Dust to Dust, fiction by Richard Cass

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that people don’t hire PIs because they’re happy. I didn’t go into business specifically to deal with jerks, but too often that’s what I got. Alton Deane was polite, at least, a well-preserved seventy, lean and handsome with hair white as milk and a light tan, even in December. I didn’t see many suits that nice in my office.

“It’s printed right on the carton. Human Remains.” He knotted his hands in his lap. “I can’t imagine anyone stealing them, except for a prank.”

“Have to agree.” I’d run out of surprise at what assholes people could be. There were days I got tired of dealing with them, considered quitting the business.

“What on earth would you do with them?”

I read a book once where a serial killer fertilized his tomatoes with the bodies of his victims, but saying that out loud would send Deane scrambling for the door. I couldn’t afford to turn down even a simple case. It had been a dry fall.

“Probably kids. Whose, uh, remains, were they?”

“My ex-wife. We were still close. She asked me to scatter her ashes off Little Diamond.”

I wrote down the information. Time to see how serious he was.

“My standard contract. Sign on Page 2, write me a check, and I’ll get to work.”

I crossed my fingers under the table. The Camaro needed new brakes.

He read the fine print as if he were donating a kidney.

“A lot of money.”

“You came to me, Mr. Deane.”

He glanced at my cleavage and I knew I had him. Nice to know snow on the roof didn’t mean the furnace had gone out, as the old timers say.

He took a fountain pen out of his inside pocket and signed, with a clear legible signature. Not a doctor, then. He counted out five hundred dollar bills.

“Where do you live, Mr. Deane?”

He frowned. I ran into this a lot, a woman in a mostly male business. A client—usually male—brings me a problem, then tries to explain how I should tackle it.

“The porch in question? Scene of the crime?”

“I have a cottage in Cape Elizabeth.”

Cottages in that part of town had twenty rooms, an acre of lawn, and a view of the Atlantic all the way to Portugal.

“I don’t suppose you have security cameras.”

“They interfere with one’s privacy.”

“The town police can’t help?”

I wasn’t trying to talk myself out of the job, small as it was, but he appeared to be the kind of citizen who’d demand services for the taxes he paid.

“We have something of a history.”

I wondered what that meant.

“I’d like to see the scene of the crime.”

“Tomorrow.” He stood up. “3450 Shore Road.”

“Nine o’clock?” He didn’t look like he punched a time clock.

“I can rely on your discretion?”

“Soul of. My middle name.”

***

I felt a flash of envy when I drove up to Deane’s cottage the next morning. It was not one of the stone castles that line the boulevard, but a small cute Dutch colonial, set on the back edge of a two-acre lot and painted a dark green with red trim.

I parked on the crushed stone driveway, feeling how mushy the Camaro’s brakes were. I climbed out and surveyed the grounds, pruned and shaped within an inch of their lives. As was more or less normal in this part of the world, the front door was for show. A concrete urn full of cedar branches and winterberry blocked the stoop.

The side door was down toward the back of the house, where the ocean peeked through a stand of rhododendrons. The canopy of pines dropped the temperature ten degrees and ice skimmed the stone path. I passed a small garden shed on my right.

“Ms. Lavoie.”

I turned around and caught Deane eying my ass. It made the care with which I’d dressed this morning—black leather pants, red sweater—worth it. Over sixty, you’re invisible as a woman. You had to work for your strokes.

“I can see how this would have been easy for a thief.”

His face was pinched and pale, but not from the cold. The beige cashmere coat and fur hat were more than enough to keep him warm. He oozed fear and the distinct wish I wasn’t there.

“I tried to telephone you this morning.”

I never turned on my phone first thing. Mornings needed a silent mode.

“I have recovered the package. It wasn’t stolen at all.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“A neighbors took it in.” He nearly stammered. “I didn’t find out they were holding it until this morning.”

That should have done it for me, especially since he wasn’t asking for a refund. But still . . . the fear.

“Are you feeling well? You seem unsettled.”

It was a question you could ask now, in the age of contact tracing and tests. He got paler, if that were possible.

“Thank you for your concern. I’m fine. But as you can see, I have no further need for your services.”

“Very well. I am sorry for your loss.”

He frowned.

“Your ex-wife?”

