Iris Avenue

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “How am I supposed to run this project if I can’t get near cats?”

  “Maybe you can direct the project and the Vision workers can handle the cats. Tomorrow I’ll handle them. But please don’t work with any feral cats while you’re pregnant. Don’t even scoop a litter box for a domesticated cat. Wash your hands thoroughly if you accidently come in contact, and keep your hands away from your face until they’re washed.”

  Hannah thought of the litter of kittens she’d recently rescued from under that house, and the local cats she petted whenever she came across them.

  “Have you seen a doctor yet?” Drew asked her.

  “No,” Hannah said. “But I did the stick test thingy.”

  “I’m sure you’re fine, but you should see a doctor soon. You need to be on prenatal vitamins and have tests to make sure the baby is okay.”

  “You mean that one with the long needle? I’ve heard about that. No, thanks.”

  “Just go see a doctor next week,” Drew said. “You’ll feel better if you do.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’ll go see Doc Machalvie next week. Heck, I think he delivered me.”

  Ed Harrison picked up the puppy from the pen he’d constructed in one corner of the newspaper office, and took it outside to the alley to do its business. Tommy was still trying to decide on a name, so Ed was calling it ‘pup.’ He cleared an area of snow with his foot and put the puppy down on it.

  “Hurry up, pup,” Ed said, shivering without his jacket, which he’d left inside.

  “Whatcha got there?” Scott said as he walked down the alley toward him.

  Ed told him about the puppy and Scott admired it. He followed Ed back into the news office, and watched as Ed put the puppy back into the pen. Hank was snoring on his bed by the stove.

  “I missed you at the Fitzpatricks last night,” Scott said. “Everything okay?”

  “Well, I’ve got my hands full with Tommy and the puppy now.”

  “I heard you talked with the FBI agent. What did you think of him?”

  “I’ve never met an FBI agent before,” Ed said. “I was surprised. He seems like somebody we’d be friends with. You think it’s an act?”

  “He does seem like a regular guy,” Scott said. “I think he probably gets a lot more out of people that way.”

  “Do you think Brian killed Ray?”

  “No, I don’t,” Scott said. “Our good buddy Sarah was just in the station, meeting with Jamie in my break room. You know how I can hear everything through the vent in my office. She found out who killed Ray.”

  “I thought she was off the case.”

  “She was supposed to be. She went out to the Roadhouse to talk to Phyllis, and Phyllis said the caretaker up at the cemetery told her he killed Ray, to keep him from killing Brian and collecting the fifty grand.”

  “The Machalvies own that cemetery.”

  “I checked with Peg, who says they haven’t seen him in a couple days. Her worthless sons aren’t willing to do his work, which means Patrick is going to have to dig the grave his grandfather is going to be buried in.”

  “That’s awful. Can I help?”

  “They have this mini backhoe thing, and you know Patrick, that’s like a big toy to him. He says he doesn’t mind doing it. I’m going up there to give him some moral support, and I thought you might like to go. We’ll be done in plenty of time for the game.”

  “So was Sarah in trouble for working on the case?”

  “Yes and no. Jamie thanked her for the information, and then told her if she stuck her nose in again where it didn’t belong he would have her fired.”

  “I really wish I could have been there for that.”

  “I couldn’t see her face,” Scott said. “All she kept saying was ‘yes, sir.’”

  “So this guy from the cemetery…”

  “Duane something.”

  “He’s after Brian?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Heaven help him, then.”

  “Which one?” Scott asked. “My money’s on Brian.”

  Patrick Fitzpatrick picked up the keys to the cemetery maintenance shed from Peg Machalvie at Machalvie Funeral Home, and then drove out Possum Holler to the Rose Hill Cemetery. It was a small cemetery, arranged around a figure-eight-shaped drive on top of a gently rounded hillside. From the highest point, where the curving lines of the figure eight crossed, you could see all of Rose Hill, Eldridge College, the river, and the hills on the other side.

