by Jan Burke
“It’s Ma,” Adam said. “She’s dead.”
“What happened?” Mitch asked, working hard to hide what he felt — a vast relief.
“She was in an accident,” the policeman said gently.
“She was hit by a streetcar,” Adam said. “She tripped and fell right in front of it. Nothing the conductor could do.”
“Were you there?” Mitch asked.
“No,” Adam said, watching him carefully.
Mitch thought he was trying to convey some message to him. He tried to read the look and asked, “Was she drunk?”
“Now, sonny, that’s no way to think about her,” the policeman said.
Adam said, “Of course she was.”
“What’s going to happen to us now?” Mitch asked.
The policeman, not knowing his real fear, said, “You’ll be fine now. Don’t you worry.”
“Grandfather is on his way,” Adam said. “We’re going to live at his place.”
“Together?” Mitch asked.
“Always,” Adam said, ruffling his hair. “I’m not ever going to let anyone keep me away from my little brother.”
Their grandfather, Theodore Granville, proved to be a shrewd man, but not, so far as his grandsons were concerned, an unkind one. He was amused to learn that the boys referred to him as “the chief” and preferred they call him that rather than Grandfather. He had made most of his money in oil, and later in real estate, and had interests now in a variety of concerns. He was by no means a blue blood — a self-made man who had worked his own way out of poverty as a wildcatter in the oil fields, he was, Mitch came to see, not above using any means he could to gain an advantage over a rival.
For the most part, during those early years, he did not want to be troubled too often with his grandsons, an arrangement that suited the boys well. Adam cautioned Mitch that they had to do whatever the old man asked, because this good fortune could be lost as easily as it was gained. Mitch thought the chief had taken too strong a liking to Adam to kick them out, but he heeded Adam’s warnings all the same.
So they met the chief’s requirements that they be clean and well dressed and quickly learned any rule of etiquette he asked them to adhere to, and did not interrupt any gathering he held or cross the paths of his guests. He more than met their needs for food, clothing, and shelter. He provided them a generous allowance.
Adam, more easily bored than Mitch, soon involved himself in bolder adventures outside the house. Having learned that he had a knack for theft and leading toughs, he was unable to give up either pursuit. He managed to talk his grandfather into buying him a sleek boat. Later, his grandfather served as Adam’s business partner, sharing in Adam’s profits as a rumrunner.
His grandfather suffered setbacks during the Depression, but kept up appearances as much as possible. While still a teenager, Mitch learned that Adam and his grandfather had a number of shared businesses, not all of them legitimate, and each began to prepare Mitch to take his place in these concerns.
Mitch moved in higher social circles than his brother, and even gained entry to households where his grandfather had been snubbed. Not every door was open, of course. He drew the eye of Lillian Vanderveer, whose parents disapproved of him, and did their best to keep them apart.
Adam married a girl who had more looks than sense. At the chief’s insistence, Adam and his wife continued to live in the mansion. Two sons were born to them — Eric in 1934, and a year later, Ian. Mitch doted on them as if they were his own. Life seemed good.
Then, in late 1935, Adam’s luck ran out — he was arrested.
The chief used all his power, but to no avail. The papers made hay out of Adam’s arrest and trial. The old man was heartbroken. He died on New Year’s Day, 1936, and it later seemed to Mitch that he should have taken that as a sign of how terrible the year would be.
The milk was tepid now, and Mitch set the glass aside. He shut the train off and moved toward his desk. He stood for a while looking at two of the framed photos there. One was of his brother, Adam, at about the age of twenty — smiling, looking cocky as always. The other was of Mitch’s adopted son, taken when he was nine — the boy who was calling himself Max Ducane now, the boy who had so recently and so publicly renounced his ties to the Yeagers.
He reached for the photo of Kyle and stared at it.
Why had he ever given him any name at all? What did the little son of a bitch think would have happened to him if he hadn’t been adopted? Instead of letting him suffer the fate he deserved, he had given the brat his own name, and his brother’s name, and his family name, and much more. More than he himself had ever had as a boy. Put the little asshole through college — Ivy League, too. That wasn’t cheap.
He spent a moment wishing his own kids were half as bright as Kyle, but unfortunately they got their brains from their mother.
That didn’t make him feel any better about Kyle. He had, of course, always had his own reasons for anything he did on his adopted son’s behalf, but what did that matter?
The kid had betrayed him, plain and simple. Fuck him, and fuck Warren Ducane, too.
He placed the photo in a desk drawer, facedown.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number.
“Have you found him yet?” he asked.
He did not get the answer he wanted.
Nothing would help him sleep tonight.
25
O’CONNOR MANAGED TO AVOID ME FOR A WEEK. I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING to make that difficult for him. He was covering Warren Ducane’s disappearance — thought to be voluntary — and the Max Ducane story, so he wasn’t in the newsroom much.
