Gravedigger (18 page)

“She’s supposed to be dead, remember? She won’t come. That would spoil their plans.” He worked up what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Stop worrying. Nothing’s going to happen to me. Don’t forget to take her picture. It’s in the top left drawer of the desk. And concentrate on your driving, all right? Don’t speed trying to get back here.”

Cecil looked doubtful, but he went down the stairs again. Before he left, he called, “I’ll phone you, soon as I find old Jay. I’m locking the door.”

It didn’t stay locked. Cecil hadn’t been gone ten minutes when Dave heard footsteps cross the brick courtyard and the tinkle of keys. He reached for his pants. The door opened. With the falling of the rain on the bricks for a background, Amanda called, “Dave?” sounding a little timid.

“Ho,” he said. “Warm yourself at the fire. I’ll be right there. Help yourself to a drink.” Getting the trousers on one-handed took time. He went down the stairs. She stood in front of the fire in knickers, boots, a fur hat, and the long, long muffler. She smiled and held out a glass to him with Scotch in it and ice. Her smile was sheepish. “I’d like you to forgive me, if you can.”

“For what? Making a mistake?” He took the glass. “Thank you.” He drank from the glass. “Don’t brood about it. How were you supposed to know what he was? He didn’t tell you—right?”

“I mean for the names I called you,” she said, “for the awful things I said to you.”

“What’s important,” he said, “is that you’re all right You’re going to be all right, aren’t you?”

She looked into her glass. She sat on the couch. She looked at the burning logs. “After while,” she said. “Not right away.” She looked at Dave. “He admitted it all to me, everything you’d said.”

“That’s nice. We won’t have to ask Avram,” Dave said. “I think he’d be a little embarrassed, telling you about those pictures.”

“Miles thought if he confessed and said he was sorry, we could go right on.” She gave a little humorless laugh, a little shake of her head. “I’ve just come from him. And, do you know, I was tempted. That’s why I came flying to you. I know he’s rotten, but he is so damned beautiful, Dave.”

“He thinks so,” Dave said. “You’ll get over it.”

She took a sip of her drink, rummaged cigarettes from her shoulder bag, held the pack up to Dave. He took a cigarette, she took one. Dave lit them both. She dropped the long red pack back into the bag and frowned up at Dave through smoke. “Women sometimes make a go of it with—with someone like Miles. Someone sexually like Miles.”

“Not someone ethically like Miles,” Dave said. “Sure, some women do. So I’ve read. I’ve never met one. I’ve met one lately that didn’t make a go of it.” He stopped talking. “My God,” he said, “how stupid I am.” He set his drink on the hearth and went for his jacket. “You’re going to have to excuse me. I have to see that woman.”

“You got the Jaguar,” she said.

“Lock up, will you?” he said, and opened the door.

Rain dripped off the jungle gym whose red paint small hands had worn down in places to the dull steel tubing, rain glazed the yellow-and-blue crawl barrels, splashed in the gaudy little cars of the choochoo that never moved, wept off the steel steps of the slide, slithered down the shiny chute of the slide, and made a deep puddle at the foot of the chute. Rain pooled in the canvas-sling seats of the chain-hung swings. The low end of the gingham-print seesaw drowned in a puddle. It looked sad. But the wide windows of the playschool glowed and were pasted with cutout paper daffodils. Dave worked the latch of the gate in the chain link fence and crossed the yard. Halfway to the door, music met him, noise, the rattle of toy drums and tin xylophones and tambourines, the high-pitched piping of small voices. He looked through the streaming glass of the door. They sat in a circle on their little red chairs and played and sang and kept time by clapping their hands and stamping their feet. If he knocked he wouldn’t be heard. He turned the cold, wet knob, pushed the door open, and put his head inside. The air was warm, moist, and smelled of little kids, graham crackers, banana peels, toilet accidents. He stepped inside and closed the door. The kids paid him no attention, nor did the massive moon-faced black woman in the gay patchwork smock, but Anna Westover got up swiftly and came to him, looking alarmed.

“Serenity? Have you found her?”

“It’s possible. But not to talk to.”

“What do you mean? What’s happened?”

“Nothing lately,” Dave said. “But about ten years ago something happened, and I’d like you to tell me about it.”

