Don of the Dead

by Casey Daniels

  "Then you walked here?" Dan asked.

  I nodded and he smiled. "I did, too," he said. "From the hospital. And you're kind of on my way back. Would it be okay if I walked you home?"

  He didn't mind being abandoned in the bar? I wasn't being dumped?

  Even as I smiled my agreement, my spirits rose. They might have stayed right up there in the stratosphere if I hadn't followed Dan's lead and started across Mayfield Road

  when the light changed.

  I hadn't gone three steps when it hit me. That was exactly where Gus died.

  Traffic was stopped and I took the opportunity to look up and down Mayfield, trying to imagine what he had seen that night when he walked out of Lucia's and straight into a hail of gunfire. Did he get a look at the car that careened around the corner and came at him full speed? Did he hear the first shots?

  I guess I was in a unique position of sorts. The next time I saw Gus, I could ask. But at the same time, I wondered how much he'd leave out, just like he'd left out any mention of his wife the drunk. If I asked, would he tell me what the last thing he thought about was? Was it the taste of Nick's veal parmigiana? Or was Carmella's tirade still ringing in his ears?

  Did he feel the first bullet tear into him and know the end was near? Did he regret his life of crime? Or did he look over at the school and picture the playground he built behind it?

  The sound of Dan's voice calling to me from the other side of the street snapped me back to reality and I found myself staring at the blacktop and thinking one thing: It was a lousy place to die.

  Aberrant behavior.

  There was no other explanation for it.

  Because as I hurried out of the way of oncoming traffic and over to where Dan was waiting for me, a single tear slipped down my cheek.

  Chapter 5

  Dan never questioned what I was doing with Nick. It would have been nice to think he was giving me space, but I had a sneaking suspicion that until he happened to see me walk out of the kitchen, he never really noticed I was gone. The good news is that he was true to his word; he escorted me all the way to the door of my apartment. I might have been feeling better about the whole date-that-wasn't-a-date thing if while we walked he hadn't spent the whole time talking about brains and scans and something called synapses. He asked if he could call me again, too, but the warm-and-fuzzy moment was dampened by the fact that he said something about his research study in the same breath.

  I actually might have taken the time to be pissed at Dan.

  If I wasn't so busy being pissed at Gus.

  How did Gus expect me to get to the bottom of his murder if he didn't tell me the whole truth and nothing but? He'd failed to mention Carmella or her threats. How much else hadn't he told me?

  As much as I tried, I couldn't keep the questions from bouncing through my head all night. I couldn't sleep. And it was all Gus's fault. By the next day, I was keyed up, wrung out, and dragged down. I was also ready to have it out with him.

  I would have done it, too. If I knew where to find him.

  It wasn't like he had a busy to-do list. The least he could have done is made an appearance so that I could read him the riot act.

  Instead, I spent the morning taking care of the little details that were all part of my job. I accompanied our head groundskeeper on a golf-cart circuit around the cemetery while he pointed out the various unusual trees and plants he thought should be included on a new horticultural tour. I scheduled a visit for a third grade class from a local school and even though the little darlings wouldn't be arriving for another month, I spent some time planning how I would call in sick that day. Against my better judgment and no doubt to the horror of my college English professors should they ever catch wind of it, I gave in when Ella pressured me to write an article on tombstone symbolism for the next issue of the Garden View monthly newsletter.

  But I never saw Gus. Not even once.

  I actually would have been happy about the turn of events and thrilled to consider the possibility that he might be gone forever if I wasn't seething inside and so hot to let my anger out, I could barely sit still. Let's face it, I couldn't exactly take it out on anyone else. That wouldn't be right. I couldn't explain my sour mood, either. What would I say?

  Sorry I'm so cranky today. No, it's not PMS. It's GSS. Gus Scarpetti syndrome. You see, there's this ghost…

  I snapped out of the thought just as the Garden View visitors' bus rolled up to our first stop. As if they'd choreographed the move, the members of the Sacred Heart Ladies' Guild got up from their seats en masse, and I knew I had to get moving, too. Time to introduce them to the first angel on our tour.

