Dig Two Graves

by James, Harper

  What had just happened made him wonder if she’d ever make it.

  He took the photo from Guillory while she finished looking through the wallet. Bella was now in her early-to-mid fifties. That made the photograph thirty years old, circa 1990. There wasn’t anything written on the back to prove or disprove it. But there was a phone number.

  ‘That’s all there is,’ Guillory said, putting the wallet on the bar.

  ‘There’s a phone number.’

  ‘Uh-huh. So give your new friend a call.’

  ‘It won’t be hers. Who writes their own number on the back of an old photograph?’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘What am I going to do?’ He pointed at himself. ‘I was thinking I’d give it to a police officer.’ He pushed the wallet along the bar towards her. ‘There you go. Do your job.’

  She pushed it back again.

  ‘Do you know what I do, Evan?’

  She knew it was a mistake as soon as it was out of her mouth.

  ‘I know what Ryder does.’ Ryder was her long-standing partner, his long-standing nemesis. They’d almost come to blows on a number of occasions. ‘He sits on his fat ass all day long—’

  The palm of her hand was suddenly an inch off the tip of his nose.

  ‘Enough. And I’ve got better things to do than return lost property.’

  ‘What about the fight? And the guy with the knife? What are you going to do about that?’

  ‘Not much I can do. There’s no CCTV. I didn’t get a good look at the license plate.’

  She picked up the wallet, thumbed through the bills.

  ‘Like you say, about a thousand bucks. But they weren’t muggers. Not in a busy bar, not even for a thousand bucks.’

  She was right, of course. There was a lot more to it than that. If either of them had noticed the man sitting further down the bar, the one staring intently at Evan, and had asked his opinion he’d have agreed with her.

  2

  The next morning, Evan called the number on the back of the photograph. The recorded message he got wasn’t quite the same as the one on his own phone. He was informed that he’d reached the Carlson Residence and that currently there was nobody available to tell him to piss off. The tone of the woman’s voice suggested that she had a lot of experience in that field. It made him briefly consider inserting a middle initial into his name, probably a J. Maybe adding the third for good measure. He tried it out in his mouth, didn’t feel right. And he could hear Guillory laughing already.

  He left a message all the same, kept it short. He was trying to get in contact with Arabella Carlson—the name on her driver’s license, not the one she’d given him. He hesitated before he hung up, then added that he was a private investigator. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. As Guillory had said, it hadn’t been an abortive mugging. It had been a targeted attack. Added to which, the reference to the Carlson Residence intrigued him.

  He was a little disappointed when he got a call back a couple hours later. He’d been looking forward to the challenge of trying to get past the Rottweiler on the recorded message. Instead, it was a man’s voice, although the clipped Boston Brahmin accent implied he was equally adept at dealing with people from the real world.

  ‘Mr Buckley?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘My name is Aldrich LeClair. I am Mr Thomas Carlson’s personal assistant.’

  He paused momentarily as if he were accustomed to having to wait while people made the appropriate ingratiating noises. Evan passed.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I understand you’re trying to get in contact with Mr Carlson’s daughter, Arabella.’

  Evan said that was true.

  ‘May I ask how you got hold of this number?’

  ‘You can ask.’

  That put a bigger dent in the flow of the conversation. The personal weasel was starting to irritate him. He got the impression of thin lips pressed tightly together, a wrinkle in his nose as if there was a bad smell coming from somewhere.

  ‘This number is unlisted,’ the weasel whined.

  ‘Good to know. Lucky I’ve got it already, eh?’

  He wondered if it would be possible to push LeClair to the point where he lost his composure and yelled down the line, tell me what you fucking want. LeClair asked now, but in a nicer way.

  ‘Why do you want to get in touch with Arabella?’

  The may I ask had slipped making him sound a little less like he had a broom handle stuck up his ass. Evan was getting bored with antagonizing the guy, anyway.

  ‘I have her wallet. I want to return it to her.’

