The Last Day For Rob Rhino

by Kathleen O'Donnell

  ment as Lana Chalmers was found

  dead yesterday. Local authorities say

  her body was discovered behind a local

  adult movie and gift store, Alex’s Adult

  World Gift Emporium and Warehouse,

  by a warehouse employee. Lana had

  appeared at Alex’s with former costar

  reality TV star Rob Rhino to sign auto-

  graphs. No official cause of death has

  been released pending a full investigation.

  The warehouse employee, who has not

  been identified, said he found Lana

  “propped against the building, in a sitting

  position, partially clothed, with bruises

  around her jaw and neck.” Rob Rhino, her

  costar in the cult classic The Postman

  Always Screws Twice said, “Lana struggled

  with drugs. I thought she was doing better.

  She had a lot to live for—herself, her family.

  We are all saddened by this terrible loss.”

  _________________________________

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “So this is what five million gets you?”

  Claire turned to Freddie Eddie, surprised he spoke to her. She only nodded.

  Claire looked at the now sodded ground and the orange-flagged stakes that marked off the mausoleum site. The outbuildings were gone and the parcel, other than its lack of dead people, looked like the rest of the cemetery; flawless creepiness.

  This won’t end well.

  Claire couldn’t stop thinking about Freddie Eddie’s words, the article he must’ve put under her pillow. Who else would’ve? Certainly not Rob.

  “... will be out here?” Rob Rhino said.

  “Huh?” Claire said.

  “I asked when the mausoleum would be out here.”

  “Today or tomorrow. It’s a prefab so—”

  “A prefab? Like a...like a mobile home?” Freddie Eddie said forehead wrinkled.

  “Just like that.”

  She and Freddie Eddie sat on one of the new wrought iron and concrete benches placed under one of the new, yet miraculously mature (even Mother Nature had her price) shade trees near the Corrigan family’s final resting place. Rob Rhino stretched out on the lawn next to them.

  “Quite a coincidence all of this,” Freddie Eddie said.

  Claire did a double take. Yeah, two dead women. Was he going to bring it up in front of Rob?

  “Old Father Pat, your father-in-law.” Freddie Eddie sucked on a toothpick he must’ve brought with him.

  “That coincidence. Right,” Claire said.

  “Beats all, doesn’t it?” Rob said from below.

  Claire let out a heavy sigh, was about to go on a woe is me tirade about Grace’s shortcomings, the family ill will, when the sounds of snoring wafted up from Rob Rhino. She looked down. She’d forgotten how near narcoleptic he was. Certainly he wouldn’t take Dramamine for such a short car ride.

  “He’s gone downhill quick this time,” Freddie Eddie said. “Just found out about that meeting in LA and wham it’s like a one-way ticket to psychoville. He sleeps a lot, doesn’t shower, looks like shit. Rob’s a different man as soon as he hears LA. Gloria died there.” He let it sit.

  “I noticed,” Claire said.

  She wanted to ask him about the girl, the article, what he knew about Gloria, but didn’t want to risk Rob overhearing them. She glanced down at Rob sleeping like a well-hung baby on the grass at her feet.

  “She must be on his mind a lot, especially here,” she said.

  “She’s always on his mind, I think.”

  Freddie Eddie leaned down and stared at his friend and client of so many years, his hair and clothes a rumpled dirty mess. “Rob loves an underdog. Always has. But he can’t handle it when they don’t come out from under.” His stare made her squirmy.

  Claire felt herself blush. “My husband’s first wife committed suicide. My mother’s lost her mind.” Freddie Eddie kept staring. “Some people aren’t made for disappointment.”

  He nodded, the sun glinting off his nose jewelry.

  ****

  “How far is it?” Rob called out.

  Claire hollered back without stopping or turning around. “Are you going to make it?”

  “I don’t remember it being this far. I’m draggin’.”

  Like a whippet, Freddie Eddie darted back and forth between Claire and Rob yipping.

  “Come on, Rob. You’re bottom heavy.” Freddie Eddie cackled as he zigged and zagged his way up the walk.

