Gravedigger

by Joseph Hansen

  Dave was alone with him now. He had left the hospital at midnight, checked into a motel, tried to telephone Cecil and got no answer, had slept hard anyway. He’d headed back here through gray drizzle at seven. Passing the steamy plate glass of bright McDonald’s, he had glimpsed Trio stowing away scrambled eggs and muffins. He’d met Anna Westover wearily crossing the hospital parking lot to her car, on her way back to L.A. to look after other people’s children. She told him Lyle was awake, out of danger, calm, apologetic, and able to talk—if that was the word for it.

  From the look of the tray beside Lyle’s bed, he’d been able to eat. His talk came out mostly vowels. Dave looked around for paper and pencil so the boy could write his answers. Pencil and paper were there none. So he strained to understand, and before long, he didn’t have to ask Lyle to repeat—at least not everything.

  “The cap came off, and they spilled all over the bathroom,” he was saying now. “I was in a hurry to get out of there, away from him. I almost left the pills. But I felt like dying. I was so ashamed. And I knew him. He’d do something even worse next time. I didn’t want to know about it. So I picked them up and put them in my pocket”

  “But you changed your mind at the camp.”

  “It’s beautiful there, and far away, and quiet. I could think. Why should I take them? Whatever I did, he’d go on trying to save himself any dirty way he could. I wouldn’t change him by dying. I was getting ready to go home. Then Trio showed up, and told me this thing he’d done about Serenity, and I got hysterical again, and she got scared and ran, and I took the pills. I began to get very cold, and I crawled into the sleeping bag, and I was drifting off, and I realized I still had my boots on. It seemed very important to get those boots off. And that’s the last I remember.” He tried to smile at himself.

  “You got them off,” Dave said. “Tell me—what had your father done to make you so ashamed? You and he rented a truck that night. Was that part of it?”

  Lyle said two words. Dave couldn’t make them out. He must have looked blank, because Lyle repeated them, slowly, working his beautiful mouth, frowning with the effort. “Howie O’Rourke. You know about him?”

  “He and your father were writing a book,” Dave said.

  “Publishers kept turning it down,” Lyle said. “It wasn’t going to get him the money he wanted.”

  “You were giving him money,” Dave said.

  Lyle made a face. “After the house payments we were lucky to have anything left over for food. He had to have two hundred thousand dollars. Thought he had to.”

  “To clear the title to the house,” Dave said, “so he could sell it and get out from under. Explain the truck.”

  “Howie found a way to get the money. Crooked, of course. He’d run into a man he’d known in prison, who had a truckload of hijacked stereo equipment he couldn’t sell himself because the police were watching him.”

  “Excuse me,” Dave said. “A truckload of what?”

  It took a minute, but Lyle made him understand.

  “There was two hundred thousand dollars worth of it, hidden in an old warehouse. The man only wanted twenty thousand for it.”

  “Only? Did your father have that kind of money?”

  “No.” Lyle looked at the rainy window. Tears started down his face. “That was what made me want to die. He got it from Don Gaillard.” He drew a long, wobbly breath.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Dave said.

  “The nicest man that ever walked,” Lyle said. “My father’s oldest friend. When I was little, I thought he was my uncle. He wasn’t. They were just very close—in high school, college, law school.” Lyle’s hands lay on the coverlet, which was threadbare, bleached from too many washings. The beautiful thin fingers moved, running silent scales. He watched them for a moment, then gave Dave a wan smile. “I wasn’t too happy when I was small. My father was very busy making money. And my mother never forgave me for not being able to talk right. Oh, she tried not to let it show, but I knew. I was really surprised to see her here.”

  “She wants you to live, she wants you to be happy.”

  “That’s not easy, is it?” Lyle said.

  “Not for her,” Dave said, “not when you act this way.”

  “I didn’t think. It was my father who was on my mind. Did you admire your father?” When Dave nodded, Lyle said wryly, “So did I. Then there wasn’t anything to admire anymore.” He drew another shaky breath. “Anyway, I loved Don. He had time for us. We loved having Don come over.”

  “So he was almost a member of the family,” Dave said. “Why shouldn’t your father go to him for a loan? Isn’t that what friends are for, to be there when we need them?”

