Chapter 24

Hugh took Valley Circle to Box Canyon, driving the winding road at almost twice the speed limit, roaring down the grade that opened into Simi Valley.

He drove seven miles north on the 118 freeway and exited on the surface street that led to High Meadow. The mortuary and cemetery were at the end of the street, which intersected a road that extended several blocks and set the limits of the complex. The mortuary was to the left, adjacent to a parking lot, which was separated from the cemetery by a row of eucalyptus trees. The gate to the cemetery was a half block to the right. Hugh turned and drove through the gate, stopping at a booth where a guard smiled.

“Here you go,” said the guard, handing him a folded map. “Are you here for a service?”

“No, I’m just . . . considering.”

The guard smiled. “Take your time.”

Hugh followed the one-way road that wound through the park, pulling to the roadside after passing the first section of graves. As he unfolded the map, a hearse cruised past. Fifty yards farther down the road, a number of cars were parked. The mourners were gathered around a priest reading from a Bible. Men were peeling back their jackets. Women fanning themselves with their programs. The priest looked up from his Bible. Several of the mourners followed his gaze. A dense white cumulus cloud formed the shape of an inverted mountain, which rendered the cemetery upside down, relocating the graves into the sky. A gravedigger was opening the ground with a shovel and the pitched dirt fell to the earth like dirty snow. Hugh returned to the map and located Little Pond. He drove past the mourners and continued for another quarter mile, pulling up behind a Prius. A few yards away a woman kneeled before a grave and arranged flowers. For a while the gravesites were unbothered except for the alighting birds and scampering squirrels.

He reached Little Pond and parked at the roadside. There were several hundred gravesites in the area, among them many Kobayashis, Saitous and Tanakas. The cemetery must have catered to the Japanese-American community. But the grave he sought stood out among all the Japanese surnames. As he approached, he saw that flowers had been left at H. Mcpherson’s grave.

Hugh studied the stone’s inscription for several minutes, but could draw nothing else from the engraving. He picked up one of the flowers and sniffed. The fragrance was gone.

“She is High Meadow,” answered the guard when Hugh returned to the gate to inquire if Gina still worked at the cemetery.

“Where could I find her?”

“She’s out showing some properties. You want me to call her?”

“No, that’s all right. Where is she?”

“Oak Knoll.” The guard pointed.

Following the guard’s direction, Hugh walked toward the Oak Knoll section, in the center of which three people were standing. Two, apparently a husband and wife, faced him. The third was a tall, dark-haired woman in a pants suit. She gestured about her, touching the arms of the couple as she made her points. Hugh waited. The cloud mountain was dissipating, its peak rounding as if a million years had passed.

By the time Gina shook hands with the couple and turned them toward their car, the mountain in the sky had vanished.

As the couple drove off in their red Escalade, she snapped her notebook against her thigh. She turned toward Hugh as if she had known he was there all the time and walked toward him.

Gina was Asian-American, and likely Japanese-American. She was tall, though not as tall as Setsuko. Her stride reminded him of Setsuko’s, like someone who could walk to the guillotine with self-possession.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Gina?”

“Yes. And you are?”

Gina appeared no older than forty-five, which meant she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five when he had first spoken with her, yet at the time he had thought her at least sixty years old. Rather than someone hawking gravesites, she looked more like an ex-ballerina. Her voice seemed feeble on the phone. Here it was strong, resonant. Her appearance was the antithesis of the telephone saleswoman.

“Pirie,” he said.

“Hello, Pirie.” She had a firm handshake. Her fingers were long and supple like Setsuko’s.

“Are you looking for a wife?” she asked in a musical voice.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you looking for a site?”

“Oh, yes. I am . . . looking.”

A loud clunk drew his glance in the direction of Little Pond. An indistinct figure drove a shovel into the earth. There was a second clunk.

“We’re having problems with the backhoe. We have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

“Is there another Gina here?” asked Hugh, unable to reconcile the voice.

“No.”

“Perhaps fifteen or twenty years back?”

“No. I’m the only Gina that’s been here. Why do you ask?”

“Many years ago you tried to sell me a site.”

“I did?”

“You called many times. You were persistent.”

She laughed. “I’ve heard less flattering descriptions.”

Hugh smiled. “I imagine persistence is the most important quality of a salesperson.”

“That and knowing what the customer wants, even if the customer doesn’t know himself.”

“I didn’t recognize your voice. I recalled it much differently.”