  Claire could see the chapel ahead. She stopped by a shade tree, glanced at her watch. She’d worked up a bit of a sweat on the walk, her head felt slick, she swiped at it with one hand.

  “Look at this name.” She pointed to a headstone. “Charles Darwin. No way.”

  Claire looked back at Rob for confirmation. He shuffled to catch up.

  “Different Darwin,” Rob said.

  Freddie Eddie kept walking toward the chapel slower while Rob and Claire dallied. The cemetery grounds were fairly empty since Trustee Week was long over. A small group of tourists mingled near the chapel doors. Claire was about to crack wise about the town and Darwin’s waiting room when she suddenly didn’t. Someone said something she couldn’t make out from behind, like an echo her joke stopped cold. Claire turned, tried to see who said it.

  A small wrinkled man, his head shrunken and bald, jerked in their direction. His rickety movements almost comical, zombie like. He seemed old as Methuselah or fresh out of a grave. The walking dead welcome wagon. His outstretched hand held out something too small to be a fruit basket.

  “Why can’t you leave well enough alone?” His ancient voice a jagged rasp. “Let my daughter rest in peace.” He never stopped moving, not quick but moving.

  “Did he say daughter?” Claire was pretty sure he did.

  “Let my daughter rest in peace.” Crazy old man, the broken record kept coming. “Let my daughter rest in peace.”

  Rob smiled a funny crooked cavernous grin, obviously at a loss for words because he wasn’t saying any. Freddie Eddie came toward them from one side, or she thought he did. Rob dashed in front of her, his back facing her, fast for a fat man. His arms spread out, waved like Batman’s cape. The heel of his clog smashed the toe of her Chanel flat.

  Claire jumped at the crack.

  First one, then another, and one more. Sharp, quick, brutal.

  Later she’d say it happened just like in the movies.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Batman’s cape folded. Rob dropped to the ground.

  Claire blinked. The place in front of her taken up by Rob Rhino just seconds before emptied. She didn’t get it at first even with the all the blood. Rob’s mouth hung open a little, his weird smile still plastered on his face. Claire stared at the gap where his tooth should’ve been. Freddie Eddie kneeled to one side of Rob Rhino, hands pressed to Rob’s gushing chest, Rob’s hula girls and palm trees soaked red.

  Was someone screaming?

  Most of Claire’s senses had stopped working. She’d gone deaf and dumb.

  She dropped to her knees almost on top of him, her cherry red Hermes bag still gripped in one hand. He smelled like sweat, grass, and something new, rancid and metallic. She played possum. A small crowd gathered. Only moving her eyes Claire spied the old man through the tourist’s legs, lying soles up, a gun flung there like it was no big deal, blood sprayed on the walk and something else fleshy. A few more legs, clad in dark blue, hovered around the old man’s body.

  Rob Rhino’s chest gaped open, overflowing.

  He’d be so mad. His favorite shirt, maybe his only one, ruined. Claire opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She could see Freddie Eddie’s mouth moving, his eyes like pinballs. He patted her down like he was looking for something hidden. The two blue men hunkered down next to her, their lips flapped. She couldn’t figure it out.

  Claire thought she still lived
but couldn’t be sure.

  Joe Lansing shoved his way in with the priest who made the sign of the cross over Rob. Claire wanted to grab the gun, shoot him. She thought she saw Evelyn Wallace’s funny blue hair weaving through. Hours or seconds went by, she didn’t know which. She watched Rob’s blood spread, drip, run onto the sod. Claire sat drenched in it. Two paramedics pushing a stretcher made their way through.

  Heads shook, faces grimaced. One of the paramedics said something to Freddie Eddie, squeezed his arm. He pressed his eyelids shut with the fingers of one hand and nodded in response to something they’d said to him. Claire could see him crying. They were ready to put Rob on the stretcher.

  She snapped to, dropped her bag and scrambled on her knees toward his body.

  “Don’t,” she said finding her voice.

  They looked surprised, not sure where she’d come from. This hairless blood-covered woman.

