A Summer with the Dead Page 15

  “Elly invited him. She wants to sell the farm and Tony Bradley, naturally, wants to list it through his company.”

  “His ‘company?’” Coty snorted.

  “Bradley Realty, there on Main Street,” Maya said. “It’s new.”

  “Bradley may have rented the building and stuck the sign in the window, but the door stays locked and there’s nothing inside. Bradley hasn’t even applied for a business license. I checked.”

  “What’s in there, then?”

  “A wooden desk with empty drawers and two chairs, a cheap lamp, and a legal tablet, a ballpoint pen, two filing cabinets that are both completely empty, and a bunch of dust.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Wait until three A.M. I’ll show you how to pick a lock and you can check it out yourself, like I did. The place is just a front.”

  “I wonder what he’s up to then?” Maya asked.

  Coty leaned forward, chin on his knuckles wearing an unreadable expression. “Do you think Benson would ever hire someone to get rid of you?”

  “He’d never spend money on it.”

  “You’re positive?” Maya closed her eyes for a moment and then nodded. “I’m ninety-nine percent certain.”

  Coty tilted his chair back. “You got a picture of this ex-husband? I want to recognize him if he shows up here.”

  “Good idea.” Maya dug the old plastic photo holder from the bottom of her purse. “This is his business photo, taken four years ago.” She slipped Benson’s 2x3-inch photo from the transparent cover and handed it to Coty. “Keep it,” she said. “It’s just stinking up my purse anyway.”

  Coty frowned at Benson’s photo and slipped it into his breast pocket. “Anything else?”

  “Can you get the window above the sink open?” Maya asked.

  Coty glanced at the kitchen window. “Sure. Anything else?”

  “Write down your cell number for me please.”

  Coty scribbled his number on the kitchen notepad. “That’s it?”

  Maya knew what Coty wanted. He wanted to know about Danny. He wanted to know if she had seen him again, if Danny had spoken to her. He wanted to know if she had told Danny his Uncle Wayne was there and would take him home soon. Maya cleared her throat.

  “I haven’t seen Danny since I told you about him.”

  Coty nodded but looked disappointed.

  “Elly told me an unsettling story yesterday, about the farm. I find the tale difficult to believe. I don’t want to believe it. I wonder if she’s making some of it up, because it’s just too fantastic. Too crazy,” Maya said.

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to use that word.”

  “Far-fetched then,” Maya said. “But I can’t repeat the story, yet.”

  “Why?”

  “The story isn’t finished. Elly wanted to tell me the rest, but she was becoming visibly upset and I was afraid she’d decide I was grilling her. If she stops talking we’ll never know what happened here, and I need to know. You need to know.”

  “Does it include Danny?” Coty said.

  “I’m pretty sure Elly knows what happened to him. But remember, she doesn’t know he’s your nephew. She doesn’t know who you are yet.”

  “If we went upstairs, right now, would we see Danny?”

  Maya glanced at the kitchen clock. It was fifteen minutes after twelve. Noon and midnight were when she usually saw Danny in the upstairs hallway. “Maybe,” she said.

  Maya and Coty headed through the dining room. “Have you seen Elly outside anywhere, Coty? Because when I got home she was nowhere to be found.”

  “No, but she can’t have gone far.” Coty halted at the top of the stairs. He squeezed the railing so tight his knuckles turned white.

  Maya followed the direction of his gaze. The green boy floated at the far end of the hallway, his back to the last door. She whispered,

  “Is that Danny?”

  Coty nodded and continued forward until he stood less than ten feet away from the boy.

  “Danny?” Coty said.

  The green light spun, as if Danny was a slow whirlwind, transparent and glimmering the way a distant star flickers.

  “Help me!” Danny appeared to be shouting but his voice sounded far away.

  “Where are you, Danny?”

  “It’s dark!” Danny’s face contorted inside the green glow. “Can’t move. Help me!”

  “Where?” Coty repeated. Danny shrank back toward the end of the hall, like a swimmer in an undertow, his glow fading.

