Hidden Graves

by Jack Fredrickson

  ‘How about Wade?’ I asked her. ‘I didn’t see him when I walked up.’

  ‘It’s election day, remember?’ she said. ‘A car came for him right after I called you. He got in and was whisked away without so much as a wave. Maybe it was too small a fire to elicit his attention. Jimbo shot video of him anyway, looking studiously uninterested.’

  ‘Election day for sure,’ I said.

  ‘I told the lieutenant here that we’d been in the woods behind Wade’s house, just yesterday,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Everyone in Illinois seemed to be in the woods behind Wade’s house yesterday,’ the lieutenant said. ‘What a waste of time.’

  A police officer wearing plastic gloves came out of the trees carrying my shovel by the point of its blade, upside down. It was scorched almost beyond recognition, as though it had been drenched with accelerant.

  ‘Have your guys move your truck,’ he called to the fire department lieutenant. ‘The fire’s been out for a long time and we’ve got a crime scene in those woods.’

  ‘You mean worse than arson?’ Jenny asked the cop.

  The cop didn’t answer. He opened the rear door of his car and set the shovel on the seat.

  ‘I’d better leave,’ I said.

  ‘Not me,’ Jenny said. ‘We’ve got news happening here.’

  I started back to the Jeep, but passing the guardhouse I noticed it was still empty. Someone should have been inside, defending the fortress against firemen, cops and the two or three neighbors milling about on the road.

  I pushed at the gate. It slid open easily. It had not been left locked.

  I walked up the drive and rang the bell. Though Timothy Wade had left, someone else was surely at home. Someone who was not paralyzed. Someone who could walk.

  I peeked through the sidelight. The house was dark inside. I rang the bell again. More minutes passed.

  The knob turned easily. Wade might have accidentally left the door unlocked or perhaps he figured it was unnecessary to lock it since a guard was expected to be in the shack.

  Jenny was just across the road but I thought it better to call.

  ‘I thought you’d left,’ she said.

  ‘About Wade being driven away this morning …?’

  She laughed, happy on the cusp of a developing major story. ‘I remember like it was just this morning.’

  ‘The car that came to get him – did it have to wait for the gate to be opened?’

  She thought for a moment, then said, ‘No. It waited on the road. Wade walked out through the gate.’

  ‘He opened it?’

  ‘Slid it back just enough to get out. As I told you, I figured he would say a few words before he got in the car, about the fire, about election day, about anything. He didn’t. He just got in and was driven away.’

  ‘And the gate stayed closed behind him?’

  ‘He’d only opened it a little. These are strange questions, Dek.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing a guard in the shack?’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I haven’t seen a night-shift guard.’

  ‘I don’t remember what the gate did,’ she said. ‘And speaking of pea coats …’

  ‘There are thousands of them in Illinois,’ I said, and clicked off. I opened Wade’s front door all the way.

  ‘Hello?’ I called in, inventively.

  After a minute of silence, I called in again. No one responded.

  I stepped inside. ‘Miss Wade?’ I shouted, and then strained to listen, but no one called back.

  I walked to the base of the stairs and knelt to the chairlift screw that had worked its way out from the track mounted to the wall. That loose screw had bothered me the first time I saw it, and it bothered me even more once I’d found a long-unneeded wheelchair left in the back seat of the Cadillac parked in the sunken garage. A spider had spun a small web around the loose screw. Dust, maybe several years’ worth, had been caught in the web.

  I turned the screw. It turned too easily. I pushed it with my thumb. It slipped easily into the wall. It had worked its way out of the wall, from long use. But now it was useless. A thicker, longer screw was needed to safely snug the chairlift track to the wall.

  No one had used the lift in a long time and that made no sense. For surely it had been needed once, starting with Theresa Wade’s trampoline accident, when she was ten years old.

  ‘So what if she can walk?’ Sergeant Bohler had asked as she watched the video of the figure moving behind an upstairs window. There was no crime in pretending to be paralyzed, she’d said.

  That made no sense either.

