David Wiltse - Prayer for the Dead

“I mean to say I’m worth something, you understand?” she continued. “You’ve got nothing better going in your life than me. You just happen to be too stupid to appreciate it.”

“I do appreciate it,” Becker said. “I already said so. You’re the best thing I’ve got going.”

“I’m young and I’m smart and I’ve got a good heart.”

She rolled onto her back and lifted first one leg and then the other and hooked them behind her neck. Sweat finally broke forth, bursting like a sudden freshet on her skin.

“In fact, I’ve got a great heart,” she said. “I’m a damned nice person. Better than you are.”

“A lot better,” Becker agreed.

“A lot better,” she said. Her voice finally showed some sign of her exertions. “Plus you’re too old for me.”

“I warned you about that, too,” he said.

“No, you didn’t. I didn’t need you to tell me. All I have to do is look at you. You’re too old for me, Becker. And you’re not nice enough, and generally you’re not worthy.”

“I wish you’d call me John,” he said.

“What I’m saying is, I think you’d better take a hike.”

“The reason I go to the shrink is-I’m a mess.”

“I could have told you that.”

“You might have saved me a few trips to Washington.”

“You’re closed up like a tin can. I can’t get close to you, I doubt if anybody ever has. I don’t know if you’re worth the effort. You may be hollow for all I can tell.”

“I’m not hollow,” he said.

“How would you know?”

“Because if I were hollow, I wouldn’t hurt.”

For the first time she stopped exercising and looked directly at him. Becker felt suddenly overcome by shyness and could not hold her gaze.

“Why do you hurt, John?” she said finally.

Becker pulled his knees up to his chest. “I don’t know,” he said in a small voice. “But I don’t want to take a hike,” he said.

“No.”

“I want to move m,” he said.

Cindi paused for a long moment, looking at him. She lifted his face so he could not avoid her eyes. Becker tried to grin but could not sustain it.

“Well, okay,” she said finally.

Hatcher shook a small bag and the stones clunked together dully.

“The only source of gravel within thirty-five miles is a quarry in Clamden. They made one hundred thirty-five deliveries of grade-C gravel-this is grade C, it goes by size-within a fifty-mile radius of Clamden in the six weeks before we found Dyce’s-uh- operation.”

Hatcher laid a computer printout in front of Becker before he continued.

“These were still covered with dust-a fine rock powder, actually-that’s the residue of the crushing machine. Did you know they actually make gravel by crushing rock? I didn’t know that. I thought they just dug it out of a gravel pit, but they have to break up the big rocks into smaller ones, then run them through this machine-anyway, these still had the powder on them, which meant it hadn’t rained on them between the time they were crushed until Dyce acquired them-you realize this doesn’t tell us anything about when he actually got hold of them. They could have been sitting in his rock collection for ten years. Maybe he got a wheelbarrowful at a time and was just keeping them handy.”

“You know anybody who bothers to store gravel indoors?”

“So he got a fistful, put them in a flower pot.”

“And never watered the plant? Besides, he didn’t plan these things. He didn’t sit down and decide to kill eight men.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s not the way it happens.”

“Statements like that worry me, Becker.”

Becker studied the printout. “How do you think they make me feel? Look, Hatcher, you’re right. We don’t know when or where or how Dyce got the gravel. My bet is he didn’t take it until he needed it, and he didn’t need it until he’d already acted, but I don’t know that. I don’t know anything about Dyce. I’m just hoping to get lucky. You cross-checked with the weather bureau, right?”

“Right. Assuming Dyce got the gravel to use as a…”

“Headstone.”

“So you say. Assuming he got it on or within a day of the time he murdered Mick, and eliminating all deliveries from the quarry that happened before the last rainfall, which was fourteen days earlier, we have seven places the gravel was unloaded. They are marked with asterisks on your printout.”

Becker put his finger on one of the names.

“I know,” said Hatcher. “I thought that would appeal to you. They were using it for the pathways.”

“Riverside Cemetery,” said Becker.

“I know, I know.” Hatcher shrugged. “It’s ironic. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I agree,” said Becker.

“You agree?”

“Probably just an ironic coincidence.”

“Then why are you smiling? I really wish you wouldn’t do that, Becker.”

“Smile?”

“Smile if you have to. Just not at me.”

“Why?”

“Humor me. I don’t like it.”

“Did you interview the people who work at the cemetery?”

“Certainly. No one recognizes his photo or description. Did you expect them to?”

“I don’t hope to be that lucky. Who’s buried there?”

“In the cemetery?”

“Yes.”

“In the whole goddamned cemetery?”

“He’s there to visit someone’s grave, isn’t he? Isn’t that why people go to cemeteries?”

“Most people don’t go at all,” said Hatcher, “except to bury somebody. People don’t ‘visit’ graves anymore, do they?”

“He was there for some reason.”

“We don’t know he was there at all. And even if he was, I thought you thought he was there to get a ‘headstone.’ “

“He could get a stone anywhere, pick one up out of the street. If they were using these for pathways… it’s not as if they’re consecrated rocks. I think he was there-if he was there-for some other reason and happened to see the stones at a time when he needed one. Which means either that he goes there regularly-if he goes at all-and his visit happened to coincide with a time when he needed a gravestone. What’s wrong with that theory?”

“Is this a quiz, Becker?”

“Just checking my thinking.”

“It probably wasn’t that he just happened to be there at a convenient time, because three of the stones still had dust on them, which means-since you don’t think he got them in advance-that he goes there when he’s killing somebody-or because he’s killing somebody-something along those lines?”

“Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

“It’s not hard,” said Hatcher. “Just toss logic and probability out the window and we can all be geniuses.”

Becker studied Hatcher a moment. “There’s no point in being envious of me. Hatcher.”

“Envious, Christ…”

“Because it’s no fun.”

“That doesn’t stop you from doing it.”

Becker paused. “Can’t argue with you.”

Breathing deeply to let the moment pass. Hatcher continued. “So you figure he goes there to commune with the spirit of someone when he’s in the act of- whatever?”

“I think it’s possible. I think doing this thing to men stirs him to the depths. Let’s find out who’s in the cemetery. Do a genealogy on Dyce.”

“We have. All his relatives are dead.”

“That’s fine. We’re looking for a dead one if Dyce visits him in the cemetery. While you’re doing the paperwork, I’ll go visit the cemetery. You were there, weren’t you? What’s it like?”

“What’s a cemetery like?” Hatcher could think of nothing appropriate to say about a cemetery. “Very nice,” he said.

The man behind the car-rental counter had the right look to him from the back. Dyce noted the pale hair, neatly trimmed, the long expanse of neck, the ears that pushed out from the head. When in a good mood, Dyce’s father had sometimes made fun of his own ears. “I’m just waiting for a good wind,” he would say, “then I’m going to take off and fly.” And he would wiggle his ears, his eyebrows moving up and down at the same time. Dyce would laugh, delighted by this inexplicable display of whimsy. His father looked so unguarded, so harmless.