  “Only they hadn’t been friends—not for years and years. The break was sudden. Serenity and I couldn’t understand. Where was Uncle Don? And they told us to forget Uncle Don, never mention Uncle Don again. I was too young to understand, but I figured out after while that Don must have told my father he didn’t like the way he was going—criminal law, all that. He got out of law himself, began building furniture in his basement. Which made him poor, too, didn’t it? At least not like the crowd my parents were in, the beach club, all that. Big cars. The best of everything. Old Don just didn’t belong, did he?”

  “They hadn’t spoken in years?”

  “That’s it.” Lyle nodded disgust “I couldn’t believe my father would be so creepy. Don isn’t rich. He works hard for his money, works with his hands.”

  “But he had it,” Dave said, “and he gave it?”

  “Gladly. He’d give my father anything. That’s how Don is. The kindest man, the kindest man. It probably was every cent he’d saved in his life.”

  “So you went to the warehouse with the truck and Don Gaillard’s twenty thousand dollars to pick up the loot.”

  “Not the money. My father had already passed that to Howie to pay his jailbird friend. Howie was supposed to meet us at the warehouse.”

  “Why us? Why did your father take you?”

  “To help with the loading. Someone he could trust. I said he was doing wrong. He’d be caught and go back to prison. It was a stupid risk. He wouldn’t listen. I had to go, didn’t I? I couldn’t let him go alone.”

  “And Howie wasn’t there, was he? And the warehouse was empty. It was a con game, wasn’t it? How could your father have fallen for it, knowing Howie the way he did?”

  “He couldn’t believe Howie would do it to him. We sat out there in the dark waiting and waiting. Howie was sure to show up. Hell, hadn’t he taken my father around and introduced him to the man that was going to fence the stuff? I was sick. Don’s money—gone with that creep Howie.”

  “Maybe that was why your father filed that insurance claim. To get Gaillard his money back.”

  “Maybe. But that was even worse, don’t you see? That was what had happened to my father. Anything for money.”

  “You don’t know where he’s gone?” Dave said.

  “Maybe he told me. He was trying to talk to me, get me to forgive him. He was crying. I wouldn’t listen. I was throwing my stuff in that duffel bag. All I wanted was out. He was crying outside the bathroom door while I was picking up those stupid pills. If he said, I didn’t hear.”

  “But he was still home when you left?” Dave said. And when Lyle nodded, he said, “Report him missing as soon as you get home. Sheriff? Missing persons? It could help.”

  “All right, sure.” Lyle looked at the door. It had opened. Trio filled the frame in her bulging jeans and striped Mexican pullover. Lyle smiled at her. She lifted her flute. It glinted in the pale, rainy light.

  “Music?” she said.

  7

  IT WASN’T YET TWO in the afternoon, but Horseshoe Canyon was gloomy with the threat of rain when he passed the woman with the dog and swung the Triumph into the brick yard. He ached from the long, cold drive in the cramped little car back up the coast. It was stiff work getting out of the car. The woman came down the steep tilt of the dr
ive toward him, looking worried. The dog was small and ragged and brown. Its hair fell into its eyes. The leash which it kept taut, darting this way and that, was red. Dave stretched and gave the woman a small enquiring smile.

  “Mr. Brandstetter, isn’t it?” she asked. He nodded, and she said, “I’m Hilda Vosper. I live just up the road.” A triangle of plastic was tied over her gray hair. She wore a raincoat cinched tight at the waist. Jeans showed under the raincoat. Plastic covered her shoes. She wasn’t young but she was handsome. Her blue eyes took in the front building. “Haven’t you made this place attractive? Really rustic instead of just shacky the way it was before.”

  He didn’t say he had liked it well enough the way it was before. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Vosper?”

  “You’re in insurance,” she said, “somebody told me. I’ve been wondering why the checks haven’t come for the mudslide damage. Did you get yours?”

  “Yes. You mean you haven’t received any checks?”

  “The first ones, yes. But there should be others.”

  “All I know about insurance is death claims,” Dave said. “I’m sorry. I’d like to help, but I can’t.”

