A Bone Dead Sadness

by Joe R. Lansdale

  A Bone Dead Sadness

  Joe R. Lansdale

  It was about three o’clock in the afternoon with nothing to do but read email. It was mostly ads. Marvin Hanson was trying to figure out how to filter the ads, and not having much luck at it, when he came across an email to his website that was interesting.

  It said:

  Mr. Hanson. I want to hire you or your operatives, if you have any. Money is not an issue. Well, it might be an issue if you ask for too much, but otherwise, if you’re interested, come out to Timber Lake Drive, 113, and talk to me about three P.M. today. Mildred Craver.

  Hanson leaned back in his desk chair and thought a moment. He looked at his watch. He had come in late today, starting with lunch, and had only been in the office thirty minutes.

  Marvin leaned forward and typed:

  See you then, Marvin Hanson.

  Marvin sat in his desk for a moment and considered. He knew the area of the address in the email. Once nice, kind of gone to seed, but there were people out there that had money. Mildred said it wasn’t an issue, but she had also curiously, and perhaps with humorous intent, added the part about asking too much.

  There hadn’t been much in the way of work lately, and certainly not enough to hire any operatives, that being mostly two of his friends, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. They weren’t worth messing with unless there was real business to take care of. Actually, friends or not, they were kind of a pain in the ass.

  Nope. This was one he’d take care of himself.

  Considering his leg, which had given him grief for some time due to a car accident, was much better, he thought he could handle it all himself.

  He still carried a cane, but mostly for psychological support. It was also a good weapon if he should need it. He thought about getting himself one with a sword inside of it, but it probably wouldn’t play out well if he ended up using it. For now, he’d stick to the cane he had—solid hickory with a knob, not a hook.

  Marvin got up without use of the cane and made a cup of coffee. He drank that while he sat at his desk reading the rest of his email. That finished he made a phone call to his wife. Their marriage had a few bumps they were ironing out, and had been ironing out for years, but Marvin knew he had brought it on himself. Fact was, the wreck that had messed up his leg and nearly killed him had involved a girlfriend he was seeing.

  Pussy.

  It made a man crazy. Even a good man, and he liked to think that’s what he was. But the thing was, he had cheated on his wife, and she knew, and she took him back. Even if she did remind him of it daily, and not always directly. She didn’t have to. She just gave him a look that made him feel like a worm on a hot rock. She did it less as time went on, and he liked to think he had proven to her that he had acquired better sense, but a certain element of trust had been lost, and maybe forever.

  Anyway, he called her. It was a short talk, and mostly pleasant. She no longer checked on him, which was a mixed bag. It either meant she trusted him a lot more than before, or just didn’t care anymore.

  When they finished talking, he fiddled with the email a while longer, then pulled a book out of his desk drawer and read a bit of it. It was pretty good. Hank and Muddy, by Steven Mertz.

  He put it away after an hour and drove over to Starbucks and bought some coffee at the drive through. It was better than the coffee he made. Decaf with soy milk and two artificial sweeteners. He sipped it as he drove out to Timber Lake Drive.

  When he got there he saw the area had gone downhill a might more than he thought, but the house he was looking for hadn’t gone downhill at all. In fact, it was sitting on top of one surrounded by trees. The yard looked as if it had just been clipped and the sky even looked brighter over the roof, as if the sunlight had saved itself for that location.

  Marvin parked and got out. He had left his cane at the office, on purpose, now he was having second thoughts. He limped a little as he went up the steps and knocked on the door. After a short time, a middle-aged woman answered.

  “Mrs. Craver?” Marvin asked.

  She smiled. “I am, but I think you’re looking for the other Mrs. Craver. Babe Craver. That’s what everyone calls her. My mother-in-law. Would you please come in?”

  Marvin did just that. It was a nice house. Not a mansion, but nice. The younger Mrs. Craver went away in search of the older.

  When the older Mrs. Craver showed up, she looked old enough to have ridden in on a mammoth. She moved well enough, but there was something about her gait that gave the impression that she was near worn out. She had very white false teeth that fit like they were too big for her mouth. She had hair that looked more orange than red and her face was marked with lines that looked to have been the results of chickens scratching through the pale powder on her face. Her lipstick was a little lopsided, like a monkey had put it on her in the dark. Marvin judged her age to be about Three B.C.

  “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Hanson,” she said.

  There was a couch, so Marvin sat. She sat too, though it took her awhile. Marvin commiserated. He wasn’t her age, but his leg had given him hell for quite a few years, so he recognized how she was trying not to show pain. He liked her immediately. Old as history, and tough as stone.

  “Are you open to all manner of investigation?” she asked.

  “I think I am. I have to hear the job to know.”

  “Do you rough people up?”

  “Not that I’d admit to.”

  The old woman grinned her false teeth. “That’s all right. I was just checking. I don’t want you to beat anyone up. I just like to know if you’re a tough guy.”

  “Do I need to be?”

  “Nope. But my husband was, and I liked that about him. He was a good guy, but he was tough. They don’t make men tough anymore. You look pretty tough though.”

