Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 4) (9 page)

Dad’s old, water damaged, Moonlight Funeral Home casket is
leaning up against the far wall of the maintenance shed, its cover wide open,
his blue-suited mummified remains standing upright, hands crossed at the
midsection, face black and tight. His eyes, although sewn shut, somehow stare
at me like he’s just caught me coming home far too late from a night partying
with my high school pals.

I stand there, heart in my throat.

“Professor Balkis,” I say, “I’d like to introduce you to my
dad.”

“Excuse me?” he says, his face having turned somewhat pale
at the sight of Dad’s remains.

“The whole reason I’m in town in the first place, Professor,
is to rebury my old man. I guess the workers didn’t have time to rebury him
yet, so they stored him in here.”

“What for, Baker?”

“The cemetery calls it a reallocation of space. But from
what I’m hearing, the town is taking over a portion of their property for a new
access road. In any case, here Dad rests until Albany Rural can find a new
piece of ground for him on the cemetery hill.”

Balkis swallows. “Why do you think they left the casket lid
open like that?”

“Water leaked into the concrete vault. The hinges and latch
were rusted out. That casket lid no longer stays shut. He’s gonna need a new
casket, which is gonna cost me.”

Let’s hope Miller’s word is good regarding that three
hundred per day payout for my services…Course, it would help if I started
looking for the Girvins instead of spending my time going after a relic of the
Lincoln assassination. But then, how can I resist?

“Gee, Baker, your dad looks really dead.”

“No more or less dead than Clara and Henry Senior.”

“Yeah, but they are all bones. This is different. It’s like
he’s dead, but alive, too, you know. Creepy.”

“I thought Southern gentlemen don’t use the word ‘creepy.’”

“Forgot myself for a moment.”

“You sure are an odd duck, you know that, Professor?”

“You think I’m odd,” he says. “Wait till you meet the
Girvins.”

“That is, they’re still alive.”

He exhales, clearly annoyed.

“Must I repeat myself yet again, Baker? I did not kill the
Girvins. They disappeared on their own. End of story.”

Me, looking at my watch.

“Time’s wasting, Professor. We’ve got work to do.”

To the immediate right of Dad sits the backhoe I used this
morning to dig him back up. It occurs to me that I’ll need an ignition key. To
Dad’s left is a metal desk covered in paperwork. Mounted to the wall above it
is a large map of the entirety of the Albany Rural Cemetery, and mounted beside
it is a bulletin board that contains multiple sets of keys hanging from metal
hooks.

Making my way to the board, I stand by the desk and examine
the keys. I recognize the keys to the Cat backhoe right away since Dad owned
one just like it. In fact, I learned the art of sandhogging on that model
backhoe, my dad standing over my shoulder, the ever conscientious teacher. I
steal them from the hook on the board. Then, opening the desk drawers I search
around for something else we’re going to need. A flashlight.

I find one in the bottom, right-hand drawer.

Turning, I toss it to the Professor who fumbles the catch
but manages to hang on.

“Was never one for sports,” he mumbles. “Intellectual
pursuits are my game.”

“You don’t say.”

In the far corner of the room are a spade and a crowbar. I
grab both and take them with me to the backhoe. Climbing into the cockpit, I
insert the key and fire her up. The entire open room explodes with the roar
from the old engine.

“The door please, Professor!” I bark over the engine noise.

He turns to eye the two large buttons mounted to the wall
beside the entry door and the roll up door. One green button and one red. He
chooses green. Thumbing the controls, the ceiling-mounted motor grumbles to
life as the heavy duty chain begins to lift the large metal door. When it’s
fully opened, I shift the backhoe into gear and drive it out of the garage.

Depressing the brake, I call out for the Professor.

“You coming?”

Smoothing out his thick John Wilkes Booth mustache, he
offers a nervous nod.

“Naturally I want to be there for the resurrection of the
Lincoln dress.”

I bet you do…Problem is, what happens if it is indeed
buried where I think it’s buried? What have you got up your sleeve, Professor?

