Saturday 9/20
THE GRAVEYARD AT EL ENCINAL DID NOT FEEL SAD, PAUL THOUGHT as they wended down the asphalt paths in the Mustang on Saturday afternoon. Here and there, a visitor stood or kneeled near a loved one, and there was an atmosphere of conviviality. Fresh flowers, some wilting, mixed liberally and acceptingly with long-lasting silk. People did not forget their dead, even in these modern times, on a sunny weekend in a resort town. Paul felt heartened by the thought, not that he really gave a damn what happened after he went. Still, it was nice to find people remained sentimental.
He thought of the thousands of people lying under the earth, layers of them, centuries of them, now dirt themselves, recycled, remembered as faintly etched headstones, as bones for study, as ancient cultures, as primitives. He gave their collective souls a nod. If anything, people now seemed obsessed with dredging up historical evidence through bones, looking for clues to what? A broader picture of human identity?
Or was it simply an atavistic urge, like a cat’s curiosity, that motivated the scientists? They couldn’t help the desire to dig and find things to smell or examine, and so they dignified it with important-sounding reasons.
Wish and Paul drove slowly past one woman in her fifties who sat cross-legged next to a gravestone, plucking at the grass around it, smoothing dirt from the stone, singing a hymn. Crows swooping between a fence and a tall tree nearby cawed along with her. Paul decided to add a list of songs to be played at his wake to his last wishes, songs to encourage weeping, and some to get them dancing. Naturally, he would foot the bill for abundant booze, so necessary to create the proper maudlin mood.
He gave a few minutes over to listing songs that might qualify, while Wish inched along, looking for the Eastern Orthodox crosses that had been described by Nina. “Stairway to Heaven,” that was a definite. Played on vinyl, not a CD. Nina could draw him up a will.
They parked the car and hunted for Constantin Zhukovsky’s last resting place.
“I never want to die,” Wish said, reading each headstone they passed.
“Born to be wild, huh?” Paul said.
“Huh?”
Paul decided if things didn’t work out with Nina, he still wouldn’t date women Wish’s age. Some things a nubile body could not compensate for, such as never having gotten your motor runnin’ to head out on the highway.
Happily, according to Wish, most of these dead people were older than Paul, with a few remarkable exceptions. “I mean, not that this isn’t an okay place when the time comes. The ocean not too far. Lots of sunshine during the day. Still, I don’t plan to die for about a hundred years. A hundred twenty years. Science is making great strides.”
Paul wished he were still twenty with illusions that death could be planned or forestalled. “Get those blood lipoproteins buff. That’s the latest hot tip for living forever, or so says the newspaper today.”
“Okay,” Wish said. “How?”
“Exercise and drugs.”
“Oh, I’m good then. Paul, I would like to ask you a question.” Wish’s tone had become formal.
“That would be a nice change,” Paul said.
“I would like to ask you if you will hire me full-time. I mean, I’ll still take courses and get my degree. But I would like to work for you.”
“Well, now,” Paul said. “I’m flattered.”
“My parents are going back to Tahoe soon, and I don’t want to go with them. I’ve learned a lot from you.”
“I don’t know if I can afford a full-time assistant, buddy.”
“I’ll work cheap and help bring in cases.”
Paul said, “Okay.”
“Okay? Oh, my God. Okay?”
“Yeah, although your first assignment is going to be helping me convince your mom.”
“She won’t like it.”
“One day, you will have an ergonomic chair and a new Glock, like me. And a beautiful young lady holding a baby at your side. And then, when your mom sits down in the rocking chair and holds the baby, she will forgive you. They usually don’t until about then.”
“What about the Glock? What has that…”
“You won’t tell her about the Glock.”
The fading, golden September day, quiet now, even the insects resting in the slanting afternoon sun, made drama of the long lawns and headstones shadowing the cemetery grounds. Parking not far from where they had entered, they walked up and down the asphalt drives and then along paths between graves, where it was possible. Wish avoided walking right below the headstones, but Paul didn’t bother. These people were beyond disturbing.
“Too many dead,” Wish muttered, picking his way past a clump of flat markers. He started subtracting dates of death from dates of birth, commenting on those who died around the same age as Paul or Nina until Paul told him to shut up. Unable to find what they were looking for, they split up. Wish wandered toward the street that ran perpendicular to El Estero Lake. Paul made his way to the small concrete building located roughly at the center. He walked fast to ward off the chill that crept up his legs from underneath the damp grass. Before he could reach the door to the building, an elderly woman came out, saying, “Hello. Haven’t seen you here before.”
“No,” Paul said. He gave her a card.
