Grave Designs

by Michael A. Kahn

  “Still.” Paul shook his head. “At two in the morning?”

  I shrugged. “I lived. Ozzie is a good bodyguard.”

  “Except for himself. Poor Ozzie.” Paul leaned back against the kitchen counter. “What a great system,” he said. “What do you think they were doing?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know, Paul. And frankly, I almost don’t care. I just want to wrap up this assignment for Ishmael Richardson and get on with my life.”

  “How can you say that? This is great stuff.”

  Paul’s enthusiasm was irritating. “Look, I’m just a lawyer, Paul. I’m not a cop. I’m not an FBI agent. I’m not some private eye on a mission. That’s storybook stuff. Sure I’m curious. Who wouldn’t be? But look what’s happening to me. I’ve got strangers breaking into my house. Practically killing my dog, for God’s sake. Enough is enough. I want out.”

  Paul nodded, his eyes bright. “I understand, Rachel. And you’re probably right. Once you get what Ishmael Richardson needs, you ought to get out of it. But this newspaper personals angle is terrific stuff. Let me look into it. Maybe I can come up with something.”

  “Go get ’em, tiger.” I put the dishtowel on the counter and rubbed my forehead.

  “Headache?” Paul asked.

  “Probably from lack of sleep.”

  He walked over to the cabinet and opened it. “Ah, still keep your aspirin with the spices. Here,” he said, handing me two tablets. Paul filled a juice glass with water from the faucet.

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the two aspirin.

  “Go lie down on your bed,” he said. “I brought a change of clothes. I can stay with you tonight.” He smiled. “On your couch, of course.”

  “Don’t be silly, Paul. Go home. I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s no problem, Rachel. Really. I’ll get out of these sweaty clothes, take a shower, and hit the sack. I’m bushed myself. It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. I even brought my own towel and toothbrush.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “Hey, you had a hell of a scare today. It’s my pleasure. I mean it.” With that—and before it got awkward—he grabbed his gym bag and walked into the bathroom.

  I undressed in my bedroom and slipped on a nightgown. I looked at myself in the mirror: It was a sensible, comfortable cotton nightgown that was cut full and reached to my ankles. I studied my reflection for a moment and then walked back to the closet. I pulled the sensible nightgown off over my head and took out a blue silk nightshirt that reached to mid-thigh. Much better, I told myself as I buttoned it up in front of the mirror.

  I climbed in bed, pulling up the sheets. My head was throbbing. I yawned. Listening to the sound of the shower, I smiled. It was good to know he’d be here with me tonight. I yawned again. Back in college I could pull all-nighters with ease during finals. You’re getting old, kid.

  I woke up in the dark. The clock on the nightstand showed 2:10 a.m. I staggered to the bathroom and drank a cup of water. Then I remembered Paul. I must have fallen asleep before he got out of the shower.

  I walked softly into the living room. Paul was sound asleep on the couch, wearing nothing but a pair of fitted boxer shorts. I bent over and kissed him lightly on the nose. He grunted but didn’t stir.

  “Sleep tight, baby,” I whispered into his ear.

  I got back into bed, pulled up the sheet, and fell right back to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The telephone startled me awake at 7:15 a.m. on Friday.

  “Rachel, this is Maggie Sullivan.”

  I stretched my legs toward the end of the bed. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “That bastard tried to rob another one of my graves.”

  I sat up. “Last night?”

  “Around dawn, I think. My brother-in-law’s dog’s been staying with me since the Canaan robbery. A big German shepherd. He started barking around six in the morning. I finally let him out and went out there myself with a shotgun. Whoever was out there was gone by then. I heard a car pull away.”

  “Did he dig up a grave?”

  “Only partway. He got scared off before he got down to the coffin, thank God.”

  “I’m coming down. Let me throw on some clothes.”

  I put on my robe and called out to Paul. “You’re not going to believe this.” He didn’t answer. “Paul?” No response.

