Grave Designs (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

Thirty minutes later I was staring at the file drawer in the cabinet against the office wall. I had opened it to get my research notes on the trial brief.

Mary handled all the filing, and she was careful to keep each case separate and arranged in alphabetical order by client. The research notes should have been in the Candlelite file; I finally found them in the Frontenac Village one. A quick inspection turned up four other files out of order.

I returned to my desk and pulled out each desk drawer, one at a time, trying to remember what had been where. Had the stapler been in the front of the third drawer? Or had someone put it there after looking through all the papers in the drawer?

I stared at the stapler. My apartment had been searched on Thursday. I hadn't been in the office on Friday. I shook my head. The Canaan investigation was turning me into a paranoid. It was probably just Mary, looking for something in my desk on Friday. And if not Mary, then perhaps the cleaning lady who worked from six p.m. to two a.m.

There was a knock at my outer office door. I slowly closed the desk drawer and waited. It was too early for Cindi and Benny. Another knock. I stood up and walked out of my office to the small reception area. Through the pebbled glass I could see a hulking male figure. I picked up Mary's telephone, ready to dial 911.

“Who is it?” I called.

“Rachel?” the voice said. “It's Kent Charles. Can I come in?”

I put down the phone and opened the door. Kent Charles smiled. “Hi,” he said. “Hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

“No problem,” I said. “C'mon in.”

Kent followed me into my office. I took a seat behind my desk and Kent sat on the couch along the side wall.

He was dressed casual. “I've never been here before,” he said, looking around the room.

“Well, you just missed the four o'clock tour. There won't be another until Monday.”

Kent smiled. “How are you feeling? And how's your dog?”

“Okay,” I said. “And Ozzie is fine. I picked him up from the vet this morning.”

“Good,” he said. “I ran into Harlan Dodson down at the office this morning.”

“And?”

“He wants to move in court on that codicil fast. He's gone nuts over that grave robbery.”

“He's pressuring me too,” I said. “What's wrong with him?”

Kent shook his head. “I guess it's that Ebersoll estate litigation. It's getting messy.”

“Getting messy?” I had to laugh. “That thing was messy from day one.”

The Ebersoll estate litigation was the final chapter in one of those delicious scandals that newspaper publishers pray for. Two years ago Harold Ebersoll, CEO of a major Chicago plastics manufacturer, married Heather Brindle. It was the first marriage for both. Harold was sixty-eight. Heather was nineteen. Three months later Harold Ebersoll was found dead in the den of his Lincoln Park co-op, wrapped in seventy-five feet of adhesive tape, his genitals exposed, a small puddle of semen on the hardwood floor in front of his chair. The coroner eventually ruled it an accidental death resulting from strangulation during an act of sexual bondage with Heather. The neighborhood druggist provided sufficient corroboration for the verdict: during his three months of marriage, Harold Ebersoll had made weekly purchases of adhesive tape totaling, over that period, more than one thousand feet. Predictably, one of the Chicago newspapers labeled the scandal Mummygate.

The other shoe dropped when his last will and testament, executed three weeks before he died, was unveiled. Harold Ebersoll had left his entire estate—estimated at close to six million dollars—to his young widow. Both of Harold's sisters, major beneficiaries under his prior will, had been cut out completely by the new will.

Harlan Dodson had drafted the new will. Last fall the Ebersoll sisters had filed suit to set aside that will.

“Harlan had his deposition in that case three weeks ago,” Kent said.

“How'd it go?”

Kent shook his head. “Cal and I defended it. It was tough.”

“Who's the other side's attorney?”

“That asshole Joe Oliver.”

Joe Oliver had a well-deserved reputation as one of the toughest lawyers in Chicago.

“Did Joe rake him over the coals?” I asked.

“He tried,” Kent said. “I cut off the deposition after Oliver started to suggest that Ebersoll's wife was trading sexual favors for Harlan's assistance in getting a new will drafted.” Kent shook his head. “Harlan's been climbing the walls ever since. The next round of his deposition is scheduled for September.”