  “I’ll find you, Danny.” Coty shouted. “And I’ll take you home.”

  Maya stepped up beside Coty. “He never stays very long.” Coty’s face and hands were pale.

  “You okay?” Maya asked.

  “No. I’m not.” Coty headed downstairs where he slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Why wouldn’t he tell us where he’s at?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know,” Maya said.

  “I tracked him all the way here, thinking I’d take him home to his parents, but I’m too late.” Coty rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes but Maya knew he was hiding angry tears. His shoulders drooped. “I have to find him, but where do I start? He could be anywhere around here. Anywhere! There’s five hundred acres to search.”

  “We’ll find him,” Maya said. “Because inside this house is the only place I ever see him. Upstairs in the hall. He’s in this house.”

  “Damn! What the hell happened here? Who would hurt a seventeen year old kid?”

  “Give me more time. Elly is starting to open up, but I have to be careful. She’s defensive when it comes to Harlan. If I push for more information, that’s when Mr. Elly shows up, and he scares me.”

  Coty placed his tea mug in the sink. “I’m not afraid of Mr. Elly. I’ll choke the information out of that scrawny throat if I have to.” He opened the back door and crossed the driveway to the bunkhouse without another word.

  Maya wanted to help Coty but she wasn’t sure how. Behind her, the floor-boards snapped. Maya felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

  “Look what I found, baby girl” Elly maneuvered her way through the dining room, her arms loaded with photo albums. She carried them into the kitchen and dropped them on the table.

  “Where have you been?” Maya asked. She hoped Elly hadn’t heard what she and Coty were talking about.

  “In the attic. Way in the back.”

  “I was looking for you and getting a little worried. What do you have there? Any photos of Uncle Harlan?” Maya asked.

  “Yep,” Elly said. “The one I told you about. It shows my sweetie’s face.” Elly slid a faded blue album from the bottom of the pile and flipped it open to the middle. “Right there, see?” She pointed to a black and white photo in the lower right corner of the page, held in place by black paper corners.

  “But it’s just his profile.” Maya was disappointed. “And he’s wearing a hat that covers his eyes.”

  “Well, yes, but you can see most of his face,” Elly said. “And then, there’s this photo too.” She flipped several more slick, yellowed, pages and pointed to another black and white photo. “There’s Harlan, right there.”

  Harlan sat on the hood of a delivery truck. Behind the truck were two big metal doors and above the doors hung a sign, CHICAGO ORE AND REFINING.

  “That’s so typical of Harlan,” Elly said with a grin. “He was a bit of a showoff in those days.”

  Harlan wore denim coveralls and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His painter’s hat tilted forward, shading his eyes, but visible were his nose, his cheeks and smirking mouth and chin. The heels of his dirty work boots were jammed into the front grill of the truck. His left arm rested on one knee and his index and middle finger held a cigarette.

  “I still can’t see his eyes very good,” Maya said. “Don’t you have a wedding photo anywhere?”

  “Justice of the Peace married us, baby girl, and there was no official wedding
photo. No tux, no white dress, no bouquet, just Harlan and me and a clerk who volunteered as a witness. We were so happy that day.”

  “Elly?”

  “Yes, baby girl?”

  “What was Harlan’s last name?’

  “…last name?’

  “You kept your maiden name, Pederson, but what about Harlan? What was his last name?”

  “Jones.”

  “Elly? Who took this photo?”

  “Of Harlan on the truck there, smoking that cigarette?”

  Maya nodded.

  “I did.” Elly sounded proud. “I took that photo.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  “FOLLOW ME.”

  “What?” Maya sat up, flipped on her bedside lamp and glanced around the room. She saw no one. “Who said that? Who’s there?” She kicked away the covers. Seconds later she stood in the moonlit hall. Danny floated beside the morning glory window. He shimmered inside his spinning green light, as if he had been expecting her. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes dark and hollow as he floated toward the stairs. Maya followed, barefoot. She glanced through the bathroom door as she passed by. Both hands on the clock’s glowing face pointed straight up. Midnight.

