The Loveliest Dead (15 page)

“Where’d you go today?” he asked.

“With Kimberly. We went out to lunch.”

“What’s the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

David stood and came to her, embraced her as he laughed. “You look like you just did something terrible.”

So you’ve kept it a secret
, Mrs. Frangiapani had said.
Then you have a problem, angel, because secrets are always problems.

“Oh. Well, I didn’t know you’d be home so early, so I didn’t make any lunch, and I went out with Kimberly instead, so ... I’m sorry.”
 

“Honey, I’m not helpless—I fixed a sandwich. When does Miles get home?”

“He should be here any minute.”

He gave her a kiss and whispered, “Got time for a quickie?”

“Oh, honey, not right now,” Jenna said. “I’m sorry, but I feel really full from lunch. I had a big hamburger.”

“Okay, later, then.” He kissed her again, and she reached down and gave his ass a two-handed squeeze.

“How do you like work?” she asked.

“It’s great. Nice layout, well-organized. Everybody seems like good people. I think I’ll like it.”

“I’m so happy you got it.”

“You just want me out of the house so you can run off and shop and have girly lunches with your girlfriend.”

Jenna laughed. “Is leftover stew for dinner all right with you?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Okay, then, I don’t have to worry about dinner, so I can focus on finding an electrician and making Mom an appointment with an eye doctor.”

“I replaced the bulb on the back porch,” David said. “It works fine now.”

“I’m still calling an electrician. Enjoy your races.” Jenna went into the kitchen to find the Yellow Pages.

David had thought of the boys in the backyard many times throughout the day. He wondered if Deputies Hooper and Caruso had found them, or any trace of them. Most of all, he wondered if they were all right.
 

They ate dinner in the living room, where it was warm. David found himself listening for something other than the television. But he wouldn’t hear them in the living room, not if they were playing in the backyard. He finished his bowl of stew and got up halfway through a rerun of
Friends
. “Delicious, honey,” he said as he left Jenna, Miles, and Grandma in the living room.
 

David rinsed his bowl, put it in the sink, and went to the breakfast nook. He leaned his palms on the tabletop, looked out the window, and saw nothing but his own reflection over the darkness outside. He stayed there a moment, listening. A storm was blowing in and the chain swings chattered in the night like metal teeth. The branches of an elm tree in the backyard scratched against the house. But he heard nothing else.
 

It was not until later that night, ten minutes after Jenna had fallen asleep in bed beside him, that he heard them again. The sound of their laughter was quickly whipped away by the wind, but he heard snatches of it fluttering through the night outside, the phantom laughs of little boys. He moved carefully to avoid disturbing Jenna as he got out of bed. He quickly put on his sweats and running shoes and left the bedroom without making a sound.
 

Miles’s bedroom door was closed and the overhead light was on again. David ignored it for now. He moved slowly and carefully through the house because he did not want to turn on any lights. In the kitchen, he went to the back door and peered out the window. It was a dark night, but he could see movement in the yard.
 

David carefully unlocked and opened the back door a crack and listened. The ivy leaves in the yard gossipped quietly in the wind. The boys were laughing, but sounded as if they were trying to keep their voices low. It was secretive laughter. As he picked up the flashlight with his left hand, he used his right to carefully, silently open the back door all the way. He switched the Mag-Lite to his right hand, put his left on the light switch, and stepped out onto the porch. He could make out their figures over by the swing set and slide, but they weren’t playing on the equipment. They appeared to be huddled together, whispering and laughing.
 

David turned on the porch light, but it was not bright enough to reach the boys. They fell silent as David clicked the flashlight on and sent the beam out toward them. They stood together between the slide and the swings. As bright as the beam was, it fell just short of reaching the boys, of revealing their faces.
 

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to hurt you,” David said. “You’re not in trouble or anything. I just... I want to know... What are you doing out this late by yourselves? Huh? Where are your parents?” He went down the concrete steps of the porch and advanced toward them, hoping to bring them into the light. But the five boys backed away together slowly and avoided the beam. “Where are you from? Do you live around here?”
 

David flinched when he heard a loud pop and the porch light went out behind him. “Dammit,” he muttered.

“He’s coming!” one of them hissed.

Another said, “Run!” and a third said, “Go!”

“No, wait,” David said. He couldn’t see the figures in the dark anymore. He swung the light around the yard. They were gone. “How the hell—”
 

David rounded the corner, went along the side of the house at a full run, and was in the front yard in seconds. The boys weren’t there, either. The gate was closed, and he had not heard it open.
 

He decided to go all the way around the fence tomorrow and examine it. There had to be a hole in it somewhere—it was the only explanation for the boys’ almost instantaneous escape.
 

I didn’t hear them running
, David thought as he walked back down the side of the house and into the backyard.
Why didn’t I bear them running
?
 

“Fuckin’ puppies,” a voice said. It was the moist, roughly whispered voice of a man who sounded like he seldom felt the need to talk very loud. “Looks like we got some renegades there. Gonna have to take care of ‘em.”
 

David swept the flashlight in the direction of the voice, and the beam fell, for just a moment, on a man standing in the northwest corner of the backyard. The light stayed on just long enough for David to make out a pear-shaped man wearing a cowboy hat, a denim vest over a dirty white T-shirt, ratty old jeans, and cowboy boots. The vest was parted by the mound of his belly, which dangled sadly over the top of the sagging, beltless jeans. A melon slice of hairless, pale belly peeked out from beneath the strained T-shirt. The flashlight blinked out and David found himself in the cold, wet dark.
 

