A Summer with the Dead Page 13

  Coty cleared his throat. “But as far as the farm in general, the well is fairly new. Nothing wrong with it. Elly had the water quality tested right after I arrived. The water’s clean.”

  An hour out of Graceville, the clouds thinned to smears and the sun sent pillars of golden light into the surrounding forest. The Ford Edge hummed through a covered bridge, light flickering through the empty windows. Coty pointed at something up ahead.

  “I haven’t seen that in years,” he said.

  Two bald eagles tumbled, talons locked, wings and bodies in a falling dance until they were almost to the ground. At the last second, the two birds released each other and sped off in opposite directions. They perched in a pitchfork cedar snag forty feet from the side of the road.

  “Beautiful,” Maya said. “First time I’ve seen that in nature. I’ve seen it in films before.”

  The farther from the farm they drove, the more alive Maya felt, and more capable. She saw farmers working in their fields, children and dogs running across lawns. Flowerbeds screamed in primary colors. The farther away they drove from Aunt Elly’s farm, the more unreal the ghosts seemed.

  Dr. Framish met them on Level Four. “You’re both caregivers?” he asked.

  “No, but we both live at the farm with Elly,” Coty said.

  “I live inside the house with Elly,” Maya explained. “Coty lives out in the bunkhouse.”

  “Bunkhouse? Like a cowboy?”

  “It may have been a real bunkhouse at one time,” Coty said. “But now there’s no horses and no cattle. I do repairs and maintenance around the farm.” Coty lifted one polished loafer. “No spurs.”

  Dr. Framish looked disappointed. “I understand you’re related to Eleanor Pederson?” Dr. Framish fixed his gaze on Maya, crossing his arms. His thick spectacles made his gray eyes appear as if they hovered two inches in front of his face. His white hair was thick, wavy, and it covered his ears. His smile was a slit between thin lips, exposing on his short, upper teeth.

  “I’m Elly’s niece, Maya.” Maya shook his hand. His hand was smooth, the fingernails short and flat with deep ridges. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I’ve signed her release papers. You can take her home. She seems a little unhappy and that’s not unusual when someone is reminded they’re mortal. Has she had something happen recently that’s causing her stress? Some major change in her life?”

  “She’s made the decision to sell her farm and move into a retirement facility.”

  Dr. Famish nodded. “Quite normal then. It usually passes in a month or two. Keep her busy.”

  “I plan to stay with Elly until she’s made the move. I’m helping her prepare the house for sale.”

  “Good, good.” Dr. Framish slipped a card from his breast pocket and handed it to Maya. “That’s my home phone and cell phone if you need to talk. A caregiver’s job is exhausting.”

  “Thank you.” Maya slid the card into her handbag.

  “What’s Elly’s room number?” Coty asked.

  “402,” Dr. Framish said, pointing down the hallway.

  “Thanks, Doc.” Coty squeezed Maya’s elbow and steered her down the hall.

  “What’s the rush?” Maya asked. “I wanted to ask him about Elly’s home care.”

  “I felt like a big dumb fire hydrant, waiting for Dr. Framish to finish flirting with you. I’m sure Elly is eager to go home.”

  “Dr. Framish wasn’t flirting.”

  “Are you kidding? Doctors don’t give their home and cell numbers to people.”

  “It’s for emergencies.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  The door of room 402 stood wide open. Straight through was an oversize window. The room had a view of the bay and the Black Ball ferry as it arrived at the dock, shoving foam against the pilings.

  “Hey there, gorgeous, you ready to go home?” Maya asked.

  Elly turned with a smile. “I sure am, baby girl.”

  Coty picked up a blue folder from the bedside table. “Here ya go, Maya. Discharge papers and inside is a whole section on homecare.” Coty handed the folder to Maya and then helped Elly to her feet. “You done harassing the doctors and nurses here?” Coty asked, grinning.

  “I’ll have you know I was as good as gold, Coty,” Elly insisted. “But I’ve been worried about Harlan.”

  “Why? What about Harlan?” Maya asked.

  “I tried phoning him but no one answered, even though I let it ring and ring and ring.”

