A Living Grave (25 page)

“What were you trying to do to my daughter?” Mrs. Owens's question dripped with disgust at its own accusation.

It was a shocking suggestion. Another wrong heaped on the pile of what I was feeling at the moment.

“I just needed to ask Carrie some questions—”

“My lawyer says you can't without me or him there.”

“That's right, but—”

“Get out.”

“Ma' am—”

“Get out,” she said again in a voice that had gone painfully flat.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong
.

“Her daddy's gone,” she said, pointing at Carrie. “And my Riley won't come around. You've ruined it all. Get out.”

I left. With me I took the feeling of spiders dancing on my skin. A thousand tiny legs tapping out a Morse-code warning. My only defense for leaving was that I didn't understand.

I
called Marion and she said she would visit Carrie and her mother that afternoon to check on things. It wasn't perfect but it was better than nothing. While we talked I tried to explain my feelings. There were no words. There should be. There should be a word for certainty of danger without reason or genuine knowledge.
Faith
came to mind, but it didn't fit. I didn't just have faith that I had blundered and made a bad situation worse. I knew the way you know the threat of a snarling dog.

I did everything I legally could and I did it right. After I talked with Marion, who was the girl's advocate and caseworker, I went to the station and had a talk with the sheriff. He didn't complain or tell me I was being foolish. A unit was parked at the end of the street in the same spot where I had first encountered Carrie and Danny. Then he thanked me for the flowers.

“She liked them?” I asked.

“She loved them,” he said. “Wildflowers are her favorite. Getting them meant a lot.” His eyes welled and reddened. His big hands were shaking slightly.

“Something's happened,” I said. “The lumpectomy?”

“It's small,” he said. “We caught it early, we thought. We—I—I goddamn well thought it was going to be fine. Early is good, you think. Small is the motherfucking best case, isn't it?”

I nodded mutely. He watched me for a moment then looked away.

“She was having headaches. Everyone has headaches and all she's going through, who the hell wouldn't have headaches?” He kept looking out the window as he spoke. “Shit.”

After a long silence, I said, “Sheriff . . .”

“Shit,” he said again. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Goddamn, motherfuck.” He turned and looked right at me and continued. “Son of a cocksucking bitch, Hurricane. Headaches. Why would you think anything about that when she had breast cancer? She was dizzy too. We thought it was stress. Bad sleep. Bad thoughts.

“Did I ever tell you how glad she was you joined the department? She barely knew you but she was proud of you just the same. She loved that we had a woman we could call Hurricane. ‘That girl kicks ass,' she'd always tell me. ‘She's a keeper.' Hell, if you were to run against me, I think she'd vote for you.”

I tried to smile. I said, “Thank you,” then wondered why. There was no knowing what to say.

“It's in her brain,” he said, all the fire having gone out of his voice. “Breast cancer in her goddamn brain. How does that happen? How does any of this even happen? No one deserves this.” He rose from his chair and shoved it aside as he went to a box of tissues he kept on the windowsill. They were there for hard conversations with loved ones. He probably thought he'd never need them for himself. “It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

I took the precaution of locking the office door before I embraced him. He cried as I held him tightly with nothing to say that could ease his pain.

When he had finally fallen quiet I suggested that he should go be with his wife. He wouldn't, not with the biker bust in the morning. “It's too big,” he said. “Too messy with too many jurisdictions. Complicated is dangerous.”

So I went.

* * *

“Detective Katrina ‘Hurricane' Williams,” Emily Benson said as soon as I appeared in the doorway of her hospital room. The flowers I had sent were on the nightstand beside the bed. They were not alone. There was a river of flowers, cards, and balloons running along the room's windows. Emily herself looked as lively as the festive display that hemmed her in.

She was smiling and wearing a pink gown as bright as her eyes. I smiled back, so relieved not to see a frail, suffering woman.

“You look like you saw a ghost,” she said. “Or maybe you expected to.”

“The sheriff is pretty worried.”

“I know he is. In here you can call him Chuck. Sit. Talk with me.”

“How are you?”

“About anything but that,” she jumped in.

