href="#u0827d98a-3196-5fa9-bf08-d5555c4688de">EPILOGUE: JACK, 1947
JACK, 1946
JACK LAY ABOVE his own empty grave. Brown grass poked into the back of his neck. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing slow, but he tried to stay awake. The springtime sun soaked into his darkest suit: a navy blue that could pass for black if not for the clear skies above.
His name was etched in the grave marker closest to him. “John Walter Chesley, Jr.,” it read. “Born March 31, 1920. Died February 8, 1943. Lost over the skies of Germany.” Most days, he felt like crawling into that empty coffin six feet down, but the fact remained. He wasn’t dead yet.
The stone next to it laid out the particulars for the woman Jack had widowed, who then widowed him. Wilma Greene Chesley. Born April 12, 1918. Died July 14, 1944. Wife. Sister. Author.
Jack hadn’t read the book yet.
Footsteps crunched in the grass nearby. A sharp heel dug into the dirt. The flat of the shoe hit the grass. The steady rhythm grew slower as it approached Jack. A shadow covered his face. The woman knelt down. She was so close that Jack could smell the soap she washed with. Cashmere Bouquet. The same brand Wilma used to use.
Quick as cats, Jack rolled away from her and popped up. He stood on the balls of his feet, ready to run or wrestle. Instinctively, his hand went inside of his coat. His fingers grazed the cool grip of his Springfield 1911. He looked across the gravesite.
The woman who had knelt at his side was standing now, flowers at her feet, hand over her chest. Her red hair was parted cleanly down the middle, the curls spun into submission and twisted into a hair comb on the back of her head. The afternoon sun pulled the freckles out from beneath her foundation. Her blue eyes burned underneath a furrowed brow. Christ, she looked identical to Wilma. If not for her broad-shouldered business suit, Jack could’ve convinced himself that he was standing over two empty graves.
It’s peacetime, Jack told himself. Hold it together. He pulled his hand out of his coat, smiled, and said, “Gertie.”
“Jackie?” Gertie glanced down at Jack’s tombstone and the imprint his body had left in the brown grass. “You’re alive, or you’re a ghost?” she asked.
“A little of both, I guess.”
Gertie put a hand to Jack’s face. “You feel alive.”
“That’s what I tell myself every morning. It gets me out of bed.”
“And you’re back?”
“Standing in front of you.”
Gertie pointed to the full vase atop Wilma’s grave. “Those are your flowers?”
“They’re Wilma’s now.”
Gertie looked at Jack. Jack looked at Gertie. The air hung still over Evergreen Cemetery.
Jack squatted down, picked up the bouquet Gertie had dropped, and handed it to her. She sniffed a pink lily. Her brow loosened but her eyes still burned. “So you’re alive and you’re back, Jackie. What now?”
Jack cast a glance over toward the potter’s field. “I don’t know.”
Gertie tossed the flowers on Wilma’s grave. She crossed herself and turned back to Jack. “Let’s get a bite and bump gums.”
Jack had taken the red interurban to Evergreen Cemetery. Gertie had driven. She drove them both to a sandwich joint off Alameda, not far from Union Station. The place was packed. They found a small table jammed between bigger tables. Gertie dug into her sandwich. She’d spent a long day on the lot, putting a shooting script back in order, running from one department to another to make sure everyone had the current changes, juggling a drunk screenwriter, a disengaged director, and the egos of a half dozen actors. This French Dip was the first food she’d touched since before sunrise.
Jack sipped his beer and watched her eat. His years in Germany made him wary of meat in general and suspicious of meats with sauce on them. He still smelled all his food before eating it. In a packed, smoky joint like this, where he couldn’t trust his nose, he let his sandwich sit.
Gertie polished off her plate, pickle and everything. She took in the immediate surroundings. To her left sat a few men in corduroy suits. They talked about fabric prices and young seamstresses. Another man, deeply engrossed in a newspaper, sat to her right. Gertie leaned in and caught Jack’s eye.
“I hear you’ve been at Wilma’s grave every day for the lasts few weeks.”
Well, that explained why Gertie wasn’t very surprised to see him. “Who told you that?” he asked.
“The guy who cuts the graveyard grass,” Gertie said. “He told me you come every afternoon at the same time and lie there in your suit. Said you turn on the waterworks when you think no one’s looking. Said you bring fresh flowers every day, and two times you polished her stone with car wax. That true, Jackie?”
“More or less.” Jack rubbed the side of his cheek to make sure it was dry. “Only I don’t wait until I think no one’s looking to turn on the waterworks. I just let loose when I have to.” Which might be any minute, what with Wilma’s spitting image staring him in the eye.
Gertie scooted even closer. “What do you know about Wilma’s death?” she asked.
Jack shrugged. “Just what they told me at debriefing.”
“Which was what?”
“She fell in a tub.”
“That’s it?”
“Is there more?”
“I think so.” Gertie leaned back in her chair. She took a pre-rolled cigarette, tapped it on her tin case, and placed it between her lips. Jack dug a lighter from his inside coat pocket and offered Gertie a light. She inhaled and blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth. A red fingernail dug a strand of tobacco off her tongue. Her eyes never drifted. She held Jack’s glance. “I think there’s more.”
Of course there was. Jack figured as much from the minute he’d heard the story of Wilma. It didn’t make sense. Wilma was too tall to land nose-first on the edge of a tub. If she slipped, she would’ve fallen out or dropped to her knees or cracked her hip on the edge. The physics of landing nose-first were implausible. Jack was no genius, but he’d always been smart enough to know bullshit when he heard it. So, when the doctor at debriefing told him about his wife’s death, Jack fought back the urge to kill.
Germany had taught Jack something about survival, something about tucking away his rage until he needed it, something about staying in the moment when he needed to be there. He prodded Gertie. “Like what?”
“I identified her body. Mom was off drunk somewhere. You were dead. A cop dragged me out of Musso and Frank’s to have a peek. And that’s all they gave me. A quick peek. It was enough to see bruises around Wilma’s throat.”
Something homicidal rumbled deep inside Jack, threatened to tear him apart. Simple routines helped him keep himself together. He took a pouch of tobacco from his jacket pocket and started to roll a cigarette of his own. “Sometimes blood pools in strange places.”
Gertie tightened her lips into a white line. Her nostrils flared as she took a slow, deep breath. She let the air out. “So I went by Wilma’s bungalow that night. No cops were there. I had a key but it didn’t matter. The lock had been busted. I turned on the lights and stepped into the empty little house and found all kinds of suspicious things. The needle was still down on her Victrola,