Dig Your Grave

by Steven Cooper

  Gus stares at the threat and struggles to think what to think. But his mind is blank. He tries to intuit, to conjure, to visualize some kind of clue about the sender. Nothing happens. He picks up a landline in the kitchen and dials three digits. Donald answers.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Welch?”

  “It’s Gus. Just checking to see if you know who dropped off the letter for me.”

  Donald hesitates slightly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Parker. When I got on shift it was already here. It must have come in earlier today.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is something wrong?” the guard asks.

  “Uh, no,” Gus replies. “It’s not signed, that’s all.”

  “Tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Parker. I’ll leave a note for the other shifts, and I’ll find out who took the letter for you.”

  “That’s fine. Thank you.” And he hangs up.

  Shit.

  Just shit.

  Gus stashes the letter under his T-shirts in one of several drawers that have come to be known as his in the master closet. He catches his reflection in the mirror, and he looks haunted. He strips down. As he does, his cell rings atop the table where he left it. It’s Billie.

  “I’m in the tub,” she says. “Come.”

  Alex Mills rises early for a Saturday. There’s too much zipping through his brain. It’s seven forty-five. He slips out of the bedroom and into the home office. There he logs on to his computer and finds the email from Powell with the images attached. It’s almost as if he had been dreaming of these photographs. He hadn’t, but he’s obsessed now with the connection between Davis Klink and Barry Schultz, two men who graduated twenty-five years ago from the University of Arizona and, within a week of one another, were reunited in death after digging their own graves. That kept him tossing and turning all night.

  Powell has sent him a handful of photos. They don’t differ much. They’re all college reunion shots, but just how well these men knew each other mystifies him. There isn’t one photo of only the two of them posing together. In every shot they’re joined by other alumni who, inferentially, are clutching various forms of alcohol. Powell also sent him the men’s official bios. Davis Klink, according to the Illumilife website, received an MBA from the Wharton School of business after graduating from U of A. He worked at various conglomerates in various roles in various places all around the globe before joining Illumilife as CEO. His classmate Barry Schultz studied medicine, according to the website for Associated Surgeons at Better You Center (Jesus Christ, Better You Center?), at Northwestern University and did his residency at Beth Israel Chicago before returning to Arizona to practice in Phoenix. Both men are Arizona natives.

  He flips a few pages back in his notes, then reaches for his phone. He dials Greta Klink. Voice mail answers. He dials again, and again he gets voice mail. Oh, what the hell, he thinks, and keeps dialing. Lucky number seven! On the seventh try, she picks up.

  “Who is this?” she growls.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Klink. It’s Detective Alex Mills.”

  “Jesus Christ. Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s eight ten,” he replies.

  “Isn’t that a bit early for a Saturday morning?”

  “I thought you would be up,” he says, “and it’s important. We’re looking for the person who killed your husband.”

  He can hear the bedcovers rustling around her. “I’m not up,” she replies. “I mean, I’m up now, but I wasn’t up when you decided to call here twenty times.”

  “It was seven times, actually, ma’am.”

  “What can I do for you?” she asks, her voice still husky.

  “I don’t know if you saw it on the news, but we have another victim who seems to have been killed in the same manner as your husband.”

  She doesn’t respond. It’s a combative silence. Mills has heard it all before. “Anyway,” he says, “we’ve come across some photos that suggest your husband and the other victim might have known each other.”

  “What’s his name, Detective?”

  “Barry Schultz, a plastic surgeon here in Phoenix.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  He’s thinking, With a face like yours? But, instead, he asks, “Are you sure?”

  “What did I just say?”

  Mills stalls for a moment. “So your husband never mentioned him?”

  “I said I never heard of him. I can get one of my maids to say it in Spanish if you still don’t understand.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you’re so defensive. All we’re trying to do is help.”

  He hears the very first squeak of a sob and that very first crackle of despair. And then, sniffling through her tears she says, “I am trying to plan a funeral, Detective. I want you to find his killer more than anyone else, but the thought of burying my husband with the whole world watching is crushing me.”

