Don of the Dead

by Casey Daniels

  While I worked on my salad, I tapped the tip of the pen against the paper, thinking. I was almost done with my lunch by the time another thought occurred to me.

  "Why'd you hire him if he wasn't good for much of anything?" I asked Gus.

  "Huh?" He'd been lost in thought, too, and he snapped out of it. "You mean Two Toes? Why did I hire Two Toes? We always had these young guys hanging around. Had a lot of stuff for them to do. Errands and things. And like I said, he came recommended. He must have. Otherwise we wouldn't have let him in the front door."

  "Family connections?" I meant it in the traditional sense, though either definition fit.

  "He didn't have no family." Gus was apparently thinking in the traditional sense, too. "Tommy was an orphan or something. It was one of the reasons I hired him on. Figured he wouldn't have any of them there divided loyalties. And hey, it was one hell of an advantage. No one missed him once he was gone."

  I didn't bother to point out that Gus's attitude was cynical. Not to mention cold-hearted.

  I finished up the last bite of my salad and tossed the Cool Whip container back in the bag I'd brought it in. I stuffed the whole thing in my bottom desk drawer, thinking out loud. "I wonder how we could find out more about Two Toes."

  "Well, he's buried here."

  I looked at Gus in wonder.

  "What?" He was instantly defensive. "You never asked."

  He was right. I never had. I'd never much cared. And maybe this avenue of my investigation would end up nowhere just like all the others had. But it was something to do and something was better than sitting there thinking. The fact that it was close to seventy outside and that the sun was shining might also have had an influence on my decision.

  I grabbed my car keys out of my purse. "We're going to pay Tommy Two Toes a visit."

  Tommy Cavolo was buried in what the folks in administration liked to call the "new" section of the cemetery. Considering that "new" covered everything from 1930 on, it was a little hard to understand the logic, but I suppose at one time, it made sense.

  In that section, near the high stone wall that separated the cemetery from the neighborhood that surrounded it, most of the headstones were modest and flat to the ground. There were only a few standing headstones and no carved angels looking over the scene. No obelisks and only one fancy mausoleum as far as the eye could see.

  It was the Garden View equivalent of general admission. The folks back there weren't rich or as famous as the ones who occupied the prime real estate near the main gate and because of that, the new area of the cemetery wasn't as active.

  That didn't mean it was desolate. Or that it wasn't taken care of.

  The grass was neat and from the scent that still hung in the air, I could tell it had been cut earlier that day. I parked my car and Gus and I got out, and I noticed the wreaths and flowers that had been brought to some of the residents. Someone had hung a small wind chime from a tree near the road and it chinked and clinked in a sort-of song that was the only thing I could hear except for the sounds of traffic from the other side of the wall.

  I checked the printout I'd accessed from the office computer against the numbers markers and got my bearings. If we headed to the right…

  I stepped carefully over gravestone after gravestone, heading back toward the wall.

  With any luck, that's where I'd find Tommy.

  What I didn't expect to find was the bunch of wilting spring flowers laid on his grave.

  "How long did you say this guy has been dead?" I asked Gus, though I didn't really need him to answer. Tommy's birth and death dates were carved into the modest gray granite stone.

  "Nineteen forty-six. Nineteen sixty-eight." I didn't do the math, partly because I didn't need to and mostly because Tommy had died way too young and I didn't want to think about it.

  "I thought you said he was an orphan with no family. Who do you suppose is still sending flowers?"

  Gus shrugged. "Far as I know, nobody cared about the kid that much. Must be a mistake."

  "Maybe." I glanced at the graves on either side of Tommy's. "This guy died back in the thirties. And the woman on the other side of Tommy conked out in the forties. I can't imagine someone would still be bringing flowers to them."

  "And I can't imagine that anybody would ever bring flowers to Tommy. He wasn't the flower type, you know?"

  "A woman." I don't know why I decided I was right, I only knew I was. "A woman is the only one who would think flowers. She's the only one who would still care."

