Dig Your Grave

by Steven Cooper

  “Assuming we believe the killer,” Powell interjects.

  “I think we should go with that assumption,” Mills tells the team. “Yesterday it was very clear from the dirt under Barry Schultz’s fingernails that the guy either dug his grave by hand or tried to dig his way out.”

  “Unless his killer manipulated his corpse,” Powell says.

  “There’s that,” Mills concedes, “but I also think it’s easier to make the kill right there in the cemetery rather than doing it elsewhere, transporting the body, unloading it, and dragging it to the hole in the ground. My gut tells me we should take the killer at his word.”

  “And what word is that?” Woods asks, the sarcastic inflection in his voice not for the weary.

  “I think the perp has a reason for leaving the crime scenes just as they are. It’s part of his narrative,” Mills explains. “I think, at least for now, we should see what’s in front of us before we go entertaining other theories. I have a hunch this guy isn’t done.”

  “Is that your hunch, or a hunch from your psychic friend?” Woods asks.

  Myers laughs like a seventh grader at a Will Ferrell movie.

  “It’s my hunch,” Mills replies.

  “How long before you bring your psychic friend in?”

  “He’s in,” Mills replies.

  Woods’s eyebrows go northward. “Oh?”

  “He’s in.”

  Woods says a magnanimous thank-you and leaves the conference room. Mills doesn’t wait for the others to file out. He makes a beeline for the men’s room, where he takes a world-record whiz. He’s gushing like a friggin’ fire hydrant when Preston enters and unzips beside him.

  “Always a great way to start a Monday,” he tells Mills.

  “Peeing?”

  “Woods.”

  Mills laughs. “Yeah, that, too.”

  “I’m working on a search warrant for Dr. Schultz’s answering service,” Preston tells him.

  “Right,” Mills says, “we need to know everyone who tried to reach the doctors’ practice that night. You got the timeframe?”

  “I do,” Preston says, finishing up, shaking himself dry while Mills is still in midstream. “And you, over there, you got a bladder the size of Texas?”

  “Guess so,” he says. When he finishes, he washes, then follows Preston out of the restroom; they stand in the hallway. “While you’re at it, we need a warrant for the doctor’s office, too.”

  “HIPAA.”

  “Come on, Ken, you know HIPAA isn’t such a huge obstacle. The courts have given us leeway in these kinds of cases, a shorter leash than normal, but still . . .”

  Preston nods, then says he wants to regroup later.

  Gus Parker is slowly waking up from a short nap aboard the Gulfstream. When she sees him stir, Ivy rushes to his side and rests her head on his knees. She loves flying. She bounced all over the place when they first got on the chartered jet in LA. Then, after takeoff, she settled in the seat behind Gus, her head at the window as if she were driving in the car with him, taking in the view. Gus promptly nodded off in the clouds, and here they are already descending quickly, smoothly into Phoenix. The pilot asks them to check their seat belts. Beatrice taps him on the shoulder.

  “Wakey, wakey,” she says from across the narrow aisle. “I sure could get used to this.”

  Normally, when Gus flies to the coast, he flies commercial. But when Ivy comes, Billie charters a flight because Ivy does not travel in the baggage hold. What’s good for her dog, Glinda, is good for Ivy, Billie told Gus, and Gus agreed because he has never, and would never, check Ivy like a piece of luggage. She’d freak out. He’d freak out. There would be no Zen for anyone, and Gus equates flying with Zen, a certain departure from the tangibles of life, a kind of weightless floating and careless dismissal of inertia.

  “I could get used to this, too.”

  A moment later they’re gliding swiftly in final approach, and, with that familiar but ephemeral rush of adrenaline, they’re zipping down the runway at Sky Harbor. As they taxi into the general aviation area, Gus spies the lineup of elegant Learjets and fellow Gulfstreams, all demurely awaiting those who are privileged enough to board. He doesn’t fool himself—in fact he feels like a fool for traveling in such luxury—he has no business among these jets and among these people. Just as the word “business” floats through his brain, the plane sidles up to a jet bearing the logo of Illumilife Industries. The hydraulics exhale, and Beatrice is up on her feet. “C’mon,” she says to him.