“Oh. Of course.”

I started back to the Camaro. Minor mysteries everywhere—I couldn’t solve them all.

The three loud snaps were unmistakably automatic rifle fire, obscenely loud in this neighborhood. I whirled and ducked. Deane dropped face-first onto the frozen gravel. I winced on his behalf. A smash of glass said the Camaro had taken a hit and that enraged me as much as seeing Dean down. Vintage auto parts is a thieves’ market.

I performed a creditable tuck and roll across the driveway, knowing I’d hurt tomorrow, and came up on my hands and knees in the shelter of the shed. I brushed gravel off my pants, heart slamming and breathing harsh. I was defenseless. I hadn’t bothered taking my Glock out of the glove compartment for a meeting over a stolen package.

Silence reigned, eventually. I used the side of the shed to pull myself up. Through a dusty window, I saw a dozen of those fixed-price Postal Service boxes, assembled, and closed up with tape that read “Human Remains.” Either Deane had a lot of ex-wives or something shady was going on.

I stepped cautiously out into the driveway to see if I could do anything for Alton Deane. I couldn’t. Tires squealed on the street, the shooter departing. Whatever had happened here was over.

I could tell you I did what I did to earn my fee, but the truth was I was livid at being shot at. And, to be honest, curious. I walked up to the side door and inside.

The kitchen smelled of coffee grounds, overripe bananas, and something meaty, as if Deane had eaten steak the night before. The dishwasher was half open but the door wouldn’t close. When I opened it all the way, I almost fell back on my ass.

The top rack was chocked with an array of rodent skulls, maybe squirrels or chipmunks. They seemed to stare. Bones from larger animals glistened white, as if they’d been run through the scrubber cycle.

I made it to the sink before my breakfast came up.

I looked in the refrigerator for something to take the taste out of my mouth. The shelves and drawers had been removed, leaving a four-pack of Heddy Topper and a white plastic five-gallon bucket. After what I’d found in the dishwasher, I wasn’t taking the top off that.

It was too early in the morning for an IPA, so I ran the faucet and rinsed out my mouth. Time to call in the pros.

***

The first uniforms were wary, though they probably didn’t expect much trouble from an unarmed old broad in leather pants. They sat me in a lawn chair with a view of Deane’s corpse. I was shivering like a Jell-O mold by the time Beaton showed up.

I was glad he’d gotten the call. I was a smartass, but I also understood the difference between a private eye and a cop. And he was my nephew.

First thing, bless his heart, he got me into his unmarked car. The heat was on. He turned the fan up a notch.

“Take a minute,” he said. “I know it’s a shock.”

“I was in Vietnam, Philip. I know what a dead man looks like.”

“You get shot at with automatic weapons a lot?”

Well, yes, actually. But that was then.

The rest of the murder team was on scene, the ME’s van, the forensics people. Someone popped the padlock on the shed.

“He wasn’t shooting at me, Philip.”

A fist knocked against the driver’s side window. Beaton buzzed it down. One of the Tyvek suits eyed me, whispered something to him. He nodded and ran the window back up. I’d stopped shivering.

“Why were you here, Aunt Sylvie?”

“He hired me. Someone was stealing packages off his porch.”

Philip side-eyed me.

“Hey. It’s been a slow year.”

“You know him before?”

“Why? I should have recognized him? He walked in off the street.”

“He’s been a pain in the ass for the locals. Property line disputes, trespass complaints. Not things you get killed over.”

“Even in Cape Elizabeth?”

He smirked.

“The bones and the boxes,” I said. “Some kind of Stephen King deal? Pet crematorium?”

“There’s a kiln out back. A small one. Forensics will analyze the ashes.”

“He was a gangster?” Getting rid of body parts? I thought I might throw up again.

“You look in the refrigerator?”

“The bucket?”

“Full of fentanyl.”

I did some quick math.

“Jesus. That’s forty pounds.”

He winced at my name-in-vain. He was a senior deacon at the First Congregational Church of Portland. His mother, my sister, was the organist.

“You ever see it?”

“The drug itself? Not in the wild.”

“Gray and powdery.”

“Like ashes. What in the fuck was going on?”

He winced again.

“Aunt Sylvie. You’re out of this.”

