House of Ghosts (3 page)

Fredericks’ Crown Victoria was back in the Swedge driveway. Joe stopped ten feet past the evergreens to get an angle to see the front door. A van belonging to Callahan Restoration, Inc. was parked with its sliding door on the passenger side facing the entrance. Ryan Callahan was a cousin of Christian Murphy. His business was removing the stench of death. Someone wasn’t wasting time. Joe wondered how long it would be until the Tudor was on the market.

Joe pulled the Volvo into the garage and carried the shopping bag through the door to the laundry room. Roxy pointed her nose in the direction of Angus heaven. “Patience girl,” Joe said, walking into the kitchen. He placed the bag on the counter.

The answer machine was blinking. Joe hit the play button. Call one: “It’s Elaine. I hope you remember to go to your appointment.” He hit the delete button. Call two: “Jozef, Harry is away for next three days. Call me, pleeze.” Joe laughed
as he hit delete. The sultry voice, requiring no introduction, belonged to Alenia from down the block. The ex-pole dancer found her mark at a strip joint near the Elizabeth exit of the New Jersey Turnpike. She massaged the ego and other worldly parts of a man thirty years her senior, liberated his wallet and found a very comfortable life a world away from the dingy apartment in a suburb of Moscow. He’d let her wait. Call three: “Christian Murphy.” Joe turned up the volume. “Preston Swedge had a heart the size of a basketball with advanced coronary artery disease. I’m listing the cause of death as heart failure. That’s one for me. The other is for you. There wasn’t any lettuce in his gut.”

Joe opened the refrigerator door of the Maytag side-by-side, grabbed a can of Bud, and held it to his forehead. He limped into the den off the dining room. Joe scoffed at the description of the seven by ten room when they bought the house. A den in his mind was large enough to hold a pool table, an oversized leather recliner, and a monster projection television. The converted sewing room barely held a six-foot couch and a screw-it-together computer desk purchased at a bigbox wholesale club out on the highway. A thirteen-inch Sony rested on the corner of the desk.

Joe raised the blinds on the two windows behind the desk and sat on a Banker’s chair his father polished for thirty years as a N.Y.P.D. detective. A photo of Joe, his father, and grandfather in their N.Y.P.D. blues taken at Joe’s graduation from the police academy teetered on the edge of the desk. He booted up his notebook computer, clicking on the bookmarked site for Rutgers University.

“Hey Joe, where are you?” Dan Fredericks yelled.

Roxy bolted through her doggie door, running full tilt into Fredericks as he neared the kitchen. “Good to see you girl.”

“Grab a beer in the ‘fridge,” Joe yelled. “I’m in the den.”

Fredericks entered the den sans jacket and tie. His shirt was soaked with perspiration. Popping the tab on a beer, he collapsed on the couch. “The air-conditioning feels great.”

“I sorta like the smell of rotting flesh,” Joe said, holding his nose. “I should’ve saved some of the maggots for bait.”

Roxy pawed at Fredericks’ pant pocket where M&Ms were always in supply. He reached into the bag, giving her one. “I didn’t know you fished.”

“I’m thinking about taking it up.” Joe got a kick from goofing on Fredericks. “Murphy’s cousin doesn’t waste anytime. Who called him?”

Fredericks shifted on the couch. “Swedge must have known he was short on time. On the refrigerator were instructions to follow in the event of his death. I contacted his attorney and told him the facts. He asked if I knew someone who
could clean up the mess.”

“Who’s the asshole?” Joe asked as he pounded the keyboard.

“Lester Hargrove.”

Joe stopped typing. “Never heard of him.”

Fredericks got off the couch to look over Joe’s shoulder. “Going back to school?”

Joe returned to typing. “I took an aptitude test and you know what I’m good for?” he asked as he filled out an online registration.

“Beer taster?” Fredericks guessed.

“Close. Customer service.”

“In a maximum security prison?” Fredericks laughed.

“Precisely. I told my shrink that I’ve been thinking about finishing my requirements for a master’s degree in history. He said go for it, but take it slow. He’s afraid I might crack under the pressure.” Joe said, waiting for the next information screen. “Did you check out the emergency alert?”

“It doesn’t work. I called the service. They don’t get a signal when it’s activated.”

