by Jan Burke
“No, why?”
“I’ve got two big dogs and a cat.” I explained to him that I thought it might be best if we put him up for a while.
“I couldn’t…”
“Sure you could. You’ll be safer, our animals will appreciate the added attention, and I won’t be up all night wondering if Yeager has figured out that you’re listed in the phone book. Stay at least until they have enough on Yeager to arrest him,” I said. “Or until you can find another place to live.”
“I’ve imposed enough on you.”
“The imposition will be if I have to spend another hour or two demonstrating that I am really much more stubborn than you. Go and pack what you’ll need for tonight and tomorrow, and then Frank can come back with you over the weekend.”
He hesitated.
“Are you so attached to this place you can’t bear to leave?”
He looked around the empty room and sighed. “No.”
He stepped into the hallway, which led to a bathroom and bedroom, and opened the hall closet. He pulled a garment bag from it. “You know, I don’t think what I said about Eden Supply bothered Mitch Yeager much.”
“Let’s not bet on it. He had no idea that anyone knew the name of the company or connected it to him until you blurted that out to him. That information wasn’t public yet.”
This had obviously not occurred to him, because his eyes widened in dismay. “Shit!”
“Too late to worry about it now, Ethan. What were you trying to say about Yeager being bothered?”
“Just that it seemed to me that he was more upset by something I lied about completely, you know, trying to get him to think I knew more than I did.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I told him that I had helped you go through some things of O’Connor’s before I got in trouble, and that while you were going through O’Connor’s stuff, I was going through the things that belonged to his murdered sister. I said maybe O’Connor had been too heartbroken to ever look at them, or just didn’t know what he was seeing, but that I had found a few items that belonged to Maureen that might be worth something to somebody. I said I was sure he knew why I thought he’d be interested in them. That was when he agreed to see me.”
“What items?”
“I was bluffing, so I didn’t get specific.”
“The sooner we get out of here, the better. And I hope to God they don’t break into the storage unit.”
While he packed up a few items from the bedroom and bathroom, I told him about our meeting with Betty Bradford.
He glanced around the apartment again, then said, “I think that’s everything.” He patted the front of his suit coat and said, “Oh, I forgot—”
But before I could learn what it was he forgot, the door to the apartment came flying open.
Eric Yeager stood pointing a gun at us, and Ian came in not much behind him, also armed. Eric moved forward, and Ian closed the door.
“Must be my lucky day,” Eric said.
65
THEY DIDN’T LOOK ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM WHEN I’D LAST SEEN THEM, during their trial. Their clothing was dark and more casual this time, and they were wearing gloves. They had gained some weight, gone a little soft around the middle, but they were tall and big-shouldered. Nothing about them said they lacked strength. Their faces were a little more wrinkled. They had better tans. Their hair might have been dyed. I noted these things in nothing more than a glimpse, because I couldn’t seem to make myself take my eyes off the business ends of their guns.
“Hands folded on top of your head,” Eric said.
Ethan said, “No need to hold guns on us—”
“We’ll decide that,” Ian said. “Now hands up and shut up.” He looked over at me. “What’s she doing here?”
“I thought you two were enemies,” Eric said to Ethan. “Wasn’t that the story you gave my uncle? What’s with the luggage?”
“I’m afraid our secret’s out now,” Ethan said to me, with a look that did an excellent job of mixing embarrassment with adoration.
“Ethan, for God’s sake…” I said in exasperation.
“You two have ruined everything,” Ethan said to them. “We could have been gone before her husband discovered us.”
We are going to be killed, I thought, seeing Eric’s anger. Right now. I’m going to die on the carpet of this crappy apartment.
“Eric!” Ian said sharply.
“You’ll be gone all right,” Eric said to Ethan. “Now shut your mouth.”