  Patrick parked at this high point and took a moment to admire the view. It was quiet, with only the wind blowing and a few birds singing as if they believed spring was coming. He walked over the hill to the east side of the property, to a small stone building with a heavy wooden door. He unlocked it and swung the door outward. The stench almost physically knocked him backwards. He covered his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his sweatshirt and flipped on the light so he could look inside.

  The room was hot from a space heater with glowing red bars, and the man was dead, that was for sure. He was seated in a chair with his head on his chest, and every inch of him seemed to be tattooed or pierced or both. There was no blood on his face or bald head that Patrick could see; it all seemed to be emanating from under his chin. From that point downward there was so much blood that it had spread over his chest and abdomen, and had dripped down his legs into a puddle on the stone floor.

  Patrick backed out of the room, shut the door and locked it. As he walked back up the hill toward his truck he saw Scott’s Explorer coming up the drive. Ed was with him. He waited until Scott got out of the truck.

  “Dead guy in there,” Patrick said, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder, as casually as if he’d said, “There’s a backhoe in there.”

  Patrick led Scott and Ed back down to the maintenance shack, unlocked the door, and then said, “It’s pretty gruesome. You might want to hold your breath.”

  Scott’s eyes watered as he surveyed the bloody scene in the shed. After they backed out and Patrick once again locked the door, Scott and Ed exchanged looks.

  “Throat cut,” Ed said.

  “Yep,” Scott said. “Just like Ray.”

  “You gonna call Sarah?” Patrick asked him.

  “Not this time,” Scott said. “This one’s for the feds.”

  They heard a car engine as they walked to the top of the hill and saw Jamie had arrived, saving them a call.

  “How much longer do you think we have to stay here?” Patrick asked Ed.

  They were sitting in Patrick’s truck, with the motor running, waiting for the scene of the crime team to finish with the dead man in the shack. Ed had called Drew to meet Tommy after school at the newspaper office. Drew was going to take Tommy and the dogs home and then hang out with them until Mandy got off work.

  “We still have plenty of time before the game,” Ed said.

  “Yeah, but I have to dig a grave first,” Patrick said.

  Scott came up to the truck and Ed rolled down the window.

  “You guys can go,” Scott said. “Jamie said I could take your statements tonight and then he would follow up tomorrow if he needed to. I don’t think he thinks you had anything to do with this.”

  “What about Grandpa Tim’s grave?”

  “He said they’d be done in there sometime late this evening, and you could probably use the Bobcat first thing in the morning.”

  “Cutting it pretty close,” Patrick said.

  “The alternative is we do it by hand tonight,” Scott said.

  “Nah,” said Patrick. “We have a game to play, and I’m not wearing myself out beforehand. We have to beat those rotten Pendleton bastards.”

  Scott wasn’t surprised that Patrick was more concerned about the game than the dead guy in the shed or his grandfather’s final resting place. Patrick’s priorities may not have been admirable, but they were consistent.

  “What about the wake?” Ed asked.

  “That bunch of old farts will be passed
out by midnight,” Patrick said. “Tonight we kick some Pendleton Pirate ass, then we go to the wake; tomorrow morning I’ll dig the grave myself.”

  By six o’clock the possibility of kicking anyone’s ass seemed slight. Two of the Thorns’ players were out of commission with stomach flu. Ed was sitting at the bar in the Rose and Thorn, reading the rule book to see if substitute players could be drafted this close to game time.

  “C’mon, Ed,” Patrick urged him. “We only have an hour.”

  “Who could we get this late, anyway?” Scott asked.

  “My brother Sean, for one,” Patrick said, and picked up the phone to call him.

  FBI agent Jamie Brown walked into the bar. He raised his eyebrows briefly at the corpse in the casket but did not comment.

  “Could I have whatever’s on tap?” he asked Patrick as he sat down next to Scott.

  Patrick tucked the phone into the crook of his neck and drew a pint of Guinness.

  “On the house,” he said. “After mucking around in that stench, you deserve a free shot as well.”

  He poured Jamie a shot of whiskey and then Sean answered his call so Patrick turned his attention away to talk to his brother.

  “You get those statements?” Jamie asked Scott.

  “Yes, sir,” Scott said. “They’re on my desk. Do you want me to go get them?”