So we spent the afternoon talking. Technically, I was on duty. If anyone really needed me they'd call, I rationalized. Since no one did . . .

She was easy to talk with and aware of everything that went on within the department. When she heard about my handwritten reports to her husband she said, “We'll put a stop to that. It's just because he likes you. I
can
count on you not to try and steal my husband, can't I?”

“No promises,” I said.

Emily laughed hard. It was like the cackle of the good witch.

Telling her about my morning eased my mind more. Not because she offered any profound advice. It was more because she was a good person to talk to. And talking about my encounter with Carrie and her mother actually created a bit of distance from the moment. It was easier to believe my fears were foolish chatting about them with someone who was doing so well with their own worries.

When I left, I promised to visit again and often. The day was over. I called in and checked myself out.

* * *

I went home to Nelson's place and, for the first time, put on the ring that he had given me. I would have been happy staying in. Actually, I would have preferred it, but we went to Moonshines again. Nelson said he needed to check in and talk with a lawyer about how Middleton's death impacted the partnership. There was something about it that he left unsaid, though. Worries or thoughts that he kept out of words showed on his face. It had something to do with why Figorelli had come to see him, I was sure. Nelson denied it.

Walking into the place, I noticed a genuine difference. There were all the same things in the same place but the feeling had changed. For one thing there were fewer people and a lot less noise. The Wild West party atmosphere was gone, replaced by a kind of police-state vibe. It was what I imagined a Mob club might have felt like in the 1940s—
Have all the fun you want, but we have ways of making sure you color inside our lines
.

Without a word the hostess took us into the restaurant. As we passed the bar I noticed a knot of men at a table. They were all thick-necked and black-suited like a funeral director's mafia. In the center of them was Byron Figorelli. He saw me looking and he stared right back. I couldn't hear but I saw him saying something and smirking at his own sense of humor. Everyone at the table turned and looked at us, then shared a laugh at our backs. Nelson seemed not to notice and I held my tongue. The hostess took us back to the same secluded table we had before.

Again, without our having asked, a platter of assorted appetizers came to the table. It was followed by the appearance of Figorelli. He was shadowed by Jimmy Cardo and the other four men in black.

“I see you got the appetizers. I wanted you to give them a try. A peace offering for things over and done with, know what I mean? I fired the yokel tried to pass off cow nuts as food.”

“Bull,” Nelson said.

“The fuck?” Figorelli shot back. His face went in two directions like he wasn't sure if he'd been insulted, but he hoped that he had been.

“Bull nuts. Cows don't have nuts. A cow is female.”

Figorelli stared for a moment, his mouth open and his eyes narrowed. Then he decided to laugh. It was a mocking bray that triggered lifeless smiles in the other men.

“You're all right,” Figorelli said to Nelson. “An' I want you to know I have forgotten all about our earlier encounter.”

“Very kind of you,” Nelson said flatly.

“Damn straight,” Figorelli responded, not catching the tone at all. “No hard feelins. I understand a man wantin' to hang onto things. I don't let go so easy myself, but when it comes to gettin' mine . . . well, then I can be a patient man.”

“What are you trying to say?” Nelson asked.

“What? I'm being too subtle? I'm just trying to be respectful with the good lady present.” Figorelli nodded at me but his eyes stayed on Nelson. He was enjoying his position and whatever secret he thought he had. Looking at him I could see him as a child holding other kids in the dirt for the joy of hearing them scream
uncle
.

“No need to be prissy on my part,” I told him. “Nothing about a man like you can shock me.”

“Hey, that's good,” he said, shifting his gaze my way for the first time. It was just for a moment, then his eyes targeted right back on Nelson. “Maybe the cow has the balls after all.”

Even at the edge of my vision I could see a new tension form in Nelson's shoulders. At the same time, his hands flexed against the edge of the table. He would have stood and taken a swing at Figorelli in the next moment if I hadn't have put my hand on his shoulder. I didn't do it so much for Nelson. It was more for my job. The goons behind Figorelli were ready and eager for Nelson to make a move. I would have killed at least one of them. This time I hadn't left my weapon in the truck.

