THE NEW VOICE
Murray again heard a voice that was different from the others. After his confrontation with the girl, he had been meandering along the side lanes, trying to get rid of his irritation. He went as far as the cemetery boundary and was returning on the next lane when he noticed the sound. He began placing his feet carefully, his sneakers cushioning each step, so that no noise would interfere with his listening.
He couldn’t tell much. The voice was really faint and muddled with groans or wind or something. He thought he heard “… him me … fine me … plea…” A soft wail, like a pet whimpering alone in a car. He wondered if maybe it was from that girl who lived with Mr. Janochek, playing a trick on him. Could she have screwed his mind up, fouled up his receiving? He looked around but saw no sign of her.
Murray gave up listening and went directly to the Chandler plot to get in contact with Dearly. She started.
“So, now maybe you have girl trouble, Sugar?”
“No. It’s nothing like that. She’s the caretaker’s kid and she’s rude and really nosey. I was just wondering if she got in my mind somehow and messed up my connections.”
“Well, I’m reading you loud and clear.”
Murray could see Dearly just like she was right before the crash. She wore this tight purple woolly skirt and sweater and had a pretty linen handkerchief she fiddled with, pulled and twisted in her hands like worry beads. And she was so beautiful with her permed brown hair and red lipstick.
“How are you going to deal with the holiday vacation?” she asked.
“I already figured I’d tell Mom I was going to spend a lot of time over at a friend’s house. I don’t think she’ll care. Have you noticed anything strange around here lately?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like a person who isn’t even dead. Or somebody new. Or somebody who’s lost?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of lost souls in this place. Your guy James, for example, what’s with him?”
“No, I mean something really different.”
“No, honey, can’t say as I have, but I’ll keep an ear open. Don’t worry. Me and Blessed have got this place covered.”
He always asked Dearly if there was anything he could do for her, and she always said, “Just wildflowers. Every spring, just some wildflowers. Lupine or ceanothus to go with my outfit.”
* * *
Blessed was his next stop. Murray sat down at the side of Blessed’s stone and took a deep breath to help him listen better. She was such a cool girl. He bet if she had lived, she would be a doctor or a college professor by now. He was having a little trouble hearing, so he moved right in front of her headstone and sat down close enough to touch the carved dates.
“Tell me again. I missed it,” he said, leaning forward a little.
“I said, I think you should give that girl a chance. She came to see you, you know. How many girls have done that lately?”
“She’s rude, Blessed. She’s a brat … and bossy and looking for a fight.”
“She seems pretty bright to me. And you know what? I think underneath that attitude, she might be a little lonely and looking for a friend. How many other people spend most of their afternoons in a cemetery?”
“I don’t need any more friends. I’ve got all of you.”
“Think it over. You know I’m right.”
Blessed was always sure of herself. Murray kept seeing her in her hospital gown. He wanted to picture what she wore, like when she went to school, but all he could get were awful loud colors, oranges and lime greens, and blouses covered with tiny amoeba shapes. She liked to chew that sugarless gum. He knew that, and he knew she stuck it under her dining room table at home while her dad was saying the blessing before dinner.
It was time to ask her.
“Have you heard anything new around here lately?”
“You mean a joke or something?”
“No. I … I thought I heard a new person, or a lost person yesterday … but it might just have been Janochek’s kid messing with me. I thought I heard someone say ‘him me.’ And then ‘fine me.’ It was pretty faint and kind of garbled. I couldn’t tell if it was an adult or a kid, or even if they were from here.”
“Huh. Where were you when you heard it?”
“I don’t know. I mean I was here … in the cemetery. I was walking around near the road from the main gate through the front part, kind of on my way to Dearly’s place.”
“The new part of the cemetery they opened a couple of years ago?”
“I don’t know when they opened it. It’s the place where they’re putting the people that didn’t have older family plots, I guess.”
“You think it comes from there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You should check it out.”
“You think I should walk by every stone around there and see if I pick anything up?”
“Up to you, Grunge Puppy!” That got them started, and while they were teasing each other, he decided that tomorrow he would walk very carefully all around that newer section. Get to the bottom of this. Maybe make a new friend.
FORGOTTEN
Mr. Robert Barry Compton was standing beside the deep fryer, waiting for the next batch of fries to get done. He had on the paper hat that he hated wearing and he was scowling. The manager had already talked to him twice about his “negative facial expressions.” What a do-right! Robert felt like it was his own damn face. He ought to be able to do what he wanted with it. Actually, though, the manager’s comment surprised him. He wasn’t aware he was scowling.
Like today. He was just standing there, trying to remember. That’s one of the things the meds or the crank really screwed up, his memory. Anyway, he was trying to remember two things. One, did he take his Risperdal this morning? And two, what was it that he was going to tell somebody? He had some information about something. He remembered again yesterday on his walk. He was going to tell somebody something that might be important, but he couldn’t quite dredge it up.
“Compton! Fries are smokin’!”
“Okay, okay, I got it.”