  It wasn’t what LeClair was expecting to hear. The silence that came down the line was different this time. It wasn’t a bored silence as he waited for sycophants to finish gushing, or a red-faced silence at Evan’s impertinence. He was genuinely lost for words. A little more of the haughtiness was gone from his voice when he found it again.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘She left it in a bar.’

  ‘You were in a bar with her?’

  Evan might have thought that the incredulous tone was as a result of Mr Thomas Carlson’s daughter Arabella being seen in a bar with a grubby private investigator, not so far removed from being caught loitering outside a public urinal. Except the worm of excitement that had been slowly coming awake in his gut ever since the previous evening told him there was more to it.

  ‘Not with her. Like we were about to go back to my place after we’d had a few drinks.’ That was just for the fun of it. ‘But we got talking. She had to leave in a hurry and forgot her wallet.’

  He’d have expected a bunch of questions, but LeClair surprised him.

  ‘Hold the line, please.’

  He said it like he’d had a lot of practice. As if callers were expected to wait while Mr Carlson finished his round of golf. He was also off the line before Evan had a chance to say yes or no. Evan passed the time trying to reconcile the woman he’d sat next to the night before with the family that she was clearly a part of. It wasn’t happening.

  When LeClair came back on the line, Evan got the impression of a man delivering information that he had counseled against.

  ‘Mr Carlson would like you to come here with Arabella’s wallet.’

  ‘That’s not necessary. I can mail it. Or send it by courier . . .’

  LeClair wasn’t listening. They’d reached the distasteful part.

  ‘You don’t understand. Mr Carlson wants to meet you.’

  He made it sound as if Mr Carlson had gotten himself a new hobby and it involved keeping a cardboard box full of cockroaches in the drawing room.

  ‘Okay. Where are you?’

  He needn’t have asked. LeClair’s accent had told him from the moment he opened his mouth.

  ‘Boston. Mr Carlson will reimburse you for your time and travel expenses, naturally. He’d like you to come immediately.’

  Evan didn’t have a problem with that. The hot little worm in his gut wriggled and in his excitement he forgot himself, gave LeClair an easy shot.

  ‘Can I ask what this is about?’

  ‘You can ask.’

  3

  A man in a well-cut suit and a striped tie was waiting for him at Logan International with Buckley scrawled on a piece of card. The lines on his face and the gray in his closely-cropped hair suggested a man in his fifties, although his physique and the way he carried himself, the quiet confidence he exuded, hinted at a much younger man. Evan would have put money on a military background. He also knew from his accent that he wasn’t Aldrich LeClair. They went outside to a Bentley Mulsanne Grand Limousine. Evan admired it, then surprised him by getting into the front beside him.

  ‘What? Did LeClair tell you to put me in the trunk?’

  The driver grinned at him.

  ‘No. But he said to make sure you get on the right bus.’

  ‘That’d be the one going in the opposite direction?’

  ‘Th
at’s the one. Said I’d get a dollar bonus for every mile further away I sent you.’

  Evan laughed with him. It was an encouraging start, a good omen for pumping him for information. The chauffeur, whose name was Leon, fell silent as he negotiated the big car through the tourists in their rentals, relaxing again once they’d joined I-90 for the fifteen-mile ride out to Chestnut Hill. Evan made the most of the earlier bonhomie.

  ‘So who’s this guy Carlson?’

  Leon looked sideways at him to see if he was joking, like he’d said Trump and not Carlson.

  ‘Are you serious? Carlson Communications?’

  Evan nodded, none the wiser.

  ‘Right. Got it. What’s he like?’

  Leon rocked his head from side to side.

  ‘He’s okay. For a guy with all his money. It’s LeClair who’s the asshole. Acts like the money belongs to him.’

  ‘That’s his job, I suppose.’

  ‘See if you’re still sticking up for him after you’ve met him.’