“That sight you’re seeing is my gorgeous derriere walking away.”

“Quantity fentanyl means serious gangsters. I don’t want to lose you over something stupid.”

“Oh, Philip. If you lose me, it will definitely be stupid.” I opened the car door. “You know, you shouldn’t run your engine like that if you’re not going anywhere. It’s bad for the environment.”

I walked down the drive to my Camaro. The left headlight was mangled, shards of glass and dangling wires.

“Son of a bitch.”

That would have been the end of it, except for what happened back at my office. When I got off the elevator, the door was ajar. I held the Glock out in front of me as I stepped down the hallway.

“Fair warning. Post-menopausal female, coming in armed. You do not want to startle me.”

My warning fell on no ears. The intruder hadn’t jimmied the desk drawers or emptied the small book shelf where I kept my Bruce Coffin first editions. They had cleaned out the supply closet and opened up every box of files. A very particular burglar, looking for something a particular size.

I sat down at my desk and called Beaton, left him a voicemail, then tried to make sense of animal bones burnt to ash, the fentanyl, USPS boxes, the tape. Nothing seemed to tie it all together. When I turned on my laptop to search for a price on a ’69 Camaro headlight, I saw a lavender post-it stuck to the monitor.

“Where’s my box?” it read.

***

It was going to piss my nephew off, but I couldn’t stay a bystander. The next morning, I parked on Ocean Street, just as the post office opened. This branch would have been Deane’s closest.

“You know who I’m talking about?” I asked Christine.

“Older fella. Right in your demographic. And I tend to remember people mailing cremains.”

“More than once?”

“Every couple weeks. I thought he worked for a funeral home. There’s no crematorium this side of the bridge.”

Except for the one in Deane’s backyard.

“Going all over? To the families?”

She shook her head. Someone opened the street door.

“Address in Boston. 02113, North End. Riverview, Forest Hills, something like that. Sounded like a funeral home.”

The inner door to the lobby opened.

“Thanks, hon.”

“This is for a case?”

I put my forefinger over my lips. She winked.

I turned and nearly knocked Philip Beaton over.

“I was afraid I’d find you here. We need to talk.”

“Would it hurt to be polite to an old lady?”

“Verbena. Ten minutes.”

It was more like fifteen before he got to the restaurant. He carried his coffee to where I sat in the window.

“If you talked to Christine, you know everything I know,” I said.

“This was a dope distribution scheme. Not small time.”

He was angry. Criminals from bordering states thought Maine’s sparse population meant fewer people noticed what you did. You could get away with more. They weren’t wrong, but it was more because we minded our own business.

“What’s a five gallon pail of fentanyl worth?” I said.

“A lot. Deane was one hub in a network. Regional.”

“How does it work? They don’t mix the drug with the ashes?”

Dopers put all kinds of nasty substances into their bodies, but I’d guess most of them would draw the line at squirrel ashes. If they knew.

“The boxes in the shed? Each one had a one-kilo bag buried in the bottom. Average cremains weigh four or five pounds for a woman, six and up for a male. If the weight’s right, no one’s going to unseal the boxes. Kilo wholesales for eighty K.”

“Yikes. So why did Deane drag me into it?”

“A box did go missing. And he couldn’t go to law enforcement for help.”

“They killed him over one box?”

“Cutting their losses. And they may have known a task force was coming. Which is another reason you need to stay out of it.”

“I don’t think so. Someone thinks I have their missing box of goodies.” I told him about the break-in and the note.

He looked at his watch.

“In a couple of hours, you won’t have anything to worry about. The Massachusetts State Police are raiding that funeral home in Boston. Whole operation’s being dusted.”

He sounded unhappy not to be there.

“Cheer up. You still have Deane’s murder to solve.”

“It will be a foot soldier. Chances are good we’ll never know which one.”

“So I shouldn’t worry?”

“You’re carrying most of the time anyway. You’ll be fine.”

“Carrying on, maybe.” I flashed him a grin.

He stood up, still unhappy.

“See you around. But not too soon, OK?”

***

“No, I don’t have the goddamned part number.”

I’d only been on the phone with the auto parts guy in Athol for five minutes but it felt like a month.

“There’s a different headlight. Depends on the car’s half-year.”

His voice sounded like a tin can full of nails.

