Cemetery Lake: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  “It’s cheaper to upgrade,” he says, “than get this thing fixed. Plus it’ll be away for a few weeks. What did you do to it, anyway?”

  “It fell in the bath.”

  “Yeah—that’ll do it. Anyway, this thing is obsolete.”

  “I bought it eighteen months ago.”

  “Yeah, like I said, it’s obsolete.”

  He shows me a range of cell phones and I pick out one that looks like it shouldn’t confuse me too much and will also be out of date in about a year. He sets it up so my old number will work on it, and warns me it could take between one and two hours to become active.

  “Where do I recognize you from?” he asks, handing back my credit card.

  I shrug. “Beats me.”

  He slowly shakes his head. “I’m sure I’ve seen you,” he says.

  I’m sure he has too—probably on TV yesterday when I was sitting in the back of an ambulance. We finish up and I let him get back to watching the hairdressers.

  The police station is ten stories of concrete block and glass that was out of date around the same time it was built. I park out on the street and feed the meter before walking up the steps to the foyer. There isn’t much going on at ground-floor level, just a few people waiting in line to make complaints. I sign in at a desk; the process is simple enough since I’m expected upstairs. I press the up button and a moment later the elevator arrives. I hit the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator comes to a stop on the first floor and I have company. A guy in overalls, thirtyish, carrying a bucket and mop.

  “I’m the cleaner,” he says, and he grins at me, showing me all his teeth. I smile back at him, and the elevator hits the fourth floor and the doors open. I step out, and the janitor follows. We walk a few paces before Carl Schroder sees us and comes over.

  “Can I get you a coffee, Detective Schroder?” the janitor asks him.

  “I’m fine, Joe. Thanks, though.”

  The cleaner walks away and I watch him go before turning back to Schroder. I’ve known Carl for many years. In another lifetime we worked the same cases as partners, dealt with the same problems. We used to be pretty good friends, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really want me here. He leads me over to a table to a bunch of forms and asks me to sign them. He tells me the crime scene has been released, and I ask him how the investigation is going, and he says it’s going okay. He doesn’t elaborate on that. Just says it’s okay and nothing else, which means he either doesn’t want to tell me or things are going badly.

  “Sorry, Tate, I just don’t have the time to give you any information. Finding those bodies, hell, you couldn’t have picked a worse time.”

  “Who for? Them or you?”

  He exhales heavily. “It’s this fucking Carver case,” he says, talking about the Christchurch Carver who, at this rate, seems will never be caught. “Man, it’s like every step we take this guy is taking two steps. I don’t know what the hell it is, but we’re struggling. We’re so understaffed, I don’t know, we just need more man power. It’s that simple.”

  “You offering me a job?”

  “Good one, Tate. You’re even funnier than I remember. Especially after last night’s performance.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “You’re slipping. It looked bad, man, really bad. Friends in the department? Jesus, why’d you say that?”

  “What are you . . .” But then it comes to me. I run my hand over my face and pinch my chin. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. You got that right.”

  “I haven’t seen it, but I’m guessing she stitched me up, huh?”

  “There’s a copy if you wanna take a look. Media room’s free.”

  The media room is big enough to hold four people if none of them is overweight, and its walls are lined with computers and monitors. News reports are kept as part of the database involved in ongoing cases; those that go to air are stored on hard drives. Schroder cues it up.

  “It was on this morning,” he says. “They played it at seven o’clock, eight, and nine. They’re probably waiting till twelve to play it again if they don’t have anything more.”

  I’m standing next to my car, coming forward to meet the reporters. From their perspective they couldn’t have picked a better time to film me. From mine, they couldn’t have picked a worse one. There is blood on my shirt and on my face, and pieces of what I guess might be bone or brain matter in my hair. My skin is pale and sallow and there are dark smudges beneath my eyes. I look like I might have been one of the finds in the coffins, and now I know where the phone guy recognized me from.

  The reporter is talking to me, and I’m talking back, but you can’t hear any of what I’m saying because the conversation has been muted. All you can hear is Casey Horwell’s voice-over as they move from a shot of me outside my house to scenes of the graveyard. The shots go back and forth as she talks.

  “. . . used to be a detective for the Christchurch police, but for the last two years has been struggling as a private investigator. He offered to speak to us outside his house where he filled us in on some aspects of the case, but when we asked him why he was coming home and not being held in custody until the killing of Bruce Alderman was further investigated, he was unsure how to answer.”

  The interview is still showing me talking. But there are no words. Just the chitchat of me asking them to move their van, telling them I have no comments, and whatever else I said to get rid of them, but it looks like we’re sharing an in-depth discussion. Then I disappear from the frame, and Casey Horwell is standing there, the only background is her van, and I bet they pulled over the moment they got around the next corner to film her.

  “Two years ago the man linked to killing Theodore Tate’s daughter disappeared and has never been seen again, and though the investigation is still open it appears nobody is making any effort to learn what really happened. The man’s disappearance led to Detective Tate being dismissed from the police. Last night Bruce Alderman was violently killed inside Theodore Tate’s office and again it looks like he is being dismissed. One can’t help but wonder what forces are in place to allow a man like this to still be out on the streets instead of being held accountable for his actions. . . .”

