by J. R. Rain
A corpse, at some point, had been dug up from the grave and removed. I knew there were body snatches out there. Folks who sold cadavers illegally for reasons known only to them. I suspected for illegal research projects. But such cases were damn rare.
But, as the pawn shop guy on TV says, “You never know what’s going to come in through your door next.”
In this case, it had been a phone call from an orphaned teenage boy presently seeking a DNA maternity test from a murdered mother he’d never met.
I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. Behind me, through my open window, I heard a bum singing drunkenly. Unremarkably, he was singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” except he was so drunk that he was adding bottles. He was currently at 132 bottles of beer on the wall, although he occasionally skipped three or four bottles ahead.
Myself, I hadn’t had anything to drink in two years, not since the night my son lost his life.
I took in some air and didn’t fight the pain that overcame me all over again, perhaps for the fiftieth time that day. I let the pain run its course and when I was done weeping again, I stood up from my desk, grabbed my light jacket off the back of my chair, and headed out to meet the orphaned son for the first time.
Chapter Four
We were in Echo Park, sitting on a park bench before a man-made lake. Years ago, the lake had been filled with lotus plants—more lotus plants than I had ever seen. But the plants had slowly died off and now they were gone and it saddened the heart.
There was a stigma about the park. Some thought it was dangerous, and maybe it was, at times. But for the most part, it was a little piece of green and blue in a city of concrete and graffiti. Joggers mixed with bums mixed with lovers mixed with God-only-knew-what-their story was. A melting pot of physical fitness, homelessness and drugs.
And one curious private investigator and a very lost sixteen-year-old boy.
We were sitting side by side, although his backpack was tucked between us. The evening sky was mostly clear, with only a small patch of something gauzy and amorphous high above. The trees around us rustled in the breeze. The breeze carried the smell of pond decay. Across the street, boys played basketball at a park. Most were shirtless, and most were covered in tattoos. As I watched, a fight nearly broke out, but only a few choice words seemed to be the extent of it.
His name was David and he was shy. I was shy, too, and the two didn’t combine for a lot of random chit-chat. We had said our greetings and were now sitting quietly on the bench.
I finally started things off. “Hot day.”
“Yeah.”
“The nights aren’t any better.”
He nodded.
“How long have you been in L.A.?” I asked.
“A few months now.”
“Where did you live before?”
“San Francisco.”
I nodded. Funny how life was often serendipitous. My last major case had taken me to San Francisco.
“What brought you down here?”
“My birth mom.”
“Who are you staying with?”
“My aunt and uncle.”
“Who were you living with before coming down?”
He looked away. “My father.”
“Your adopted father?”
“Yes.”
“What about your adopted mother?”
“She died when I was four.”
“Do you like your adopted father?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said.
“I get paid to ask a lot of questions.”
“But I’m only paying you two tacos.”
“Payment is payment.”
David looked at me, squinting against the last of the sun that was hovering somewhere over my right shoulder. David had a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheekbones. I predicted in two years the freckles would be gone. My son had freckles, too.
Shit. I took in a lot of air. When I had some control over myself, I said, “Why don’t you like your father?”
“Because he’s lazy and says shitty things.”
“Did he ever hit you?”
“No.”
“But he was psychologically abusive.”
David nodded. “Yeah, that.”
“How was he lazy?”
He shrugged. “He never worked. We usually lived with his girlfriends, until they kicked us out. He made me start working at fourteen, at a girlfriend’s cookie shop. Then he took most of the money I made.”
“He put you to work and then took your money?”
“Basically.”
“What do you think about that?”
“I hate him.”
I asked him some more questions and I did my best to piece together his often stunted, one-word answers. The kid had known at a young age that he was adopted. His father, apparently, liked to throw his adoption in his face. No doubt to be cruel. Apparently his father had not taken his wife’s death too well. In the years after, the man had spent much of his time drinking and man-whoring.
David, at about age fifteen, began looking for his birth mother, until he quickly discovered that he couldn’t request birth parent records in the state of California until he, the adoptee, was twenty-one. But the kid was dogged and industrious, and soon he had the help of a sympathetic superior court judge, who happened to be the mother of a close friend. The judge stepped in and was able to convince the Department of Social Services to release David’s birth mother’s records. She cited extenuating, extraordinary circumstances, the only reason the state would release such information.
David didn’t know what the extenuating, extraordinary circumstance were, but I suspected the judge had simply pulled a few strings.
Now with her help, he was able to track down his mother all the way to Los Angeles, only to discover that she had been slain two years earlier. A mother who had left behind two children and a vast fortune. Those two children were being raised by grandparents; the father, of course, was currently awaiting execution at San Quentin.
The superior court judge next got hold of the will. In the will, Evelyn Drake, his birth mother, in an extreme act of generosity, had set up a significant trust fund for him, should he ever come looking for her.
