Final Rites(2)

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WE DROVE MOST of the way back to town in silence, each of us in his own thoughts. “Paulie said they were here, and then they left,” I said finally. “You get anything from Hector?”

“Nope, and I don’t think he’ll vote for me in the next election, either. He said he wasn’t here the day of the funeral. That about wrap it up for you? I can’t think of anyone else.”

“I can’t, either. Look, I appreciate your help on this thing.”

“No charge,” he sighed, “it comes with the territory. You know, if I’d been awake when you came in this morning, I could have saved us some running around. The Costas are a hard lot, all of ’em, and they grew up around here. There’s no way anything could have happened to ’em in a place like Algoma.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “Still, checking things out is part of the job. Paulie mentioned a funeral director named Claudio. Mean anything to you?”

“Rigoni’s Funeral Home. They do work out here sometimes, but they’re based in Detroit. Legitimate, as far as I know.”

“I’ll look them up when I get home, but it doesn’t sound like much.”

He pulled the sedan over to the curb in front of his office. “Well, here we are. Sorry things didn’t work out for you, but I told you so. You going straight back?”

“Maybe I’ll do a little sightseeing,” I said. “I don’t get out of the city much, and you’ve got a nice little town here.”

“We like it. If you need anything else, I’ll be in my office, at least until those Guardsmen get here. I’ll have to thank ’em for coming, I guess, even if it’s for nothing. I really oughta find an honest job. Have a good trip, Garcia.” He flipped me a mock salute and strode off.

I drove around for a bit, wondering what people found to keep them in a town six blocks long. I pulled in at a storefront office with “Village of Algoma” stenciled crudely on a plywood sign in the window.

The clerk literally dragged himself to the counter, a stroke-shattered old hulk of a man with a paralyzed leg, an arm strapped to his belt, and one side of his weatherbeaten face sagging like so much melted wax. His cheek was further distorted by a huge cud of tobacco. He leaned his good arm on the counter and spat a stream of brown juice in the general direction of the spittoon against the wall. Dead center. “Do somethin’ for ya?” he asked.

“I’d like to see a plat book for the county, please.”

“Got one right here.” He pulled a slim folder from beneath the counter and flipped it open to Algoma County. “Some of these titles ain’t current, but I know most of the landholders around here. Any particular parcel in mind?”

I traced the line of Lovedale Road north on the map with a fingertip. “Here, the land around the cemetery.”

“Well, there are houses north and south of it, but …”

“No, I’m interested in these fields around it to the west. All of that property seems to be owned by … somebody named Lund?”

“Max Lund,” he nodded. “He don’t live in Algoma no more, but he still owns the land.”

“It has corn growing on it now.”

“He’s farming it on shares. I believe Hec Michaud is working some of it. He put in some raggedy-ass corn this spring. Hec ain’t much of a farmer.”

“I thought he was in charge of the cemetery.”

“He is. You from the city?”

I nodded.

“Figured so,” he said, and spat another stream toward the spittoon. “You see, in a town like Algoma, a man can’t make it with just one job. Most folks do a little of this and that to get by. Hec does the cemetery, paints houses, and does a little farmin’ now and again.”

“How about the sheriff?” I asked. “He do a little farming, too?”

“Sometimes,” he said, examining me carefully with his good eye, “sometimes he does.”

LeClair was sleeping in his office chair, his grubby jogging shoes up on his desk. I let the door slam behind me, and he jerked awake with a start.

“You back again?” he said, groggy and still half asleep. “I thought you’d left. Those Guardsmen here yet?”

“I haven’t seen them,” I said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “I’ve got a little time to kill before my plane’ll be ready. Thought maybe we could have a good-bye smoke.” I took the joint from my shirt pocket and placed it on his desk. “Have one on me. It’s bomb weed.”

He stared at me blankly.

“Go ahead. You’ll feel better and nobody’s here but us cops.”

A slow flush rose above the collar of his T-shirt. “Garcia,” he said tightly, “I noticed Paulie was wearing your bracelet when you came down the hill today. That was a nice thing to do. So, because of that, and since you’re a city boy and don’t know any better, I’ll give you thirty seconds to flip that reefer in the wastebasket and get the hell out of my office, or I’m gonna throw your butt in jail.”