“Ah, well, I do have my little tactics.” She cleared her throat. “He-hello, this is Gina from Hi-High Meadow,” she said in the quavering voice that Hugh remembered.

“That’s good.”

“In this business it’s a turn-off to sound too slick.”

Hugh nodded and said, “In Little Pond, there’s a grave with a headstone that says H. Mcpherson.”

“Oh, then you’re visiting.”

“I’m Hugh Mcpherson.”

She gazed at him. “Doesn’t Pirie begin with a P?”

“Pirie’s my middle name. I’ve been using it lately. My first name is Hugh.”

“Ah,” said Gina.

“Just a coincidence, I guess,” said Hugh. “I mean about the names.”

“I think we can assume that,” said Gina, stretching her neck to one side as if getting out a kink.

“You called for eleven years, and then you stopped.”

“Well, I guess I got my Mcpherson. I always get my man,” she said, offering an innocent look that might offset her frivolity.

“You confused him with me?”

“I doubt that.”

“But you stopped calling?”

“Coincidence, I suppose,” said Gina.

“Could I get some information on H. Mcpherson?”

“Are you related?”

“It’s possible. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“There are these great sites online—”

“I know, but I’m here now. I just want to know a couple of things.”

“Like what?”

“Where he lived. What he did for a living.”

“I’m quite busy. What are you trying to accomplish?” asked Gina, stretching her neck again but in the opposite direction.

“I want to fix a hole so the rain can’t get in.”

“And stop your mind from wandering?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Where it will go. This way.” She turned sharply, took a step.

“Gina?”

“Yes?”

“What’s your last name?”

“Goto. Gina Goto.”

He followed her back to the mortuary where she had Hugh wait in the lobby while she went back to her office. Behind a solitary desk sat a small, expressionless man in a suit. On one coffee table, a half-dozen magazines were arranged in the shape of a cross. From the transverse, Hugh took a gardening magazine and leafed through it. He exchanged the gardening magazine for a consumer guide, thumbed through it and then set it back.

He walked about the lobby. There were a half-dozen closed doors, viewing rooms no doubt. He came to a door marked Display Room, tried the handle, which turned, and opened the door.

The room housed a dozen elevated caskets, arranged along a circular wall from least to most expensive—plain as a packing carton to elaborate as a king’s crown. Hugh walked the circuit, noting that each had an individual tune that played while the viewer stood near the coffin. “Heaven, heaven is a place where nothing, nothing ever happens . . .” Was that really piping from a little speaker? He reached the last coffin, an ivory beauty with golden handles. He pulled up, but the casket barely budged.

“Be careful. That’s $10,000.”

A child stood at the entrance. A Beatles haircut and loose khaki painters’ overalls rendered the child sexless. Perhaps nine or ten, the child had a lovely delicate face. He or she walked over to Hugh’s side and, standing tiptoe, peered into the casket. She, for Hugh had determined it was a girl, stroked the silk lining.

“Silk. Very expensive.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how silk is made?” she asked.

“I think so. But why don’t you tell me,” he suggested.

“They breed thousands of worms and then they mash them.”

“Mash them? Are you sure?”

“Like mashed potatoes. Do you like mashed potatoes?”

“My favorite kind.”

“I like the ones from the Stonefire Girl.”

“Grill.”

“That’s what I said. They have garlic in them. Garlic is what you use to ward off vampires.”

“Does it work?”

“I don’t believe in vampires. There is—are certainly none here.”

Hugh bared his teeth. She bared hers back.

“My name is Lily.”

“Lily. What a pretty name. I’m Hugh.”

“No you’re not. You’re yourself.”

“H-u-g-h.”

“Huge?”

Hugh respelled his name, but it was unnecessary. Lily smiled at his naïveté. She reminded him of Thelma, the little girl who had been misplaced in his English Learners class at the middle school. Thelma was ten years old, but her English was perfect and she was always a step ahead of his instruction.

“Do you know who my mother is?”

“Gina?” said Hugh.

“How did you know?”

“You look like her.”

“I put letters in envelopes.”

“I bet you’re good at it.”

“It’s boring. Fold the paper in three, stick it in the envelope, damp the adhesive with a sponge and seal the envelope. That’s it. Easy. But you try it two hundred times. What do you do?”

“I teach.”

“What do you teach?”

“English.”

“I speak English, Japanese and Spanish. English is the most difficult, but it’s easy for me. Do you know any Japanese?”

“A little. I lived there once.”

“Where?”