“No wonder Harlan's upset about Graham's codicil.”

Kent nodded. “He's afraid of another scandal.”

I waited.

Kent smiled. “I didn't come over here
just
because I'm curious as hell. Which I am.” He smiled. “I thought I might be able to help you out. As I told you, Graham and I were on the road together constantly on Bottles and Cans. I think I knew him better than most people did.”

I thought it over. “When Harlan Dodson mentioned the grave robbery,” I asked, “when you heard about a pet's grave, did that ring a bell?”

“Not a pet's grave per se,” Kent said. “But I can put two and two together. If you've been called in to investigate it, then I assume that the family knows nothing about the pet.”

“And?”

“So that means it was someone else's pet.” Kent ran his fingers through his hair. “Frankly, I had the strong impression that Graham had a girlfriend in town. Someone he was seeing on a fairly regular basis.” He shrugged. “It could be just a wild-goose chase, but maybe it was her pet he buried out there.”

“What makes you think he had a girlfriend?”

“Lots of little things. I'd find him in the partners' washroom at night shaving or splashing on cologne. He was very vague about who he was meeting, where he was going. This was over the last couple of years. After a while I just assumed he was having an affair. He'd had others before, you know. Anyway, that's why I came to you with this. I doubt whether his wife even knew about her. I don't know if anyone knew who she was. But she might be a good lead.”

“What was his girlfriend's name?”

Kent frowned. “He never mentioned any names. Like I say, I just sort of put two and two together.” Kent paused. “Wait a minute. Maybe he did mention a name. It was about a year ago. We were on the redeye out of LAX. Graham had a lot to drink on that flight. He didn't come out and say he had a girlfriend. Nothing that direct. But he mentioned a girl's name. Something with an
S.”
Kent frowned. “Sandy? Cindy? Sally? Something like that.”

“You remember anything else?”

“No. But maybe I will later.”

“Give me a call if you do.”

“I will,” he said. “Are you still having problems with it?”

“With what?”

“The codicil.”

“Too early to tell for sure,” I said. “I'm going to try to wrap it up by the beginning of next week, and then I'll give my report to Ishmael.”

“Who do you think robbed the grave?” Kent asked.

I shook my head. “No idea. Believe it or not, there's been a second grave robbery.”

“You're kidding! They stole another coffin?”

“No. A watchdog apparently scared him off before he reached the coffin.”

“Weird,” Kent said, stroking his mustache. “It could be vandals, you know. That stuff happens. At least in human cemeteries. Have the police been told?”

“Not yet.”

I tried to check my watch unobtrusively around 5:30. Cindi and Benny were due back soon. She was still officially dead. I didn't want her to run into Kent Charles. Especially Kent Charles. He was sure to be on the prowl. I wondered if I was getting jealous.

Kent must have seen me check my watch, because he stood up to go. “I have to get back to the office,” he said. “I'm getting ready for a week of depositions.”

“Bottles and Cans?” I asked.

He smiled. “Of course. Too bad you won't be joining us on the case. Listen, I'll be done by 7:30. If you're free, maybe we can grab a bite to eat. There's a terrific Cajun place that just opened on Halsted Street.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I already have plans for tonight.”

Kent shrugged. “Maybe some other time. You're a busy woman.”

“Not all the time,” I said with a smile.

“Well, I'll just have to keep asking, I guess.” He paused at the door. “If I think of anything else on this Canaan thing, I'll give you a buzz.”

After Kent left, I picked up my Dictaphone. I tried to get back to the trial brief, but I couldn't concentrate. Instead, I opened another desk drawer and stared again at the contents, trying to remember.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Maggie Sullivan called at 6:15 p.m. to tell me she was running late. I put her on hold and told Cindi and Benny, who had walked in a few minutes earlier with armloads of packages from Marshall Field's. Benny—whose lower intestinal tract was now, according to him, in stable condition—suggested the Billy Goat Tavern.

