5

By the time I got there they were pretty much finished with the grave.

They had opened it and found Buscotti’s casket empty as my wallet and now everyone was standing around looking grim as graverobbers. The day was the color of dirty laundry: dingy and gray. Last night’s rain had turned the boneyard into a mud sea. It was everywhere, clotted on the bull’s shoes like they’d just tiptoed through Mother O’Leary’s cow pasture.

Tommy Albert said, “They had this special coffin made for this ape.” He flicked his cigar butt down into the black, yawning grave. “Had to be twice as wide as usual and longer than your standard box. Like the service and the plot, it was paid for anonymously. You know what I’m saying, Vince?”

I did.

It was all paid for by the Outfit. They couldn’t come right out and put their names to it because that wasn’t how they did things, but everyone knew who sprang for it all the same.

Tommy and I turned away and walked through the sloppy earth, weaving our way amongst headstones, stands of leafless trees, cracked slabs. In the bleak shadow of an ornate burial vault we found more diggers at work. We got there just as they struck wood.

Tommy looked at me. “Eddie Wisk,” he said. “Numbers runner. He was gunned down three weeks ago.”

The workers brushed dirt from the lid of the casket and opened it. They didn’t have to bust open the catches because somebody beat them to it. Wisk was gone, too. You could see the grayed impression on the silken pillow where his head had been. A beetle ran across it. But that was all.

Tommy’s boys jumped down there and started dusting for prints.

“Gone,” Tommy said. He shook his head. “This is connected, ain’t it, Vince?”

“Has to be.”

“Still clinging to the ‘cult’ theory?”

I sighed, slapped a nail in my kisser and gave it some heat. “I’m not sure of anything just yet.” Quickly, I filled him in on my visit to the funeral home. “I’m thinking whoever wrote that is the one that was here last night.”

“And you think it’s this Franklin Barre character?”

I blew out smoke. “Just a guess. It was his office I was in.”

“I’ll have him brought in. See what we can sweat out of him,” Tommy said. “What about this Marianne Portis broad?”

“I think you should hold off on her for now. Give me a day or two.”

Tommy looked at me. “You know what kind of shit I could get into if I did that?” He shook his head. “Two days. That’s it. This stinks, Vince. Stinks bad. I got pressure on me now like you wouldn’t believe. I got uniforms out looking for Stokes too.”

Stokes was the night watchman at Harvest Hill. Nobody seemed to know where he was and maybe he wasn’t tied up in this, but neither Tommy or I believed that for a minute.

Conspiracy? You’re damned right. One that involved killing prosecutors and robbing graves and making off with dead bodies in the still of the night. But what was the thread? There was something, but I just couldn’t make the connection.

“See ya, Tommy,” I said walking off.

“Where you going?”

“I gotta see a guy about a grave.”

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