Final Justice (27 page)

Wanda had rolled her eyes and giggled. "What girl in her right mind wouldn't? Damn, Emma Jean, take a good look at him sometimes. He's so, so... I don't know." She had caressed herself, running her fingertips up and down her arms as she mulled the question. "Rough, I guess you'd call it. You know, like he could make love so strong it hurt, but you'd love every minute of it, 'cause he'd be so good at it."

A dryer buzzer had sounded, and Emma Jean had emptied it and piled the clothes on the table for folding. Wanda had sauntered over to a chair and sat down and begun to leaf through an old magazine. No one else was around so Emma Jean had dared ask, "Do you know anybody he's been with?"

"Sure he has. He's a cockhound."

Emma Jean had repeated the unfamiliar word.

Wanda had laughed. "Don't you get it? Cock, like a slang word for sex, and hound, like in bloodhound, always sniffing around looking for something.

"But," she had gone on to say after taking one last draw on her cigarette and grinding it under her heel, "I think he's gotten choosy, 'cause I haven't heard of him messing around with anybody in a long time. Now that's not to say he don't still do it. He might just be extra careful these days."

Maybe, Emma Jean mused as she watched his car disappear around a curve. But if things worked out like she hoped, he wouldn't be messing around with anybody but her, by golly.

* * *

It was after midnight, and Luke had been hiding inside Milburn Smith's azalea bushes watching the funeral home for the past two hours. The lights had gone out at ten-thirty, but he wasn't taking any chances on moving too fast. He wanted Hardy to fall sound asleep.

Luke did not like the feeling that he was spying on other people, like Milburn's 14-year old daughter, Sharon. Girl Scout, honor roll, a member of the youth choir at First Baptist, she seemed like a little Pollyanna. But after what he'd just heard going on in the gazebo between her and Wiley Lansky, the preacher's son,
Lolita
had nothing on Sharon.

Then there was Murline Pruitt, the Smiths' next door neighbor. She always rode to her Monday night bowling league with the town pharmacist, Dennis Blum, because he only lived a few doors down the street and picked her up, but from the way they were necking before Murline got out of the car, it was obvious they shared a whole lot more than a ride together.

At last, he felt the time was right and darted across the street, keeping to the shadows. He found the same window unlocked and slipped inside. Carefully making his way in the darkness from memory, he proceeded to the casket display room. Only after closing the door behind him did he switch on his flashlight.

Down in Mobile, Jim Burkhalter had introduced him to an undertaker who had told him what to look for—a steel coffin with a short metal tube protruding from each corner. Spotting one just inside the door, he opened both the top and bottom lids. From the small satchel he'd brought with him, he took the confession Jim had typed and a pen for signing, but, perhaps most important of all, was the Dictaphone Jim had loaned him. Quickly, he set it up.

Stepping back into the hallway, he shone the light around till it fell on a fern stand with a rather ugly vase on top. He gave it a light shove and the vase toppled to the floor and broke with a loud clatter.

From above came the sound of feet hitting the floor, followed by Hardy's sleepy growl, "What the hell? I'll bet you forgot to put the damn cat out again. So help me, Lucy, this time I'm going to kick him so far he won't be able to find his way back."

Luke switched off his flashlight and got in position beneath the stairs. Hardy turned on the lights and came clomping down, muttering to himself all the way. As he reached the bottom, Luke's hand snaked out to close about his neck. From his Green Beret days, Luke knew exactly how hard and how long to press on the carotid artery to cut off oxygen to the brain to render a man first immobile, then unconscious, without causing brain damage... or death.

Hardy went limp. Luke slipped his hands under his armpits and dragged him into the display room. He was heavy, but with a great heave, Luke was able to get him up and into the coffin without turning it over. Staring down at Hardy's face, Luke resisted the impulse to hit him. No matter that the snotty little creep could be his daddy. He slammed the lid down. Through the .18 gauge steel, Luke thought he heard Hardy moan softly. It was almost time for him to wake up.

Then there was no doubt. Hardy
did
moan. Loud. And when he realized he was lying flat on his back in a dark, close place, and it began to dawn exactly what that dark, close place was, he started shouting, "Hey, what the hell is going on? This isn't funny. Let me out, damn it..."

Luke took the crank from his pocket that Jim's undertaker friend had given him and fitted it into the metal tube on the corner closest to him and began to turn. The undertaker had given him a demonstration of what would happen, how turning the crank would send the two horizontal metal rods beneath the rubber gasket on the front side of the coffin to meet each other. When they were in place, a vertical rod would automatically move down from the lid to lock between.

The sound was ominous.

Kah-lank. Kah-lank. Kah-lank.

Hardy fell silent and went stiff with terror.

Kah-lank. Kah-lank. Kah-lank.

Hardy knew what it meant, he was in a
sealer,
and comprehending this, his cries were swallowed by hysterical gasps. Had he been placed in any other coffin but a sealer, he knew he could have lasted maybe twenty-four hours or longer with air seeping in around the seams, but with each turn of the crank, each maddening
kah-lank,
death loomed ever closer. "Why are you doing this to me? Who are you? Please... let me out..."

Luke stopped cranking and plugged in the Dictaphone, then placed it on top of the coffin right over Hardy's head. Hardy's confession might not be audible, having to come through the steel and all, but he had to try. Besides, Hardy wouldn't know if it wasn't because the tape would be locked in a safe deposit box, and only Luke would have the key.

"Please, don't do this..." Hardy was sobbing now, punctuating each agonized word with a futile pound of his fists against the lid. "I'll give you whatever you want. Please, I can't breathe..."

"Stop screaming and save what air you've got."

Hardy fell silent as he tried to place the familiar voice amidst the panic that held him in a smothering cocoon.