“Tokyo,” he said, thinking the small suburb that he lived in wouldn’t mean anything to her. To his surprise, she asked, “Where in Tokyo?”

“Edogawa.”

“Aaargg,” she growled, like a dog whose food was being taken away. “I hate Edogawa. It’s boring. Nakano is much more interesting. We’re going there in two weeks.”

“Really?”

“We go back to Japan every summer. It’s so hot. Almost worse than the valley. But nothing is worse than the valley.”

“Do you have relatives in Japan?”

“Many. We have relatives in—”

Gina entered carrying a manila folder. “There you are, Lily. I looked all over for you. Your lunch is getting cold.”

“I was talking to Hugh. Actually,” she pointed, “I was talking to him, not you.”

Gina said, “You shouldn’t be in the display room without my permission.”

“I heard a noise. I thought another bird had gotten in.” Lily turned to Hugh. “We’ve had three birds get in since the New Year. Why a bird would want to be in here makes no sense. There’s nothing to eat and nothing to drink. All they do is poop on the caskets. Very messy.”

“Come on, Lily. Go back to the office and eat.”

“Ahh, don’t want to eat. It’s boring.”

“I wish she’d never learned that word.”

“In English, boring. In Japanese, taikutsuna. In Spanish, abburido.”

“If you’re good, maybe we’ll go see a movie, after work.”

Lily grinned. “Goody. None of that G-rated stuff. I want to see the one in which the world ends.”

“We’ll see.”

“We’ll see, we’ll see.” Lily stomped toward the door and left.

“Bright child.”

“She’s a handful. Well, here’s the file on Mr. Mcpherson. Death certificate from the county coroner. Contract for funeral arrangements. There’s not much.”

“Could I see it?”

“I can’t do that, but ask me specific questions and I’ll see if the answers are available.”

Hugh nodded. “His occupation?”

“Mechanic.”

“Car mechanic?”

“Yes, that must be.”

Hugh took out a pen. He grabbed one of the spec sheets from the holder beside the casket. “Last employer?”

“Not available.”

“Really.”

“Sorry.”

“Cause of death?”

Gina flicked an invisible speck from the glitzy casket. “Excuse me one second,” she said, walking away. He watched her walk to the entrance, bend down and attend to something. She pressed a button and there was a whirring sound. She stood up. A round object about the height of a book moved back and forth across the carpet. It was a robotic vacuum cleaner.

“They work well. It will clean the entire carpet before its batteries run out. I can even turn off the lights. It works in the dark.”

Hugh watched the little round robot shuttle around a casket.

“Myocardial infarction. Heart attack.”

“He was young.”

“It is not uncommon.”

“The H. What does it stand for?”

Gina perused the papers. “No first name recorded. Just H. Mcpherson.”

“Does it mention if they did an autopsy?”

“Let me check.” Turning from Hugh, she pulled out the contents and leafed through them. “No, nothing mentioned. Perhaps he had a history of heart problems.”

“Yes. That must be it. What about next of kin?”

“Now that poses a problem—”

The door opened and Lily entered, her mouth and chin bright red as if she’d been eating beets.

“It’s doing it again,” said the girl.

“Stay there, Lily,” said Gina. “She gets nosebleeds all the time. It’s so dry in Simi.”

“Mama,” moaned Lily.

Gina strode to her daughter, drawing out a large white handkerchief from her blouse and setting the manila folder inside the pine casket.

The robot vacuum cleaner buzzed about her feet. Gina kicked it away. The machine whined for a few seconds and then resumed its task.

“Let’s attend to this,” said the mother, leading her daughter out of the room.

Hugh waited until the door had closed. He walked to the casket and took out the folder. Had it all been done on purpose? The nosebleed a fake. The folder placed where he could browse through it. But more likely, a simple oversight. His father spoke sternly to him. No different than stealing. Hugh lifted the folder’s edge, and then jumped as something knocked his foot. He looked down at the robot, bumping into his shoe. He waited until the thwarted machine retreated, the motor grumbling like Popeye. Hugh opened the folder and glanced at the papers, wishing he could press PrntScr and copy. He saw a name, an address. Lily was too pure to play a part. Or was there anyone too pure to play a part? He tried to memorize the information. At Coffee Bean, he would have to stare at the five-digit code for a full five seconds before he was sure of taking it back to his computer screen. Hugh felt his chest tighten as Mcpherson’s might have done. No fuss here. Right into the casket. Hugh tucked the folder under his shirt and exited the display room.

On the lobby floor, Lily’s blood still glistened.