Deadly Anniversaries Page 12

  In no frame of mind to be alone with my own thoughts after that call, I flipped through the radio stations again, found some banda music from south of the border and turned it up. But there was no escaping the mental loop that repeated over and over how I came to be in that place at that time.

  The cascade of events began Saturday night at the party Herbie’s grown kids threw to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. A big deal, our tenth, because none of Herbie’s previous wives had lasted a full ten years. Herbie, being Herbie, made sure they didn’t. The thing was, his standard prenup was for ten years. If his wife, whoever she might be at the time, made it past that ten-year hurdle, the prenup went away and she became Herbie Hardy’s sole heir. A rich widow, one day.

  Don’t think Herbie was cheap, because he wasn’t. It’s just that he was afraid a wife might get mad enough or fed up enough to throw something at him—like a kitchen knife or a projectile out of the business end of his prized SIG Sauer automatic—unless he set up his finances so that she got nothing if he didn’t survive to the end of the ten-year term. So call the prenup a life assurance policy. Out of an abundance of caution, he dumped every one of his wives well before the stroke of midnight on year ten. Except me, though I came close a few times.

  The kitchen isn’t the only room in the house where a wife can cook, if you get my meaning. Herbie generally seemed piggishly happy with me, so I thought I was safe. Then somewhere toward the end of year eight, or maybe early in year nine, I started getting signals that I might become the next ex–Mrs. Herbie Hardy, no matter how much fun Herbie was having. It was about that time that Herbie started getting sick: stomach cramps, liver problems. From then until the end, every morsel, every drop the man consumed came from my hand. Until the party Saturday night.

  Knowing their father was a short-timer, and wanting to curry favor with—they hoped—their future benefactor, Herbie’s grown kids decided to throw us a big catered party at the country club. Six-piece band, open bar, sit-down dinner, the whole works. I advised against it, reminding everyone about Dear Old Dad’s delicate tummy. Doctors warned that Herbie’s former constant companion, Jack Daniel’s, was now poison to him, so why tempt with full bar service? If he couldn’t drink Jack and he couldn’t keep down a heavy meal, why not a quiet dinner at home? I said. As stubborn as their father, the kids were not to be dissuaded from trying to curry Dad’s favor. Anyway, Herbie wanted the party so there had to be a party.

  The day of the party, Herbie gave me yet another shiny bauble and told me to show some cleavage, and off to the club we went. For most of the evening I managed to keep an eye on Herbie to make sure the glass in his hand held nothing stronger than ginger ale and that no one but me gave him anything to eat. But after all the toasts and bad jokes about what I must have done to hold Herbie’s interest longer than any of the five previous Mrs. Hardys, he drifted out of sight. The first call to 9-1-1 logged in at five past eleven.

  At the stroke of midnight, when I became his sole heir, Herbie was still breathing. He continued to breathe until Tuesday morning at six. Three days later, buttoned into a three-piece suit and nestled inside a very expensive mahogany box, Herbie made his last trip down the aisle of a church.

  The kids, if you can call them kids—the youngest was a decade older than me—were ever so helpful during the days after Herbie passed on to his final reward. Even Herbie Junior was civil to me. On the morning of the funeral he volunteered to load all the flowers that came to the house into Dad’s giant Navigator and take them to the church. I also saw him load a half case of Jack leftover from the wake the night before into the rear deck along with the flowers. A chip off the old block, that Junior.

  Attitudes among the offspring changed very soon after the funeral service. When Mr. Peters’s hearse blew its engine and we were all left standing around in the church narthex waiting for a replacement car to take Herbie to the airport, the kids got into a huddle with Herbie’s lawyer. Every once in a while, from the glances they threw at me, I understood that the lawyer was explaining the details of their father’s will to them. They each got enough cash, a few thousand dollars, so that they couldn’t challenge the will, and nothing more. After that, they suddenly remembered that they had other places to be.

  Junior decided that his aunt Harriet, who looked perfectly healthy to me, was tired and needed to be driven home. He handed me the Navigator keys and left in her car. One after another, the siblings and half siblings followed, the friends and business associates in their wake, until it was just me waiting with Herbie.

