Callisto (21 page)

S
aturday morning and here comes the cop right on time, his tires splashing through the puddles. He's a rookie by the look of him, around my age with very fair hair, and he's brung his camera. He says he's there to tape the house interior and the grave hole getting emptied out, and he's not happy about it because he wasn't officially rostered for weekend work only the Chief insisted. He sounded kind of pissed about things in general, the way he talked.

I took him around back and showed him the mound, which looks like it's been there some considerable time thanks to the rain. He shot it for a few seconds to show it undisturbed, then he gave me a look that's kind of apologetic which means he's been told by Chief Webb that it's me doing the spadework today. I picked up the shovel and started in on it while he shot me doing it, then he said he may as well start in on the house while I'm busy out here. So off he went
through the back door while I felt my first sweat of the day start to come through my shirt. Damn that Chief Webb!

Those first couple of feet of dirt were heavy with rain and stuck to me because of the dampness, which made progress even slower and filthier. I swore never again to pick up a shovel the rest of my life. Even my favorite dog, if I ever had one, would not get buried in the yard when he died, he'd be put up in the branches of a tree like the Indians used to do with their kin and left there to get eaten away by time and weather. The further down I got the drier the earth, so that was easier, only I'm getting tired by now so it was no picnic even then. The rookie come back out when I'm around halfway down and says he's done the entire place. I probably should've cleaned up a little before he started taping but too late now.

He lit a smoke and watched me work, which was irksome, and told me the department is so cheap it doesn't even have a DVD recorder, just this crappy old videocam that's a dinosaur, he calls it even if it is a Sony. This tape he just now shot will be going to Homeland Security for a permanent record and won't ever be taped over again. It's a special tape, he says, because it's connected to the threat against Senator Ketchum which everyone is talking about. You could tell that even though he didn't want to fritter away his Saturday like this he's kind of proud to be the one that made the tape that's so god-damn important. He stood over me smoking his cigarette while he talked, even flicked his ash down into the hole next to me, which made me want to sling a shovel of dirt up at him for payback, only you can't do stuff like that to a cop even if he's a rookie.

Finally I got to the bottom and he shot footage of me reaching it and finding nothing. The replay on this tape was going to be very exciting viewing at Homeland Security. I climbed out and he shot the empty hole, then he says he doesn't need to tape the hole getting filled in again now that it's been officially established and recorded that the hole is empty. So he can be on his way while I have to fill the damn thing back in again. I was glad about that, because I had to add a little something before shoveling the dirt back in, and I for sure did not want any cop videoing that part of the procedure for Homeland Security to look at.

I walked him back to his car and away he drove. I waited till he's out of sight then went to dig Dean out of the grass pile. The plastic bags had worked the way they should and there's very little stink coming through, even so I would not have wanted to pick him up and carry him against my chest like I ended up doing if I was not already filthy dirty. I counted it up and it's five times now that this pesky hole has been dug out – first by Dean to bury Bree, then by the cops to see what's down there, then by me to bury Dean, then by me to get him out again, then by me this morning for the fifth and final time, I hope.

I was not gentle in my treatment of Dean, had come to the end of my rope with regard to this guy that had made so much trouble and commotion for everyone. I did not get down in the hole again to lay him out careful like a fellow human being, no, I just dropped him in and didn't care that he landed all folded over and not laid out straight the respectful way. He had gone and left Bree in the freezer all folded over and undignified so who the heck was he to expect right and proper
treatment now that he's dead. Preacher Bob had got it about right concerning Dean, that's how I was thinking as I started shoveling dirt down over him watched by curious chickens.

I showered away the dirt and had lunch, then called up Lorraine on my pretty new cell phone. Somehow I thought that if my last call to her had not met with success it was because that was done from the plain old kitchen phone. With the new cell I would very likely get satisfaction, coming at her on a different wavelength so to speak. That was my hope anyway as I pressed those dinky little buttons.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Lorraine, it's me.”

“Odell, I was just about to call you.”

“Yeah?”

“I'm on my way downtown to the funeral home to make arrangements for Bree. I have to be there soon because they close at twelve-thirty on a Saturday. I can't do this alone, Odell. My nerves are shot to pieces by all this. Did you see Preacher Bob's show last night?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Now it's happened like I knew it would. Dean has got to be Public Enemy Number One all over the entire country. It's a disgrace for the family name.”

“Preacher Bob didn't say his name.”

“But everyone knows who he's talking about! His name's in all the papers and the TV news, and his picture. You didn't tell anyone about the homo part, did you?”

“I said I wouldn't.”

“Because that would be more than my nerves could stand, if people knew that about him.”

“I won't ever tell, I promise.”

“Thank you, Odell. You're being a true friend about all of this. So are you gonna be there at the funeral home to help me out with the arrangements?”

“I'll be there.”

“It's on Fifth Street, Regis Galbally Funeral Services. I'm leaving right now.”

“Okay.”

She hung up. I forgot to ask her does it sound different hearing me on the new cell, but I could always ask her later. I got dressed in my best jeans and made sure there's nothing stuck to the front of my best shirt, then I headed for the truck.

All the way into town I kept thinking about Lorraine. It had been a real thrill to hear her voice again, which proves I am deeply in love, as the saying goes. She was not my ideal kind of woman which happens to be small and thin and dark, when I think about it. Lorraine is big and meaty and blonde, the exact opposite. It has always been a problem with me, this thing about the ideal woman. What does it mean, and why this particular type over some other particular type? I can't say, but my mother was small and thin and dark so maybe there is a psychological reason for it that should not be looked at too close.