  The segment cuts back to me, still standing in front of my car. I know what’s coming up before I hear it. It’s the line. My line. And she has placed it perfectly.

  “I still have a few friends in the department. They do what they can.”

  The segment stops and Schroder turns off the monitor.

  “That was bullshit, Carl.”

  “You don’t think I know that? Horwell’s a classic case of somebody who threw away a promising career and is grabbing at straws trying to get it back. But you’re slipping, Tate. Two years ago you’d never have made that mistake. And it doesn’t matter what you said, she made you look guilty, man, just getting out of your car with all that blood on you—you looked like a monster. Can you imagine the shit that’d be raining down right now if you were still a cop?”

  I can feel the anger building up inside. “I know, I know,” I say, and Carl is the wrong person to be angry at. I’m the one who messed up. “But what was I to do? Just drive past and not even go home?”

  He walks me back to the elevator. “That’s exactly what you could have done. Did you even think of that?”

  “You still on the case?” I ask.

  “Landry’s taking over. I’m still on the Carver.”

  “Has he identified the woman who was in the water?”

  “Yeah. An elderly woman who died and was buried last week,” he says.

  “And the coffin? When you identified her, you pulled up the corresponding coffin, right? What was inside?”

  “Why do I think you already know the answer to this?”

  “Something Bruce Alderman said.”

  “Yeah. We got a girl who went missing six days ago.”

  “Six days ago? Who was she?”

  “Oh, well, her name was . . . Oh, w
ait, hang on a second. You don’t work here anymore, do you?”

  “And there was a girl in Henry Martins’s coffin too, wasn’t there?”

  He nods. “Come on, Tate, stop pretending you’re only just figuring it out.”

  “You identify her yet?”

  “Almost. We’re taking what we know about the girl from last week and making the same assumption. We’re figuring the girl in Henry Martins’s coffin went missing around the same time he was buried.”

  “Seems like a safe assumption.”

  “Safe, but not confirmed.”

  “And the other two?”

  “The other two are going to be damn difficult to identify, and it’s not like we can just start digging up coffins for the hell of it.”

  The elevator arrives and the doors open. I don’t move.

  “We could have made a difference,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  “Two years ago. Remember?”

  He stares at me for a few seconds, no expression at all, no movement of his head, then slowly he starts to nod. “I know,” he says.

  “You’re going to find more girls.”

  He says nothing. He already knows. I wonder if this is why he’s telling me so much.

  “We could have made a difference,” I repeat.

  As the doors of the elevator close, Schroder keeps standing where he is, staring at me.

  Instead of driving to my office, I take a detour to the morgue. I figure if Tracey had noticed I’d stolen the ring she’d have called by now.

  She’s a little rushed off her feet and doesn’t seem real glad to see me. Nor does Sheldon West, the ME I spoke to at the cemetery. But Tracey decides to accommodate me after I tell her things will be quicker for her if she helps me out rather than having me hanging around for the next two hours asking her the same questions over and over.

  “You’re a real pain in the ass,” she tells me.

  “You just need to spend more time with me, that’s all. Get to know me a little better.”

  “Less time, Theo. That’s why I’m agreeing to show you. Oh, and by the way, that was a nice job you did last night. You should try to get a job on TV.”

  “That’s real funny.”

  She rolls Rachel Tyler out of a huge metal drawer and starts pointing things out as if she were Death showing a prospective client a neat way to die.

  “It’s hard to pinpoint a time of death, but it’s around two years ago,” she says, “which falls in with when Henry Martins was buried. I would have guessed that she was buried in his place, but the shovel marks on the coffin suggest he was in the ground first. However, I’d say she went into the coffin not long after he went into the ground. We’re close to ID’ing her. Landry has a name; we’re just waiting to confirm with dental records.”

  There’s no point in telling Tracey I already know who it is. It’ll only lead to awkward questions, and I’m going to be getting them as soon as Schroder makes a positive ID on the girl and speaks to her family. Yesterday Rachel Tyler’s mother opened the door to hope. Today she’ll be closing it.

  “You know something, don’t you,” she says, her lips forming a thin scar as she stares at me.

  “How did she die?”

  “Who is she, Theo?”

  “Somebody who was too young to die.”

  “Aren’t they always?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” I glance over at another table where a guy who looks as though he was around when those buildings started getting built a hundred years ago is lying. I wonder if he thought he was too young to die, or if he couldn’t wait to get it over with. “But I’m going to help her. Can you tell me how she died?”

  “Badly. But I’m guessing you knew that from the moment we opened up the coffin. Her hyoid bone was broken. She was strangled.”

  “Sexual assault?”

  “Impossible to tell after such time.”

  “She was re-dressed after she died, right? What does that tell you?”

  “It doesn’t tell me anything. It only suggests.”

  “Dignity.”

  “What?”