  Claire smoothed Rob’s ratty hair, pulled the bottom of his shirt down to hide his exposed belly. They’d closed his eyes. She gently leaned down, lay on his wet bloody body like she had all the time in the world. The gathering stepped back a respectful distance to observe the oddball pair. The bald woman, the dead porn star, locked in a macabre embrace.

  He felt warm. His shirt drenched, the smell of blood sweet, sickening, like raw meat. She didn’t care. Claire scooped him into both arms, held him close. She pressed her ear hard to his chest, looking for familiar refuge in the sound of his heartbeat.

  She couldn’t hear a thing.

  ****

  The on-call nurse walked by her with a stack of folded up something or other.

  “Where’s Freddie Eddie?” Claire’s skin felt scalded, the top of her scalp seared. “Where did they take Rob?”

  “Someone will be in to talk to you in a minute,” the nurse said.

  After they’d scraped the bodies up they’d made her and Freddie Eddie go to the hospital. She heard someone say they thought she was in shock. Is that what this was? She’d heard they brought both Rob and the shooter here. Claire and Freddie rode in separate police cars. She hadn’t seen him since she’d arrived.

  She put her face in her hands.

  Freddie Eddie walked in.

  “Oh thank God. Freddie Eddie.” Claire almost collapsed with relief. “Where have you been? What’ve they done with Rob?” She could feel the nervous breakdown making its way in. “What in the name of...” She couldn’t finish her sentence. She broke down.

  He tilted his head in Claire’s direction and spoke to the hovering nurse. “Her doctor’s name is Levinson. She’s been at this hospital before, not too long ago. She’s in recovery and I think he needs to know she’s here and what happened. Thanks, honey.”

  Freddie Eddie reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue pill. Claire swallowed it dry like the old days. So like Rob to make sure Freddie Eddie had her covered. Just in case.

  Claire sobbed. She hadn’t thought of a pill. She couldn’t remember when she’d last taken one. They must be right. She was in shock. Freddie Eddie pulled a chair up next to the exam table she sat on. She’d been in this room before but didn’t remember it. She’d had a stomach full of Xanax then, instead of like now, her hands and face covered in the dried blood of Rob Rhino.

  This time the on-call doctor gave her a clean bill of health. No wounds. The blood was Rob’s. The bullets lodged in his chest, no passing through. The shooter turned the gun on himself immediately after.

  The been-there-done-that murder suicide.

  Claire’d taken off her bloody shirt and still wore the open-in-the-back gown. Her hands, arms, and face bore Rob Rhino’s dried blood. Freddie Eddie looked like a combat survivor.

  Claire could feel the heaviness of their grief in the room.

  “You were right Freddie Eddie.”

  “About what kid?”

  Claire could hear the ancient man’s voice, old as dirt, and would forever, bouncing off the walls of her skull.

  Let my daughter rest in peace.

  “About Gloria’s dad. Rob told me you were afraid he’d do this, get revenge.” Claire tore a hole in her paper gown with her red stained finger.

  Freddie Eddie turned his chair so he was facing Claire. “The shooter wasn’t Gloria’s dad.”

  “What? He said my daughter—”

  “I know.”

  Claire felt dizzy, nauseous, her mind pushing away the information.

  “What are you saying?”

  “He was talking to you, Claire. The shooter was Bonnie’s dad.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  “The shooter’s name was—”

  “Elgin Grady,” Claire said more to herself.

  “Umm... yes,” the police officer continued.

  “Go on, officer.” Freddie Eddie still had Claire’s hand. He squeezed.

  “His wife Marta is here. She identified the body.” The policeman rocked back on his heels. “She came out to the cemetery but too late. She tried to talk him out of this... his folly before he left home. She didn’t think he’d do it. Said she didn’t know he had a gun. Apparently their daughter Bonnie was married to your now deceased husband Liam Corrigan?”

  Claire nodded.

  “Mrs. Grady says she committed suicide after their divorce. Her father Elgin blamed your husband for her death.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Claire said. “But that was over twenty years ago. I didn’t even meet Liam until she’d been dead several years. I wasn’t the reason they divorced. So why would he want to shoot me?”