  “You phoned the farm?” Maya glanced at Coty. He shrugged.

  Elly nodded her cottony head. “Yes, but then Harlan surprised me with a visit, the sweetheart. He came to see me right here at the hospital,” Elly continued. “He walked into this room in the middle of the night and kissed me on the cheek. It was so good to see him after all this time. I miss him so much.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  MAYA PUNCHED DR. CONOVER’S number while her hands trembled. She dreaded this call. Her connection dropped after the first ring. She tried again as she headed toward the second floor of the house. She halted beside the morning glory window on the upstairs landing. The window faced southwest, where two miles away a cell phone tower stood in the middle of a cow pasture.

  She heard Dr. Conover’s phone ringing and then the answering machine. Maya blurted, “Dr. Conover, this is Maya Hammond—uh, Maya Pederson. I’m having a few issues, same old stuff. You know … anxiety, sleepwalking … not sure about the sleepwalking but definitely nightmares. I need a refill on my Lorazapam. Can you fax it to the Bartell’s in Graceville? I’m staying with my aunt here … she’s seventy-six years old and needs my help so I’ll be here for the summer, but—” The dial tone interrupted. Dr. Conover had a twenty-second time limit on her answering machine.

  Maya slipped the phone into her cardigan pocket and leaned back against the wall. “She’ll get the important part of my message.”

  Whenever she stood beside the morning glory window, she faced the door at the far end of the hall. She didn’t fear Danny’s ghost, but she didn’t want to turn around and find him right behind her. That would be unnerving. She had not seen Danny since telling Coty about him four days ago.

  It was now mid-June and Maya continued to wear sweaters or sweatshirts, unless she was in the kitchen. In the kitchen her upper lip beaded with sweat and she peeled off layers. When she passed through the dining room, she pulled the layers back on, shivering. Yesterday she saw frost on the china cabinet windows. She raised a finger and touched it. Her finger melted a hole in the frost.

  “Or, did I dream that?”

  The sound of a car in the driveway sent Maya racing back downstairs. She didn’t want anyone banging on the backdoor with Elly napping on the living room sofa. Maya recognized Tony Bradley through the door window. He climbed from the car and waved.

  “Hi,” Maya said. “Come in.”

  “No, I’d better not. I’ve got my hiking boots on. Thought I’d tromp around the property if it’s okay. I should have phoned first, but this was a spontaneous idea.”

  “I’m sure Aunt Elly won’t mind. She’s asleep right now or I’d ask her.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Doctor said it’s stress. She’s doing fine.”

  “Oh, glad to hear she’s home already. I’ll get going on my hike then and leave you both alone. I plan to head uphill first, to check out the view property.” Tony pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll take some pictures while I’m snooping around.”

  “Good luck getting a signal on your phone up there.”

  “I’ve had no trouble getting a signal there before. It’s nice to see you again, Maya.” Tony stepped back and zipped the front of his jacket up to his chin.

  “Tony? Watch out for sink holes,” Maya said. “There are some.”

  “I heard about that. Glad you’re okay too.”

  Tony strode up the driveway toward the gate carrying a shovel in one hand.

  Maya closed the doo
r. “He heard about me falling into the old well?” What did he mean by, “Glad Elly’s home already?” Did the whole town of Graceville know about Elly’s stay in the hospital? Maya felt her face grow hot at the idea of being the subject of local gossip.

  The old wall phone stuttered, and Maya jumped to answer it before it blared a complete ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Sheriff Wimple here. I have more news for you about those bones in the abandoned well.”

  “Okay.”

  “As I suspected, forensics decided they’ve been there for at least forty years. They’re still unidentified at this point, but that tunnel you crawled through for a quarter mile is just one of a labyrinth of similar tunnels, mostly caused by erosion and the ground shifting. Most of them are dead-ends, only the one tunnel ends up where you found your way out. You were darn lucky, young lady. Darn lucky.”

  Crawling through that tunnel had been the most terrifying thing Maya had ever done, equal to Benson’s hands around her throat. Equal to the skeletons in the basement. Some nights she had nightmares about the tunnel, the kind of dream that woke her up sweating and gasping and unable to sleep again until the sun came up. “I didn’t feel lucky at the time, Sheriff.”