  “The whole world?”

  “The media won’t let up. They call all day. From all over the world, for Christ’s sake!”

  “If it’s any consolation, I hate the media.”

  She offers him an abbreviated laugh. “And my kids, all of them, are assholes.”

  “My kid was an asshole for a while, too,” Mills says. “But he’s better now.”

  Again, a hesitant laugh, and then through a flood of tears she says, “If he knew the guy in college, I’m sure they lost touch. Davis was never in touch with anyone from those days.”

  “Anyone?”

  She clears her throat. “Anyone,” she says. “For him it’s all about ambition and work. He doesn’t have time for friends, old or new.”

  “But these photos are from a college reunion, and he looks as thick as thieves with these guys,” Mills tells her. “And one of them is Dr. Schultz.”

  She delivers a massive sigh. “It doesn’t mean they stayed in touch, Detective. After all, they call it a reunion for a reason.”

  “Right.”

  “If that will be all,” she says, “I might as well get up and start my day.”

  “When is the funeral?” he asks.

  “Tuesday. The Republic is running a glowing obituary tomorrow.”

  “Mrs. Klink, let me know if you need anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Whatever comes to mind,” Mills says. “And I’ll do my best to help.”

  “Fine,” she says and hangs up.

  So fucking cold, that woman. Mills suspects Greta Klink is either furious with her husband for getting himself killed or doesn’t give a shit that he’s dead.

  He gets a similar response from Carla Schultz albeit not as acidic.

  “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” she says. “Trust me, I want nothing more than to close this case. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. My mother’s staying with me because I keep thinking I see Barry’s ghost haunting the house.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “He never talked about college friends,” she tells Mills. “So it’s unlikely he stayed in touch with any of them. Could you send me the photos?”

  “Of course.”

  She gives him her email address. “I’m the second wife,” she says, as if the fact had suddenly occurred to her, “so maybe all that stuff is ancient history. Besides, I think I would remember the name Davis Klink.”

  “I think you would,” Mills says. “Thanks for your time and let me know if you need anything.”

  She didn’t shed a tear during the call, but Mills could feel the molar mass of Carla Schultz’s sadness landing on his chest. He stares at his notepad. Both men were raised in Phoenix. Both men ultimately landed back in Phoenix professionally. Why the fuck wouldn’t they be in touch? Unless there’s something their wives don’t know. Or something these women are hiding.

  16

  Gus calls in sick Monday morning. He’s not sick. He’s dangerously distracted. Would probably screw up a CT scan, definitely an ultrasound. He’d take a picture of a fetus and hand the sonogram to the expectant parents w
ho would wail in horror, “It’s deformed!” He’d swipe the film back with equal horror and say, “No, it’s not. It’s a kidney. My mistake.”

  That would get him fired. Calling in sick will not.

  Making love to Billie in her Indonesian spa challenged him in a way that sex never had and never should. With those four words “STAY AWAY FROM HER” rolling through the epicenter of his brain like a Pasadena tremor, he couldn’t fully reconcile being in her. He went through the motions, and both of them climaxed, but he wasn’t fully there. He finished the bottle of wine afterward and rediscovered, the following morning, the agony of a hangover the likes of which he had not endured since his twenties. He drinks too much when he’s with her. She slept until noon and never mentioned the envelope. Often, earthly, pedestrian things don’t occur to her. Especially now with the prospect of another album and another tour. He ruminated all weekend over the note, tried desperately to intuit, to search for some kind of psychic revelation, but nothing came. The psychic equivalent to shooting blanks, and for a psychic who actually shoots blanks (low sperm count, no children, a lot of regret), the weekend was a defeat.

  Billie is sleeping in again this morning, so Gus slips out of the house and drives over to the Paradise Valley police station. An enormous saguaro greets him outside. A woman named Yvette with a huge smile and substantial overbite greets him inside. Her hair is a dark helmet of black. “How can I help you?” she asks, as if offering a personalized service.