  "He could have had a comare, but even a girlfriend or a mistress doesn't hold on. Not all this time."

  "Always the romantic, huh?" I didn't suppose Gus knew sarcasm when he heard it so I didn't wait for him to reply. I stepped back to consider Tommy's grave from another angle and think about what the flowers meant and as I did, I heard a car out on the road. I turned just as a white van slowed down and parked opposite from where we stood.

  The driver got out. He was a pencil-thin guy with a scraggly ponytail and a wispy goatee. He was wearing dirty jeans and a Pink Floyd T-shirt and carrying a bunch of white carnations.

  What were the chances he was bringing the flowers to Tommy?

  I was inclined to say slim and none—any right-thinking person would—but for what seemed like the first time in this investigation, my timing was good. He headed right toward me.

  "How you doing?" The delivery man gave me a look that said he thought it was pretty weird to find me standing by myself there at Tommy's grave. He probably would have thought it was weirder if he realized that when he walked up, he stepped between Gus and me. "You the one that sends these flowers?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me who does."

  He shrugged and bent to remove the wilted bunch. "All I do is bring 'em," he said. "Every week. Take the old ones away. Bring the new ones."

  I glanced over at the van. There was no name written on the side of it. "Who do you work for?"

  "Something wrong with the flowers?"

  "No, there's nothing wrong with the flowers. They're beautiful. Maybe I'd like to send some."

  "Waste of money, if you ask me." The delivery man dropped the bunch of carnations down on the stone. "I've been doing this for what feels like forever. Must cost somebody a frickin' fortune."

  "And who did you say you worked for?"

  "Sully's." He poked a thumb over his shoulder, though as far as I knew there was no florist anywhere nearby. "You know, down by the freeway."

  "And do you suppose somebody there knows who sends the flowers?"

  He shrugged. It wasn't so much an I-don't-know gesture as it was an I-don't-care one.

  I didn't pursue it. What was the point?

  I waited until the delivery man was back in the van and had driven away, then started toward my car.

  "Come on," I told Gus. "Time for a road trip."

  The manager of the flower shop wasn't as helpful as I hoped. Oh, he tried. He was chatty and charming in a gay sort of way and would have loved (or so he claimed) to give me the information I was looking for.

  But he'd only bought the business eighteen months earlier, and according to his records, the money that paid for Tommy's flowers was left in a lump sum with the previous owner a couple years before that. It was a lot of money, he did share that little fact with me, enough to keep Tommy in fresh flowers for years to come. He also admitted that he was pretty smart. Rather than keep the money squirreled away as the previous owner had done, he'd put it in an interest-bearing account and was making a good chunk of change off it. The whole thing was completely on the up-and-up, he assured me. He sent the flowers every week. He deducted the amount from the total for each sale. As far as he was concerned, what happened to the rest of the money was completely up to him.

  As for that previous owner… well, it turned out that he was a resident of Garden View, too. Whatever he once might have been able to tell me about the person who ordered the flowers, he no longer could.

  By t
he time I got back to the cemetery, I was tired and discouraged. It was after five and even though the front gate was open and would be until sunset, I'd come at Garden View from the other side. Rather than negotiate the maze of city streets that surrounded the cemetery, I took the easy way and drove in through the staff gate.

  It was the way Dan said he'd come in the night I told him to get lost, and in spite of the fact that I knew I was over and done with both him and his stupid study, I couldn't help thinking about the whole thing.

  Maybe my brain had been too busy processing everything I'd learned about Tommy Two Toes and Anthony and Carmella with her flamingoes and her yellow flip-flops.

  I'd never bothered to question anything Dan had said that night.

  Now, a thought struck out of the blue, and I jammed on my brakes.

  "How do you suppose he knew?" I didn't even realize I was talking out loud until I glanced toward Gus and saw that he was looking at me like I was crazy. I filled him in on my thought process. Such as it was.

