A Summer with the Dead Read online

  “Heavy beds? Maybe I should do that,” Coty said.

  “No, they aren’t heavy. It means several trips up and down the stairs, but I can handle it. You go ahead and do your shopping. I’ll talk to you when you get back.”

  Coty almost closed the door and then stuck his head inside again, and whispered, “Seen Danny?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  Coty looked disappointed as he closed the door. A minute later his truck rumbled down the driveway and into the trees.

  Maya finished washing and drying the breakfast dishes. She eyed the calendar as she draped the towel across the drying rack. Today marked exactly nine weeks since she had arrived at the farm. She had anticipated a happy summer here. A joyous adventure. She remembered being five years old and longing to see this place. Her father had talked about the farm many times. He had visited Elly here once, but Maya’s mother had stayed home. Why would Daddy visit Aunt Elly and leave Mom home? According to her mother, it was after his trip here that his emotional problems began.

  The old porcelain sink was in vogue again, but not with those rhubarb stains in the bottom. Maya searched under the sink for stain remover. She found it behind a red, plastic squirt bottle, the kind normally used for ketchup.

  “Ketchup? Under the sink?” Maya pulled off the miniature cap and sniffed. Gasoline?

  Maya scrubbed the stains and then climbed the stairs. “Aunt Elly?”

  “Up here, baby girl. Up through my closet,” Elly said. “I found some more photographs.”

  Maya pretended to climb the folding stairs for the first time and tried to look surprised at the attic room. “Wow, it’s big up here.”

  “I expected it to be dustier than it is. Once we get it emptied out, I’ll run the vacuum around and dust the cupboards.” Elly sat at the square table, rifling through a pile of photographs inside a shoebox. “Most of these are from before I graduated from high school. Not a one of Harlan, doggone it.”

  “Coty just left for the store. He’ll be back in about an hour.” Maya halted at the corner. “Are those four beds the ones you want me to take apart?” Maya crossed the room and stood between two of the beds. “Should we take down all this old black canvas, too?”

  “Yes. I don’t want people wondering why we had this room so closed off from the outside. When Coty gets back I’ll talk to him about taking down that door at the far end of the room. I’ll want him to sheetrock over it, tape and mud it. No one will ever know it was there.”

  “Is it a closet?” Maya felt guilty pretending not to know.

  “No. It’s an old stairwell, and it leads to that tunnel I told you about. The escape route, remember? Nowhere anyone would want to go now.”

  Maya said, “I brought tools from the kitchen drawer, because if those beds have been sitting here a while, they might be stubborn.”

  “Good thinking, Maya. Let’s get started.”

  An hour later, Maya hauled the last headboard down through the trapdoor, down the main staircase and through the kitchen. Finally the attic was empty.

  “I’m glad they were just twin beds,” Maya said. “I don’t think I could have managed bigger mattresses.”

  The attic furniture was now on the porch, up against the outside of the house between the kitchen window and the end railing. The square table and four chairs were included and so was a cardboard box with old dishes, cups, and stainless ware from the attic room.

  “I never allowed anyone to do any cooking up in the attic.” Elly sat down at the kitchen table with a tired sounding sigh. She glanced out the window toward the barn. “I was afraid they’d start a fire. That’s why I cooked and sent things up through the dumbwaiter.”

  “The beds, the table and chairs, and the dishes, didn’t make as big a pile out there on the porch as I expected,” Maya said. “Have you noticed how the house sounds hollow now that it’s empty?”

  “That’s how it sounded the first time I came here,” Elly said.

  “I can start painting again if you want me to.”

  “Nah. The new owners will probably paint anyway. People usually do, don’t they? All we need to do is keep this old house clean,” Elly said. “The two of us can do that, with it empty and all.”

  Maya washed the dust and grime from her hands. “What’s this bottle of gasoline for, Elly?” She held the ketchup bottle up for her aunt to see.

  “Ahhh, let me think. I used it for cleaning something, something greasy and corroded, but I can’t recall exactly what it was now. Just leave it there please, Maya. I’ll remember eventually and maybe need it again.”