She thanked him and introduced herself as Amanda Peltier. “I’m in charge of the janitorial staff, community relations, and sales. That kind of thing,” she said briskly, as if it was terribly mundane, selling graves. Squinting at his card, then pulling on a pair of reading glasses, she said, “Oh, my gosh. Why, you’re a private investigator! Is there something I can help you with?”
“I hope so.”
Maybe she saw him shivering, although he could swear he wasn’t reacting visibly to the cold. Still, the light blue eyes seemed to see right through him, and her voice was kind. “Why don’t you come in and sit down. It’s warmer in here.”
He followed the diminutive figure. Immediately inside the door, he found himself in a room no more than ten by twelve, which held a desk, files, a few big books, two plastic chairs, and a flourishing green plant that on closer inspection turned out to be made of silk. Several framed photographs cluttered the edge of the desk. She motioned him to a chair, then bustled into a smaller room beyond. He could hear her banging around, although he couldn’t see her.
“You take cream in your coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”
“What are you having?”
“Tea.”
“Tea, then. Three sugars. No lemon, no cream,” he said. He looked around the room. Two dated, large maps of the Monterey Bay area were the only wall decoration. The wooden desk was old, and its leather seat showed the small imprint of Amanda Peltier’s trim derriere. She had been here a very long time, he decided. Not even a window broke the wall. The only way out appeared to be through the door. The room was very like a mausoleum, in fact.
The pictures condensed Amanda Peltier’s long life into a short visual essay, ranging from an active, beaming girlhood in a wood frame house by the sea, through marriage to a distinguished-looking man with black hair and a stern gaze. The story finished off with Hair ’n’ Glare disappearing, and two tanned beach-loving children growing up, marrying, and having three more sand-castle-building young ’uns.
She returned minutes later with a tray, two china cups, and a steaming yellow-flowered teapot.
“You looked like you could use something hot,” she said, pouring him a cup and handing it over.
His hand felt better just touching the warm vessel and smelling its contents. “What kind of tea?”
“Earl Grey, of course!” she said. She leaned against the desk without sitting down and pulled a soft green sweater down over her hips. A long skirt led down to immaculate woven leather flats. She had a deeply wrinkled pink face to go with the pastel of her eyes, and a dent creasing the exact center of a stubborn-looking chin. White picket teeth as bright as a freshly painted fence smiled at him. “You’re obviously not a big tea drinker.”
“No.”
“I drink it all day long.” She put her head back and took a swig, eager as an alcoholic attacking the first drink of the day, set the cup down on the table, and sighed with pleasure.
Paul tried his. The sugary liquid scalded his tongue. He set the cup down. “I’m looking for a certain grave.”
“Of course you are.” She nodded knowingly. She walked behind the desk and pulled out a large folded piece of paper, which she laid flat for him to see. The glasses went back onto the tip of her broad nose. “Take a look, here.”
They studied a map of the graveyard. Each plot had a letter and a number to identify it. “Constantin Zhukovsky,” he said. “That’s the name I want.”
“Ah, yes. Papa. A popular man these days.” She licked the tip of her thumb, and flipped through a big green ledger with oversized pages. “Poor man gets more visitors these days than he did when he first died. That’s not the usual trend, you know. I could point you to the general vicinity. He’s over there with all the other Russians, but since you’re here…”
“No computer?”
“Oh, there’s one in the back. We have a Web site, of course. My oldest granddaughter helps maintain it. You should have heard some of the ideas she had about what to put on there! Ghastly stuff. Or should I say ghostly.”
“I can imagine. Grisly?”
She chuckled. “See, I promise you this is quicker than going through all that rigamarole to turn that darn computer on. People fool themselves, thinking computers are the best thing for every purpose.” Her fingers flew through the pages, and within a few seconds she had the page she wanted. “Here we go.” She wrote a note on a yellow pad, then ran her finger to a section of the cemetery over by a high fence. “Let me draw you a little diagram. It’s close to Pearl Street. Have you found the Russian section?”
“No.”
“Their graves are mostly clumped together.” She tore the page off for him.
“Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome. But please, finish your tea. There’s no rush. Kostya’s not going anywhere today, you know. That was Constantin’s nickname.” Now she sat down in the chair, crossed her ankles, and drank some more tea.
Alex Zhukovsky had said his father visited the graveyard frequently. “You knew him, Ms. Peltier? Is it Ms. Peltier?”