  ‘Miss Wade?’ I shouted up the stairs.

  Again, there was no response.

  I started up the stairs.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  It was barely the middle of the day. There’d been nothing on the radio, or television, or the Internet about the fire. I was tired but I couldn’t sleep. I tried to work on my ductwork but my hands were as nervous as my head. They wanted to call Jenny and ask what had been found in the ground. My head told them to be patient.

  My phone finally rang at two o’clock. I got it on the first ring but it was Amanda. ‘It was just on the news that there was a fire across from Tim’s.’

  ‘So I understand.’ I hated to be vague but I wanted to explain in person.

  ‘Crime-scene analysts were called in. They set up a tent. The search yesterday was merely conducted in the wrong place?’

  ‘I hope that’s why there’s a tent.’ A different worry then rose up. ‘I forgot to check Keller’s column in the Argus-Observer this morning.’

  ‘Your past history is inexplicably expressing itself in a new vendetta against our future senator, Tim Wade,’ she recited. ‘Because we were once married, it’s going to send my company into bankruptcy. Details to follow.’

  ‘What’s your press office saying?’

  ‘Not what I wanted, which was that Keller’s meds are failing. Not to worry; our stock is up five points this morning.’ Then she said, ‘I’ll bet you’re dying to tell me much more about what’s going on, right?’

  ‘As soon as I see you,’ I said, relieved.

  ‘That will be tonight. We’ll do something really exciting.’

  ‘Your jet to Tahiti? It’ll only take a minute to pack my Peeps.’

  ‘I’m expected to attend Tim Wade’s victory celebration at the Palmer House. I can bring a date.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘They’ll have cocktail wienies and little squares of hard cheese.’ She knew I was a sucker for high cuisine. And confrontation.

  She said Wade was set to declare victory at ten so I should meet her at the hotel at nine-thirty. She hung up before I could tell her that she was nuts.

  And that I loved her.

  I listened to radio news all afternoon but nothing beyond a routine-sounding arson investigation was being reported. The lid on the case was tight.

  Jenny called at three-thirty. ‘I’m doing a breaking news leader for the four o’clock on Channel Eight.’

  ‘Reporting what?’

  ‘Only what the cops will let me confirm. John Shea was discovered buried in the woods. His wallet was in his jeans. The Winnetka police chief said he might have something bigger for me later if I play along. They’re still in the woods.’

  ‘They found Halvorson’s grave, too?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Shea’s cause of death?’

  ‘Gunshots, recent, twice to the chest, but I can’t say that until the medical examiner confirms it. I can’t even say he was found buried. For now, I’m going along, about to mislead the public by inferring he died in the fire in the hope they’ll give me more.’

  ‘I’m going to Wade’s victory celebration tonight.’

  ‘You?’ She laughed. ‘They’ll never let you in.’

  ‘I’m going with Amanda. Wade’s going to speak at ten.’

  ‘At ten? You’re sure? At ten?’

&n
bsp; ‘What’s raging in your mind?’

  ‘Election day,’ she said.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  In the eight decades since the latest incarnation of the Palmer House was built, it had hosted all of the city’s ruling elite at one gathering or another. I loved the venerable old place for its architecture, history and proximity to Millenium Park, the lakefront and the chicken pot pie served in the Walnut Room of what used to be Marshall Field’s before it was darkened cheaply into a Macy’s. Mostly, though, I loved Palmer House for my memories of when Amanda taught and curated at the nearby Art Institute and we used to meet for a drink beneath Bertha Palmer’s exquisite ceiling frescoes. They still serve good booze there, but earnest business creatures with laptop squints have sucked the levity out of the first floor, so lately I’ve retreated to the seclusion of the alcoves on the balcony to wait for the day when a grander parade passes by.

  That night came close. Finely attired folks I recognized from the newspapers and local television marched up the marble steps to the ballroom to be seen applauding Timothy Wade.

