Dig (Morgue Mama Mysteries)

by C. R. Corwin

  David went to the door in his socks and underwear. He stopped Rollie from coming in. Rollie was crying like a baby. “Come out, Gwen!” he begged her repeatedly.

  “She ain’t going nowhere,” David said. He pushed Rollie into the hallway. Pushed him toward the stairway. David was laughing at him. Taunting him. “Looks like I got her first,” he said. “Ain’t that a god-diddly-damned shame.”

  Gwen told detectives that she ran after them. That she reached them just as Rollie dropped his suitcase and swung his trophy with both arms. The thick metal stalk of the trophy struck David square on the nose. He staggered backward and fell over the stairwell railing.

  Rollie was in a rage now. He ran down the stairs and pounded away at David’s prostrate body. Until David’s face was raw. Until David’s blood was everywhere.

  Gwen ran down the stairway after Rollie. She tried to pull him off David. But Rollie kept bashing away. “I was afraid someone in the building heard the fight,” Gwen told detectives. “But no one came. I went back to David’s room and put on my clothes. I brought a pair of David’s pants for Rollie. And a shirt.”

  “The same ones he was wearing that night?” the detectives asked her.

  “Yes,” said Gwen. “Rollie’s clothes were covered with blood. He changed right there in the lobby. I went back to David’s room again and found his wrestling bag. I put the trophy and Rollie’s clothes in it. We drove around for hours. Until it started getting light. I finally stuffed the bag in a garbage bin. Behind that A&P that used to be across from the Crystal Theater. On Tuckman.”

  “You weren’t afraid somebody would find the wrestling bag in the garbage?” the detectives asked her.

  “We spent the next fifty years worrying about that,” she said.

  Dale’s next story appeared on the following Wednesday:

  STUMPF DIES, SUICIDE NOTE ENDS

  MURDER PROBE

  There was a very interesting sidebar accompanying that story, by the way. A very sad sidebar. It quoted an old girlfriend of Gordon’s, a woman from Toledo named Penelope Yarrow Oakar, who speculated that Gordon was not digging for Rollie’s debate trophy at all, but a cocoa can full of pine cones. “I hate to think he died for such a silly thing,” she told Dale Marabout when he called her.

  Over the weekend doctors sat down with Gwen and Detective Grant. They said Rollie was brain dead. Gwen agreed to take him off life support. An hour later Rollie Stumpf died. Dale got a copy of his suicide note. It said this:

  My precious Gwen,

  Please forgive me for ending things this way. But there is no reason for either of us to live with my guilt any longer. I killed David Delarosa and I killed Gordon. Make sure the police understand that.

  Gwen, you gave me a better life than I deserved. I hope my gratitude always showed.

  Love Rollie

  Gwen knew Rollie killed David. She was right there. Naked as a jaybird. But did Gwen know Rollie killed Gordon? At least have a suspicion? “When they found Gordon’s body out there I didn’t dare think about it,” she said in her statement.

  “But in your heart-of-hearts you knew it was a possibility?” detectives asked her.

  “I didn’t even know he had a gun,” she said.

  ***

  The minister was still speaking—saying the things ministers always say at funerals—when a soft, fuzzy voodee-voo-voo oozed into the chapel. It was like the cool, haunting hoot of a mourning dove. It rolled forward through the rows of empty chairs. It took everyone by the ears and turned their heads. It was Shaka Bop, filling the doorway, in his dashiki and porkpie hat, his big shoulders bent over his silver saxophone. His song was recognizable at first—“My Old Kentucky Home”—but as he played, the old song’s simple melody splintered in a thousand directions, in the crazy bebop way Rollie Stumpf always loved. It was so beat. And so beautiful.

  ***

  Ike held the door for me. I carried the baked beans. There were only six cars in Gwen’s long, swooping driveway. If the funeral was any gauge, there wouldn’t be any more. We crossed the grand foyer to the living room, our heels banging on those horrible black and white chessboard tiles. Gwen was crumpled in a white wingback chair. She’d replaced the black wool suit she’d worn to the funeral with a summery silk pantsuit, the pink of raspberries not quite ripe. The handful of friends and family who’d bravely attended the funeral now sat motionless on a pair of opposing white sofas, like a collection of department store mannequins. Queen Strudelschmidt and Prince Elmo were asleep under the glass coffee table. Rollie’s urn rested on the mantel above a marble fireplace filled with glowing candles.