“Can you meet me at the Billy Goat Tavern?” I asked Maggie. “Around 7:30?”

“Sure.”

“I'll have two other people with me. Both of them know a little about the case.”

“They aren't cops, are they?”

“No. Just friends.”

“Okay. I'll meet you there.”

Cindi put on her wig before we left. She now had long black hair, parted in the middle and ending just below her shoulders.

“Amazing,” I said.

“Put her in bell bottoms,” Benny said, “and she's a refugee from Woodstock.”

Benny, Cindi, and I walked down Washington Street to Michigan Avenue. As we crossed over the Chicago River, one of the sight-seeing boats passed underneath the bridge. Some of the passengers waved, and we waved back.

Just beyond the Wrigley Building we took the stairway down into the perpetual darkness of Lower Michigan Avenue. Fashionable Michigan Avenue—the Magnificent Mile of designer dress shops, art galleries, the Ritz-Carlton, and Neiman-Marcus—runs directly over Lower Michigan Avenue, propped up on huge steel columns that vibrate as the limos and cabs pass overhead. Lower Michigan Avenue is the grande dame stripped of her makeup, jewelry, and Japanese cloth fan. The street is pocked and the air is dank. Cobwebs sag from the columns above, and an occasional rat scurries out to drink from the oily puddles below. Tucked in a corner along Lower Michigan Avenue is the Billy Goat Tavern—a longtime hangout for Chicago journalists.

We pushed past the crowded tables to a small table in the corner at the back of the restaurant, directly below a photograph of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. We each ordered a beer.

I filled them in on Kent Charles's visit to my office that afternoon. “And you're sure he was never one of your customers?” I asked Cindi.

“Never,” she said. “I'm positive.”

Benny looked up. “Hey, there's your friend.”

I turned toward the front of the restaurant, where Maggie Sullivan was standing at the door in navy-blue double-knit slacks, a pink and blue floral print polyester short-sleeve shirt, and white tennis shoes. I stood up and waved to her. She saw me and started moving through the crowd toward our table, holding her navy-blue vinyl handbag over her head. I caught the waiter's eye and ordered a beer for Maggie.

Maggie hoisted her mug. “Down the hatch.” She took two big swallows.

The long table in front of ours was packed with a softball team from one of the big insurance-defense law firms in town. The team members wore blue shirts with the team name—The Fender Benders—in white letters. They had downed a tremendous amount of beer, and several of them had staggered off to the men's room. The shouts and laughter from their table, mixed with the general din of the restaurant, gave us almost total privacy at our small table near the back wall.

We had finished our hamburgers and small talk. Maggie turned to me. “So, what was in the coffin?”

“I'm virtually certain it wasn't an animal,” I said. “The tombstone says 1985. But he buried it in June of 1986. That's at least a six-month lag. Who would keep a dead animal that long before burying it?” I paused. “I'm pretty sure what he buried was a computer printout.”

I described Tyrone Henderson's computer search for the Canaan file. “The dates match,” I explained. “Marshall printed out a seven-hundred-page document from the Canaan file late at night in May 1986. A couple weeks later he has you bury a coffin in your cemetery and erects a tombstone for Canaan.”

“But why a pet cemetery?” Maggie asked.

I shrugged. “Ambivalence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let's assume that the Canaan file in the computer contained evidence of something secret that Marshall was heavily involved with in 1985. Something very important to him. So important that he couldn't bear the thought of erasing all evidence of it. So first he prints it out of the computer and then he erases the file. Now he has all the evidence in his own hands. But what does he do with it?”

“Why a pet cemetery?” Cindi asked.

