“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said, moving forward on the green light.
Duheen still couldn’t think of the right thing to say. Is that a yes?
CONSULTATION
Murray wondered about Sandray’s disconnections. And more, did the dead actually talk to each other? Did they get to know other dead in the same cemetery? Or did they just know about each other from his own side of the conversation? Dearly knew about Edwin and Blessed but possibly only because he told her about them. If they couldn’t talk to each other, then they needed somebody like him as a go-between. Was he the only one? Were the rest of the dead so lonely they could hardly stand it? That was scary. Murray could imagine if he killed himself there might not be anyone else to talk to. Forever.
He needed a consultation from an old friend.
* * *
Dearly Beloved had a good head on her shoulders. Murray plopped down in front of her. “Got time for a question?”
“Hi, darlin’. Nothing but. Speaking of, long time no see.”
“Yeah, my bad. I’ve been welcoming people in the newer section. Seems like more kids almost every day. Like Feathers? You met him?”
“Hon, it doesn’t work like that. We know who we knew in our life. And you. You tell me about Blessed and I imagine her, but I don’t know her. Your world grows, ours stays the same.”
Murray listened carefully for a note of sadness but didn’t hear it. Had Dearly made her peace with death? He was curious but was afraid to ask. All those feelings.
“Your question?”
“Uh, there’s a new girl I’ve been talking to … Sandray … same year as me, different school. How cool is that?” Murray had an uncomfortable thought. Do the dead get jealous?
Dearly waited.
He plodded on. “Sometimes when we’re talking everything goes dead.” Brainless! “I mean the energy disappears and I don’t feel any connection at all. Do you know what causes that?”
“Not sure, sweetie. So it’s like she withdraws? I guess that’s possible. Want me to try it?”
Murray nodded. Moron! Like she could see him. Why was he so nervous about this? “Please,” he said.
Silence followed but the faint electric hum didn’t go away.
“Nope, we’re connected,” he said, not disappointed but still puzzled.
“Yeah, I could feel it. Of course I’m grateful for it. I love your company. Always.”
Murray felt the same way. Dearly had been a dependable friend.
“I don’t know, hon, maybe it’s new. Like a tiny speck of evolution or something. Or maybe it only disconnects if she really needs it to. Maybe she hangs up if she gets desperate for privacy … if she gets overwhelmed.”
Yeah. That was kind of what Murray had been guessing. He wished the voices he’d been hearing up at the hedge would disconnect completely.
NASCAR
Bruce could see right away this was going to be tricky. He’d resisted a deputy before and wound up in jail. They took all your stuff and locked you up with a bunch of losers and lunatics. Not a good conversation in the bunch. A few of them got in your grille wanting to prove something. He didn’t need that. He decided to go along with the woman and what’s-his-name and make this as brief as possible.
“Your car smells like urp,” he said to the officer’s back.
“Sorry,” Gates said. “Probably needs a cleaning. We’ll be there in five minutes and you can get out.”
Bruce thought he’d have to burn these clothes when he got back. Luckily, he had plenty more, and if he needed to, he could go shopping this afternoon.
“This is a waste of time,” Bruce commented, scooting forward slightly to command better attention.
“Well, I’m remembering the last time you stopped your meds you wound up at Heritage Oaks in Sacramento. For about three weeks,” Duheen said, turning partway around.
“Yeah, I had the flu, but I’m fine this time. Feeling great. Got some new clothes, new meds.”
“Well, something’s not too great. Manager says you can’t stop talking, you’re arguing with people in the lobby.”
“Like he’s qualified? Got his head in his butt.” Bruce patted himself on the shoulder. “I’m great.” Should he tell Duheen about his new medical discovery—powder works better than pills? Bruce was torn. He wanted her to know that she was making a mistake, that he didn’t need any help. The Petrushkins needed help, and the other poor chumps in his hotel. But you couldn’t trust these doctor people. They want everything quiet. Better living through boredom. Plus, good sniff is hard to find. What if she messed with his supply? But she was a professional. She should know. “Skag works great.” Oops. Did he say that? His brain needed to shut up.