  I held up the crock pot. “Who needs beans?”

  Shaka Bop’s hands came together in a single, loud clap. “Oh, Dolly!” he said. “Could I ever dig a big bowl of those sweet morsels!”

  Gwen padded toward me across the white carpet. She kissed my cheek. “Leave it to Maddy to think of everything,” she said.

  Effie, Chick and Shaka started to applaud. The handful of others in the room applauded, too, without knowing why. Gwen led us to the dining room. The table and antique sideboards were covered with multi-tiered trays of sugared fruits, fancy finger sandwiches and desserts far too pretty too eat. Enough food for an army. An army of fair-weather friends that wasn’t coming. I found an empty corner on the table for my crock pot. Effie and Chick headed into the kitchen to find bowls and spoons. Shaka went to the wine cart and started popping corks.

  We filled our bowls with the sticky brown beans. We filled our goblets with wine. We headed back to the living room, all that white carpet and upholstery be damned.

  Given the two murders, and Rollie’s suicide, there were a lot of subjects to avoid. We settled on Jack Kerouac’s visit to the college. We laughed at how rumpled and fragrant he was after his long bus ride across the country. We laughed at how embarrassed we’d felt because of our better grooming. We laughed at what he must have thought of us, a gaggle of eager fools groveling at his scuffed shoes like he was Moses. We made Effie admit that she’d slept with him. We laughed at her detailed description of his clumsy lovemaking.

  We laughed and laughed that cheerless afternoon. And Gwen laughed right along with us. Good gravy, she needed to escape for a while, didn’t she? She’d just lost the man she’d lived with for fifty years. Thanks to the Herald-Union, everyone in Hannawa was buzzing about his confession to the murders of Gordon Sweet and David Delarosa. Oh, she needed an afternoon of laughter all right. And not just because of the grief and humiliation hammering away at her. Ever since Gwen’s statement was leaked to the media, there’d been speculation that she would be charged for her role in David Delarosa’s murder. She had, after all, hurried Rollie away from the murder scene. She’d made sure that his bloody clothes and the battered trophy wouldn’t be found. And even if the police didn’t file charges, she still faced some very hard time—alone in her own big house. The number of empty chairs at the funeral attested to that. The mounds of untouched food in her dining room attested to that.

  The afternoon faded away. One by one people found a reason to leave. By six o’clock there was just Gwen, Chick, Ike and me. “I’m afraid we’d better get going, too,” I said. “But we can help you tidy up a bit before we go.”

  Gwen was curled up in her chair like a child. Her arms around her ankles. Her chin on her knees. “Don’t be silly. My maid service is coming in the morning.”

  “Don’t you be silly,” Ike said. He started gathering up empty bean bowls and wine glasses. Which agitated me to no end. My offer to help was not a sincere offer. I wanted to get out of that house as fast as I could. Before I said the things I came to say. But now didn’t want to say. I started gathering up bowls and glasses, too. Five minutes later Gwen, Chick and I were standing side by side at the huge double sink in her kitchen. Gwen was washing. I was rinsing. Chick was drying. Ike was standing behind us at the serving island, hovering over my crock pot with a silver serving spoon, eating the last few baked beans.


  Gwen handed me a soapy bowl. “I’m glad you came today, Maddy. I know it had to be awkward for you.”

  “I was afraid it would be awkward for you.”

  Gwen smiled weakly. “You didn’t know where things would lead.”

  I dunked the bowl in the rinse water. Handed it to Chick. I felt like someone who’d stupidly signed up for skydiving lessons, and was now crouched in the open door of an airplane, about to jump for the first time. “Gwen,” I said. “I don’t think Rollie shot Gordon.”

  Gwen didn’t say anything. Chick did. “Maddy—this is hardly the time for your cockamamie theories.”

  If ever a magic genie had given me a wish, I would have used it right then. I would have turned myself invisible and tiptoed the hell out of there. “You’re right, Chick. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Ike’s low, adamant voice shook the kitchen, like a commandment from God. “Say what’s on your mind, Maddy.”