  Even though Herbie was an unmitigated son of a bitch all his life, I thought it was wrong for him to be left all alone at the church like a jilted bride. Those feelings became more acute when we missed our flight. I called his cousin in Nebraska to let her know we had to postpone the planned graveside service at the family plot somewhere in a cornfield outside Omaha. She said uh-huh a couple of times before she broke in to ask if they could go ahead as scheduled with the catered lunch I’d paid for. Well, why not? Then she gave me the number of the local farmer with a backhoe who took care of graves at the family cemetery and told me to give him a call when I finally got Herbie there. The hole was already dug, better pray it doesn’t rain. People had things to do, you know, can’t be expected to just hang around until we finally showed up, and goodbye. After I hung up, I patted Herbie’s box and told him, “You made your bed, honey. And now you get to sleep in it for long, long time.” Still, I felt bad for the old bugger.

  The church narthex was fairly cool and there was a padded bench I could stretch out on, so I was comfortable enough as Herbie and I waited for Mr. Peters to come through with a ride. Pretty soon, though, we were in the way of the florist who arrived to decorate for an evening wedding. With obsequious if insincere apologies, we were moved to a back hallway. Sitting next to Herbie on an itty-bitty chair pulled from one of the Sunday school classrooms, with my suitcase on the cheap linoleum floor beside me and Herbie’s sheaf of travel documents—death certificate, health department clearance to transport, airline agreement—clutched in my hand, I felt like an orphan waiting for a bus.

  The caterer made it clear that I was in her way as she loaded in. Irritated, hot in my funeral dress, desperate to kick off the high heels, after yet another call to Mr. Peters about the latest estimate on time of arrival for the replacement hearse, I took my suitcase into the ladies’ room and changed into comfortable travel clothes, jeans and sneakers. When I came out again I found that someone had pushed Herbie right out the back door. The last indignity was the damn pink tablecloth thrown over him so that the sight of him wouldn’t offend.

  Now I was pissed, and all the apologies of all the church ladies, florists, and caterers weren’t going to make the situation better. It was hot outside. Embalmed though he was, sitting against a white wall in full sunlight was doing Herbie no good. I called Peters again and got the same answer: soon.

  That’s when I spotted the Navigator parked under a tree on the far side of the church parking lot. With no place to sit and no place for my suitcase, I walked over and stowed my case in the car. The big SUV was cool inside, a better place for both me and Herbie to wait. So I dumped the last of the so-called floral tributes out of the cargo space onto the pavement to make room for Herbie, backed up to the church door, and opened the rear hatch. That casket buddy made it easy to just roll Herbie inside. I folded the buddy and tucked it in beside the coffin, closed the hatch, and climbed behind the wheel, intending to park the car back under the tree. And then I thought, Fuck it, and just kept going.

  Thing was, while I waited, I had started thinking. The best tickets I could get put me on a flight three hours after Herbie. Without me close by to look after things, what if there was a mix-up and he went astray? Or my flight was delayed or canceled? What then? Would the airline tuck Herbie into unclaimed baggage or ship him out to some local mortuary, where I might not find him for how long? Or, worst o
f all, what if the airline lost his paperwork and he was sent to the local morgue to who knows what fate?

  Considering the way things had gone so far, I had every expectation of yet another grand foul-up. Thinking about all the possibilities, as soon as I put the key in the ignition of that giant SUV, I realized that the only way I could be certain Herbie would get safely under the soil at the old family cemetery was to take him there myself. Messy, yes. Nuts, definitely. The best of alternatives at the moment, I hoped so.

  Mr. Peters was still filling my voice mail when daylight faded. The desert scrub that stretched to the far horizon all afternoon disappeared under a black curtain so dense that I could see nothing beyond the reach of my headlights except the occasional beams of oncoming cars and trucks. As I drove, mile after dark and empty mile, having Herbie behind me, quiet as he was, got awfully damn spooky. I began to worry about finding gas on time or having a flat and getting stuck out in the middle of wherever I was. And then answering questions if anything happened. How could I explain?