  Like I always did, I got off the bus before anyone else and stepped aside so that Bill, our driver, could stand next to me and help if he was needed. I reminded the ladies to watch their steps at the same time I waved them over to where I would start into the script I hadn't even read until right before they showed up.

  Naturally, the slowest movers were the last in line. I offered my assistance to a lady in blue pants and a green sweater who was having trouble walking. Once she was safely settled, I climbed back onto the bus to grab on to another woman who was wearing orthopedic shoes and mumbling something about how steps were hard for her. I helped her, too, and handed her to Bill. He had been doing this for a long time and two hard-to-maneuver old ladies were nothing to him. One on each arm, Bill started toward the angel. Without looking, I automatically reached for the next person in line.

  Turns out it wasn't a person at all.

  I stopped just short of poking my hand right into Gus's stomach.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  He shushed me, one finger to his lips. "You want these nice ladies to think you're crazy?"

  I didn't.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and it wasn't until I was sure they were out of range that I dared to say another word.

  "Where the hell have you been?" I was forced to whisper and it made my words sound like exactly what they were, the hiss coming off a boiling teakettle. "We need to talk."

  Gus straightened his suit coat and when he got off the bus, I was forced to back down the steps. Once we were both outside, we were eye to eye. "We need to talk," he said, "when I say we need to talk."

  He walked away and headed for the angel statue.

  "No." I dared to raise my voice. The members of the Sacred Heart Ladies' Guild were busy chatting and I didn't think any of them would realize I was talking to not-so-thin air. And so what if they did? By this time, I was way too mad to care. "If you want my help with this, Gus, we talk when I say we talk."

  Not surprisingly, Gus wasn't used to this kind of sass. He stopped and I saw his shoulders stiffen. When he turned back to me, his eyes were narrowed and his lips were pressed in a thin line. "What did you say?"

  I grew up in an upper-middle-class family with every privilege in the world. Public schools in a stellar system. A college that was better than some and pricier than most. What I wanted when I wanted it. And a circle of friends and acquaintances whose lives were carbon copies of mine.

  I had never had to stand up for myself against a mob boss.

  I gulped down a sudden, icy fear but just as quickly reminded myself that mob boss or not, Gus couldn't lay a hand on me. Funny how much courage a realization like that can give a girl.

  I straightened my shoulders, too, and when I looked Gus in the eye, I made sure mine were just as narrowed and just as steely as his. "I said we need to talk."

  "We've said everything we have to say."

  I let him think he'd won. I let him turn and walk away. When I threw my next comment at him, I made sure my voice was as breezy as the one I'd use in a minute or two when I talked about the marble angel that stood nearby.

  "We haven't talked about Carmella."

  Big points for Gus. He winced but he didn't stop or turn to look at me. He kept right on walking. He skirted the crowd of ladies gathered around the angel statue and walked s
traight into an obelisk that was carved out of a single block of granite and stood more than seven feet high.

  When he didn't come out on the other side, I knew I'd hit a nerve.

  It didn't make up for my sleepless night, but at least it was something. Cheered, I joined my tour group.

  Once I had everyone's attention, I told them all about angels, or at least as much as I could remember from the script that had been written by the woman who held my job before me. I mentioned how some people believe that angels are messengers between heaven and earth. I faked my way through a field guide to angels: seraphim and cherubim, archangels and the rest of the heavenly crowd.

  I guess I must have held my own pretty well. The women of the Sacred Heart Ladies' Guild didn't argue.

  I was just about to launch into the statistics—how many angel statues there were at Garden View, how much marble it took to make them, which stood the highest and which was the smallest—when a voice whispered in my ear.

  "Carmella, she didn't have nothing to do with it."