  The silver-haired officer took a small pad of paper out of his shirt pocket.

  “Marta Grady told us you’re here to bury your husband. In the university cemetery. You’ve made a multimillion dollar donation, bought a family crypt. Put Mr. Corrigan’s sister on the board of trustees. Is that correct?”

  He’d read down the list of the crimes committed by Claire as if these heinous infractions were punishable by lethal injection.

  “So what? She can do all of those things if she wants to.” Freddie Eddie stiffened, all of a sudden her defender.

  “She can.” If she wanted to cause trouble the not so subtle undertone. “Marta Grady said they heard it all over town, in the papers, on TV.” He consulted his notes again. “The sister cornered Elgin at some function. Marta said he wasn’t the most stable guy anymore. It pushed him over, he lost it. He didn’t want your husband or any more of his family anywhere near his daughter.”

  The policeman put his pad back in his shirt pocket, crossed his arms in what looked to Claire like silent agreement. “She said Elgin didn’t think it was right. Your husband’s family getting pats on the back for good works when his daughter killed herself.”

  “How the hell did Elgin Grady know Claire was going to be at the cemetery today and what she looked like?” Freddie Eddie got out of the chair.

  “Well... for one thing...” The officer licked his too full lips. “She’s got a distinct look, don’t you think?”

  “I’m bald Freddie Eddie. Hard not pick me out of a crowd.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that, but how did he know where you were?”

  The policeman consulted his trusty notes.

  “Elizabeth Corrigan, your husband’s sister, told him at Trustee Night.”

  ****

  Claire and Freddie Eddie were free to leave the hospital but didn’t.

  The police said they’d continue their investigation, keep them posted. Since Elgin took himself out only Elizabeth was the missing link. Marta Grady was an old lady in her nineties. Miraculous she’d driven herself to the cemetery. No wonder she didn’t get there in time. She’d probably started out three days prior. No one would look at her too seriously as any kind of accomplice.

  Claire felt like she’d been hit with a stun gun. Freddie Eddie sat back down in the cheap rickety chair. Claire’s lips quivered.

  “I can’t believe it. It’s my fault,” Claire said tears falling.

  “Claire—” F
reddie Eddie didn’t look at her.

  “It is.”

  Claire and her schemes. She swung her legs back and forth on the edge of the table.

  “You don’t know.”

  Freddie Eddie got up and hopped up on the table next to her. “I do know why you’re here. This might come as a shock but not everything is about you.”

  Claire cried, the waterworks running faster than her nose. “Well, this is.”

  “Claire—” Freddie Eddie smoothed back his heavily gelled hair with one hand. “Everyone does what they want. Rob was no exception.”

  Claire clamped her eyes down like lids. “If it weren’t for me he’d still be alive.”

  Freddie Eddie reached over and turned Claire’s face toward his by her chin. “You don’t get it, because you don’t want to. You’re not ready, I guess. Rob walked in front of that bullet because he wanted to.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks and onto Freddie Eddie’s hand.

  “I told you, he loved the underdog. More than anything he wanted to save you and himself.” Freddie Eddie wiped her face with a tender swipe. “So he did it the only way he knew how.”

  ****

  Claire stared at him through the glass, laid out on the steel gurney, covered to his double chin with a white sheet. Cleaned up a little. She knew it was him, his wild hair still recognizable. It was Rob Rhino only different. He looked made of something other than skin and bones. The way the dead do. She’d gone to view her father when he’d died. He looked similar. A body without life, the color of paste, the features familiar yet strange. Liam had been mangled and burnt beyond recognition, identified by dental records.

  The fluorescent lighting in the hospital basement morgue (why are they always in the basement?) cast a greenish tinge. Even the living didn’t look it. Claire pressed both palms and her nose against the glass as if Rob could feel her there if she did.

  Freddie Eddie stood next to her, his hand on her back. Claire felt breathless, overwhelmed. Freddie Eddie’s hand felt like steel against her spine. If it hadn’t been there she’d have fallen. Her eyes spilled over. Hard to believe she’d only known Rob Rhino for such a short time.