Crap. Maybe it would come to him later.
It did.
* * *
Robert Barry was absentmindedly putting cheese, onions, and hot sauce on four chalupas in a rack, looking out the drive-through window at the lunch line. Cars. Cars! What he had been trying to remember had something to do with cars. A car. He was sure of it. What kind of car? What color? Why did he make some vow about it? Those things he couldn’t recall just yet, but it was a start! But right away, he was feeling sad again. He would forget it. He knew he would, and then he would be back where he started.
He did his personal test. He pictured his weekly pill organizer, clear plastic with blue letters for each day of the week over each compartment. After he woke up, did he go to the box that he kept on his dresser and take today’s dose? Shit! He did. He knew it, but was it today or yesterday?
Bang! He had a flash! God, he loved it when he had a new idea, clear and strong and important. He took out his wallet and withdrew his Social Security card.
“Chalupas up! Hey, Compton! Chalupas up!” The window guy with the headphones was yelling at him.
Robert Barry stifled his reflex to yell, Screw you, do-right! That would probably cost him this job, and his rent was coming up.
“Yeah, okay.” He figured that bought him at least thirty seconds while he took out his ballpoint and scribbled “car” on the back of his Social Security card. There, he thought with satisfaction, now I got something going! And then he finished the damn chalupas and walked them over to the creep at the window.
BILLUP RECONSIDERS
When Billup represented the department at public functions, he was supposed to look his best. He always folded his suit jacket lining to the outside before laying it over the seat of his motor-pool Ford. He put on a clean white shirt every work morning, freshly pressed with just a touch of starch. Sometimes he
shaved against the grain so close his face chapped. He used hair oil that showed his comb marks all day long and he used an expensive deodorant from Macy’s that doubled as cologne. He was always prepared for someone to notice him. People take one look at me, they know I take care of business. But most people didn’t seem to look at him at all.
He never got the recognition he deserved. He never got the breaks. His high school football coach had told him right to his face that Billup was good, but he wasn’t big enough. “I never start short players,” the coach told him on the sidelines of the practice field after Billup had asked for more playing time. “They don’t intimidate.” Billup stuck it out anyway, but he rarely got in the games.
He didn’t get asked to dances, didn’t make friends with other guys. The girls he asked out usually seemed to have prior commitments. He figured maybe it was his breath, but his mother had reassured him. Secretly, he thought other people were just jealous of him. He was smart, savvy, and hardworking, and they just used their phony charm to get by.
His frustration already had his stomach growling. No sense fueling that fire. Getting pissed off always made him start drinking, and it was still three hours till the end of his shift. He knew he had been drinking a lot lately, and he knew that when he got loaded, he was more likely to hassle a prostitute or some parked teenagers, and he knew that was risky. The hooker might be connected or the kids might have a political parent. Plus, lately he had been blacking out more, losing nights, sometimes a whole weekend. Got to be careful!
He started his car and made a U-turn, heading for the south end of town. He would do some service work instead. Show up at the mission. Ask what the police department could do to help the staff with the homeless.
He wouldn’t bust the kid for cruising the graveyard, at least not today. Leave him alone for now. Besides, he didn’t want a city beat patrol logging that he seemed to be staking out the graveyard on a regular basis. Might bring unnecessary questions.
BLOOD IS THICKER
Murray left the cemetery that night without searching any farther and arrived home just after dark. His mother was sitting on the couch with a man Murray did not recognize, rubbing the man’s neck and shoulders.
“Oh, hi, honey,” she greeted him. “You know Eric, here, don’t you? Say hello to Eric.”
Murray looked at both of them. His mom was wearing some kind of drapey thin robe, and Eric looked like he had just come off a shift at the paper mill: brown jeans, tan crepe-soled work boots, plaid shirt with a gray T-shirt underneath. Eric was staring at the TV. Didn’t bother to look up. Murray continued to his room without speaking.
His mother added, “There’s half a cheeseburger and some fries on the counter and you can put ’em in the oven if you’re hungry.” But by the time she had finished the sentence, he had already closed his door and could no longer hear her.
Murray woke up the next morning, still dressed, lying on his bed on top of the covers. He thought immediately about the Janochek girl. Why is this so upsetting? He stood up and listened for his mom and Eric. Nothing. It was after eight. If Eric had spent the night, he would probably already have gone to work. Blood is thicker than water. His mom had drummed that into his head, attempting to reassure him that, in the end, he was more important to her than the different men she saw.
Murray put himself on autopilot, took a shower, and got ready for school. He couldn’t recall if he was supposed to have done any homework. He grabbed his backpack and went to the kitchenette. He ate a banana and made a sack lunch of potato chips and raisins. He looked for a small can of juice, any kind, but the ones in the fridge had already been opened. He looked in the cupboard: some cans of chicken noodle soup and chili. A jar of unopened dill pickles. He gave up and looked for some loose change. When he had gathered seventy-five cents, he pocketed it to buy a drink later, and left the house, making sure he locked the door. He was real mad at his mom, but still, he didn’t want anything to happen to her.
