get to Diane’s mobile park, and goddam it, I was going to see Diane. I fingerbrushed my hair in the station’s bathroom mirror, and applied some chapstick I’d almost stolen and bought instead (still not feeling entirely good about that decision). Then I drove across town, into the white-picket-fenced trailer park where Diane lived, daffodils yellowing up everywhere.
There is such a thing as a pretty trailer park, you know.
Diane’s home was right where I remembered, and I rolled to a stop, giving her three honks, her ritual when she visited us way back when. She was in her small yard, poking around the tulips, her broad rear to me, a big block of woman with wavy steel hair.
She turned around at my honks, blinked wildly as I got out of the car.
“Aunt Diane?” I said.
She strode across the yard in big solid steps, her face tight. When she was right on top of me, she grabbed me and hugged me with such force it pushed the air out of my lungs. Then she patted me hard twice, held me at arm’s length, then pulled me in again.
“I knew you could do it, I knew you could, Libby,” she mumbled into my hair, warm and smoky.
“Do what?”
“Try just a little harder.”
I STAYED AT Diane’s for two hours, til we started running out of things to say, like we always did. She hugged me again gruffly and ordered me to come back out on Saturday. She needed help installing a countertop.
I didn’t get straight on the highway, but slowly rolled toward where our farm had once been, trying to find myself there by accident. It had been a shaky spring, but now I rolled the windows down. I came to the end of the long stretch of road that would lead to the farm, bracing myself for housing developments or strip malls. Instead I came upon an old tin mailbox, “The Muehlers” in cursive paint on the side. Our farm was a farm again. A man was walking the fields. Far down by the pond, a woman and a girl watched a dog splatter in the water, the girl windmilling her arms around her waist, bored.
I studied it all for a few minutes, keeping my brain steady, staying away from Darkplace. No screams, no shotguns, no wild bluejay cries. Just listen to the quiet. The man finally noticed me and gave a wave. I waved back but pulled away as he started to wander over, neighbor-like. I didn’t want to meet him, and I didn’t want to introduce myself. I just wanted to be some woman, heading back home to Over There That Way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS br />
Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, where a twenty-minute drive can get you to wide, open fields of corn and wheat, I was always fascinated by farms. Fascinated, but not, shall we say, knowledgeable. Huge thanks to the farmers and experts who instructed me on the realities of farming, both during the ’80s farm crisis and now: Charlie Griffin of the Kansas Rural Family Helpline; Forrest Buhler of the Kansas Agriculture Mediation Service; Jerrold Oliver; my cousin Christy Baioni and her husband David, a lifelong Arkansas farmer. A giant debt of gratitude goes to Jon and Dana Robnett: Jon not only let me play farmer for a day on his Missouri lands, he answered endless questions about farming—from grain elevators to bull castration. He stopped short of advising me exactly how to sacrifice a cow in a satanic ritual, but I forgive him that bit of good taste.
My brother, Travis Flynn, one of the best shots in the Missouri-Kansas region, was incredibly gracious with his time, advising me on both the period and personality of guns and taking me out to shoot everything from a 10-gauge shotgun to a .44 Magnum—thanks to his wife, Ruth, for putting up with us.
For my crime-scene questions, I turned once again to Lt. Emmet B. Helrich. For rocking, I turned to Slayer, Venom, and Iron Maiden. My cousin, lawyer Kevin Robinett, answered my legal questions with his signature mix of wit and brains. Huge thanks to my uncle, the Hon. Robert M. Schieber, who has suffered my gruesome, strange Dark Places queries for two years, and always takes the time to talk out what could happen, what might happen, and what would likely happen when it comes to the law. His judgment has been invaluable. Any errors regarding farming, firearms, or the law are mine; I hope my fellow Kansas Citians will indulge my few fictional liberties regarding good ole KCMO.