“Why not?” I answered. “A safety deposit box is too obvious, too dull: He dies and his wife opens the box. Where's the excitement? Moreover, what if his wife doesn't understand? Or care? Or tell anyone? Marshall wanted to make sure others found out. A human cemetery is too complicated. You don't just bury an unidentified human corpse. And a coffin that size—a coffin for an infant—would raise more than a few eyebrows. What else fits in a little coffin, he must have asked himself. Of course: a dog or a cat. A pet cemetery. Immortality for his documents and a grave marker that announces, at least to someone out there, that he was Graham Marshall and that he was involved with Canaan back in 1985.” I turned to Maggie. “Remember the coffin he picked out? And his question about whether it was watertight?” I shifted to Benny. “Graham Anderson Marshall worrying about whether a dead animal would get wet? No way. It's got to be documents. Water damages documents—and those were documents Marshall didn't want damaged.”

Maggie leaned forward. “So you're saying that fruitcake stuck a bunch of documents in a coffin and buried it in my cemetery?”

I nodded.

“Where they'd be safe forever,” Cindi said.

“With Marshall's name carved in granite on top,” Benny added. “Along with the name Canaan.”

“I still don't get it,” Maggie said. “What good does it do him in a pet cemetery? Who's gonna ever know it's there? And if none of his friends know it's there, what's it worth to him?”

“Maybe he was looking to the future,” Cindi said. “Hundreds of years from now. Someone finds that grave marker and wonders what it was all about. Maybe they dig it up to see what it is. Maybe that's what he was hoping for.”

“He was looking to the future,” I said, “but probably not much further than his own death.”

“What are you getting at, Rachel?” Benny asked.

“He wanted someone to find it,” I said. “He made sure of that.”

“How?” Cindi asked.

“The codicil,” I said. “Something odd like that—a trust fund for the care and maintenance of the grave of a pet no one's ever heard of. First of all, the trust fund was unnecessary.” I turned to Maggie. “Tell them what you told me. If someone wants you to take special care of a pet's grave, what do they do?”

“They tell me what option they want,” Maggie answered. “It's right on the contract form I give them when they come in for a plot. There's standard care. That cost seventy-five dollars a year. Then there's perpetual care. One thousand dollars. And then there's eternal loving care. Three grand.”

“Up front,” I said. “Right?”

“Yep.”

“See?” I said, looking around the table. “His codicil was totally superfluous. The only thing it could possibly do was arouse the law firm's curiosity. He knew A and W would handle his probate. And he knew that an oddball trust fund for forty thousand dollars would make them curious. No probate lawyer could ignore a trust for a mystery grave in a pet cemetery. Especially where the law firm is one of the beneficiaries of the trust. At the very least, the lawyer's got a fiduciary duty to find out what's in the grave.”

“If that's what he wanted,” said Benny, “it worked.”

“If the grave hadn't been robbed,” I said, “I bet the firm would have been forced to have it exhumed. They couldn't break the trust fund without at least finding out what was in the grave.”

“Did he leave any other clues?” Cindi asked.

I nodded. “Take the computer data base. He printed out the contents in 1986 and then erased
just
the contents. He left the
name
of the Canaan file in the computer.”

We sat in silence for a few moments.

Cindi stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and looked up, frowning. “So what was on that printout that he buried?”

I looked around the table. “Fasten your seat belts. It seems that Graham Marshall traced his family back to the Puritans in Massachusetts. In 1679, someone named Benjamin Marshall helped found a village in western Massachusetts. A village named Canaan. Benjamin Marshall was an Elder of the church there. Does Graham Marshall know this? Maybe not till he goes to college. Barrett College. And there he takes a course or hears a lecture about a book. A book by Ambrose Springer called
The Lottery of Canaan.”

“How do you know all that?” Cindi asked.

“I talked to a faculty member at Northwestern who graduated from Barrett.” I turned to Benny. “Paul Mason. He said there was a professor back then who gave a popular lecture on the book and the village of Canaan.”

I tried to give some sense of the original lottery of Canaan. “A secret lottery that decides people's fates,” I concluded, “that controls people's destinies. It's strangely credible. It bowled me over when I read it. Imagine what it could do to a nineteen-year-old kid who thinks he's hearing the story of one of his ancestors.”

