Garden of the Dead, page 12
‘We were heading somewhere else, Chief. I stopped to fax some document to Jack. He had left it behind and needed it for a meeting. I noticed the garage had been tampered with and saw the backhoe had been used.’
‘And thought of this?’
‘Exactly.’
‘How come? You don’t have to wait until we’re at the station. You can tell me what got you so hot about it now.’
‘I hired Barry Palmer for part-time.’ He looked at Jack. ‘I screwed up and mentioned the jewelry that was down there. Barry didn’t show up for work today, but even before that, when I saw the backhoe had been used, I suspected him, suspected the grave had been dug.’
‘Palmer? Just recently returned home, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. We were buddies in high school. I met him at Stacks and offered him a job here.’
‘OK.’ He turned to Scarlet. ‘You have anything to add?’
She looked at Randy and then turned back to Siegman.
‘Just that I came close to throwing up a few times. There was definitely a baby down there. I saw him. It wasn’t an aborted fetus, either. I can tell you that. The umbilical was cut and tied.’
Siegman nodded.
Ralph returned with the tape.
‘What the hell am I going to tie this to?’ he asked.
‘I got some stakes in the garage you can use,’ Quinn told him.
‘It’s too dark to do much else here,’ Lou told Jack. ‘Let’s have everyone at the station about eight. We’ll call the Kitchens after I review it all again. Sorry, I can’t avoid it, Randy.’
‘That’s OK. I’m not running from what I did, Chief.’
‘Right. Palmer’s staying with his aunt Lily at the old house, I imagine.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s quite a woman. You know her, Jack?’
‘No. Maybe she’s not in my social circle,’ Jack said dryly.
Lou laughed.
‘Look,’ Quinn said. ‘I’m not saying he’s the one who robbed the jewelry for sure. Jack will tell you the Kitchens’ had control of this coffin up until the time it was lowered into the grave.’
‘What’s that mean?’ Lou asked, taking the cigar out of his mouth.
Quinn shrugged.
‘I don’t know absolutely that there was jewelry down there and neither does Jack.’
‘Jack?’ Lou asked.
‘Well, they did insist on their locking the coffin closed before it was returned with Mr Kitchen to the funeral home.’
‘That so?’ Lou thought a moment and looked at Scarlet. ‘I suppose you’ll suggest that they put a baby in there, instead of the jewelry, huh?’
‘I don’t have to say it. You did,’ Scarlet replied.
They heard someone shout up to them and turned.
‘It’s Richard,’ Jack said. ‘My partner.’
‘Forensics isn’t going to get anything out of footprints here,’ Quinn complained, ‘with everyone traipsing about like this.’
‘That’s true. We’ve seen what we had to see. Appreciate your helping Ralph set up the tape.’
‘What’s going on?’ Richard Valentine demanded. The short run had him gasping. ‘Where’s this dead baby he claims to have seen? Did you find it?’
‘No. Jack can fill you in,’ Siegman said. ‘We’re all meeting at the police station eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘There’s no baby!’
‘There’s no baby,’ Lou repeated.
‘What about the Kitchens?’ Richard asked looking back toward the parking lot. ‘Neither of them would even say hello.’
‘They’ll be down at the station some time tomorrow, I’m sure, but probably with their attorney. Might be a good idea for the two of you to have one primed and ready, too,’ Siegman muttered and looked at Quinn. ‘Ready?’
‘Yeah, sure. I’ll get you the spikes,’ he told Bookman and they started away.
‘No need for you to hang around any longer, Scarlet,’ Quinn told her as they walked back to the funeral home and garage. ‘I’ll help him tie off the grave site and then head home myself.’
‘I can go with you,’ she said.
‘I’m not going to be worth a dime to myself, much less you tonight, Scarlet. I’m just going to have a drink and go to sleep. Maybe that’ll clear my head.’
Her body sagged with disappointment and she remained silent until they reached the front of the garage.
‘I guess I’ll see you in the morning then,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I guess. Thanks for coming.’
