Don of the Dead (29 page)

I checked the printout I'd accessed from the office computer against the numbers markers and got my bearings. If we headed to the right…

I stepped carefully over gravestone after gravestone, heading back toward the wall.

With any luck, that's where I'd find Tommy.

What I didn't expect to find was the bunch of wilting spring flowers laid on his grave.

"How long did you say this guy has been dead?" I asked Gus, though I didn't really need him to answer.

Tommy's birth and death dates were carved into the modest gray granite stone.

"Nineteen forty-six. Nineteen sixty-eight." I didn't do the math, partly because I didn't need to and mostly because Tommy had died way too young and I didn't want to think about it.

"I thought you said he was an orphan with no family. Who do you suppose is still sending flowers?"

Gus shrugged. "Far as I know, nobody cared about the kid that much. Must be a mistake."

"Maybe." I glanced at the graves on either side of Tommy's. "This guy died back in the thirties. And the woman on the other side of Tommy conked out in the forties. I can't imagine someone would still be bringing flowers to them."

"And I can't imagine that anybody would ever bring flowers to Tommy. He wasn't the flower type, you know?"

"A woman." I don't know why I decided I was right, I only knew I was. "A woman is the only one who would think flowers. She's the only one who would still care."

"He could have had a
comare
, but even a girlfriend or a mistress doesn't hold on. Not all this time."

"Always the romantic, huh?" I didn't suppose Gus knew sarcasm when he heard it so I didn't wait for him to reply. I stepped back to consider Tommy's grave from another angle and think about what the flowers meant and as I did, I heard a car out on the road. I turned just as a white van slowed down and parked opposite from where we stood.

The driver got out. He was a pencil-thin guy with a scraggly ponytail and a wispy goatee. He was wearing dirty jeans and a Pink Floyd T-shirt and carrying a bunch of white carnations.

What were the chances he was bringing the flowers to Tommy?

I was inclined to say slim and none—any right-thinking person would—but for what seemed like the first time in this investigation, my timing was good. He headed right toward me.

"How you doing?" The delivery man gave me a look that said he thought it was pretty weird to find me standing by myself there at Tommy's grave. He probably would have thought it was weirder if he realized that when he walked up, he stepped between Gus and me. "You the one that sends these flowers?"

"I was hoping you could tell me who does."

He shrugged and bent to remove the wilted bunch. "All I do is bring 'em," he said. "Every week. Take the old ones away. Bring the new ones."

I glanced over at the van. There was no name written on the side of it. "Who do you work for?"

"Something wrong with the flowers?"

"No, there's nothing wrong with the flowers. They're beautiful. Maybe I'd like to send some."

"Waste of money, if you ask me." The delivery man dropped the bunch of carnations down on the stone.

"I've been doing this for what feels like forever. Must cost somebody africkin ' fortune."

"And who did you say you worked for?"

"Sully's." He poked a thumb over his shoulder, though as far as I knew there was no florist anywhere nearby. "You know, down by the freeway."

"And do you suppose somebody there knows who sends the flowers?"

He shrugged. It wasn't so much an I-don't-know gesture as it was an I-don't-care one.

I didn't pursue it. What was the point?

I waited until the delivery man was back in the van and had driven away, then started toward my car.

"Come on," I told Gus. "Time for a road trip."

The manager of the flower shop wasn't as helpful as I hoped. Oh, he tried. He was chatty and charming in a gay sort of way and would have loved (or so he claimed) to give me the information I was looking for.

But he'd only bought the business eighteen months earlier, and according to his records, the money that paid for Tommy's flowers was left in a lump sum with the previous owner a couple years before that. It was a lot of money, he did share that little fact with me, enough to keep Tommy in fresh flowers for years to come. He also admitted that he was pretty smart. Rather than keep the money squirreled away as the previous owner had done, he'd put it in an interest-bearing account and was making a good chunk of change off it. The whole thing was completely on the up-and-up, he assured me. He sent the flowers every week. He deducted the amount from the total for each sale. As far as he was concerned, what happened to the rest of the money was completely up to him.

As for that previous owner… well, it turned out that he was a resident of Garden View, too. Whatever he once might have been able to tell me about the person who ordered the flowers, he no longer could.

By the time I got back to the cemetery, I was tired and discouraged. It was after five and even though the front gate was open and would be until sunset, I'd come at Garden View from the other side. Rather than negotiate the maze of city streets that surrounded the cemetery, I took the easy way and drove in through the staff gate.

It was the way Dan said he'd come in the night I told him to get lost, and in spite of the fact that I knew I was over and done with both him and his stupid study, I couldn't help thinking about the whole thing.

Maybe my brain had been too busy processing everything I'd learned about Tommy Two Toes and Anthony and Carmella with her flamingoes and her yellow flip-flops.