  “Something Bruce Alderman said to me last night. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  Tracey shrugs. “That’s beyond my scope, Theo.”

  I look down at Rachel Tyler with the huge Y-incision cut across her mummified body. She hasn’t been stitched back together because what is left is mostly skeletal. She doesn’t even look like a person anymore. Just a shell. A husk. Something you’d kick to the curb and throw out with the trash. If Bruce did this to her, then he got off lightly last night. I’d have done more than put a bullet in his head.

  “Nothing else?” I ask.

  “What else are you expecting?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “Something helpful, I guess.”

  Tracey offers a small laugh and covers Rachel up. “Maybe we’d have had more luck if she had been found with something. I don’t know—a piece of jewelry maybe. Perhaps even a ring.”

  She stares at me and I don’t take the bait. “What about the other girl? Schroder said you’ve got another one.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “She was strangled too, right?”

  “Good luck, Theo. Part of me hopes you find who did this to her before the police do. Part of me wishes you wouldn’t even try.”

  I pass the body of Bruce Alderman on the way out. It’s lying naked on a slab of steel. There’s a hole in the bottom of his chin and another in the top of his head. Once again I wonder where he got the gun from.

  I hit the button on the elevator, and when the doors open Landry is standing there. His suit is ruffled up as if he slept in it, and he hasn’t shaved since I saw him last night. Next to him is Sidney Alderman. Alderman looks pale; his eyes are darting back and forth as if he’s searching for something, looking past me. But then he seems to focus, to figure out who he’s looking at. He lunges forward, bringing with him the stench of alcohol.

  “You fucker,” he yells, jumping out of the elevator and taking a swing at my jaw, but I step back, and Landry grabs the back of Alderman’s shirt and pulls him off balance. Alderman’s fist crashes into the wall, and a moment later so does his face. “You killed my son!”

  “That’s enough,” Landry shouts.

  “He killed my boy!” Alderman pushes himself away from the wall, but only as far as Landry allows him. His knuckles are bleeding. “Why isn’t he in jail? I saw the news, you son of a bitch, I saw what you did.”

  “I didn’t kill your—”

  “Tate, why don’t you do us all a favor and get in the Goddamn elevator,” Landry says.

  “You murderer!” Alderman yells. Then, much more quietly, “Why do you keep letting him get away with it?”

  The shouting has brought both of the medical examiners into the corridor. Sheldon looks bothered, as if the violence is about to escalate and include him in it. Tracey looks disappointed.

  “Get in the elevator, Tate,” Landry repeats.

  “You’re a dead man,” Alderman yells again as the doors start to close. “You hear me? A dead—”

  I’m not sure whether I actually hear the rest, or whether my mind just fills in the blank.

  The drive to my office I spend in Alderman’s shoes, and I have a bad feeling that I’d be coming to the same conclusions he has. I told him things were going to be hard for his son. That same night his boy ends up dead. And the following morning I’m all over the news, looking like a damn killer. I’m going to have to keep looking over my shoulder. I’m sure of it.

  Back at the office, I’m greeted by the onlookers who missed out on last night’s show and try to supplement their lack of daily drama by staring at me as I walk up the corridor. They ask me questions. They look deflated that I’m not still covered in blood. There is police-scene tape across my door. I screw it up into a ball, carry it inside, and shut the door on my audience. All I can think about is how many of these people have seen the news an
d, thanks to a desperate reporter using desperate tactics to be noticed, now believe I pulled the trigger.

  The office stinks and makes me feel a little ill. I lay a bathroom towel and some newspapers over my chair before sitting down. I tear up a tissue, wad it up, and stuff it into my nose. I plug in my cell phone, but it’s still not connected, so I wipe down the office phone with some wet tissues until it’s clean enough to use. I phone my insurance company. It turns out I have life insurance, house insurance, contents and car insurance, but not the kind of insurance that allows for this. If a pipe had busted or the carpet caught fire, the insurance company would play ball. But when it comes to messy suicide, they don’t want to know. When I hang up I look through the phone book for a number for a company I’ve never had to call, but that I’ve seen perform over the years. The cleaning crew promise to come out today. They’ll replace what they can’t clean, which will include the office chairs.

  When I get off the phone I look over the chair Bruce Alderman was sitting on, then slowly I stand up and peer over the desk, as if I’m still expecting to see him lying there. All that’s there is a lot of blood. I sit back down and go through the phone book. The first number I dial is for the wrong Martinses, but the second one I get right and Laura Martins answers the phone.

  I explain who I am, and Henry Martins’s daughter remembers me.

  “So now you think differently,” she says, “and another man is dead. That witch killed them,” she says, referring to her stepmother. “And the only thing on the news is these people who floated up in the water and the dead caretaker. What about my father? Why doesn’t he get a mention?”

  “They’re keeping the names out of the media for the moment,” I say. “They have to, until they identify everybody.”

  “Why my dad?” she asks. “Why choose him to take out and throw in the water? Why not somebody else?”

  “It was just a random choice. The day the girl was murdered probably coincided with your father’s burial.”