  I refused to acknowledge Gus. We weren't going to discuss this on his terms, and the sooner he realized it, the better. As if the only sounds around us were the birds in the trees, I went right on.

  "As you can see from the name carved into the pedestal, this particular angel marks the burial place of—"

  "And who told you about Carmella anyway?"

  "The burial place of the Smith family." I pronounced each word carefully, sending the message (I hoped) that Gus was going to have to wait his turn. "Now if you'll get back to the bus, we'll head to our next stop and another angel."

  I don't know how he got over there so quickly, but by the time I made my way over to where the bus was waiting, Gus was already there. He was leaning on a tall headstone carved with shamrocks and a Celtic harp. "Who told you?"

  The ladies were talking and laughing as they waited to climb onto the bus, and I turned my back on them, pretending to look through the papers on my clipboard at the same time I made sure to keep my voice down. "You're not paying attention," I told Gus. "You're not asking the questions anymore. From now on, I ask the questions. And if you don't want to answer them… "

  It wasn't exactly a threat but I tried to make it sound like one. I turned back around, and because I knew there was a ladies' room near the next angel and that those ladies would visit it just as every group of women tourists did, I knew I'd have time to kill once we arrived there. I signaled to Bill that I would walk to our next stop, and I waited until the bus pulled away.

  "If you don't want to answer my questions—"

  I was wasting my breath. Gus was gone.

  I grumbled a word that would have made the Sacred Heart women blanch and started off in the direction of our next stop. Unfortunately, that was the first time I'd conducted the angel tour and though in theory I knew exactly where I was going, in reality it was a little harder to get my bearings. I watched as the bus glided around a corner up ahead and followed, but after a couple minutes and an endless landscape of headstones, statues, obelisks, and mausoleums, I was pretty much lost.

  "Shit." I plunked down onto the nearest flat surface, which happened to be a stone bench tucked between the surrounding branches of two ancient evergreens. I carried a map of Garden View with me and I fished it out from the bottom of the pile of papers on my clipboard and looked around for one of the section marker signs posted near the road. I was in Section 45 and if I was headed to Section 53…

  "Girls shouldn't talk like that."

  At the sound of Gus's voice, I just about jumped out of my skin. All the more reason to do what I could to annoy him. I slanted him a look. "Shit. Shit. Shit," I said.

  He clicked his tongue. "If you were my daughter, I'd wash your mouth out with soap."

  "And if I were your son, Rudy, you wouldn't even think to criticize the way I talk."

  He sat down on the bench next to me. "Of course not. Men talk like men and women—"

  "Should stay home and have babies. Yeah, I've heard all about that." Disgusted, I rose to my feet. "It's the twenty-first century, Gus. Get with the program."

  "And the program is what? Going out with a boy who is interested only in your body?"

  "The only part of my body he's interested in is my brain and—" Gus's words sank in and I stopped, startled. "How do you know about Dan?"

  He shrugged. It was an elegant little movement, out of character for a man as beefy as Gus. "I pay attention," he said. "And besides, I was in your office when he left a message. On your answering machine."

  "And you're waiting for me to ask what the message was about."

  "You're not going to?"

  "I'll listen to it when I get back to the office."

  "And if I erased it?"

  He wasn't about to catch me on that one, and I let him know it with a little I'm-alive-and-you're-not smirk. "Can't," I reminded him. "Pressing the erase button would require a corporeal body."

  Gus actually smiled. "It never hurts to try a bargaining chip. Even if it's not a good one. Remember that, kid. It might come in handy someday. So… " He got up and straightened his suit coat. "Who you looking for?"

  It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about. I checked my script for the next monument on our tour. "Anderson, Louis and Matilda."

  "And you don't know where they are."

  "You wouldn't know where they were, either, if you had something to do all day other than whatever it is you do all day. And what do you do all day, anyway?"

  "Is that one of those questions you said you'd be asking from now on?"