  “Not tonight,” Jamie said. “I’ll pick them up tomorrow. What’s Ed doing?”

  “He’s reading the rule book to see if we can pick up players this close to game time. Our two best shooters are out with stomach flu.”

  “This a league game?” Jamie asked.

  Patrick got off the phone and told Scott, “Sean’s in. What about you, G-man? You shoot any hoops?” He was looking at Jamie.

  “I was All State center my junior and senior year.”

  Ed threw down the rule book, saying, “All we need is a doctor’s signature on the health form and the twenty dollar league fee.”

  They all turned as one to look at Doc Machalvie, who was drunk as a skunk and raising his glass to the embalmed corpse of Tim MacGregor.

  “I don’t think that will be a problem,” Patrick said, and popped open the cash register to retrieve two twenties.

  A couple of tourists walked into the bar and Mandy and Patrick both turned and said, “We’re closed for a private party,” at the same time. The tourists turned and left.

  “There’s a sign on the door,” Mandy said. “It’s like they can’t read or something.”

  Ed went to the office in the back room to download the physician’s release forms off the league’s website. Sean came rushing in and seemed taken aback at the sight of his recently deceased maternal grandfather, who was lying in a coffin, wearing the full dress kilt complete with sporran and a tam on his head.

  “That was unexpected,” he said, plopping down on a stool next to Jamie. Scott introduced them, but of course Sean already knew Jamie.

  “Do you need a permit to do that?” Jamie said as he gestured at the corpse.

  “What? Are you a wake inspector or something?” Patrick asked him.

  “No, thank goodness,” Jamie said. “I’m not.”

  “This is a private party and Grandpa Tim is the honored guest,” Patrick said. “You may join us after the game if you want, when Grandpa Tim will be buying drinks for the house until the wee hours of the morning.”

  “I’d be honored,” Jamie said.

  “Don’t you need to be at Ava’s?” Scott asked him.

  “I have more agents there now than I have people to protect,” Jamie said. “Besides, I’m on the night shift. I can hang out ‘til midnight.”

  Hannah arrived to tend bar and as soon as Doc Machalvie finished signing off on the physician release forms the members of the team adjourned to walk up the hill to the Community Center.

  “Gooooooo Pricks!” Hannah and Mandy called after them.

  At Jamie’s questioning look Scott explained, “Our team name is the Rose Hill Thorns.”

  “Ah, I see,” Jamie said.

  Hannah tended bar while Mandy attempted to wait tables. A wake was pretty much like every other private party, except the booze was free and the guest of honor was dead. Mandy quickly got tired of fetching shots for what she called a “rowdy bunch of wrinkled ass-pinchers” and finally put a fifth of whiskey and two pitchers of beer on every table.

  “Ain’t none of them geezers even gonna tip me,” she complained to Hannah. “So what’s the point of waitin’ on ‘em hand and foot all night?”

  Hannah put a compilation of World War II and 50’s crooner music on the bar sound system. The wake attendees sang along with Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and all the other singers they grew up listening to, and it seemed to mellow them out into a more manageable if maudlin group. Now that the senior citizens were taken care of, Mandy sat on a bar stool and chatted with Hannah.

  “What did Sam do when he proposed to you?” Mandy asked.

  “Well,” Hannah said. “When my brother Quinn left home to go in the Army, my parents decided to sell the farm and move to town. I wanted to buy it, but my father said I couldn’t run it all by myself, so Sam said let’s get married and live there together.”

  “That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

  “Sam Campbell is not a romantic man. He’s a smart, hardworking man, but he’s not sentimental, not at all.”

  “Was this before he went to college?”

  “No, a couple years after. He graduated from MIT and then worked in Pittsburgh for two years for an IT firm. He decided to start his own company with a couple guys he met there, and eventually he bought them out.”

  “Did you know Ed’s wife?” Mandy asked. “I never met her.”

  “Eve? Oh yes, I knew her. She didn’t like me, but she tolerated me for Ed’s sake.”

  “Was she a bitch?” Mandy asked, hopefully.

