A Summer with the Dead Read online

  “Of course they have, but there’s nothing I can do about the past is there?”

  “But did anything tragic happen while Dad was here visiting you? Back when he came to help you with the people in the attic?”

  “Not that I recall,” Elly said. “I’ll think about it, though. Sometimes memories fly back into my brain like a wasp, buzzing and darting and stinging. I’ll think about it, Maya, but I don’t want to think too hard or too long. Because sometimes remembering causes things to happen.”

  “Causes things to happen? Like what?” Maya pulled her eyes from the sight of the grave shape in the garden. She studied Elly’s face, almost expecting to see the sweet, gentle old face morph into someone else. Mr. Elly.

  Elly’s expression had lost its red flush of anger about Maya’s mother. Instead, Elly was staring at something over Maya’s shoulder, at something behind her, and Maya remembered with a sudden flash that the basement door was unlocked. Neither of them had locked it after Elly climbed up from the basement with the laundry basket, and that was over an hour ago.

  Maya was almost too afraid to look, but was terrified not to. She turned in her chair. The basement door had already frosted over. Crystals of ice spread from top to bottom across the ancient yellow paint. The black doorknob was already white with ice. Something black appeared in the gap beneath the door, something liquid and shiny. It trailed across the old linoleum toward the kitchen table.

  Elly whispered, “We forgot to lock the door, baby girl.”

  Maya stood, took four quick steps across the kitchen and twisted the lock. A half second later the icy doorknob turned left and then right, crystals sparkling. The door groaned from the weight of something leaning against it from the other side.

  Maya stared down at the black liquid pooling around her bare feet. It wasn’t black. It was the deepest, darkest red Maya had ever seen.

  “Elly.” That deep, familiar voice came from behind the door. “Elly.”

  Elly rose from her chair. She limped across the floor in her slippers, stepping over the coiling, snaking trails of blood. She halted a few feet from the yellow door.

  “You’ll never touch me again, Angel,” Elly said. “Go back down. Back where you belong. Now! Or I’ll make good my threat.”

  The frosty ice coating the yellow door, melted, as if the door had grown warm from the heat of Elly’s voice. Islands of ice slid down the ancient, blistered paint and out onto the floor, diluting the black blood and turning it a brighter red. The blood halted its progress across the linoleum, stopping an inch from the feet of Maya’s chair. There, it halted. It gleamed, its scarlet edges catching streaks of light through the kitchen window—then it retreated, slithering back through the crevice under the basement door. It left no trace of its journey across the floor and back again.

  Elly sighed. “He keeps trying, more and more often, but if Angel ever makes it through that door, I have another surprise waiting for him.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FIVE

  “THAT’S ODD,” AUNT ELLY said. “Lookit that.”

  Maya followed the direction of Elly’s gaze but noticed nothing. “What?”

  “The pantry light is on, the little one on the ceiling outside the utility closet.”

  “Maybe I brushed against the switch while putting the mop away,” Maya said.

  Elly shook her head. “That light only turns on from the attic. It means something is in the dumbwaiter. It means the guests are done eating and their dishes are coming back down.”

  Maya entered the pantry and stared up at the small light. It was a 25-watt, recessed bulb. She flipped the switch on the wall beside the utility closet and the light in the center of the hallway flashed on. A second later the small yellow light went out.

  “Someone’s in the attic,” Elly said.

  Maya and Elly stood side by side, staring up at the kitchen ceiling, listening for sounds of movement overhead but the house was silent.

  “Maybe it’s just a short in the wiring,” Maya whispered.

  Elly shook her head no.

  Maya stepped across the kitchen and slid open a drawer. She lifted the butcher knife and followed Elly through the dining room to the foot of the main stairs. There, they paused to listen again. After another moment Elly led the way to the second level and leaned around her bedroom door. Maya peered over Elly’s shoulder. The closet light was out and the closet was dark.