  I should have known he wouldn't forget our little tiff at the first angel monument. All well and good. Because I wasn't about to forget it, either.

  I raised my chin. "I haven't really thought about it but now that you mention it, yeah. That is one of my questions. What do you do all day, Gus?"

  "I keep busy. Plenty busy. I watch. I listen. Like to that boy on your answering machine. I walk around. Hell, I've been walking around this place for thirty years. I'm familiar with every inch of it. Which means one of us knows exactly where Anderson, Louis and Matilda are located."

  I guess he figured I was smart enough to catch his drift. This time, he didn't even bother to use the words "bargaining chip."

  I gave in with as much good grace as I could. "Nick told me about Carmella."

  "Nick? The cook from—"

  "Lucia's. Yeah. Only it's not Lucia's anymore. It's—"

  "Did you try the veal parmigiana?"

  I sighed my annoyance. "I'm thinking murder and you're thinking veal parmigiana?"

  "Are you thinking about my murder?"

  "Are you going to tell me where to find Anderson, Louis and Matilda?"

  A smile touched Gus's lips. "You're a quick learner, kid. Come on."

  He started off across the section, and because I didn't have any choice, I followed along. This was one of the oldest parts of the cemetery and back in the day, only the wealthiest of Cleveland's citizens could afford to be buried here. Unlike the newer sections where common folks spent their eternal rest side by side and in neat rows marked by flat-to-the-ground stones, the older sections were a maze of sculptures, standing headstones, and mausoleums.

  We walked a staggered path through it all and though he didn't say a word, I knew Gus was waiting for the rest of my story. We had made a bargain of sorts. I was honor bound to keep my end of it.

  "Nick says Carmella was drunk."

  "Nick is wrong."

  "Nick says Carmella was drunk a lot."

  "Nick doesn't know from nothing."

  "Nick says Carmella threatened you."

  Gus stopped midstride and glared at me. "I told you, Carmella didn't have nothing to do with it."

  "And you know this how?"

  Instead of answering, he glanced up at the tree over my left shoulder. He studied it for so long, I might have thought he was a candidate for the new horticultural tour. If I didn't know better
.

  Gus was stalling.

  I knew it.

  He knew I knew it.

  Before I could call him on it, he twitched his broad shoulders and looked me in the eye. "After Carmella left Lucia's, she was busy for the rest of the night."

  "You're sure about that?"

  "Yeah."

  "How do you know?"

  He smoothed a hand over his fat tie. "She told me."

  I rolled my eyes. "Right. And it's not like I don't believe you, but I should talk to her."

  "You can't."

  "Because you say so."

  "Because she ain't around." Gus started up again. He walked right into the closed front door of a rose granite mausoleum and a second later, stepped out of a stained-glass window at the back.

  I was forced to take a more conventional route. I ducked under the branches of the tree growing near the door, and sidestepped between the mausoleum and the one that stood nearby.

  Gus was waiting for me. "She spends the winter in Florida," he said. "It's only what, the second week of April? She's not back yet."

  "Then I'll talk to her when she gets back."

  "You'll leave Carmella out of this."

  I stood my ground and I'll admit it, I stamped my foot. It was a pretty juvenile way to make a statement, but it was exactly what Gus expected from a girl. It got his attention and that was the whole point. "Why? Why can't I talk to Carmella? Because she's family? Seems to me that's exactly why you should suspect her. Which brings up another whole subject. What about your son?"

  When he looked my way, anger flared in Gus's eyes. "Rudy?"

  "Yeah. Rudy. You haven't said much about him. But according to what I read in those newspapers, he inherited your criminal empire."

  "I didn't have no criminal empire."

  "Don't give me that bullshit. That's what you said in every interview you ever gave the press. You might have fooled them but you're not fooling me. If it wasn't a criminal empire, what was it?"

  Gus sniffed. "It was business."

  "Okay then, did Rudy take over your business interests?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then maybe he's the one who—"