Cast In Stone (A Leo Waterman Mystery) by G.M. Ford

Author:G.M. Ford [Ford, G.M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

I remember next to nothing of the plane ride from Wenatchee to Seattle and even less about the drive home from the airport. Later that evening is mostly blank too, as if the proximity to the recorded message had so tainted the memories and sensations as to make recall impossible.

A flat, professional voice I didn’t recognize. No name, no number.

“Mr. Waterman, I have been requested to inform you that Henry Sundstrom died at nine seventeen last evening. Services for Mr. Sundstrom will be held at eleven o’clock A.M. on Wednesday, November eighth, at Gethsemane Lutheran Church, 911 Stewart Street in Seattle. In lieu of flowers, the family requests remembrances to the American Cancer Society.” Click. Hiss.

I poked the play button hard. Listened again. Same message. Then again. Tomorrow. Eleven in the morning. Oh, Goddamn. I pounded the offending phone with the flat of my hand, sending the receiver down toward the floor, where it bounced twice, then danced just above the surface, spinning on its spiral spring. Feeling foolish, I first bent to retrieve it, then, as rising blood burned the tips of my ears, instead used my forearm to sweep the rest of the phone from the table; a muted tinkle announced its arrival on the carpet where it lay motionless, its tightly curled neck now arched like a fossil bird.

I paced the apartment, breathing hard, the air in my lungs suddenly cold. As I passed each window, I pushed back the curtains and raised the blinds. Spears of sunlight herded the newly airborne dust into illuminated schools of swimming crystals. After several complete circuits, the apartment was awash with the kind of slanted late-afternoon light so favored by Dutch painters, but Heck was still dead.

These days, every death sets me adrift. Even the smallest change in my delicate web of connectedness is enough to loosen my slim purchase, to set me bobbing about like airborne dust. The phone began to make insistent noises. I blocked it out. Surrounded by a crystalline moat of floating slurry, I stood in the single remaining shadow at the center of the apartment and wept.

Much later, when the receding light had allowed the dust to settle, I resurrected the phone and dialed. Marge’s home number got me the maid. Mrs. Sundstrom was unavailable at this time. When charm, reason, and guilt failed to elicit further data, I called the Sea Sundstrom offices. Same deal. Mrs. Sundstrom was not available. No, they did not know where she could be reached. No, they had no idea when she would become available. Click.

I tried McColl’s office. Mr. McColl was away from his desk at this time.

“That’s kinda vague, don’t you think?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“That phrase—‘away from his desk,’” I said testily.

“There’s a pretty wide range of possibilities in ‘away from his desk.’ People serving lengthy prison terms could be said to be ‘away from their desks.’ Technically speaking, the dead are ‘away from their desks.’”

“They are indeed sir,” she said evenly.

I was supposed to go away now. I wasn’t in the mood.

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