Then he noticed the row below the burials, labeled
“What’s this notation mean?”
He stepped aside in case she came over, but she barely glanced where he pointed. “That we need to have four graves dug and vaults put in them.”
“But you said the graves are dug the day of the burial and there was only one burial yesterday.”
She frowned for a moment, then gave him an apologetic smile. “There was. Those four weren’t for burials. They’re pre-need graves. That’s what the PN stands for. Some plot owners have us dig the grave now, put in a vault, then cover it up and sod it over. They’ll put up a headstone, too…especially with a family plot…with all the names and birth dates on it. Then, when the grave’s needed, we just have to uncover the vault.”
He stared at the board notation, hope rising…then falling again. “I suppose the crane notation mean the vault goes in immediately after the grave is dug?”
“That’s right.”
The older woman came back into the room. She halted, staring at him. Cole wondered what she saw. Maybe, like Red, she recognized ghosts? She squinted, tilting her head. “Do you know you don’t have an aura? I’ve never see anyone without an aura before.”
The younger woman winced. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s okay. The sixties were just real good to her, is all.” In a normal tone, she went on, “We can’t leave an open hole. It’s unsightly and dangerous. We’d be liable if someone fell in.”
Damn. A grave could not be reopened inconspicuously in the middle of the night, either, not when lifting a vault lid needed several men or a crane.
Still squinting him, the older woman said, “Except only one of those vaults went in yesterday. The rest had to wait until this morning.”
The younger one looked around in surprise. “Why?”
The older woman broke off studying him to grimace at the younger. “The crane broke down again. You were out of the office when Mr. Daniels came in fussing about equipment maintenance and covering up the plywood over the holes to keep an ‘esthetic appearance’. Gilbert was still in the shop working on the crane when I left last night.”
So Tankersley stayed late in the cemetery and three graves stood open all night. Cole wanted to grab the ladies and kiss them. “Thank you. That’s very helpful.”
He strolled toward the door hoping they would go back to what they were doing before. And the younger woman did return to her desk. The older one, though, resumed staring at him. Oh well, what the hell. He went ahead and passed through the door.
From outside, he zipped back to Macy’s.
A different young woman stood behind the reception counter of the salon…just as blonde as Tiffany, glossy in a silk slack suit, but presumably a policewoman. Willner sat in the waiting area, picking through the magazines as if fearing contamination, looking like a put-upon husband waiting for his wife. He called to the receptionist, “Is there anything to read that isn’t about what my man
She grinned.
Galentree, nearby, wore work clothes with the Macy’s logo and seemed to be fiddling with lights under a cosmetics counter.
Where was Razor? Finally Cole spotted him at the top of a ladder, his back to the salon area, fiddling with a vertical banner printed with autumn leaves. Oh, right. Tomorrow was the first day of September.
Cole climbed a virtual ladder to join him. “Are you four all that’s waiting for Irah?”
“There are store security officers in plainclothes at all the doors. At this door, they’re the window washers outside.” Razor shook the banner, then began fussing with its attachment again. “How’s it going in Colma?”
“Hamada needs help cracking Tankersley and I think you can give it to him.” Cole briefly recounted the interrogation and his trip to Pacific Hills.
Razor stared at him. “You want me to pass that information on to Hamada? How am I supposed to explain knowing it?”
“You have many and mysterious sources of information.”
Razor snorted. Then he sighed and took out his cell phone. Punching in the number, he said, “You realize that after this everyone will definitely consider I’m a wack job. Yo, Hamada…a little bird tells me that yesterday Tankersley dug four pre-need graves and didn’t put in three of the vaults until this morning.” He paused. “Hamada?”
At the other end of the connection, Hamada said, “Are you down here, too?”
“Nope. I’m up a ladder in Macy’s waiting for Carrasco to keep a hair appointment.”
Another silence, much longer, came over the phone. “You’re shitting me.”
Razor grimaced. “No, I swear.”
“A
“Ask me again some night when this is over and we’re both half blitzed. Gotta go.” He jammed the phone back in his work pants.
“How much time do we have?” Cole asked.
Razor checked his watch. “Ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Then I want to see how Tankersley reacts.”
He zipped to the interview room.
Hamada stood hefting his phone and shaking his head. After a few moments he raised a brow at Tankersley. “What was that number for the Pacific Hills office?”
Tankersley recited it.
Hamada punched it in. “This is Inspector Hamada again. I need to verify some information I just received. Did you have three graves sitting open last night?”
Tankersley froze.
On the cemetery end of Hamada’s phone, the voice of the younger woman in the office said, “Yes. Didn’t the other detective tell you?”
Hamada’s eyebrows rose. “What other detective?”
“The one just here, that we told about the pre-need graves.”
Hamada frowned. “I think he told someone else. What was his name?”
“Come to think of it, he didn’t say his name.”
In the background, the older woman said, “He looked a little like Jimmy Stewart.”
Hamada eyed the telephone as if it had turned into a bomb. Disconnecting, he gingerly dropped it back in his pocket, then shook himself hard and pinned Tankersley with a grim stare. “You think I’m jerking you around? Just keep lying to me, amigo, and see what I do. Which of those graves did you put Inspector Dunavan and the woman into?”
Tankersley yawned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now either arrest me for something or I’m leaving.”
Hamada bared his teeth. “If we have to pull all those vaults up, I’ll charge you with everything I can think of, starting with being an accessory after the fact in the murder of a police officer. I will, in fact, make your life a living hell. So why don’t you cooperate and not piss me off any more than I am already?”
Tankersley stared up at him for a long minute, then dropped his head. Despite his muscles, he seemed to shrivel in the chair. “She never told me he was a cop. She said they were her husband and a bimbo she’d caught him fooling around with. I–I never did anything like that before.”
In a pig’s eye, Cole reflected. He was lying through his teeth. Which hardly mattered at the moment.
“I needed the bread and a friend in L.A. knew that, so he suggested I help the lady out. She brought ‘em down Thursday night and I stashed ‘em in an old mausoleum until- ”
“Cut to the chase, amigo,” Hamada said. “Where do we dig?”
Tankersley sighed. “I’ll show you.”