* * *
“Where do you get this new med?” Duheen asked, not turning around, casual tone of voice, like she was just making conversation.
“No place,” he said, feeling back in control. He got it from his pal Tuffy, who got it from— No, Bruce would be quiet now. “So, like, I don’t need anything. I’m fine,” he said, not noticing he was still talking. “I’m cooperating.” He figured this would throw her off the track. “Remember that,” he said, admonishing her, wagging his finger at her back. “You say. I do. That’s me all over.”
Duheen craned around to look at him again, saw Bruce was practically vibrating; knees up and down like a sewing machine, chewing his lip, scratching his head, zipping his jacket up and down. “I’m glad you feel that way,” she told the young man. Was he using heroin to take an occasional break from his mania? A good bet.
Bruce didn’t like her looking at him. She’d hand him over to that Dr. Mendella … Madonna? Filipina woman that talked like a butler and looked like an actress? A smile and she got him to do anything. Yeah, yeah, pop some pills. Okay, no prob. A pill wouldn’t knock him off the track. It’s NASCAR, baby! Just a pit stop and be home by dark. Miles to go before I sleep! Somebody said that.
* * *
Duheen stood with Gates in the Mental Health building’s outpatient corridor while Bruce went in the psychiatrist’s office. “Skag works great,” she said, shaking her head.
“Can it interfere with his regular medication?” Gates asked, wondering if heroin was as damaging as meth.
“I told Dr. Mendoza before Bruce went in. She’ll assess that.”
“You think Bruce buys it on the street?” Gates asked.
“Who’d sell it to him? Some friend probably,” Duheen said, looking down the hall past Gates as if she could spot a likely culprit.
“Last year when I spent some time with him and Compton, Bruce was good at meeting people,” Gates said. He remembered taking Bruce and Compton to fast food and donut shops, hoping to find out if they knew anything about Nikki Parker’s kidnapping. Bruce stopped at each table and talked with every person he saw. Couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Yeah, well, now he’s more full-blown manic,” Duheen said. “Most people would steer clear of him.”
“So possibly someone he’s known for a while. Somebody at Sadler House?” Gates asked, thinking out loud.
“Good guess,” Duheen said. “Don’t ask him now. That would raise his anxiety and boost him even further out.”
“Don’t worry,” Gates said. “I’ll be subtle.”
“I suppose that’s statistically possible,” Duheen said, “though my observations fail to confirm it.”
COURTING
Murray couldn’t get Sandray out of his mind. When she was good she was … uh, good, and when she was bad she was radio-silence. And she was so pretty. Really, he couldn’t help but wonder if she liked him. Did she have a boyfriend? He had no idea.
“Hey. I got an A minus on a pop quiz today,” he told her for openers.
“How come you can hear me?”
“A girlfriend of mine’s been asking me that same question.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Uh, girl comma friend. This place’s caretaker? His daughter, Pearl.
”
“When did she die?”
“No.” Murray smiled at the thought that he had a friend who was living. “Not dead. She’s a freshman. At Sierra. Kind of a jock. Basketball, softball.”
“My boyfriend played basketball for you guys. Kevin. Point guard.”
“Kevin…” That answered Murray’s earlier boyfriend question. He was caught off guard by a wave of disappointment.
“Kearns. You go to games?”
“No.”
“The lead in last year’s spring drama?”
“Uh—”
“God, don’t you do anything?”
“I work … help around here.”
“Anyway, ex-boyfriend.”
Yes! Murray was afraid to ask what happened and get another disconnect.
“We broke up the week before.”
“Before you were shot?”
“Duh. He’d been slithering around with Marcia Nuñez. Finally got around to telling me. Know her?”
Murray started to shake his head. Stopped. “Aronson’s class? Sits by the window?”
“How would I know?”
Right. “That’s, uh…”
“I saw her. She’s pretty but she’s a bitch. She knew we were going out. Who are you going with?”
“Um, no one. I’m pretty busy.”
