Grave Designs

by Michael A. Kahn

  “I take it you’re not up for that Mexican place, huh?”

  “Ugh. Don’t even mention it. I couldn’t deal with anything stronger than milk of magnesia.” Benny struggled to his feet. “Excuse me, ladies. I seem to be picking up an SOS from my large intestine.”

  ***

  We all decided to skip lunch. Cindi and I were still full from breakfast, and Benny’s stomach was rumbling ominously. I made him a cup of weak tea, and then he drove us downtown in his Nova. I wanted to go to my office, and Cindi needed to buy some clothes and a disguise.

  It was a beautiful August afternoon. The sky was a deep blue and the lake sparkled in the sunlight as we drove onto Lake Shore Drive at Hollywood. A red Frisbee sailed over the sunbathers as we passed the beach at Foster. Soccer games were in progress on all the fields along Montrose, and Hispanic families were gathered in loose circles around dozens of barbecue grills dotting the park. Farther south, the joggers and bike riders moved slowly where the path narrowed at Belmont Harbor.

  Cindi pointed to the sailboats and yachts gently swaying in Belmont Harbor. “I once had a client who took me out on his yacht at high tide,” she said. “He paid me two hundred dollars to read him his old college girlfriend’s letters and watch him masturbate. Very strange.”

  “Ah,” Benny said. “So we beat off, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” He glanced back at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Not bad,” I said. “Not great, but not bad.”

  Beyond the Fullerton exit Lake Shore Drive swung into a long stretch toward the high-rises on Michigan Avenue. The John Hancock Building loomed ahead like the rook in a chess game for giants. Traffic slowed at Oak Street Beach. Benny started moaning. “God, look at those chicks,” he said.

  “Forget it, Benny,” Cindi said. “I know the type. All they want is drugs and kinky sex.”

  Benny moaned again. “Cocaine and bondage. The staff of life.”

  Benny dropped his car off at a public garage near my office. Cindi was going to Marshall Field’s for some clothes, a black wig, and Lolita sunglasses, and Benny volunteered to keep her company. We agreed to meet back at my office at six o’clock.

  My office is in one of the oldest buildings in the Loop. The major tenants—law firms and accounting firms—left years ago for loftier quarters in the shimmering office towers along LaSalle Street. More than half the vacated office space remains empty. I share my floor with a pair of process servers, a podiatrist, an elderly solo practitioner, and a three-woman accounting firm. All of their offices were dark on this Saturday afternoon.

  I let myself in and opened a window to air the place out. Mary had typed my draft of a trial brief that was due on Friday. I had six days to get it in shape, and it still needed a lot of editing. I put a tape into my Dictaphone, turned toward the window, put my feet up on the ledge, and started dictating. I stopped after the second sentence and rewound the tape, telling myself that the trial brief could wait.

  I had to dictate my Canaan notes. Where to start? At the cemetery: my first meeting with Maggie. No, better to start at the beginning. My meeting with Ishmael Richardson. Dictate everything I could remember. There might be a clue buried there somewhere. I clicked on the Dictaphone and started at the beginning.

  About an hour later the telephone rang. It was Maggie Sullivan.

  “How are the funeral arrangements going?”

  “They’re going to start digging on Monday, kid. I found a carpenter for the coffin. He promised it’ll be ready by Thursday. They’ll load Gus into it Friday morning and haul him out here on a gooseneck truck.”

  “Have they done the autopsy?” I asked.

  “Not yet. They’re gonna thaw him out over the weekend and start on Monday.”

  “I’ll be out there on Saturday for the funeral.”

  “Glad to have you. But get here early. There’s going to be a big crowd.”

  “I assume it was quiet out there last night.”

  “Yep. I found ol’ Vern sound asleep in the Slumber Room this morning.”

  “Good. Listen, I don’t know where that coffin is, but I think I have a pretty good idea what’s in it. Do you want to come by my office? I’m here until six.”

  “I can get there by then.”