  “Absolutely,” Hannah said. “She’s super smart but has no sense of humor, whatsoever. She doesn’t just have a stick up her butt, it’s the North Pole.”

  “Really? I got the idea she was Miss Perfect.”

  “No, not at all. She was sharp and hard, not sweet and cuddly. That’s why Ed loves you so much.”

  “Cause I’m stupid and soft?”

  “No, silly. Because you have a sense of humor and you’re affectionate. A man needs to laugh and feel loved.”

  Mandy looked distressed.

  “What’s wrong?” Hannah asked her. “You two fighting?”

  “No, Mandy said. “We’re just going down a patch of hard road.”

  “You haven’t been together that long.”

  “I think Ed is sorry we done moved in together so quick.”

  “You’re looking for things to worry about. Didn’t he buy a new car for you?”

  “That ole thing,” Mandy said. “Did you see it? It’s uglier than sin. He’s got this idea of his self as a family man now, and he thinks that’s a family man’s car. It’s an old man’s car, is what it is.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?” Hannah said. “As long as you’re part of the family.”

  “Oh, he’s crazy ‘bout Tommy. They get along great. I couldn’t ask for a better dad for him. I think maybe I’m just the fries that go with that hamburger. I think Ed would be happy with just the hamburger.”

  “You’re wrong, Mandy. Any man would be lucky to have you. Ed loves you.”

  “I’m telling’ ya, I got a bad feelin’. It wouldn’t take much of a wind to knock this whole thing over.”

  “Talk to him about it, then. You’ll probably find out you’re upset over nothing. I know Ed’s worried about the newspaper. The price of printing and paper keeps going up, but the subscriptions and advertising revenues are going down. He was talking about that the other night in here.”

  “I didn’t know that. He shouldn’t be buyin’ cars if he’s havin’ money troubles.”

  “Me and my big mouth.” Hannah said. “He probably do
esn’t want to worry you.”

  “We’re gonna have to have us a big talk,” Mandy said. “I’m just dreadin’ it, is all.”

  When they arrived at the Community Center, which used to be Rose Hill High School before consolidation, Patrick, Scott, Sean, Ed, and Jamie met the rest of the team in the locker room. Tony Delvecchio seemed especially shocked to see Sean, but soon recovered.

  “I’m sorry about your grandfather,” Tony said, shaking his hand.

  “Thanks,” Sean said. “I hope we can talk later.”

  Patrick was team captain, and retired high school coach Floyd Riggenbach was the team coach. Patrick introduced Sean and Jamie, and gave Coach the paperwork and forty dollars.

  “You, I remember,” Coach said, pointing to Sean. “I never could get you to play ball. Always had your nose stuck in some book.”

  Coach took the paperwork and fees upstairs to the gym, where he anticipated an argument with the Pendleton coach over eligibility.

  Patrick found uniforms for Sean and Jamie and they went upstairs to run some drills in the fifteen minutes they had left before game time. The Pendleton team members made fun of them from their side of the court.

  Barty McNulty, the captain of the Pendleton team, sidled up to Patrick.

  “I see you’re missing your ringers, Patty Fitzpatty.”

  “I see you’re missing your balls, Farty McNutty.”

  “Care to make it interesting?” Barty asked.

  “Always,” Patrick said, who had already thought up a very unusual bet.

  When Patrick told him what he proposed, Barty said, “You’re crazy.”

  But he shook on it anyway.

  So it came to pass that on a cold March night in the small town of Rose Hill, while the Thorns celebrated their 99/97 victory by drinking whiskey at the wake of Timothy MacGregor, Barty McNulty and the Pendleton Pirates were up at the Rose Hill Cemetery, digging a grave. By hand.

  Maggie stood inside the darkened front room of Fitzpatrick’s Service Station, watching the eleven o’clock bus arrive in the parking lot of the Dairy Chef next door. She’d come for the nine o’clock bus but he hadn’t been on it. When she returned at ten forty-five, Gabe’s wife and son could be seen, along with Lily Crawford, sitting in a dark car she’d never seen before, driven by a blonde man she didn’t know.