Dig Your Grave

by Steven Cooper

  “Detective, please,” the woman whispers. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Mills stares at her, his face instinctively hosting the are-you-fucking-crazy look as he considers her bold assertion. “Excuse me?”

  “Not here,” she says. “Please, can I speak to you in private?”

  Mills doesn’t answer. His face remains in its are-you-fucking-crazy pose; he adds a WTF shake of the head.

  “Detective?” she whispers again. “Can you come with me?”

  “Sure,” Mills says, and follows her to a small, windowless conference room. It’s an envelope of claustrophobia probably meant to intimidate the fuck out of employees who are dragged in here for a scolding. She asks him to sit opposite her.

  “I mean no disrespect,” she says.

  “Just needed to show off in front of the employees?”

  “No,” she says, her smile collapsing. “I didn’t want to cause a scene. I’m going to tell you something that I couldn’t tell you out there.” Her tone suggests she luxuriates in escalating anticipation, brokering information, wielding knowledge.

  Mills has seen it all before. Flatly he says, “I’m all ears.”

  “First, you cannot attribute this to me. I never told you this.”

  “Right.”

  “I really wanted to share this, you know, to avoid all the legal wrangling. It would’ve saved you a lot of time, Detective. But I was scared of losing my job, to say the least.”

  “You could save me a lot of time right now, if you just spit it out, ma’am,” he tells her. “And I mean no disrespect.”

  “The call did not come from here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her smile returns triumphantly. “I mean that no one here paged or called Dr. Schultz that evening. Our records reflect that. There’s nothing in our written logs. Our calls are computerized, as well. I’ve been through the data a dozen times. There are no incoming or outgoing calls associated with Dr. Schultz or his practice, for that matter.”

  Mills makes her wait a moment, then says, “All the more reason we need your records. If your intention by telling me this was to preempt the subpoena or a search warrant, you’ve actually done the opposite.”

  “But there’s nothing to search for here. That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “And I don’t disbelieve you, ma’am. What you’re telling me is critically important and, if true, warrants confirmation on our part. We need proof.”

  She rests her arms on the table in front of her and leans forward. “But you don’t need proof from us,” she says. “The fact is Dr. Schultz was not on call last weekend. All you have to do is ask the people who run his practice. There’s your proof. Another physician was on call. Not him!”

  Occasionally a theatrical witness does produce ovation-worthy information. It was worth sitting through her performance for this. “And you know this how?”

  “First of all, we have the on-call schedules for all the practices we contract with,” she replies. “Then, after going through all our logs and records from last weekend, just to be sure Dr. Schultz wasn’t covering for someone else at the last minute, I just picked up the phone and called his office manager and asked. Imagine that!”

  “Office manager to office manager,” Mills says. “What a clandestine world you work in.”

  “Are you satisfied now, Detective Mills?”

  “I believe I am,” he says, rising. “I guess I owe you an apology. Or at least I need to tell you that I understand your concerns and appreciate what you’ve done.”

  She reaches for his hand. She doesn’t shake. She just holds his hand in hers. “I know you do. I know you didn’t mean to be a jerk.”

  He laughs.

  “And I didn’t mean to be a bitch,” she adds. “But put yourself in my place. I’m not supposed to be saying a word to you, and, yet, I had this important information. Please, please don’t bring my name into any of this.”

  “I won’t,” he says. “You have my word. And my sincere gratitude, Whitney,” he says, suddenly remembering her name. If there ever was a Whitney, she’s a Whitney. She’s a portrait of Whitney.

  Mills swings by headquarters, picks up Powell, and heads over to the home of Carla and Barry Schultz.

  “You wanna call and see if she’s home?” Powell asks.

  “Nope,” he replies. “That would prompt a conversation that I want to have with her in person.”

  “Makes sense. And if she’s not home, I know a real good place out there for sushi.”

  “Just a warning,” he tells his colleague, “she looks like the poster child for plastic surgery. Nip, tuck, boobs like nobody’s business.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Is she? Mills is pretty sure she meant that sarcastically, but he’d never given much thought to whom Powell might be attracted. Surely not the plastic surgery type. At thirty-three, Powell’s fairly attractive with an outdoorsy face and long, copper hair that, in her days as a patrol officer, she used to bleach blond. Freckles dust her cheeks lightly. Sometimes her face snarls up like a playground bully. Other times not so much. He musters a harmless question to her. “You think you’ll ever settle down?”

  “You sound like my mother,” she says. “I will. When the right person comes along.”

  “Makes sense to me,” he tells her.

  “What doesn’t make sense to me,” she says, “is why we waited for Schultz’s answering service to cough up the information, rather than talking directly to his practice.”

  “Because the practice isn’t talking directly to us. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if they know why, now that lawyers are involved,” Mills replies. “Besides, we were trying to track down the patient who called into the service that night. The service would have been the first point of contact. We had no reason to believe Schultz wasn’t on call.”

  She nods. “So, no one called into the answering service?”

  “There was no call for Barry Schultz,” Mills replies. “Nor for anyone else in his practice that night.”

