Don of the Dead (32 page)

"D.V.M." He supplied the information and it was a good thing. My brain was fried.

"D.V.M." I repeated them to myself, connected to the Internet, andGoogled .

Unfortunately, when Ella's mind was made up, it didn't take her long to get a job done.

My computer was old and slow, and Ella was back in my office, steaming cup of tea in one hand and organic shortbread cookies she claimed would make me feel better in the other, before I had a chance to find out much of anything.

Then the cops showed up to interview me again. Between them, Ella's constant mothering, and the noisy, question-crammed reception I got from her three daughters, I was exhausted. By that point, I was also beyond caring about Tommy Two Toes,DVMs , or anything else except that I was safe and alive and once I had a long, hot shower, there wasn't a trace of Albert's blood anywhere on me.

It was the next morning before I had a chance to try my luck with the Internet another time.

Then again, maybe
luck
wasn't exactly the right word.

"Do you have any idea how many doctors of veterinary medicine there are in the world?" I grumbled the question, not exactly at Gus, who was standing behind me, but at the universe in general. Just for good measure, I made a face at my computer screen and what seemed like the millionth page of vets, veterinary organizations, and magazines devoted to the practice of animal medicine that I'd seen in the last fifteen minutes. "I think we can be pretty sure those letters on Tommy's tombstone don't mean he was a vet."

"He was an animal." It was a lame joke and I didn't acknowledge it. "There's got to be a better way than with that… what do you call it?"

"The Internet." I clicked on Next and another page full of useless information loaded. "DVM stands for doctor of veterinary medicine… " I scrubbed my hands over my face. After a good night's sleep, another shower, and a quick trip home for a fresh change of clothes, I felt better. But apparently, my brain had yet to get the message. "None of it makes any sense," I groaned.

"Maybe that's not all it stands for." Being careful not to make contact, Gus leaned over my shoulder and pointed at the screen. "DVM. What do you call that?"

"Letters?" I rolled my eyes.

"I know they're letters. No, I mean when you use just the letters like that. What do you call that?"

"You mean an abbreviation?" I hated it when he was right. I needed to narrow my search, and Gus knew that without even knowing what an Internet search was. I did just that, adding the word

"abbreviation" and making sure I put quotation marks around it. No use wasting my time with more useless junk.

"Again. Vets." I scanned the first page and my shoulders slumped but I refused to give in so quickly. I looked over the rest of the page and found tempting hints that there might be life—or at least information—beyond veterinary medicine.

"Distributed virtual memory. Digital voltmeter." I tried the next page.

"Deovolento. Whatever that means and whatever the hell language it is." I whined but kept reading and scrolled down the page a little farther. "D.V.M. Genealogical terms."

It was the first thing that had made me smile for nearly twenty-four hours. (Well, except for lying in bed and thinking about that kiss from Dan.) I clicked on the page and waitedsemipatiently for it to load.

When it did, I poked the screen with one finger.

"Paydirt," I said. "DVM. It's Latin and it stands for
decessitvita
matris . That means died while mother was living." I sat back, satisfied. "Told you it was a woman sending those flowers."

"No ThomasCavolo ."

The woman at City Hall was so sure of herself, she almost had me convinced.

Almost.

"There's got to be." My comment stopped her as she was about to walk away from the counter where she was filling out forms, consulting her computer, and helping folks get copies of birth certificates. "If there's no Thomas, try Tommy. Try—"

"Look… " She glared at me over the rims of her glasses, and I guess I couldn't blame her. We'd been at it for nearly half an hour and the folks in back of me in line were getting impatient. So was the clerk. She drummed her fingers against the countertop, her inch-long nails clicking her frustration. "I tried Thomas. I tried Tommy. I tried the letter T just in case it'sTomaso or some other foreign name that translates into Tommy. It doesn't work. There isn't a ThomasCavolo . Like I told you before, there isn't even one single Cavolo in the birth certificate system."

"But there's got to be. I know he died. So he had to be born, right?"

"Right." I would have been a little more encouraged that she agreed with me if not for the fact that even as she did, she waved the next person in line forward. "Only it doesn't mean he was born inCleveland andCleveland birth certificates are the only ones I have."

"And if he wasn't born here?"

Her glare dissolved into an expression that was more like oh-you-poor-thing-how-stupid-can-you-be. "

Could'abeen anywhere," she said. "Anywhere in the whole, wide world."

"But he died here. He's buried here. I know he existed. I've seen his grave."

She shrugged. Clearly it was a sign that she was finished with me. "So try the obits."

Sounds easy enough.

And maybe if I was a real private investigator like I was pretending to be, it would have been a piece of cake.

But who knew that the Cleveland Public Library maintained what they called a necrology file? It took me a couple days to find out that was the place I needed to look for what they called "historical" obituaries.