  He smiles back, aware that he’s underachieving. “There were some officers who came out to my place last week,” he says.

  “Can you tell me their names?”

  He shifts his weight from one foot to another. “That’s the thing, I can’t actually remember . . .”

  “No problem,” she gushes. “Let me get your address, and I’ll see if I can find either the report or the dispatch for you.”

  He recites the address.

  “Is the property in your name?”

  “Billie Welch,” he says. “Or, actually, it’s under her company’s name. . . .”

  She looks up from her computer, gazing at him without blinking. “Oh. You must be Mr. Parker.”

  He hesitates and then says, “Yes. You must be psychic.”

  She erupts in giggles. Girlish for a woman probably in her fifties. “No, no, Mr. Parker. You’re the famous boyfriend.”

  He winces. “Seriously?”

  “Well, at least around here. Not much happens in PV. And Billie Welch . . . well, she’s a living legend living right here in our neighborhood,” she says. “It was Officers Thelan and Johnson. I don’t even need to check. I remember they both came back pretty excited after being in her house!”

  Gus gets an instant, interior signal. “Officer Thelan is off today, isn’t he?”

  “Ha! Now you must be psychic, Mr. Parker.”

  “That’s what they tell me,” he says. “What about Officer Johnson?”

  “Patrick’s in the back. I’ll page him.”

  Patrick Johnson greets him affably and leads him through the secured door, past a small but bustling bullpen of uniformed officers both coming and going, and into a private office. Johnson closes the door, then gestures for Gus to sit, a desk between them. The man smells like a drugstore aftershave. Gus gets a good vibe, a clean vibe, and he’s glad that Thelan is not on duty this morning. He shows Johnson the note that bears the words “STAY AWAY FROM HER.”

  The cop’s eyes widen for a moment, predictably. He nods, then looks at Gus, exhaling in a manly kind of way. “Why didn’t you call us Friday night?” he asks.

  Gus fidgets. “I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on.”

  “Not a good answer, Mr. Parker,” the officer says with a smile. “You could have had one of us paged. Now it’s three days later and we’ve lost time.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not asking for an apolog y, Mr. Parker. I just want to be upfront so if we don’t catch this guy you’ll understand. Every second counts.”

  Gus nods. “Every second counts,” he repeats. “I understand.”

  “Do you understand that maybe someone is stalking you, or Ms. Welch, or maybe both of you?”

  “I would say I’ve considered that,” he replies. He points to the note. “But, look, Billie doesn’t know about this. Can we keep it that way, at least for now?”

  The guy looks at Gus as if Gus is some kind of wilting flower. “Yes, Mr. Parker, we can do that for now,” he says. “The security booth over there at Ms. Welch’s community is outfitted with some great cameras. I’ll see if I can have a look at the Friday footage.”

  “Awesome, man. Thanks. But won’t that require some kind of court order or something?”

  “You mean a subpoena?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Johnson laughs. “No,” he says. “I know those guys in the booth really well. We’ll just keep it off the record, so to speak, unless we find some kind of evidence.”

  “I hope you do.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” the man says, pushing himself away from the desk.

  Detective Jan Powell swoops into Mills’s office and announces, “Google is the greatest invention!”

  Mills sits back to make room for her gusto. “Happy Monday to you, too,” he says. “Did you uncover anything interesting?”

  “Sure did,” she says. “I think you should call the boys in for this.”

  He does. Preston and Myers arrive a few minutes later, Myers carrying a cup of yogurt. Mills manufactures an obvious double take on his face.

  “What?” Myers asks.

  “You know what.”

  “It’s good for me.”

  “But you’d prefer a Twinkie.”

  “Of course I would,” Myers concedes. “But you guys have to encourage me, support me. Today is the beginning of a whole new Morton Myers.”