She shook her head and grimaced as if he had said the dumbest thing and walked off to her car. He looked after her a moment and then went in to get the spikes for Bookman. When they started back toward the grave, he saw Richard and Jack were still there talking.
‘I’m gonna have to ask you to step away,’ Bookman told them.
They watched as he and Quinn tied a square around the open grave. When they were finished, Bookman hurried to catch up with Chief Siegman.
‘You could have said you found the grave dug up,’ Richard told Quinn as they all started back to their cars. ‘That way we’d have no legal troubles at all. Maybe he could still say that, huh, Jack?’
‘I don’t think so, Richard. We called Stuart Kitchen to ask for permission, don’t forget.’
‘Why didn’t you think how this would play out for us?’ Richard asked Quinn.
‘I did. I thought if I dug it up, found the jewelry still there, I’d fill it in and forget it. No harm done. It was when we saw the dead baby that things went awry.’
‘Awry? I don’t get it. Why isn’t the dead baby there now? Can you explain that?’
Quinn stopped.
‘Someone who knew I had dug up the grave and found it arranged for it to be removed while I was distracted. Simple as that,’ Quinn said and walked faster.
‘Simple?’ Richard shouted after him. ‘You’d better change your story. You’re what’s sounding simple here!’
Quinn didn’t look back. He locked the garage and headed for his truck. Minutes later he was on his way home. He was feeling guilty about sending Scarlet away so abruptly. Besides the comfort she was hoping to give him, there was no question she was hoping he would do the same for her. It was, after all, a thriving, pulsating nightmare eager to sweep in the moment either of them fell asleep.
The truth, however, as weird as it might sound to anyone else, was that he wanted to be alone to think about Evelyn Kitchen. He was like some teenager who wanted to go home and write her name a thousand times. Despite the weirdness of the baby not being in the coffin, the emotion he felt the most during the whole episode was sympathy for Evelyn Kitchen. He should be thinking about himself. He was in trouble, but beside the wonder of being with her alone in the lobby of the funeral home and having the longest conversation with her that he had ever had, the image of her walking with her head down toward her father’s grave haunted him, as well as the look she gave him when they all looked into the coffin and saw no baby.
It made him sick to think she was heading home with the suspicion now that he had stolen the jewelry, that this whole thing had been some sort of ridiculous attempt of his at a cover-up. But what was the truth? Without the dead baby, how could any of this be explained?
When he got home, he flopped in his father’s old heavy cushioned easy chair and nearly fell asleep, but it suddenly occurred to him that he had nothing to eat since lunch. It was as if that part of his body suddenly woke up and shouted, ‘Hey, what gives?’
Despite the hour, he made himself an omelet, but instead of coffee, he had some chamomile tea. All the work and tension finally settled like a lump of clay in his body and he almost fell asleep eating. His fear of ruminating about the events keeping him awake all night proved to be a paper tiger. When he finally lay down, he practically passed out and didn’t wake up until the phone rang. It was already close to eight. He imagined Jack was nervous about him not showing up.
‘Yeah?’ he said, scrubbing his cheek with his left palm to bring some blood into his face.
‘You’re a lucky son of a bitch, Randy,’ Jack said.
‘Not exactly how I feel. What’s up?’
‘Stuart Kitchen’s dropping any charges. Lou called first thing this morning. He only wants the grave refilled immediately.’
‘But it’s a crime scene.’
‘Not if Kitchen’s not pressing charges against you or us and doesn’t care about missing jewelry.’
‘But . . .’
‘There was no baby in the coffin, Randy. Remember? It’s over. Get your ass over here and fill in the site, and then thank your lucky stars. Richard has no interest in firing you any more.’
‘That grave was . . .’
‘Randy, get over it. There’s nothing more to do or nothing more you can do anyway. Just do me a favor, will you. Tell Scarlet to keep this whole thing to herself. There’ll be no story now and no bad publicity for us. Can you do that immediately, please? We have some important business on the front burner and don’t need the bad publicity right now.’