“And how do I find out which half-year my car is?”

“VIN number. But there’s a part number inside the metal rim that holds the unit in.”

Of course there was.

“I’ll call you back.”

I took the elevator back down to the street and knelt by the car. No metal ring, but dots of adhesive showed where something had been attached.

Shit. OK. I’d have to run by Deane’s house, take the chance the forensics guys hadn’t swept it up.

My tires crunched on the driveway. I stopped short of where I’d parked yesterday. A pile of debris off to the right glinted with broken glass.

“Ha!” At least one thing was going right.

I plucked the chrome ring out of the junk and straightened up, nearly colliding with a short gray man in a black wool topcoat.

His long silver hair was brushed straight back over a small skull. He had angry black eyes and a nose off an ancient Roman coin. My knees went watery and I thought of my Glock, safe in the glove compartment because it dug into my kidney when I drove.

“Where’s my box?”

I looked around. He was alone, and not very scary.

“Don’t have it, my friend.”

“I think you do. I think you saw an opportunity.”

Somehow he’d escaped the raid in Boston. He was older than I was and looked frail. I could probably take him. I slumped my shoulders.

“OK.”

“It’s in your vehicle?”

“You think I’m running around with a kilo of fentanyl in my goddamned trunk? I’ll take you to it.”

I started down the driveway.

“Miss Lavoie.”

I looked over my shoulder. He pointed a Glock that looked like mine at my back.

“This isn’t where you think it is.”

The gun complicated things. But if I got him into the Camaro, I could figure something out. He looked unsteady and held the gun the way he’d seen in movies.

I climbed in from the passenger’s side while he pointed the Glock at me.

“Buckle your seat belt,” I said. “Don’t want a man with a gun bouncing around.”

His lips pulled back from his teeth like a mean dog’s smile.

“No belts. No driving tricks.”

I dropped the shifter into reverse and backed down the driveway.

A woman in a long purple coat stepped out of the woods by the shed, carrying a familiar box.

“Stop!” He flung open the door and started to step out.

His timing would have been fine if the Camaro stopped when it was supposed to, but the brakes were slow to catch. When he set his foot on the ground, forward momentum rolled his ankle under the car and pitched him out onto the driveway. The front tire bumped over his shin with a snap like a breadstick.

The Glock went flying. He gave a girlish scream. I got the Camaro stopped with the emergency brake. The woman in the purple coat gave me an uncertain smile through the windshield and set the box on my hood before retreating into the woods.

The gangster writhed and moaned on the cold, cold ground. I dug out my phone and called Beaton. He sounded irked that I’d been in danger. He’s a nice boy, but I’m his aunt, not his goddamned mother.

***

“Carrier misdelivered the package.” He leaned over to speak through the Camaro’s window. “Neighbor got back from Sanibel and found it on her doorstep.”

I was still shaky about almost getting shot. Maybe it was time to rethink the business.

“Wrapped up the case for you. Though I guess you didn’t get Deane’s killer.”

“Au contraire. Albert here had advance knowledge of the raid. He needed the box to finance his getaway.” He reached through the window and patted my hand. “Wish you’d take up skydiving or surfing, Sylvie. Something safe.”

I shivered a little and started the Camaro.

“Maybe you’re right. It burns a lot of adrenaline.”

***

I copied the fourteen digits and numbers from inside the headlight rim and called the dealer in Massachusetts.

“What do you mean you don’t sell the part?”

“I’m a tractor dealer, lady. I don’t do cars.”

“You could have told me that the last time I called.”

“You didn’t ask. Look, I was trying to help. If that’s not good enough, go fuck yourself.”

He slammed down the phone.

I fingered the piece of paper with his street address. The town he lived in, Athol, could have been a description of the man. There were too goddamned many of them to quit the business, I decided then and there. Maybe I needed a more proactive approach. Maybe he would enjoy a visit from Sylvie.

Richard Cass is the author of  the six-book Elder Darrow jazz mystery series. The first book in the series won the 2018 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. The fifth, Sweetie Bogan’s Sorrow, won the Nancy Pearl Librarians’ Prize for Genre Fiction. Dick has also published a standalone novel called The Last Altruist and a book of short stories entitled Gleam of Bone. He lives and writes in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.