A Grave Issue Read online

  Ms. Tennant and her daughters came back in, and I seated them in front. Olive, Henrietta, and Grace arrived and took their usual spots. “Are you okay, dear?” Grace asked as I helped them fold up and stow their walkers.

  “Of course,” I said. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, looking over at Henrietta.

  Henrietta snorted. “You look terrible.”

  My hand went up to my face as if I could feel the terrible on it. “I do?”

  “Not terrible. Sad.” Olive gave Henrietta a dirty look. “Of course she looks sad, you old biddy. This has to remind her of her father’s memorial service. Plus there’s Kyle . . .”

  “He was like a second father to her, you know,” Grace said, tapping Henrietta’s knee.

  “He’s not dead,” I said. “Kyle’s fine.”

  “As fine as you can be in a jail cell,” Henrietta said.

  “He won’t be there for long. He’s innocent.” I took her walker from her.

  Henrietta sniffed. “Some people might think he’d done the town a favor.”

  I stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Alan was always looking for an angle. Even when he was a child. Always trying to figure out how to get that extra piece of candy or get ahead of someone else without doing the work,” she said. “Not exactly anyone’s favorite type of person.”

  Olive smacked Henrietta’s arm with a rolled-up program. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

  A group of people walked in. I needed to go seat them, so I left my three regulars. What kind of man was Alan, anyway? Jasmine said that everybody hated bankers, but were there a few people who seemed to hate Alan especially?

  How many people might have wanted Alan dead? How many had Luke investigated?

  Chapter Ten

  The Verbena Free Press

  TUESDAY, JULY 16

  Civic Center Reopens

  The Verbena Civic Center has reopened after a two-month closure. A squirrel infestation caused significant wiring damage, and city officials opted to close the venue while rewiring the building. Call the city offices to reserve the center for functions of any kind.

  I am the obituary writer for the Turner Family Funeral Home. We have a form the bereaved fill out, and from it I construct a few paragraphs about a person’s life and who will miss them. I think Uncle Joey thought it would make me feel close to my old profession. Sweet, right? Unfortunately, it made me feel like an even bigger loser.

  Obituary writing is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. No journalist actually writes obituaries anymore, unless the person who died was a big deal in some way or another. Mr. Murray had been sweet, but he wasn’t a big enough deal to have a ready-to-go obituary in a file at the Washington Post or the New York Times. People like me, people who worked at funeral homes, wrote obituaries.

  I glanced at my watch. It was four thirty. I could drop this off at the Verbena Free Press office and still get to the bank before it closed. When I entered the Verbena Free Press office, Rafe was on the phone. I gestured for him to hang up. He held up one finger to suggest I wait. The office looked more like a DMV than a newspaper, with a long counter running the length of the room and separating the entrance from the rest of the space.

  I rolled my eyes but decided to give him a second. I had a few things I wanted to say to him. When he got off the phone, I said, “I have obituaries for Mr. Rahimi, Mr. Tennant, and Mr. Murray.”

  “Thanks. You could have e-mailed them, though. Is there something else?” he asked, an altogether too cocky grin on his face.

  I took a deep breath to get my nerve up to say what I’d really come in to say. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I do. Stop putting me in the paper.”

  He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk and stroked his chin. “I’ll stop as soon as you stop doing newsworthy things.”

  No way was he going to turn this back on me. “That’s the thing. I’m not doing anything newsworthy. I’m saying, ‘No comment.’ I’m doing my job at my family’s business. You’re working me into stories for no good reason.” My voice rose. I took another deep breath to calm myself. Getting hysterical was not going to help. “I’m not news.”

  “I beg to differ.” He brought his chair down with a bang. “Every interesting thing that has happened in this town since you came back has had some kind of connection with you.”

  “That’s not true.” It wasn’t, was it?

  “Let’s see. You come home and fistfights start breaking out at funerals and close family friends get arrested for murder. I only put you in when there’s a connection to you. Your name doesn’t appear once in the article about the reopening of the Civic Center, although maybe I just haven’t figured out a connection between you and the squirrel infestation.” He shrugged. “Besides, whether or not it’s true, it’s not your call now, is it? You know that. People don’t get to choose when they’re newsworthy and when they’re not. Not unless you want to get back into the news biz and help make those decisions. Wanna come to work here at the Free Press?”

  Something fluttered in my chest. Becoming a reporter at the Verbena Free Press would be like starting all over again at the bottom of the ladder I’d worked so hard to climb. But not becoming a reporter anywhere again would be like refusing to climb the ladder at all. I’d screwed up. I knew that. I had to pay the price like anybody else. Maybe starting from that bottom rung was the price to return to the career I’d loved. Then another thought struck me. Good reporters never accept anything at face value. He had to have an angle. “Why? What would you get out of having me on staff here?”

  “You know the people. You know the gossip. You know the business, and you have the chops.” He got up and sauntered over to the counter, then gestured around at the empty office. “I could use some help too.”

  “My family needs me right now,” I said. Did I want to get back into the news biz? I wasn’t even sure anymore. The way I’d departed had left a sour taste in my mouth.