  “But the possibility remains that he could have been lured out that night by someone angry over a botched surgery,” Powell says. “Someone who knew how to reach his cell.”

  “But, assuming the same person killed Schultz and Klink, how does a bad surgery fit into both motives?”

  She turns to him, smiling. “Okay, I’m going out on a limb with this theory, but let’s suppose Klink had a mistress and paid for her plastic surgery. The surgery was a disaster so she goes after both of them.”

  They’re at a red light. He looks at her and says, “Actually you’ve snapped the limb.”

  “That bad?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s mildly plausible if you think our killer is a woman.”

  “It could be,” she says. “We don’t have evidence either way. Do we even know what it would take, physically, for a man or a woman to carry out the murders?”

  The light turns green. Mills accelerates and says, “Not yet. But do you really think a woman is going to get so angry over a surgery that she’d go out and commit murder?”

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scarred!”

  Mills laughs. It’s an unlikely scenario, and they both know it.

  Carla Schultz’s face betrays both exhaustion and despair but little else. Broken blood vessels, like red lightning bolts, pierce the corners of her eyes. She’s done a lot of drinking or crying, probably both. She wears no makeup, and her skin is sallow. “Detective, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mills says. “I should have called. But I was hoping you’d be home.”

  “Do you have news?”

  He shakes his head. “Not really. We haven’t made an arrest, but there’s something I need to discuss with you.”

  She’s hesitant at the door, moves to swing it open, then stops. “But look at me,” she says. “I’m a mess.”

  “Mrs. Schultz,” Powell says, “you’re A
merica’s Next Top Model compared to most people we meet with.”

  “This is my colleague, Jan Powell,” Mills tells her. The women share a light, polite handshake.

  Carla Schultz invites them in. She leads them to the left of the foyer, past museum-quality art of the Desert Southwest, and up a stairway of Mexican tile and wrought iron. They sit in a loft overlooking the living room.

  “Beautiful home,” Powell tells her.

  “Thank you,” Carla says. “Barry’s obsessed with the pueblo style, in case you didn’t notice. He loves Taos. I mean ‘loved.’” Her voice cracks. “God, I still find myself referring to him in the present tense.”

  “It’s barely been a week,” Powell says gently. “You may not adjust to this for a while. And no one will blame you.”

  “How are you holding up, otherwise?” Mills asks. “You have family and friends for support?”

  Carla bites her lip. Mills can see her trembling chin. Tears brim, and she says, “I do. But at the end of the day this feels like something I have to go through alone. People tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I agree with those people,” Mills tells her.

  She shrugs and says, “What brings you here, Detective?”

  “I need to ask you a question,” he says. “Is there any way you were mistaken about your husband being on call last weekend?”

  “Anything’s possible,” she replies. “Didn’t I tell you I couldn’t remember one way or another? The phone call surprised me. But Barry insisted.”

  “Right,” Mills assures her. “I do have that in my notes.”

  “So, why do you ask?”

  “Because we were trying to track the patient who called the answering service, and we discovered that your husband was never on call.”

  She looks at him with expectant eyes as if there must be more but says nothing.

  “Can you think back to last weekend, Carla? May I call you Carla?” Powell asks her.

  The woman nods.

  “Okay,” Powell continues, “think back to last weekend and ask yourself if anything happened that was not routine.”

  “It was a dull weekend as far as I can remember. Until I woke up and he was gone.”

  “But does your routine change at all when your husband’s on call? And did it change last weekend?” Powell asks.

  Carla slides her hands under her thighs and leans forward. “When he’s on call—uh—was on call, we don’t or didn’t leave town,” she says. “But that’s it. We’d go out for dinner; he’d play golf. We might go on a short hike or to a gallery. As you can tell, we’re collecting Native American art. Or we might cook, stay in, watch a movie. He could answer patients from anywhere as long as he was relatively close to home.”

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you this, Carla,” Mills says, “but is there any reason your husband would have lied to you last weekend about being on call?”

  Anger fills her eyes. “My husband did not lie,” she insists. “I told you he got a call from the answering service about a patient with some post-surgery trauma, and then he called her right away. I don’t know if he was technically on call or just covering for someone else who was. Okay?”

  “But, Carla, there was no call from the answering service,” Mills tells her. “There was no patient calling with post-surgery trauma. We checked.”

  Carla shakes her head as she speaks. “I don’t understand. I remember he got a call from the service, hung up quickly. Then he called the patient and left the house. I don’t know how I could have misunderstood that.”

  “Because you don’t understand crime, Carla,” Powell says. “And you’re not supposed to. That’s our job.”

  “Then someone was using that cream cheese butt story to lure him out,” the widow muses.

  “We don’t think there was a medical emergency,” Mills says. “He might have lied to you to get out of the house. Something to do with that call. But we don’t know what. Do you think he was trying to get out of the house to go see someone in particular?”

  She groans. “God no. I don’t know. I hadn’t even considered that possibility because he said he told the patient to meet him at the hospital. That’s routine,” she says. “But I know what you’re implying.”