“Open it up,” I said, “take a look at the weed.”

Still scowling, he tore the paper apart, spilling the leaves on his desk. He picked one up and sniffed it. “This is green and it hasn’t been cut. I’d guess it’s local, right? Where did you get it?”

“From a guy who knows how to live off the land. As an informant, he’ll have to remain anonymous, of course.”

“Sure,” he said dryly. “Gee, I wonder who it could be? Where did he find it?”

“In the cornfields near the cemetery. There’s an area to the southwest where maybe every fourth plant is marijuana.”

“Hec Michaud!” he said, slamming his fist on the desktop. “I knew something was wrong out there today! I could feel it in my bones, but I thought it had something to do with the Costas. How much do you figure is out there?”

“I don’t know, a couple of bales, maybe. Enough.”

“And you thought maybe I was in on it, didn’t you?”

“Sorry,” I shrugged. “Like you said, I’m from out of town.”

“‘Sorry’ doesn’t quite cover it. Where the hell do you get off assuming I was corrupt? Or don’t they have honest cops in the city anymore?”

“You’re right, it was stupid of me. I mean, what kind of graft could you get around here anyway? Chickens and ducks?”

“I manage to scrape by on my salary. Dumb, maybe, but …”

“Look, I’ve already apologized, okay? And you might as well accept it, ’cause it’s all you get. You’d have wondered, too.”

“Yes,” he conceded, grudgingly, “I suppose I would have. All right, apology accepted, for now. At least I’ll have something for those Guardsmen to do when they get here. You want in on the collar?”

“No, it’s not what I came here for, and I haven’t had anything to eat all day. I’m gonna pop over to Tubby’s for a sandwich. Maybe I’ll stop out later to see how it’s going.”

THE HARVEST WAS in full swing when I pulled into the cemetery. A dozen National Guardsmen in green fatigue uniforms were hacking industriously away in the corn and carrying the marijuana plants to a pile at the edge of the field, where LeClair and two Guard officers were conferring. I noticed Hec Michaud sitting disconsolately in a jeep, handcuffed to the steering wheel. I walked over. “Hey, meester,” I said, “ju know where an hombre can find a chob pickin’ beans?” He just stared at the dashboard. No sense of humor.

“Hey, Flower, come on up! I got bleacher seats and cold beer!”

Paulie was sitting with his back against the toolshed on the hill, observing the proceedings. I made the long climb and sat next to him. He passed me a can of generic beer. “Quite a show,” he said.

“So it is,” I said. “Look, I’m sorry if this … puts a crimp in your recreation.”

“Hell, Flower,” he grinned, “I can’t smoke that stuff. I have enough trouble keeping track of things as it is. Hec gave me those joints, probably so I’d keep my mouth shut. Maybe I should have. I’m sure gonna hate losing my job here.”

“I don’t see why you should.”

“Maybe you don’t,” he said quietly, “but you’re going to, because if they keep searchin’ in the direction they’re going now, they’re gonna find the car.”

I turned slowly and stared. “What car?”

“A silver Lincoln.” His voice was a whisper now, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Hec was gonna hide it in the field and then get rid of it later, but it got stuck, so we just covered it up.”

“The Costas’ car?”

He nodded.

“When did this happen?”

“You mean when did we hide it? I’m not sure,” he said, frowning. “It was after the casket got stuck … but I already told you that, didn’t I?”

“You told me it got stuck, but you didn’t tell me the rest, did you? Paulie, it’s going to come out anyway now. I want you to tell me what happened. All of it. Just take it slow. Now, you said the casket got stuck?”