  The hardwood floor felt like ice beneath her bare feet and she shivered. Why hadn’t she grabbed her robe? It was right there on the foot of her bed, and her slippers, right there on the oval rug. Maya remembered pushing back the covers but she had no memory of opening her bedroom door or stepping into the hallway now. She glanced back at her open bedroom door. The doorway was dark. She was certain she left the lamp on.

  “Follow me,” Danny’s voice sounded like a distant echo, or as if it was inside her own ears, not in the hall.

  Maya followed him down the stairs, her toes growing numb on the cold wood. Her breath formed clouds in the air of the stairwell. The clouds rolled into the gloom overhead. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she saw a dull yellow glow. The glow came from the dining room. Maya looked around for Danny but he was gone.

  Maya felt the floor thump beneath her feet. She grasped the newel post and sucked frigid air through her lips while sweat beaded her upper lip. A shiver traveled the length of her spine. She stepped forward, toward an opaque plastic curtain that blocked the entrance to the dining room. A shadow crossed the curtain. Maya lifted the edge of the plastic. Inside the dining room more plastic sheeting covered the window and the floor. Plastic sheets draped the china cabinet and the buffet and a giant blue tarp covered the dining table, almost reaching to the floor. The chandelier was gone. Instead, a six-inch hook hung from the chain. The yellow glow emanated from a double candelabrum on the buffet where ten candles flickered. On the floor stood a bucket, filled to the brim with a glossy red liquid, a thick, dark, red liquid almost as black as the bucket.

  Maya steps into the room and the plastic curtain rustles closed behind her. It’s even colder in the dining room than on the stairs. She blinks. It’s difficult to focus on things in this room. Everything looks dim and blurry. The light is weak and the room’s corners are thick with shadows. Something shiny gleams on the table. Maya squints, focuses. The gleam comes from polished metal. She steps closer and sees knives, a saw, and a cleaver. Their black handles glisten, slick and red with blood. She blinks again. On the table lay a man’s body, face down, the bottoms of his bare feet face her. His flesh is stark white.

  Another man rises up from between the buffet and the other end of the table. He is short and thin and wears a gray plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His arms are lean and sinewy. His shirttail is jammed into baggy jeans. He grabs the cleaver in one bony hand and seems to study the tool, turning it back and forth in the dim light, as if admiring the flashing blade.

  Maya blinks again. The scene is like an aged newsreel, quick and jerky. When the man pauses, it looks like an old photograph, the reds having faded to sepia. He lifts the cleaver to eye level and brings it down. Whack. One foot falls into two pieces, sliced through the arch. No blood oozes from the wound. He picks up both pieces and tosses them into a black trash bag.

  Whack. An ankle and heel follow.

  Maya steps back, slips on something and looks down. Her legs are transparent, her feet gone. She has no body. She lifts her hands but sees nothing there. She is invisible.

  I’m dreaming. Wake up. Wake up!

  Whack. The cleaver flashes in the dim light again and another ankle and heel are thrown into the trash bag. The sepia man bends down again, below the table. A cupboard door squeals open and then clossd. He holds a serving platter—Elly’s rose pattern china. He sets it down on the corner of the buffet. Whack. A man’s head settles with a plop in the center of the platter, a man’s head with silvery blond hair and thick dark smears across his forehead, cheeks and ears. A thin trickle of dark blood pools around the man’s head. The man’s face wears no expression. His eyes are closed. He frowns in his bottomless sleep.

  Maya shivers. She feels herself trembling with cold. How can I be cold if I’m not here? I’m dreaming…just dreaming. Wake up! Wake up!

  Blood drips from the edge of the tarp to the plastic sheet on the floor. Tap. Tap. Tap. It trickles, glistening and red toward Maya’s feet and she steps aside before it reaches her invisible toes. She leans forward. She wants to see the sepia man’s face, but he turns his back, his shoulders hunched. He drops the slick, red cleaver on the table and tosses two knees into the trash bag. His hand searches behind him for the saw. Finds it. Lifts it. The gleaming steel teeth sparkle in candlelight.