“Busy.”
“I, uh, talk to people.”
“Other dead people?”
Even the dead don’t believe me.
Sandray snorted. “That’s totally unglued.”
* * *
Who to ask? Murray chose Edwin first.
“Hear you got a girlfriend” was the first thing out of Edwin’s mouth.
“Who told you?”
“Bud, it’s all you talk about lately. Strange name for a girl. More like a fish.”
“Yeah, well. Hey, I have a question.”
“Shoot. Can’t hurt me.”
“Seriously.” Murray waited for a minute for Edwin to settle down. “Uh, do you think there’s such a thing as ghosts?”
That wrecked it. Brought another cascade of laughter.
“Come on! Do you?”
“Can’t say I’ve thought about it.”
“Did you ever see one?”
“Heard about them. Never seen one.”
“Do you think they’re real?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How can you say that when you and I are having a conversation and you’re dead?”
“Good point. But I can say any damn thing I want and that’s one of the few good things about being dead.” Edwin shifted back to his more serious tone. “But why? What’s the deal?”
“If you wanted a ghost, could you just summon one?”
“You’re not going to tell me what this is about, are you?”
Murray swallowed. But hey, this was Edwin. Who else could he say this to?
“I was wondering, if Sandray was a ghost, uh, couldn’t she and I go places together? Do things?”
MAKING THE SHORT LIST
The duty sergeant was last to arrive in the briefing room, strode to the front desk holding a newspaper in one hand and a wad of something in the other. It wasn’t just the raw-sunburn color of his face and neck or even the ramrod quality of his posture as he stood feet apart in a position the military called parade rest. Gates could feel heat coming off the man as if something had pushed him beyond his occasional realm of vile mood and into the country of nuclear meltdown.
“Today’s Sacramento Bee,” the man said, giving the newspaper a single shake that would have broken a chicken’s neck. “Front page article,” he added, throwing a fistful of confettied newsprint at the seated deputies.
No one moved, the whole room on full-alert. Duty sergeant was not known for his love of journalism but this was over the top. Would he light the paper on fire? Draw his service revolver and blow a hole through it?
“Riverton law enforcement officers made top five. In the nation! But don’t line up for your merit badges yet.” The man started to pace in front of the desk, stopped, and again faced the room.
Gates liked the duty sergeant. Liked his rough humor in the face of a slow-growing bladder cancer that had taken him off patrol and put him in the office for his remaining months. In the last year the man had gone from a doughy two hundred pounds to a hard-ridged hundred and forty. His eyes had grown paler, more the color of icebergs than sky.
“We have risen to fifth in the country … the entire country … with this year’s increase in violent crime. Practically lead the United States in law enforcement incompetence.” He stopped, surveyed the room, giving each man a full moment’s stare. “That’s it, ladies,” he said. “Read the goddamned board for the morning report. I’ll be in the bathroom scrubbing the shit off my uniform.”
Sobering news. No one left the room with a smile.
The bulletin board had the usual. Hit-and-run driver took out a fire hydrant on Shasta Street, a block from the RPD station. Windows broken at HILo Liquors on California. Thief made off with multiple pints and a roll of lottery tickets.
A female bicycle rider hit a rut on Parkview and flew through an oncoming car windshield, narrowly missing the teenage driver. The human cannonball scored a .28, three and a half times the legal intoxication limit on the subsequent blood alcohol test. Minor miracle; only broke her nose and shoulder and provided conclusive evidence you never forget how to ride a bike.
Carjack at an all-night gas station on Hilltop. Young Caucasian man with a tire iron. Purse snatching at knifepoint outside of Macy’s. These, the kinds of things that drive up your violent crime statistics.
Gates took the cruiser and went on patrol. Maybe he could actually stop something before it happened.
* * *
Not today. The morning patrol was relatively uneventful. A no-injury fender bender at the intersection of Canyon and Happy Valley Road. Both drivers actually civil. A status contact on an elderly man in a trailer just off China Gulch Drive. Daughter frantic, trailer locked, father not answering the phone. Gates got no response till he hit the doorframe with his flashlight and gave the small wooden porch a hard kick. Heard footsteps.