"Just what are you willing to do to get out of there, Hardy?"

The voice, so familiar. But who—?

"Answer me, Hardy. You don't have much time, and you know it."

It couldn't be,
or could it?
"Luke Ballard?" he asked with a flare of hope. "Is that you? Let me out. Quick. Somebody played a terrible trick on me, and..."

"It's no trick, Hardy. I put you in there."

Rage overcame fear. "Luke? Come on. Open up. This isn't funny, damn you."

"Neither is robbing corpses of their coffins."

Hardy felt his guts wrench. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, yes, you do, and you're going to tell me all about it."

"The only thing I'm going to tell you is that if you don't get me out of here, I'll have your badge. You can count on it."

"But
you
can't count on
anything
, Hardy, because according to what I've been told about this kind of coffin, you've only got maybe another twenty-five minutes or so of air left, depending on how panicked you are. And from what I'm hearing, you're
real
panicked, Hardy, and you might not even have that much left. So I suggest you cut your bullshit and admit what you've been doing."

Hardy's mind started whirling. Somehow Luke had found out about the body dumping, but he was bluffing about letting him die. He was just trying to scare him, that's all, and up till then he had done a real fine job. But no way was he going to let himself be bluffed into making a confession that would send him to prison. "You're crazy. Now stop kidding around and open this coffin."

"I saw what you and your half-wit helpers did to Minerva Plummer."

"Well, if you think you saw something, what do you need me for?"

"I want to hear about
all
of them."

"People in hell are going to want ice water, too, you bastard. Oops..." Hardy gave an exaggerated giggle...poor choice of words. Sorry."

Luke brought both his fists slamming down on the lid—hard. God, how he ached to shout the truth about how he knew all about that long ago night of hell inflicted on his mother and how it was the reason for what he was doing, but he couldn't. Hardy would tip off Burch and Buddy. Most of all, though, he didn't want any of them to think he had any inkling that one of them was his father. He didn't want to give them the pleasure, by damn.

"I'm losing patience, Hardy. Now let me hear it."

"The only thing you're going to hear is me telling you to kiss my ass."

"Wrong. In about fifteen minutes I'm going to hear you gasping your last breath."

Hardy was sure Luke was bluffing. All he had to do was wait.

Luke leaned back against the coffin directly behind him. It was expensive, cherry mahogany. Most of all, it was sturdy, and it was sitting on a steel casket standard, not like the flimsy kind his mother's had been on, which he would never, to his dying day, forget having turned over. He folded his arms across his chest and waited. Five minutes passed.

Hardy felt his pajamas clinging to his skin as nervous sweat oozed from every pore. "Luke," he yelled, then coughed and gasped. The air was getting thin,
real
thin. "Luke, cut it out, boy. I can hardly breathe."

"Then you better start talking."

"Luke, come on now. You don't want to fry for murder."

"You know I'm too smart to get caught. They won't know who did it. You'll just be found dead, but even that will take a while. Nobody will think to look in there. You'll start to smell before..."

Hardy was starting to hyperventilate and warned himself to calm down, but it was too late. "Please let me out of here."

"As soon as you talk, Hardy. As soon as you admit everything."

Luke prepared to switch on the Dictaphone, figuring Hardy was ready, and he was, words firing like angry bullets. "All right. All right, so I admit it. I dumped bodies out of coffins and right into the ground and then resold the coffins. But it's no big deal. And it helps keep the overall costs of funerals down for everybody, so nobody really gets hurt. Besides, they don't need a coffin, anyway. Hell, even the Bible says 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' It's a waste. Everybody and everything eventually rots."

"How many times have you done it?"

"A couple of dozen. I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. What's done is done. And I'll never do it again. I swear."

"What else have you done that was unethical or illegal?"

"Flowers..." his chest was hurting as his lungs fought desperately to suck in the last of the air. "Stole flowers from one grave to use for another funeral. Won't do it again either."

"What about the babies you've cut out of female corpses, Hardy?"

"Oh, shit. You know about that?"

"I know everything."

"Okay. Okay. But what's the harm? Everybody collects things. Stamps. Spoons. So I'm different. So what? My profession is unique. But I promise not to do that again, either. I'll... I'll burn it all."

"I have everything in a safe place," Luke said. Actually, he didn't, not yet. But he would before the night was over. If Hardy ever started backsliding, or Lucy died, Luke intended to make sure he would always have the goods to send him to prison, no matter where he, himself, happened to be at the time.

Hardy moaned again, but this time it was barely distinguishable. Luke knew the air was almost depleted. "Everything you have said has been recorded on a Dictaphone."

Right then, Hardy didn't care. He just wanted to
breathe.

"I also have a typed confession for you to sign when I let you out. And don't get any funny ideas about refusing once you are, because I'll put your sorry ass right back in there. Understand?"

Hardy understood a lot of things. He understood that he hated Luke Ballard's guts. He understood that he was capable of killing him with his bare hands and never feel a second of remorse. And he also understood that he had no choice but to do everything the bastard told him to.

"Do you?" Luke prodded, louder, harsher. He was tired of fooling around. The night was wearing on, and thoughts of Emma Jean waiting for him made him all the more anxious to finish with Hardy.

"Yes, yes, I do. Send me to jail. I don't care. Just let me out of here..."

Luke chuckled. "Oh, you aren't going to jail. Not in the real sense, anyway."

He moved to the end of the coffin and began to turn the crank once more.

This time, with each methodical
kah-lank,
Hardy's panic diminished a little. He didn't give a damn what he had to sign or what he had to do. He just wanted out of there.

* * *

Lucy stood midway on the stairs listening to their confrontation, clutching the collar of her bathrobe around her neck. She was shaking, but not with fear. Oh, no, not fear at all. Fear was now a thing of the past.