He was silent.
‘Randy?’
‘OK, Jack. I’ll speak to her.’
‘Do it now before she gets a chance to spread this crap around. It wouldn’t do her any good either to get them any angrier.’
‘Why?’ His full mental capacity slipped out from under the fog of a deep sleep. ‘They still believe we took the jewelry?’
‘It doesn’t matter what they believe. It’s over, dead and buried as soon as you get over here and start the backhoe. Get moving. Why are you so sleepy anyway? You were supposed to be here in twenty minutes, as it was.’
‘I know. Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll call Scarlet and I’ll get it together.’
‘Good,’ Jack said and hung up.
Quinn sat there staring down at the floor. A number of things burrowed into his heart at the moment, despite Jack’s declaration of good news. Barry got off with the jewelry for sure. Evelyn Kitchen was now probably convinced that he was a ghoulish thief. And that baby was gone and forgotten. Jack could put it all to bed and pretend none of it happened, but how could he?
He took a deep breath and then called Scarlet. Her mother answered and whether it was his imagination or not, she sounded annoyed with him. It took a good minute for Scarlet to come to the phone.
‘Just got my daughter off to school,’ she said. ‘If you had let me go home with you, you would have had only to roll over in bed.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Listen, Jack just called.’
‘I’ll be there on time.’
‘No, no one has to be there. Kitchen’s dropped all charges.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Right now, since it’s only you and me talking about some missing dead baby corpse, the only illegal acts were my digging up the grave without permission and the theft of the missing jewelry. Stuart Kitchen apparently does not care about the jewelry and thought twice about raising a ruckus over the violated grave. I’ve got to get up there immediately and fill it in.’
‘They’ll just forget about what we saw?’
‘You saw the chief last night. Did he look ambitious to you?’
‘This makes me feel sick to my stomach, Randy.’
‘Doesn’t help my digestion much either, but what can we do about it? Jack asked me to ask you to keep it all to yourself so there’ll be no bad publicity for the funeral home. I don’t imagine you’ve spoken to anyone about it.’
‘Just my mother, but she won’t talk about it. She didn’t even want to hear the story.’
‘She sounded a bit cold this morning. I guess she thinks I’m a bad influence now.’
‘She’ll get over it.’
‘Yeah, but will we?’
‘I’ll do what you want, Randy. If you say forget it, it’s forgotten.’
‘I didn’t say that. I just said don’t talk about it.’
‘Not hard to do,’ Scarlet said. ‘Let me ask you this question.’
‘Go on.’
‘If Stuart Kitchen doesn’t care about the stolen jewelry, why did he make a big deal of being in control of the coffin?’
He was silent.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But it’s something to think about even if no one else wants to.’
‘Like I can stop from doing that,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you,’ he promised.
‘Good,’ she said and hung up.
He made some coffee, stuck a piece of bread into the toaster, took a shower and gobbled it all on his way out to the truck, leaving the empty mug on the back seat.
He had dug this grave twice, he thought as he headed for the cemetery, and he would fill it for the second time, but deep down he had the nagging belief that it wouldn’t be the last time.
In fact, he was convinced of it.
ELEVEN
The dreary overcast sky encouraged the depression Randy felt. He had little appetite for any more breakfast. By the time he reached the cemetery, he plodded about the garage like someone with a bad hangover. The frustration he was feeling gnawed at his insides. He felt like he had swallowed a live rat. He couldn’t get over the sense of his being violated, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The sound of the backhoe’s engine rattled him out of his musings. He cursed under his breath and started into the graveyard. When he reached the open grave, he paused and shut off the engine. Then he dismounted and took down the police ribbon he and Patrolman Bookman had tied around the site. He folded it all neatly and put it with the four stakes, but rather than go right at replacing the dirt and covering the coffin, he studied the ground and then he lowered himself into the grave again.