“Wait,” I say. “Shut the light off and close the door. We’re
taking a chance as it is.”

He does it. Kills the light and depresses the red button,
lowering the door. Stepping over to the vehicle, he hops onto the runner,
steadying himself by gripping the cockpit door.

“Hold tight,” I say.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Baker.”

I can practically hear Balkis’ over-stressed ticker pounding
all the way up the hill to the old part of the cemetery where Clara’s tomb is
located. I can’t decide if he’s afraid of getting caught robbing a grave or
afraid of getting caught
and
being pinned with the murder of Mr. and
Mrs. Girvin. But I can’t be concerned with that right now. Right now, I want to
find that dress and get it safely away from this place. When that’s done, I can
call Miller back in and let him in on the truth about the Girvins: that I’m no
closer to finding out where they disappeared to now than I was yesterday
afternoon. I owe him that much. In the meantime, if Balkis tries anything once
the dress is revealed, I’ll be ready for him.

When we come upon the old Rathbone plots, I stop the backhoe
and Balkis hops off.

“Stand aside,” I warn, turning the machine around and
backing it into place, the big back wheels pressed up against the short wrought
iron fence.

Balkis shifts himself over.

“Flashlight,” I say. “Point it at Clara’s plot. The
headlamps on this backhoe aren’t very bright.”

He does as instructed, the overgrown green grass now
illuminated by the white flashlight and the headlamps. Placing my naked hands
on the controls, I feel the heat and the vibration from the idling engine. In
my head, I see my dad, hear his voice.

“Gently touch the controls with your fingertips, kid.
Don’t force them. Let the machine do the work. You just be the brains.”

I finger the first lever. The thick, black, hydraulic hoses
fill like blood to the vein, and the bucket comes alive extending out and away
from the machine like a mechanical arm. Aiming the bucket teeth for what would
be considered the head of the plot, or about a foot inwards from where the
headstone is planted (anything closer and the already unsteady piece of marble
will come crashing down), I plunge the bucket into the grass and cut down
through the earth, scooping up my first full load of soil. Touching the other
levers as if they were toggles on a video game controller, I dump the load of
earth to the side and continue on with the dig.

With Balkis holding the flashlight on the ever expanding
rectangular plot, I keep digging until I hit something other than soft earth.

A casket.

That’s when I exit the cockpit, grab the chains hanging off
the side of the machine.

“Jump down into that hole, Professor,” I say, setting one
end of the chain onto the backhoe bucket, and the opposite four ends onto the
grass beside the open grave.

“Me?” he says, startled.

“One of us has to operate the machine and it sure as hell
can’t be you.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Hook the ends of the chains onto the casket corners so that
we can pull her up.”

“What if there’s nothing to hang the hooks on?”

“Legitimate question,” I say. “Then that means we work
together down in that hole to open the casket up.”

“Can’t we just do that now?”

“Not if we can bring her up. It’ll be easier and neater
opening her up this way. Now go.”

Tentatively, he approaches the open plot. Then, sitting
himself down on the edge of the grave, he slides off and drops himself down
inside. I estimate Balkis to be about five feet ten or eleven inches, which
means his head and shoulders rise above the grass line.

Flashing the light onto the casket, he says, “There’re some
metal ringlets mounted to each corner of the casket.”

“That’s what we’re looking for,” I say. Then, “How’s the
general condition of the box? You think it will come up without crumbling all
to hell?”

He stomps his foot on top of the lid, then jumps up and
down.

“Seems pretty solid to me,” he says.

“Lucks on our side. Box must be lined with metal. Something
that was new for the time. There was probably a glass sealer too, which might
still be intact. Also, there’s not a body inside it to rot the wood from the
inside out. No worm food.”

“I get it,” he says.

“Attach the chains and let’s do this, Professor.”

He attaches the hooked ends of the four chains to the black
metal ringlets. Then, he lifts himself out of the grave, his genuine 1865 John
Wilkes Booth outfit now covered in dirt, mud, and grass stains.

