Never Buried: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (22 page)

The Doberman made a gagging sound, and Randall pulled the endotracheal tube out of its mouth. "Could you fix a cage up on your way out?"

She readied a spot in the kennel room for the semi-conscious dog, and Randall carried in the seventy-pound dead weight and laid it down. He removed the IV bag from between his teeth and hung it on a hook outside the cage. "I'll be here all afternoon," he said, breathing a little heavily. "Keep me posted."

***

Leigh returned to her jam-packed Cavalier and drove to the hospital in Oakland. She picked up a badge at the visitor's desk and approached Cara's door cautiously. No sounds were coming from inside. She knocked softly.

After several seconds, Gil opened the door. She looked past him to where Cara lay on her side in the bed, her eyes closed.

"She's asleep," Gil said stiffly, pushing Leigh backward out into the hall. He followed her and shut the door. "And we need to talk."

Leigh avoided his eyes, which resembled the sparklers she and Cara used to play with on the Fourth of July. She decided to strike preemptively. "I gather I'm being thrown out of the house."

Gil ground his teeth, a gesture only he could make look attractive. "I trusted you, Leigh. You said you’d keep her in line, make her rest. And now I find out that since last Wednesday—" He took a breath. “If you were a man," he said simply, "I'd deck you."

Leigh had no response to that. She was all for women's rights, but she wasn't an idiot.

"How dare you let Cara stay in that house! You knew it was dangerous. You're not stupid!"

Leigh rankled on her cousin's behalf. "Are you saying your wife is?"

A low growl escaped from Gil's throat. "You know what I'm saying. Cara is impetuous. It’s one of the many things I love about her. But she gets wacko ideas and she lets them override her common sense. And she's pregnant. You know how those female hormones screw up a woman's thinking."

Leigh's eyes narrowed. "No, I don't believe I do. Perhaps we should ask Cara about that. I'm sure she'd entertain the topic of her own mental incompetence."

The sparklers turned into Roman candles. "You should have known better. You should have called me."

He had struck a raw spot, but Leigh held her ground. "I was planning on it," she confessed. "But Cara convinced me that you would be unable to resist your own hormonal inclinations to protect her, and would screw up your job in Tokyo. She didn't want that to happen."

Leigh decided that the veins standing out in Gil's neck were not so attractive. He made more guttural noises, but kept his voice down. "I could have protected her, and the baby, and the house. It was my job. I had a right to know."

"Would you have rushed back here?"

"Of course I would have!"

"And would your taking off have stalled the project? Made you miss the deadline? Would you have had to go back to Tokyo even closer to the due date, or after the baby was born?"

He blinked.

Aha. "Perhaps a few extra days did make a difference?"

He paused, and looked away. "The project is finished. We wrapped it up shortly before you called."

Leigh smiled slyly. "Well. Congratulations."

Gil looked uncomfortable. "Thank you."

Relaxing a little, Leigh decided to push the envelope. The irony of her defense of Cara's independence did not escape her, but she was on a roll. "Your wife is a grown woman. She has her moments, I'll grant you. But she's not stupid. And she can take care of herself. Not telling you about the threats was her decision, not mine. And I respected that. Maybe you should respect her judgment, too."

Gil's eyes turned angry again. Leigh looked at the clenched fists that led up smooth arms to broad shoulders. That familiar little twist in her gut was back. A subject change was in order.

"Can I stay at the house until I get another place?"

He looked at her as though she had asked to bungee jump off the roof. "Of course not! It isn't safe."

"Well, not now that you fired the guards, anyway!"

Something flickered in his eyes, but she wasn't sure what. "Your stuff is at your parents' house. You can do whatever you want with it. Cara and I will be moving into a rental as soon as she's discharged. I have a realtor looking now. As for the house, I don't care what happens to it."

"That's good," Leigh retorted. "Because it'll be burned to the ground within a week."