  “No, wait,” he tells her, peering out the oval window. “I need to focus on that plane.”

  “Thinking of buying it?”

  “No,” he whispers. “I need to intuit something.”

  Quietly, she sits down, and Gus does a psychic zoom-in toward the logo:

  ILLUMILIFE INDUSTRIES. PUTTING YOU FIRST.

  Who could forget a name like that? Illumilife. It sounds like a cult. But it’s the name of the victim’s company. The CEO who Mills told him about. Gus remembers the guy’s photo. And now his eyesight begins to blur. Through the blur, he sees the CEO walking down a deserted road, clouds of dust swirling around him, not another soul in sight. The man moves like a human mirage, shape-shifting, ghoulish, his image disappearing on the horizon, then reappearing anew. The man faces him now and smiles. “I have my whole life ahead of me,” the CEO says. “My whole life.” A Spanish song begins to play, and the desert fades away.

  He shakes his head. He has no interpretation. And he has no time to mull it over because the pilot is standing over him. “Mr. Parker,” the man says, “I’m sorry, but I have another charter. Can I help you with your things?”

  Gus feels his face turn red.

  “He spaces out like this all the time,” Beatrice chirps. “Don’t mind us. We’ll be leaving now.”

  They take an Uber to Paradise Valley. Beatrice gets out first. They bicker over who’ll pay the tip, but Beatrice insists. “Least I could do after you treated me to a weekend at the beach,” she says. “Besides, I expect my advance next week.”

  Beatrice is on the second book of a two-book deal. I Told You So: Memoir of a Psychic is due out next year. Her first book climbed to number thirteen on the New York Times best-seller list. People now fly in from all over the world to consult with her, which is why there are so many overflow clients for Gus. He loves and hates her for this. Loves her, really.

  It’s noon. The security company told Gus their technicians would arrive between one and five o’clock to install new alarms for all of the perimeter walls around Billie’s property. He calls Alex who answers with a growl.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Mondays with the sergeant.”

  “Is that like Tuesdays with Morrie?”

  “No.”

  “I texted you yesterday, never heard back,” Gus says.

  “Oh, right. Sorry. We had another homicide.”

  “You mean like the first one?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Hmm. That’s sort of why I was texting you.”

  “It was a crazy day. You seeing things?” Mills asks.

  “All kinds of things. Freaking me out a bit.”

  “I want to hear. Where are you?”

  “At Billie’s. Waiting for the alarm company.”

  “I’ll swing by later,” Mills says. “I have some things for you. Hope they tell you something.”

  Gus is intrigued but also hungry. After the call, he rummages through Billie’s kitchen, searching for something edible. Billie’s refrigerator offers the remains of a week-old pizza, a drawer of godforsaken vegetables, and some butter. The freezer yields a frozen lasagna, two bags of peas, and several ice packs for Billie’s aching back. He’s considering the lasagna, calculating how much time the microwave would need to infuse it with heat, when his rumination is interrupted by a voice behind him.

  “May I help you?”

  He freezes. An instant chill rushes his spine. He turns ar
ound slowly and, after a heavy breath, says, “Geez, you scared the crap out of me!”

  The woman’s face registers nothing. It’s Della, one of Billie’s housekeepers. She looks Gus over and mutters, “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” he replies.

  “I’m shopping today,” she says. “Make a list.”

  “I’m not staying here this week. And I don’t know when Billie’s coming back.”

  The woman, all five feet of her, gives him another dispassionate look and exits the kitchen.

  Then he hears a loud bang. He thinks maybe Della threw a vacuum cleaner down the stairs to illustrate her current job satisfaction, but she had walked off in the opposite direction. A series of louder bangs comes next, shaking the house, and for a moment Gus thinks it’s an earthquake, but he almost as instantly reminds himself that he’s no longer in LA.

  “Della?” he calls.

  No answer.

  “Della?”

  Still no answer.