  Maya returned the ketchup bottle under the sink. “Dad came here once, didn’t he?”

  “Stephen? Yes. But that was before you were born.”

  “Did Dad and Harlan get along?”

  Elly shrugged. “Neither one of them ever said anything to me about the other.”

  “Why didn’t Mom come?”

  “She didn’t like me, remember?”

  “Seems strange that she wouldn’t come, though. I continued living with Benson for three years after I decided I didn’t like him.”

  “You’ll have to ask your mother why she didn’t come, Maya.”

  “Dad always said the farm was such a pretty piece of property.”

  “He said that?”

  “He said it was awfully big though, for you to take care of. Dad never mentioned Harlan, but he said you talked about Harlan a lot.”

  “Mainly, I just kept the house clean and organized. Harlan was usually outside, from morning to night. He didn’t want the animals, but I did and I talked him into getting them. The fields required regular plowing. Some years we rented a combine harvester and sold hay to local farmers. You have to keep your fields down, otherwise trees take over and you end up living in the middle of a forest, and then your roof turns to moss. We wanted open fields. We wanted to be able to see all the way out to the county road, and up to the barn.”

  Maya set plate of cookies on the table. “Elly, where is Uncle Harlan buried?”

  “… buried?”

  “In the new cemetery?”

  Elly gazed out the window with an unreadable expression. “Oh dear,” she said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I … I can’t remember.”

  “It’ll come back to you. It’ll just pop into your head when you’re not even thinking about it.”

  “But that’s so odd, isn’t it? That’s just so—odd—to forget something like that. Why can’t I remember?” Elly buried her face in her hands and shook her head.

  “Don’t cry, Elly. I’m sorry I asked.”

  Elly sniffed. “I can’t believe I’ve gone and lost my sweet Harlan.”

  “I can ask in town,” Maya said. “There should be records …”

  “No, baby girl. Don’t do that. I’ll ask Harlan the next time I see him. Harlan will know.”

  A black cloud appeared, growing in size behind the upper barn, taking on the shape of a fist with gnarled fingers. A moment later it stretched its fingers toward the house. The fields and fences blurred. Maya took her first bite of raisin cookie as the first blast of rain hit the windows.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY

  IT WAS NOON, THE last Sunday in July. Maya had been at the farm for eleven weeks. Earlier that morning several prospective buyers had phoned and arranged to visit the farm in response to Elly’s ads in the Port Angeles Herald and The Seattle Times: FOR SALE – 225 acre farm – two hilltop view lots – 6,500 sq ft house, five bedrooms, two full baths, 1/2 bath in bunkhouse, 3 fireplaces, year-round salmon/trout stream, two barns, chicken coop, woodshed, carport and new furnace – fenced fields – serious buyers only – DIY Reality 555—469 – 1313.

  In addition, over thirty realtors phoned, hoping to list Elly as their exclusive client. She said no. She would sell it herself.

  Elly answered another call and then hung up. “That’s the twelfth one to ask about the view lots. No one seems to be interested in
the farm. I wonder if some of them found out this place used to be a mortuary and the fields were a graveyard. Cowards.”

  Maya and Elly finished emptying out the kitchen cupboards. They threw out the remaining food items that were nearing their pull dates along with chipped, cracked, or broken, bowls and cooking pots with lose or missing handles.

  “Harlan always planned to repair these,” Elly said. “This here cooking pot is one of the first things I ever bought for the farm.”

  Maya dragged the filled cardboard box out to the back porch before returning and scrubbing out the emptied cupboards with hot bleach water, followed by a wipe down with a damp towel. She left the cupboard doors open to dry.

  “Coty did a good job of removing all that black canvas in the attic. Next I’ll have him remove that door. I’ll have him pry open some windows around here too,” Elly said. “Most have been painted shut for at least fifty years.”

  “I’ll clean out the wood stove,” Maya said. “Where’s the cinder bucket?”

  “Basement.”

  “Oh.” Maya glanced at the basement door and then took the big, new flashlight from the counter. “Is it near the stairs?” she asked.