  "Dan the Brain Man. The other night. He said he knew I was here at the cemetery because he saw my car parked over near the office. But Dan's never seen me except at the hospital or when we've met somewhere. How do you suppose he knows what kind of car I drive?"

  "Son of a bitch has been following you. I never did trust those shaggy-hair types."

  It seemed out of synch with Dan's character. Maybe that's why the thought made me think of stalkers. And serial killers.

  Automatically, I checked my rearview mirror and when I did, I breathed a little easier. There was no one around.

  I told myself to get a grip, let up on the brakes, and continued toward the office. I'd been on that particular road a dozen times since I'd started my job at Garden View, but it was the first I'd realized that it took me right past Tommy's grave.

  I don't know what possessed me. I got out for one more look.

  In the late afternoon light, the bouquet of white carnations gleamed against the gray granite. The way the delivery man had dropped them, Tommy's name was covered.

  Call me a softie. It just didn't seem right. Tommy the orphan who'd opened his mouth once too often and paid the ultimate price. The thought of his name being hidden much like his life was seemed like adding insult to injury.

  I picked up the flowers and moved them to the side of the stone.

  It was the first I realized there was a symbol carved in the granite just below Tommy's name. I hadn't seen it earlier because of the iris and tulip bouquet.

  I bent to brush away some grass clippings that were scattered over the carving.

  "It's a broken ring." I wish I could have said what significance the symbol had but let's face it, I hadn't exactly devoted a whole lot of time to my newsletter article. But I did know one thing: I'd seen the symbol listed on the Web site I'd consulted for my research. "And look, there are letters underneath it." I knelt and brushed away more grass. The carving of the ring was no more than four inches high and beneath it were letters that were even smaller, "D.V.M." I read the letters out loud and looked over my shoulder at Gus. "Mean anything to you?"

  "Nah." He shook his head. "And that there broken ring… It ain't nothing I've seen before."

  I hadn't seen it before, either, or if I had, I hadn't paid any attention. I squeezed my eyes shut. I could picture the Web page where I found much of my information and the listing of symbols, nice and neat and alphabetical. "A broken column is a sign of decay and mortality," I said, proud of myself for remembering even that much. "A broken ring… " Something flared inside my brain and I hopped to my feet, grinning.

  "The ring stands for a family circle," I said. "It's broken because one of the members has been lost." I wrinkled my nose. "I thought you said Tommy was an orphan."

  "I'm sure of it. I told you. An orphan. Or a foster kid or something."

  "But, Gus… " I looked from the carnations to the carving. I wondered about the letters D.V.M. and what they might tell us not only about Tommy but about the people or person who missed him.

  "Gus, somebody really cared about this kid. They still do."

  Okay, so it might have been a little obvious, but I thought it was a pretty brilliant deduction. I actually might have had a chance to feel smug about it except that at that very moment, a bullet whizzed by my head.

  Chapter 16

  "Get down!"

  I didn't need Gus's warning. And I didn't need to freeze up like a strawberry daiquiri when he jumped forward and tried to push me out of the way. I dropped like a rock, flat on my face.

  "See anything?" It would have been easier to talk if I didn't have a mouth full of grass clippings. I turned my head to spit them out and waited for Gus to answer. No nose to the ground for him. He was invisible and didn't have a thing to worry about. From the corner of my eye, I saw the tips of his shoes.

  "Son of a bitch." I heard him grumble before he moved a few steps in the other direction. "Wherever he is, I can't see him. Come on. You gotta make a run for it."

  "Run?" How was I supposed to do that when my knees were rubbery and my heart was pounding so hard, I expected it to smash out of my chest? "I can't run."

  "You can't stay here. A shooter never tries only once. Not a professional. Believe me, I know these things."

  He did, and I didn't doubt him for one second.

  Which didn't make my legs any better able to support me.