He found time to interview Bennie Lee Harmon, who had been convicted of killing two Las Piernas prostitutes back in the late 1950s. Harmon’s death penalty conviction, along with those of about a hundred other prisoners, had been commuted to life with the possibility of parole by a Supreme Court decision in 1972, and now the state parole board had set this “model prisoner” free. O’Connor did his best to get someone to give a damn about the killer’s release, but most of the people who had investigated the case were no longer living, nobody from the hookers’ families showed up at the parole hearing, and apparently Harmon didn’t plan to return to Las Piernas, so the story quickly made the journey to the back pages and then faded completely.
I faded, too. I was back to being the reporter’s equivalent of an errand boy.
That mindless sort of work was all right with me, because the weekend had been a bad one for my father. That occupied my thoughts and my time far more than any need to smooth things over with O’Connor and took away any urge I might have had to turn in the best story anyone had ever seen on the new style of parking meters being installed downtown. Dad was doing better by Wednesday, though, and I was able to start focusing on my work again.
I drove out to the southeastern edge of the city on Friday morning for what I was sure would be my biggest job challenge yet — making an interesting story out of a “grip and grin” piece. My red-hot assignment was the groundbreaking ceremony for a shopping center.
“You’re a girl, you should be able to write it the way the ladies want to read it,” said Pierce, one of the old codgers. He thought he was being encouraging.
By Las Piernas standards, it was going to be a big mall, taking over one of the only remaining stretches of farmland in the city. I had dreamed of coming up with a more interesting angle — something about the last farmer in southeastern Las Piernas County watching sadly as his way of life was paved over by a parking lot. Not quite the loss of paradise in the old Joni Mitchell song, but close.
Unfortunately, the previous owner, a guy named Griffin Baer, had been dead for a few years, and according to the lawyer who had handled the sale for his heirs, Baer hadn’t lived on or personally farmed the land. In fact, Baer had been living miles away — in an oceanfront mansion — when he died. The last of the noble farmers had turned out to be a rich absentee landowner, and the sale of the land to dev
elopers nothing more glamorous than the end of a family squabble over the inheritance.
There went my angle.
The ribbon cutting when the completed mall opened next year would be a bigger story. I was just on hand to watch a few businessmen and politicians pretend to use a shovel.
The ground was actually already “broken” — rough grading had been done, and stakes here and there indicated where the next phase would begin. I found the construction supervisor, a gent by the name of Brian O’Malley, who in the course of introductions mentioned to me that he knew a Patrick Kelly.
“That’s my dad’s name.”
“Did your father go to St. Francis High School?”
“Yes, he did. You, too?”
“Yes. And you’ve something of the look of him. How is Patrick these days?”
“Fine,” I lied.
He wrote a phone number on the back of his business card. “That’s my home number. Have your old man give me a call.”
“I’ll do that,” I said.
He made sure I had a good seat for the ceremony. The event went the way every groundbreaking ceremony went. Speeches promising everyone that building a mall would lead to prosperity for the community. Guys in suits who hadn’t had their hands on so much as a gardening trowel in decades taking turns posing with a “golden” ceremonial shovel.
The paper hadn’t bothered sending a photographer, so I had to take the photos myself. I did the best I could, but I doubted any of the subjects would be asking if they could buy prints.
I interviewed the city council members, the mayor, the developer, the district manager for one of the department store chains. Not one of them said anything original.
I hung around long after the “show” was over — mostly, I admitted to myself, to avoid going back to the newsroom. While I dawdled, the suits drove off and the actual construction crew started to go to work. An idea struck me, and I approached Mr. O’Malley again.
“Mind if I talk to some of the real ‘groundbreakers’?” I asked.
He laughed and said, “That would be a first.” He studied me for a moment and said, “They’ll tease you unmercifully and their language isn’t fit for a lady, but I suppose a lady reporter is used to such things.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“I’ll bet you will.” He started introducing me to the crew.
They asked to see my credentials to prove I was a real reporter, and one asked me if Las Piernas was so hard up for high society that guys in hardhats now qualified. Others immediately and accurately accused me of playing hooky from the office and gave me some good-natured razzing, asking if I really couldn’t think of anything better to do than pester them when they were trying to get some work done. But when they saw I was serious about writing about them, they began to tell me more about their work, their equipment, and best of all, themselves.
A backhoe operator was showing me the accuracy with which he could scrape a layer of earth, when there was a screeching sound that was something like an amplified version of fingernails on a blackboard. It made my shoulders bunch up.
We turned toward the source of the sound — a giant bulldozer excavating an area a few yards away. I heard O’Malley shout for him to hold up.
By the time I walked over, the bulldozer had backed away.
“It’s a car,” O’Malley said.
“I thought this was farmland,” I said, snapping a photo. “It wasn’t a junkyard, was it?”
“No, but back before all these environmental laws started being passed, people buried their trash all the time.”
“Have you found a lot of other buried trash out here today?”
He frowned, then called the backhoe man over. Before long, an old, smashed-up blue Buick was uncovered. “From the fifties at least,” one of the men said.
“We’ve delayed enough,” Brian O’Malley said. “Let’s get the damned thing out of here.”