“Mrs. Peltier, please. And yes, I knew Kostya. It’s a scandal what happened to ruin that poor man’s peaceful rest, dug up and carted around like trash. It took me months to go by his grave without feeling terribly sad. Of course, all of us here were upset. We thought of having extra guards at night, but really, graves don’t get dug up in the normal course of human events. Dead people aren’t worth anything on earth, only in heaven. It’s shocking, but not something we could have prevented.”
“When did you meet Constantin Zhukovsky?”
“When his wife, Davida, died in 1971, the same year my Harry died.”
“Did you work here then?”
“I did. I was a part-time accountant in those days, and when the manager retired a few months after Harry passed, they asked me to take over. I needed the job, so it was a considerate gesture. Kostya and I were both lonely, and he developed a habit of dropping by. We developed a-kind of friendship during those hard times. Let’s see, he would have been just about seventy or so then, already getting along.
“You see, after Harry died so suddenly, I realized he never really knew me. There were so many things unsaid, and so many secrets we could have shared. I guess I thought we’d have longer, or maybe I thought he should try harder. I was devastated. Death is such an abrupt ending to all of life’s possibilities. Kostya helped me move on. He was such a sensitive, funny man.”
“Kostya came to visit his wife’s grave often?”
“Oh, he really loved that woman. Which is why I was so surprised when…”
“When?”
She set her cup down, clearly flustered. “Oh, dear. I’m sorry, but I hate gossips! I refuse to play that game!”
“He’s dead,” Paul said. “Nothing you can say will hurt him now.”
She sighed. “His son was here recently so that we could inter the remains once and for all. I suggested Kostya be moved to our new columbarium, but he preferred to keep his father where he was. The columbarium is a beautiful new facility we have over near the lake. Have you seen it yet?”
“Not yet,” Paul said, really hoping this was not prelude to a sales pitch for his very own prime spot in the new facility. “I’m curious about something. I’ve been doing some research and I discovered that in many cases, caskets don’t just go into the dirt. They’re embedded in concrete. Is that true here?”
“Correct. The law requires that a mortuary prepare the body properly, and then the casket is set inside concrete in the ground. Has to do with keeping things sanitary. Keeping the water table pure, that sort of thing.”
“By properly, you mean…”
“Embalming,” she said serenely.
“That’s required by law?” How could this nice lady stand the idea? His flesh crawled at the thought of his blood pouring down a metal drain, to be replaced by preservative. Probably floral scented. Was this the work of some sneaky funeral parlor lobby? Or the manufacturer of embalming fluid, possibly. Or the pair of them, in cahoots. Talk about a powerless consumer group in the grip of forces beyond its control.
“Yes.” Seeing his expression, she added, “They’re dead, remember. Can’t be hurt, as you pointed out.”
“But I’ve been following the trial…”
“Oh, what an awful thing.”
“I don’t recall hearing the Zhukovsky grave was lined with concrete.”
“Those were more lax times. The rules have changed since he was buried in 1978.”
“Hmm.” Paul found her remark obscurely relieving. “What sort of man was he?”
“Kostya?” She looked down at the photographs on her desk. “A family man, like my Harry. Loved his wife and children, of course. A very sociable person, outgoing, gregarious.” She laughed. “A big flirt, if you want to know, but it was never serious. I used to make tea for him. He brought his own little jar of strawberry jam to put in it, and we would sit in the back room and chat, or walk the grounds together. He did it to make me feel better, that’s all. It came naturally to him, being kind to a sad widow, loving people as he did. Just the most amazing storyteller! He could make me laugh with the wild stuff he would tell me. Half of it just hokum, probably. Physically frail, of course, always very pale. He was getting on when I knew him.”
“How often would you say he came here?”
She put the ledger carefully back in its place on the file cabinet with the others.
“Dozens of times, even after… oh, heck, I might as well tell you. Who’s to protect? This was all so long ago. I was even young then.” She smiled, shaking her head. “He did get involved with another woman after his wife died.”
“Oh? That’s interesting.”
“But that didn’t stop him from remembering Davida. He always brought flowers for his wife. The groundsman had to chase him off one time. He was digging away, wanting to plant them! That wasn’t allowed even then. Of course, they have to be able to mow and keep things nice. Now her grave and his are mostly gravel, although they were originally grass. You’ll see why when you go over there. He had bought a double grave site framed in concrete. It’s raised slightly above the other graves, and was impossible to maintain as grass now that they ride the mowers instead of pushing them by hand.”
“I’d like to hear what you can tell me about his new lady friend.”
She blushed. “He didn’t want me to know, because he never said a word, but a woman called here once, trying to find him, and-you can just tell when someone has a claim on someone else, you know? I never saw her or heard her name. So that’s my gossip. I’ve fallen from the path of righteousness again today. Such is my fate.”