  “Good. Come on down. I have a couple of questions for you now,” I said.

  “Shoot.”

  “What does a burial fee buy at your cemetery?”

  “The plot of land and the burial.”

  “What about care and maintenance?”

  “That’s extra.”

  “How is that handled?”

  “Depends. I give my customers several options. They’re printed right on the form contract. They can pay an annual fee or they can buy permanent care and maintenance for a lump sum. The amount depends on what kind of care and maintenance they want. I have a no-frills package and a deluxe package.”

  “And that’s all on the contract?”

  “You bet. I always explain it too.”

  That clinched it. “Thanks, Maggie.”

  “See you tonight, kiddo.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Thirty minutes later I was staring at the file drawer in the cabinet against the office wall. I had opened it to get my research notes on the trial brief.

  Mary handled all the filing, and she was careful to keep each case separate and arranged in alphabetical order by client. The research notes should have been in the Candlelite file; I finally found them in the Frontenac Village one. A quick inspection turned up four other files out of order.

  I returned to my desk and pulled out each desk drawer, one at a time, trying to remember what had been where. Had the stapler been in the front of the third drawer? Or had someone put it there after looking through all the papers in the drawer?

  I stared at the stapler. My apartment had been searched on Thursday. I hadn’t been in the office on Friday. I shook my head. The Canaan investigation was turning me into a paranoid. It was probably just Mary, looking for something in my desk on Friday. And if not Mary, then perhaps the cleaning lady who worked from six p.m. to two a.m.

  There was a knock at my outer office door. I slowly closed the desk drawer and waited. It was too early for Cindi and Benny. Another knock. I stood up and walked out of my office to the small reception area. Through the pebbled glass I could see a hulking male figure. I picked up Mary’s telephone, ready to dial 911.

  “Who is it?” I called.

  “Rachel?” the voice said. “It’s Kent Charles. Can I come in?”

  I put down the phone and opened the door. Kent Charles smiled. “Hi,” he said. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “No problem,” I said. “C’mon in.”

  Kent followed me into my office. I took a seat behind my desk and Kent sat on the couch along the side wall.

  He was dressed casual. “I’ve never been here before,” he said, looking around the room.

  “Well, you just missed the four o’clock tour. There won’t be another until Monday.”

  Kent smiled. “How are you feeling? And how’s your dog?”

  “Okay,” I said. “And Ozzie is fine. I picked him up from the vet this morning.”

  “Good,” he said. “I ran into Harlan Dodson down at the office this morning.”

  “And?”

  “He wants to move in court on that codicil fast. He’s gone nuts over that grave robbery.”

  “He’s pressuring me too,” I said. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Kent shook his head. “I guess it’s that Ebersoll estate litigation. It’s getting messy.”

  “Getting messy?” I had to laugh. “That thing was messy from day one.”

  The Ebersoll estate litigation was the final chapter in one of those delicious scandals that newspaper publishers pray
for. Two years ago Harold Ebersoll, CEO of a major Chicago plastics manufacturer, married Heather Brindle. It was the first marriage for both. Harold was sixty-eight. Heather was nineteen. Three months later Harold Ebersoll was found dead in the den of his Lincoln Park co-op, wrapped in seventy-five feet of adhesive tape, his genitals exposed, a small puddle of semen on the hardwood floor in front of his chair. The coroner eventually ruled it an accidental death resulting from strangulation during an act of sexual bondage with Heather. The neighborhood druggist provided sufficient corroboration for the verdict: during his three months of marriage, Harold Ebersoll had made weekly purchases of adhesive tape totaling, over that period, more than one thousand feet. Predictably, one of the Chicago newspapers labeled the scandal Mummygate.

  The other shoe dropped when his last will and testament, executed three weeks before he died, was unveiled. Harold Ebersoll had left his entire estate—estimated at close to six million dollars—to his young widow. Both of Harold’s sisters, major beneficiaries under his prior will, had been cut out completely by the new will.