I mean, until I met Lorraine, when I thought of my ideal woman, about marrying and so forth, I didn't think about my mother as such, which would be kind of sick, I think. No, I would think about Condoleezza Rice strange to say, who is older than me, even older than Lorraine is, but there it is, Condoleezza Rice was the one I thought about being married
to for several years now, which I did not tell anyone about because they would not believe me, or they would have said other things that I might take offense at. Condi struck me as being about the smartest woman on the planet and the most decent also, rushing about from one country to the next in her plane fixing things between nations and doing everything she can for world peace and whatnot, all the while looking very trim and smart in her outfits with the pearls and always with a smile. I really like that little gap between her front teeth. I bet she is a very modest lady that does not bignote herself the way some of these politicians do every time they get in front of a camera, like Senator Ketchum does, for instance. No, Condi is not that kind and I respect her for that, and there is also the affection I feel that makes me think about marrying her the way other guys think about marrying some movie star or singer or whatall they never could hope even to carry her garbage out.

Of course I would do my best now that there's Lorraine not to be thinking so much about Condoleezza. I have not mentioned this till now because there was no need. This kind of thing is very private and personal, the things you think about with regard to women. But now that there's Lorraine I must not betray her in my heart or mind by allowing myself to think about Condi like I have been doing for some time now, so farewell, Condoleezza, and wish me happiness with another, meaning Lorraine.

I was downtown by then and not too far from Fifth Street when there's a flashing in my rearview mirror, red and blue so it's the police. Was I speeding? I didn't think so but you can't just keep driving when those police twinkle bars start flashing
in your rearview, so I pulled over and waited for the cop to get out and come tell me what I did. When I saw who it was I felt a little chill creep over me because it's Chief Webb. He come up to my window which I rolled down nice and polite.

“Afternoon, Odell,” he says, and he's right, the dashboard clock says 12.03. I have not got much time to be with Lorraine at the Gallbladder Funeral Place so this better not take too long.

“Afternoon, Chief .” I gave him a big smile so he won't get mad at me about whatever it is I did wrong.

“My man come visit you this morning?”

“Yessir, he did, and shot his camera every which way, then he left.”

“You and me need to talk, Odell.”

“Okay.”

“About Dean Lowry.”

“I'd just as soon not, Chief. That's a topic that brings me a depressive feeling with all this fuss and bother going on now.”

“Depressive? Maybe you think you know about depressive, only you don't. But maybe after we have a little talk you will.”

“It's just I have to be at the funeral home right now with Lorraine. She's making arrangements for her aunt, the funeral and things, and she wants me there to be with her to do that.”

“Is that so? Well, other matters take presidents over stuff like that. Other matters like giving false information to the police in a murder case.”

“Huh?”

“Think back a little, Odell. Did you or did you not tell me you came to the Lowry place on Saturday afternoon when your car broke down? Think careful now.”

That's what I told him, all right, even though it was a Sunday that I turned up for real. One thing I learned from the cop shows is they hate it when you tell them one thing and then tell them another thing that's opposite to what you said the first time. It makes them real suspicious you're lying, which I was, but not for bad reasons.

“It was Saturday,” I said.

“You're absolutely sure about that.”

“I sure am.”

“And you'll swear to that in court?”

“Court?”

“Just in a manner of speaking.”

“Okay.”

“You're telling me you were at the Lowry place with Dean Lowry on Saturday night, all night.”

“That's right.”

“Only I've been asking around and it seems Dean was somewhere else that Saturday night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. There are witnesses, plenty of them.”

“Witnesses about what exactly?”

“About his whereabouts.”

“I don't think I know what you mean, Chief. It's only twenty-five minutes till the funeral home closes and Lorraine's expecting me . . .”

“Let her wait. Ever been inside the Okeydokey Karaoke Bar?”

“I never heard of it,” I said.

“Well, Dean did. He went there a bunch of times including last Saturday. It's a known homo hangout. All the fruits like to
get up on stage and sing their little hearts out. Last Saturday Dean, he got up on stage and sang ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose.' You know that song, Odell?”

“I might have heard it on the oldies station.”

“There was a guy there at the Okeydokey Karaoke with a DVD camera. He shot the whole thing, with one of those little readout things in the corner of the screen, you know the kind, it gives the time of day or night and the date. You can't mess with those things, it's built into the computer or whatever runs those things. Dean was there, not at home with you, so now what do you have to say to me about Saturday night, Odell?”

“Well . . . it must have been Sunday, I guess.”

“Sunday.”

“Uhuh.”

“You're changing your story, is that what you're telling me?”

“I thought it was Saturday, but if you've got this movie with him someplace else I must've been wrong about that, excuse me.”

“Excuse you?” He gave me this long look through his sunglasses. “The thing I'm trying to figure out about you, Odell, is if you're the dumbest son of a bitch I ever ran across, or the smartest.”

I gave him what I wanted to sound like a laugh, only it come out more like a wheeze from some old smoking guy's chest full of cancer. “I'm just forgetful, not dumb.”

“Is that right.”

“Me and Dean, we got drunk is what happened, so maybe that's what made me think it's Saturday and not Sunday.”

“Uhuh. Anything else?”

“Well, if I was a churchgoer there wouldn't be any problem because I'd remember going to church that day, but I don't do that so that's maybe the reason I thought it's Saturday instead. Is it important?”

“Important? Did you see Preacher Bob's show last night?”

“Yeah . . .”

“The entire damn nation up in arms about this terrorist murderer that's threatening to assassinate a well-known public figure, and you want to know if it's important? You're just pretending to be stupid aren't you, Odell?”

“Nossir, I'm not.”

“So you really are stupid.”