Paul was starting to really like Mrs. Peltier. She had just handed him a mystery woman to check out. There’s nothing like a mystery woman to a detective. “You say he used to tell you stories. What kind of stories did he tell?”
“About his childhood in St. Petersburg, mostly. I guess he was thinking a lot about those days. I think he had some really happy times. And some very bad ones, too. Sometimes, he got absolutely bleak, telling me. But generally, he liked telling about riding horses, learning to shoot, that kind of thing.”
“You said he told you wild stories. These don’t sound so wild.”
“Oh, you know. I hate to pass them on. The whole thing is probably ridiculous. But”-she shrugged-“nobody’s ever asked me before, and I don’t really think he would mind if I told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Oh!” she said, so delighted she put her hands together in a silent clap. “I even have a picture! I just thought it was so absurd, and nothing he could say convinced me.” She started rummaging around. “Let’s see. Now where would that thing be?” After searching the central drawer in the desk, she moved down the left side, then down the right, while Paul fidgeted with frustration.
“Let me help?” he asked.
“No, you just drink your tea!” she said. “I know it’s here somewhere.” She moved to one of the file cabinets. “Could I have put it in here? Over the years, I’ve been moved to do a little spring cleaning. Let’s hope I didn’t throw it out. Really, I’m an appalling pack rat, that’s the truth. Look at all this stuff.” Papers piled up on the desk behind her. A few stacks had settled on the floor. “I simply have to get better organized. It’s not as though I have a particularly demanding clientele most days.”
Driven to it, laughing with her in spite of himself, Paul drank his tea.
“Maybe I was teasing him back a little,” she said, working through the second drawer as if all day and all night lay ahead with nothing better to do, “because he took it so very seriously, and the whole thing seemed just ridiculous. So he brought this picture, which he found in a book in the library. He actually had a copy made for me. He said this would prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“Eureka!” she said, pulling out a tatty-edged print. “Thank goodness I’m not at all the compulsive housekeeper Harry always accused me of being. It’s just, he never really looked in the drawers. He never really saw all I could pack in there.”
She showed him the picture. The fuzzy black-and-white showed an impressive procession of black-booted men in uniform, light-colored shirts buttoned slightly to one side, flat, round caps with brims pulled neatly down over their foreheads. Toward the end of the procession rode a solemn young boy on horseback, dressed like a sailor, with a round white cap.
“These men are prerevolutionary soldiers, the Russian imperial army. Their allies called it the ‘Russian Steamroller.’ And that’s him,” she said, pointing at the boy. “That’s Constantin, or so he told me. It could be him.” She smiled. “He was older when I knew him.” At the front of the marching group stood a man in a tall fur hat, with a neat beard and a heavy, drooping mustache, obviously the most important person there.
“Nicholas the Second,” she said to answer Paul’s inquiring glance. “The last Romanov tsar. They ruled for three hundred years, until 1918.”
“What was Constantin Zhukovsky doing there?”
“He made up so many stories,” she said, “but who knows? He claimed he was a page to the tsar. The last one, as he used to say.”
Paul asked to borrow it so that he could make a copy.
He left, map in hand, walking the winding strips of road until he ran into Wish. They headed toward a square plot, marked off by a low concrete berm. Inside it, below a spreading shade tree, they found the place where Constantin Zhukovsky had been buried.
“It’s a gathering of Russians,” Wish remarked, “dead ones.” Each headstone there was marked with an unusual cross with two straight horizontal crossbars at the top, and below them, a short slanted one. “Do you think people care if they’re hanging with their ethnic brothers and sisters when they are dead?”
“I can’t speak for them, but obviously their relatives do,” Paul said. “It’s just like a community meeting here, only nobody’s hell-bent on overthrowing the mayor.”
The cross marking Constantin Zhukovsky’s grave was made of wood splintered with age. No remaining sign of disturbance in the gravel covering the grave exposed Stefan Wyatt’s activities of several months ago. Wish stared at the headstone. “Constantin Zhukovsky, 1904-1978. That’s all it says.”
“What should it say?” Paul asked.
Wish thought. “It should say, Beloved Father and Husband. Or something. Don’t you think at the very least your headstone ought to summarize you somehow? It should mark some special achievement, I think.”
“Maybe they hated him and kept it short to avoid embarrassing him.”
“I don’t get the impression that he was a creep, do you?”
“No,” Paul admitted. He took the picture out of his pocket and studied it. What did Mrs. Peltier’s story mean? And if it was true, why hadn’t the family commemorated Constantin Zhukovsky’s fascinating background on his headstone?