The Undertaker

I leaned forward, my eyes boring in as I pointed an angry finger at him. “Yeah, and that was your big mistake, Ralph. I'm not going to let you get away with it.”

He sat and studied me for a moment, as if he had missed something, as if he wasn't quite sure anymore. When he did speak, he was the composed, self-assured lawyer carefully choosing his words. “Look, Mr. Talbott, if that really is your name...”

“That's exactly how my conversation with your pal Larry Greene started. I thought you guys talked?”

“Mr. Talbott, you have this all wrong. One of my clients did indeed die in a tragic automobile accident — him and his wife. From what you say, apparently you and he shared the same name and some background. With three-hundred million people in this country, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often.”

“A wonder, an absolute wonder.”

“I'm sorry for any inconvenience and emotional distress that may have caused you or your wife, but I don't see how this was any fault of mine.”

“My wife's dead, as you well know.”

“As I know? See here, Mr. Talbott…”

“So you knew old Pete?”

“Our Mr. Talbott? Of course, I knew him. Not well, I must admit. He ran a small accounting business here in town.”

“The one over on Sickles? Don't make me laugh. I doubt an honest 1040 ever came out of a dump like that. He couldn't afford one hour of your billing time, much less the retainer a firm like this would require and I'd have proven it too, except you guys cleaned the place out.”

“You guys?” He looked at me in disbelief. “Exactly what are you are alleging I've done, Mister Talbott?”

“Ah, that wonderful word again, “alleging.” You cleaned out his office. Hell, you even cleaned out his dumpster. It was sanitized, like the house on Sedgwick. Packed up, picked clean, and gone down the street before the last shovelful of dirt landed on those caskets up at Oak Hill Cemetery. Yep, you are thorough, Ralph, I'll hand you that much. But who the hell parks two associate partners in a residential street all morning watching some movers pack a truck? Someone with an unlimited budget, or no budget at all.”

I was watching his eyes. When I mentioned shoveling dirt up at Oak Hill and the moving truck, he did a double take. He paused and looked across at me with a new, wary appreciation. “I'm an attorney,” he finally said. “I don't clean offices, I don't empty dumpsters, and I don't shovel dirt, Peter. If I may I call you that?”

“That would be fine, Ralph. I haven't figured out all the “why's” yet, but I've got most of the “how's.” Eventually I will, and when I do, lawyer or not, you're going to the slammer. You, Greene, Varner, Dannmeyer, all of you.”

With a heavy sigh, tired and exasperated, Tinkerton leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “All right, who sent you? Who are you working for?”

“My wife sent me, Ralph,” I glared at him, feeling the anger building up inside. “Remember the Blues Brothers? Elwood and his brother Joliet Jake? Well, I'm not on a “mission from God,” I'm on a mission from Terri, and my wife doesn't think much of you stealing her name for one of your two-bit scams. Neither do I. Those memories are all I have left of her. They have to last me a long, long time and I'm not going to let you put your greasy paws all over them. You got that?”

My anger was white hot now, rolling across the room at him in waves. I could see he felt them, as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “For the longest time this morning, I couldn't figure it out. Why? I kept asking myself “why?” A retired carpenter, an auto mechanic, an auto-worker, a warehouse supervisor, and now a bean counter?”

“What in the hell are you talking about, boy?”

“I'm talking about the Skeppingtons and the Brownsteins, the Pryors from Phoenix, Edward J. Kasmarek from Chicago, and whoever the hell it was you buried under my name up in Oak Hill yesterday.”

I didn't have to say anymore. His mouth dropped open and I could tell those names were the knockout punch. To finish the big lawyer off, I pulled the copies of the obituaries from my shirt pocket and held them up for him to see.

“See, it's all right here, Ralph, if you know what you're looking for, and I happen to be the World Champion on obituaries.”

Tinkerton's eyes went wide and his face turned beet red. Big-time lawyers are supposed to stand up and shout things like, “Objection!” whenever something happened they didn't like or didn't understand. However, there was no Judge Ito or even Judge Judy in this courtroom. No juries hanging on his every word. No reporters. Not even a TV camera. Only the eminent Ralph McKinley Tinkerton, Esq. and me.

“At first, I figured this was the normal fun and games — you know, greed, theft, lust, maybe drugs and embezzlement, maybe a little kiddie porn. That was the kind of stuff any good California boy can understand. The bodies? Was it kidnapping, murder for hire, or selling used body parts? I don't know and I really don't care.”

“You should care, Peter.”