  He tries to follow the trail of the banging to identify the source but finds himself walking in circles. “Della?” His voice is louder now, imploring, as he calls her name. He heads toward the studio and, on his way, hears the affirming sounds of a toilet flushing from a hallway powder room. “There you are!” he cries as she emerges.

  “What in the world, Mr. Parker? Are you following me?”

  “Sorry,” he says. “But do you hear the banging?”

  She raises one eyebrow, like a haughty cat, unflappable and theatrical. “You all right? There’s no banging. And I’m going shopping!” Then she brushes past him and through the doorway that leads to the garage.

  But the banging persists, and Gus realizes the sound is coming from outside, as if someone is shooting at the walls around the estate. Gunfire. He listens for the next shots. He hears firecrackers. He puts Ivy in the laundry room and shuts the door. His body already awash in sweat, Gus rushes out to the front driveway, sees nothing, sprints into the yard to the left, then to the patio and terrace to the right, inspects the walls, and finds nothing. He supposes this is something you call the cops for, but he fears it will be too late by the time help arrives.

  He goes back inside, then cuts through the house and out to the pool where he skids to a dead stop. There, scrawled across the back wall of the property, the same wall the intruder had scaled, are four words in blood-red paint:

  STAY AWAY FROM HER

  But the banging, the shooting? Gus can’t account for that. These words, though, have come to him twice now. He tries to catch his breath. He pulls his phone from his pocket, then snaps a few pictures of the vandalism. He can hear Ivy barking, but save for Ivy there isn’t a sound now. The banging has stopped. The day is absolutely still. He sits on a poolside chaise, then inspects the photos. Something’s wrong. One picture after another suggests that, in a stir of confusion or panic or both, he photographed the wrong wall. The words are missing. The wall in each photo is blank. Gus looks up from his phone and sees the discrepancy staring back at him.

  STAY AWAY FROM HER

  On the wall.

  Not in the photos.

  He gets up, walks to the wall. The words bloom larger as he approaches. He wants to touch the wall, feel the letters, but he hesitates. His hand shaking, he reaches for the “S.” Just as he grazes the letter with the soft brush of his fingers, it slowly dissolves. He pulls his hand back. The remaining fragments of the “S” absorb into the wall, and the letter is gone. He touches the “T,” and the same thing happens; the blood-red pigment of the letter fades, some of it dissolving into his hand. Gus examines his hand, like a doctor examining an X-ray, searching for the most elusive anomaly. There is nothing there but his hand. He feels his head turn, in slow motion, to the wall again, as if an autonomous force is tugging him. There are no words. The wall is blank. The letters are gone, without a trace.

  11

  Gus Parker can’t really describe it, but there’s something about playing Billie Welch music in Billie Welch’s house that sounds as if Billie’s soul is inhabiting the place. He would say it’s surreal, but the word is overused and nothing in his world is ever surreal; there are no words for Gus’s world, and if there are they’re obviously embedded in some ancient text, hidden away in the basement of some ancient temple, hidden within a labyrinth of corridors and ever-descending stairways to a crypt far beyond the sunlight, far beyond the hands of curious excavators. There’s no archeology for Gus’s gift. In a faraway dream, his dead uncle once told him to look for a box the color of sea foam under the porch of his childhood home. Gus never did find the box but suspects that it contained the primordial code for his gift of visions, or the whispers of instructions, or the discovery of the one and only universal language that explains everything to every living soul, the elusive holy grail of communication. But there was no box, at least not under the porch, and ever since he’s had to wing it.

  The music plays in almost every room. The lushness of her voice is like a wandering spirit. With Billie’s voice filling the home, he feels closer to her in a way that he sometimes doesn’t in her presence. Her words envelop him, wrap around him like blankets. Her songs burn with longing.

  “Uh, sir? We’re done.”

  The alarm guys find Gus sitting, eyes closed, in Billie’s inner sanctum, the interior room with the fireplace. He’s on the floor, cushioned by the Kenya pillow, his feet resting on Malaysia.

  “Sir?”