  “If you know what we’re implying, is it possible he was going to see someone who he didn’t want you to know about?” Powell asks.

  “You mean a girlfriend?”

  “Yes,” Powell says.

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?” Mills asks. Without waiting for an answer, he says, “So Barry never left the home at odd hours or came up with odd reasons to take a drive?”

  “Not unless he was actually on call or covering for someone,” Carla says. “I don’t control his every move, and he sure as hell doesn’t have to sign in and sign out.” She follows her remark with a hearty laugh, and that immediately sucks some of the tension out of the room. “But, my husband doesn’t sneak around or make mysterious phone calls if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Mills leans in like a confidante. “Can you think of someone, anyone, who would have wanted to lure him out of the house last weekend? Anyone he might have argued with?”

  She searches the wall behind them, as if a memory might be lingering there, or an epiphany waiting to strike. “I’m sorry,” she says finally, tears inching down her face.

  Mills hates the nagging question, hates having to ask it, but he’ll hate the nagging question even more if he leaves the house without an answer. “I know you smoke dope, Carla,” he says. “Is it possible your memory of last weekend is clouded? Were you high when your husband left the house?”

  Her face is in her hands, and she screams. The muffled agony gives Mills a shiver. “Yes. I was high when he left the house,” she says. “Yes, I get high when we’re in for the evening just hanging out. Don’t fucking tell me this is my fault.”

  Mills leans in. “No. Not at all. I’m sorry. I just wanted to establish your state of mind. What about your husband?”

  She laughs bitterly. “Never high. Tolerated my smoking. Didn’t judge and didn’t partake. Okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you, Carla,” he says and then nimbly adds, “We’ve subpoenaed your husband’s cell phone records, but we’re also going to have to subpoena data from your landline here at the house to find out who’s been calling him.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll give them to you. I can get them off the computer.”

  “That would be fine, Carla,” Powell says. “We may need to go through the subpoena process anyway with your phone company, just to keep it admissible, but feel free to provide us with whatever you can.”

  “And photos,” Mills adds, suddenly remembering. “If you can dig up any old photos that you think might be helpful.”

  She wipes away a tear. “Photos of what?”

  “Anything important to your husband. Your wedding. Your vacations,” he tells her, trying to best articulate what Gus might need. “Any milestone in his life could give us a clue.”

  Still weeping, the widow nods. “Give me a few days,” she says. “I’ll pull together some photos and print out those phone records. I just need a few days.”

  Mills reaches for her hand and holds it. “Someone lured your husband to his death. We need to find out who and why. And we will. I promise you.”

  As soon as the car doors close with a solid thunk, Powell turns to him and says, “The doctor answers the phone in front of his wife, but he can’t let her know who’s on the line. So, he hangs up, goes into another room, and calls the person back. Then he leaves, and on the fly he just says, ‘I gotta cover for Dr. Joe Blow.’”

  “I have no problem with that theory,” Mills says.

  “So, Barry Schultz knows the person who’s calling him, and he knows why he’s getting the call,” Powell adds. “This is not some mysterious stranger luring him out of the house. This has consequences. Like, say, Schultz owed someone money. Drugs, maybe. Gambling. Who knows?”

  Mills’s
phone rings. “Hold that thought, Jan.”

  It’s Ken Preston. “We got another grave,” he tells Mills. “It’s empty.”

  Mills takes the palm of his free hand and bangs it on his forehead. “Jesus.”

  “Where you at?” Preston asks.

  “We’re just leaving Carla Schultz, in Scottsdale,” Mills replies. “I’m putting you on speaker so Powell can hear. Where’s the grave?”

  “Moon Valley. Desert Rose Memorial Park. Put it in your navigator.”

  Powell types the information into the navigator as Mills starts the car and pulls into the street.

  “Are you on-site?” Mills asks.

  “No,” Preston replies. “We just got the call. Meet you out there?”

  Mills takes a deep breath. “Yeah. But get me some techs and a photog.”

  “Done,” the man says.

  Mills ends the call and dials Gus Parker. “Detective Psycho,” he says to voice mail, “it’s a little after three. Meet me at Desert Rose Memorial Park in Moon Valley, if you’re not at work. If you are, come by after. I think I’ll be there a while.”

  Powell eyes him suspiciously as he puts the phone down.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Detective Psycho?”

  “My name for Gus—sometimes.”

  “Does he just have indefinite clearance to work with you?”

  “It’s cool with Jake. Is it not cool with you?”

  She scoffs. “I don’t care. I like Gus. He’s a bit out there, if you know what I mean, but he’s cool.”

  “And he can be helpful,” Mills says.

  “And we did almost get him killed,” she reminds him.

  He doesn’t need a reminder. The image of Gus trapped in a remote desert cave with that lunatic has yet to debit from his memory bank. Probably never will. Mills saved the psychic’s life, but it never should have gotten that far. This case won’t. It can’t. And yet another grave awaits. A phantom draft of air comes from behind him now like the heavy, hissing breath of Mayor Hurley making its way down his neck.