The kids were too loud for her to hear him. She lifted her hand to indicate that he was to follow her. They skirted the circle of little red chairs, stepping over spilled toys and storybooks and stuffed animals. She opened a door and waited for him to go through, came in after him, shut the door. It was not a big office, and it was crowded with supplies—construction paper, jars of white paste, bottles of poster paint. Shelves sagged. There were boxes of wax crayons, of chalk, of small scissors, cheap paintbrushes. Cartons were stacked hip-deep—modeling clay, newsprint for painting. The desk was barely visible. She lifted an armload of stuff off a molded plastic chair with spindly steel legs for him to sit on. She sat behind the desk. The door was flimsy, the kids still loud, but it was just possible to talk.

“Ten years ago,” Dave said, “you caught your husband and Don Gaillard involved in a homosexual act—isn’t that so?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “They’d had a long friendship, relationship, and it came to an end suddenly then and there. This was why you told me that there wouldn’t be another woman in his life, wasn’t it? Because you were the only woman he’d ever been physically interested in. Gaillard had been willing to share him with you, but you weren’t having that, were you?”

She had turned white. “Where did you hear this?”

“I pieced it together. You began it. Lyle told me how much he’d liked Gaillard when he was small, how close the friendship was between Gaillard and his father, how puzzled he was when it suddenly stopped.”

“Close!” Her mouth twisted in derision.

“Then Gaillard added a few facts. And finally, his mother filled out the rest. She said that her son and your husband had spent every weekend of their lives together, even after you and Charles married. Is that true?”

“What has this got to do with poor Serenity? It’s ancient history, past and done with. I forgave Charles. He meant too much to me. He meant everything to me. This thing with Don—delayed adolescence, neurotic nonsense.” She snorted. “They weren’t boys anymore.”

“If you set out to find a man who isn’t a boy anymore,” Dave said, “you’re going to be a long time looking. And you haven’t forgotten about it. It’s not ancient history to you. Don Gaillard’s still the enemy. That’s why you never mentioned him to me when I asked you to tell me who your husband might run to when he was in trouble.”

“They hadn’t spoken in years,” she said. “That day when I found them naked in bed together was the last time they ever saw each other.”

“They had a place they went to on those weekends, didn’t they?” Dave stood up. “And you followed them there. Why? You’d watched them go off together a thousand times.”

“To the high Sierras, to the desert, to Baja. Ocean fishing in a hire boat. So they said. Then, one weekend when Chass was busy and Don took the kids, he made a mistake. And Serenity told me all about Uncle Don’s little house in the woods, about finding so many of her daddy’s things there. What things? Oh, clothes and things.” Anna Westover smiled thinly. “Out of the mouths of babes? It was fantastic. All those years I hadn’t suspected a thing. And suddenly, at that moment, I knew—I knew and understood it all.”

“It was up Yucca Canyon, wasn’t it?”

She stared. “Yes. How did you know?”

“And you remembered it when I told you your husband had gone somewhere to hide—when I asked you if you couldn’t suggest where that would be. But you kept your mouth shut.”

“Because I never in the world would have thought he’d go back there. He promised me.” She meant it.

“Doesn’t divorce invalidate that kind of promise?” Dave said. “What’s the address?”

“Address?” She laughed dryly. “It’s wilderness up there. The road’s no more than a pair of ruts. I don’t think it even has a name. Little box canyon, all overgrown.”

Dave stepped to the door. “Can you lead me there?”

She pushed at her hair and laughed helplessly. “You must be mad. It’s been ten years. I don’t know how I got there. I simply followed them.” Her voice trembled, her eyes swam. “I don’t know how I got out. I was blind with outrage and hurt and disappointment and emotions there aren’t even any names for.” She opened a desk drawer and fumbled tissues out of it to dry her eyes. “No, Mr. Brandstetter—I’m afraid I cannot lead you there.” She blew her nose. “It’s like a place in a nightmare. Something you wake up from, hoping you’ll never sleep again.”

“Did they rent it?” Dave asked.

“What?” She blinked, frowning. “Rent it? No. No, they didn’t rent it. Didn’t I tell you? Don built it. It belonged to Don. He built it so they could have—” But she didn’t go on with that. “It belonged to Don,” she said again, dully. She shrugged. “Perhaps it still does.”

Dave pulled open the door. “Bet on it.” The chairs weren’t in a circle anymore. They had been pushed against the wall. A game was going on that involved running, squealing, and falling down. Dave said to Anna Westover, “I’ll let you know,” and walked down the long room, trying not to stumble over children.