They bound our wrists behind us with duct tape and took my purse and keys. They forced us to walk out to the Jeep. I kept hoping that one of the party animals in Ethan’s building would open his door and see that two people were being led out at gunpoint. No luck. Eric and Ian probably could have capped us right there in the hallway without anyone knowing about it for hours.
Eric disarmed the alarm, and they put us in the backseat of the Jeep. I found myself thinking wildly that at least he couldn’t stuff us in a trunk. Eric and Ian got in the front seats — after arguing briefly over who would drive, Eric took the driver’s seat. He locked all our doors. He put on his seat belt and adjusted the mirrors. These little actions of protecting his safety as he stole my car with me in it had the effect of making me angry, which took a little of the edge off my fear. I calmed downed enough to find a slim hope. The LoJack.
Someone had to report the car missing, though, before police would try to track the LoJack’s signal. How long before Frank would think he needed to call me, let alone come looking for my car?
I looked over at Ethan to see how he was faring. He seemed to have been waiting for my attention. He leaned toward me and whispered, almost too low for me to hear, “Trust me.”
Right. I tried not to let him see just how stupid I thought that idea was. I saw Ian glance up in the rearview mirror.
At that moment, in a voice a little louder than a whisper, Ethan said, “Not the secret place. Tell them it’s at the storage unit.”
Ian, who had not put on his seat belt, whipped around and pointed his gun at us. “I told you to shut up, you sneaky little bastard.”
Eric drove a convoluted route, and then, not more than three blocks from where we had started, the car turned down a ramp that led into a parking structure. Eric pulled out a key card and pushed it into a slot. This raised a heavy steel gate. He drove under it, and the gate lowered. I felt my hopes lower with it. It sealed us in.
He drove through the deserted structure, following the curve of the ramp to a level that could not be seen by anyone who might approach the other side of the gate at street level.
He came to a stop near a long limousine. He got out of the Jeep. The back window of the limousine rolled down. After a brief discussion, he came back and told Ian, “He wants them out.”
We were taken from the Jeep.
Ian walked over to me, and without saying a word, punched me in the face. I lost my balance and fell hard to the concrete. My head was swimming. Ian stood over me, smiling down. “That’s just the beginning of what I owe you,” he said, and kicked me in the ribs. My feet were still free, so I kicked him back hard, on the ankle.
“God damn it!” he shouted, and aimed his gun at my head.
Ethan shouted, “No, don’t… please…”
“Ian!”
Ian turned toward the man who had called his name.
Mitch Yeager was not frail. He stood straight and tall, his large, dark eyes boring into Ian’s. His skin looked a bit translucent and his hair was on the thin and weedy side, but he was not, despite my hopes, someone who looked ready to pop off at any moment. He had been handsome in his day, but there was little sign of that now. His mouth had a bitter set to it that seemed to pull all his features into following its lead.
He was a big man, but a little shorter than his nephews. That he still stood in command of Eric and Ian was clear. Ian lowered his eyes and moved back from me, unable to meet his uncle’s stare. Mitch glanced at Eri
c, who ducked his head as well. I looked for some sign of the rebelliousness Eric had shown in the past and didn’t see it.
Mitch turned the stare on Ethan, who wasn’t hiding his feelings so well now, and I knew that any second, the old man would notice the fear and remorse I was seeing on Ethan’s face. I slowly maneuvered myself to my feet again and tried to convey to Ethan, with nothing more than a look, that I was okay, that he should calm down.
He got the message. He pulled himself back into his ace bullshitter mode.
He smiled at Mitch. “I’m glad you can see there’s no need to hurt anyone. This is all just a simple misunderstanding.”
“Is it?” Mitch Yeager asked.
“Of course it is. I can see that you might misunderstand our intentions, but we just needed a little traveling money, that’s all. We both want to get as far away from Frank Harriman’s reach as possible, and you know, that’s not going to be cheap. We have to relocate outside the U.S., right, honey?”
I smiled weakly. It hurt my mouth.
“A little old for you, isn’t she?” Mitch asked.