  I glared at him over my shoulder. He was licking his big spoon. And grinning. It was a reassuring grin that said, “Go ahead, Morgue Mama, you’ve got it right—and if things get too crazy, I’m here.”

  So I proceeded, shaking like a baby bunny. “First of all,” I began, “I’m sure David’s death occurred exactly as you said in your statement, Gwen. Your account certainly fits everything I’ve learned. And I’m sure Rollie’s trophy ended up in the Wooster Pike dump. From what Gordon’s graduate assistant told me—confirmed I should say—all of the city’s garbage from the neighborhoods around the college was dumped out there in those years. From the end of World War II until the early seventies. That’s why Gordon was confident he’d find that cocoa can full of pine cones Jack Kerouac gave him.

  “Anyway, Gwen, you told police that you threw the bag with Rollie’s bloody clothes and the trophy in the dumpster behind the old A&P on Tuckman. That’s just a block west of the campus. Back then we all knew the local garbage ended up at the Wooster Pike dump. Students went out there all the time. To drink beer and make out. Dig around for interesting things for their rooms.” I shook the rinse water off the bowl in my hand. Held it up to the light. Dug off a stubborn nip of dried bacon with my thumbnail. Handed the bowl to Chick. “Which makes you wonder why you threw the trophy in that dumpster, doesn’t it? But killers stupidly put bodies and guns and other evidence in the garbage all the time, don’t they? You see it all the time in the news. And you and Rollie were certainly in a panic that night. You drove around until dawn. Good gravy! What do you do with a bag of bloody evidence? Then you saw that big metal box behind the A&P. A mound of rotting fruit and vegetables would be as good as any place.” I peeked at Gwen for her reaction. She didn’t have one. She just handed me another soapy bowl. “Of course you and Rollie began to worry about your choice almost immediately,” I said.

  Gwen’s voice was no louder than a breath. “And kept on worrying for the next fifty years.”

  I finished rinsing the bowl and handed it to Chick. Continued my rambling soliloquy. “You’d think your sleeping with David would have ended your engagement. But Rollie needed a woman like you. And you needed a man like Rollie. And I’m sure you truly loved each other. And you were certainly tied to the hip after the murder, weren’t you? So you went ahead with the wedding, forgiving and forgetting the best you could. Life got easier for you after the city built the new landfill and pushed all that new dirt on top of the old dump. Then Sweet Gordon starts digging. And the old worries came back.”

  It was clear from Chick’s squinty-eyed scowl that he hadn’t forgiven me for my unannounced visit to his house in April, and the insinuations I’d made about his relationship with Gordon. “Jesus H. Christ, Maddy! Why are you putting Gwen through this? Rollie confessed to both murders!”

  “In a suicide note lacking any details,” I pointed out. “Which means we have to fill in the blanks for ourselves.”

  Chick gave me another shot: “Lucky for us you’re good at that.”

  I shook the hot water off the bowl in my hand. If we weren’t standing right next to each other, I would have thrown it at him, the way he threw Gordon’s bowl in the fireplace that night at the Blue Tangerine. Instead I handed it to him and went on, as if he’d given me a compliment. “Let’s say that Rollie did kill Gordon. He certainly had a motive. Any day now Gordon’s students were going to find his trophy. It wouldn’t have Rollie’s name on it. That would have been engraved on later. But Gordon would have known whose trophy it was and put two and two together.”

  “Maybe he’d already done the math,” Ike said.

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “But if I had to bet my 401K on it, I’d say the only thing Gordon wanted to find was that cocoa can. Not Rollie’s trophy. And in case you’re wondering, Chick, not that order slip from Mopey’s proving what Jack Kerouac had on his hamburger.”

  To say the least, that hit a nerve. “I never once suspected Gordon was looking for that,” he fumed.

  I fumed right back, quoting that awful poem he’d recited at Gordon’s memorial service: “And now that weighty question that never mattered much matters not at all! Good gravy! If it didn’t matter you wouldn’t have written the damn poem!”

  “It mattered,” Chick said, nervously twisting his towel. “But not so much that I killed him.”