  Evan didn’t want Leon to get stuck in a rut about his grievances with LeClair. It wasn’t hard to guess what they stemmed from. His assessment of LeClair from talking with him on the phone was of a man around his own age, in his thirties. It was also likely that he was Leon’s immediate boss. Leon didn’t look like the sort of man who enjoyed taking orders from a much younger man, one he had no respect for. Besides, he wasn’t here to talk about LeClair.

  ‘You worked for Carlson long?’

  ‘It feels like forever sometimes.’

  There was no rancor in his tone, more a comfortable acceptance. Like an old married couple—not sure how you got here, but happy enough all the same.

  ‘Why does he want to see me?’

  Leon shook his head.

  ‘Above my pay grade.’

  ‘It’s something to do with his daughter.’

  ‘Blair?’

  ‘No, Arabella.’

  The traffic suddenly demanded all of Leon’s attention, checking in his side mirror before he pulled out to pass an old VW Beetle. The car surged silently forward as he hit the gas.

  ‘I love this car.’

  Evan did the translation: change the subject.

  They passed the remainder of the journey talking about the car and its amazing engine and how the Brits sure knew how to build ’em except it was German really as Bentley was owned by Volkswagen who made the Beetle they’d just passed which was a real classic, an icon, no less. There was even time to talk about all the other expensive toys Thomas Carlson of Carlson Communications owned.

  They turned off Woodland Road in Chestnut Hill into a long drive between mature trees. At the end there was a turning circle with a fountain in the middle in front of a house the size of a small town. Perfectly clipped hedges surrounded them and then manicured lawns and more trees, a living hell for anybody allergic to the color green. Leon let him out and disappeared into the next ZIP code to park the car.

  He was expecting LeClair to be waiting for him at the top of the steps that led up to the massive front door. Instead it was a woman. As he got closer, he saw that it was an older version of the younger woman in the photograph in Bella’s wallet. She was about fifty, her blond hair now streaked with gray.

  He climbed the steps, casting quick surreptitious glances to the side to see if LeClair was lurking in the shrubbery. She smiled at him as he got to the summit, offered him her hand.

  ‘You must be Mr Buckley. I’m Arabella’s sister, Blair.’

  She had a nice cool handshake and a nice warm smile and nice sparkly eyes and was just plain nice all around. With the house and the trees and no LeClair in sight he could get used to this. He told her to call him Evan and she led him inside. It made him wish he’d brought along a bag of breadcrumbs to leave a trail in case he had to find his way back out on his own.

  ‘Nice house. Must be a bitch to keep clean.’

  She gave him another flash of her perfect white teeth, did a good job of pretending she recognized the word clean.

  ‘Tell me about meeting Arabella.’

  He ran through it, not saying anything about the man with the knife. But he mentioned the way she’d sat on Guillory’s stool and refused to move. Blair smiled as she listened.

  ‘That sounds like her. What made her run off so suddenly?’

  He came out with the non-answer he’d decided on while he was on the plane.

  ‘It must have been something I said. She was gone when I got back from the men’s room. But she forgot her wallet she was so desperate to escape.’

  He gave her his best boyish grin, the one that would have given Guillory a difficult decision—reach for a bucket or poke him in the eye. Then he dug the wallet out of his pocket, handed it to her. She opened it, looked inside. She ignored the cash, glanced briefly at the driver’s license, pulled out the folded photograph. He pointed at it.

  ‘You can tell LeClair that’s where I got the secret phone number.’

  She wasn’t listening. She’d unfolded the photograph. Her face fell momentarily as if he was here to report her sister’s death and he’d brought along an autopsy photograph to prove it. Then she recovered, worked a smile back onto her face, even if it did take a moment or two to warm up properly.

  ‘I remember that.’

  They’d stopped at the foot of the stairs. She was still staring at the photograph when a man appeared at the top of them.

  ‘Blair. Your father’s waiting.’

  Evan recognized the voice immediately. LeClair.

  ‘We’ll be up in a minute, Aldrich.’

  She made it sound like, run along now. Despite her tone, he stayed standing where he was. A minor power play was in progress. She looked at the photograph a while longer, some of the forced smile slipping, revealing the sadness underneath. Then she folded it, tucked it into her pocket.