  Gummy legs or not, though, I knew I had no choice. I swallowed down my terror, took a deep breath, and pushed myself up on my elbows. "I can't." I collapsed again just as quickly, my voice clogged with tears and grass clippings, my arms crossed over my head.

  "You've got to." Suddenly, Gus was down on the grass with me, looking right into my eyes. "If you stay here, you're gonna end up dead like me."

  "But—"

  "Ain't no buts. Not about this. You're a sitting duck. Come on, kid. You gotta run. You got no other choice."

  Technically I did. I could lie there whimpering and the next time the shooter took aim, maybe he'd find his mark. It was a frightening thought, sure, but it was only a little less frightening than thinking about running while he was taking potshots at me and I was wondering when and where the next bullet would hit.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, my brain cycling through all the things I could have/should have/would have done if only I'd known that I was destined to die too young.

  I could have called my mom over the weekend like I'd been planning before I got wrapped up in my investigation and convinced myself I'd do it another time.

  I should have written to my dad like I'd been saying I was going to do ever since he was sent to the Big House.

  I would have called Joel Panhorst. If I knew I was going to buy the farm that day, honest, I would have picked up the phone and called the creep. Not that I was feeling emotional when it came to Joel. Heaven forbid! But it sure would have been gratifying to let him know that sometime—somehow—between then and the day he walked out on me because he was worried about what his country club friends would say when he married a girl whose father was in the federal pen, I'd realized that getting rid of him was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  After all, how pathetic would it have been to have Pepper Panhorst on my tombstone?

  "You're not going to let them find you here like they found me bleeding in the street." Gus's voice reverberated like thunder, breaking into my morbid thoughts. "You're not giving up."

  Maybe if he had added that last bit like it was a question, I would have decided that yes, giving up was exactly what I was thinking about doing.

  But Gus didn't ask. He took it for granted. Like he took everything for granted.

  The fact that what he took for granted was that I had a smidgen of courage in me somehow made the situation seem a little less hopeless. I raised my head and chanced another look around. As far as I could tell, the shot came from the section of the cemetery directly across from us and my car was between us and there. If I made a run for t
he Mustang, I'd not only be a chump but a way-too-easy target. About ten feet to my right was a giant sycamore and right about then, it was looking like my best bet for cover. Beyond that was one of the few standing monuments there in the new section. If I could make it to the sycamore and from the sycamore to the monument…

  Well, hell, I didn't know what I'd do if I got that far. I only knew that it was better than dying there on top of Tommy Two Toes.

  My mind made up—even if I wasn't sure my legs would support me—I hopped to my feet and ran. I was almost behind the broad trunk of the sycamore when another bullet smacked right into it.

  "Shit." I braced my back against the tree. "He's a good shot."

  "And he's being careful, too. I don't see him anywhere." His eyes narrowed, Gus stood in the open and scanned the area. "He's probably in those bushes over there." He pointed but I didn't dare look. "What are you going to do?"

  I was hoping maybe he'd have a suggestion. Barring that, I guess what I was going to do was run. Instead of discussing it and definitely before I could stop and think about the consequences, I did just that.

  I got all the way over to the standing monument without another shot being fired.

  Still, I knew I wasn't out of the woods. Especially when Gus pointed again.

  "There! I saw something move over there. He's following you and you can be sure that he's got you in his sights."

  "That makes me feel a whole bunch better." I peeked around the corner of the monument, looking for another spot where I could hunker down. The only one I could see right off the bat was a tall, skinny headstone closer to the road. Between me and it was nothing but… well, nothing but nothing.

  "This isn't going to work," I told Gus at the same time I pushed off from my hiding place and took off like a bat out of hell.

  I had seen enough old MacGyver episodes to know not to travel in a straight line. I swerved left and feinted right. I dodged and darted and when another bullet zoomed by an inch from my ear, I bent over to make myself a smaller target and ran as fast as a bent-over person can. When I got to the shelter of the monument, Gus was already waiting for me.