  Harlan Dodson had drafted the new will. Last fall the Ebersoll sisters had filed suit to set aside that will.

  “Harlan had his deposition in that case three weeks ago,” Kent said.

  “How’d it go?”

  Kent shook his head. “Cal and I defended it. It was tough.”

  “Who’s the other side’s attorney?”

  “That asshole Joe Oliver.”

  Joe Oliver had a well-deserved reputation as one of the toughest lawyers in Chicago.

  “Did Joe rake him over the coals?” I asked.

  “He tried,” Kent said. “I cut off the deposition after Oliver started to suggest that Ebersoll’s wife was trading sexual favors for Harlan’s assistance in getting a new will drafted.” Kent shook his head. “Harlan’s been climbing the walls ever since. The next round of his deposition is scheduled for September.”

  “No wonder Harlan’s upset about Graham’s codicil.”

  Kent nodded. “He’s afraid of another scandal.”

  I waited.

  Kent smiled. “I didn’t come over here just because I’m curious as hell. Which I am.” He smiled. “I thought I might be able to help you out. As I told you, Graham and I were on the road together constantly on Bottles and Cans. I think I knew him better than most people did.”

  I thought it over. “When Harlan Dodson mentioned the grave robbery,” I asked, “when you heard about a pet’s grave, did that ring a bell?”

  “Not a pet’s grave per se,” Kent said. “But I can put two and two together. If you’ve been called in to investigate it, then I assume that the family knows nothing about the pet.”

  “And?”

  “So that means it was someone else’s pet.” Kent ran his fingers through his hair. “Frankly, I had the strong impression that Graham had a girlfriend in town. Someone he was seeing on a fairly regular basis.” He shrugged. “It could be just a wild-goose chase, but maybe it was her pet he buried out there.”

  “What makes you think he had a girlfriend?”

  “Lots of little things. I’d find him in the partners’ washroom at night shaving or splashing on cologne. He was very vague about who he was meeting, where he was going. This was over the last couple of years. After a while I just assumed he was having an affair. He’d had others before, you know. Anyway, that’s why I came to you with this. I doubt whether his wife even knew about her. I don’t know if anyone knew who she was. But she might be a good lead.”

  “What was his girlfriend’s name?”

  Kent frowned. “He never mentioned any names. Like I say, I just sort of put two and two together.” Kent paused. “Wait a minute. Maybe he did mention a name. It was about a year ago. We were on the redeye out of LAX. Graham had a lot to drink on that flight. He didn’t come out and say he had a girlfriend. Nothing that direct. But he mentioned a girl’s name. Something with an S.” Kent frowned. “Sandy? Cindy? Sally? Something like that.”

  “You remember anything else?”

  “No. But maybe I will later.”

  “Give me a call if you do.”

  “I will,” he said. “Are you still having problems with it?”

  “With what?”

  “The codicil.”

  “Too early to tell for sure,” I said. “I’m going to try to wrap it up by the beginning of next week, and then I’ll give my report to Ishmael.”

  “Who do you think robbed the grave?” Kent asked.

  I shook my head. “No idea. Believe it or not, there’s been a second grave robbery.”

  “You’re kidding! They stole another coffin?”

  “No. A watchdog apparently scared him off before he reached the coffin.”

  “Weird,” Kent said, stroking his mustache. “It could be vandals, you know. That stuff happens. At least in human cemeteries. Have the police been told?”

  “Not yet.”

  I tried to check my watch unobtrusively around 5:30. Cindi and Benny were due back soon. She was still officially dead. I didn’t want her to run into Kent Charles. Especially Kent Charles. He was sure to be on the prowl. I wondered if I was getting jealous.

  Kent must have seen me check my watch, because he stood up to go. “I have to get back to the office,” he said. “I’m getting ready for a week of depositions.”

  “Bottles and Cans?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Of course. Too bad you won’t be joining us on the case. Listen, I’ll be done by 7:30. If you’re free, maybe we can grab a bite to eat. There’s a terrific Cajun place that just opened on Halsted Street.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I already have plans for tonight.”

