"The Two Minute Rule" - читать интересную книгу автора (Crais Robert)

6

HOLMAN BOUGHT a small bunch of red roses from a Latin cat at the bottom of the freeway off-ramp. Here was this dude, probably illegal, with a cowboy hat and a big plastic bucket filled with bundles of flowers, hoping to score with people on their way to the graveyard. The dude asked eight-ocho-but Holman paid ten, guilty he hadn’t thought to bring flowers before seeing the cat with his bucket, even more guilty because Donna was gone and Richie hadn’t thought enough of him to let him know.

Baldwin Haven Cemetery covered the wide face of a rolling hillside just off the 405 in Baldwin Hills. Holman turned through the gates and pulled up alongside the main office, hoping no one had seen the crappy condition of his car. Perry’s old Mercury was such a shitpile that anyone who saw him pull up would think he was here to hustle work trimming weeds. Holman brought the flowers inside with him, thinking he would make a better impression.

The cemetery office was a large room divided by a counter. Two desks and some file cabinets sat on one side of the counter; landscape plans were laid out on a large table on the other side. An older woman with grey hair glanced up from one of the desks when he entered.

Holman said, “I need to find someone’s grave.”

She stood and came to the counter.

“Yes, sir. Could I have the party’s name?”

“Donna Banik.”

“Banner?”

“B-A-N-I-K. She was buried here about two years ago.”

The woman went to a shelf and took down what looked to Holman like a heavy frayed ledger. Her lips moved as she flipped the pages, mumbling the name, Banik.

She found the entry, wrote something on a note slip, then came out from behind the counter and led Holman to the landscape plans.

“Here, I can show you how to find the site.”

Holman followed her as she circled the landscape map. She checked the coordinates written on the slip, then pointed out a tiny rectangle in a uniform rank and file of tiny rectangles, each labeled by number.

“She’s here, on the south face. We’re here in the office, so what you’ll do is turn right out of the parking lot and follow the road to this fork, then veer left. She’s right in front of the mausoleum here. Just count the rows, third row from the street, the sixth marker from the end. You shouldn’t have any trouble, but if you do, just come back and I’ll show you.”

Holman stared at the tiny blue rectangle with its indecipherable number.

“She’s my wife.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Well, she wasn’t my wife, but like that, a long time ago. We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. I didn’t even know she had passed until yesterday.”

“Well, if you need any help just let me know.”

Holman watched the woman return to her place behind the counter, clearly uninterested in who Donna was to him. Holman felt a flash of anger, but he had never been one to share his feelings. During the ten years he spent at Lompoc he had rarely mentioned Donna or Richie. What was he going to do, swap family stories with shitbird convicts and predatory criminals like Pitchess? Real people talked about their families with other real people, but Holman didn’t know real people and had abandoned his family, and now lost them. He had suddenly needed to tell someone about Donna, but the best he could do was an uninterested stranger. Recognizing the need left him feeling lonely and pathetic.

Holman climbed back into the Mercury and followed the directions to Donna’s grave. He found a small bronze plaque set into the earth bearing Donna’s name and the years of her birth and death. On the plaque was a simple legend: Beloved Mother.

Holman laid the roses on the grass. He had rehearsed what he wanted to tell her when he got out a thousand times, but now she was dead and it was too late. Holman didn’t believe in an afterlife. He didn’t believe she was up in Heaven, watching him. He told her anyway, staring down at the roses and the plaque.

“I was a rotten prick. I was all those things you ever called me and worse. You had no idea how rotten I really was. I used to thank God you didn’t know, but now I’m ashamed. If you had known you would’ve given up on me, and you might’ve married some decent guy and had something. I wish you had known. Not for me, but for you. So you wouldn’t have wasted your life.”

Beloved Mother.

Holman returned to his car and drove back to the office. The woman was showing the map of the grounds to a middle-aged couple when Holman walked in, so he waited by the door. The cold air in the little office felt good after standing in the sun. After a few minutes, the woman left the couple talking over available sites and came over.

“Did you find it okay?”

“Yeah, thanks, you made it real easy. Listen, I want to ask you something. Do you remember who made the arrangements?”

“For her burial?”

“I don’t know if it was her sister or a husband or what, but I’d like to share in the cost. We were together a long time, then I was away, and, well, it’s not right that I didn’t share the expenses.”

“It’s been paid for. It was paid for at the time of the service.”

“I figured that, but I still want to offer to pay. Part of it, at least.”

“You want to know who paid for the burial?”

“Yes, ma’am. If you can give me a phone number or an address or something. I’d like to offer to help out on the costs.”

The woman glanced at her other customers but they were still talking over the various sites. She went back around the counter to her desk and searched through the trash can until she found the slip with the plot numbers.

“That was Banik, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll have to look it up for you. I have to find the records. Can you leave a phone number?”

Holman wrote Perry’s number on her note-pad.

She said, “This is very generous. I’m sure her family will be glad to hear from you.”

“Yes, ma’am. I hope so.”

Holman went out to his car and drove back toward the City of Industry. With the time and the traffic he figured he would get back to work before two o’clock, but then he turned on the radio and all of that changed. The station had broken into their regular programming with news that a suspect had been named in the murders of the four officers, and a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

Holman turned up the volume and forgot about work. He immediately began looking for a phone.