Dig Your Grave

by Steven Cooper

  He stands at the entrance, waiting to be noticed. When no one looks up he clears his throat. When no one hears him he raps his fist against a tabletop of brochures. That rouses a woman in the nearest pod who removes her headset and says, “Can I help you with something?”

  “Is this business owned and operated by Joseph Gaffing?”

  “Yes.”

  Others, still chatting with customers, turn and eye Mills curiously.

  “I need some information about the company,” he tells the woman.

  “Let me get Wanda, the supervisor.”

  Mills steps back, and, less than ten seconds later, he’s rewarded for waiting by the appearance of a young woman who steps out from a far-corner office. She wears a tight blouse and a tight skirt and a pair of heels that give her tiny frame a six-inch lift. He introduces himself and flashes a badge at an angle that only she can appreciate, and she escorts him back to her office. It’s a haphazard, low-budget version of a corner office, not much more than drywall and random windows that allow the occupant to spy on the minimum-wagers in the call center. There are two potted plants, fake.

  “What has he done now?” Wanda wants to know, dread all over her face.

  “I can’t say,” Mills replies. “But I need to get in touch with his nearest relative. I was hoping someone could help me do that.”

  Her expression changes. Dread becomes fear. “Is he okay? Did something happen to him?”

  “Again, I can’t say specifically,” Mills replies. “But if something did, we’d sure want his family to be the first to know.”

  “We sort of are his family,” she said, her lips turning inward.

  “Is he married?”

  “Divorced,” she says, and the answer doesn’t surprise Mills given Gaffing’s rap sheet.

  “What about kids?”

  “No kids,” she says. “His dad still comes by every so often, and he has a sister, but last I heard she’s in rehab.”

  The woman diverts her attention to her computer screen and aggressively types away at her keyboard. Then she scribbles something on a notepad, rips the sheet, and hands it to Mills.

  “Phone number and address for Mr. Gaffing,” she tells him. “Joe’s father.”

  He thanks her. “You said he comes by often? Does he work for Joe?”

  She smiles. “No. It’s sort of the other way around. Joe Senior owned this company for, like, twenty or thirty years,” she says. “He handed it to his son a few years ago. But he still keeps tabs. He really doesn’t want to let go, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Mills says vaguely and then adds, “The name of the company suggests you specialize in student travel.”

  “We’re the number one charter company for spring break events in the country,” she says proudly, her face brightening.

  Mills turns around in his chair and surveys the call center; he turns back with doubt all over his face. “Out of here? The number one charter company is operated out of this small office?”

  “Ninety percent of our business is completely automated online,” she explains. “That’s how we grew so fast. Joe Senior was responsible for putting us online. Years ago. We were the first to convert to a cyber platform.”

  “Joe Senior?” Mills asks. “Odd that the older Joe would be the cyber guy, not the son. . . .”

  She shrugs. “Joe Senior knew how to grow the business like nobody else.”

  “So what exactly is Joe Junior’s role?”

  She giggles for a second and then self-corrects, sits up in her tight attire, and folds her hands on the desk. “He’s the face of the company,” she says deadpan. “And he’s in charge of payroll and other human resources stuff.”

  Mills rises to his feet, extending a hand. “Thank you, Ms.—”

  She gives him her card. “Melendez.”

  “Melendez,” he repeats. “You’ve been an enormous help.”

  Joe Gaffing Sr.

  18602 West Laredo

  Glendale, AZ

  First he texts Morty Myers: “When you’re done w/social media, I need you to pull all Sec of State records on Student Blast Travel. AM.”

  Next he texts Ken Preston: “When you’re done with the real estate, head out to Avondale, assist Powell. AM.”

