The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens Read Free Book Online

there every day staring out that window, looking at God knows what, since there ain't nothin’ to see.He just sits there. Mrs. Lorngren thinks he's mesmerized by a view with no metal bars blocking the way.”
    I half expected Carl Iverson to be a monster strapped to his wheelchair with leather belts for the protection of the residents around him, or to have the cold piercing eyes of a madman capable of doing great evil, or to have the demanding presence of an infamous villain; but I found none of that. Carl Iverson should have been in his mid-sixties, if I did the math right. But as I looked at this man, I thought that Janet made a mistake and brought me to the wrong person. A few thin wisps of long, gray hair dangled from the crown of his head; sharp bones poked against gaunt cheeks; thin skin, tinted yellow with jaundice, covered a neck so skinny and shriveled that I was sure I could have closed a single hand completely around it. He had a serious scar crossing the carotid artery on his neck and cadaverous forearms, their tendons prominent against the bone in the absence of any muscle or fat. I half believed that I could hold his arm up, like a child might hold a leaf up to the sunlight, and see every vein and capillary that ran through it. If I had not known better, I would have put his age closer to eighty.
    â€œStage four,” Janet said. “It's about as bad as it gets. We'll try to make him comfortable, but there's only so much we can do. He can have morphine, but he fights it. Says he'd rather have the pain and be able to think clearly.”
    â€œHow long's he got?”
    â€œIf he makes it to Christmas, I'll lose a bet,” she said. “I sometimes feel sorry for him, but then I remember who he is—what he did. And I think about that girl he killed and everything she missed out on: boyfriends, love, getting married and having a family of her own. Her kids would've been about your age if he hadn't killed her. I think about those things whenever I start feeling sorry for him.”
    The phone rang, pulling Janet back to the reception desk. I waited for a minute or two, hoping she would come back and provide the introduction. When she didn't return, I cautiously approached what little remained of the murderer Carl Iverson.
    â€œMr. Iverson?” I said.
    â€œYes?” He turned his attention away from a nuthatch he'd been watching scamper down the trunk of a dead jack pine outside the window.
    â€œI'm Joe Talbert,” I said. “I think Mrs. Lorngren told you I was coming?”
    â€œAh, my visitor…has arrived,” Carl said, speaking in a half whisper, breaking his sentence in half with a wheezing inhale. He nodded his head toward an armchair nearby. I sat. “So you're the scholar.”
    â€œNah,” I said, “not a scholar, just a student.”
    â€œLorngren tells me…” He shut his eyes tightly to let a wave of pain pass. “She tells me…you want to write my story.”
    â€œI have to write a biography for my English class.”
    â€œSo,” he said, raising an eyebrow, leaning toward me, his face dead serious, “the most obvious question is…why me? How do I come to receive…such an honor?”
    â€œI find your story compelling.” I said the first thing that came to my mind, the words echoing with insincerity.
    â€œCompelling? In what way?”
    â€œIt's not every day you meet a…” I stopped myself, looking for a polite way to end the sentence: a murderer, a rapist of children? That was way too harsh. “…a person who's been to prison,” I said.
    â€œYou're pulling your punches, Joe,” he said, sowing his words in a careful steady pace so as to avoid having to stop to catch his breath.
    â€œSir?”
    â€œYou're not interested in me because I spent time in prison. You're interested because of the Hagen murder. That's why you're talking to me. You can say it. It's gonna help