  I had my phone in hand looking for a signal in case I needed to call Triple-A when the glow of flashing neon broke into the black horizon. I crested a low grade and I saw the source, a gas station and mini-mart dead ahead. I pulled in and stopped at a pump. While the SUV’s tank filled, I went inside looking for a restroom and something to eat. The option for the first was adequate, for the second skimpy. I took care of business, gathered some basic road trip provisions, and went back outside.

  A state trooper had pulled in behind me and stopped with his cruiser kissing my rear bumper. Medium-aged, soft in the middle, shiny on top, the trooper got out and swaggered over toward me. He tipped his hat before he leaned in for a long look at the pink-shrouded cargo in the back of my car.

  “Good evening, Officer,” I said, dumping my provisions onto the front seat.

  “What’re ya carrying back there?”

  I shrugged, reached behind the seat and gave the coffin a few sharp knocks. “An ugly old antique. A family piece. I’m taking it to a cousin who wants it for some reason.”

  “Yeah?” The trooper, hand resting on his holstered service weapon, stayed beside the Navigator as if he had nothing better to do. I didn’t like the way he looked me over, top to bottom, eyes lingering where, if he’d used his hands, I’d charge him with assault. “Awful late for a pretty young lady to be out here all alone.”

  “I’m fine.” And not as alone as you might think, I refrained from saying. “I want to get some miles behind me before I stop for the night.”

  “Next town’s across the state line,” he said as I replaced the nozzle in the pump and secured the gas cap.

  In no mood for chitchat with law enforcement, I smiled and gave him a little salute as I opened my car door. I said, “You be careful out there, Officer,” shut the door, and turned the key in the ignition. He stepped aside and watched my tail until I pulled back out onto the highway.

  Something about the way the trooper watched me go set me on edge. Ten years with Herbie taught me to always be ready for the next thing that got thrown my way. I popped the hatch under the dash and made sure the SIG Sauer automatic Herbie kept hidden there was in place and loaded. A couple of big rigs barreled past me, and nothing else until I reached the state line. That’s when I saw him, staying well back until I was over the Nevada line and into the top corner of Arizona. Out of his jurisdiction.

  I had my hand on my phone when he lit me up. I pulled over, lowered my window, and hit Replay on the first of Mr. Peters’s voice mails. The mortician was saying something about a terrible mistake when the trooper leaned into the open window.

  Phone to my ear, volume down so that the sound that leaked out was no more than indistinct male blah-blah-blah. I held my hand up to the trooper, a signal to wait, and addressed the phone: “Dad, I don’t know why he pulled me over. I was not speeding, Dad. Cruise control’s on. Maybe it’s a taillight. What? No, no indicator popped up on the dash. Just hold on, I’ll ask him.”

  I muted Mr. Peters and smiled up at the trooper. “Sorry. My dad has a tracker app on me. As soon as I stopped the car, he was on the line. So, what’s the problem, Deputy?”

  “Your father?” he said, scowl lines gathered into a V between his eyes.

  “Yeah.” I thumbed the volume up a notch and put the phone back to my ear. “He looks okay, Dad. I spoke with him when I got gas. Yes, same guy.”

  I flipped to the phone’s camera and held it up to frame the trooper’s face. “You don’t mind if I take a photo, do you? Dad wants to know what you look like.”

  The trooper snatched the phone out of my hand, flicked it off, and tossed it onto the passenger seat. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, lady, but I do know the difference between a new coffin and an antique chest. I need you to come in and answer a few questions. There’s an off-ramp about a tenth of a mile ahead. You go ahead and proceed to the off-ramp, turn right at the bottom. I’ll be right behind you. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I watched him get back into his cruiser as I pulled onto the highway. There were no lights at the end of the off-ramp he signaled for me to take. None nearby and none in the distance. I made the turn at the bottom of the ramp onto a narrow road with weeds growing up between the cracks in the pavement. In a sudden move, the trooper sped around me and stopped at a diagonal in front of me, trapping me between his car and a deep arroyo. I waited for his next move.