“You’ve hurt yourself.” Thelma Gaillard was more noticing than Anna Westover had been. She pushed the screen door and put her head out into the rain to look down the stairs. “You drove here with only one arm?”

“It isn’t too hard,” Dave said. “There’s an automatic shift. May I come in?”

“What’s happened?” Looking anxious, she pushed the screen door wider so he could enter. The kitchen was not as tidy as before. Now there were more dirty dishes, not just on the shelf by the sink but on the table. She looked as if she hadn’t combed her hair today. She was wearing the same faded jeans and torn sneakers and this time a sweat-top with a hood, dark blue. “Have you found Don?”

“No, but with your help I’m going to.”

She shut the door, shut out the cold breath of the rain. “I’m not so sure of that. Don withdrew a lot of money from our savings. Almost all. Twenty thousand dollars.” She peered up at him. “Did you know that? Was it to give to Chass?”

Dave nodded. “And Chass promptly lost it. If you were thinking Don used it to travel to some far-off place—he didn’t. He’s at his cabin in Yucca Canyon.”

She had started toward the dim hallway that led to the living room. She turned back. “His cabin? What cabin?”

“How did you happen to learn about the missing money?” Dave asked.

“Well, I phoned the police because you said I should. It was a few days, and then a detective came. He asked a lot of questions. I couldn’t tell him much.” She smiled wanly. “But you already know that. He said I should check through Don’s papers—bills, letters, anything, for clues to where he might have gone or why. Well, I looked but I didn’t find anything that meant anything. The detective said check with the bank. At first they wouldn’t tell me. Then he went with me.” She gave a little unhappy laugh. “I never thought I’d ride in a police car in my life. And they let him see the account record and that’s how we found out. But it didn’t help find him, did it?”

Dave moved toward the hall. “Where are these papers? In his room?” He found the open door to the room with the neatly made bed. “Is this his room?”

“Yes…” She said it doubtfully. She stood in the door from the kitchen, fingers pressed against her mouth, eyes alarmed. “But I’ve been through everything. He’s so private, Don is. He hates for people to—”

“I think he’s with Westover,” Dave said. “And Westover may be a dangerous man to be with right now.” He laid his hand on the arm in the sling. “If it keeps him from getting hurt, he won’t mind a little invasion of his privacy.” The room had only one window, and the rain outside made the light from the window dim. Dave groped for a wall switch and turned on a lamp by the bed. He stepped inside, hearing her footsteps come down the hall, and stop in the bedroom doorway, unwilling to come farther. Don Gaillard didn’t give an impression of being able to intimidate anyone, but he had intimidated her. “Closet?” Dave asked. “Chest?”

She jerked her chin. “Bottom drawer.”

It was a green-metal fishing-tackle box. She got the key. Dave sat on the edge of the bed, the box on his knees where the lamplight would catch it. He unlocked it, lifted the lid, reached for his reading glasses, and remembered that the lens had popped out and he’d forgotten to ask Cecil to put it back. He squinted and sorted through the papers. None related to the cabinetmaking business: these were personal, insurance, property payments, doctor bills, income tax. There was a membership in a so-called health club that was for homosexuals only, though the paper didn’t say so. There was a worn, soiled envelope of snapshots—big, barrel-chested Gaillard, slim little Westover. He tucked them back, frowning.

“You see what I mean?” Thelma Gaillard said.

Dave grunted. Here was an envelope marked in large type “Joint Consolidated Tax Bill.” The flap was loose. He pulled a tax bill from the envelope. It wasn’t easy for him to read without the glasses, but he made out the address on the bill. Blurrily. It was for this place, shop and living quarters. He worked the bill back into its envelope and picked up another envelope like it and slid the bill out of that one. He held it under the lamp and narrowed his eyes, trying to focus. His heart bumped. Burro Trail, Yucca Canyon. He laid the bill in the green tin box, closed the lid, turned the key, held the box up to her. “You never knew Don had a cabin that he built himself for weekends?”

“Is that where he’s gone?” she said. “I never knew.”

Dave stood up. “May I use your phone again, please?” He had to let the receiver dangle on its cord, knocking the wall, while he turned the dial. He caught hold of the receiver and held it to his ear. Not expecting Cecil to answer—it would be hours before Cecil got back from Perez. Dave’s own voice answered on tape. He waited for the tone, checking his watch. “Three-forty
P.M.
,” he said. “The address is 29934 Burro Trail, Yucca Canyon. I’m going there now.”