One of the men had moved to the trunk and had been working at opening it. When he heard Brian’s order, he said, “Wait, maybe there’s a briefcase full of money in here.” He managed to free the latch, but as he opened the trunk, his face went white. “Holy shit, Brian…”
We moved to take a look.
“People,” I said, staring in disbelief at the pile of bones and dried sinew before me. Two loose hollow-eyed skulls stared back from within.
“Fuck me, there goes the schedule,” Brian said in disgust. Then remembering my presence, said, “Don’t you dare tell your father I said that in front of you.”
26
THE BODIES WERE SORT OF MUMMIFIED — DRIED OUT, YELLOWISH-BROWN sinew clinging to bone. Both skulls damaged. A man and a woman, judging from the long, stained dress and the man’s suit and knot of what looked like it had been a tie near one skull. Piled on top of each other, woman below. And small shiny objects glistened here and there. I took a deep breath and forced myself to take a few more photos before Brian slammed the lid of the trunk closed. “That’s it for now, my girl….”
I know that a true newshound should have been begging him to open it again, but I was really kind of relieved to have the bodies out of sight. I felt a little shaky.
“Doug!” he called to one of the burliest men. “You make sure no one else touches this thing, all right?”
“Sure, boss.”
Brian walked back toward his trailer, and I followed him, struggling to keep up with his long-legged stride.
“Did you see what was in there?” I asked.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I mean, besides the remains.”
He stopped walking.
“Diamonds scattered over the floor of the trunk,” I said.
“Or cut glass,” he said, but he didn’t believe that any more than I did.
I was ready to fight H.G. for the right to keep covering the story, had my arguments all lined up, and figured I’d have to take them to John Walters — the news editor — and Wrigley as well. But H.G. surprised me. He heard me out as I told him the basics of the situation, then, after a moment’s silence, he said, “I’m going to let you stay on this on your own for now. But you are going to have to make some promises to me right here and now — you’re not going to hold information back from me, and you’re going to call for help if you need it.”
I readily promised. “Actually, if I’m staying here to watch what goes on — do you think I could ask for help from someone who might be able to learn more about the property’s past? Someone who won’t try to take the story from me?”
He laughed. “Sure. Have anyone in mind?”
“Lydia Ames.”
“She’s in features.”
“Trust me. We did a story in our college paper about the university annexing some property — Lydia did all the county record work.” I gave him the details I had on Griffin Baer, which weren’t many. “The car looks as if it’s from the 1950s, but maybe it wasn’t new when it was buried. Lydia can find out how long Baer owned the property, and talk to the heirs to learn who lived out here if he didn’t.”
“If features can spare her from her work there, okay. If not, I’ll find someone else and make him keep his mitts off your story.”
I reassured him that I had a roll of dimes and that I’d call back if I needed any other help, then hurried back out to the pit that held the car.
Most of the outside of the car was so dirty, you couldn’t see much inside. I doubted that absolutely clean car windows would have helped much, because the front windshield had collapsed, and most of the passenger area of the car was filled with dirt, too. The grill was smashed in, making it look as if the car had been in an accident, but maybe that happened during the burial process. There were no license plates on the car.
The police arrived, ending my snooping. Uniformed officers, and not much later, two guys in suits. One of the suits was a broad-shouldered, gray-haired man I guessed to be in his fifties, with a pleasant, easygoing manner. He introduced himself as Detective Ma
tt Arden. He ignored my presence almost immediately and focused his attention on Brian and the workmen.
His partner was tall and slender and far more reserved. He was younger than Arden, probably about forty. No one would have called him handsome. His features were harsh, but he had big, beautiful, intense brown eyes. He looked over the group of us who stood near the car, taking note of everything and everyone. Eventually he was looking at me. I could almost hear him singing to himself, “One of these things is not like the others…”
“Irene Kelly,” I said, holding out a hand. “Las Piernas News Express.”
His face kept its oh-so-serious expression, but he shook my hand — nice, firm handshake. “Philip Lefebvre, Las Piernas Police Department.”
I heard the mimicry of the form of my introduction and smiled. Taking care with the pronunciation of his last name, I said, “Detective Lefebvre, you can’t do much for the folks in the trunk of the car, but you can save a life today.”
“Yours?” he said, and smiled. He had a chipped front tooth. For some reason, I found it endearing.
“Oh yes. I was sent out here to cover the groundbreaking of a shopping center. I don’t suppose I need to tell you how much this changes things.”
“These victims are giving you a career opportunity, then?”
I don’t think I flinched — outwardly, anyway. “Don’t pretend they might not do the same for you.”
He gave a Gallic shrug. “We don’t even know if this is a homicide yet.”
“I suppose they could have crawled into the trunk of a car, closed it, and even completed their murder-suicide pact inside the trunk, but I don’t know how they got the gun out of the car, or buried the car while they were in it, for that matter. Especially not in their evening clothes. Hell, I don’t even know how they got their arms back down at their sides after they shot themselves.”
“How could you know they were shot?” he asked, then noticed the camera in my hand. “Have you been taking photographs of the car and its contents?”