  Then he calls Joseph Gaffing Sr. and reaches the man’s voice mail. He enters the address into his navigator and drives. He drives in thoughtful silence. He’s determined, of what he’s not exactly sure. He just feels determined, and it’s not only about solving the case; it’s also about being at the top of his game, or at least returning to the top of his game, getting purposeful. He grips the wheel. He’s too often distracted by the bumps in the road (people who don’t answer the phone, who don’t finish their jobs, who shun accountability, who let their dogs shit all over his yard—literally and metaphorically) that he forgets about the passion that fuels his engine. Objectively speaking (and he’s imagining himself in front of an objective mirror here), he gives more shit about fighting crime than he can possibly count. He thrives on it, probably gives him the same satisfaction, if not the six-million-dollar bonus, as someone like Davis Klink signing a merger or acquisition deal. Every day is like a puzzle. Passion connects the dots, fills in the blanks, solves the crime. He lives for it. But the fucking clusterfuck of humanity and all its petty fucking grievances and bureaucratic bullshit and political fucking posturing and all the miserable people and their miserable lives—it’s enough to burn a guy out. He’s burnt out. He’s known this for a while. The business with Trevor doesn’t help. But now, here on this drive, gripping the wheel, he realizes it is he, alone, who can burn himself back in. So, surveying the clusterfuck of everything now is not an exercise in masochism; it’s an exercise in liberation.

  Joe Gaffing Sr. doesn’t live in splendor. He doesn’t even live in a McMansion. Odd for someone who runs/ran “the number one charter company for spring break events in the country.” Joe Gaffing Sr. lives in a typical suburban, cookie-cutter stucco home with a faded red tile roof. The garage door is open. A car is parked in the driveway. Even a detective without a full tank of mojo would know those are signs that someone’s home.

  He rings the bell, and a dog barks. He hears the scuffle of feet, both human and canine. Someone says, “Stop your yapping.” The door swings open, and standing at the threshold is an older man, easily seventy, in a T-shirt and shorts. He’s taller than Mills, maybe by two inches, with shoulders that are wide but bowed with age. A basketball player in his day, Mills guesses. He wears white ankle socks, no shoes. His eyes are grayish. “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Alex Mills with the Phoenix Police Department.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Are you Joe Gaffing Senior?”

  The man says, “Yes,” packing quite a bit of suspicion into one syllable.

  “It’s about your son.”

  The man looks down and shakes his head. “What has he done now?”

  Mills senses a pattern. What has he done now? That might have made a more fitting inscription on the sign at Junior’s grave.

  “May I come in?”

  Gaffing sways his head back and forth a bit, considering the request. “Yeah, I guess,” he says. “But the place is very messy today. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Mills offers a genuine smile. “I’ve seen everything in my line of work, sir. I’m sure your house is no messier than average.”

  The guy shrugs and leads him inside, through a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and out to an all-season porch, proving Mills wrong one room at a time. The house is messier than average. Ghastly messier. A sink overflows with dishes. An avalanche of laundry pours off a recliner. Sticky floors throughout rival those of any movie theater. The screeching smell of incalculable dog urine just about takes his breath away.

  Mills begins to sit, subtly inspecting the cushion upon which his ass will rest. A landfill of contamination, he assumes. He winces and says, “I’m sorry to have to tel
l you this, Mr. Gaffing, but I believe your son was the victim of a homicide. We found his body this morning.”

  The outbreak of confusion on the man’s face is barely visible, but Mills can see it. He’s seen it a million times. “I, uh, what?” Gaffing stutters.

  “Do you know why anyone would want to harm your son, sir?”

  The man sits there, his hand covering his mouth. He’s shaking his head, and he won’t stop shaking it as he stares off into nowhere; it’s that nowhere that Mills is determined to visit. Joe Gaffing must be looking at his son’s history, the good and the bad and the awful, must be reviewing life events, the ones that come flooding back at times like this.

  “I don’t know,” Gaffing says.

  “This is a shock, I realize that,” Mills tells him. “But something is bound to come to you that will help us piece this thing together.”

  “I mean, I know my son has his problems, but . . . Are you sure it’s him, Detective?”