  Amanda arrived promptly at half past nine, lovely in a black dress and the garnet earrings I’d bought her because they caught the fire in her eyes. She sat on the other chair in the alcove. ‘You wore a tie,’ she said.

  ‘Not just any tie. The yellow bow model you gave me not so long ago.’

  ‘And you remembered how to tie it?’

  ‘With instructional help from a high-school boy in an online video,’ I said, giving a modest, two-handed tug to the ends of the bows. ‘Still, even wearing such a splendid tie, I’m not sure my attendance will be welcome.’

  ‘If Tim’s innocent, he won’t mind. If he’s not, you’re the least of his worries.’

  ‘You watched the news?’

  ‘Jennifer Gale’s report at four o’clock and again at six. She didn’t report much, other than it was John Shea who was found buried in a wood in Winnetka. She mentioned, but didn’t emphasize, that the site was across the street from Tim’s house. Will John Shea’s link to Tim and Marilyn Paul come out?’

  ‘She’s going to do a follow-up on the ten o’clock news.’

  Amanda’s forehead tightened, always a sign of concern.

  ‘I told her that’s when Wade is scheduled to speak,’ I said.

  ‘I’d better be prepared for anything. Let’s go in and drink.’

  We got up and headed for the stairs to the grand ballroom.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Amanda showed her engraved invitation to a black-suited man at the door and we entered the grand ballroom. A waiter came up with flutes of champagne and we took two. A moment later, a sweet young thing offered a silver tray of interesting-looking breaded things. Amanda, of course, declined.

  When I declined, too, she said, ‘Whoa.’

  ‘I’m waiting for Peeps,’ I said.

  ‘You’re nervous,’ she said. She looked at her watch. ‘Let’s stay here at the back, where there’s less chance of being photographed looking unhappy.’

  It was true. The still and video photographers were setting up along the walls, closer to the stage.

  A gray-haired man stopped to say hello to Amanda. She introduced me, though the man seemed more interested in my yellow bowtie than in anything that might come out of my mouth. I looked around while they talked.

  My eye stopped on a man leaning on a cane, standing in front of a panel of multicolored lights half-concealed by a curtain at the right rear corner of the ballroom. Something about him was familiar; he had the burly bulk of someone I knew. Yet this man was clean-shaven and wore a brown plaid sport coat, white button-down shirt and pressed, tan slacks. There was no scruffy beard, no Chicago event T-shirt. And this man’s hair was neatly trimmed, not at all the wild tangle of the person that I knew.

  But this man was looking straight at me and shaking his head slightly, as if beseeching me to look away. I knew him then, in that instant. He was Jimbo, Jenny’s cameraman from Channel 8, so changed in appearance as to be almost unrecognizable.

  I looked away and tried to think. It was no mystery how he’d gotten in. As a member of the working press he had the credentials of a television cameraman. A puzzle was why he’d shaved, gotten a haircut and put on conservative clothes, but I was more interested in why he was lurking by the panel of colored lights that likely controlled the electronics in the room.

  I snuck another look back at him. He was looking up at the huge television screens hanging high above the stage at the other end of the room. There was one for each of Chicago’s five major television stations, each displaying its own stable of analytical geniuses discussing the day’s election returns. I wondered how Jimbo had managed to switch places with the person in charge of monitoring the network feeds. And I wondered whether Jenny had set up something to rock the evening.

  Amanda noticed me staring across the room. ‘Dek?’ she whispered as the gray-haired man left.

  ‘Under no circumstances get near the candidate tonight,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Toxicity.’

  ‘Here, tonight?’

  I nodded, trying hard to not sneak another backward glance at Jimbo.

  A waiter came by with more champagne. I gave him my empty and Amanda’s almost full flute and took two fresh ones. And then a matronly woman wearing an impressive amount of brocade, or maybe it was simply sofa upholstery, came up to Amanda. Amanda introduced us, but I would have bet the woman forgot my name as quickly as I forgot hers. For sure, she expressed no interest in my bowtie.

  I was relieved. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to see what Jimbo was up to. I snuck another look at the back corner of the ballroom. The curtain had been closed across the panel of colored lights. And presumably, Jimbo.