  Maya leans closer, determined. The butcher turns his back again and drags the bulging trash bag into the middle of the kitchen. He wears black boots. They make a sticky sound on the linoleum and leave a trail of smeared, red footprints.

  On the dining room table are parts of the man’s body, naked, so bloodless the flesh is blue-white. Like a side dish, both blue-white hands rest alongside the head on the platter. The legs have been separated from the torso at the hips.

  Something brushes Maya’s feet. She looks down, sees a bony hand blotting up a crimson puddle with a blue towel. The butcher has returned without a sound, without a footstep. He’s swabbing up the blood. She steps back. He doesn’t see her, she doesn’t see herself.

  How can he not see me? Why can’t I see myself?

  The sepia man carries the blood-soaked towel through the kitchen and tosses it through the open basement door and down the stairs. It lands on the bottom step with a wet slap.

  In the middle of the kitchen stands a small freezer chest, the lid wide-open, inner edges bulging with thick frost. The butcher enters the dining room again, picks up two thighs and carries them to the freezer. He wedges them deep into the bottom, returns to the table and lifts the lower torso. He drops it straight down into the freezer, adjusting it to fit alongside the thighs and returns for the chest and arms. The torso lands with a meaty whump in the freezer. He folds the arms around the sides, fitting the elbows into the corners. There is a hollow in the open diaphragm beneath the ribs, below the heart. The head slides from the platter and into the freezer. The butcher fits the head into the hollow. He wedges the hands in tight alongside the head, covering the ears. The butcher pauses to grin at the image, nodding. He pats the head’s silver hair and slams the freezer lid shut. He fastens a brass padlock and gives it a yank. The padlock holds.

  Maya backs away toward the plastic curtain, slipping in traces of slick blood. She lifts the edge of the plastic and glances back toward the kitchen. The sepia man grunts as he tilts the freezer and rolls it across the linoleum. The freezer’s small wheels crawl over the doorsill.

  Thump, thump, thump. The freezer batters each step as it’s rolled down into the basement.

  Maya sat up in bed with a gasp. She turned on her bedside lamp. The lace window curtain lifted in the draft from the window. A breeze puffed into the room along with the smell of pine and moss. And early morning moon peeked through the tops of the trees. It was cool in her room, but
not freezing. Her breath left no clouds in the air. Her toes were warm beneath the quilt, not numb with cold. She slipped one foot from under the covers. No blood.

  “Danny?” Maya whispered. She waited.

  Somewhere in the forest an owl hooted but Danny said nothing.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE PHONE RANG. “MAYA Pederson? This is Dr. Framish. I have the results of your aunt’s tests. Is she available?”

  “She’s asleep. If you’ll wait I’ll wake her.”

  “No. You’re her caregiver. I can tell you.”

  “I’ll write down what you say and I’ll tell her later. Go ahead. I have a pen and paper,” Maya said.

  “It’s good news. As I suspected, there was no stroke. Her blood calcium and cholesterol levels are excellent, and her cardiac catheter test shows that her arteries and veins are clear. Her blood pressure is normal. Her EKG came well within acceptable range, and I might add, she is surprisingly strong for a woman her age. In fact, all her tests came back in the upper five percent for her age group. She is as healthy as an active fifty year old.”

  “But then, what happened? She was incoherent and unresponsive to our voices.”

  “I’m guessing an anxiety attack. Is there a family history of neurological disorders?”

  “Uh, yes … her brother … my father.”

  “Anxiety?” Dr. Framish asked.

  “My father had serious clinical depression.”

  “She didn’t exhibit signs of depression while she was at the hospital. Do you think she’s depressed now?”

  “No, but she gets stressed about things. She worries. She’s been dwelling on the past lately. She gets upset easily. I suspect she’s imagining things, maybe confusing her dreams with reality, and she sleepwalks. She said she spoke with her husband but he’s been dead for five years. I don’t know. Maybe that’s anxiety?”

  “She mentioned a visit from her husband while at the hospital. I knew he was deceased. Your aunt is on no prescription drugs, though, right? From any previous conditions?”