“So what did you do?”
“We put her in his trunk.”
“Why the cemetery?”
“Who’s going to look for a body in a graveyard?”
Landry nodded. “Whose idea was that?”
“Jimmy’s.”
“The cemeteries are locked after five.”
“That’s why we went to the Third District station. LaGrange backed his car up to the fence, and we borrowed some tools from the desk sergeant.”
“Who was the sergeant?”
Ray shook his head. “He didn’t know anything about it. LaGrange told him we were pulling a surveillance and we had to get through a fence. He just lent us some tools.”
Landry gestured for him to go on.
“Jimmy cut a hole in the fence. He crawled through and pulled the girl’s body in behind him. I followed him.” Ray lifted his glass and downed the rest of his drink, feeling the amber liquid burn the back of his throat. “He found a tomb in the cheap seats, right behind the station.”
“Cheap seats?”
“There’s a double row of small family tombs just across the fence.”
Carl Landry had been eyeing his vodka and tonic while Ray talked. Finally he took his first sip. Ray thought it was probably the first on-duty drink he’d taken in his life.
Ray said, “Jimmy picked a tomb that looked full.”
“How could he tell?”
“It was a small one, no more than six or seven feet tall and about four and half feet wide. The marble stone on front had about eight names on it already. Seemed like a good bet they weren’t going to be able to fit any more in there.” He paused for a few seconds, thinking about that night seven years ago.
“The heat cremates them after a year or so,” Landry said. “There’s really no limit to how many you can put in there.”
“We didn’t know that,” Ray said. The image clear in his mind of him and Jimmy LaGrange carrying the naked body of the dead girl. When they set her down in the grass beside the tomb, Ray had thrown up. “I remember the family’s name, Underwood, engraved in block letters across the face of the tomb.”
“How did you get the body inside?”
“With a screwdriver.”
“How?”
“Two long screws are all that hold the marble stone-headpiece, tombstone, whatever you call it-in place. All you need to get into one of those things is a screwdriver, and we had the sergeant’s toolbox.”
“So you unscrewed the cover?”
That was the second time Landry had said you. Ray nodded. “But I let Jimmy handle the rest.”
“All right. What did he do?”
“It was pitch dark in that tomb. Jimmy asked me to help him carry her inside. I told him there was no way I was going in that thing. It was his mess. He could finish cleaning it up.”
“So you stayed outside while he went in?”
“Jimmy grabbed under her arms and was backing in, but he missed one of the steps and ended up falling backward into the tomb. She fell on top of him. Scared the shit out of him and he started screaming. I had to kick him to get him to shut up.”
“Where were you when you kicked him? Were you inside the tomb?”
Ray shook his head. “His legs were hanging out, so were the girl’s. I kicked the bottom of his foot just to get him to stop screaming.”
“Where exactly did he put her?”
“I don’t know. I told you it was dark in there. I’ve never been in one of those things, and I don’t have any idea what they look like on the inside.” Ray wished he had another drink. “The inside of that tomb was the blackest thing I’ve ever seen. When Jimmy went in there, it was like the dark just swallowed him up. He was sweating like a pig when he came out, but I didn’t know if it was from exertion or from fear. I was sweating, too, but I knew mine was from fear.”
“What happened next?”
“Nothing. We never talked about it again. Just pretended it never happened.”
“So why are you talking about it now?”
Ray signaled for another drink. “Why are you asking me that? You’re the one who set this thing up.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why you told me about Jimmy’s deal with the feds. You wanted me to get even. You wanted me to do your dirty work for you.”
After Ray’s drink came, Landry said, “You’ll have to testify.”
Ray thought about the garbage bag full of money across the street in his hotel room. Somewhere around $250,000. “After what he did, I don’t care.”
“Are you talking about what he did to the girl or to you?”
“Take your pick,” Ray said. “As long as the D.A. is paying for the ticket, I’ll fly back and testify.”
“You’re leaving?”
Ray nodded and took a sip of his drink.
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet. When you need to reach me, you can contact my parole officer. He’ll know where I am.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ray shrugged.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The next morning, Ray was up early. He stuffed himself at the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar in the hotel restaurant. After that he went back to his room and called Jenny. Still no answer.
He decided to take a walk.
It was ten blocks to Jenny’s apartment. He tried to come up with something to say to her. Some kind of apology. It didn’t matter. Her car wasn’t there.
He remembered what she had said about wanting to go back to California. He leaned on the buzzer outside the main door to the building for a good thirty seconds. A third-floor window jerked open and a young guy with long hair stuck his head out. “Knock that shit off!”
Ray didn’t recognize him. He bit back his first response, waved up at the guy, and said, “Sorry.” Then he walked away.
Back in his room at the Doubletree, the red message light on the telephone was blinking. He had not told anyone where he was staying. He picked up the phone. On the hotel’s voice mail system was a recorded message telling him to call the front desk for an urgent message. With a growing sense of dread, he dialed the front desk. The girl who answered wanted to know if he would be staying another night.
Ray told her he would be staying at least one more night. He was enjoying spending someone else’s money. Since he was using cash, he had to pay up front. He pulled the garbage bag out from the closet, grabbed two hundred bucks, then wandered toward the lobby. On the way out of his room he double-checked that the do-not- disturb sign was still in place. He didn’t want housekeeping throwing his garbage bag out with the trash.
After paying for another night, Ray went back to his room and spent the next two hours staring at a movie on pay-perview. When it was over, he realized he didn’t even know what it had been about. Instead of watching it, he had spent the last two hours trying to decide what he was going to do for the rest of his life. He had not made any decisions.