After flicking the button a few times, David smacked the heavy metal flashlight into the palm of his left hand. He had replaced the batteries just before they moved. He could not understand why it had gone out. The cold drizzle still sent chills over his back, but he felt a new chill, this one at the back of his neck, unrelated to the cold.
 

The sound of a match being lit just to his left was so close to David that he dropped the flashlight and took a quick step away from the sound. He turned to face the man, who remained in profile as he lit a cigar about two feet away, his cowboy hat tilted forward. He cupped a hand around the match’s flame, which sent a dance of orange and yellow over his face. It revealed a large, pitted nose and an enormous second chin rough with stubble.
 

David felt his heartbeat in his throat. “Who are you? Where the hell did you come from?”

“Them renegade puppies ... you gotta know how to handle ‘em.”

David winced when he got a whiff of the cigar and stepped back again. He was not fond of cigar odor of any kind, but this one was especially foul. It smelled like a combination of moldy leaves and rotting meat.
 

The man turned to face David. “You gotta know how to handle ‘em,” he said as he stepped forward once, twice.

David tried to dodge him, to move out of the way, and almost tripped on the flashlight. The fat man stepped into him as if he were a phone booth. David fell into the weeds, but quickly propped himself up on one elbow.
 

The cigar was no longer an odor, but a harsh, immediate taste inside his mouth, a burning in his lungs. It was vile ... awful... pretty bad ... an acquired taste.
 

I’m dreaming
, David thought as everything turned black.
 

CHAPTER NINE

Tuesday, 2:58 A.M.

David found himself stacking boxes in the basement. His flashlight was working and he was putting the last box on the stack when he became conscious of his surroundings. As this happened, he was overwhelmed by the stomach-lurching sensation of something spiritually viscous extracting itself from his mind, from his soul. It left dribbling gobbets of itself behind as it ripped away from him like an overstrained membrane, and David’s mind flashed with unspeakable images of children, someone’s little boys, naked and sprawled. The images were bad enough, but there was something else, something unthinkable—they stirred deep in his gut the clinging ghost of a hungry, ugly desire, and David dropped the flashlight, fell to his hands and knees, and retched. He vomited to get rid of it, to get it out of him, and hoped it came up with the bile that foamed in the dirt.
 

The splintered old high chair with its six leather straps fell flat on the dirt floor inches in front of him, and he cried out. He grabbed up the flashlight and clambered to his feet. He passed the beam all around the basement.
 

Why was I stacking boxes? he thought. Was I putting something away? What am I doing down here?

He realized he was down in the basement in the middle of the night—if it was still night; he had no idea what time it was—after ... what? What had he been doing?
 

On his way up the stairs, he realized he had been walking in his sleep and dreaming. He hadn’t done that since he was a kid. He shuffled down the hall with his eyes barely open, so tired he could feel himself nodding off as he walked. He left his sweats in a heap on the floor. He was so exhausted, he did not hear himself mutter under his breath as he got into bed, “Fuckin’ puppies.”
 

“It was like he was hungover,” Jenna said. “I didn’t think he was going to make it to work on time, I was really worried. I mean, it’s his first day, you know?”
 

At the wheel of the Durango, Kimberly asked, “Did he do a little celebrating last night or something?”

“Oh, no. David’s not a big drinker, and neither am I. In fact, we haven’t had any beer or liquor in the house since we moved in. Even before that, back, in our apartment in Redding. David was just really exhausted this morning. He said he didn’t sleep well last night. Said he had a weird dream about digging around down in the basement. Probably just worried about the new job.”
 

Jenna had called Ada Brodky and asked if she would come to her house for a sitting that day. “I’ll provide the transportation, Mrs. Brodky,” Jenna had said.
 

“It’s not Mrs. I never married. I didn’t see the point. You can call me Ada.”

When they drove up to her trailer, Ada did not wait for them to get out of the Durango. She came out of the trailer wearing a long gray wool coat and carrying a dark green suitcase. A long, freshly lit cigarette poked from the corner of her mouth.
 

“I hope she didn’t think I asked her to move in with us,”Jenna said.

“Harry’s gonna flip when he smells smoke in here,” Kimberly said.

“Why don’t you tell her to put it out?”

“I’m not sure she can. That’s all right—let’s just crack the windows and hope for the best.”

Jenna got out of the SUV and greeted Ada, asked if she could help with the bag.

“Just put this in the back,” Ada said as she handed the suitcase over to Jenna.

It was light and Jenna put it in the backseat, then got in with it, giving Ada the front seat.

“No offense,” Ada said as Kimberly drove away from the trailer, “but I’ve always hated these damned things.”

“What things?” Kimberly said as she pulled open the empty, pristine ashtray.

“These buses, or SUVs, or whatever you call ‘em. They’re so hard to get into and out of, and they’re so damned
big
. I used to drive a little Volvo, and I’d hate to be on the road with these things. But I stopped driving a long time ago. I couldn’t take the pressure no more. Too many cars, too many people. I take the bus everywhere now. A cab once in a while, on special occasions.”
 

“Well, we have three kids,” Kimberly said.

“Ah, kids. There’s something I’m not sorry I never had.”

Ada kept talking, but Jenna tuned her out. David was at work, Miles at school, but she wondered how she was going to explain Ada and a sitting—whatever
that
was— to her mother.
 

By the time they got back to the house, Ada had complained about everything from the winter’s effects on her joints to the quality of television news coverage. Jenna went into the house ahead of them to find Martha. The breakfast nook was empty, so she went to Martha’s bedroom. The door was closed. “Mom?” she said. She opened the door a crack and looked in.