“Do you still have the urn?”
Calhoun thought about that a minute, frowned. “I think I donated it to the thrift store. I mean, poor people die, too, so why not have a really nice urn for their loved ones’ ashes? Mr. Henry’s was the best money could buy, ceramic, as I recall.”
When Sala and Ty left, Courtney Wells tossed her beautiful curly hair at them and nodded toward the stairs. Ty gave her a big smile, whispered, “He can’t wait to tell you everything.”
Ty said to Sala, “The man’s certifiable.”
“Or he likes to play-act at being certifiable.”
“And he gets away with it, which would mean he’s not at all stupid.”
“No, Calhoun is anything but stupid. Both he and Mrs. Chamberlain agree Mr. Henry never wore belts, only red suspenders. So how did his belt buckle—according to Gunny Saks—end up in Lake Massey with all those bones? It’s got to mean Mr. Henry wasn’t cremated after all, that his bones were there at the bottom of Lake Massey.”
“And he was wearing the Star of David belt buckle when he was thrown in. Or,” Ty added, “Gunny Saks is wrong about all of it, and we’re chasing giraffes. But someone did try to murder her.”
Her cell rang. It was Lulie Saks. Gunny was fully awake, and there was something very different about her.
45
* * *
HAGGERSVILLE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Sala and Ty paused to speak to Officer Romero Diaz, sitting outside Gunny Saks’s cubicle in the ICU. He was late twenties, buff, too handsome for his own good, a heartbreaker, Ty bet. He assured them they shouldn’t worry, nobody was going to hurt Gunny. His voice changed when he said her name.
“You care about her,” Ty said.
Diaz said, “Sure, we grew up together. I always thought she was a sweet kid, and so beautiful. Nobody’s going to get near her.” He touched his fingers to his holstered Beretta.
Ty and Sala squeezed into the small cubicle space to stand next to Ms. Saks and Chief Masters.
Lulie looked up even as she kept stroking her daughter’s face. “Gunny fell asleep again after they gave her a pain medicine in her IV. She had a bad headache.” She paused a moment, getting herself together. “They say she had a blood clot—a subdural hematoma, pushing on her brain. Both her surgeon and the nurses say her vitals are good now.” She paused, swallowed. “She’ll be all right.”
“You said she was different?” Ty said. “What did you mean, Ms. Saks?”
Chief Masters said, “Actually, I told Lulie she was different. Lulie’d stepped out for a minute when Gunny opened her eyes. She looked confused for a second, then she smiled at me and called me by a nickname that nobody’s called me for years—BBD, stands for Big Bad Dan. I didn’t even know Gunny knew that name.”
“Did you call him by that nickname, Ms. Saks?” Ty asked.
“Yes, like everyone else did when he was younger, before he became Chief Masters, but it stopped when Gunny was a little girl.” She touched her fist to his arm.
Chief Masters plowed his fingers through his thick hair. “Yeah, yeah, when I finally decided to grow up—no more bar fights and speeding my Mustang through town, generally scaring the crap out of people.”
Lulie said, “I really liked that Mustang.”
“Yeah, I did, too, but my dad was hooting and cheering when I finally sold it.” He paused a moment, then picked up Gunny’s still, pale hand, a lovely hand, with long, narrow fingers, clear-polished short nails. “Like I told Lulie, Gunny’s smile, the way she looked at me, spoke to me, she seemed different somehow. She was taking me in, focused on me. I’ve never seen Gunny look at me like that. There was real awareness in her eyes. Then she sort of whimpered deep in her throat, whispered her head hurt, and I called the nurse. Like Lulie said, the nurse injected something for pain in her IV, and she fell asleep again.”
“Gunny was hovering on the edge of sleep when I came back in, and she didn’t speak any more,” Lulie said to them. She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, Dan. It is strange, though. She called you BBD after all these years? The first thing she said when she woke up and saw you?”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it since you called Ty, Lulie. Let me say when Gunny smiles, it’s always sweet, loving, and you know there are only kind thoughts behind that smile, no sarcasm, no irony. There aren’t any layers to Gunny’s smiles. Everything is right there, for all to see.”
“What he’s trying to say in a nice way is Gunny is simple. Everything’s on the surface. She’s guileless, open, childlike, I guess you could say.”
He nodded. “Okay, but not this time, Lulie. When she smiled at me, she was here, with me, and her eyes were alive with emotion as she tried to remember what had happened, put together where she was. I’ll tell you, her eyes seemed to penetrate right into me—I don’t know—sorry, I’m not explaining it well.”
Lulie lightly laid her hand on his arm. “We’ll see soon enough when she wakes up again.”
Sala said, “Before she does, can we talk a minute about Henry LaRoque? Both Mrs. Chamberlain and Calhoun LaRoque told us his father was cremated.”
Lulie blinked at them. “Mr. Henry? Yes, that’s right, he was cremated at the Sparrow Crematorium. They also have memorial facilities and most everyone in town was there. There wasn’t a viewing because of the way he was killed.”
Chief Masters said, “He looked like he’d been through the Spanish Inquisition. They had to keep him covered.”
Lulie said, “Oh, I see, you’re wondering how his belt buckle ended up in Lake Massey with all those bones. How that’s possible? He really was cremated, though. Could Gunny have been mistaken?”
Sala said, “Then why would anyone have tried to kill her, Ms. Saks? Her being attacked was all about that belt buckle. She said she did see it, and for whatever reason, Mr. Henry told her to keep it a secret, made her promise not to tell anyone, including you. Neither Mrs. Chamberlain nor Calhoun ever saw that belt buckle. They said he only wore suspenders.”
“That’s right,” Chief Masters said, “red suspenders. But why would he show this particular belt buckle to Gunny? Why would it be a secret Gunny had to keep? It was his, after all.”
Lulie said, “Why wouldn’t she tell me about it after he was murdered five years ago? I mean, what would a secret matter after he was dead?”
Chief Masters squeezed her hand. “I bet she forgot, Lulie, and it simply slipped out of her head. Seems to me Gunny’s always lived in the here and now, that is, when she could focus. She’s always accepted whatever comes her way, doesn’t question it. You tell her to do something, she does it, and then she forgets about it.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Lulie said. “But why would Mr. Henry swear her to secrecy? Why would Mr. Henry care? It’s a stupid belt buckle, nothing more. That’s why her story seemed so strange to me.”
Ty picked it up. “Mrs. Chamberlain told us Gunny worked at the Sparrow Crematorium before the post office.”
“Yes, she did,” Lulie said. “Mrs. Sparrow—Elaine Sparrow, Landry and Eric’s mother—hired Gunny to assist Mrs. Chugger at the reception desk. She greeted people, handed out cookies at the memorials, occasionally answered the phone. You know, odds and ends, nothing too taxing.” She paused. “After the Sparrow parents died and Landry married Susan, she became Gunny’s boss. Gunny really liked Susan, but it bothered her seeing dead people, especially seeing them shoved into an oven and burned up. I asked her how that was possible, I mean, her job didn’t require she be near the actual cremations. Turns out she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and it freaked her out. Susan told me she was sorry about losing Gunny. She told me Gunny was very good with grieving family members, very empathetic and gentle. Then Danny, you got her hired at the post office.”