  Sheriff Wimple said, “We found another skeleton in one of the tunnels, someone who apparently tried to escape the well by crawling through like you did, but he never made it out. How’d you know which way to go?”

  “I didn’t know. I just guessed.”

  “Darn lucky, young lady, you were darn lucky.” Sheriff Wimple hung up, again without saying goodbye.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  “MAYA?” ELLY CALLED FROM the living room where she napped on the sofa.

  “You had a nice long nap, Elly. I walked out to the mailbox and back.” Maya brought the new issue of Retirement Living and dropped it at Elly’s elbow. “And here’s a cup of chamomile tea.”

  “Thank you, baby girl. My mind feels sharp now, so maybe it’s time I told you some things. You’re the only person I’ll ever tell these things to. It’s best to do it while my mind is clear.”

  “Sure.” Maya lowered herself into the big armchair beside the fireplace and balanced her tea mug on her knees. “You can tell me anything.”

  “It’s about Harlan and me, about our life together. About things the two of us did. I was hoping no one would ever need to know any of this, but you need to know, and I need to tell someone.”

  “I know you loved Uncle Harlan,” Maya said. “Practically all your life.”

  “Yes. I loved him. You see Harlan protected and defended me. When someone hurt me, he made them pay. He loved me.”

  “Someone hurt you?”

  “Yes, but let me start at the beginning. It all began with a boy at school. His name was Grady Goode and he was meaner’n snot. He was a bully. Almost every day, Grady tormented and embarrassed me, starting in second grade when I was eight years old, not long after my mother died.”

  Maya gripped her hot tea mug and shivered. She recognized the familiar, cold expression on her aunt’s face, the way Elly’s upper lip hardened, the way it looked stiff and unmoving even while she talked. Like she talked through her bottom teeth.

  “How did he embarrass you?” Maya asked.

  “He called me Ugly Elly, always saying it loud so-as to make the other kids giggle. I knew they were afraid of him, and they were just trying to stay on his good side. Then, sometimes he’d shove me in the hallway. He’d come up behind me, reach around and knock things out of my arms. He poured a handful of sand down my dress at recess and rubbed some in my hair.”

  “He might have had a crush on you, Elly. That’s how boys tease.”

  “It wasn’t that, because when he pushed me down and I skinned my knees, he laughed. My knees bled and I cried, but he just laughed harder.”

  “Did you tell your teacher?”

  Elly shook her head. “Nope. When she saw my skinned knees, I just told her I fell down. She sent me to the school nurse.”

  “What about your father? Didn’t you tell him?”

  “No, honey. He wouldn’t have done anything. Instead, I told Harlan. One night after dinner, not long after the skinned knees happened, after I washed up the dinner dishes, Harlan appeared at the back door. I looked over and saw him on the back porch, all gray and sort of blurry looking through the screen door. It was dusk outside. He said, ‘C’mon Elly. We’re gonna pay Grady Goode a visit.’”

  Maya didn’t like the image of Harlan simply appearing at the back door. She almost told Elly to stop, but Elly said she needed to talk and Maya knew how that felt. Elly needed to share it, and maybe I need to hear it. Confession was part of the healing process. Nonjudgmental listening was an important part of any confession. Maya had never considered how often Dr. Conover heard distressing stories. Stories that she’ll carry around in her mind for a lifetime probably.

  “So, Harlan knew where Grady lived?” Maya asked.

  “It was only a few blocks away. Harlan and me, we climbed over a picket fence and stood on a slope behind Grady’s house, right beside a big maple tree with a rope swing. From there, we watched Grady through a window as he teased his little brother. His brother was only about four or five years old. He kept thumping his brother on top of his head with his knuckles. He kept it up until the little guy was in tears. I don’t know where their parents were. Harlan asked me, ‘Is that Grady?’ I said yeah and then Harlan climbed the tree and untied the rope swing. He inched it about a foot to the left, behind the stub of a broken branch. After that, if someone grabbed the rope and ran and jumped with it, swinging way out over the steep slope, the rope reached that stubby branch and it flipped you right off, quick and hard, like the snap of a whip. Harlan showed me how it worked. He knew what would happen though, so when it flipped him off, he dropped straight down, landing on his feet because he was ready for it. But Grady didn’t know.” Elly paused and sipped her tea through a crooked grin. Her upper lip folded like a snarling dog.