  I walked slowly into the living room. Paul was gone. There was a note taped to the refrigerator:

  Dear Rachel:

  I had to get back to that paper I’m working on. The deadline is Monday. Hope you had a peaceful sleep. You looked beautiful. And very sexy! I’ll talk to you later.

  Your pal, Paul

  P.S. There’s fresh coffee in the pot.

  I put an English muffin into the toaster and poured a cup of coffee. Even with lots of milk, the coffee tasted stale.

  ***

  Maggie and her brother-in-law were standing by the grave when I arrived. The hole was about two feet deep and roughly rectangular. According to the engraving on the polished face of the small granite tombstone, something named Candy was buried down there—Born February 25, 1974; Died November 16, 1985. To the pet’s owner, Candy had been “Mommy’s Little Sweetie Pie.”

  Maggie handled the introductions at the graveside. “Rachel, this here’s my brother-in-law, Vern. He’s a security guard down at a plant in Hammond. Vern, this here’s my lawyer, Rachel Gold.”

  “Nice to meet you, Vern,” I said.

  “Ma’am,” Vern answered, touching the handkerchief covering his head.

  From the waist down Vern was dressed in standard-issue security garb: midnight-blue double-knit slacks disappearing into black knee-high storm-trooper boots. From the waist up Vern looked, well, peculiar: a once-white T-shirt (now tinged gray) stretched tight over a sagging pot belly, a pair of reflector sunglasses resting on a lumpy Mr. Magoo nose, and the white handkerchief covering his close-cropped white hair. There was a large plug of chewing tobacco in his right cheek. Tobacco juice had dribbled from the left side of his mouth down his chin.

  “Tell Rachel what you found.”

  “Not much, ma’am.” Vern spit a stream of dark tobacco juice into the grave.

  The morning sun was intense. My forehead felt damp.

  “My dog musta spooked him good,” Vern said. “Looks like the perpetrator grabbed his shovel and lit out. Not many clues.”

  “Tell her about the prints, Vern,” Maggie prompted.

  “Looks to me like the perpetrator was wearing sneakers. See them prints?” He pointed at two partial shoe prints in the grave. As he leaned forward, the handkerchief slid off his head. He caught it with his hand. “Looks like a size ten or thereabouts,” he said as he placed the handkerchief back on his head.

  “Why sneakers?” I asked, trying to ignore the handkerchief.

  “No heel prints. Tells me he was wearing flat soles, so I’m guessing sneakers.” Vern snorted. “Not much of a clue. Cuts the suspects down to about one million or thereabouts.” Vern readjusted his testicles with his right hand, his knees slightly bent.

  He leaned over the grave and pointed at the clearer of the two prints. “No heel marks.” And with that his handkerchief slid off his head and floated into the open grave, landing on top of a small puddle of tobacco juice. Vern bent over, hands on his knees, and stared at the handkerchief, which now had a brown stain growing in the center. “Well, shit,” Vern grunted, and he expectorated the entire wad of tobacco into the grave.

  Maybe it was the tension. Or the lack of sleep. Or a combination of the two. Or maybe it was just old Vern all on his own. Whatever the cause, I was having a hard time keeping from laughing. Maggie came to my rescue by sending Vern back to the house.

  “Ol’ Vern means well,” she said, shaking her head, “but he don’t exactly have a Sears Die-Hard ups
tairs. He showed up this morning in his guard outfit waving his gun. I told him I couldn’t have him stomping around a half-dug-up grave looking like the Gestapo. He’d scare the daylights out of all my old ladies. I told him to take off his shirt and hat and leave his gun inside.” She gestured toward the grave. “You seen enough?”

  I stared down at the footprints. Vern was probably right. Last night there must have been tens of thousands of men wearing tennis shoes. Including Kent Charles and Paul Mason. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “Let’s go up to the house. I’ll get one of the grave-diggers to fill it back up before folks start arriving. I got a burial at noon.”