  “You snuck out and saw your doctor last week?” Mills asks.

  “I did,” the detective confesses. “And he said the whole nation of France doesn’t have as much cholesterol as me. The bad kind, too.”

  Mills asks them all to sit. “As I mentioned when I called you in here, Jan has some notes to share with us on her research.”

  “For those of you who don’t know,” Powell says, looking to the others, “I have photos of Davis Klink and Barry Schultz together.”

  Preston’s eyes widen. “What?”

  “Fuck me,” says Myers.

  “Yes, fuck you,” Powell tells him. “Class reunion shots. They went to college together.”

  Powell and Mills briefly fill the others in on what they know and what they don’t. “But here’s the latest development,” Powell tells the room of attentive faces. “I found another reunion photo late last night. Surprised the fuck out of me.”

  She removes an eight-by-ten sheet from a folder and passes it to Mills.

  “Just printed it out,” she says. “Tell me what you think.”

  Mills studies the photo first, lingering on the faces for a few moments, then hands off the picture to Preston and Myers. “I don’t get it, Powell. There are five people in the shot, and you crossed out two of the faces,” Preston says.

  She grins. “Sure did. I’m only concerned right now with the native Arizona alums,” she says. “One of the guys I crossed out is from Texas, the other’s from Colorado. But don’t you recognize the other guy posing with Klink and Schultz?”

  Soberly Preston says, “I do.”

  “Lemme see that.” Mills reaches across his desk and pulls the photo back from the others. “Oh, Jesus.”

  Myers, who’s been picking at the yogurt like a child picks at spinach, looks up. The expression in his eyes is the equivalent of a drum roll. “That’s the politician guy from the billboards, right? What’s his name?”

  “You’re correct, Morty,” Powell says. “US Congressman Al Torento. He’s the only other guy from Arizona in the photo.”

  “‘Your Pal Al’!” Myers cr
ies. “That’s what it says on the billboard!”

  “Right again, Morty,” Powell says. “Your Pal Al, representing the Sixth District of Arizona.”

  “You think he’s next?” Myers asks, frenzy in his voice.

  Powell looks at Mills. Mills greets her gaze plaintively and, without turning to the others, says, “Thanks, everyone, for stopping by. I want to discuss this with Jan for a moment. You all know what you’re working on. Why don’t we resume what we were doing and maybe regroup at the end of the day.”

  Preston and Myers file out, leaving silence in their wake. Mills can feel his left knee is bouncing out of control. A siren hurtles down the street. An airplane whines overhead. Finally, Mills says, “Fuck,” and Powell indicates with a heavy sigh that she’s thinking, more or less, the same thing.

  “You think he’s next?” she asks.

  “Anyone could be next.”

  “Someone will be,” she says. “According to the killer’s plan.”

  He rubs his eyes. “But the killer hasn’t told us what he wants. We don’t understand what he’s thinking. Does he have a grudge against the rich and powerful?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was a rhetorical question, Jan,” he says. “Is the grudge a general grudge, or is he targeting specific rich and powerful victims? And, if so, why? We don’t have a clue to the guy’s motive here.”

  She points to the photo. “That’s our lead for now.”

  He studies the picture again. He infers a joyous arrogance from the faces but suspects the inference is a function of his own bias. But still. The joy of self-satisfaction clearly eclipses the joy of getting reacquainted. These men celebrate their success as if it were inevitable, as if they were entitled all along. He shifts his eyes to his computer and does a quick search for the congressman’s district office. “I don’t disagree with you, Jan,” he says. “I think we need to call Al Torento and ask him what he knows about our victims. Whether or not he’s a target, he must be wondering what the fuck is going on.”

  “My point exactly,” she says. “Can I listen in?”

  “Of course.” He hits “Speaker” on the landline and dials.

  Someone named Ashley, sounding about twenty-one, answers the call and, with the voice of a lollipop, tells them that the congressman is in Washington this week. “Would you like that number?”