The Undertaker (7 page)

The clock radio on the end table said it was almost 6:00 PM. I would have at least an hour or an hour and a half more daylight, so I decided to check out my alter ego for myself. After all, my busy social schedule was clear for the rest of the night, so why not?

With my Marathon gas station road map spread out on the car seat next to me, the house on Sedgwick and the office on Sickles proved easy to find. They were a couple of miles apart further in toward town. The house was in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood on the northwest side, about three miles from the motel. It was an older Dutch Colonial with white clapboard siding, dark green shutters and door, flower boxes below the front windows, and two big oaks in front. I could imagine Beaver Cleaver skipping down the front walk on his way to school as Ward mowed the grass in his white shirt, tie, and cardigan sweater, smoking his pipe. Unfortunately, Ward wasn't taking care of this one. The grass was thin and mostly overtaken with weeds, the wood siding on the house had faded, the flowers in the window boxes hung limp and ratty, and the hedges were in desperate need of trimming.

I circled the block past the Neighborhood Watch sign with the big eyeball and parked in front of 625. After all, I was Peter Talbott, wasn't I? If this was my house, I had nothing to hide. I strolled up the sidewalk to the front door, rang the bell, and waited. Nothing. The drapes were drawn across the front picture window. There were no lights on, but leaning out as far as I could, I peeked around the edge and caught a glimpse inside. The house was empty. No furniture. No carpets. Nothing but bare walls and bare wooden floors. Interesting. The two bodies were barely in the ground, yet someone had already cleaned the place out.

Following a line of concrete stepping-stones, I walked around to the side of the house, whistling softly and acting as casual as I could in case anyone was watching. The path brought me to a gate in a wooden fence that ran around the back yard. I opened it and stepped inside. Again, empty. Not even a lawn chair, a rake, or a garden hose. They had picked the place clean.

“Can I help you, young man?” I heard a sharp-edged, woman's voice call to me.

I turned and smiled, knowing it wasn't a question. It was an accusation. On the other side of the fence stood a tall, craggy, gray-haired woman leaning on a long-handled garden rake, watching me like a sentry with a pike. She wore a man's oversized denim work shirt and she drew a steady bead on me with a pair of small, hawk-like eyes.

“You know, you just might,” I answered her with a big smile. “I've been trying to reach the Talbotts for a couple of days now.” I motioned toward the house. “I rang the bell, but nobody answered. Guess they aren't home.”

“Nope. Won't be coming back, neither. They're dead, both of ‘em, in a car wreck, three days ago.”

“That's awful. A car wreck, huh?”

“When you get to be my age, you don't want to speak ill of the dead, ‘cause you might be next. But the way Pete drove, didn't come as no surprise.”

“You knew them pretty well?”

“'Bout as well as I know you. They moved in maybe six months ago and kept to themselves. Didn't talk much to me or anyone else around here, far as know.”

I had to laugh. “Warm and friendly?”

“New Jersey. Same difference. She had a mouth on her could curdle milk. And him? All I ever heard from that fat slob was a loud belch. No, sir, they never fit in, not in this neighborhood, and that's the way they wanted it.”

She pointed to the rear yard. “Look at the place. Used to be real pretty back when the Battersees lived here, but Pete let everything die. Probably so he'd never have to cut it. He was too damned lazy to do it himself and too cheap to hire it out.” She shook her head sadly. “I don't know. It was as if the two of them weren't expecting to be here very long and they couldn't be bothered. So “screw the lot ‘a you” was about all we ever got out of them, if you'll pardon my French.”

“But the house? It's already empty.”

“Yep. A big Allied moving van showed up this morning and took everything.”

“This morning? Before the funeral?

“Yep, lock, stock, and pasta barrel.”

“Pasta barrel? I didn't think they were Italian.”

“Well, you ask me, they were passin'. Talaberti? Talachetti? Talabuttafucco? Whatever. Maybe Pete changed the name for business, but he wasn't foolin' any of us.”

“No kids? No family?”

“None that I ever heard of. Nobody but lawyers.”