  “It’s over by the furnace,” Elly said.

  “Why so far away?”

  “When we bought this place the furnace was a big, wood burning thing, so that’s where the ash bucket sat. And even though I had the new oil furnace put in, I’ve just always left the bucket sitting there in the same spot.”

  Maya hesitated with her hand hovering an inch above the doorknob.

  “I’ll go down an get it, baby girl.”

  “No,” Maya said. “No—I can do this.” She opened the yellow door. The flashlight came to life with the click of a button, lighting up the basement stairs. She took five steps down and then paused and aimed the beam of light toward the distant corner. She saw nothing except for the square of plywood Elly had placed there a short time ago to ‘mark the spot.’ Tell them to dig here, Maya.

  Maya continued down the stairs, noting the snaps and groans of the aged wood. She halted at the bottom and once again aimed the beam of light into the darkest corner. Still nothing.

  The dirt in the basement was the color of dust. Down there everything smelled old, the way antique shops and junkyards smelled old, abandoned cars, condemned buildings, barns, sheds, musty attics and mausoleums. That thought always came to Maya when she entered that basement. Mausoleums.

  Her mother had taken her to a mausoleum once. “My mother is in this drawer, right here.”

  Maya remembered exactly how her mother said, drawer. She thought it seemed odd, to put someone in a drawer, even if they were dead. Maya remembered her mother’s slender, manicured fingers as she stroked the smooth marble face of the drawer. She remembered her mother tapping on the polished gray stone with a red, enameled fingernail. “Mother? Can you hear me? Are you still in there? I brought my daughter with me this time. We have something for you.”

  With a cynical smile, Maya’s mother pulled a long-stemmed rose from a slender brown sack. She slid the stem of the rose into the small brass vase fastened to the front of the drawer. The stem was too long and the rose tilted forward, top-heavy, threatening to topple. Maya’s mother lifted the rose from the vase. She snapped the stem in half and placed the blossom back in the vase. “There, Mother. That’s for you.”

  The rose was brown and crisp. Maya had been with Mama when she bought it two months earlier, but now its blood red color had drained away. Its five leaves were the color of dirt and they curled up like dead bird claws, so fragile one broke off and dropped to the granite floor. It shattered. Maya’s mother ground it into powder with the sole of her shoe.

  “Maya?”

  Maya jumped. Her heart felt like it had leaped into her throat making it difficult to breathe. She fumbled with the flashlight, almost dropping it. Elly stood silhouetted in the open door at the top of the stairs. “You okay, baby girl?”

  “I see the cinder bucket now.” Maya strode down the concrete walkway as far as the sleeping furnace. She grabbed the handle of the bucket, turned and hurried back toward the stairs. To her left the dirt beneath the square of plywood, bulged, its rounded peak trembled. The top of the mound cracked and crumbled. Clods of dirt broke away and rolled to the bottom. More dirt rose through the center of the mound, darker, damper dirt. Something underneath was thrusting upward from below. Digging upward. Struggling.

  Maya reached the stairs. Breathless, she halted, looked back and whispered, “No. Stop. It isn’t time yet. But don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten my promise. Just wait. Wait.”

  The bulging halted. The mound smoothed out and the clods and crumbles settled back into place. The dirt was flat and smooth again.

  Maya took the stairs two and a time, reached the kitchen and locked the door behind her, releasing a long-held breath. Her hands shook as she knelt beside the wood stove and opened its little door. “I’ll clean all the soot off the little window, too,” she said. She heard the tremble in her own voice.

  “You’re such a blessing, Maya.”

  “Back in early April, your invitation to spend the summer here was like the answer to a prayer, Elly. I was desperate to get away, and I had always wanted to see your farm. It sounded so perfect.”

  “I don’t know how I would have gotten all this work done without you, Maya” Elly said. “I probably wouldn’t have. You’ve been a wonder, and I’ve enjoyed having someone to talk to for a change. Ever since Harlan died I’ve been mighty lonely. I almost don’t want your visit to end.”

  “What did Harlan think of Angel Sonosa? He must have said something about him at some point.”

