In trouble you can’t solve? See Thanet Blake, Private Detective.
All graveyards are sad. Mother and I visit three of them to pay our respect to those who have gone on. But this graveyard is different. I keep hearing a male voice. No matter where I look I can’t see him. I’m cold sober. I haven’t had a drink since last night. There’s the voice again. Who is it? Why can’t I see the guy?
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Memorial Day
Copyright © 2013 Wayne Greenough
ISBN: 978-1-77111-424-0
Cover art by Carmen Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Memorial Day
The Private Detective Murders 4
By
Wayne Greenough
To June, you’re my wife and that makes me a lucky guy.
Chapter One
It has been written many times, and verbalized a lot more often, that hardboiled detectives are cynical and old fashioned. They will take no live prisoners because they enjoy the sound of gunfire and the viewing of corpses. They believe in nothing because they have seen it all. In addition, what’s happening in the world around them makes them bone tired, weary, and stone-faced to where they never smile. A cloud of cigarette smoke is always surrounding them. They constantly booze on cheap liquor, are rough in speech and manner, and only by luck do they ever manage to solve their cases.
Every word in the above paragraph is true. I ought to know. I’m Private Detective Thanet Blake, and I’m sure as hell hardboiled in my attitude on life. My voice has a deep growl. Every word I say is slow, to the point, and reeks with danger. My face is overly rugged and has the appearance of a logging truck running over it.
Enough of that. I’ll enter the private detective beauty contest, next week—and yes, when they declare me the winner, I will graciously sign autographs.
Right now, it’s Memorial Day. I’ve already paid my respect to Father Jones’ grave. It’s located behind the church where he was the Pastor. He was a guy the world needed and offed by a guy the world didn’t need.
I’ve picked up Mother. She is presently sitting in the car next to me and being very quiet. Her nice looking, wrinkle-free, face is solemn and she’s dressed in respectful black. It’s that kind of day for her, and also for me. We’re on our way to do our traditional visiting of three graveyards.
At our first stop, we see cars parked haphazardly and everywhere. After a few minutes, I managed to squeeze the old Ford into a spot without whacking anybody’s car.
My car’s full of flowers. Mother grabs an armful and so do I. It’s a quiet and humble day for everybody we meet as we begin decorating the graves of those that we remember, and are no longer with us. Yet, in their special way, they are still with us by the memories we have of them—how they looked, the sound of their voice, their smile, their favorite flowers, a thousand things they liked.
Normally, I’m a very talkative guy. On Memorial Day, in the graveyards, I sew up my big mouth and listen to people reminiscing. Sometimes I smile with them, other times I laugh, just a little. Often, I cry with them.
It’s a warm day. The sun is shining, and there is a slight breeze. The United States’ flags, dozens of them, spaced fifteen feet apart along the roads leading to the graves, are making flapping noises and at times they sound as if they’re making an attempt to talk to us. In a way, I think they are. They’re asking us never to forget the veterans buried in this hallowed ground.
The grass has been freshly mowed, its pleasant scent still in the air. Glancing at the graveyard’s driveways, I see that there are still more cars coming in and parking. A variety of people are pouring from them—young, middle aged, and old, along with husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, relatives. They all had one thing in mind, and that was to decorate the graves, to say a few words, to talk, to cry, and to wish that the dead were still alive.
Mother and I walked across the grass, being careful not to step on the graves as we headed for the military section. Fred and Frank were in the Navy during WWII.
“They’re over here, Sonny,” said Mother, who was walking ahead of me.
Two plaques, level with the ground, United States Navy, killed in action, their names, when they were born, when they died. Gone, but not forgotten, ever.
Mother started talking and I smiled at her. She says the same thing every year, and every year I deeply appreciate what she tells me.
“Fred and Frank were fifteen years old when they talked their father into signing some papers saying they were age eighteen. It was right after Pearl Harbor and the boys wanted to join in protecting our country. It was terrible for them. They were in the biggest sea battles of the Pacific. Frank was on a Destroyer. His duty station was a deck gun with another sailor—that much we know about him. The life expectancy of a Destroyer in a sea battle composed of many ships can be only minutes long. His ship went down.
“Fred was on a battleship. Japanese planes tried repeatedly to sink it. They couldn’t, but the ship still lost men. Fred was one of them.
“There was divorce among our relatives. Your grandfather and grandmother took Fred and Frank in, kept them from young boys on up to the time they went looking for their father. They found him. He declared on paper they were of age. As I was growing up, your grandparents told me endless tales about Fred and Frank, how at night, one time, they swiped a box of apples from a stingy old farmer who owned an orchard. They did it, not because they were dishonest kids—they weren’t that way at all, but because the farmer wanted to charge them four cents a pound for his apples instead of just giving them a few. Oh, and your grandfather always laughed his head off every time he told me how Fred and Frank got drunk one night when they borrowed some of his homebrew. To this day, they are my heroes. I wish I could have met them, and I doubly wish you could have, Sonny.”