“Lawyers?” I laughed along with her. “There was a time I had a few of them as dependents myself.”

“Nice boys. Short hair. Dark suits. Like those two fellas in “Men in Black”, but both of them were white and nowhere near as good looking as Tommy Lee Jones.”

“Tommy Lee Jones?”

“That's just to show you I don't miss much, young man.”

“Oh, I can see that.”

“They sat out there in that gray sedan all morning. Imagine, two lawyers sitting out there in that car, billing by the hour, watching four rednecks load a moving van. I declare.”

“No idea where they were taking the stuff?”

“Nope, they didn't say and I didn't ask.”

“What about the lawyers?”

“From Hamilton, Keogh, and Hollister, that big firm downtown.” She shook her head. “Imagine what they cost? All that overhead. But they were nice and polite, just like you. They showed me their business cards and their papers, 'cause I said I'd call the cops if they didn't. Same reason you're going to show me yours, aren't you?”

Sharp. Very sharp, I thought. She held out her hand and waited for me to produce mine. “Hey, I'd love too,” I said. “My briefcase and all my stuff's out in the car. I can go get one if you'd like.”

She stared at me with a hint of amusement. “If you say so, but I saw those California plates on that Bronco of yours. I wrote the number down too, 'cause we've had enough of people snooping around here lately and we're beginnin' to know what belongs and what don't.”

“Is that what you think I'm doing? Snooping?”

She looked at me and cocked her head. “I don't know. You don't look like that other one, I'll give you that much.”

“The other one?”

“A cheap sports coat with sunglasses and all those gold chains. He drove a Lincoln, but there were others before him nosin' around, lookin', and none of them belonged in this neighborhood. Neither did those two Talbotts. And neither do you.”

“One look and you can tell, huh?”

“Mister, you asked enough questions for one day. Time for you to move along. I got a .357 Magnum inside the house and that's an NRA Life Member decal on my front window. Now you git.”

“Whoa! I'm with First Ohio National up in Toledo. They just moved me back here from California and the Talbotts are four months behind in their car payments. My job's to track down deadbeats. That's why I'm here.”

“Which one? His old Buick Electra or the Chevy?”

“Actually both,” I said, taking chance out of the equation.

“Then you're half-way in luck. Pete was driving the Chevy when they said he got broadsided by a cement mixer out on the east side some place.”

“A cement mixer? That sounds messy.”

“Sure does. I hope it wasn't any of that quick setting stuff. As big as Pete was, that would've made it a whole lot worse,” she giggled. “My Lord, but that's an awful thing to think, ain't it? Guess it don't matter much though. Dead's dead.”

“You're right, it probably doesn't. You wouldn't know where he left the Buick, would you? Is it in the garage?”

“Nope. If it was, those lawyers would have sucked it up along with everything else.”

“You got any idea where it is, then?”

“Sure do. It's parked up Sedgwick, under that big oak tree in the middle of the next block, where he always left it.”

“And it's still there?”

“It was an hour ago, when I went by, ‘cause I don't think the lawyers know anything about it. It's dirty as sin, but it's still there. You can't miss it.”

“But why would he park it there?”

“With Pete, you never know. Most of the time he just sat there like a fat slug, but the man was no dummy. He knew that I knew about the Buick. I'd passed him on the street down there when he was getting in or out a couple of times. I asked him what the Hell he thought he was doing parking down there. He said he needed the exercise and then we really laughed. He shrugged and called it his “getaway car.” I figured he was jokin’ around again, but with them both dead now and you holding the papers, you might as well know where it is, ‘cause he ain't gettin’ away to anywhere anymore.”

“Thanks. First Ohio National really appreciates it. But how come you never told the lawyers about it?”

“Them? I have a strict “don't ask, don't tell” policy with cops and with lawyers, young man. They didn't ask, so I didn't tell.”

I walked back to the Bronco smiling, shaking my head. Who said all the nuts had rolled west to California? Some of them stuck and took root right where they dropped out of the tree.