  “It would take a dog a long time to eat me, I think.”

  “Ha,” she said. “What I want is to find out what happened to my son, Tom.”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “Twenty-five years.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yep. Yikes. He went missing twenty-five years ago and I haven’t so much as heard a peep from him. I figure he’s dead, but I’d like you to look into it. If he is dead, I’d like to know how he ended up and where he is before I pass away. I don’t know how long I got left, but I wouldn’t count on much. I got up this morning and felt so bad I thought I was dead for a couple of hours.”

  “You look spry enough,” Marvin said.

  “You sweet liar.”

  “When was he last seen and where?”

  “The bank, twenty-five years ago,” said the younger Mrs. Craver, who was entering the room again, carrying a tray with a pitcher of ice tea on it and three glasses. Marvin had heard her banging around in the kitchen and had hoped some kind of drink would be the result.

  “This is my daughter-in-law, Frankie,” said Mrs. Craver. “She lives with me.”

  “I’m more like a daughter,” Frankie said.

  “True enough,” Mrs. Craver said.

  Frankie sat. She was a thick lady with thick ankles and a thick neck.

  Her face showed a former beauty hidden under some fat. “He came to see me at the bank, and that was the last time anyone saw him.”

  “Just a visit?”

  “Actually…” and Frankie glanced at Mrs. Craver when she spoke.

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Craver said. “He’s going to find him, he’s got to have the whole package.”

  “He was fresh out of prison and he came to see me about money.”

  “Your money or the bank’s?” Marvin asked.

  “My money that he wanted to make his money.” Frankie said. “I didn’t give it to him.” />
  “Tom had his faults,” Mrs. Craver said. “And in fact, he was a shit and not worth the powder to blow him up. But he was my son, and in some place deep in the back of my old withered heart, I love him and want to know what happened to him. I presume an untimely end. But after twenty-five years, the police, and four private investigators who have found nothing, I thought I’d give it another try. I was told at the police department that you used to be a cop and that you were known to manage some tough jobs, and sometimes you were known to stretch things a little, but not so much that they snapped.”

  “Not that anyone knows about,” Marvin said.

  “I’m not sure you’re joking,” Mrs. Craver said.

  Marvin didn’t say anything to that.

  “No matter what the outcome,” Mrs. Craver said. “I’d like to know what happened to him.”

  “Tell me about his coming to see you,” Marvin said to Frankie.

  “I worked a desk in the bank,” Frankie said. “The Standard Bank. I was a loan officer. That’s when the bank was in the old section. Before the newer section was built.”

  Marvin considered that. The old bank had been scheduled to be torn down at one time, until the historical society made a big stink about it. There was history with the old bank. Once it had been robbed at the turn of the century. One of the first robberies by car, before all the famous guys like Bonnie and Clyde came along. Marvin didn’t really remember all that much about it.

  “He came to see me, wanting money,” Frankie said. “It was about closing time, and I remembered the whole thing embarrassed me. I didn’t give him any money. He left. That was the last time I ever saw him. That was the last time anyone in the bank ever saw him. No one else has ever claimed to have seen him since.”

  “The law, the private detectives,” Marvin asked. “Did they come up with anything?”

  Mrs. Craver tapped some thin folders that were lying on the coffee table between them. “These are the police reports, and the reports from the private investigators. Well, three of them. The fourth took our money and went to bars and never looked any farther than the bartender. We sued him. We won, but he didn’t have any money and he spent ours.”

  “All right,” Marvin said. “Any special interests or friends that Tom may have had? That kind of thing.”

  “He was short in the friend department,” Frankie said. “He was of all things a rodeo clown for awhile, then a circus clown. He actually ran off to the circus.”

  “When he was eighteen,” Mrs. Craver said. “He was our youngest. All the other kids, and there are three others, did quite well for themselves. But Tom, he was always a pain in the ass. He took gymnastics, and baseball, and was good at all of them.”

  “He was a contortionist in the circus,” Francine said. “I figured when he went away that day, he just joined back up with the circus.”

  “I believe it was actually a carnival that he worked for,” Mrs. Craver said.

  “Whatever,” Frankie said. “He worked for them from time to time. He could dislocate his shoulders and put his foot behind his head. It wasn’t a skill that served him well outside of the carnival, and he didn’t work there often. He was always looking for the easy way out.”

  “You don’t sound like you miss him much,” Marvin said to Frankie. Frankie looked at Mrs. Craver.

  “It’s okay, dear,” Mrs. Craver said. “I understand that you two weren’t that close. Not in the end. It doesn’t matter.”

  Frankie reached out and touched Mrs. Craver’s arm. “You know I love you.”

  “Of course I do,” Mrs. Craver said. She looked at Marvin. “She takes very good care of me. Better than my own children. She moved in with me to take care of me.”

  “So you and Tom weren’t close,” Marvin said to Frankie, “because of Tom’s work habits, or lack thereof, and his time in prison.”