  ***

  We were sipping coffee in Maggie’s kitchen. She had lugged the blue ledger book in from her office. It was open to the entry for Plot No. 89, the final resting place of one Yorkshire terrier named Candy. His owner had been an elderly spinster who had died three months after her dog’s death. Both had been in the ground several months before Graham Anderson Marshall arrived at Wagging Tail Estates to arrange for the burial of Canaan. The only apparent connection was 1985, the year of Candy’s death and the year of Marshall’s Canaan lottery.

  “You think it’s the same guy?” Maggie asked.

  “I just don’t know.”

  I told Maggie about the break-in of my apartment.

  “My God. How’s your dog?”

  “He seems okay. The vet wants to keep him another night to be sure.”

  “The burglar didn’t take anything?”

  I shook my head. “I think he was searching my apartment for evidence. That’s my gut feeling. I think he was looking for something on Canaan. If my instincts are right, the two grave robberies and that break-in are related.”

  “What in hell did that Marshall bury in that coffin?”

  “I’ve got a hunch,” I said. “I’m going down to the law firm to see what I can find. I’ll let you know if I turn anything up.”

  Vern stepped into the kitchen. He had put back on his rent-a-cop shirt and cap, and was strapping his holster around his hips. His sunglasses hung from his shirt pocket.

  “I’m gonna hit the sack,” he said to Maggie, glancing at me. “I’ll be back around seven tonight.”

  “Come a little earlier, Vern. I’ll feed you supper.”

  “Why, thanks. I might just do that.” Vern pulled a pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco out of his back pocket.

  “Vern’s gonna stand guard tonight,” Maggie said to me. “Tomorrow night too. By Monday I’ll have my own security guard here. At least until the hippo’s buried next Saturday. I don’t want anybody at the zoo getting spooked. And with the hippo’s funeral scheduled for next weekend, it’ll be easier explaining a security guard to folks.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. I turned to Vern, who was shoving a stringy clump of tobacco into his cheek. “Guard things well, Vern.”

  “I will, ma’am.” His words were muffled by the tobacco. “Be seeing you.”

  After Vern left, I got up to go. Maggie walked me to my car. “You be careful, Rachel. And let me know if you need some help. It’s one thing to have some pervert digging up dead pets. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the grave robberies don’t matter, ‘cause they sure as hell do. But it’s a whole new ballgame when they start breaking into your home and drugging your dog. You keep in touch, you hear?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  From Wagging Tail Estates I drove downtown to Abbott & Windsor and Litigation Work Room D.

  Litigation Work Room D is the size of a racquetball court and is lined on three sides by floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets filled with court pleading files, transcripts of court hearings, and other documents relating to In re Bottles & Cans. It is also the site of the main In re Bottles & Cans computer terminal and the office of Tyrone Henderson, the head programmer.

  I’d come up here on a hunch. Fortunately, Tyrone was in.

  “Hey, Tyrone.”

  Tyrone looked up and gave me a big toothy grin. “Hey, Rachel. What’s happening, girl?”

  “What did you do with your head, Tyrone?” He had shaved off all his hair. “It looks like an eight ball.”

  He smiled and ran a hand slowly over his smooth black scalp. “Drives the ladies wild, Rachel.”

  “Really?”

  “You be surprised, girl.”

  Tyrone Henderson had started at the firm as a messenger, delivering draft contracts and court papers to other law firms in the city. Several years back he had enrolled in night-school courses in computer programming. When a programmer position opened up on the In re Bottles & Cans computer team, he applied and got the job. Tyrone started off as a key puncher in a document warehouse in Iowa and gradually worked his way up to his current position as chief programmer. In fact, it was Tyrone who had devised the instructions that produced the many-thousand-page printout that led to my resignation from the firm. For that Tyrone would have my undying gratitude.

  “Don’t tell me you’re coming back to us, Rachel.”

  “Nope. But I’m working on a weird project for the firm and I came up here on a hunch.”

  “And I thought it was because you’d finally come to your senses, girl.” Tyrone gave me a big grin. “I don’t normally truck with white girls, but for a fox like you I can make an exception.”