“No,” Ethan said simply. I was relieved he didn’t try to oversell that. I was feeling embarrassed enough as it was.
It seemed to work, because after Yeager looked between us, he said, “We haven’t got time for your romance, Mr. Shire. Now. You have something of mine.”
“It’s in a storage unit not far from here.”
Mitch looked at Ian. Ian hauled off and punched Ethan.
He lost his balance and fell onto the concrete.
Ian kicked him, making him cry out in pain. He curled his legs up to his chest, trying to protect himself from another blow.
“Stop it!” I shouted. My voice echoed throughout the structure, a voice lost in a concrete canyon. That earned me a gloved hand clapped over my mouth. I bit it. That won a slap hard enough to make me dizzy.
“Get him on his feet,” Mitch said. He turned to me. “You shut your mouth, or I’ll have him tape it shut, you understand?”
I nodded.
“Now,” Mitch said to Ethan. “Where is it?”
Ethan’s eyes were starting to tear up. He said, “I told you.”
Mitch nodded. Ian hit him again.
Ethan hit the ground and groaned as he lay there. His mouth and nose were bleeding now.
“Hit him again,” Mitch said.
“No, wait,” I said. “Wait!” Eric reached into the pocket that held the duct tape.
Mitch turned toward me and motioned Eric to wait.
“It was never necessary for matters to reach this point,” Mitch said. “You’ve forced all of us to do things we’d prefer not to do. But since you’ve brought all this trouble about, I should warn you that I don’t mind the idea of killing you both. And it really wouldn’t bother me at all to see you suffer before you die. I may only have a few minutes to do that, but I know ways to make your last few minutes seem like hours. Do you understand? Now, what were you about to say?”
I tried not to let him see how scared I was. He was an expert in suffering, all right — I thought of what he had done to O’Connor and his family by killing Maureen and hiding her body — and with that thought, I had my answer, as clearly as if O’Connor was standing right at my side to prompt it.
“The cemetery.”
“What?” Mitch said. “What the hell did you say?”
“Municipal Cemetery.”
Ethan’s eyes had widened. He clearly thought I was crazy.
Yeager looked at him and perhaps misread his reaction — believed Ethan was upset that a secret had been told. He studied Ethan, then said, “Now, why should you pick a place like that?”
I tried mental telepathy, prayers, you name it, hoping he could see some reasons — the cemetery was not near here, so getting over there would give us some time. Openness, darkness, headstones, and statuary to hide behind. Better for our chances of survival than the narrow enclosed storage unit.
“I wrote a story about it,” Ethan said. “I go there a lot.”
“Why?”
“It’s closed now, because of the investigations they did after the story broke. But who knows what they might find there? So I know which graves they’re working on, and which ones they’ve finished with.”
“An investigation, and they just let you have the run of the place?”
Ethan smiled up at him, his battered face not affecting his ability to look cocky. “They wouldn’t have an investigation at all if it weren’t for me, would they? And they’re used to seeing me around, supposedly doing follow-up, so they don’t pay much attention to me or anything I’m doing.”
“Get him off the floor.”
He groaned again as Ian pulled him up by an arm. He didn’t look too steady on his feet this time.
“Keep talking,” Mitch said. “Make it fast.”
“There are a lot of empty crypts and graves. There are others that have too many bodies in them. Some vaults that don’t have coffins in them — a nice place to store something if you need to. No one is going to be buried in Municipal Cemetery any time soon — the state is taking forever, having a forensic anthropologist work on it, all of that. Ben Sheridan. He’s taken over part of one of the buildings just to sort bones.”
I realized that some of what he was saying must be true — he must have gone by the cemetery fairly recently, or he wouldn’t know about Ben.
“Never mind that,” Mitch said.
“I’m just saying, I’m one of the few people allowed in there.”
“At this time of night?”
“No, but I know a way in.”
“No night watchman?”