  “Yes, well, I just thought I’d ask,” she said bleakly. “They don’t answer letters. No one on the telephone knows anything.” The dog had wrapped the leash around her legs. “Thank you,” she said, turning to unwind the leash.

  “Nice to meet you,” Dave said.

  The big wooden rear building was cold, no fire in the grate, and he kept the sheepskin coat on while he rang Salazar to tell him about Howie O’Rourke. Salazar’s flu sounded worse. Dave splashed brandy into a snifter, tasted it, shed the coat, and headed for the bathroom. He cranked the Hot tap in the shower stall and, when steam began to billow out, shed his clothes. He swallowed brandy again, used the Cold tap to tame the heat of the spray, and was about to step under the spray when Cecil put his head in at the bathroom door.

  “Where were you last night?” Dave said. “I phoned at midnight.”

  “They put me right to work.” Cecil wore the big stiff white robe. He came into the steam and shut the door. “Night shift. I go in at four-thirty, get off at midnight. I was here by twelve-thirty.” He dropped the robe. “No way for me to let you know, was there?” He drank some of the brandy. “Mmm-mmm! I could easily get hooked on that stuff.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded at the shower. “Are we going to get in there? Or let all that gorgeous hot water run down to the sea?”

  “Come on,” Dave said. It was a big enough shower. For almost anything. Almost anything was what they did. They even got clean. They rubbed each other dry with tent-size towels. Dave said, “I’d rather have you around nights. What about dinners by candlelight? What about plays and operas and ballets? Even movies? Even, God save us all, television?”

  “You can applaud me”—Cecil flapped into the robe again—“on the eleven o’clock news.” He opened the door, gasped, shuddered. “Shit, man, we’re on a fucking ice floe. I got to put on clothes.” His feet thumped on the stairs up to the loft. Dave put on his own bathrobe and followed. Rain pattered steadily now on the slope of roof just above them. Quivering with cold, Cecil whipped into undershorts, T-shirt, bulky white sweater, warm wool pants. He sat on the broad, unmade bed, to pull on thick white socks. “Maybe I won’t have that shift too long. If I’m as dazzling as I think I am.” He bent to tie his shoes.

  “I hope you’re right.” Dave opened drawers and got out clothes for himself. “Damn Edwards, anyway.”

  “You’re not thinking,” Cecil said. “How many plays, operas, and ballets did you see last night? You were working, right? And the night before? Working.” He jumped up from the bed and ran downstairs. “I am going to start a fire, warm this place up.”

  Dave dressed, listening to the rattle of kindling in the fireplace grate, the whoosh of the gas jet, the snap and crackle of green wood. He smelled the smoke. He went down the stairs. “My days begin early too,” he said, and stood and watched the flames curl around the sticks, hungry to grow. “Cecil, we’ll almost never see each other—not this way. Forget this kept-boy nonsense, and go with me where I go and when I go, and stay with me when I stay.”

  Cecil had been kneeling. He got to his feet, brushed his hands, set the fire screen in place. “Let’s try it for a while,” he said. “For my sake. Make me feel decent, okay?” He laid his hands on Dave’s shoulders and put a kiss on Dave’s mouth. “I want to be with you just as much as you want to be with me.” He managed a wan little smile, and a little rise of his wide, bony shoulders. “Who knows how long I can stand it? Did you think of that?”

  “No, but now that you’ve said it, I’ll probably bring it up fairly often.” Dave smiled. “All right. No dinners by candlelight. How about lunches? Starting today, now.”

  Cecil looked at that daunting watch. “Too late. All the chairs will be up on the tables by now. Waiters shooing out the last expense-accounters.” He went to the door. “What we are going to do is open cans. I’ve checked out your cupboards. Mrs. Snow’s clam chowder, with an extra can of clams, cream, butter, white pepper.” He turned at the door. “Did you find him?” He opened the door.

  “He doesn’t have the answer.” Dave stepped out and Cecil shut the door. They trotted, heads down under the heavy drops that fell from the matted brown vine on the arbor, across to the cookshack. “If we make this quick”—Dave lifted down a deep saucepan—“you can go with me to see a man who may have the answer.”