  He opens his eyes, smiles. He likes where he’s just been. “Awesome,” he says. “That didn’t take as long as I thought.”

  “We have some papers we need you to sign,” the taller, older one says.

  In the kitchen, Gus signs his name to a few documents, then shows the men to the front door.

  “It’s Fort Knox now,” says the younger of the workers. “You’ll have absolutely no trouble.” He shakes Gus’s hand and hops into their truck.

  The other worker, Glenn, as his name tag indicates, hesitates. He turns to the truck, then turns back. “I’m sorry, Mr. Welch, but I kind of have a favor to ask.”

  “It’s Parker. Gus Parker. What do you need?”

  The guy stuffs his hands in his pockets, lowers his head. “Well, I’ve kind of been a fan, you know, of Billie Welch, like, my whole life.” Then he finally looks up with a shy grin. “If this is out of line for me to ask, I’m sorry, but I brought one of her old albums with me and I’d like to frame it with her autograph. Do you think if I left it with you she’d mind signing it for me?”

  Gus smiles widely, by proxy, for Billie. “Of course,” he tells Glenn, the alarm guy. “She’d be happy to.”

  “Oh, my God! That is, like, so great,” he says, his voice a few octaves higher. “When it’s done just call me. Here’s my card. You can leave it at the guard station out front, and I’ll pick it up.”

  “No problem.”

  The man reaches into his truck, fetches the album, and gives it to Gus.

  “You made my day,” he says. “Maybe my year.”

  Gus waves as the men drive through the gate and almost collide with Detective Alex Mills who comes roaring up the driveway. After slamming on his squealing brakes, the detective throws the car door open and gets out. He’s carrying a small box.

  “Hey, man, your smile get any bigger, it’ll break your face,” Alex says. “You that happy to see me?”

  “Just having a proud moment about Billie, that’s all,” he tells the detective.

  Alex offers him a mocking “aw shucks” and follows him through the house and out to the pool, where they sit on a pair of chaises. Gus offers the detective something to drink. Alex, off duty now at five thirty, opts for a beer. Gus joins him. They sip.

  “So tell me what you’ve been seeing,” Alex says. “I’m curious.”

  “Don’t know if it will be helpful quite yet,” Gus tells him. “There are some things I can’t interpret at this point. But let’s get it on paper before I forget it all.”

  Alex pulls
a small notepad and pen from his shoulder bag. “I doubt you’d forget, but go on, I’m ready.”

  First, Gus recounts what happened when he saw the Illumilife jet at Sky Harbor. “It was like a part of this guy’s life was trying to tell me something,” he tells Alex.

  “Can you interpret that?”

  Gus puts his head in his hands, closes his eyes. “When I see him in the desert, alone, walking that highway, and I hear him say, ‘I have my whole life ahead of me,’ obviously I’m seeing this CEO when he had nothing.”

  “Before he got rich?”

  He opens his eyes and says, “Before anything, Alex. Not just the money, but the career. This was a voice of a guy who was just getting started.”

  “So, what does that tell you?”

  Gus takes another sip of beer. “It tells me we need to look back at this guy’s history, before he became the CEO of Illumilife, to know why he’s dead.”

  Alex leans forward. “Are you saying his death has nothing to do with Illumilife? ’Cause there are plenty of people there with a motive.”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying this case warrants some history-gathering. Further back than you might have expected.”

  Alex shakes his head. “I don’t know, Gus.”

  “Look, dude, it was my first experience with him, you know, just one vision. I could be completely wrong about it. It was vague, but I’m giving you my best hunch.”

  A hawk soars overhead, banking sharply in their direction.

  “Shit, it looks like he’s coming in for a landing,” Alex says.

  “He won’t,” Gus says. “He’s just curious.”

  “So, now you’re a bird whisperer?”

  Gus shakes his head. “What’s in the box?”

  Alex digs into the box beside him. “Lots of shit from the second victim. But you probably know more about it than me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Didn’t you see the murder happening?”

  “I saw a murder happening,” Gus corrects him. “I don’t know if I saw the murder. Fill me in.”