  Kent shrugged. “Maybe some other time. You’re a busy woman.”

  “Not all the time,” I said with a smile.

  “Well, I’ll just have to keep asking, I guess.” He paused at the door. “If I think of anything else on this Canaan thing, I’ll give you a buzz.”

  After Kent left, I picked up my Dictaphone. I tried to get back to the trial brief, but I couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I opened another desk drawer and stared again at the contents, trying to remember.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Maggie Sullivan called at 6:15 p.m. to tell me she was running late. I put her on hold and told Cindi and Benny, who had walked in a few minutes earlier with armloads of packages from Marshall Field’s. Benny—whose lower intestinal tract was now, according to him, in stable condition—suggested the Billy Goat Tavern.

  “Can you meet me at the Billy Goat Tavern?” I asked Maggie. “Around 7:30?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll have two other people with me. Both of them know a little about the case.”

  “They aren’t cops, are they?”

  “No. Just friends.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you there.”

  Cindi put on her wig before we left. She now had long black hair, parted in the middle and ending just below her shoulders.

  “Amazing,” I said.

  “Put her in bell bottoms,” Benny said, “and she’s a refugee from Woodstock.”

  Benny, Cindi, and I walked down Washington Street to Michigan Avenue. As we crossed over the Chicago River, one of the sight-seeing boats passed underneath the bridge. Some of the passengers waved, and we waved back.

  Just beyond the Wrigley Building we took the stairway down into the perpetual darkness of Lower Michigan Avenue. Fashionable Michigan Avenue—the Magnificent Mile of designer dress shops, art galleries, the Ritz-Carlton, and Neiman-Marcus—runs directly over Lower Michigan Avenue, propped up on huge steel columns that vibrate as the limos and cabs pass overhead. Lower Michigan Avenue is the grande dame stripped of her makeup, jewelry, and Japanese cloth fan. The street is pocked and the air is dank. Cobwebs sag from the columns above, and an occasional rat s
curries out to drink from the oily puddles below. Tucked in a corner along Lower Michigan Avenue is the Billy Goat Tavern—a longtime hangout for Chicago journalists.

  We pushed past the crowded tables to a small table in the corner at the back of the restaurant, directly below a photograph of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. We each ordered a beer.

  I filled them in on Kent Charles’s visit to my office that afternoon. “And you’re sure he was never one of your customers?” I asked Cindi.

  “Never,” she said. “I’m positive.”

  Benny looked up. “Hey, there’s your friend.”

  I turned toward the front of the restaurant, where Maggie Sullivan was standing at the door in navy-blue double-knit slacks, a pink and blue floral print polyester short-sleeve shirt, and white tennis shoes. I stood up and waved to her. She saw me and started moving through the crowd toward our table, holding her navy-blue vinyl handbag over her head. I caught the waiter’s eye and ordered a beer for Maggie.

  Maggie hoisted her mug. “Down the hatch.” She took two big swallows.

  The long table in front of ours was packed with a softball team from one of the big insurance-defense law firms in town. The team members wore blue shirts with the team name—The Fender Benders—in white letters. They had downed a tremendous amount of beer, and several of them had staggered off to the men’s room. The shouts and laughter from their table, mixed with the general din of the restaurant, gave us almost total privacy at our small table near the back wall.

  We had finished our hamburgers and small talk. Maggie turned to me. “So, what was in the coffin?”

  “I’m virtually certain it wasn’t an animal,” I said. “The tombstone says 1985. But he buried it in June of 1986. That’s at least a six-month lag. Who would keep a dead animal that long before burying it?” I paused. “I’m pretty sure what he buried was a computer printout.”

  I described Tyrone Henderson’s computer search for the Canaan file. “The dates match,” I explained. “Marshall printed out a seven-hundred-page document from the Canaan file late at night in May 1986. A couple weeks later he has you bury a coffin in your cemetery and erects a tombstone for Canaan.”