  I’d spent the six years since I’d graduated from college climbing the reporter ranks in Los Angeles. I’d done the police beat. I’d written up city council meetings. I’d been the person they sent out in the rainstorm to be filmed getting wet in the rain so we could tell people it was raining outside. I’d finally—finally!—gotten the opportunity to do some stories on my own, and I’d stumbled on a whopper.

  A local nursing home was bilking thousands of dollars from senior citizens, double billing for procedures, billing for brand-name drugs but using generics. That kind of thing. I’d gotten an anonymous call telling me what to look for, and I’d found plenty. I’d investigated and was convinced I had something that would get me a Pulitzer. I pitched the story. Not only did the station chief not take it, but suddenly I was back to being the person who got sent to stand out in the rain. It took me weeks to find out why. Turned out our station chief was married to the niece of the nursing home owner.

  That’s when I got angry. I hadn’t decided what to do yet with that anger when I was sent out with a camera crew to stand on the edge of a cliff to show people how windy it was. Jeff, my cameraman, jokingly said, “So who did you piss off to start getting sent out here again?”

  I told him. I told him the whole story. Then I did an imitation of the station chief saying, “I hate old people. Old people smell funny. Who cares if someone rips them off? Old people suck.”

  Neither of us realized that my mic was hot and that the anchor had cut to me a little earlier than we’d expected. My anti–old people rant went out live with no context.

  Senior citizens’ rights groups were demanding I be fired before I even got back to the station. By the time I made it clear that I was mocking someone who felt that way, it was too late. The video had gone viral. Last time I checked, the YouTube clip had over three million hits. There were memes. Since the station chief knew what I was really talking about, I’d been fired. Thank goodness my dad had already disappeared; at least he didn’t have
to see me humiliate myself. The other silver lining? The state started to investigate, and the nursing home owner was sanctioned and fined.

  “I don’t think I’m ready for a return to journalism,” I told Rafe.

  “Fine, but the offer stands for the moment. That nursing home story was righteous. Who knows what kinds of things are going on around here that need to be uncovered? If the time comes that your family doesn’t need you so much anymore, come here and work for me.” He grinned.

  “For you? Not with you?” I asked.

  “Semantics.” He shrugged. “I could use some help on feature stuff—you know, restaurants reviews, recipes, community happenings. That Fire Festival thing, for instance. What the heck is that, anyway? How many festivals do you people have?”

  Recipes? Community happenings? I’d been on the road to become a true investigative journalist. Then there was that whole “you people” thing. He’d called the town “you people.” He’d set himself up as an outsider, and that’s how he’d stay. With that kind of attitude he wouldn’t last long. He’d never be able to do what he was asking me to do. He did have a point, though. We Verbenaites shut down Main Street about once a month to celebrate everything from almonds to zucchinis. “We have as many as we want,” I said. “But the Fire Festival is definitely the crown jewel of the festival season.”

  “And why do we celebrate fire?” he asked, reminding me way too much of hearing the four questions asked at a Passover Seder I’d attended years ago.

  “We don’t celebrate fire in general. We celebrate a specific fire,” I said. “The fire of 1913.”

  “Of course. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate the fire of 1913? What was so special about that one?” he asked.

  “It burned down pretty much the whole town,” I said. “What there was of it back then, at least.”

  He shook his head. “And you celebrate it?”

  “Not the fire so much as what happened afterward.” I gestured around toward the town. “We rebuilt. From the ashes, we rose. Everyone chipped in. Everyone worked. It’s a symbol of what this community is about.” It was why anyone who referred to the residents of the town as “you people” would never understand the first thing about what motivated people and what they’d find important. “Look around at the architecture downtown. It’s all this fantastic early art deco stuff because it was all built at about the same time.”

  “See? You know this stuff. You care about this stuff. Come write about this stuff.” He pressed his hands together into a prayer position.

  I did care about that stuff. It did make my heart pump faster. “I’ll think about it. Until then, leave me out of the news, okay?”

  He leaned in so our heads were nearly touching. He smelled like fresh-cut grass, clean and sharp. “No can do. You’re news if I say you’re news.” He grinned wider. Then he sniffed the air. “Do you have dirt in your purse?”

  Rosemarie’s cash. I’d been carrying it around long enough that I couldn’t smell it anymore. Apparently, other people could. “No,” I said, sliding my purse around toward my back.

  I left the newspaper office feeling confused. I didn’t like the little flutter in my chest that had happened when Rafe talked to me about working at the newspaper, or maybe it was just because he always seemed to stand too darn close to me. I marched over to the Verbena Union Bank, took my place in line, and hoped nobody else could smell the cash in my purse. Dirty money, indeed.

  The Verbena Union Bank was not one of the venerable old buildings of Verbena. It was, in my opinion, a bit of an eyesore. One of those awful 1970s American Brutalism concrete buildings. It was hard and sharp and without decoration. It reminded me of a prison. Inside, however, it was nice and cool. The air conditioning felt good on my flushed face. Cubicles lined one set of walls, tellers were on another. There were two actual offices against the back wall. One of them still had Alan’s name on the door. He, of course, wasn’t in it. His assistant, Johanna, was sorting through the papers on his desk and talking on the phone.