  “Let me go first.” Maya rushed across the bedroom, reached inside the closet and flipped the light on. A warm glow filled the space and she released a long-held breath. There was no intruder in Elly’s closet. She felt her knees shaking and wondered what might have happened if she had confronted someone. Her reaction would have been involuntary. Maya rotated the handle of the butcher knife in her sweaty hand and took another breath. Everything inside the closet was in order; even the thin veil of dust on the shelves was undisturbed.

  “He wouldn’t have come through here,” Elly whispered. “He would have come in the other way.”

  “What other way?”

  “Remember the place I showed you in the basement? Where the concrete blocks hide an opening in the wall beside the furnace? He either went through there, or … he came through the underground tunnel.”

  “Who did?” Maya asked.

  “Fritz.”

  “Oh, you mean Tony Bradley? What’s he doing here?”

  “He thinks I have millions of dollars stashed here somewhere, the damned fool. That’s why he showed up here that time with the shovel.”

  I thought you were asleep when he drove up.

  Maya reached for the trap door cord, but Elly shook her head no. Elly tiptoed to the tallboy against the back wall of the closet, grasped the two knobs on the top drawer and turned the left one counter-clockwise and the right one clockwise. Maya heard a click and then Elly slid the top drawer open. It made no sound. Elly reached inside and lifted out a double-barrel shotgun. The barrels were sawed off. Elly lifted an open box of ammunition from the drawer and loaded the chamber. With a nod, she closed the drawer and returned to where Maya stood. Elly whispered,

  “Fritz has made a big mistake coming back here. If he’s armed, and I’m sure he is, he won’t be leaving here on his own.”

  “Elly, please don’t shoot anyone.”

  Elly smiled. “For your peace of mind, baby girl, I’ll use discretion.”

  Discretion? Until that moment Maya would never have suspected Elly knew the meaning of the word. This was the same woman who could not recall the words ultimatum and nostalgic.

  Maya turned off the closet light and pulled the cord. The trapdoor eased open and down with a soft, brushing sound. Just as silent were the unfolding stairs and Maya followed Elly into the attic.

  At first Maya saw nothing. She halted on the second step behind Elly. They stood there listening. Finally Maya noticed a hint of light from around the corner.

  “It’s the bathroom light,” Elly whispered. “Someone’s in there, with the door ajar.”

  The door squeaked as it opened and the light brightened before it went out. Darkness surrounded them again.

  Elly climbed the last step into the attic, reached up and yanked the light cord above the table. The single one hundred watt bulb flashed on. At the same instant, Tony Bradley appeared from around the corner. He wore charcoal coveralls, Adidas sneakers and a black stocking cap over his silvery blonde hair. He looked startled.

  Elly lifted the shotgun and aimed it, but he was gone in a second. Elly ran after him, shoving a chair out of her way as she rounded the table. Maya rushed after them both. When she reached the corner, Maya spotted Tony jumping into the dark stairwell at the far end of the room. The door slammed behind him. His footsteps pounded as he descended into the underground.

  “Fritz!” Elly had no limp now. She ran like a young woman. She flung the door open and disappeared into the gloom behind him.

  “Elly!” Maya ran and then halted in the open door. She stared into
the black air below. She had no flashlight this time. This stairwell had no railings and there was that gap between the steps on both sides and the wall. One misstep and it would be a long, straight drop to the basement.

  “Elly?” Maya called again.

  A light came on at the bottom of the stairs. Elly stood there, looking up, shotgun aimed downward and braced against her ribs. Elly nodded for Maya to follow. Maya headed down, her left hand sliding along one wall, her eyes on every step. At the bottom she asked, “Where did Tony…Fritz go?”

  Elly pointed to a set of footprints in the dirt. They led straight to the wall of concrete blocks. Six of the bottom blocks had been pulled away, leaving a gaping hole. Elly chuckled. “He’s in the basement. He can’t get out. The kitchen door is locked. The outside door is padlocked and its window has been boarded up from the outside. Fritz is trapped.”

  “He came through the tunnel?” Maya asked. The thought made her shiver.

  “Yes, but apparently he didn’t want to return by the same route. He decided to kick down the concrete blocks—his second mistake. Now we’ve got him.”