Slipping back into the cockpit, I sit myself down and set my
hands on the controls. The bucket begins to slowly raise while the four ends of
chain go taught. After a second or two, the bucket and its arm begin to strain
as the metal and wood casket is lifted from its resting place for the first
time since it was laid in the ground well over a century ago.

Slowly, the dark brown, almost black, casket is revealed as
I shift the bucket so that the rectangular box can be set down on the grass.
When the job is done, I take hold of the crowbar and jump off the machine.

“I need more of that flashlight, Professor.”

He follows me to the casket, flashlight in hand, the white
light bouncing off the mud-covered box. Initially, I inspect the closer, which
has rusted over the years. I then check the hinges which, too, are rusted.

“Well, here goes nothing and everything,” I say, sticking
the crowbar into the thin linear space between the lid and the box. I press
down on the metal bar with all my strength.

It takes maybe three shoves against the bar before the dark
cemetery fills with the sound of a pop and the lid releases.

I take a step back.

“Care to do the honors, Professor?”

That’s when I feel the metal gun barrel pressed against the
back of my head.

“Whaddaya say
we
do the honors, bitch,” comes the
voice of an old man.

I shoot the Professor a look, his big trembling body now lit up
in the backhoe headlamps.

“Don’t look at me,” he says. “I had nothing to do with them
following us here.”

I’m not sure if I should believe him, or if it even matters
at this point.

Looks like I won’t have to apologize to Miller after all…

“Down on your fuckin’ knees, jerkoff,” insists the man I
take for old man Girvin.

He and his wife step in between myself and the casket. They
might be as old as the hills, but their movements are that of much younger
people. Spry and athletic. The old man’s got a filthy mouth. And what’s this
nonsense about his wife and Alzheimer’s?

“How long you been watching us?” I ask, lowering myself to
my knees.

“Since you broke into my goddamned house yesterday morning,”
Girvin says. “Ain’t that right, Mother?”

She nods. Then, pointing her own pistol at Balkis.

“You too, fatso,” she says. “Down on your knees, where you
spend most of your time anyway.” She laughs at her own quip.

“Betty,” the professor pleads. “After all we’ve been through
together. You can’t make me succumb to such a heinous idea. Betty and Bill,
what’s happened to your humanity for God’s sakes?”

She raises up the old Colt six shooter, fires off a round
that practically singes Balkis’ hair. He shrieks and drops down to his knees,
dead weight.

Balkis was right about one thing. The Girvins are into their
weapons.

“Any more questions, Liberace?” she says.

Me…holding back a chuckle.

In the light of the backhoe headlamps, I can see that Betty,
or Mrs. Girvin, is dressed in a wide, brown skirt that must have a hoop under
it. Her black shirt is long-sleeved, fits tight to her torso while her white
hair is pulled back and held in place with a thick leather barrette. Old Man
Bill Girvin is dressed in the blue uniform of the Union Civil War Officer.
Judging by his mostly bald scalp, thin, almost fragile limbs, and sunken face,
he looks old enough to have served in the uniform back in the day. But with his
own Colt six-shooter in hand, he more than makes up for age and frailty.

“Mother,” he says, his bloodshot eyes going from me to
Balkis to me again, “you’ve waited long enough. Open the box and see if the
dress truly does reside inside the casket.”

“So how’d you get away with this, Girvin?” I say, my hands
locked together at the fingers, palms pressed flat on top of my head. “You fake
your own disappearance and even spice it up by leaving behind a Derringer just
like the one Booth shot Lincoln with? You draw a little blood, leave enough
behind to make the scene look believable? Taken altogether, all evidence would
point to Professor Balkis, who I must admit is a bit of a nut case, as the
number one suspect.”

“You got a big fat smart mouth for a whippersnapper,” Girvin
says.

“Whippersnapper,” I say. “Now there’s an old one you don’t
hear very often anymore.” Then, “How long you been looking for the dress?”

