“They’ll be closing the gates soon,” he said. “We’d better leave.”
“All right.”
She turned toward the car. He waited for her to take a few steps before he moved away from the tombstone, feeling a little ashamed of himself for the deception. He didn’t know it wasn’t a deception until they were back inside the car and Daisy said suddenly, “Camilla died in 1955.”
“So did a lot of other people.”
“I’d like to find out the exact date, just out of curiosity. They must keep records of some kind on the premises — there’s an office marked ‘Superintendent’ just behind the chapel, and a caretaker’s cottage over on the east side.”
“I was hoping you intended to drop this whole business.”
“Why should I? Nothing’s really changed, if you’ll think about it.”
He thought about it. Nothing had really changed, least of all Daisy baby’s mind.
The superintendent’s office was closed for the day, but there were lights burning in the caretaker’s cottage. Through the living-room window Pinata could see a stout elderly man in suspenders watching a TV program: two cowboys were shooting freely at each other from behind two rocks. Both the cowboys and the rocks appeared exactly the same as the ones Pinata remembered from his boyhood.
He pressed the buzzer, and the old man got hurriedly to his feet and zigzagged across the living room as if he were dodging bullets. He turned off the TV set, with a furtive glance toward the window, and came running to open the door.
“I hardly never watch the stuff,” he said, wheezing apology. “My son-in-law Harold don’t approve, says it’s bad for my heart, all them shootings.”
“Are you the caretaker?”
“No, that’s my son-in-law Harold. He’s at the dentist, got himself an absence on the gum.”
“Maybe you could give me some information?”
“Can’t do no more than try. My name’s Finchley. Come in and close the door. That fog clogs up my tubes, can’t hardly breathe certain nights.” He squinted out at the car. “Don’t the lady care to come in out of the fog?”
“No.”
“She must have good serviceable tubes.” The old man closed the door. The small, neat living room was stifling hot and smelled of chocolate. “You looking for a particular gra — resting-place? Harold says never to say grave, customers don’t like it, but all the time I keep forgetting. Now right here I got a map of the whole location, tells you who’s buried where. That what you want?”
“Not exactly. I know where the man’s buried, but I’d like some more information about the date and circumstances.”
“Where’s he buried?”
Pinata indicated the spot on the map while Finchley wheezed and grunted his disapproval. “That’s a bad place, what with the spring tides eating away at the cliff and that big old tree getting bigger every day and ’tracting tourists that stomp on the grass. People buy there because of the view, but what’s a view good for if you can’t see it? Me, when I die, I want to lie safe and snug, not with no big old tree and them high tides coming after me hell-bent for leather... What’s his name?”
“Carlos Camilla.”
“I’d have to go to the file to look that up, and I ain’t so sure I can find the key.”
“You could try.”
“I ain’t so sure I oughta. It’s near closing time, and I got to put supper on the stove. Absence or no absence, Harold likes to eat and eat good, same as me. All them dead people out there, they don’t bother me none. When it comes quitting time, I close the door on them, never think of them again till next morning. They don’t bother my sleep or my victuals none.” But he belched suddenly, in a genteel way, as if he had, unawares, swallowed a few indigestible fibers of fear. “Anyhow, maybe Harold wouldn’t like me messing with his file. That file’s mighty important to him; it’s exactly the same as the one the Super has in his office. You can tell from that how much the Super thinks of Harold.”
Pinata was beginning to suspect that Finchley was stalling not because of his inability to find the key or any inhibitions about using it, but because he couldn’t spell.
“You find the key,” he said, “and I’ll help you look up the name.”
The old man looked relieved at having the burden of decision lifted from his shoulders. “Now that’s fair enough, ain’t it?”
“It won’t take me a minute. Then you can turn on the TV again and catch the end of the program.”
“I don’t mind admitting I ain’t sure which was the good guy and which was the bad guy. Now what’s that name again?”
“Camilla.”
“K-a—”
“C-a-m-i-l-l-a.”
“You write it down, just like it shows on the cards, eh?”
Pinata wrote it down, and the old man took the paper and sped out of the room as if he’d been handed the baton in a relay race to the frontier where the bad guys were shooting it out with the good guys.
He returned in less than a minute, put the file drawer on the table, turned on the TV set, and retired from the world.
Pinata bent over the file. The card bearing the name Carlos Theodore Camilla bore little else: a technical description of his burial plot and the name of the funeral director, Roy Fondero. Next of kin, none. Address, none. Born April 3, 1907. Died December 2, 1955. Sui mano.
Coincidence, he thought. The date of Camilla’s suicide must be just a crazy coincidence. After all, the chances were one in 365. Things a lot more coincidental than that happen every day.
But he didn’t believe it, and he knew Daisy wouldn’t either if he told her. The question was whether to tell her, and if he decided not to, the problem was how to lie successfully. She wasn’t easily deceived. Her ears were quick to catch false notes, and her eyes were a good deal sharper than he’d thought.
A new and disturbing idea had begun to gnaw at a corner of his brain: suppose Daisy already knew how and when Camilla had died, suppose she had invented the whole business of the dreams as a means of getting him interested in Camilla without revealing her own connection with him. It seemed highly improbable, however. Her reaction to the name had been one of simple relief that it was not her own; she’d shown no signs of emotional involvement or confusion or guilt beyond the spoken artificial guilt over her gladness that the tombstone was Camilla’s instead of hers. Besides, he could think of no valid reason why Daisy would choose such a devious way of accomplishing her purpose. No, he thought, Daisy is a victim, not a manipulator of circumstances. She didn’t plan, couldn’t possibly have planned the sequence of events that led to his meeting her in the first place: the arrest of her father, the bail, her visit to his office. If any planning had been done, it was on Fielding’s part, but this was equally unlikely. Fielding seemed incapable of planning anything farther than the next minute and the next bottle.
All right, he thought irritably. So nobody planned anything. Daisy had a dream, that’s all. Daisy had a dream.
He said, “Thanks very much, Mr. Finchley.”
“Eh?”
“Thank you for letting me see the file.”
“Oh my, look at him take that bullet right in the belly. I knew all along it was the bad guy in the black hat. You can always tell by the horse’s eyes. A horse looks mean and shifty, and you can bet he’s got a mean and shifty critter on his back. Well, he got his, yes sir, he got his.” Finchley wrenched his eyes from the screen. “Program’s changing, must be five o’clock. You better get a move on before Harold comes home and locks the gates. He won’t be in so good a humor with that absence on his gum and all. Harold’s fair,” he added with a grunt, “but he ain’t merciful. Not since his wife died. That’s what women are put in this world for, mercy, ain’t that right?”