  The upholstered woman went away and Amanda and I chatted about nothing relevant. Too many ears were too close.

  At exactly ten o’clock big red letters flashed across the silenced feed from CBS Channel 2. To no one’s surprise, their statistical prognosticators were calling the senatorial election for the Democrat, Timothy Wade. Everyone in the room cheered. Almost. I didn’t cheer. Amanda clapped because it was expected, but it was faint. She was preoccupied, watching me. I snuck another backward look. The curtain was still closed.

  The crowd cheered louder as Timothy Wade strode up to the podium and looked up at the big, silent screens. He was dressed somberly in a navy suit and white shirt, but he’d slipped on a festive tie in a yellow similar to mine.

  Channels 5,7 and 9 followed Channel 2 within thirty seconds, flashing their own projections that Wade would win an unprecedented sixty-five percent of the Illinois vote. The room roared. People stomped their feet.

  Channel 8’s screen, which had been showing a panel of four politically wise people talking noiselessly, suddenly switched to a fire blazing in a dark woods. The room fell silent. Everyone supposed the fire to be a conflagration that had just raged up, serious enough to push aside the night’s election coverage.

  I knew better. It was footage from early that morning. Jenny and Jimbo had been the only news people to record the fire.

  The crowd gasped as the other four screens were switched to Channel 8 and Jenny’s voice boomed loud from the big speakers spotted throughout the room.

  I looked back. The curtain was partially open. Jimbo had moved down along the side wall and was aiming a video camera toward the podium.

  Jennifer Gale, always known as a great beauty to television viewers throughout northern Illinois, came into view, live on all five screens. She stood in presumably the same woods, the small, extinguished clearing behind her lit harshly in the night by portable floodlights.

  This Jennifer Gale was not beautiful; this Jennifer Gale was as Wade’s guards had left her. One of her eyes was swollen almost shut and her lips were puffy from being hit repeatedly. Big spots of purple, blue and brown covered her face and neck and she looked shrunken in too-large blue jeans and the plain white button-down shirt she wore b
eneath a blue jeans jacket. Her good eye was narrowed. It was clear she was in pain.

  ‘Good evening. I’m Jennifer Gale, reporting live tonight from Winnetka.’ She winced as she turned to briefly survey the blackened ground behind her. ‘Setting off what might become one of the most remarkable stories ever to unfold in Chicagoland, this small, otherwise unimportant patch of woods began burning mysteriously shortly after four o’clock this morning. Summoned by an anonymous tip, fire department personnel quickly put it out.’ She paused, obviously trying to summon strength, and said, ‘They believe the blaze was deliberately set.’

  She turned to face the lens. ‘Why is this remarkable? Because of what was discovered after the fire was put out.’ She pointed to her left and the camera zoomed in on two rectangular holes dug in the burned ground. ‘The fire exposed a sunken, rectangular section of soft earth where investigators discovered the body of a very recently buried, middle-aged man. Based on information in his pockets they believe him to be John Shea, a former Democratic volunteer worker who left Chicago abruptly over twenty years ago.’

  The camera panned slightly to the second hole. ‘The fire also burned away a section of undergrowth where a second grave was found. It contained the corpse of a male presumed to have been buried decades earlier. It might be weeks before identification is made, if ever.’

  Jenny turned and the camera followed her as she took five more steps to her left. ‘And then there is this.’ She pointed down to the ground. ‘A third grave, containing the remains of another body. This one, though, was carefully interred in a well-constructed, solid pine coffin.’

  My mind flashed back to the scraps of wood I’d seen in Wade’s sunken garage. He’d taken time with that pine coffin, to make it right.

  ‘Based on brief examination,’ Jenny went on, ‘it’s believed the third person died of some sudden blunt force trauma.’

  Killed in the wreck of a Cadillac Eldorado convertible, I could have said, that’s been hidden ever since in a sunken garage, along with a wheelchair that would never again be needed.