“That’s the beauty of it. The people who were robbing the graves and moving bodies around were with the company that operated the cemetery. The night watchman was in on it. He was fired.”
“And not replaced yet?”
“No. There are police patrols. At first they came by a lot, but it’s been over a month now, so they’ve cut back. The cops have already seen me there, too, supposedly hoping for a follow-up story, trying to get the mood of the place at night right. They think I’m kind of pitiful, really. If we’re careful, they won’t be a problem.”
“Seems like too much trouble for a hiding place. Maybe I should have your apartment searched, just in case you’re full of shit.”
“Go ahead. You won’t find what you’re looking for. You ought to know why I chose the cemetery.”
Mitch’s eyes narrowed. “Me?”
“I got the idea from you,” Ethan said. “From the orange grove. Let someone else do all the digging, right? What’s a better place to bury something than a grave?”
Mitch smiled. “Or bury someone.”
He walked back to his limousine. If he left us in the garage with his nephews, we were as good as dead. Or, considering the Yeagers’ ideas about suffering, maybe not that good.
He halted, then called Eric over to him. I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead. I thought of running now, taking cover wherever I could, hoping Frank would be looking for the Jeep, hoping the LoJack signal would work two levels down in an underground garage. This plan seemed unlikely to do anything other than get both of us killed.
I glanced over at Ethan. His face was still bleeding, but he held his head up. When he saw that I was looking at him, he managed a small smile — not a cocky one this time. It seemed to say, So far, so good. Hang in there.
It reached me in a way no threat from Yeager could have. I stood straighter. He noticed and gave a little nod.
Eric came back. “We’re all going in the Jeep.”
“All of us?” Ian said.
“Yes. You drive, I’ll get in back with these two. Smart boy here is going to show that he’s not stupid enough to try to bullshit the Yeagers.”
66
MITCH DISMISSED HIS LIMO AND DRIVER AND GOT INTO THE FRONT passenger seat of my Jeep, where he began barking orders. Although Ian had lived in Las Piernas for several decad
es, either he had no sense of direction or he had never learned where Municipal Cemetery was.
We drove into the hills above the city. At one point, I disagreed with Mitch on how to get there, trying to prolong the drive.
“Shut your pie hole,” Eric said, leveling his gun at me. “And keep it shut. Far as I can tell, you’ve already been all the use you’re going to be to us, anyway.”
I sat back as far as my taped wrists would allow.
We came within sight of the cemetery. We drove past its front gates, which were locked. A tall, solid plywood fence stood behind the gates, the kind you sometimes see around construction sites, in this case, apparently to block a view into the cemetery. Just over the top of the temporary fence, faint moonlight reflected off the top portions of a yellow backhoe and a dump truck parked near it. A large sign read MUNICIPAL CEMETERY TEMPORARILY CLOSED
and gave a number for families and others to call.
“All right,” Mitch said, “where’s this secret entrance of yours, kid?”
Ethan directed Ian down a small side road. The road ran along the eastern edge of the cemetery for a short distance before dead-ending at a field. “Park here,” he said. To our left was an auto body shop and next to it, a screen door repair shop. Both businesses were dark and locked up for the night.
We sat there for a few minutes with the engine running while Eric got out and looked around, checking for traps. Eventually, he motioned that all was okay, and came back to help Ian take us out of the car.
Almost from the first breath, it was there — not overwhelming, but distinct. A mustiness, mixed with the slightly sweet scent that sometimes mingles with that of decay.
Ian sniffed at the air and made a face.
“I know,” Eric said. “What is that?”
“Open graves,” Ethan said.
The brothers exchanged a look. “You’re shitting me,” Eric said.
“He’s telling the truth,” I said.
There were other scents and sounds as well. Las Piernas Municipal Cemetery is a little over a century old and was at one time surrounded by oil derricks. Most of the derricks are gone, but the pumping units remain, and we heard the rhythmic growling sound of the rotating gears of several oil well pumps in the field beyond the cemetery.