“Well, I didn’t know it was stuck at first. I was sacked out behind the toolshed when this guy Claudio wakes me up. He’s havin’ a heart attack because his box is jammed in the frame, and everybody’s gone but him and Mr. Costa. So I went and took a look at it. It was jammed all right, but we got a crank here in the shed to lower ’em manually if that happens, so I came back up here to get it. On the way back I could hear Claudio and Mr. Costa arguin’ clear across the cemetery. Finally, Claudio went stompin’ over to his hearse and drove off, which was odd because the director’s supposed to see the casket’s lowered and the vault lid is in place before he leaves. Mr. Costa was just standin’ there lookin’ at the coffin when I came up behind him. That’s when I noticed it. Charlie’s million-dollar box had a little hunk of red cloth sticking out along one seam. Not very neat. Mr. Costa’d noticed it, too, ’cause that’s what he was starin’ at. He jumped a foot when I walked up. He told me to lower the box, and I said the funeral director was supposed to be there. ‘Mr. Rigoni’s been called away and I’ll take full responsibility,’ he says. ‘You just lower it, and here’s something for your trouble,’ and he holds out a hundred-dollar bill. That’s a lotta money, right?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s a lot of money.”

“I thought so, too. I’m not very good at numbers anymore, but I figured there was something wrong, you know? So I said I couldn’t lower it by myself, I’d need help. He started to argue, but he noticed me staring at the box. His eyes kind of narrowed, and he just turned and walked down to his car and tore out of the cemetery, spraying gravel all over the place.

“I knelt down and took a closer look at the red cloth. It moved. Just a little, like something was trying to pull it back inside the coffin. So I rapped on the lid. ‘Is anybody in there?’ I said, feeling really stupid. It was the first time I ever tried talking to a stiff when I wasn’t just trying to get a rise out of Hector. Still, it seemed like the cloth had moved.”

“What did you do?”

Paulie shrugged. “Well, there wasn’t nobody there but me and that box, so I unscrewed the lid dogs and opened it. She sat up and I sat down. Hard. A lady in a red dress, with blood on the side of her head, groggy, and maybe blinded by the light. ‘Help me,’ she said.”

“Cindy Kessel,” I said. “Charlie’s girlfriend.”

“She was mumbling about not saying anything about Charlie’s business,” he nodded, “but she was just sort of rambling, like she was in a daze. Then she must have come out of it a little, because she looked down at who she was sitting on. Her eyes rolled up and she fell back down on old Charlie. He didn’t seem to mind.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, I didn’t know what she was to Charlie, but I didn’t figure she belonged in the same box with him, so I hauled her out and shut the lid. I wasn’t sure what to do. She needed help and nobody was around, and I didn’t want to just leave her there, so I picked her up and jogged over to Mrs. Stansfield’s. The old lady doesn’t like me much, but I couldn’t think of anyplace else to go.

“I hammered on the door, but nobody came and the damn thing was locked. I was tired from the run, my head was pounding …” He took a deep breath. “The girl … Cindy? Is that her name?”

I nodded.

“She was still unconscious. I could see the dust of Costa’s limo coming back, and I knew I had to do something, so I put my shoulder to the door, got it open, and set the girl inside. Then I ran back to the grave, keeping low. I didn’t want Costa to know where I’d been, and it was kind of fun anyway, like being back in the army.

“Mr. Costa had brought his son with him, Rol Junior. Do you know Rol?”

“I know who he is,” I said. “He’s a … rough customer.”

“I knew him from school,” Paulie said, “mean as a snake. Mr. Costa said he’d brought him along to help with the casket. I said okay, but he musta noticed I was breathing hard or something, because he looked at me kind of funny, and then he checked the box. I hadn’t screwed the lid dogs back in. When he looked at me again, his eyes had gone as dead as Charlie’s. ‘Where is she, boy,’ he says, ‘what have you done with her?’

“I just played dumb, which ain’t too hard for me. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I says.

“‘We got no time for this,’ Rol Junior says. ‘He’ll tell us when I show him what his guts look like,’ and he pulled an eight-inch blade. Man, that thing flicked open in his hands like magic.”

“What happened?”

“He wasn’t no soldier,” Paulie shrugged, “he was just a guy with a knife. My head doesn’t work so good since the grenade got me and Billy, but I can still understand a guy with a knife. He came straight at me, which was a big mistake. I snatched his knife wrist and spun him around into a choke hold, keeping him between me and his old man. Mr. Costa pulled this ugly little automatic, and he was circling around trying to get a shot when the girl screamed and he looked away. That was an even bigger mistake.” He took a long pull from his beer.