As he walked toward school, he was afraid that this mess with the girl was going to wreck his haven at the cemetery. He knew he couldn’t stand to be cut off from Dearly and Blessed. They had become like family. And who would comfort the others? He knew he had made a mistake yesterday. He had to make friends with the girl to ensure his place in the cemetery. He decided to appear harmless and boring, and then maybe she’d feel a little sorry for him, lose interest, and leave him alone. When she got back from school today, he’d find her and apologize.
NO REASON TO RUN
Around noon, Gates finished taking statements regarding a theft of chemistry equipment at a private school outside the city limits. He had spoken to school officials and then to three classes of students, but he had his own idea about the robbery. The county roads within a five-mile radius of the school had hundreds of rundown shacks hidden in thickets of manzanita. Recent brush fires in the area suggested some folks might be doing some outdoor cooking … of ephedrine. Notoriously easy to make small batches of meth. He was willing to bet somebody had just replenished their manufacturing equipment at the school’s expense. He would be surprised later in the week to find that it was the teacher herself and her new boyfriend doing the cooking.
He got in his car, ready for a break, and drove to a small nearby reservoir high enough to have a view of the Riverton area. The older he got, the more he noticed how beautiful scenery soothed him. Now the snow atop Mount Shasta flashed like a mirror in the winter sun and the impoundment’s ripples shuffled against reedy banks where blackbirds rested. A solitary osprey scanned the water’s surface for a midday meal.
Gates believed that if he could put enough wit and determination into investigating the Parker girl’s disappearance, what happened would make sense.
The girl had no reason to run away, and no one who knew her thought she had. Barring a witness who came forward or a surprise confession, he was going to cast a wider net. He wasn’t going to let this drop.
He was surprised by his next thought. When we figure this one out, I’m going to go after what happened to my son. I’m going to learn whether it was an accident or a suicide, and I’m going to live with that information and get on with the rest of my life … maybe even start dating again.
Those unbidden thoughts released strong feelings. He slowed his breathing, put his attention back on the water. He looked at the rills and scallops the breeze made on the surface. Shortly, he got a sense of what was troubling him in the case file.
The Riverton police had asked the boyfriend, the tennis coach, and the bus driver to voluntarily surrender their cars for inspection. They were told it would enable the police to eliminate them as suspects. All three agreed. Nothing turned up. Gates felt certain Nikki must have gotten into somebody’s car. Could one of them have borrowed a car? Did this situation really indicate that degree of planning? There was no evidence, no report of anyone loitering near the gym in the days prior. The perpetrator would have had to have been incredibly lucky to pick her up at an exact moment when there were no witnesses.
He made a decision to explore whether any of the three suspects was in the habit of borrowing or driving different vehicles. Gates would check it out, but he didn’t believe it. He was troubled by what he did believe, by what he was aware of more strongly than ever. This crime was chance. It wasn’t planned. It was opportunity. And we might never have a clue to the identity of the real perpetrator.
PEARL’S REVENGE
As she waited for the school bus, Pearl went over her idea for getting even with the Kiefer kid. This morning at breakfast, she had asked her dad again what the guy’s name was, and he had told her. Murray Kiefer. He also told her to leave him alone. Said the boy was harmless and not to bug him.
Pearl knew that her dad often didn’t know what was good for him—case in point, marrying her mom. She knew her dad just had some misplaced sympathy for this creep and that he wouldn’t let himself realize that Kiefer’s messing around was probably driving decent family members and mourners a
way from the cemetery. Sooner or later, they would probably complain about the job her dad was doing. She was going to save him from himself. And the Kiefer kid? She was going to fry him for the way he treated her when she was just trying to be nice.
She knew that a city cop sometimes parked outside the cemetery in the afternoon near the gate, and she had seen him talking with Kiefer before. What if she told the cop that Kiefer had tried to touch her butt yesterday when they were talking? That would get him in trouble and out of there quick, even if he denied it.
She boarded the yellow bus when it pulled up and chose a seat by herself near the front. If she played the butt card and her dad found out, he’d be real mad, especially after his warning, so she’d have to tell the cop not to involve her dad. Would he anyway? Yeah, probably.
She considered pushing some of the tombstones over and blaming it on Kiefer, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to do that. She thought of defacing some of the stones with a marking pen or spray paint and blaming it on Kiefer, but that could possibly backfire and get her dad in trouble. She thought of stealing some tools from her dad’s workshop and planting them in Kiefer’s backpack. That would make her dad feel betrayed by the kid and angry enough to give him the boot. Maybe even report him to the police.
That’s what she would do. Take her dad’s favorite pen, his multiple screwdriver thing, his special pliers with the red grips that his friend had given him for his birthday, and the paper money from the petty cash box her dad kept on his desk. She would fold them up in a sack and slip it in the guy’s pack when he was busy talking to himself.
Dead Connection Page 3