Killer Karma

31

Gilbert Tankersley looked to Cole as though he wanted his body worthy of his name. His biceps bulged and his shoulders strained at his t-shirt. Heart beating steadily, he looked up in Zen-master serenity at Hamada, who sat with a hip propped on the table in the Colma PD’s interview room. “Sure, I know Irah Carrasco. I wouldn’t call her a friend, but we’ve met, oh, maybe a dozen times at car shows. I run into a lot of people at car shows, even the lieutenant there.” He glanced past Hamada to the uniformed lieutenant lounging in a corner behind Hamada. “Why?”

“She called you Thursday evening.”

Cole wondered whether Hamada knew that for certain or was bluffing.

If a bluff, it worked. After a moment of hesitation, in which his heart rate jumped, Tankersley said, “So?”

Hamada eased his tone from accusatory to casual. “What did you talk about?”

“Cars.” Tankersley’s tone added. “It’s what we always talk about when we run into each other.”

The Hamada raised his brows. “She called you from a pay phone to talk about cars.”

Tankersley stared steadily back at him, heart rate a little faster yet. “Was it a pay phone? She said she was at a bookstore where she’d seen a book she remembered me mentioning I wanting. She said if I’d like, she’d pick it up for me. I made sure it was the right book, then called her back and said sure, get it.”

“How is she getting it to you?”

He smiled. “She already did. It came in the mail yesterday afternoon. If you want to see it, I’ll have my wife bring it over.”

Tankersley had the story down pat. He made it sound good. The lieutenant was beginning to give Hamada that are you sure about this look. Which made Cole wonder if practice had perfected this performance. How often did Tankersley provide disposal services?

“Yes, I would like to see it,” Hamada said.

If he thought he was calling a bluff, Tankersley fooled him. “I need a phone.” Tankersley took Hamada’s and punched in the number Irah had written in purple ink. “Hey, it’s me. … Hell, I don’t know. They’re jerking me around. Now they want to see the book that came in the mail yesterday. Bring it over, will you? … Thanks, hon.” He hung up. “She’s on her way.”

Cole had no doubt that Irah sent the book. A book raised no eyebrows if a corner of the package were damaged in route. Did a stack of hundred dollar bookmarks come with it?

“You haven’t asked what this is about,” Hamada said.

Tankersley leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t figure you’d give me a straight answer, so why bother.”

“Then I’ll surprise you.” Hamada leaned down toward him. “This is about Irah Carrasco killing a cop.”

That jolted Tankersley. He came stiffly upright in the chair. “A cop!” His heart galloped.

Hamada sat back again, folding his arms. “She then spent a portion of Thursday calling friends in L.A. One of them gave her your number.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold it.” Tankersley waved his hands back and forth in front of him. “I gave her my number, and that was several years ago.”

Hamada paused. “You’re not in her Rolodex.”

Tankersley shrugged. “That ain’t my fault. Anyway, what does- Oh, I see.” His tone went bitter. “You think because I work in a cemetery, I did something with the body for her. Once you have a record, you’re guilty of everything from then on, right? Well I did my time and I’ve gone straight since. You check with my parole officer. I make every appointment and meet all the conditions of my parole.”

Give Tankersley credit. He put just the right amount of indignation and injured innocence into his performance. The lieutenant looked increasingly doubtful. Too bad the lieutenant could not hear Tankersley’s heart thundering.

“So what…you think she brought me the cop’s body Thursday night and I slipped it into a grave ahead of whoever was going in Friday? For your information.” Tankersley said, “we didn’t have any burials on Friday, or Saturday, and I couldn’t have arranged a double occupancy even if I wanted to. Unless you think I could drop in a body in broad daylight in the middle of all the preparations for the graveside service. Because we dig the graves the day of the funeral. Check with the cemetery office.”

Cole felt a chill. That had to be the truth, because he knew they would check. But with no burials, what happened to the bodies?

Maybe he could find something at the cemetery.

Cole oriented the interview room on his internal map, then jogged out of City Hall and down the southbound lane of the highway. This time he worked the moving traffic, but watched the vehicles coming up behind him, ready to jump aside if one of the drivers blew his horn or gave any other sign of seeing him. By the time he reached the Pacific Hills gates, he had amassed enough heat for a materialization.

The cemetery driveway forked, with sign pointing toward the cemetery office…tucked up among trees out of sight with a small barn and several other out-buildings. A counter in the office ran halfway across the room. The wall behind it held a big dry-erase board marked off in calendar-like columns and rows. Two women sat at desks between the board and lateral files on the opposite wall. Cole waited until one of the women, middle-aged, walked into another room and the other looked occupied with her computer. Then, since no one here knew him, he materialized as himself.

“Excuse me.”

The woman swivelled her chair…setting the beads braided into her cornrows clicking against each other. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.” She stood and came to the counter. “May I help you?”

“I’m with the San Francisco police. I need to know if you had any burials on Friday or Saturday?”

Pencil thin brows rose. “No, we didn’t. See?” She pointed to the dry erase board. “Like I just told an Inspector Hamada on the phone.”

“Hamada.” Cole pretended to sigh. “Why does he keep doing that…ask me to check on information and then do it himself.” He paused. “May I look at the board?”

She shrugged. “If you want.”

He came around the counter. In the Friday and Saturday columns, the squares of the row labeled Services/burials were empty.

Thursday had a service, he noticed, but listed for 3:00 pm, well before Irah learned Tankersley’s phone number. Could Tankersley have access to other cemeteries? The burial schedules of them all — what were there…fifteen or sixteen? — might have to be checked.

There was a burial on Monday, however, the service at 11:00 am.

“The graves are dug the day of the burial?”

“Yes.”

Then he noticed the row below the burials, labeled Groundskeeping. The Monday square said: Backhoe and crane: PN x 4.

“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 really wants or how to lose weight while making delicious desserts?”

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 hair appointment? And you know what’s what’s happening down here in Colma? What the hell is going on?”

“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.”