  “Harlan said Angel was an SOB. He liked playing pranks on Angel. He was the only one of us brave enough to do something like that.”

  “Pranks?”

  Elly nodded. “Harlan knew Angel was mean. Angel liked promising someone a day off, and then changing his mind at the last minute—after that person had made plans or bought tickets to a baseball game. Things like that.”

  “Why did your Uncle Felix let Angel get away with that?”

  “Uncle Felix was caught between the rock and hard spot, honey. Angel had connections. He had a brother real high up in the organization. Uncle Felix said that the brother wanted Angel to stay away, and the warehouse was a nice, long distance away.”

  “Away from what?”

  “Away from that brother. Angel and his brother hated each other, but you know how family can be. I’ll bet that brother probably had to answer to another family member who loved Angel for some reason. You know, some old grandmother or maiden aunt? I remember seeing you just after you were born, Maya. You were a tiny little, perfect doll-baby, all rosy and pink with big eyes and a rosebud mouth, and soft baby hair. I loved you the instant I saw you. I imagine some old person in Angel’s family felt that way about him, you know? So, Angel had that job for as long as he wanted it, unless Uncle Felix really wanted to push the issue, and when you’re in that business, you don’t ever want to push the issue.”

  “What kind of pranks did Harlan play on Angel?”

  Elly giggled. “I’ll tell you about one – just one. It’s the best one anyway.”

  *

  It started out like any prank starts, sort of by accident, a spur of the moment thing. That’s how you discover someone’s weaknesses. Their Achilles heel. Their vulnerabilities, you know? You find out what scares them.

  Harlan just happened to be outside Angel’s open office door one day when the bookkeeper got fired. Angel was giving that poor slob a real ass-chewing. Pardon the French, but that’s how Harlan always described it. Lots of JC-ing and GD-ing and such. You know? Language I’d never use, and neither would Harlan.

  Anyway, after the name-calling and cussing and swearing wore itself down, Angel threw an envelope across his desk and said it would be the last f-ing paycheck that f-ing bookkeeper would ever f-ing get from him. He said to take it and get the f-out, a
nd to not ever come back. The bookkeeper stood, picked up the envelope and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. He turned toward the door, spotted Harlan and gave Harlan a wink – all this while he slid a Zippo lighter from his pants pocket with his right hand, and a little firecracker from his other pocket with his left. He lit the fuse before he reached the door and then tossed it behind him as he exited. Funny thing is, according to Harlan, the firecracker landed in Angel’s wastebasket, and the wastebasket was full of waste paper. Harlan said he stepped back, not knowing what to expect—and nothing happened. Not for almost a whole minute anyway. Just as Angel stood up and opened up a file cabinet drawer, that firecracker finally exploded and Angel dove to the floor and covered his head. He started screaming, I’m sorry Morton, Morton! I’m sorry. I swear I’ll never do it again, Morton! Don’t! Don’t hurt me.

  A moment later when Angel realized there was nothing really going on, and looked up with a face so white he looked ready for the grave. That’s what Harlan said.

  Who is Morton, Harlan asked him. None of your fucking business, Angel said. Where’s that fucking bookkeeper? I’m gonna kill the little bastard. Harlan told him the bookkeeper was already driving down Main Street by then. Angel’s face turned beet red then, I guess. He could’ve started a fire with that damned prank, Angel said. A fire in this warehouse would be the end of us all. You realize that? Do we want the fire department showing up? Snooping around? Checking our licenses and restrictions? Checking to see if we’re up to code? Not to mention some of the chemicals we have stored here, explosive chemicals.

  Harlan said Angel was shaking as he poured a thermos of coffee into the smoking wastebasket. I’ve seen a warehouse fire before, Angel said. The whole place went up in a matter of minutes. Two men didn’t make it out and the rest of us could hear them screaming. And then, Harlan said, Angel dropped to his knees, leaned over and puked in the waste basket.

  “Who’d’a ever thought?” Elly said. “Seems Angel wasn’t just afraid of fire. He was terrified.”