I took a sip of beer. “Marshall's secretary said that back in 1985 he worked long hours on some secret matter called Canaan. The tombstone has only one date on it: 1985. No date of birth or death. So we can assume Marshall's involvement with Canaan was in 1985. He apparently used the Bottles and Cans computer in connection with it. It was convenient and safe. He had a terminal right in his office, and there's so much junk in that computer that the Canaan file would be a needle in a haystack.”

“What the hell was he doing?” Benny asked me.

“I wish I knew for sure. Based on those newspaper articles you helped me find, it looks like Marshall had something to do with four seemingly random events.” I turned to Maggie. “Bear with me on this. I'll explain it later.” I looked at Benny and Cindi. “You can find examples of luck or chance in the newspaper every day. Maybe Marshall picked four such events at random, left the clues, buried the coffin, and hoped that whoever was assigned the job of figuring out what was in the coffin would think that Marshall had caused the events.”

“That's all?” Benny asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “But that doesn't explain what's happened since Monday. Who stole the coffin? At first I thought that maybe Marshall arranged that in advance. Bury an empty coffin, have it stolen after you're dead, and chuckle ahead of time at how crazy you'll make the person who's assigned to figure out what was in the coffin. But where's the payoff for Marshall? Where's the punch line? How does he know who's going to find the coffin? How does he know that the investigator—me—will be able to put it all together with just an empty coffin?”

“Good God,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “Eleven pet cemeteries in Chicago to choose from and that Graham cracker had to pick mine. Jeez.”

“What bothers me,” I said, “is the thought that it wasn't all just a clever little joke. What if it was a clever
big
joke? A cosmic practical joke? What if Graham Marshall decided to honor the three-hundredth anniversary of the lottery of Canaan by setting up his own lottery? What if Graham Marshall
caused
the plane crash? What if Graham Marshall
caused
the typographical error? What if Graham Marshall hid the money in that used filing cabinet? What if Graham Marshall fixed the beauty contest?”

“But why?” Cindi asked.

“Why not?” I answered. “If Benjamin Marshall could do it back in 1685, why couldn't Graham Marshall do it in 1985?” I paused. “Look at it this way. Marshall spent his life as a trial lawyer. Doing a trial is like writing history. What's history but the story of cause and effect? It's the same in a trial. If you're the plaintiff, you try to create a link between the effect—your client's injury—and what you claim is the cause—the defendant's conduct. If you're the defendant, you try to destroy the causal link. But the lawyer—like the historian—gets there
after
the event. He doesn't
cause
it; he just tries to explain it.”

I nodded at Benny. “So you see? That could be the appeal of a Canaan lottery. You're not
explaining
history. And you're not stuck depending on the testimony of witnesses outside your control. Instead, you go out there and
create
history on your own. You're the judge. You're the jury. And you're the witness.”

“But there's no history if it's all secret,” Cindi said.

“But of course there is,” I answered. “All that's happened is you've separated the cause and the effect. The effect gets recorded in the newspaper—the plane crash, the beauty queen, the hidden treasure, the costly typo. It's just that no one but Marshall knows the real cause. To the rest of the world it's just fate or luck or chance. Remember the epitaph on the tombstone? A nickname for Providence. You know what the full quote is? The librarian at A and W found it for me. Some French philosopher said it. ‘Chance is a nickname for Providence.' Except here, chance is just a nickname for Graham Marshall.”

“But the wrong person dug up the coffin,” said Cindi.

“Yeah,” Benny said. “Who dug it up?”

“And what about the second grave robbery?” Maggie said. “What's that all about?”

“And who broke into your apartment and drugged Ozzie?” Benny asked. “And who tried to kill Cindi? And who the hell was that guy you followed from the el?”

“That's where I'm stumped,” I said. “Even Marshall couldn't do that stuff from the grave.”