  “Did Grady get hurt?” Maya asked.

  “Grady wore a cast on his left arm through all of October and November that year.”

  “That stopped his bullying then, right?”

  “In December he started right up again. Even when I warned him he’d be sorry, he didn’t stop.”

  “How long did this bullying go on?”

  “Longer than it should have—until I was sixteen. Sometimes I managed to avoid him. I kept my eyes open. I’d walk clear around the school building, just to stay away from him.”

  Maya took another sip of tea but was afraid she would choke if she swallowed. She held the tea in her mouth, chilled by the direction the story was taking. Did she really want to know these things? Did she really need to know? She wanted to know about Elly, not Harlan. Maya wanted to learn about the bloodline. About heredity. Their family’s history, but Elly started right where she left off.

  “By then your father, Stephen, and Grady’s little brother, had become friends. An odd coincidence, huh? I didn’t like them being friends. I was afraid Grady would tease and torment Stephen the way he did me, but Stephen said he didn’t. Grady kept after me though. I knew he’d never stop. I had to talk to Harlan about it again.”

  “To do what?”

  “This is the part that’s hard for me to talk about. It’s gonna sound god-awful, I know, but I’m gonna tell you anyway, just the way it happened without leaving anything out. I have no excuses. I won’t rose-color any part of the story. Remember, though, Maya, I was only sixteen. Okay?”

  Maya folded her stocking feet beneath her in the armchair and wedged herself deep into the corner. She took a slow breath. “All right. Go ahead.”

  Elly closed her eyes. She also took a long, slow breath before beginning. “Grady’s folks were often gone for days at a time. That’s odd isn’t it, to go off and leave two kids alone like that? Anyway, by that time Grady was sixteen like me, and his little brother’s name was Gene. Gene and your fa
ther were both thirteen then, and they had gone somewhere together for the day, so Grady was home alone. Harlan and I climbed that same picket fence and we sat on the slope under that big maple tree. It was late May and it felt almost like summer. We sat there together, side by side, saying nothing for a long time, maybe an hour. I had already decided, whatever Harlan wanted to do, I’d go along with it. Harlan waited until it was dark and then he finally said, “Let’s go.” The back door wasn’t even locked. We took off our shoes and walked right in, real quiet like. Grady was watching television, stretched out on the sofa in his underwear. Tidy whiteys, that’s all he had on. I remember the soles of his feet were dirty, like he’d gone barefoot outside. He didn’t see us coming, didn’t hear us. He was facing the other way. Harlan walked right up from behind, leaned down, and slit his throat from ear to ear.”

  Maya sat straight up. “Elly!”

  “I know. I know.” Elly worried her hands in her lap, rubbing the thumb knuckles over and over until they were red. A minute passed. “I warned you it was an awful story. Awful—and what a mess. Grady grabbed his throat with both hands and rolled off the sofa. He scrambled to his feet and turned around, eyes bulging, choking and spitting blood. He pissed himself. I remember that. Then he dropped to the floor and thrashed around for a few seconds until I guess he passed out. There was a lot of blood. It soaked into the carpet, forming a wider and wider circle. Tan carpet, big red stain. ‘Let’s go,’ Harlan said.”

  “You’ve never told anyone before? No one?”

  “Who would I tell? Harlan was the only one I ever told my secrets to.” Elly paused and rubbed her forehead. “Harlan insisted Grady got what he deserved.”

  “But what … I mean later … who found him?”

  “Gene and Stephen came back from wherever it was they went. It was Stephen who actually found Grady’s body. I didn’t mean for that to happen, you know. My own little brother?”

  “What did he say about it?” Maya asked.

  “Stephen? He never said a word about it, not to me anyway. The police asked him a lot of questions. I remember Stephen had trouble talking about it. Trouble sleeping. He didn’t eat for days. I was sorry about that. Harlan was too.”