I'd never bothered to question anything Dan had said that night.

Now, a thought struck out of the blue, and I jammed on my brakes.

"How do you suppose he knew?" I didn't even realize I was talking out loud until I glanced toward Gus and saw that he was looking at me like I was crazy. I filled him in on my thought process. Such as it was.

"Dan the Brain Man. The other night. He said he knew I was here at the cemetery because he saw my car parked over near the office. But Dan's never seen me except at the hospital or when we've met somewhere. How do you suppose he knows what kind of car I drive?"

"Son of a bitch has been following you. I never did trust those shaggy-hair types."

It seemed out of synch with Dan's character. Maybe that's why the thought made me think of stalkers.

And serial killers.

Automatically, I checked my rearview mirror and when I did, I breathed a little easier. There was no one around.

I told myself to get a grip, let up on the brakes, and continued toward the office. I'd been on that particular road a dozen times since I'd started my job at Garden View, but it was the first I'd realized that it took me right past Tommy's grave.

I don't know what possessed me. I got out for one more look.

In the late afternoon light, the bouquet of white carnations gleamed against the gray granite. The way the delivery man had dropped them, Tommy's name was covered.

Call me a softie. It just didn't seem right. Tommy the orphan who'd opened his mouth once too often and paid the ultimate price. The thought of his name being hidden much like his life was seemed like adding insult to injury.

I picked up the flowers and moved them to the side of the stone.

It was the first I realized there was a symbol carved in the granite just below Tommy's name. I hadn't seen it earlier because of the iris and tulip bouquet.

I bent to brush away some grass clippings that were scattered over the carving.

"It's a broken ring." I wish I could have said what significance the symbol had but let's face it, I hadn't exactly devoted a whole lot of time to my newsletter article. But I did know one thing: I'd seen the symbol listed on the Web site I'd consulted for my research. "And look, there are letters underneath it." I knelt and brushed away more grass. The carving of the ring was no more than four inches high and

beneath it were letters that were even smaller, "D.V.M." I read the letters out loud and looked over my shoulder at Gus. "Mean anything to you?"

"Nah." He shook his head. "And that there broken ring… Itain't nothing I've seen before."

I hadn't seen it before, either, or if I had, I hadn't paid any attention. I squeezed my eyes shut. I could picture the Web page where I found much of my information and the listing of symbols, nice and neat and alphabetical. "A broken column is a sign of decay and mortality," I said, proud of myself for remembering even that much. "A broken ring… " Something flared inside my brain and I hopped to my feet, grinning.

"The ring stands for a family circle," I said. "It's broken because one of the members has been lost." I wrinkled my nose. "I thought you said Tommy was an orphan."

"I'm sure of it. I told you. An orphan. Or a foster kid or something."

"But, Gus… " I looked from the carnations to the carving. I wondered about the letters D.V.M. and what they might tell us not only about Tommy but about the people or person who missed him.

"Gus, somebody really cared about this kid. They still do."

Okay, so it might have been a little obvious, but I thought it was a pretty brilliant deduction. I actually might have had a chance to feel smug about it except that at that very moment, a bullet whizzed by my head.

"Get down!"

I didn't need Gus's warning. And I didn't need to freeze up like a strawberry daiquiri when he jumped forward and tried to push me out of the way. I dropped like a rock, flat on my face.

"See anything?" It would have been easier to talk if I didn't have a mouth full of grass clippings. I turned my head to spit them out and waited for Gus to answer. No nose to the ground for him. He was invisible and didn't have a thing to worry about. From the corner of my eye, I saw the tips of his shoes.

"Son of a bitch." I heard him grumble before he moved a few steps in the other direction. "Wherever he is, I can't see him. Come on. Yougotta make a run for it."

"Run?" How was I supposed to do that when my knees were rubbery and my heart was pounding so hard, I expected it to smash out of my chest? "I can't run."

"You can't stay here. A shooter never tries only once. Not a professional. Believe me, I know these things."

He did, and I didn't doubt him for one second.

Which didn't make my legs any better able to support me.

Gummy legs or not, though, I knew I had no choice. I swallowed down my terror, took a deep breath, and pushed myself up on my elbows. "I can't." I collapsed again just as quickly, my voice clogged with tears and grass clippings, my arms crossed over my head.

"You've got to." Suddenly, Gus was down on the grass with me, looking right into my eyes. "If you stay here, you'regonna end up dead like me."

"But—"

"Ain'tno buts. Not about this. You're a sitting duck. Come on, kid. Yougotta run. You got no other choice."

Technically I did. I could lie there whimpering and the next time the shooter took aim, maybe he'd find his mark. It was a frightening thought, sure, but it was only a little less frightening than thinking about running while he was taking potshots at me and I was wondering when and where the next bullet would hit.