“Stop trying to show off your dick,” I told Figorelli. “If it was all that big you wouldn't need four low-rent goombahs to stand around and give you reassurance.”

Color bloomed in his jowls, darkening into a red deposit under his eyes. The false smiles on the four other men turned into straight lines of icy anticipation.

“Nice.” All the life was in Figorelli's face now. His voice had gone as lively as rigor mortis. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

With my hand still on Nelson's shoulder I rose from my seat and looked down into Figorelli's face. “Believe me,” I said, my voice as cold and hard-edged as his. “You don't want to compare which one of us shames their mother more.”

The red on his face turned a deep, boiling scarlet. I think something would have happened then if we hadn't been interrupted.

“Well, ain't this a pretty picture?” It was the man in the sequin suit sidling up between the four sour-faced men in black.

“
Pretty
don't cover everything,” Figorelli said, keeping his stare locked on me.

My hand was pushed off by Nelson as he stood slowly. He was the Marine he had once been: strong, straight, and angry. He moved sideways, injecting himself between me and Figorelli, then leaning down to get his face close to the other man's.

“We're a long way from pretty right now, you little pissant son of a bitch. If you want to trade insults or work it out some other way, let's you and me go dance outside.”

I had to admit, even then, in the middle of the situation, I was proud of Nelson. There is something to be said about someone who won't back down even if he knows the fight won't be fair or go their way.

Figorelli broke first, though. He laughed softly without amusement. “Look at us,” he said. “This isn't what I wanted. An' there ain't no reason for it, after all. Is there, Bodie?”

“None a'tall,” said the man in the shiny suit.

“Excuse my manners,” Figorelli went on, “This is Bodie Dauterive. He's a lawyer helping me out on some business affairs. He was just filling me in on some new developments before you arrived.”

“Indeed I was,” Dauterive said, lifting the Stetson he had been holding down by his knee to cover his heart and satin-embroidered cactus. He did not offer his hand. “The lady deputy and I have met, although there were no introductions.”

“Sheriff's detective,” Nelson corrected him and I thought he sounded proud to say so.

“Detective.” Dauterive nodded to me.

“And these are some other associates of mine from down home,” Figorelli said, gesturing to the black suits. “You know Jimmy Cardo.” Cardo didn't react at all to the acknowledgement. “Then there is Charlie Castellano, Dean Morelli, and Sal Rubio.” The men were like statues almost posing for us.

“No one really cares,” Nelson said. “I got a call from Mr. Dauterive here asking me to talk with him about Johnny's estate and the partnership. Now that I see he's your lawyer, I don't imagine that we have much to talk about.”

“See, that's the thing,” Figorelli said. “You don't. Or you won't much longer, will you?” He let that hang there a moment, then went on. “Johnny had contracts with us just like he did with you. An' funny thing about contracts. They can take care of so many little problems. His had a—whaddaya call it?” He looked at Dauterive.

“A buyout clause,” Dauterive said.

“A buyout clause,” Figorelli echoed.

“In this-here case, the clause compels the sale of shares to the partners in the event of death. We have exercised those rights and acquired all of Johnny Middleton's share.”

“I imagine I had some rights to exercise if I wanted to. Why wasn't I offered the chance to purchase shares?”

“Well, now . . .” Dauterive looked like he found something distasteful. “See, we considered the point kind of... well . . . moot, bein' the best word, I'm guessin'. Considering your condition and all.”

“And what do you know about his condition?” I asked, letting the anger rise in my voice.

“Everything we need to know,” Figorelli said. “What is it? Couple of months at best?”

It couldn't be true, but hearing it spit out like that—bald-faced and hateful—was like pornography in kindergarten. It was Nelson's turn to place a hand on me, gripping my upper arm. Until he had, I was unaware of reaching for my weapon.

“Truth is we'll have all your shares in just a couple of months and all we have to do is wait. Unless you want a little play-around money before you kick off? We can still make a deal.” Figorelli kept talking, kept trying to pull me out. I realized he wanted a scene for some reason. I realized as well, he was close to getting more than he wanted.