Mother always calls me Sonny. We placed flowers on their graves and small United States Flags. She was quiet, and so was I. Two relatives I’d never met—brothers in life, brothers in death, and I found myself wishing that I had known them when they were in the Navy so I could shake their hands and thank them for protecting our country.
Somebody making an announcement to a group of people abruptly interrupted the serenity in the graveyard’s military section. Looking to my left, I see that a burial ceremony has just begun, and a lot of the men in the small crowd are wearing black cowboy hats. I see men in Marine uniforms, which tells me that a military man is not only being put to rest, but also having an honor ceremony. Desiring to pay our respect, Mother and I walk silently toward it. A closer view of the hats shows me there are military emblems on them—Army, Navy, Air force, Marine.
I hold my mother’s hand as we hear how a Marine has been killed in Afghanistan, how he heroically saved others, and
later died from his wounds. He was nineteen, barely old enough to drive a car or to vote, but old enough to forfeit his life for our country. The honor guard of four Marines stands at attention, never moving until we hear a command. Raising their weapons as one, they fire them in the air.
One of the men gives the widow a folded United States Flag and then salutes her. Taps, the saddest piece of music in the world is played, and every time I hear it, it gets to me. A hero has died, and the world is a little lonelier. I wipe my eyes with a handkerchief. Mother is sobbing quietly. A few minutes later, we joined the crowd around the widow. We said a few words to her and left. I didn’t see her face due to the black veil. How does a teenage widow face the world?
Walking a short distance takes us to my grandparents and Father’s graves. I never knew them. As I help Mother with the flowers, I feel cold and lonely, and wishing I had met them. I see tears in her eyes. There are a few in mine.
This particular graveyard is huge compared to the other two we will be visiting. We usually walk a good portion of it to hear the people talk about those that have gone before them.
A few minutes into our walk, we come upon an elderly couple standing close to a weathered grave stone and placing flowers on it as they busily talk about somebody named Tom.
“Great Uncle Tom was a Private in the Spanish American War,” the man said, pointing his cane at the name on the stone.
A woman hugging the man begins talking. “I’ve always wondered if he charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt. Do you think he did, dear?”
“I’m sure he did, according to the family history I’ve read from the old notes in that trunk we have up in the attic. You know…the one with all the tintype photographs in it. As a young guy, he was a real daredevil, athletic, and strong as a grizzly bear. He could drink a barrel of beer in less than a couple of hours and then he’d roughhouse all the rest of the night with the bartender, providing the bartender was a lady, of course. Yessiree, he could do that, and he did. Why, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t tackle, just to see if he could do it. He used to enter his horse in races and won most of them. Still, I understand he wasn’t killed at San Juan.”
“Did any of those old letters ever mention exactly where he died? Or did one of your relatives mention it to you when you were a youngster?”
“I don’t know—haven’t read all the letters, or looked at all the pictures, yet. As I recollect, some seventy years ago, though, when I was a, wet behind the ears, kid, I was told something about where he finally died, but hanged if I can remember. My mind slips a cog, now and then, as you well know.”
“It certainly does, dear, particularly about vacuuming the front room rug. Two weeks ago, you said you would do it the next day.”
“Yeah, I did say the next day, but did I say what year?”
Mother is laughing and I’m trying not to as we walk slowly onward until we come to another group of people. A man with a theatrical voice and dressed in flashy bright clothes one would see during a stage performance is telling people how he was on an Aircraft Carrier during the Korean War and damn nearly won the war all by himself.
* * * *
“The carrier was just short of nine hundred feet in length. We had eighty airplanes onboard—four different kinds on the hangar deck. Two types were from World War Two. They were the AD that could carry the big two thousand pound bombs and the F4U Gull Wing, which was a fighter plane. We had Panther Jets. They did the fighting, strafing and dropping of small bombs. The Cougar Jet was used only for reconnaissance work, taking pictures and so on. Why, once, I actually saw bullet holes in the Panther Jets and they were real close to the cockpit—that’s where the pilot sits. Several times, we were so close to Korea you could practically spit that far. One night, I went up to the carrier’s flight deck. I could see lights flashing on Korea. Those lights told me there was a battle going on and people were dying. We did lose a few men. One had mess deck duty and somehow he was electrocuted. Another was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. I don’t know the exact accuracy to this, but I do know he fell off the flight deck into the ocean. I was a Fireman in the boiler room at the time and we stopped the ship dead in the water by pulling a lot of the burners out of the boilers. After an hour’s search, the ship moved on.”
The man stopped and wiped his eyes.
