Steve figured that the open grave was in the same league as the dog’s nasty. It upset Ernest, but it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. After spotting the tire tracks and the open grave from the safety of his office window, Ernest had called the cops, because, unlike the dog shit, he figured that he could get a lawman to clean up this mess for him.
“Is there a caretaker?” Steve asked.
“We’ve got three men. Two work during the day. Gravediggers.” He pointed in the direction of the Meditation Garden. “They arrived shortly after I did. As you can see, I’ve already put them to work in preparation for this morning’s activities. Our other works at night-he’s an old fellow, more of a watchman than anything else.”
Steve almost asked, What’s the umpire’s name? But he kept that one to himself. “What’s the night man’s name?”
“Lewis…Royce Lewis.”
“Did he work last night?”
“I…I don’t know. I mean, I think so. He was scheduled. But he wasn’t here when I arrived this morning.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Yes. Royce and I almost always have a cup of coffee before he goes home. I believe in maintaining good relations with my employees, no matter how humble their position.” Ernest Kellogg paused. “Wait a minute. The coffeepot was on in my office. I smelled the coffee when I was on the phone. Royce must have made it. He must have been here last night.”
“Is his car around? I mean, where does he park?”
“Royce lives not far from here. He walks to work. Likes to take the air, he says.”
Steve pointed at the tire tracks. “Know anything about these?”
“No.” Once again, the undertaker glanced at his watch. “The tracks were here when I arrived.”
Steve glanced at his watch, too. Two more minutes had passed. Probably warming up the old hearse right this minute, he thought. Getting old Uncle Bob battened down for his last ride, yessiree.
Yessiree, Bob.
“Look,” Ernest Kellogg said, “is there any possibility that we could do this in my office?”
“Only if you’ve got another open grave in there.” Steve remembered the heft of the shovel and the crazy cartoon clang it made when it bashed Royce Lewis’s head, remembered how the handle had vibrated in his hands for a short second upon impact. He looked again at the tire tracks and his grin held, but he began to wonder why he hadn’t seen Royce Lewis lying dead on the ground where he’d left him, between the headstone that had served as second base and the grave that had been the pitcher’s mound.
Okay. The tire tracks. Someone else had been here.
And the night man was missing.
Maybe I don’t have anything to smile about, Steve thought. But he kept smiling. “Have you looked at the grave?”
“No. I thought it would be prudent to wait for you. I…I wasn’t sure about disturbing the evidence.”
Steve grinned. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”
“Jesus!” Ernest Kellogg leaned heavily against the granite cross that bore April Louise Destino’s name. “Sweet blessed Jesus!”
Steve didn’t hear any of it. He was already halfway into the hole, bringing a cliff of mud with him as he slid into the open grave.
The grave should have been empty, dammit. The dreamweaver was locked in his fortress of solitude with the dream. Both Aprils were there. They were locked in the basement, dammit, and the hole should have been empty!
But it wasn’t. It was full, at least by half. Full of water from a sprinkler head Steve had damaged while digging the grave.
But the sprinklers hadn’t been on then. They had come on later. At four o’clock in the morning. And then the water had turned the grave into a swimming pool.
“Royce!” the undertaker exclaimed. “Oh my God! Royce!”
Floating in the dirty brown water, facedown with a pink silk shroud bubbling up around his shoulders, was a fat little man dressed in Ben Davis work clothes.
The umpire. Steve got a grip on the man, flipped him over, and checked his pupils. Jesus. The umpire must have managed to crawl over here just a few minutes before Kellogg’s arrival. Crawling blind with his head bashed in and he had slipped down the muddy embankment and then couldn’t escape because the walls of the grave were slick mud and he was little and round and operating with a bashed-in skull.
What a tough little bastard. He must have been floundering in the grave while Steve questioned Kellogg. All the time trying to get out. It was a wonder they hadn’t heard him splashing around, doing the Australian Crawl.
I should have let the jerk take me up to his office, Steve thought. I should have moved the patrol car. A few more minutes and nature would have taken care of everything for me.
The thought hit him hard, like a slap. Steve was suddenly shivering, and it wasn’t just from the cold water in the grave.
He glanced at Kellogg. The man’s eyes were big and round, like the shiny face of his gold wristwatch.
“Is he going to be all right?” Kellogg asked.
As if on cue, Royce Lewis coughed and a thin trickle of water spilled over his fluttering purple lips.
7:46 A.M.
“Control, this is 66Lincoln3,” Steve said, thumbing the extender mike on his handpack radio. “I’ve got a 10-53 at Skyview Memorial Lawn. Request fire and ambulance. Code 3. We’ve got a white male down, approximately sixty-five years of age.”
Control acknowledged the call. Three minutes later, Steve heard the siren. Knowing that the cool wail was the calm before the real storm, Steve radioed Control and asked that the sergeant on duty roll by; he wanted to do everything by the numbers, just in case something nasty came up later.
Another minute passed before the ambulance arrived, screaming down the twisting blacktop that snaked through the cemetery, wig-wag lights blinking in steady rhythm. Steve thumbed the extender mike. “Control. 66Lincoln3. Ambulance is on scene. Cancel fire.”
The ambulance screeched to a halt as Steve finished speaking. One of the paramedics headed for Royce Lewis, and the other came to Steve. “What you got for us?” the paramedic asked, but the words didn’t catch Steve’s attention. He was watching the other paramedic work on Royce Lewis. The caretaker had vomited up a bellyful of water before the ambulance arrived, and now he wasn’t doing much at all. But he was breathing, and that simple fact made Steve uneasy.
“Steve? You okay, Steve?”
The sound of his name brought him around. “Yeah…I’m okay Gary,” Steve said, thankful that he remembered the young paramedic’s name. “We’ve got a weird one.”
A few feet away, the other paramedic went about his business, checking Royce Lewis’s pulse and respiration. Gary’s partner was named Bob. Now Steve remembered. Bob…his last name something that started with a Z, something you didn’t hear every day.
Gary clicked a ballpoint pen, oblivious to his partner, intent on his own duties. “What can you tell me?”
“Guy was facedown in that grave over there,” Steve explained. “Grave’s full of water and he wasn’t practicing the backstroke. I got him out. Just in time, I think. He vomited a bunch of water, and then he seemed to breathe okay, but he never really came around.”
“Never a lifeguard around when you need one, right?” Gary grinned. “You got a name for me?”
“Royce Lewis. He’s the night man here at the cemetery.”
Gary scribbled the name. “Date of birth? Social security number?”
“I just found the guy, Gary. I just hauled him out of the grave a couple minutes ago.”
“Okay Steve. We’ll handle it.”
“No problem at all,” Bob called. “His wallet’s in his pocket.”
“Voila,” Gary said.
“Thank God for little miracles,” Steve added.
The young paramedic shot a glance at his partner. “How we doing?”
“Got a head wound, for starters,”‘ Bob said. “Respiration’s shallow.”“ He fastened a blood-pressure cuff around Royce Lewis’s arm.