“Preston oughta sue them posthumously. I’m sure Hargrove would take the case for thirty percent,” Joe quipped.

Fredericks nervously played with the tab on the can until it broke free. “I checked the wax paper for prints.” He walked over to what Joe’s daughter tabbed, The Wall of Honor: A 10 x 10 of Joe shaking hands with John Walsh, the host of
America’s Most Wanted
; Joe’s honorable discharge from the Marine Corps with his Purple Heart; and a plastic case with two crushed, quarter-size metal pieces, remains of the hollow point bullets that shattered his right leg. The case was mounted above a letter of appreciation from the U.S. Attorney General, for aiding in the elimination of the homicidal maniac who fired them. Two floor-to-ceiling bookcases, holding military books detailing the campaigns of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and Joe’s personal hell—the year he served in Vietnam.

Stalling, Fredericks pointed to the photo of Joe with John Walsh. “I never understood why I wasn’t in the picture. I was the guy who List was handcuffed to when we brought him back from Virginia.”

John List, a Westfield resident, gained national media attention by murdering his wife, mother in-law, and three kids in 1971. List, a God-fearing Sunday school teacher, was caught up in a failing marriage, a failing career, a mountain of debt, and kids perceived to be on the wrong side of the Good Book. For nearly eighteen years, List lived a life of lies until he was apprehended with the help of the TV show.

Joe completed the registration form and clicked the “finish” icon. He turned the chair toward Fredericks. “The case was ice cold. I convinced Walsh to put List’s face on the show,” he lectured. “Cheer up. If you’re lucky, a homicidal maniac will kill five or six poor slobs on your watch and provide the reason for you to call Walsh.”

Roxy sat at Fredericks’ feet waiting for more M&Ms. Fredericks abruptly stood. “Fuck you.”

Joe finished his beer. He fished through the desk’s pencil drawer, found a Marlboro and passed the cigarette under his nose. “Stale but serviceable.” He flicked the Zippo. Smoke rose to the ceiling. “What about the prints on the wax paper?”

“Most were too smudged to be of any value. There’s a thumbprint that is identifiable—Elmer the sandwich guy at Duke’s Deli. He served three years for drug possession; been clean for ten years.

“He’s a good guy.” Joe leaned back in the chair. “You got something else?”

“I’m getting heat to wrap this up. Swedge’s attorney packs a lot of weight. We’re not going to look for the identity of the sandwich eater.”

Joe knocked the cigarette inside a coffee can that he used as an ashtray. He rubbed the back of his head. “Why am I not surprised?” The phone rang. The caller ID said Pole Dancer. He pointed toward the door. “I’ve got to take this call.”

RESTING AGAINST AN OAK, Joe drained a can of Bud. It felt good to be outside like he used to do every Thursday, his day to hit the links from April through the first snowy winter day. Running a hand over the grip of the five-iron nestled in the manicured grass, Joe fought the urge to take a hack at the lone dandelion that managed to evade an army of landscapers on the payroll of Fairview Cemetery.

Taking a hit on his tenth Marlboro of the day, brought a strange pain underneath his breast bone like sandpaper on sandpaper. Elaine never lost an opportunity to predict that he would end up like Uncle Ernie on an oxygen tank after losing a lung. Maybe she was right when she suggested he purchase a plot—it was only a matter of time and he ought to choose the spot.

Joe coughed up a plug of nicotine infused mucous, spitting it toward a primrose patch. He checked his watch—ten o’clock. Dr. Headcase would be proud. He hadn’t seen the rising sun in a year. He’d been on the hill since eight for one reason: Until he saw the dirt flooding over Preston Swedge, it wasn’t over.

Ed Stoval said that Preston’s attorney came by to pick up one of Preston’s suits. The arrangements were private. Joe laughed at the idea—nothing was private. Catman Prather, an ex-con Joe helped get a job at Holly’s Home for Funerals, had given him the heads up the day before that Preston’s body was being released by the medical examiner. The burial had to be done on the quick, before eleven the next day. Catman didn’t know why. The caretaker at Fairview bitched and moaned he wouldn’t have the gravesite prepared. A promised C-note assured a backhoe would be digging by eight in the Oakdale section.