“Depends on how you define looking? That dress is cursed. At
first we weren’t bothered by it because we didn’t really believe in it. But
that doesn’t mean we were about to test the theory out by disturbing it. Maybe
we’re crazy, but not
that
bat crazy. As the years went on, we began to
take notice of strange things happening. We’d hear voices, screams, things
falling off the shelves. Once, back in the fall of ’72 or ‘73, Mother was woken
up in the morning by the sound of a woman calling out her name. She went to the
window, climbed out of it, and dropped down to the front lawn, breaking her
leg. That’s when we knew the curse was real and that the dress had to exist
somewhere inside the house or close by.

“When we heard through the grapevine that you was coming to
rebury your father, we knew we had to somehow get you to the house. Balkis’ job
was to convince Detective Miller to bring you in. Man of your expertise would
be able to sniff out Clara’s dress if it existed. Turns out, you were able to
sniff out a lot more. You know what, Mr. Baker? We lived in that house nearly
seventy years and had no idea Clara and Henry were still living in that second
basement…So to speak.”

“So to speak,” I say. “So when the police asked me to assist
in looking for you two, you knew that I would turn my attention to the Lincoln
Dress.”

“From what I hear, you can’t resist two things: fresh pussy
and a treasure hunt.”

“Father!” Betty barks.

“Sorry, Mother,” he says, nodding her way. Then, eyes back
on me. “Mother don’t like it when I use the P word.”

“Call me an antiquities slut,” I say, “but I should have
seen through your charade a lot sooner than this. I must be losing my edge. But
answer me this? Why not cut through the floor and break through the brick wall
yourself? You might have ended this mystery decades ago.”

“Not on your life,” old lady Girvin chimes in. “Only reason
I agreed to this here little operation is because Father and I are getting on
in years and might not have us another shot. What you must keep in mind, Mr.
Baker, is this: He who finds the dress will be recipient of a curse so awful
his skin will eventually melt off his bones and he will never know a good
night’s sleep again because the ghosts of Abe Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Clara
Harris, and Henry Rathbone will be shouting in your ears.”

“Jeeze,” I say. “Will I have chronic bad gas, too?”

“Hey look on the bright side, Baker,” Bill Girvin says.
“Looks to me like you’ve finally located the dress. Seems like you still got it
even if the job ain’t gonna get you laid. ‘Less, of course, you think Balkis
here is cute. And don’t you worry none about that God awful curse, ‘cause we’re
gonna have to bury you and Balkis along with Clara’s empty coffin when this
thing is done.” The old man glances over his shoulder. “How you doing, Mother?”

Locking eyes on her, I watch her lift the casket lid just a
few inches. But, just like Dad’s casket, the hinges are so rusted, they snap in
two under the weight of the metal and wood lid, and it drops down into the open
grave. She turns back to her husband.

“There’s a box,” she says. “A metal strongbox. It’s locked
with a padlock.”

“Don’t you go near it!” he shouts. “You let the boys here do
the dangerous work.”

Girvin is torn between paying attention to her and then to
me and Balkis. Also, the arm that supports the pistol seems to be getting
tired. That’s when I slowly shift my gaze to Balkis.

“On…my…count,” I mouth.

His eyes light up like a high wattage bulb. He might be a
trans-geographic whacko, but he understands perfectly well what I’ve got cooked
up in my head.

“One…two…three…”

I lunge for the old man, wrapping my arms around his legs
like I’m taking down an injury-plagued, way-beyond-his-prime quarterback.

Balkis goes after Betty, thrusting his bulbous head into her
stomach.

“That’s for making fun of me!” he shouts.

She drops the pistol, goes down hard on her back. But the
old man has, by some miracle, still managed to hold onto his. He’s trying to
aim it at my head so that he can make jelly filling out of my brains.

I grip his shooting wrist and jam my thumb in the sensitive
space between his arm and wrist. The pistol drops and he releases a scream that
sounds like a rabid dog that’s been run over by a stagecoach.

“You wouldn’t dare harm a frail old man,” he says from down
on his knees.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, bitch.”

Making a tight fist, I bury it in his face.