"
Thomas
Cavolo." I read the name out loud to Gus, who was sitting in my guest chair. I breathed a sigh of relief, pleased that days of research had finally yielded something of value. "
Age 22, died
unexpectedly
. That's putting it mildly." I scanned the rest of the obit. "
Beloved son of Lester and Linda
Mercer
." I glanced at Gus uncertainly. "Ever heard of them?" I didn't wait for him to answer and I didn't ask myself what the chances were that they were still around.

I grabbed the phone and the phone book and ten minutes later, I had not only found Lester and Linda, I'd somehow talked myself into a face-to-face meeting with them. By five-thirty that evening, I was standing on their front porch.

The Mercers lived in what I'd charitably call a modest house in a neighborhood just this side of theCleveland city limits. There was a twelve-year-old Chevy up on cinder blocks on their front lawn and from what I could see, the postage-stamp-sized backyard offered a panoramic view of a steel mill that had been abandoned years before.

The mill might be gone, but no way could it be forgotten. The stench of chemicals still clung
to
everything from the boarded-up house next door to the convenience store across the street where I was forced to park in a lot strewn with broken bottles because there were no spots anywhere else.

I shifted from foot to foot and tried the doorbell. I didn't hear a sound from inside the house and I waited a few more minutes. When no one answered, I knocked.

The door opened a crack and a skeleton-thin woman with a long nose stuck her head out just far enough to get a look at me.

"You must be the girl that called." Linda Mercer was no bigger than Carmella, maybe five feet tall. Her hair was a color somewhere between mousy brown and mousier gray. Her eyes were pale, like her skin.

Her nose twitched like she was nervous and she refused to meet my eyes. "I got to apologize. When you called, I thought I could help you but… well… " She made a move to close the door.

Now that I was this close, I wasn't about to let the trail go cold. I stuck my foot between the door and the jamb.

"You told me on the phone that you knew who I was talking about. You said you knew TommyCavolo

."

Linda licked her lips and threw a quick glance over her shoulder and all I can say is that her instincts must have been better than mine. Then again, she'd probably had years to hone them.

Before I even knew he was anywhere nearby, Lester appeared in the doorway.

He was a big man. Maybe sixty years old and at least a hundred pounds overweight. He was wearing brown polyester pants that sagged over the bulge of his beer gut, and a sleeveless, wife-beater undershirt. He smelled like stale cigarettes and beer. He needed a shave. And a bath.

Something told me that wasn't the reason Linda held her breath when he came up behind her.

"You heard what my wife said." Lester's voice was rusty, like he'd breathed in too much steel mill residue. "Must be some kind of mistake. We don't know who you're talking about. Go away. Or I'm gonna sic the dog on you."

Considering that I could see into the window and right into Mercer's living room and that the dog in question was a rotundChihuahua who was sound asleep on the couch, I wasn't very worried.

I tried for the reasonable tone of voice that always worked on the old people who took my tours. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you and I promise not to take up too much of your time. I'm just looking for information. About TommyCavolo . I'm sure you knew him."

"You're wrong." Lester tugged on his wife's arm.

"But your names are in his obituary."

"Must be a mistake."

"But it said you were his loving parents. Is that a mistake, too?" When her husband gave her another rough tug, Linda backed away from the door and followed him wordlessly.

But not before she glanced at the store across the street.

It was hard to be inconspicuous in a store where
the clerk was inside a booth made of bullet-proof glass and the other patrons were (in no particular order) one teenaged mother with a squealing baby in her arms and another on the way, a homeless guy with Bob Marley hair who was talking to himself while he whisked containers of ramen off the shelf and stuffed them in his pockets, and two young punks who whistled when I walked in, cruised the aisle where I was pretending to look at the canned soup, and told me that I was (in their words) the sweetest piece of ass they'd seen in as long as they could remember.

By the time Linda Mercer showed up with four bucks clutched in one bony hand and a request to the kid behind the glass for a pack ofWinstons , I was so relieved, I smiled like she was my long-lost aunt.

She, on the other hand, acted like I wasn't there.

I was teed off and frankly, more than a little disappointed. I thought that telling look back at the house actually meant something. Like Linda and I were sharing a secret. Now,Winstons in one hand, gaze firmly on the pitted linoleum, she walked by me without a word or a glance and right out the back door.

Okay, so it took me a while. But I finally got the message.

Or at least I hoped I did.

I waited what seemed the right amount of time, paid for a can of tomato soup that I promptly handed over to Bob Marley, and followed Linda outside.

I found myself in a back alley and I had to look around twice before I saw Linda. That's how well she blended with the drab surroundings. I might not have seen her at all if I hadn't heard the click, click of a lighter and followed the sound of a long, anxious intake of breath. I saw a stream of smoke rise from between a garbage can and what looked like it used to be a doghouse before it rotted into a pile of soggy wood. There she was, wedged there where no one could see her, darting anxious looks out at the street.