Sure enough in the middle of the next block under a big oak tree sat an old midnight blue Buick Electra. I pulled over, parked a few cars down, and walked back. It had to be ten years old: dirty, covered with leaves, and the exterior rusting around the wheel wells. I glanced around, but the street was deserted. I looked inside. The interior was well trashed, with candy bar wrappers, coke cans, and old newspapers strewn about. I tried, but the doors were locked, all four of them. Interesting, I thought. For now, it was enough to know the car was there. But it might be fun to get inside and see what Pete's ”getaway” car held besides the old newspapers and trash.

The sun would not set for at least a half hour. Sickles Avenue was a four-lane commercial boulevard that proved to be no harder to find than Sedgwick. The 1800 block where Center Financial Advisors was located looked like it had once been a fashionable neighborhood commercial street back in the 1920s or 1930s, but that was a long time ago. Now, it was a badly run-down strip of small stores that wouldn't make it any place else. The surrounding residential area showed the first signs of gentrification, but the stores would take a lot longer. The sidewalks were cracked and uneven. The overhead wires sagged in long loops down the street and no one even tried to keep up with the gang graffiti. It would take a lot of gentries and a ton of city money before the Tae-Kwon-Do parlor, the second-hand clothing shop, the adult book store, two gritty neighborhood bars, and a boarded-up Baptist Mission became art galleries, boutiques, trendy restaurants, and a Starbucks.

Half the block was vacant and Center Financial Advisors sat in the middle. Why an accounting firm would locate in this seedy, eclectic mix was beyond me. Center? Of what? Advising whom? About what? Perhaps Pete moved his accounting business here so he could be in the vanguard of the commercial tidal wave soon to follow, but the image of the daring financial entrepreneur didn't exactly fit the slug that let the house on Sedgwick go to hell.

I parked the Bronco along the curb three doors beyond 1811 and walked back. The company name was stenciled on the door and on the front plate glass window. There were no curtains or Venetian blinds to screen the view this time. Looking inside, I saw someone had sanitized the accounting office as thoroughly as they had the house. It was empty from wall to wall, without a broken chair, a cardboard box, or a scrap of paper to be seen anywhere. If I asked around, I'd bet the same Allied van had hit them both.

I kept walking down the street, then turned and followed the cracked sidewalk around the corner. The side street looked even worse than Sickles. Weeds were sprouting through the uneven concrete. Old McDonalds bags, empty beer cans, and glass from broken wine bottles littered the small strip of bare dirt that passed for landscaping between the sidewalk and the curb. I walked to the end of the building and took a quick look around the corner before I turned and set off down the alley. It was cratered with deep ruts and potholes. Someone had tried to fill them with loose rock and pieces of asphalt, but that didn't accomplish very much. Off to my right I could see the rear yards of the two-story houses that fronted on the next street over. Most were cheap three and four flat apartment buildings with brick walls or tall wooden fences along the alley, as one would expect. Looking down the line, most of them looked badly run down, but every third or fourth building was being renovated. Signs of life? Too little and way too late for Pete.

On the left side of the alley, the rear walls of the stores that fronted on Sickles were another matter. This wasn't the high rent district. The few windows that remained and hadn't been bricked up were set high in the wall, opaque with years of crusted dirt, and covered with one-inch steel bars. The rear doors had been replaced with thick steel plates recessed deep into the doorways. Their hinges and locks were on the inside, where they would be difficult for a burglar to get at. Dumpsters lay at various odd angles up against the rear walls or jammed into the occasional alcoves. I looked over the top of several and saw most were half-filled with trash. When I got to the dumpster for 1811, I peered over the top and saw it was empty. Not just empty, this one was empty as if someone had got in and cleaned it out on their hands and knees. There wasn't a scrap of paper, a banana peel, not even a broken beer bottle to be found. Somehow, after everything I'd seen that day, it came as no surprise. The lawyers in the dark suits, the deputy sheriffs in their big brown cruisers, and even the men in the long, black hearses were nothing if not thorough. For a job like that, I wondered if the Junior Associates at Hamilton, Keogh and Hollister drew straws, or did they hire the work out.