Joe reached into his goodie bag, retrieved an opened bag of Cheese Doodles, and popped a handful into his mouth. After muscling a canopy over the plot to keep the grieving family out of the blazing sun, two gravediggers tidied the work area, covering the excavated earth with a green tarpaulin. Joe snapped open the front page of
The Star Ledger
. The lead article—“Vice President Al Gore told reporters
during a press conference before boarding his plane at Edwards Air Force Base that he had not ruled out the possibility of including Ralph Nader or other third party candidates in the upcoming presidential debates.” Joe had one comment, “The schmucks deserve each other.”

He flipped the paper to the death notices, a habit he claimed he inherited from his mother. Dr. Headcase said it was a manifestation of an unconscious need to be assured that one was still alive. Joe knew the psychobabble was bullshit. He was looking for names of those he consciously wanted dead.

Surveying the one hundred ten acres produced a shiver even though the temperature hovered near eighty. He never bought into the line of the dearly departed going to a better place, not believing it when they lowered his cancer riddled grandmother into the hole when he was six or when his best buddy from his Marine unit decided to ventilate the side of his head. It didn’t matter that the poor devil never made it as a civilian, stumbling from one job to another with stops along the way in psyche units and county jails. Once in
that
box you were finished, kaput, bye-bye, worm meal. Spending twenty grand on a polished granite mausoleum with stained glass windows made perfect sense.

A hearse followed by a gray Camry turned onto Oakdale Avenue. The procession stopped twenty yards from the gravesite. A frail elderly man of average height, who Joe identified as Reverend James Miller, got out of the front passenger seat.

The sight of the six-three, gray bearded rabbi from the Westfield temple, Bernard Balaban, unfolding from behind the wheel brought Joe to his feet and squished his plan of watching the proceedings from the hill. Preston’s protesting the placing of the Jewish holidays on the school calendar at a board of education meeting was legendary. “The fucking Jew Rothstein” still rang in his ears. Joe looked around. “Lillie, you’re not going to miss these,” he said, lifting a flowerpot of petunias from the grave of Lillie Pfaphenbach deceased since 1975. Putting on an oversized pair of sunglasses, he adjusted his Yankee cap to just over his eyes and began descending the hill.

An attendant from Holly’s Home for Funerals transferred a burnished walnut casket to a gurney. The man of the hour was wheeled to the entrance of his freshly dug subterranean condo where the two cemetery workers placed the casket onto the lowering device.

Joe circled the section, approaching from the far side. Miller’s voice carried in the slight breeze, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” Joe placed the flowers at the base of a tombstone fifteen feet from Balaban and Miller.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will
dwell in the House of the Lord forever,” Miller concluded.

Balaban took a step closer to the grave. “
Yeetgadal v’ yeetkadash sh’mey rabbah. B’almah dee v’rah kheer’utey. V’ yamleekh malkhutei, b’chahyeykhohn, uv’ yohmeykhohn. uv’chahyei d’chohl beyt yisrael, ba’agalah u’veez’man kareev, v’eemru Amein
.”

“Amen,” Miller said.

Joe said a silent “Amen” recognizing the classic Hebrew mourner’s prayer for the dead. He took a step closer.

Balaban continued, “May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed. May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days, and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel, swiftly and soon.”

Straddling the coffin, one of the gravediggers released the lowering device. The casket slowly descended out of sight. The other worker removed the tarpaulin from the mound, handing each clergyman a long handled shovel.

Both clergymen stepped to the mound, removing a spade’s load. “May you finally rest in peace,” Miller said, sending the dirt onto the coffin. For an instant, he locked eyes with Joe.

Balaban bowed his head before delivering the full scoop with a thud. “Goodbye my tormented friend.” He turned, re-burying the spade into the mound.

“Say a prayer for him at the Wailing Wall,” Miller said to Balaban, handing the shovel back to the workman. “And throw in one for me.”

“Good things happen to good people,” Balaban said, placing an arm around Miller’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

Joe lit a Marlboro. Watching the Camry pull away, he ambled over to the gravesite. The workmen had removed both the lowering device and the canopy. “The service is over,” came gruffly from the backhoe over the rumble of the diesel engine,

“Yeah, got here late,” Joe yelled, walking to the mound of earth. “Do you mind?” he asked, removing one of the shovels.

“Knock yourself out!” came back with a rev of the engine.

Joe, holding the full shovel, looked into the grave. “Preston, what the hell went on here today?”