Find Her a Grave by Collin Wilcox Page A

told me to tell you—the words—they’re—” A final pause. Then: “They’re ‘behind the stone.’”
    Behind the stone …
    “Ah—” Unaccountably stunned, momentarily numbed, she could only nod. For almost four years she’d known the words—her three words. And now those years had fallen away; a lifetime had been reduced to mere seconds—
    —these seconds, when only she knew where a fortune in jewels was buried.
    Not Bacardo and her. Just her.
    Until she told Bacardo, gave him her three words, it was her fortune. In all the world, only she knew.
    But once she told Bacardo, then he would know. How could she stop him if he wanted to dig up the jewels, keep them for himself? If she tried to stop him, he’d kill her. Killing was Bacardo’s business, his stock-in-trade.
    But he’d gone first. If he meant to take the fortune for himself, would he have gone first?
    Sitting across the coffee table from her, he waited. Calmly. Impassively.
    “It’s—” She faltered. Her hands, she realized, were clamped so tightly on the arms of her chair that the muscles of her forearms ached. Her throat had gone dry. Suddenly she was perspiring heavily; her sweater was damp at the neck and armpits.
    She cleared her throat. Once. Twice. Then, in a voice that was no more than a harsh whisper: “It’s—the words—they’re ‘my mother’s grave.’”
    For long moments they sat motionless, simply staring at each other, as if they were alone in time and space, suspended. Then Bacardo spoke:
    “Behind the headstone of your mother’s grave.”
    Hardly aware of it, she was slowly nodding, her eyes still fixed on Bacardo.
    “And where’s that?” Bacardo’s voice was low. He was frowning: two deep creases between his dark, spiky eyebrows. “Her grave, I mean.”
    “It’s in Fowler’s Landing. That’s near Sacramento.”
    “How far is it from here?”
    “About seventy-five miles, I’d say.”
    “This Fowler’s Landing. What’s it like? What kind of a place?”
    “It’s a small town. It’s on the San Joaquin delta south of Sacramento. There’re maybe three thousand people in the town, something like that. It’s rice-growing country, some of it. My mother was born there. That’s where she wanted to be buried.”
    “When did your mother die?”
    “About six years ago.”
    Bacardo nodded thoughtfully, let his eyes wander away. A six-year-old grave in a little town. Three thousand people. One graveyard, probably, and three or four cops.
    It was here, then, to California, that Maranzano had come, four years ago, here that he’d buried the plastic pipe with the jewels—
    —here that he’d killed someone. A policeman, Bacardo had always suspected.
    First a policeman at Fowler’s Landing. Dead.
    Then Maranzano, three days later. Dead.
    Would Maranzano have had to die if he’d done the job clean?
    Across the mirrored coffee table, Louise sat motionless, rigidly, as if her body was frozen in her chair. Was she afraid? Did she know that, four years ago, a young capo had died to protect the secret of her treasure?
    He looked at his watch: eight-thirty.
    Seventy-five miles …
    In two hours he could be in Fowler’s Landing. But at ten-thirty, in a strange town, how could he hope to find the graveyard? In the dark, how could he find Janice Frazer’s grave? A stranger in a strange town, asking directions to the graveyard, then wandering among the headstones, flashlight and shovel in hand, looking for the grave with a fortune in jewels buried behind the headstone.
    My mother’s grave …
    For four years, Louise had known those three words. How often had she visited the grave in those four years?
    Six words …
    She’d already had three words, the most important words. What had she thought was the whole message? On top of the casket of my mother’s grave? At the foot of my mother’s grave? Ten feet north? Twenty feet south?
    He must know. First, before he did anything, made any decision, he must know what