  Dave had been here before, years ago, with Rod Fleming, a decorator he’d lived with for twenty years, until Rod had died of cancer. But if Dave had heard Don Gaillard’s name at that time, he’d long since forgotten. The shop was not, as Lyle Westover remembered it, in a basement, but on a side street just off La Cienega. Two-story, living quarters up an outside staircase, the building was grubby white stucco. Rain made runnels in the dirt on the plate glass, through which gleamed faintly the pale curves of carved chair arms and sofa backs, awaiting stain and varnish. A mahogany table glowed dark red.

  The street door stuck at the bottom and had to be kicked to make it open. There were fresh-cut wood smells inside, smells of hot animal glue, the ether smell of shellac. No one was among the unfinished pieces in the front room, but a power-saw snarled in the back of the shop, beyond a plywood partition in which a doorway showed light. And when Dave looked through the doorway, he remembered Don Gaillard’s round, snub-nosed face. The hair above it had been dark and thick when he’d last seen it. Now it was gray and thin on a pink scalp. But the man still had boyishly rosy cheeks and blue eyes that were a little too gentle. He switched off the saw when he noticed Dave and Cecil, and came through a snowfall of sawdust toward them. His eyes flicked quickly over Cecil, obviously pleased with what they saw. He held out his hand. Its grip was firm.

  “It’s not about furniture.” Dave handed over his card. “It’s about Charles Westover.”

  “Insurance?” Gaillard looked puzzled.

  Dave explained about the claim on Serenity’s policy.

  “Oh, no!” Gaillard was shaken and the color left his face. “Surely not. She was such a lovely little girl. Oh dear, oh dear.”

  “The insurance people aren’t sure it’s true,” Dave said. “Charles Westover is in big financial trouble, and they think this was a try at getting a little money.”

  “No.” Gaillard tried to look and sound firm. “Charles would never do a thing like that.”

  “You know he served a term in prison?” Dave asked.

  Gaillard snorted. “The kind of scum involved in that case always arrange for someone else to take the punishment.”

  “He didn’t bribe witnesses?” Dave said. “He didn’t stand by while men were murdered?”

  Gaillard said impatiently, “Just why are you here?”

  “Westover’s disappeared. I’m trying to find him. He borrowed twenty thousand dollars from you the day before he vanished. I thought you might know where he is.”

&nbs
p; A door at the back of the shop opened. Damp air came in, the rattle of rain outside on trash barrels in an alley. The rosy, snub-nosed woman who entered was in her sixties, damp scarf over her hair, old raincoat, scuffed shoes. From under her coat she took a brown paper sack. “Soup,” she said. “Eat it while it’s hot.” She set the bag on a workbench, turned, and was startled to see Dave and Cecil. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.

  Gaillard stood as rigid as something he’d put together out of wood with pegs and glue. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t make introductions. Between clenched teeth, he said, “Good-bye, mother.” When she had gone back into the dismal alley and pulled shut the heavy, metal-covered door after her, Gaillard glanced over his shoulder at it, then asked Dave in an indignant whisper, “Who says I lent him twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Lyle,” Dave said. “You remember Lyle?”

  Gaillard’s testiness melted in a sentimental smile. “When he and Serenity were young, we had wonderful times together—Disneyland, Sea World, The Sound of Music.” He shook his head fondly and laughed. His teeth needed looking after. “I loved being with those children. I guess I never grew up, myself.” He sobered. “I miss them.”

  “They miss you,” Dave said. “Lyle does. He never understood why you stopped coming around. What happened?”

  Gaillard looked away. “It’s not relevant.”

  Cecil said, “His parents found out you were gay—right?”

  “What?” Gaillard grew red in the face. “What did you say?” His eyes narrowed. “How dare you come into my shop and say such things to me.” He closed big fists and took a step. “Get out of here.”

  Cecil backed, hands up, laughing shakily. “Hey, man, it was a friendly question.”

  Dave caught Gaillard’s arm. “Easy. Think. How would he guess that? How would I?”

  Gaillard blinked, dropped his arms, stared at the two of them for a second, smiled a sickly little smile. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

  “But there’s more, isn’t there? The reason you gave Westover that money when he turned up after ten long years was that you were in love with him, and you never stopped loving him, not when he got married, not when he finally told you to go away.”