  Evan followed her up the stairs, careful not to stare too openly at her shapely calves while LeClair was watching. At the top, he stuck out his hand.

  ‘Hello Aldrich.’

  LeClair did a good job of not grimacing. Evan pumped his hand energetically like an over-enthusiastic car salesman.

  ‘Mr Buckley.’

  Evan wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d excused himself, gone to scrub his hand with bleach.

  They all trooped down the corridor towards the master bedroom about a mile and a half away. It was an eerily quiet procession. The thick carpet absorbed their footsteps, none of them saying anything the whole way. Evan was too busy wondering how things would pan out. LeClair’s nose was out of joint. And Blair was lost somewhere in the past, still under the influence of the photograph.

  Thomas Carlson was sitting in a chair as old as he was in front of an open floor-to-ceiling window, a plaid rug around his thin legs. Despite the open window, the room smelled of long-term illness, of the slow failure of the body and the steps taken to ease it. Blair saw the window, strode across the room to close it.

  ‘Leave it.’

  Carlson’s voice left no doubt as to who was in charge despite his age and apparent frailty. Blair tut-tutted and stepped away again as a gust of wind caught the drapes.

  ‘This is the private investigator,’ LeClair said. He did an excellent job of making it sound like he was introducing the man who mucked out the stables.

  ‘I can see that,’ Carlson said. ‘You can go now. You too, Blair.’

  Neither of them objected. Evan gave LeClair a cheery wave as they left, got a scowl back from him and a quick smile from Blair. Then Carlson surprised him.

  ‘You’ll have to show me how to do that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get under his skin like that. He drives me to distraction, treating me like I’m senile. The body’s given up but there’s nothing wrong with my mind. Tell me what you know about my daughter.’

  Evan got a mental picture of the shapely legs he’d followed up the stairs.

  ‘She seems very nice. I don’t think she and Aldrich get
along.’

  Carlson gawked, then broke into a wheezing cough-cum-laugh.

  ‘Not Blair, you idiot. Arabella. And don’t make me laugh or they’ll be in here fussing over me thinking I’m dying.’

  The comment made Evan look at him more closely, the reason for his presence becoming clearer. Carlson wasn’t simply old, he was sick, a graveyard pallor on his skin, an unhealthy aura clinging to him, the strain of keeping death waiting too long showing in the lines on his face. He ran through the story again with the same omissions. The way Carlson studied him as he talked made him think he’d be giving the unedited version before he left the room. He got the same feeling he always did when he was with his mentor, Elwood Crow—like a laboratory rat pinned to a board, his innards spread wide. Carlson wasn’t simply listening to the details of his story, he was assessing the messenger, the assessment more useful to him than the meager details he provided.

  Carlson stuck out a bony hand when he’d finished.

  ‘Let me see the wallet.’

  ‘I gave it to Blair.’

  Carlson held his breath as if controlling his temper and frustration at the lack of mobility that prevented him from rushing from the room and leaping down the stairs after his youngest daughter. Evan took the opportunity to ask a long-overdue question.

  ‘You want to tell me what this is all about?’

  Carlson ignored or didn’t hear him.

  ‘Was there anything in it? Any ID?’

  ‘Only an expired driver’s license with a Boston address. Somewhere on Commonwealth Avenue.’

  Carlson shook his head, the frustration still on his face, in his voice.

  ‘I sold that place years ago.’

  If Carlson had been younger and less frail Evan would’ve shaken him. As it was, he re-phrased his earlier question into a statement.

  ‘I assume she’s disappeared and you want me to find her.’

  There was no need to state the obvious corollary—before it’s too late.

  Carlson nodded wearily as if the disappointment at the lack of any clues to his daughter’s whereabouts in her wallet had drained him, the spike in his excitement at the discovery of the wallet doing nothing more than provoking a harder fall when it proved to be useless. Then he dismissed him with a flick of his hand, a curt instruction to talk to Blair or that idiot Aldrich.