L is for Lawless

"Kinsey Millhone. Henry's tenant. You've probably seen me up at Rosie's. I'm there three or four nights a week."

Recognition finally flickered. "You're the one sits in that back booth."

"I'm the one."

"Sure. I remember. Come on in." He stepped back and I moved into a small entrance hall with a hardwood floor that hadn't been buffed for years. I caught a glimpse of the kitchen at the rear of the house. "My dad's not home right now, and I think Babe's in the shower. I should let her know you're here. Hey, Babe?"

No reply.

He tilted his head, listening. "Hey, Babe!"

I've never been a big fan of yelling from room to room. "You want to find her? I can wait."

"Let me do that. I'll be right back. Have a seat," he said. He moved down the hall, his hard-soled shoes clumping. He opened a door on the right and stuck his head in. There was a muffled shriek of pipes in the wall, the plumbing shuddering and thumping as the shower was turned off.

I went down a step into the living room, which was slightly bigger than the nine-by-twelve rug. At one end of the room there was a shallow brick fireplace, painted white, with a wooden mantelpiece that seemed to be littered with knickknacks. On either side of the fireplace there were built-in bookcases piled high with papers and magazines. I settled gingerly on a lumpy couch covered with a brown-and-yellow Afghan. I could smell house mold or wet dog. The coffee table was littered with empty fast-food containers, and all the seating was angled to face an ancient television set in an oversize console.

Bucky returned. "She says go ahead. We gotta be somewhere shortly and she's just now getting dressed. My dad'll be back in a little while. He went down to Perdido to look at lighting fixtures. We're trying to get Pappy's apartment fixed up to rent." He paused in the doorway, apparently seeing the room as I did. "Looks like a dump, but Pappy was real tight with a buck."

"How long have you lived here?"

"Coming up on two years, ever since Babe and me got married," he said. "I thought the old bird'd give us a break on the rent, but he made a science out of being cheap."

Being cheap myself, I was naturally curious. Maybe I could pick up some pointers, I thought. "Like what?"

Bucky's mouth pulled down. "I don't know. He didn't like to pay for trash pickup, so he'd go out early on trash days and put his garbage in the neighbors' cans. And, you know, like somebody told him once when you pay utility bills? All you have to do is use a one-cent stamp, leave off the return address, and drop it in a remote mailbox. The post office will deliver it because the city wants their money, so you can save on postage."

I said, "Hey, what a deal. What do you figure, ten bucks a year? That'd be hard to resist. He must have been quite a character."

"You never met him?"

"I used to see him up at Rosie's, but I don't think we ever met."

Bucky nodded at the fireplace. "That's him over there. One on the right."

I followed his gaze, expecting to see a photograph sitting on the mantelpiece. All I saw were three urns and a medium-size metal box. Bucky said, "That greeny marble urn is my grammaw, and right beside her is my uncle Duane. He's my daddy's only brother, killed when he's a kid. He was eight, I think. Playing on the tracks and got run over by a train. My aunt Maple's in the black urn."

For the life of me, I couldn't think of a polite response. The family fortunes must have dwindled as the years went by because it looked like less and less money had been spent with each successive death until the last one, John Lee, had been left in the box provided by the crematorium. The mantel was getting crowded. Whoever "went" next would have to be transported in a shoe box and dumped out the car window on the way home from the mortuary.

He waved the subject aside. "Anyway, forget that. I know you didn't stop by to make small talk. I got the paperwork right here." He moved over to the bookshelf and began to sort through the magazines, which were apparently interspersed with unpaid bills and other critical documents. "All we're talking is a three-hundred-dollar claim for Pappy's burial," he remarked. "Babe and me paid to have him cremated and we'd like to get reimbursed. I guess the government pays another hundred and fifty for interment. It doesn't sound like much, but we don't have a lot to spare. I don't know what Henry told you, but we can't afford to pay for your services."

"I gathered as much. I don't think there's much I can do anyway. At this point, you probably know more about VA claims than I do."

He pulled out a sheaf of papers and glanced through them briefly before he passed them over to me. I removed the paper clip and scrutinized the copy of John Lee's death certificate, the mortuary release, his birth certificate. Social Security card, and copies of the two Veterans Administration forms. The first form was the application for burial benefits, the second a request for military records. On the latter, the branch of service had been filled in, but the service number, grade, rank, and the dates the old man had served were all missing. No wonder the VA was having trouble verifying the claim. "Looks like you're missing a lot of information. I take it you don't know his serial number or the unit he served in?"

"Well, no. That's the basic problem," he said, reading over my shoulder. "It gets stupid. We can't get the records because we don't have enough information, but if we had the information we wouldn't need to make the request."

"That's called good government. Think of all the money they're saving on the unpaid claims."

"We don't want anything he's not entitled to, but what's fair is fair. Pappy served his country, and it doesn't seem like such a lot to ask. Three hundred damn dollars. The government wastes billions."

I flipped the form over and read the instructions on the back. Under "Eligibility for Basic Burial Allowance," requirements indicated that the deceased veteran must have been "discharged or released from service under conditions other than dishonorable and must have been in receipt of pension or had an original or reopened claim for pension," blah, blah, blah. "Well, here's a possibility.

Was he receiving a military pension?"

"If he did, he never told us."

I looked up at Bucky. "What was he living on?"

"He had his Social Security checks, and I guess Dad pitched in. Babe and me paid rent for this place, which was six hundred bucks a month. He owned the property free and clear, so I guess he used the rent money to pay food, utilities, property taxes, and like that."

"And he lived out back?"

"That's right. Above the garage. It's just a couple little rooms, but it's real nice. We got a guy who wants to move in once the place is ready. Old friend of Pappy's. He says he'd be willing to haul out the junk if we give him a little break on the first month's rent. Most stuff is trash, but we didn't want to toss stuff until we know what's important. Right now half Pappy's things have been packed in cardboard boxes and the rest is piled up every which way."

I reread the request for military records. "What about the year his discharge certificate was issued? There's a blank here."

"Let's see." He tilted his head, reading the box where I was holding my thumb. "Oh. I must have forgot to mark that. Dad says it would've been August seventeenth of 1944 because he remembers Pappy coming home in time for his birthday party the day he turned four. He was gone two years, so he must have left sometime in 1942."

"Could he have been dishonorably discharged?

From what this says, he'd be disqualified if that were the case."

"No ma'am," Bucky said emphatically.

"Just asking." I flipped the form over, sca