  “That would be a lot of it,” Frankie said. “That and the fact he chased every woman he saw. He was charming, but it was all BS. We were separated at the time of his disappearance. When he got out of prison, he wanted us to get back together. I had heard that before. And he’d mean it when he said it. For about a week, or until I gave him some money. My guess was in no time he’d be back in prison.”

  “What did he go to prison for?” Marvin asked.

  “Burglary,” Frankie said.

  “All right,” Marvin said. “I guess that does me for now. I might have some questions later.”

  “That’s fine,” Mrs. Craver said. “Shall we settle on a fee?”

  They talked money. It was good money they were talking, and Marvin felt it was one hell of a good deal they settled on. A good fee to look and report, a better fee if he found out where Tom was, or what had happened to him.

  When the deal was struck, Marvin picked up the files from the coffee table. “I’ll return these when I finish.”

  “That’s fine,” Mrs. Craver said. “Do you think you can find out what happened to Tom?”

  “It’s been quite a while.”

  “But it’s possible?” Mrs. Craver said.

  “Yes,” Marvin said. “But there are no guarantees.”

  “I understand,” Mrs. Craver said.

  “However,” Marvin said, “if it’s any consolation. If anyone can figure out what happened to him, or where he is, it’s me.”

  “That’s not a very modest view,” Mrs. Craver said, showing her false teeth.

  “No, it isn’t. But it’s not brag either. Just fact.”

  Frankie walked Marvin out to his car. When he opened the door to get in, he paused and leaned on it.

  “I was trying to give her some hope in there,” Marvin said, “and I meant what I said about being good at what I do. But, it really is a long shot.”

  “I realize that,” Frankie said. “And frankly, as far as Tom goes, I don’t really give a damn. He can be dead. He can be alive, living in Argentina with Hitler, and I don’t care. But, for her there’s always going to be a bone dead sadness about her until she knows what happened to him, good or bad. Therefore, it matters to me. For her sake.”

  “Is there anyone else that worked at the bank at that time that may remember Tom’s visit?”

  “You doubt me?”

  “Someone may have noticed something you didn’t.”

  “And they’d remember twenty-five years later?” Frankie said. “I think the other detectives went over that.”

  “A lot of detective work is looking at old information in a new way.”

  “Well, I think James Raymond saw him, but he’s no longer around. He was the bank manager at the time. It was a small bank then, they were about to build the new one. He knew Tom in passing. But, as I said. He’s dead, so that doesn’t matter. There was Tiffany Miller. She was a teller. In fact, there was the manager, me, Tiffany, and old Mrs. Thompson. She did the books. She’s long dead as well. That was the whole bank staff back then.”

  “All right,” Marvin said. “Thanks. And, goodbye.”

  · · ·

  That evening at the dinner table, Marvin said to his wife, Rachel. “It’s a pretty odd case. Guy’s been missing twenty-five years.”

  “You think he’s dead?”

  “I think it’s highly possible. Likely even. But it’s also possible he’s living somewhere under another name.”

  “He could be back in prison?”

  “I checked that. That would have been easy for the law or the previous investigators to figure out. Even if Tom had been using an assumed name, he got caught doing something he shouldn’t, the finger prints would have ratted him out. No. He’s either dead or out there in hiding.”

  When they were through eating, Rachel said, “I’m going to go to bed.”

  “Pretty early,” Marvin said. “We could watch some TV.”

  “No. That’s all right.”

  “Rachel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Trying what?” she said.

  “You know. T
o make up for things.”

  “Sure. I know.”

  “Can’t you forgive me?”

  “I forgive you, Marvin. I just can’t forget.”

  “Will you ever be able to forget?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. You don’t forget getting burned, or hit by a car, or cheated on.”

  “Stupid question.”

  “Yes, it was. But maybe I can forgive more in time. I’m trying to. I want to. I’m just not there yet.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Marvin said.

  “Trust. Hard thing to get back, Marvin.”

  “I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I love you. I have always loved you. I just don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I do.”

  “All right. Yeah. I was thinking that. No excuse. I was a dog.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “It’s never happened again.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I mean with anyone. It never will.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Then?”

  “It still hurts. In time, maybe it won’t. I’m going up to bed.”

  “I’ll be right up, soon as I finish my milk.”

  “Don’t hurry.”

  “No problem.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “You watch some TV. That would be good. You come up after awhile.”

  Marvin knew what that meant. After she was asleep.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

  Rachel got up from the table and leaned over and kissed him on top of the head and went upstairs. Marvin watched her go. When she was gone he finished his milk and picked up the dishes, then went into the living room and got the TV guide. He looked it over. There was nothing he wanted to see. He stretched out on the couch. He thought about Tom and what happened to him. He got up and got the files and looked at those. He read them for awhile. He decided to go up and go to bed, but he knew he would just have his cold space on the far side of the mattress.

  He put the files away, stretched out on the couch and thought about Florida, the woman he had cheated with; the one who was dead now. But that was a different deal, and he didn’t want to think about that. He thought about the Craver case a little more, and then he fell asleep.