  I headed toward the office, thinking I could offer my condolences, and her voice rose.

  “How the heck should I know?” she demanded. “He did what he wanted. Now I’m here having to sort through all the mess.”

  She listened for a moment, then said, “I don’t think any of it is technically illegal.”

  I paused. She had to be talking about Alan. What had he been up to? Something that would get the bank in trouble? Something unethical that could hurt people in the community? I held my breath.

  With the hand that wasn’t holding the receiver, she covered her face. “Yes. Of course, I’ll keep looking.” She hung up and noticed me in the doorway. “Can I help you, Desiree?”

  I’d heard that tone before. It was the one people used when they didn’t want to help you at all. It was the one that meant they’d rather you get the heck out of there. “No. I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell you how sorry I am about Alan.”

  She leaned back in the big office chair. “Oh, yes. Well, thank you. It’s been quite a shock.”

  “I can imagine,” I said, taking a tentative step into the office. “It’s so hard when things happen suddenly. No one has time to prepare or get anything in order.”

  She gestured at the desk, covered with file folders. “Don’t I know it.”

  I stretched my neck just a little to see if I could read any of the file labels. They all seemed to be numbers, though. “Are there problems?”

  Her eyes narrowed. I’d gone too far. “Nothing I can’t handle. Is there anything else?”

  I backed out. “No. That’s all.”

  I heard the door click shut behind me as I made my way to the line for the teller. When it was my turn, I plunked the envelope of cash along with some checks onto the counter. “I’d like to deposit these into the Turner Family Funeral Home account.”

  The teller, a young man with spiked black hair and a ring in his eyebrow that didn’t seem to go with his starched dress shirt and tie, picked them all up and wrinkled his nose.

  “I know,” I said. “The money smells funny. That’s not a problem, is it?”

  He laughed. “It isn’t for the guys from over at the car wash. All their money smells like this.”

  “Really?” That seemed odd.

  “Yeah. I figure it has to do with being near all those hoses and stuff.” He counted out the bills, stamped the checks, and handed me a receipt.

  “I thought these smelled more like dirt than damp,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Whatever. It’s still gonna spend.”

  Exactly what I thought. “So,” I said, “must be kind of weird around here with Alan gone.”

  The teller looked behind me. I looked too. Nobody had come in after me. I was the last of the line. Then he said, “If by weird you mean awesome, then yes.”

  I leaned forward. Maybe he knew what Johanna had been talking about on the phone. Could Alan have upset someone here enough that they might want to kill him? Money was right up there as a reason for people to kill. That and love. “So he wasn’t a great boss?”

  Pierced Eyebrow made a face. “He was one of those guys who was a stickler about everybody else following the rules but somehow felt they didn’t apply to him. Like we all have to punch a time clock, but he waltzed in and out of here whenever he wanted. Johanna had to clean out the refrigerator in the break room every Friday, but he’d leave dirty dishes in the sink.”

  “So kind of a hypocrite?” I asked. If we killed all the hypocrites in the world, it’d be a pretty empty place. It didn’t seem like enough of a reason to kill him.

  “A hypocrite with a mean streak.” He sorted the bills I’d given him into stacks. “He told anyone who argued with him that it was his bank and he’d run it how he pleased, and if we didn’t like it, we knew where the door was.” He laughed.

  “Why is that funny?” I asked.

  “Well, when we get vandalized, it’s always the door that Alan used to point to that got messed with
.” He tapped the different piles of bills into neat stacks.

  “Do you get vandalized a lot?” I asked.

  “You could say that. Mainly spray paint and that kind of stuff, but once there was a decapitated Ken doll.” He squinted up into the distance. “I think the last time was only about a week ago.”

  “What would they spray-paint?” I asked.

  “Oh, stuff. Things like ‘Die, Banker. Die.’”

  Whoever it was had gotten their wish. The banker had died. I wondered if the vandal could have had a hand in it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dad had always kept a stash of charms to give to Donna and me. Donna’s comment about it being exactly like something Dad would give us made me wonder if that stash was still there. We’d looked through his things back when he disappeared, but I didn’t remember seeing them. Maybe they were hidden some place we didn’t look. We hadn’t exactly been at our best when we’d gone through his things. We hadn’t even been sure what we were looking for.

  Back at home, I stood in front of the closed door to his room. I hadn’t been in the room since a few days after his disappearance. I took a deep breath, blew it out, and turned the handle. The room on the other side was just the same as the last time I’d been in it, except it was now coated with dust, another by-product of living in a place that didn’t get much rain.

  But not everything was coated with the same amount of dust. There were some clear-ish spots on Dad’s desk. I sat down in the chair in front of it. I pulled the top drawer open. Well, I tried to pull it open. It moved a few inches and then stuck. I rattled it a little. It still wouldn’t open. I rattled it a little harder.

  Nothing.

  Something was jamming it. I crawled under the desk to see if I could find what was keeping it from opening and found a small key on a key ring. It had gotten wedged along the bottom edge of the drawer. With a combination of tugging on the key and wiggling the drawer, it finally came loose and fell into my hands.