  Mills nods slowly. “We identified him by the scar on his cheek on one of his social media profiles. We’ll likely get a fingerprint match in the database, considering his record,” he explains. “And we found his car abandoned near the crime scene.”

  The man balls his fists. “Oh, my God,” he moans. “He’s all I have left.”

  Mills does an inquisitive tilt of his head. “I’m sorry. I thought you also had a daughter.”

  “She’s been in and out of rehab for years. She doesn’t talk to me. We’re strangers.”

  “And your wife?”

  “Died a year ago,” he answers.

  The man had all but given up. The state of his house can attest to that. “Is there anybody you can call?” Mills asks.

  “Like who?”

  “A relative? A friend?”

  “I got distant cousins in Florida,” he says. “My wife was the social butterfly. My best friend was always my business, she would say.”

  “From what I understand, you still run most of the business today.”

  Gaffing gets up with a sigh and crosses the porch as if he’s leaving. At the entrance to the kitchen he turns back and offers Mills something to drink. He declines. Mills listens as ice cubes plummet into a glass, as liquid splashes over. When Gaffing returns he’s carrying an amber liquid, like Scotch, in his glass. Mills doesn’t need to ask, or to take a whiff. The piercing sting of the whiskey curls up his nose, displacing for a moment the baseline smell of dog piss. Gaffing sits, swirls the liquid.

  “I handed off the business to Joe almost three years ago,” he says. “I still own a share, and I have to keep an eye on the place, you know, to protect my interests.”

  “Considering your son’s run-ins with the law, that’s understandable,” Mills replies. “I’m familiar with his record. You think maybe a victim of his forgery or bad checks was looking for revenge?”

  “That was so long ago.”

  “Revenge can take a lifetime.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What about the drugs?” Mills asks. “Do you know if he was in debt to support his drug habit?”

  The man scoffs bitterly. “I wouldn’t call it a drug habit, Detective. He was arrested a couple of times for possession. It’s not like he was drugged up all the time. He never stole money from me, you know. He wasn’t a lowlife. I want you to understand that. Despite his faults, he was a good kid.”

  Mills slides forward, then leans in. “Do the names Davis Klink and Barry Schultz mean anything to you?”

  Gaffing ponders this. Eyes wide, searching. “No. They don’t. Should they?”

  Mills doesn’t reply, instead offering two open palms, his hands lingering there like a bid for more.

  “Who are they?” Gaffing asks.

  “Klink and Schultz were killed, we believe, in a similar fashion to your son.”

  “You believe?”

  “Yes,” Mills says. “We would wait until all the forensics come back on your son before drawing a final conclusion. But preliminary observations would suggest that a similar weapon was used in all three cases and a nearly identical venue was chosen. The bodies were all found in cemeteries.”

  “Holy shit,” the man cries. “Are you talking about those murders I saw in the news?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Gaffing takes a full gulp of Scotch. “No way,” he says after the swallow and the requisite airing of his throat. “There’s just no way.”

  “You mean you have no knowledge that your son had any connection to Klink or Schultz?”

  Another sip. “That’s what I mean.”

  The man’s eyes fill. The tears don’t spill, but they gather like lenses of brimming grief, and that flood of pain is almost harder for Mills to watch. He studies the family photographs on the wall, looking for an anomaly, the aha image that might suggest how the younger Gaffing deviated from the normal path of family life. The four Gaffings pose happily for a family portrait. Judging from the clothes, the hair, and the younger faces, the happiness was captured, maybe, in the 1980s. There’s no evidence of happiness beyond that era, since that family portrait seems to be the most recent one hanging on the wall. There’s a photo of Joe Jr. swinging a bat. There’s a photo of the daughter on horseback. She’s probably sixteen, and she looks high even then. Thanks to the family business, Joe Sr. and his wife had plenty of places to flee. In a few photos they’re posing on cruise ships. The next display is a collage of beaches, one at sunset, one at sunrise, two under a fierce blue sky, waves shimmering below. The overall effect of this collection of shots is to capture an average family doing average things and making average attempts to keep life uncomplicated and free of messes. The daughter, in cap and gown, graduates from high school and holds her diploma wide open; there’s glee in her eyes, somewhere behind the dilated pupils. Joe Jr. graduates from high school, looks pissed off at something, clutching his diploma closed as if he has nothing to prove to anyone.

