We’d been gone for less than an hour, but the house already seemed to smell dank with neglect. The bulb in the kitchen threw down a harsh, unflattering light. The patch of cardboard in the kitchen window showed a gap at one edge. Helen worked her way around the room, from the pantry to the refrigerator, taking out items for a makeshift supper. She moved with confidence, though I could see that she was counting steps. Ray and I pitched in, saying little or nothing, all of us unconsciously waiting for the phone to ring. Helen didn’t have an answering machine, so there was no point in wondering if Henry or Gilbert had called in our absence.
We sat down to a meal of bacon and scrambled eggs, potatoes fried in bacon grease, leftover fried apples and onions, and homemade biscuits with homemade strawberry jam. Too bad she hadn’t found a way to fry the biscuits instead of baking them. Despite the cholesterol overdose, everything we ate was exquisite. So this is what grandmothers do, I thought. I had, by then, abandoned any hope of getting home that day. It was still only Monday. I had all of Tuesday and Wednesday to catch a plane. In the meantime, I was tired of feeling stressed out about the issue. Why get my knickers in a twist? I’d do what I could here and be on my way.
After supper, Helen settled down in her bedroom with the TV on. Ray got busy with the dishes while I cleared the kitchen table. I was in the process of wiping down the surface, moving aside the sugar bowl, the salt and pepper shakers, when I noticed the sympathy card Johnny Lee had sent. Helen had apparently left it on the table, anchored by the sugar bowl. I read the greeting again, holding it slanted against the light.
Ray said, “What’s that?”
“The card Johnny sent. I was just checking the message inside. The verse looks like it’s been typed.”
“Read it to me again,” he said.
“‘And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19. Thinking of you in your hour of loss.’ I think this is one of those blank cards where you write in the greeting yourself.”
“That makes sense. If the verse was meant as a secret message, how’s he going to find a card with that particular quote? He almost had to buy a blank and fill it in himself.”
I stared at the Bible verse. “Maybe the M550 stands for Matthew chapter five, verse fifty,” I suggested.
“Matthew five is the Sermon on the Mount. Doesn’t have fifty verses, only forty-eight.” He glanced at me, smiling self-consciously. “That’s the other thing I did in prison besides boning up on crime. I was part of a Bible study group on Monday nights.”
“You’re a man of many surprises.”
“I like to think so,” he said.
I turned the card over and studied the black-and-white photograph pasted on the front. The photo showed the faded image of a graveyard in snow. I picked at the loose edge, peering at the card stock under it. The print had been glued or pasted over a standard commercial picture of the ocean at sunset. I peeled it off and checked the back, hoping for some kind of handwritten note. The print itself was four inches by six, processed on regular Kodak paper, matte finish, no border. Aside from the word Kodak marching across the back, the rest was blank. “You think this is a new photograph reprinted from an old neg? Or maybe a new photo reproduced from an old one?”
“What difference does it make?”
I shrugged. “Well, I don’t think a picture of the ocean at sunset tells us anything. Maybe the keys aren’t related. Maybe the photo is the message and the keys are a diversionary tactic.”
He took the card and moved to the table, holding it to the light as I had, examining the photograph. I peeked over his shoulder. All the headstones looked old, the ornate lettering softened by rain and sanded by harsh winter snows. There were five shorter headstones and three larger monuments of the lamb and angel school. Even the smaller markers, probably granite or marble, were carved with bas-relief leaves and scrolls, crosses, doves. The dominant monument was a white marble obelisk probably twelve feet tall, mounted on a granite pedestal with the name PELISSARO visible. All of the surrounding trees were mature, though barren of leaves. A thin layer of snow covered the ground. One cluster of headstones was enclosed with iron fencing, and I could see a section of stone wall to the right.
“I don’t suppose you recognize the place,” I said.
Ray shook his head. “Could be a private graveyard, like a family plot on somebody’s property.”
“Looks too spread out for that. Seems like a private graveyard would be more compact and countrified. More homogeneous. Look at the headstones, the variation in sizes and styles.”
“So what’s this have to do with two keys? He didn’t have time to dig up a coffin and bury the stash. It was the dead of winter. The ground was froze hard.”
I looked at Ray with interest. “Really. It was winter? So this might have been taken at the time?”
“Possible, I guess, but if he buried the money, he’d have needed grave-digging machinery, which I guess he could have got hold of somehow. Seems like he told me once he’d been a groundskeeper in a cemetery. He could have put the money in a mausoleum, I suppose. Anyway, what’s your thinking?”
“But why a picture of this? Maybe it’s the name Pelissaro. I’m just spitballing here. He might have left the money with someone by that name. In a building or business in the general vicinity of the cemetery. The Pelissaro Building, Pelissaro Farms. The old Pelissaro estate,” I said, wiggling my brows.
Ray shook his head. “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree.”
“Well. Maybe it’s something visible from here. A water tower, an outbuilding, a stone quarry. Where’s the phone book? Let’s look. Let’s dare to be stupid. We might hit pay dirt.”
“Look for what?”
“The name Pelissaro. Maybe he had a confederate.”
I glanced around the kitchen and spotted the residential pages sitting on the chair where he’d left them. I pulled out a chair and sat down, flipping through the White Pages to the P’s. There was no Pelissaro listed. Nothing even close. I said, “Shit. Ummn. Well, maybe there was a Pelissaro back in the 1940s. We’ll try the library in the morning. It can’t hurt.”
“We better do something fast. Gilbert’s going to call any minute, and I’m not going to tell him we’re off to the public library. I’d like to tell him we’re on to something instead of sitting here daring to be stupid. That’s the same as dead in his book.”
“You’re a pain, you know that? Here, try this.” I reached for the Yellow Pages and looked up “Cemeteries.” Approximately twenty were listed. “Take a look and tell me where these are located,” I said. “If we got out a map and drew a big circle, we could probably narrow down the area. At the very least, we could check out all the cemeteries within a radius of the spot where Johnny was apprehended. Wouldn’t that make sense? There couldn’t be that many. Judging by the photograph, this cemetery is well established. Those graves are old. They haven’t gone anywhere.”
“You don’t know that. Around here, they move graves when they dam up a river to make a lake,” he said.
“Yeah, well, if the money’s underwater, we’ve had it,” I said. “Let’s operate on the assumption it’s still aboveground someplace. You have a map of Louisville? You can show me what’s where.”
Ray went out to the car and came back with the big map of the southeastern United States, along with a set of strip maps and a map of Louisville. “Compliments of Triple A. Car I borrowed was well equipped,” he said.
“You’re too thoughtful,” I said as I opened the city map. “Let’s start with this first one. Where’s Dixie Highway?”
One by one, we worked through the cemeteries listed in the Yellow Pages, marking their locations on the map of Louisville. There were four, possibly five, within reasonable driving distance of the place where Johnny Lee had been apprehended by the police. I listed each cemetery along with the address and telephone number on a separate piece of paper.
“So now what?” he asked.
“So now, first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll call each of these cemeteries and find out if they have a Pelissaro buried there.”
“Assuming the cemetery’s in Louisville.”
“Would you quit being such a butt?” I said. “We have to assume this is relevant or Johnny wouldn’t have sent you the picture. His object was to give you information, not to fool you.”