“Where are they now, Paulie?” I asked quietly. “Are they in the car?”

“The car? Nah. I figured that monument stone of Charlie’s was too big for one guy anyway, but it’s just about right for three, and it says ‘Costa’ on it, right?”

“And the girl, Paulie? What about the girl?”

“She’s still staying at Mrs. Stansfield’s. I went over there later to talk to her, but she was pretty weak and couldn’t say much. I’ll bet she’s glad to be out of that box, though.”

“I imagine she is,” I said, releasing a long, ragged breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Paulie, we’re going to have to tell Ira about this, you know.”

“I wanted to in the first place, but Hec said I’d get in trouble. I think he just didn’t want anybody snooping around here. One good thing at least, Mrs. Stansfield seems to like me a little better now. Maybe she was only grouchy before because she was lonely.”

“Maybe so,” I said, frowning. Something he’d said was gnawing at the back of my memory. “Paulie, didn’t you tell me Mrs. Stansfield’s house was west of the cemetery?”

He nodded. I stared across the fields of golden corn that ran unbroken to the pine-covered hills on the horizon. The setting sun was hanging above them like a single fiery eye. “Paulie, there is no house west of the cemetery.”

“Sure there is,” he said, with a trace of irritation. “That stone one, over by the fence. Mrs. Stansfield’s been there even longer than the major, since 1852, I think, or maybe ’51. I’m not very good at numbers anymore.”

“WHAT DO YOU think will happen to him?” I asked.

“You tell me,” LeClair said, slumping back in the seat of my rental sedan. He looked utterly exhausted, but his eyes were bright, almost feverish. He was watching the men in the rear of the jeep ahead of us as we followed the small convoy back to Algoma in the gathering dusk. Paulie was talking animatedly with a couple of Guardsmen, their smiles occasionally visible in the flickering headlights.

“Can you see Paulie on the stand at the coroner’s inquest?” he said softly. “They’ll tear him apart. He’ll go to Ypsilanti for a three-month psycho evaluation, then back to the vet’s facility if he’s lucky, and maybe prison if he’s not.”

“That’s probably how it’ll go down,” I conceded. “He killed two people, and at least contributed to the death of a third.”

“Actually, I don’t know whether he did or not,” LeClair said thoughtfully. “I only know what you told me. I’m just a smalltown sheriff, and the Costas and Stansfields are rich, influential folks. I might be very reluctant to order an exhumation on the word of some poor, brain-damaged vet.”

I glanced over at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll give it to you straight. I don’t give a damn about what happened to the Costas, I’m just sorry it happened here. I feel bad about the girl, but she should have been choosier about her playmates, and there’s no helping her now. That only leaves Paulie. He’s already been ground up in the machinery once, and I really hate to see him fed back into the hopper again.”

“Three people are dead.”

“You’re wrong, sport, a lot more people are dead than that. They got their tails shot off while Roland Costa’s son was using his draft exemption to learn the family rackets, and Paulie Croft was getting his head rearranged so he could be a grave digger instead of a trucker like his old man. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Garcia. Nothing. Nada. I’m dumping it on you. You decide who owes who what, and then let me know. Okay?”

“That’s not fair,” I said flatly.

“No kidding?” he said, stifling a yawn, “Well, we don’t have to be fair. We’re the law. And don’t worry about Hec. I can handle him.”

“You’ve got to be hallucinating from lack of sleep,” I snapped, “or maybe all this fresh air’s affected your mind. You could never get away with anything like that.”

“You’re probably right,” he admitted, “but at least I’m covered if we get caught. I’ll just scuff my toe in the dirt and say I was taken in by a smooth-talking slicker from the big city. I don’t know what your excuse could be, but that’s your problem.”

The faint sound of laughter from the jeep ahead drifted past us on the wind, and I could see the streetlights of the village glowing in the distance. Both of them. “I don’t know, either,” I said slowly, “but maybe I won’t need one. I mean, what could possibly happen to anybody in a hick town like this?”

    (The end)