"Great!" He said sincerely. "I can use the insurance money. God knows no one will buy that mausoleum now. We'll find a new house. In Franklin Park. Or maybe Seattle."

Leigh decided to stop fighting. In a way, she agreed with him. She wouldn't mind seeing the house burn down, considering all the trouble it had caused. But certain questions had to be answered first. And if the house burned, they might never be.

She supposed that was the idea.

"Gil? Leigh?" The sound of Cara's voice drew them both inside quickly. "What are you arguing about?"

Leigh sat down on the edge of Cara's bed. "We weren't arguing. Just one of my trademark animated discussions."

Cara eyed her suspiciously, but let it go. "It looks like I'll be in here a few days," she said, resigned. "Are you going to be okay at the house by yourself? I'm sure it's perfectly safe with the guards, but don't feel like you have to stay there if you don't want to. Gil can get you a temporary apartment, until you find one you really like."

Leigh resisted the urge to glare at Gil out of the corner of her eye. He could be the one to tell his wife her dream house was soon to be ashes. It was his fault, anyway.

"Don't worry about me. Everything's under control. You just worry about yourself and the baby. On second thought, strike that. Don't worry at all."

Cara smiled. "I'm trying. Everything seems better now." The look of adoration she gave Gil made Leigh feel queasy. "But my treasure-hunting days appear to be over, at least for now. Just promise me you'll tell me if anything else happens?" She looked at Leigh purposefully. "I'll be dying of curiosity, you know, and bored to death in this bed."

Gil walked over and put his hands on Cara's shoulders. "No one's going to let you get bored. I have at least six weeks' worth of stories to tell you about Tokyo."

"I'll bring you some library books," Leigh said, ignoring him. "Did you find that one by Irma Sacco, the one about the ghost that returns to avenge his father's death?"

"No," she smiled. "I never did."

"You'll like it. It has a happy ending. At first the heroine's boyfriend is kind of a stick-in-the-mud, but then the ghost puts a spell on him."

"Oh, really?" Cara grinned. "What kind of a spell?"

"He thinks he's Miss Marple."

Cara laughed heartily. "Wonderful. Bring it in."

Leigh got up to leave, and Gil hastened to open the door. "I suppose a little light reading might do her good," he said. "Thank you, Leigh. Goodbye."

Leigh let him close the door behind her, and smirked. Her original assessment had been right. He had no sense of humor.

***

She decided to make herself useful at the volunteer search headquarters, and perhaps seek inspiration about whose friendship she could impose on. St. John's fellowship hall was buzzing with activity—about a dozen people milled about talking on cell phones, arranging stacks of flyers, and making maps. Vestal Fields sat imperiously behind a long folding table, a lit cigar in one hand, a lengthy print-out in the other.

Leigh noted that he had, miraculously enough, escaped undue persecution by the media. His skills as a spin doctor were not to be sneezed at: a body had been stolen from his establishment a decade or so ago (before security measures were tightened)—he regretted the incident, but was grateful for the chance to properly reinter the deceased. Patrons could be reassured that their loved ones would be treated with only the greatest of respect...yada yada. He had been wise, she supposed. Dealing with this now was far better than dealing with a necrophilia scandal back then.

"Hello, Mr. Fields," she said sweetly, remembering her previous persona. "You're so wonderful to be doing this."

If Vestal held grudges against manipulative women, he didn't show it. He smiled broadly. "Nonsense. Mary's like a sister to me. Have you come to help?"

"Yes," she answered with a blink. "Whatever you need."

Vestal walked her over to a table set up with two fax machines. "We've sent pictures of Mary to all the hospitals in the area, now we're widening the field. Can you send the flyer to this list of places in West Virginia?"

Leigh nodded, but pretended ignorance of the fax machine. Vestal offered a demonstration, and when he was thoroughly buttered, she went in for the kill. "We've moved out of the house, you know. It was foolish, our staying there. We should have listened to you." She couldn't remember whether he had ever suggested they move out, but it didn't matter. He would take credit for it anyway.