  I took the towel from him. Shook out the damp twists. Handed it back. Continued rinsing and explaining: “Nobody has an alibi for the evening Gordon was killed. Not you, Chick. Not Effie. Not Shaka. Not Andrew Holloway. Not Gordon’s nephew. Not Gwen. Not even me. But let’s focus on Rollie. After all his success, and all the money he’d made, Rollie still worked late at the office almost every night. In fact, you had to drive to the Kerouac Thing by yourself that Wednesday night, didn’t you, Gwen? And we know Rollie was working late again on Thursday, the day Gordon was killed.”

  I played devil’s advocate now, recreating Gordon’s murder as if Rollie did do it: “Rollie told detectives he worked alone in his office until eight o’clock that Thursday. He said the three women who work for him left at five. And that’s probably right. I checked it out myself.”

  Gwen handed me the last bean bowl. “Rollie always sends them home at five,” she said. “He knows they have families.” She started washing the wine goblets.

  I could have bawled when she spoke of Rollie in the present tense like that. But I’d gotten myself into this mess. I had no choice now but to buck up and see my foolishness through. “Andrew Holloway found Gordon’s car at the ball fields north of the campus,” I said. “Gordon must have met Rollie there and then driven out to the landfill with him. Or maybe they took Gordon’s car. It could have happened either way, of course, but I think Gordon drove his car to the landfill. When Andrew found it, the doors were unlocked, the keys were in the ignition and Gordon’s briefcase was in the back seat. It’s hard to believe that even an absent-minded professor would leave his car like that and drive off with somebody else.”

  “Unless maybe he was forced at gunpoint,” Ike pointed out.

  Gwen handed me the first soapy goblet. I swished it in the rinse water and passed it on to Chick. “Okay,” I said, “let’s say it was at gunpoint. Why didn’t Rollie just shoot him right there by the ball fields? Nobody’s around there in March. No, I think Gordon willingly drove his killer to the landfill. He loved showing people the dig site. Even on a crappy evening in March he would have happily driven out there.”

  The goblet slipped from Chick’s hands. Hit the rim of the granite counter. The delicate bowl of the goblet shattered. The stem snapped in two. He screeched at me like an entire flock of cockatoos. “First you tell us Rollie didn’t kill Sweet Gordon, then step-by-stupefying-step you prove he could have!”

  I helped him gather up the sharp shards of glass. “Could have but didn’t,” I said.

  Until now Gwen’s self-control had been, well, Gwen-like. Now tears were sliding down the sides of her nose, into the frown lines around her pale lips. “So you really don’t think my Rollie killed
Gordon?”

  “No, Gwen, I really don’t.”

  She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. Left a puff of soapsuds on her cheek. “Why would he say he did?”

  I forced myself to look her in the eye. “Because he figured you killed him, Gwen.”

  Gwen said nothing. No one else did either. Including me. We all just stood there, with our chins on our chests, Gwen washing, me rinsing, Chick playing with the broken pieces of glass on the counter. We still might be standing there if Ike hadn’t come to the rescue—if that’s what you want to call it. “Give us your wisdom, Maddy. Did Rollie figure rightly or wrongly?”

  I gave him the dirtiest look I could. He gave me his best smile. I turned back toward Gwen. “I don’t know if you and Rollie discussed the possibility of Gordon finding the trophy when he started his dig. My guess is you didn’t. In fact, my guess is you hadn’t said boo to each other about David Delarosa’s death since the night it happened. What was there to say? But when Gordon’s body was found out there, how could Rollie not conclude that you were the one who put that bullet in his head?”

  Gwen didn’t object to a word I said. She just kept washing. The same goblet. Over and over.

  “Rollie wasn’t just protecting you in that note,” I said. “He was apologizing to you. You’d protected him when he killed David and now you’d been forced to protect him again. Remember what he said? ‘There is no reason for us to live with my guilt any longer.’ It was a noble thing for him to say. But of course it wasn’t true. Because the guilt was yours. You slept with David. Your betrayal made Rollie lose his head. It’s so ironic and so sad. If Rollie hadn’t been so anxious to show you his trophy, hadn’t taken that early bus home, well, three dead men would be alive today, wouldn’t they?” I stopped my moralizing and returned to the evidence. “God only knows when you decided to murder Gordon, Gwen. But certainly by the night of the Kerouac Thing you had. You knew Chick and Gordon would get into it. They did every year. And this year they fought like a couple of little boys on the playground. In a room full of witnesses.”