  His flashlight beam bounced off my side mirror, so I didn’t see him approach. Without a word, he yanked open my door, grabbed my left arm and pulled me out onto the ground—rough, no please and thank you. He’d left his Sam Browne belt with his gun in the cruiser and had already undone his pants before he manhandled me into position and knelt between my legs while he ripped at my jeans. As he lowered himself, I got my hand under the small of my back, grabbed hold of Herbie’s SIG Sauer, stashed under my waistband, and pressed the business end into his sternum.

  “Get off,” I said.

  There was enough light from my open car door for him to see what I was holding. His confusion, disbelief, whatever, when realization hit gave me time to scoot out from under him and put some space between us. I edged toward his car, putting me and the SIG between him and his service weapon.

  Though wary, he managed to say, “Put the gun away, girlie. We’ll call this a draw. Just get back in your car and go.”

  “Uh-uh. No. The minute I drive away, you’ll get on the horn and issue an all-points bulletin on me with some bogus charge attached and get every bored lawman in the West out looking for me.” I reached into his car and got his weapon, a good-looking automatic, off the front seat. “So, that’s not how we end this.”

  “Put the guns away, honey. You and I both know you don’t have what it takes to kill a man.”

  “You think not? Why don’t you ask the guy inside the coffin?”

  His head swiveled toward the Navigator before he snapped his focus back to me. “You shot him?”

  “Oh hell no. I needed ten years, 2 days, and six hours to finish off Herbie.” I flipped the safety off his service automatic and nailed him dead between the eyes, got off a second shot through the Adam’s apple before he fell. Herbie always said that of all his wives, I was the best shot.

  A person isn’t dead until his heart stops beating. Even when the brain stem is obliterated, as I believed the trooper’s was, it takes a few seconds for the message that it’s all over to reach the heart. Anyone who’s cut the head off a chicken knows that. I waited him out, and then left him as he fell, pants at half-mast, goofy look of surprise on his face. His service weapon, wiped clean, on the broken pavement beside him.

  It was raining when I stopped at a motel somewhere in Utah for a few hours’ sleep. Thinking about Herbie’s open grave and his cousin’s concern about rain, I swore at Herbie all over again. If I ever married again, and I doubted that I w
ould, a cremation plan would be the first item on the prenup.

  I drove hard all day Saturday and went to ground in another off-brand motel just outside Omaha. Well before dawn, I was back in the Navigator, headed for the Hardy family’s ancestral cemetery in a corn patch fifty miles north of the city. The sun was just beginning to brighten the sky when I arrived. A farmer riding a backhoe pulled in right behind me.

  “Saw you pull up. My place is just yonder. You have Herbert Hardy back there?” the farmer asked with a nod toward the cargo deck. When I said I did, he said, “First time I knew anyone to get a last ride in a fancy Lincoln like that. Most times the mortuary in town brings folks out in their old Cadillac hearse. Be like old Herb to want something special. Guess the mortuary in town wasn’t good enough for him—nothing else here was. Anyhow, I been expecting him to show up. As the elected warden of county cemeteries, ma’am, I need to see Herb’s documents. Mortuary send them out with you?”

  Clearly, he thought that I was a mortuary functionary of some sort. I did not disabuse him of the notion. I handed over the papers that were supposed to travel on the plane with Herbie. He looked them over, gave me a nod, and stuffed them into a back pocket of his overalls. As if I knew what I was doing, I popped the rear deck and unfolded Mr. Peters’s casket buddy, asked for an assist, and got Herbie, at last, out of the car. The warden took over from there. I stood to the side and watched as he lowered Herbie into the ground and covered him over with black Nebraska soil.

  Prayer never was my thing, but I admit that I said a little one. Only I addressed it to Herbie. “Bye, Herbie. I got you here, as promised. Six feet under. Now stay there.”

  Safe at last, I got back into the Navigator and pulled up the GPS, trying to decide what a rich widow should do first.