Vestal's cheeks reddened. "I'm just glad you girls are all right. Nasty business, that."

"It's all so confusing," she continued, "especially the part about 1949. Just out of curiosity, did
you
know Robbie Fischer?"

The right buttons had been pushed, but Vestal couldn't deliver. "Sorry," he said sincerely. "I knew about him, of course, after the fact. But our paths never crossed."

Leigh must have looked disappointed. Vestal's eyes lit up for a moment, then he smiled in satisfaction and leaned close to her ear. "I did help embalm his parents, though; God rest their souls."

"You did?" she responded, sounding dutifully impressed. "But how old were you?"

"Seventeen or eighteen, I suppose." His face shown with pride. "I was doing some embalming myself by then. I don't remember them all, but no one could forget the Fischers. Huge scandal, you know. Huge. And him with a bullet hole in his head."

It was ghoulish to care, but she couldn't help it. "You saw the actual bullet wound?"

Vestal nodded solemnly.

"Did you think it was a suicide?" Leigh pressed.

He looked at her curiously from behind an ill-formed smoke ring. "I'm a funeral director, my dear, not a coroner. I do remember hearing that there were powder burns on his hand, and that his prints were on the gun. Sounded pretty open and shut. The rest was just a lot of tongues wagging, I always thought."

"Oh," Leigh remarked, discontent. She decided to try another angle. "Do you remember Chief Polanski ever talking about Robbie's disappearance?"

He considered, then shook his head. "I don't think so. Not something he or Mellman ever liked to talk about."

Leigh sighed. She was getting tired of hearing that.

"No, wait! Chief Polanski did mention Robbie once."

She was all ears. Vestal beamed at his captive audience and proceeded. "A ways back, maybe twenty years ago, there was a real tragedy in Avalon. A thirteen-year-old boy beaten to death by his father. It was a horrible thing. The whole town was disturbed by it, but the Chief and Mellman—they took it really hard. Being police, you know, they're used to most things. But this kid got to them. At first, I thought it was because of Mellman’s past."

Leigh's brow furrowed. "His past?"

Vestal looked at her with surprise. "Ever wonder how he got that W.C. Fields schnoz?"

She shook her head.

"The same way as W.C. Dear old dad."

Leigh felt a wave of pity for the new chief. Evidently Robbie wasn’t the only one who had grown up in a troubled home.

"Bill Mellman was a first class bast—uh, rascal. Drank too much; got mean. Used to beat up on Ethyl—his wife—pretty bad. Finally got himself stabbed to death in a bar brawl." Vestal paused and shook his head.

Apparently Chief Mellman’s dad didn't deserve a "God rest his soul."

"Anyway," Vestal continued, "I thought that's why they were so upset about the thirteen-year-old being killed, but it was more than that. Polanski told me the kid looked a lot like Robbie Fischer."

Leigh's head began to swim. "Like Robbie?"

"Physically. You know. A certain resemblance. Chief Polanski said that Robbie had been abused as well, and that the kid’s death brought up a lot of bad memories."

She considered. "Bad memories of Robbie’s abuse, or bad memories of his disappearance?"

Vestal shrugged. "Bad memories period, if you ask me. The three of them were tight, so I suppose they had some good times, but it sounds like their fathers—except for Polanski’s—made their lives pretty miserable. Things were really bad for Mellman especially, when his father was alive—then Robbie took off without a word and never came back. Eventually the boys had to face the fact that the three musketeers were now two, and that Robbie was dead, God rest his soul."

"But was he?" she wondered out loud.

His eyes twinkled. "Romanticizing a bit, aren't you?"

She was offended, and apparently looked it.

"I don't mean to burst any bubbles," he said apologetically. "But the poor boy was fourteen, and he was alone with no money in a big city in 1949. The odds weren't good."