This was the first time he was looking at it all in daylight, which, despite the heavy cloud cover, was still bright enough to permit a closer look around the coffin. Yesterday, by the time he had decided to defy Jack and Richard, it was already too dark for such an examination. He knew his own boot imprints so he was able to differentiate them from the smaller ones he saw around the coffin. Since this area had all been covered in dirt, there was no doubt someone else had been in this grave and around this coffin after he had uncovered it. He didn’t know Barry’s foot size precisely, but the footprints looked very much like they could be his.
He probably wore gloves so forensics wouldn’t have gotten any fingerprints off the coffin, Quinn thought. He boosted himself out of the grave and studied the ground to the right. It was, despite the grass, easy to locate those same footprints here and there. They trailed off through the cemetery toward the west end. He walked in that direction and found them again at the beginning of the wooded area.
Because of the fallen leaves, it was a little more difficult to track, but years of living on the edge of the woods, playing in them as a young boy, taught him how to look for signs of travelers, whether they were deer, rabbits, foxes or people. The woods on this side of the Sandburg Cemetery weren’t deep. After about a third of an acre, they ended at the side of Church Road, a road that led back into Sandburg proper. He saw the footprints in the side of the small bank that ran down to the ditch and then found them again where a vehicle had surely been parked. The whole exploration from the edge of Matthew Kitchen’s grave to this spot had taken less than fifteen minutes. He could easily have shown this to the police today if Stuart Kitchen hadn’t dropped the charges. For a few moments he stood there looking down the road as if he could somehow still see the vehicle pulling away. He felt certain that vehicle was Barry Palmer’s truck.
The short examination only fanned the flames of anger and frustration burning inside him. He marched back through the woods and the cemetery and stared down at the coffin. If he called the police and told Siegman he had proof someone else had been in the grave, Siegman would say, ‘So? Kitchen doesn’t want to pursue any robbery or anything else.’ What could he do about that?
After a few more moments, he shook his head and muttered, ‘I’m sorry,’ to the dead Matthew Kitchen. He mounted the backhoe and began to fill in the grave.
On his way back to the garage, he saw Jack Waller waving to him. He pulled closer and shut the engine.
‘What’s up?’
‘Ira Elmore keeled over this morning while he was raking the front lawn. His son Gerald just called. You know their family site. We took care of his wife two years ago. He was ninety-four and not sick a day in his life, according to Gerald. Only way that’s better to go than Ira’s way is to be shot in bed with someone else’s beautiful wife.’
‘OK. I’ll pencil it in for Friday?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Oh. Richard thought we should do something about the bushes on the east end.’
‘Surprised he noticed.’
‘We’ll have some government types looking us over in a few weeks. We’re looking good for the Morton property. You’ll have a lot to do soon.’
‘Suits me,’ Quinn said. Waller started to turn. ‘Jack?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know you don’t care, but I found footprints from the floor of the grave and tracked them through the cemetery and woods to Church Road. Had to have been made after I uncovered the coffin last night.’
‘You’re right,’ Waller said. ‘I don’t care.’
Quinn watched him walk off and then he started the backhoe and drove it to the garage. With his rage turning his face crimson, he almost drove the backhoe right through the building. He kept himself busy the remainder of the morning as a way of calming himself. Because he didn’t take time to prepare his lunch, he decided to go to Kayfield’s in the village and have something to eat.
The small restaurant at the center of the hamlet was one of the few businesses that had managed to hang on during the economic downturn that hit the resort area once the summer clientele had begun to go elsewhere. All the locals had a variety of theories about it, from blaming cabana clubs on Long Island to the growth of jet travel and the resistance of teenagers to long family holidays. Without any real second industry to take the place of resorts, the businesses totally dependant upon vacation goers began to suffer financial heart failure. Villages and hamlets that were once booming little summer extensions of New York neighborhoods began to look like ghost towns or facades for Hollywood sets after the movie had been shot. Any significant pedestrian traffic basically disappeared. Store windows were boarded and, without loving care and attention, the facades of buildings began to fade. It was as though there were a perpetual gray sky over every Main Street in every hamlet and village.