  “Well, that all depends. You aren’t Jewish, are you?”

  “Some of my best friends are.”

  “Not good enough for my dad.”

  “Oh, I ‘spect you daddy’d be tickled pink if you was to bring home a bad dude like me,” he said, exaggerating a ghetto accent that he could turn on or off like a faucet.

  “Listen, you big jerk, I came up here because I need you to work some magic with that computer of yours.” I closed the door. “I’m trying to find out about something called Canaan. C-a-n-a-a-n. It’s very confidential. I had Helen Marston run it through the firm’s computer and she didn’t turn up much. I thought there might be something in the Bottles and Cans computer.”

  “Canaan, huh? Don’t sound familiar, but let’s see what big mama has to say.”

  Tyrone walked over to the computer table and pulled out the swivel chair. Sitting down in front of the cream-colored keyboard and monitor screen, he flicked on the power. The monitor screen flickered on, and four green bars pulsed on and off on the right side of the screen. I stood behind him and watched over his shoulder.

  Tyrone typed some information onto the screen and then pushed the Transmit key on the keyboard. The screen went blank for a moment and then lit up again with a message in green block type:

  SIGN ON

  USER ID…….

  PASSWORD……

  MENU (OPTIONAL)

  LIBRARY…….

  He typed information on each line and then pushed the Transmit key. The screen went blank and then lit up with a row of thirty-five numbered items under the heading Menu. Tyrone typed in a number. The screen flashed a new message:

  DATABASE TO SIGN ON

  ENTER DATABASE ID

  “You said Canaan?”

  “Yep.”

  Tyrone typed in the letters C-A-N-A-A-N. The screen went blank. After about five seconds the word “Searching” started flashing in green at three-second intervals. We waited and watched.

  “C’mon, big mama, keep looking,” Tyrone mumbled.

  After about a minute, the “Searching” signal stopped and the screen went blank.

  “Here it comes, girl.”

  I held my breath.

  A new message unfurled on the screen:

  YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO SIGN ON TO

  DATABASE CANAAN. THIS IS A

  RESTRICTED-ACCESS DATABASE. PLEASE

  ENTER CANNAN ACCESS PASSWORD….

  “Damn,” Tyrone said.

  “What’s that mean, Ty?”

&nbs
p; “We can’t get in that Canaan file without the password.”

  “Do you know the password?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Who does?”

  “No way to know.”

  “Rats. What do we do now?”

  Tyrone stared at the screen, his brows knitted in concentration. He ran his hand slowly over his smooth scalp. “Hmm…let’s try a little breakin’ and enterin’.” He typed a message in computerese and then leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “What did you do?”

  “I ain’t just the head programmer, girl. I’m also the chief of police. I got big mama secretly programmed to keep track of all passwords any Bottles and Cans operator puts in from anywhere in the country. I put together the program two years ago. Made it up myself. It’s got every password for the last two years stored in its memory. Helps me keep track of who is doing what in my computer. I just told it to try each one of those passwords and find the one that fits.” He pointed to a green rectangle in the lower right corner of the screen, where a blur of words was flashing in rapid succession, far too quickly to read. “It’s running through the passwords right there. It’s like having a key ring with thousands of keys. It’s trying each one to see which one opens the lock.”

  We waited, both of us staring at the small rectangle. After about thirty seconds the rectangle disappeared, the screen went blank, and then a new message appeared in the middle of the screen:

  PASSWORD SEARCH COMPLETE.

  NO MATCH LOCATED.

  Tyrone sighed. “Damn.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Means someone set up the Canaan file more than two years ago. Back before I set up this program.” Tyrone leaned forward, elbows on the table. He rested his chin between his hands.

  “There’s got to be a way in, Tyrone.”

  He straightened up. “Maybe so.” He typed a long message in computerese and hit the Transmit key. “If this don’t work, nothing will.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I just told big mama to link up with the firm’s main computer. She’ll get us access to all the word-processing software, including spell-check.”