Grave Intent (20 page)

While she walked toward the house, Janet
heard the girls squabbling and, for once, appreciated the
noise.

“Scaredy-cat.”

“Am not!”

“Am too.”

“Am not—”

There’s no one in the house. No one in the
house.
Janet opened the front door and flipped on the first
light switch she came to. The dining room and kitchen were just as
she’d left them, a box of cleaning supplies on the table and folded
paper bags on the counter.

Her footsteps sounded thunderous as she
rounded the corner to the family room and searched behind chairs
and the couch. She took the stairs two at a time, looking over her
shoulder as she went.

At the top of the stairs, Janet took a right
and headed for Ellie’s room. Once there, she cautiously snaked a
hand around the doorjamb and felt for the light switch. She thought
about the man in the window, and her stomach fluttered.

There’s no one in the house.

Her fingers bumped against the switch, and
she blinked against the sudden glare.

Twin beds with Scooby Doo comforters, a
dresser, toy chest, and Barbie vanity. All was as it should be. She
looked under the beds and in the closet. Nothing unusual.

Janet began to breathe easier as she went
through the bathroom and master bedroom and found everything in its
place. Relief sent her bounding down the stairs to collect the
girls from the van.

Twenty minutes later, Ellie and Heather were
in the tub making snowman faces with bubbles, and Janet was trying
to decide whether to have a glass of Pinot Noir or cup of warm
milk.

“Don’t take too long now. It's late, and I
want the two of you in bed. We have a big day tomorrow,” Janet
said, grateful that all evidence of their bogeyman fears had
vanished. Hers felt abated as well. She patted a pile of clothes on
the bathroom vanity. “Pajamas are right here.”

“Okay,” Ellie said, constructing a pyramid of
suds on top of Heather’s head.

Janet pulled two towels out from the linen
closet and placed them near the clothes. “Stomach better?”

“Yeah,” Ellie said. She reviewed her
sculpture. “Just feels a little squishy.”

Janet stood in the doorway and studied
Ellie's face. She didn’t look sick. Dark shadows looped beneath her
eyes, but that always happened when she grew tired.

“All right, you guys,” Janet said. “I’ll be
up later to tuck you in.”

She left the girls giggling and slapping
water at each another and headed for the stairs. Each step seemed
to emphasize the weight of the day in her legs.

Pinot Noir, definitely.

Once in the kitchen, Janet retrieved a
drinking glass from the cupboard and went to the fridge for the
Kendall Jackson Michael kept on the bottom shelf. She poured three
fingers’ depth into the glass, then went into the family room.

After turning on the television set, she
muted the volume and watched the fuzzy image on the screen. A
weatherman pointed to a graph, which showed the high and low
temperature forecasts for the next three days; hot, humid, and more
of the same. With a groan, Janet walked over to the couch, sat, and
stretched her legs out in front of her.

She rested her head against the back cushion
and let her eyes cruise about the room. Across from the television,
in the opposite corner of the room, sat Michael’s grandfather’s
favorite chair. The burgundy leather recliner had dark stains on
the headrest, a testament to years of excessive hair oil. No one
sat in it anymore, but Michael insisted that it not be moved.

Recessed between the television and recliner
was a fireplace that, to Janet’s knowledge, had never been used.
Not a smudge of soot or grime marred any part of the hearth.
Plastic ivies lined the mantel, which bordered the lower edge of a
huge picture; a ship mastering a storm’s fury at sea.

Janet sipped from her glass, reached for the
telephone on the end table near the sofa, and dialed her home
number. She needed to hear Michael’s voice.

A series of clicks preempted the line
connection, and it took a moment before it began to ring. She
rested the receiver against her shoulder and took another sip of
wine.

Five . . .six . . . seven . . . Michael
almost always picked up on the second ring. Janet glanced at her
watch. Nearly ten. Surely he wouldn’t still be at the funeral
home.

She hung up and tried the number again. An
unusually cool breeze brushed across Janet's arms while she
listened to the persistent ringing. With a shiver, she looked up at
the ceiling and spotted an air conditioner vent directly above her.
Thinking one of the girls had turned down the thermostat, she made
a mental note to turn it back up before going to bed.