  “We’re not going in there after him, are we?” Maya asked.

  “The basement? Aww, hell no.” Elly leaned down beside the hole. She called out, “While you’re in there, Fritz, be sure to say hello to Angel. He’s been dying to see you.”

  Elly straightened. She slid her palm across the wall and pressed something, leaning into it, and from overhead came a snap sound and then a rumble. A thick sheet of metal slid down from above. It lodged into place on the dirt floor, covering both the concrete blocks and the dark opening.

  “He’s not getting out now,” Elly said. “Come on, baby girl. Let’s get back to the kitchen. This should be interesting.”

  “Interesting how?”

  “You’ll see.” Elly flicked the light off and they headed back up the long, straight flight of stairs toward the open attic door.

  “Are you going to phone Sheriff Wimple and have Fritz arrested for breaking and entering?”

  “Nope.”

  “You just going to leave him locked in the basement?”

  “Yep.”

  “For how long?” Maya asked.

  “Forever.” Elly closed the door at the top of the stairs and continued around the corner to the trap door. Maya descended into the bedroom closet behind Elly and raised the folding stairs. One minute later they were downstairs.

  In the kitchen Maya stood in the center of the room, her knees shaking.

  “What about his body, Elly? Won’t it be … a problem when people come here, interested in buying the farm?”

  Elly poured coffee into two mugs. Smiling, she added half and half and stirred them with a spoon. The spoon made a cheerful ping-ping-ping sound against the mugs. The shotgun rested on the table.

  “There won’t be a body after Angel finishes with him. I’ve been waiting for this a long time, Maya. Fritz has finally made a fatal mistake.”

  Maya shivered in the July heat. She raised the window above the sink and propped open the back door with the rock painted like a ladybug. The kitchen felt cooler with the air coming across the driveway from under the fir trees.

  “Harlan painted that ladybug doorstop for me when we first moved here.” Elly sipped her coffee and stepped toward the basement door. She leaned close but didn’t touch it. “Any time now,” she said.

  “What’s going to happen?” Maya asked.

  “Don’t exactly know really, but I know Angel hates Fritz.”

  “What are you talking about, Aunt Elly? Angel is dead. He can’t do anything—can he?”

  “You saw what happened to the door, Maya. You saw the ice and the blood. You don’t think Angel can do anything?”

  “But, you said Fritz is probably armed.”

  “You can’t kill a dead man with a gun, baby girl. Shhh, listen. Maybe we can figure out what’s happening by the sounds they make.”

  A moment later footsteps pounded up the basement steps. Maya held her breath as the doorknob twisted left and right, left and right. The door shook in its frame.

  “Elly? You in there?” It was Fritz’s voice. “Elly! Open the door!”

  “Maybe the money’s buried down there somewhere, Fritz. Dig around. There’s always the chance you’ll find it.” Elly slapped her knee and laughed. “There’s a shovel by the furnace.”

  “Elly! Open this door!” A few seconds passed. “Elly! Please!”

  Elly’s grin faded. Her expression changed and she sounded awestruck. “Angel is coming, isn’t he, Fritz? Can you see him? Ain’t he a sight? No telling what he’s gonna’ do.” Elly stepped away and a second later three bullets tore three holes in the yellow door, splintering the wood.

  “Elly! Elly!” Fritz yelled. “Please!”

  Maya rushed toward the yellow door. “Maybe we should let him …”

  “No,” Elly blocked Maya. “Once he was free, Fritz would torture you, forcing me to tell him where the money is.”

  The door strained against the doorjambs, the aged wood snapping and popping. The hinges screeched an the door bowed, but it held.

  “Elly! Please!” Fritz yelled. “Elly!” He pounded on the door. He kicked. The last sound he made was an inhuman scream. His scream became a gurgle and the gurgle was cut short. Something heavy rolled down the stairs. A second later the black doorknob twisted left and right again.

  Maya stared open-mouth at the twisting doorknob, expecting frost and ice to form on its surface, but Elly stroked the blistered enamel, smiling. No ice formed. The top step snapped and heavy footsteps descended. Elly pressed one ear against the door, and then she shrugged.