The door was opened by a rumpled elderly man with a sheepish expression. “I lost my hearing aids,” he said. “I was afraid to tell her. She paid a month’s salary on the little buggers.”
* * *
Gates stopped by Don’s Eats for a corned beef sandwich and was back at his desk by noon-thirty. Sat to find two nine-by-twelve manila envelopes sitting on his calendar. Paper-clipped to the envelopes, a newspaper folded to an article marked with yellow highlights: “Broken down by agency, the second-largest number of unsolved murders was in the jurisdiction of the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office, which had thirteen.” A handwritten note scribbled across the body of the article: “Let’s do something about this.”
Gates stood to survey other desks. Several had copies of what could be the same newspaper beside a similar envelope, cardboard box, or tagged weapon. Okay. Gates understood and it was fine with him. This was the current lieutenant’s response to heat from the media. Gates was similarly embarrassed by the violent-crime-rate article. He especially hated uncleared murders—still kept desktop pictures of the two women who had disappeared last year from a neighboring town. Gates probably would have responded in a like manner if he was still the lieutenant.
OVER-THE-HILL GANG
Murray awoke to a sharp noise. A robber? He came to his senses. Right. Someone wanted to steal a used lawn mower. Not very likely. He could hear wind gusting. Probably knocked a branch down onto the roof. Now he could also hear the old lady buried beneath the shed. Fussing. She’d had the prettiest plot in the cemetery until they put this damn storage unit over her. He’d heard it all before and he bet it was true. A hundred years ago this part of the hill must have been beautiful, with hardly any buildings blocking the view to the mountains. A hundred years ago.
Murray found himself wondering if the
voices he was hearing beyond the east hedge were actually remnants of an old, old section of the cemetery, a piece that got accidentally separated from the main grounds as time passed. What if they’d been dead for a long time and were just upset because they’d been excluded from their official resting place? He’d have to ask Janochek tomorrow about the cemetery’s original boundaries and the way they had changed over time.
He got off the cot, went outside to pee, and watched the wind rattling the oak limbs. Maybe he should get dressed and give Sandray a surprise visit. She might be glad for some company. Sandray. Great girl! And that thought led to Pearl. Another great girl, but way more problematic. Wouldn’t it be kind of fun to go tap on Pearl’s window? Say hi. Invite her out to see the mini-storm. She’d think that was ridiculous but she might be kind of pleased, too. She’d complained he’d been ignoring her.
What if she asked him about what he’d been doing, what had been going on lately, and he shined her on. Would she realize he was hiding something? Would she sense that he was hearing new voices? He couldn’t take the risk.
Better to go back to bed. Tomorrow he’d find out about the cemetery history, and one more thing. He’d go back to the library and search the newspaper. Had there been other recent kidnappings where they couldn’t find the bodies? He couldn’t believe it. The Nikki Parker murder had only been two or three months ago. If some high school kid was killed anywhere in the county, everybody at school would be buzzing about it, wouldn’t they? But he didn’t read papers or check the Internet. Maybe something bad had happened that he didn’t know about.
He stopped at the shed door. He was already almost dressed. What if he grabbed a jacket, went back to the east hedge right now and listened? Maybe he’d been wrong before. Maybe it was some kind of echo. Or better yet, maybe it was nothing at all.
* * *
The wind whipped at his hair, tugged at his clothes, but it wasn’t exactly cold. A small moon gave him enough light to navigate. Before he’d even reached the hedge he was hearing something. Could be cats, or people down the hill drinking in the rodeo grounds parking lot. Those sounds carry. He realized he’d stopped moving and made himself continue. Past the last row of graves, just before the hedge, the sounds were unmistakable. Different voices grumbling, groaning, mixed together, hard to understand. As he homed in he noticed another voice on top of the others. Higher, thinner, but there was so much background noise all he could pick up was “R” and “U.”
Dead Investigation Page 5