  “Mr. Gaffing, did your son go on to college?” Mills asks. “Did he, by any chance, attend U of A?”

  The man wipes his eyes on his sleeve and laughs. “My son didn’t make it through his freshman year of community college,” he says. “He came to work for me. It was the best thing for him.”

  “I’m told he was divorced.”

  “That’s true,” Gaffing says.

  “And the ex-wife?”

  “She’d never hurt him, Detective. She was an angel.”

  “What happened?”

  “My son was not an angel, as his record clearly shows, and she got fed up.”

  “He beat her?”

  “Like I said, his record clearly shows . . .”

  Mills nods. “Were they in touch?”

  The man shakes his head. “She lives in Montana, last I heard. I don’t think they’ve spoken since the divorce was final fifteen, maybe twenty years ago.”

  Mills gets to his feet and hands the man his card. “If you have any questions, call me. If you think of anything that might help our investigation of your son’s murder, do the same.”

  “I want to see my boy,” Gaffing says, a solitary tear escaping the corner of his eye.

  “You’ll be contacted when his body is ready, sir.”

  In his car, Mills dials Jacob Woods. If a sneer could talk, it would sound like the sergeant’s voice, aloof at its center, serrated around the edges. Avondale will yield, the sergeant confirms. “But, at this point, we might be better off handing the whole damn case over to our friends at the FBI.”

  The offhanded remark has the combined effect of an insult and a threat. This is Jacob Woods brandishing a short lease. Mills doesn’t respond. He simply says, “I’ll let my scene investigator know.”

  “While you’re at it, tell Jan her resources are on the way.”

  And that’s all Mills hears from his boss for the rest of the day.

  25

  Gus Parker slurps on a hearty soup at Beatrice Vossenheimer’s dining room table. The evening had turned chilly, t
he temperature dipping to a mere sixty-three degrees. The fireplace is roaring, and the soup is hot, and it feels good. “A German specialty,” she tells him.

  A creamy broth surrounds dumplings, thick vegetables, and hunks of chicken.

  “What’s it called?”

  “Geflügelsuppe Beatrice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Beatrice’s chicken soup.”

  Gus laughs. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “Because?”

  “Because Alex said he could only protect me in Phoenix,” Gus replies. “That’s why I’m not staying at Billie’s.”

  She stops, her spoon halfway to her mouth, and says, “So you’ll spend an hour with me for dinner and go home. You can’t be at your house every single minute you’re not working.”

  “I have a client tonight anyway,” Gus says. “Eight o’clock.”

  Beatrice blows on the puddle of soup in her spoon and swallows. She passes Gus a bowl of salad, then a plate of bread. She turns her face to the pink sky sitting outside her panoramic window. Gus follows her eyes to the view and instantly knows their intuitions are about to collide.

  “Alex really thinks you’re in danger,” she says.

  “I told you as much.”

  “He’s right.”

  “Is it something that you see?” he asks.

  “It’s something that I feel.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “But no one’s going to be pushing you off a roof, Gus.”

  He swallows a tomato. Bites his lip. “I never said anything about the woman falling.”

  “You saw a woman falling?”

  “From a rooftop,” he says. “I was going to fill you in on everything over coffee.”

  “And cake.”

  “And cake,” he mutters absently. “But you’re having hunches about my hunches.”

  “I’m having a hunch about your safety,” she says. “I’d tell you to stay here, but Alex can’t give you the protection here.”