KnockOut

Mama didn’t believe that,” Autumn said. “She just didn’t think I saw what I thought I did.”
    Joanna Backman’s face was so leached of color he thought she’d faint. He waited for her to say something, but it was Autumn who spoke. “I wanted Mama to come with me so I could show her what they were doing, but she wouldn’t. She pulled me against her and rubbed my head and told me it would be all right, and we were leaving first thing in the morning, and I wasn’t to worry about it. I’d forget about it—that’s what she thought. But I knew it wouldn’t go away. How could it? I saw them digging up Daddy’s grave, and I saw them burying dead people in it.”
    Joanna took her daughter’s hand. “She’s right. I believed Autumn was seeing something in her head, but I didn’t believe the Backmans were actually in the cemetery at that moment burying people. Autumn had just lost her father; she was grieving for him terribly. Per-haps she’d misinterpreted whatever she’d seen.”
    The thick silence in Ethan’s living room was broken only by Lula and Mackie’s purring.
    He said slowly, “You believed Autumn was seeing horrible things in her head because of what you’d both seen earlier that day in the cemetery? You thought she was dreaming it?”
    Joanna saw incredulity on his face, heard the disbelief in his voice. She said, “That’s what I hoped at the time. I mean, who wants to believe something that horrible was actually happening right below the bedroom window?”
    Ethan said, “You went to the cemetery, didn’t you, Joanna?”
    “Yes, I planned to, alone, so I could come back and reassure Autumn. I was walking toward the center staircase when I heard the three of them come through the front door. They were talking. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, so I tiptoed down to the bend in the stairs. I heard Mrs. Backman then, her voice was really proper, so I stopped right where I was and listened. I couldn’t have misunderstood her. She sang out, sounding happy as a lark, ‘Well, boys, I’m thirstier than a desert in hell. We got it done, all solemn and proper, and it’s over. Nobody could complain we didn’t do it right. That big pile of dirt will settle down soon enough. Now, I need a nice whiskey sour. Grace, you know exactly how to make it. Blessed, you want a Diet Coke?’
    “Blessed said he did, with a slice of lemon. Grace didn’t say any-thing. I would swear they should have heard my heart pounding. They’d just buried people and she wanted a whiskey sour? I wanted to run, but I knew I had to wait and listen, but for the longest time I didn’t hear them say anything more. I stayed bent down, in the shad-ows of the bend of the stairs. I thought they’d gone when Shepherd said, ‘We’ll take care of Joanna in the morning. Make it look like an accident, Blessed; we don’t want Autumn to distrust us. Everyone will be so pleased she’s here at last, where she belongs. She’s strong. I know it now, stronger than Martin.’
    “I heard Blessed grunt and say he’d stymie me easier than Nat Hodges. That was the word he used, ‘stymie.’ Then Grace said some-thing, but I couldn’t make out the words.
    “I felt frozen, so terrified I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, could scarcely draw a breath. Finally they moved away, probably to the kitchen, so Blessed could make this horrible old woman a whiskey sour.
    “Later, probably after three o’clock in the morning, Autumn showed me the tree branch outside the window and we climbed down.”
    Ethan said, “Did you go to the cemetery before you went to get your car? To know for sure?”
    Autumn turned in to her mother and wrapped her arms around her back. “It’s all right, sweetie.”
    Autumn nodded and turned back. “Mama wanted to see it with her own eyes. But she said she believed me now after what she heard Mrs. Backman say. She knew I didn’t see it in my head.”
    Joanna hugged her daughter tightly to her. She kissed her hair. “Know this, Autumn, from now on I will always believe exactly what you tell me.” She gave her daughter a lopsided grin and another hug. “However, whether or not I want to believe you is a very different matter.” She looked up at Ethan. “It was too dangerous to stay. We had to get out of there.”
    Ethan studied the little girl’s face. “Tell me, Autumn, what were you doing in the cemetery so late, and alone. When you saw them burying the people?”
    She wouldn’t meet