David, who was already making arrangements to live with his adopted mother’s sister here in southern California, was set to inherit a good deal of money.
But state law insists on a DNA test. So one was set, and when it came time to administer the test; meaning, extracting DNA from his mother’s corpse, the body had been discovered missing.
Which is where I came in.
“That’s a helluva story, kid,” I said.
He looked away, nodded.
A shapely rollerblader came blading by. She was followed immediately by a stumbling bum, either drunk or high. The bum was followed, in turn, by a limping golden retriever. The retriever stayed close to the bum and I was briefly touched by the creature’s loyalty. I suspected the dog was the only thing keeping the man alive through sheer love, devotion and protection.
There were tears in David’s eyes. It’s bad enough losing one mother, but this kid had lost two.
The bum curled up in the fetal position on the grass near the lake, using his arm as a pillow. The golden retriever curled up next to him, ever watchful, keeping his drunken owner safe. A woman nearby immediately got up from the grass and left, shoving one of those e-reader thingies into her purse.
“I don’t really care about the money,” said David.
I nodded. The dog lay its fuzzy muzzle across the back of the unconscious man, who was now snoring loudly.
“I just want to know what happened to her,” he said.
I nodded again, and watched the dog close its eyes, although its ears remained ever alert.
Chapter Five
I was with my girlfriend, Roxi, at a restaurant called Fred 62.
A weird name for a place with great food. I�
�m sure the restaurant had all sorts of history, too, although I didn’t know it. But I was willing to bet that guys like Cagney and Hudson and Rooney all had eaten here at one point or another. Maybe Elizabeth Taylor had gotten shit-faced drunk in a back booth. Or John Wayne had punched out some asshole for asking too many lame questions. Maybe. I didn’t know, but the place had an old Hollywood feel to it. Ancient vinyl booths. Old wood paneling. Old posters. Hip energy. And set right in the heart of Los Feliz, itself just north of bustling Hollywood.
“I think David Schwimmer is eating behind us,” said Roxi. She sounded very excited.
“You mean Ross?”
“Yeah, Ross. And don’t say ‘Where’s Rachel?’”
“Where’s Rachel?”
“Dumb ass.”
But she was right. At least I think she was right. Behind a head of neatly trimmed dark hair flashed the occasional profile of the Friends’ star. He was with a beautiful woman, and they were sitting across from another beautiful couple.
“I think you’re right,” I said. “It’s all very exciting.”
“You don’t look very excited.”
“I live and work in L.A. I see stars all the time. So far, I have yet to see one of them levitate or turn water into wine.”
She pouted. “You’re such a party-pooper.” But even as she said those words, I saw her brain turning. Steam practically issued from her ears.
“Oh, no,” I said, catching on. “He doesn’t want to read your screenplay.”
“But he’s a director now. This could be my big break.”
“I doubt it.”
“You don’t believe in me?”
“Oh, I believe in you, but I doubt this is your big break.”
She pouted some more and seemed to refocus on her menu. “It’s a good screenplay.”
“I know,” I said. “I read it.” Which was mostly true. I had skimmed it. I found that focusing on anything for too long was nearly impossible these days. It’s hard to read words when you still hear your son screaming.
The waiter came by and took our order. I got a big breakfast sandwich, minus the ham, even though it was after 9:00 p.m. Roxi liked the sound of it and ordered the same, plus the ham. In fact, she made the waiter put my displaced ham on her sandwich.
He wrote everything down like it all made perfect sense, and when he left, Roxi asked me what I was working on. I told her about it, or as much as I knew.
“Wild,” she said.
“About as wild as it gets.”
“And you’re doing it all for free?”
“Not quite. For two tacos.”
She shook her head sadly. “You give away too much of your time. You could be doing paying work, you know.” She next held up her hand, stopping me. “Wait. I already know what you’re going to say.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You’re going to tell me that it’s not about the money, that it’s about helping those who can’t help themselves, about making things right in the universe.”
“That, and I want those tacos.”
“You can’t help everybody, Spinoza,” she said, using my last name like most people do.
“Nope, but I can sure as hell help some.”
“But this case is...gross. You’re looking for a corpse, for Christ’s sake.”
“And giving a young man peace of mind, and perhaps setting him up for the rest of his life.”
“Because his birth mother left him an inheritance.”
“An inheritance that is rightfully his.”
“After the DNA testing confirms it,” she said.
“Right.”
“So how does one look for a corpse?”
“No clue,” I said, as the waiter came by with our food. My breakfast sandwich looked glorious. Huge and leaning and dripping with hollandaise sauce and ripe avocado slices. Roxi’s looked even bigger, with her two fat slices of ham.
“Do me a favor,” she said, as she picked up her sandwich. “Let’s not talk about corpses while we eat.”
Chapter Six
I started looking for the corpse at the only place I could think of: the cemetery where David’s birth mother, Evelyn, had been buried. Where her coffin had been exhumed. And where, later, it had been found to be empty.