“It was an awful thing, losing a guy that way. We lost three other men from car accidents when we were back in our country and while they were on liberty. One group asked me to go ashore with them and for a ride in their car down to Tijuana. I was broke, so I told them, no. They never came back.”
“Ah-h-you’re just being morbid as usual, Grandpa. Tell us how you had to row the carrier all by yourself,” said one of the children with the group. He was eating from a bag of potato chips at the time and appeared to be quite bored.
“I thought he had to shovel coal all by himself,” said another, who I assumed would grow up to be a wiseass.
I heard their grandpa laugh before he shouted, “We didn’t row or shovel coal, you young whippersnappers. We burned fuel oil. And I did have one or two other sailors helping me with that.”
“What was the food like?” another boy asked, who, by his size, I would judge food to be his main hobby in life, perhaps a gourmet cook as an adult.
“Now, there’s an intelligent question, Billy. It shows me you have a thinking head on your shoulders. You’re a good lad. The food was great, even though it wasn’t seasoned like your grandmother’s. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, the mess tables were loaded down with turkeys with all the trimmings, and fresh milk. Every man onboard received a pack of cigarettes and a cigar. I want you young ones to understand that the soldiers and marines fighting in Korea were eating food that I wouldn’t want to eat. And they didn’t have the comfort of a table on a mess deck either.”
A woman the man’s age hugged him. “Come on, dear, before you talk our legs off. We’re going to the next grave, which is Matilda’s. You know, your speech about being in the Navy during the Korean War is getting longer every year.”
“I know that. Still, people need to remember, never to forget the people who joined up and fought for this country. Oh, I still want to say something about the boiler room. We had two of them in Number Three fire room. Big as small houses, they were. Why, one time, we had an explosion that lifted one of the boilers a foot up in the air. You should have seen some guy’s head for the escape hatch. I’ll bet they checked their skivvies when they got off duty.”
“Did you check yours, Grandpa?” one of the kids asked.
“Never mind. Where’s the next grave? You young ones have no respect. You should all be put in a one-room house that’s in an outback about a mile away from people and all forms of civilization until you’re thirty. Then, your parents should decide whether to keep you there, or to let you join the human race. Personally, I’d keep you outback.”
“Come along, dear. You know, I’m beginning to think that perhaps you should write a book.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing and I intend to. Just as soon as we get home, I’m grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil. Then look out world, here I come! Just call me, Mr. Bestseller!”
* * * *
Mother knows I want to be alone for the three graves of the people I know. She quietly mentions for me not to hurry, to take as long as I want, and that she will meet me in the main building enjoying the coffee and cookies always served there. I nod and head for Dru’s grave. Those of you who have read, The Ferguson Murder know that she’s my wife. Dru was fond of Daisies, Chicory, and Queen Anne’s lace. I put some on her grave in a heart shaped pattern and say a few words. “I wish you were here, kid. I’m lonely, night and day. It’s hard going on without you, but I know that is what you would want me to do. I haven’t found anybody else to walk by my side. I think I never will. You were just that special…so very special that I know there was only one like you on this Earth. It’s too bad you and my mother neve
r met. She would have loved you, almost as much as I love you. A police friend gave me twenty clear marbles. He said if I look close enough in to them, I would begin to see my true love. I stare at them almost every night. I still haven’t been able to see you, but I know the time will come when I do. I love you, Dru. I truly love you. I’m lonely for the feel of you in my arms, the scent of your body, the pleasure of looking at your lovely face, the sound of your voice, and especially your unforgettable smile…”
I stood from a kneeling position, wiped my eyes, and walked slowly away. Rosy’s grave is nearby. Rosy was the most beautiful lady of the night in the city. We were friends. Yes, we were just friends, and if any of you think otherwise, you’re wrong. Rosy needed a break and never got it. I placed her favorite flower, a Tropicana Rose, on her grave. “I’m sorry, kid. I should have helped you more than I did, gotten you off the street, given you the job you always asked for, but I couldn’t afford to hire you. I blame myself for what happened to you.”
Thirty feet away is Tommy’s tomb stone. Tommy lived through the Vietnam War. He was a hero with lots of medals. In The Ferguson Murder he died saving my life. There were flowers all over his grave showing that his relatives had already paid their respect to him. “Thanks Tommy. I owe you a debt I can never repay. I’m sure you must know that your nephews rebuilt your newsstand and it is up and operating seven days a week. They’re making a good profit in spite of the fact that I’m still mooching coffee and donuts.”
In the distance, I see Captain Holt. He’s the best cop in the city. I don’t go over to him. I know he wants to be alone with his one true love. Three days before Holt was to marry Lisa, a drunk with a gun ended the young female officer’s life. That was fourteen years ago, and Holt still has undying love for her. Police people are heroes that should be appreciated much more than they are. I can’t imagine a society without them, and I know what I might have become if a very special policeman hadn’t befriended me.
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