When there was no answer after the tenth
ring, Janet hung up again and dialed the number for the funeral
home.

A thud echoed from upstairs.

“Into bed, girls,” she called out, and a
patter of footsteps raced overhead.

Taking a large gulp of wine, Janet listened
to the third ring, then the fourth, a fifth. She was about to hang
up, when the ringing stopped. She heard silence instead of the
customary, ‘Savoy Funeral Home,’ greeting from the answering
service.

“Hello?”

No one replied.

“Michael?”

From what sounded like an ocean’s distance
away, Janet heard a tinkling sound, like bells or chimes from a
music box.

“Hello?”

The sound grew louder and took on more
definition. A melody. One that sounded familiar, but Janet couldn’t
quite make it out.

Suddenly a loud squawk filled her ear, and
she jerked the phone away. Even with the receiver at a distance,
she heard the squawk turn into a hiss, like the sound of pork chops
frying in a skillet.

“Ancient piece of crap.” Janet dropped the
receiver onto its cradle. Evidently the phone company had decided
now was a good time for a hiatus. She placed her glass on the end
table, got up from the couch, and headed for the stairs, eager to
get out of her jeans and into something more comfortable. She would
try calling Michael later, when the lines cleared up.
If
the
lines cleared up.

Going into the bathroom first, Janet
inspected the pile of water soaked towels and clothes on the floor
and tossed what was fairly dry into the hamper. The rest she wrung
out and hung on towel rods. With that done, she went across the
hall to Ellie’s room.

A ribbon of light glowed from beneath the
bedroom door. Janet opened it slowly and peeked inside, surprised
to see her daughter in bed, covered up to the neck, and already
asleep. Heather sat ramrod straight in the other bed, chewing her
thumb.

“What’s the matter, honey? Not tired?” Janet
asked, entering the room. She picked up a shorthaired doll from the
floor and placed it on the dresser.

“I can’t sleep,” Heather said. She tucked her
bottom lip between her teeth.

Janet walked over to the edge of the bed and
sat. “You’re not still afraid of what we talked about in the van,
are you?” She didn’t want to say the word bogeyman for fear it
would upset the girl.

Heather shook her head vigorously. “No.” She
pointed to Ellie. “I can’t sleep ‘cause she won’t stop.”

Janet glanced over at her daughter. “Won’t
stop what?”

“Humming.”

“Humming?”

“Uh huh.”

Janet smiled, held out her arms, and Heather
scrambled into them. “She’s asleep, honey. She’s not . . .”

A low, eerie hum sounded from the next bed,
and Janet’s arms tightened reflexively around Heather’s back.

“I told you,” Heather whispered.

They looked over at Ellie, whose eyes
remained closed, her chest moving slow and steady with the rhythm
of sleep. Her lips, however, were pressed tightly together, and
from them came the same melody Janet had heard over the phone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Where’d the sonofabitch go?” Wilson asked,
turning in circles like a pup trying to get sight of its tail.

“I—I don’t know.” Michael placed the side of
his shoe alongside one of the prints. It was nearly twice the width
of his foot. “But get a load of this.”

Wilson let out an exasperated huff. “What? He
piss on the floor?” He went over to Michael and examined the
indicated section of carpet. “Damn!”

“Yeah.”

“No way that old man could’ve left those. He
was too puny.”

“I know.”

Michael and Wilson stared at each other
quizzically, then Wilson quickly slid a shoe across the carpet,
erasing the depression.

“Screw it,” Wilson said. “The bigger deal is
where’d the bastard go? He didn’t go past us, so what’d he do? Go
through the wall?”

Michael shoved a hand through his hair. His
father was right. Without windows or doors near the corner of the
hall, there was no immediate escape route. Michael thought about
the black shadow he’d chased earlier, the one that resembled the
flap of a coattail— similar to the coattails on the mourning suit
worn by the old man. Although Michael was positive he hadn’t seen
the man during the Stevenson service, he had to wonder—
had
he been at the service, then stayed behind when it concluded? Had
he been hiding in the funeral home all this time? That might
provide a reasonable explanation for how he got in, but it didn’t
answer squat about how he got out. From the way Michael figured it,
he’d only turned away from the old man for a few seconds. How could
anyone that old, who appeared to have difficulty even walking,
disappear that fast?