Weird shit.
It was early the next morning when I pulled over to the side of one of those narrow cemetery roads and parked my Camry under an elm tree. I was tired but alert. I don’t sleep well these days, and if I was a betting man, I would bet that I would probably never sleep well again.
The Forest Lawn Cemetery here in Burbank, on the other side of the infamous Griffith Park, is epic, covering an entire hillside. If I had to be buried anywhere, it would be here. Granted, I would want to be buried near my son, but I doubted he would want anything to do with me, even in the after life, and especially for all eternity.
There were a few others here. This is greater L.A., after all, with nearly 30 million people, and so one rarely, if ever, finds themselves alone. Anywhere. About seven or eight people were presently brushing off burial plaques or standing solemnly in the early morning light. I heard the faint sound of weeping from somewhere. Most were dressed in business attire, no doubt on the way to work.
Myself, I was here for work.
Sipping a latte something or other from Starbucks, I made my way through the cemetery, picking my way carefully behind grave markers. I’ve never put much stock into the supernatural (well, that is, until recently...long story), but walking over somebody’s grave just seemed wrong. After all, everything they had ever done and everything they ever were was summed up into one spot of earth. The least someone could do was avoid walking over them.
Like a good investigator, I already had Evelyn’s plot location in hand, and after studying a map of the grounds upon entering the cemetery, I had a fairly good idea where I was going.
Fairly. This was still confusing as hell.
My breath misted before me. Steam billowed up from that little hole in the Starbucks lid. Birds flitted overhead and the sun was rising to the east, casting my elongated shadow over the gently sloping hill. Hard to believe that within such a beautiful hillside were thousands upon thousands of corpses.
An old poem came to mind: The ghosts of the tribe/ Crouch in the nights beside the ghost of a fire/ They try to remember the sunlight/ But light has died out of their skies.
But not on this hillside. Here, the morning sun blazed full force, galvanizing the dead.
I took in a lot of air and found breathing suddenly difficult. It was impossible for me to walk through any cemetery without thinking of the little boy I had condemned into one for eternity. My little boy.
When I found my breath again, I moved on, feet crunching over the dewy grass. Soon, after a handful of false starts, I found the correct row, and five minutes after that, I was standing over a freshly turned grave.
The casket, I knew, was gone. It was now marked evidence somewhere. Grave robbing is serious business. No one wants to think they’re loved ones may not be where they’re supposed to be. Although cranky and bitchy, I knew that Hammer was still approaching this case seriously. Except he was already overworked as it was. I wasn’t overworked. I was underworked if anything. And Roxi was right. The last thing I needed was to take on a charity case.
Say that to my conscience.
I got into this business to help. To give back. To heal. To stop the pain. To ease the pain.
To be anything other than what I had been before.
A small wind, which flapped my loose jeans at my ankles, brought with it the subtler scents of nature. But mostly I smelled the freshly turned soil at my feet.
What the hell was going on here?
I knelt down and looked closely at the ground around me, picturing in my mind what must have happened here. Someone, or perhaps many someones, had dug up the body and removed it from this very spot. Later, the grave had been officially exhumed and found to be empty.
>
I considered the possibility that perhaps her body never made it to the grave site. Seemed a good question, and one that I would follow up on.
For now, though, I studied the grave site, noting where a tractor had recently sat. No doubt a small crane had been used to raise coffin. No doubt the caretakers also used some sort of backhoe to dig up the site. And, for all I knew, there was some sort of machine that could do both. The Ford Gravedigger 1000 or something. Digs, lifts and buries—all in one.
I stood and walked around the site, not sure what I was looking for, but keeping my eyes on the ground, looking for anything that stood out. Nothing stood out. No graverobbing business cards left behind. No broken-handled shovels. No deep shoe impression with, say, a rounded inside heel to indicate someone had recently walked through here with a noticeable limp.
I stood on the hillside and soaked in the sun. A bluish light seemed to dance before me, but that was probably just an odd refraction of the sunlight, the mist and the green grass.
The blue light was smallish, about the size of a little boy. It seemed to hover before me briefly, before I blinked and it disappeared.
If it had been there at all.
Chapter Seven
I was in a strange office.
It was the Forest Lawn’s groundskeeper’s office, and it was a little creepy. There were exactly three open coffins lined up along the far wall. Mercifully, the coffins were empty. There was a pile of marble grave markers on one side of his desk, and a pile of bronze markers on the other side his desk. The bronze markers were empty. Meaning, they were awaiting names to be engraved. Names of those who were not yet dead. Someone, somewhere was going to die, and his name was going to appear on that bronze plaque.
Creepy.
The caretaker was a middle-aged man with thick glasses. Surprisingly, there wasn’t dirt under his fingernails and there weren’t clumps of it tracked in from the outside, either.