  “What happened?” Maya asked.

  “I can’t see through doors any better than you can, baby girl.” Elly crossed the kitchen, lifted the coffee carafe and filled her mug again. “I’ll take a look-see down there tomorrow morning. 9:00 AM has always been a safe time to open up that door.” Elly’s dialect had returned.

  “Why did Angel hate Fritz?” Maya asked.

  “That’s another story, honey. You want to hear it?”

  Maya didn’t want to hear any more of Elly’s memories, not unless they explained what happened to Danny, but Elly stood there, smiling and waiting. Elly wanted to share the story.

  “I guess so,” Maya said.

  *

  “Ye see, Fritz was hired by someone high up in the organization, even higher up than Angel.

  Someone phoned one day and said he was sending a guy over who had been given a job. I was outside the office when Angel got that call. I remember Angel’s expression. He was annoyed.

  “’Shit,’ he said after he slammed down the receiver.

  “About an hour later, Fritz arrives and Angel must have realized he had serious competition in the looks department. Not only that, but someone high up … really high up, apparently liked Fritz better than they liked him. That can’t feel good for someone with ambition, can it?

  “So Fritz and Angel sit down in the office with the door closed. Nobody got to hear anything they said, but when they came out, Angel wasn’t being the asshole he usually was. I expected Fritz to be given the regular tour, shown where the coveralls were hung, where the trucks were scrubbed down, stuff like that, but the two of them stood out there on the loading dock for a while and then they parted ways without another word. I knew then that Fritz had friends more powerful than Angel’s friends.

  “I’ve told you before how most of the other drivers and I never talked much. Sometimes they quit talking altogether when I walked by. But on occasion, when the news was juicy enough, I was included in the scuttlebutt. Seems Fritz was an inspector. He came by once a month or so, without warning, and snooped wherever he wanted to snoop without so much as a howdy-do. The law would say, without due process. Heh. I guess he was sort of a spy for upper management.

  “Angel became obsessive about how things were done around the warehouse, and how clean it was, and how on time we all had
to be, and how the books were kept up to date. Not the public books, just the ones the higher-ups were interested in. The real books. Angel was on the bookkeeper’s ass day and night after that. That’s when that first bookkeeper up and quit and set Angel’s wastebasket on fire. Remember that story? Heh.

  “The second bookkeeper was there about a month before he quit and then Angel hired a twenty-two year old redhead. Her name was Lyla. She apparently couldn’t work every day but Angel hired her anyway. She only worked two days a week because she had another job that paid more than bookkeeping, but still not enough, I guess.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I heard the other drivers say she was a stripper three nights a week in some club on the west side. I didn’t care. She didn’t flaunt her looks. She dressed nice enough, professional even. Know what I mean? Office attire. Proper. Not too much makeup either. Who’da thought a stripper would show class like that?

  “Angel must have had a thing for redheads. Either that or she just plain had what it took to reel him in. We’ll never know.

  “Lyla was divorced, but her ex-husband stayed protective. Some people are like that. They love each other but can’t get along. Anyway, Angel tiptoed around her like she was hot coals and he was ice cream in danger of melting. He arranged for flowers to be delivered to her office every Monday morning, and he was there to make sure they were nice flowers. He picked out a pink donut with sprinkles and set it on her desk on a napkin every morning because she said those were her favorites. I was amazed Angel could pretend to be nice for that length of time. The other drivers were entertained, too. I saw their expressions. I heard their comments. That’s when I first heard the term, pussy-whipped. Figured out on my own what that meant.

  “Strangely enough, Lyla was there almost six months before Fritz discovered her. Their schedules didn’t jive until then. Angel spotted Fritz arriving and tried to ambush his visit. Tried to keep him away from Lyla. Tried hard but failed. Heh. There were quite a few of us trying to appear busy while we followed Fritz and Angel around. Angel offered to take Fritz to lunch. Didn’t work. Angel wanted to show Fritz the newest truck. Fritz frowned and shook his head. The recently tarred roof? Even I laughed at that.