“He’s got to be somewhere in the building,”
Michael said. “I’ll take a look in the lobby. You check out the
back rooms. Maybe he did go past us, and we didn’t notice.”

“I’m old, son, not senile. We’d have had to
been blindfolded to miss him.”

“It won’t hurt to check,” Michael said,
already heading for the reception area.

“Hey!” Wilson called after him.

Michael stopped short and looked back. His
father had his bottom lip pinched thoughtfully between two
fingers.

“What?”

“Well—suppose he
is
back there,”
Wilson said. “I mean, not that I’m scared or anything. The guy’s so
old and feeble looking, I could probably knock him over with a
broken knuckle, but—I mean—he
was
big on the threats.
Suppose he’s got some goon back there—you know—an ambush or
something—waiting to get me by myself?”

“I doubt that.”

“Yeah, but just suppose . . .”

Michael shook his head in frustration. “If
you’re going to be a wuss about it, then come on. We’ll go through
the building together.”

“I’m
not
a wuss,” Wilson said,
hustling to his son’s side with a scowl. “I’m being cautious is
all. Nothing wrong with a man being cautious.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Jesus, I swear, Dad, you
get yourself into more shit . . .”

Wilson shrugged as they made their way down
the corridor. “What can I say? A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta
do. Just my way’s a little different sometimes.”

“Most times.”

“Yeah, that, too.”

Thirty minutes later, after Michael and
Wilson had completed a second search of the building, they’d still
found no sign of the old man. They settled into the lobby, where
Wilson flopped down on one of the couches.

“Okay, so he’s not here,” Wilson said. “And I
really don’t care anymore where the old bastard went. The way I
figure it, he’s gone, doesn’t matter how or where. Less I gotta
deal with. What say we call out for some dinner?”

“You can’t just drop this,” Michael said. “He
might not be here, and God only knows how he got out, but that
doesn’t change the fact that you took that gold piece. If the old
man knows you have it, then I’d bet the other Stevensons know about
it, too. We need to get the coin back to them.
You
need to
give it back to them.”

Wilson ran a fingernail across the arm of the
sofa. “I can’t.”

Michael felt his blood pressure rocket toward
the danger zone. What had all that redeemable father crap been
about earlier in the embalming room? Probably another bullshit
session. Once again, his father was proving you could throw paint
on a zebra, but underneath, the stripes remained.

“Goddammit, Dad, we’re probably talking major
lawsuit because of what you did. The Stevensons could wind up with
the whole damn funeral home by the time they’re through with us.
Even if—”

“Then I’ll countersue them for harassment.
You heard that man. He said he’d kill me.”

“No he didn’t.”

“A technicality. He said I’d die, same
thing.”

“And whose side do you think a judge would
take? Yours, claiming a ninety-something-year-old man threatened
your life? Or that old man’s, after he tells the judge you stole
from his granddaughter’s coffin? Which case do you think they’ll
investigate first?”

Wilson looked down.

“For heaven’s sake, just give it back.”

“I already told you, I can’t.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Michael
shouted. “There’s—”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t give it back. I said
I
can’t
.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I lost it.”

“You what?”

“Lost it. Gone. I don’t have it,
Michael.”

Michael held his breath, waiting for a punch
line. When it didn’t come, he said, “You’re shittin’ me,
right?”

Wilson shrugged. “I wish I were. That’s why I
came back here, to ask you for your house keys.” He looked up at
him sheepishly. “I went to your house earlier, before Janet and the
girls left, because I broke out in this rash and needed a bathroom
to wash up.” He held up a hand as if to thwart an assumed question.
“The john here had too many people in it. Anyway, I had the
medallion, or coin, or whatever the shit it is, in my jacket
pocket, and when I went into your bathroom, I took the jacket off.
It must have fallen out then. I didn’t find out it was missing
until later, after I left your place. I went back to look for it,
but—uh—your house was locked.”