Grave Intent (22 page)

Ellie’s eyes fixed on the glass horse, her
expression determined. “No, the pony.”

Janet looked at Rodney, who grinned and
shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter,” he said. “I’ll be lucky to get one
of them posters at the rate I’m going.” He picked up one of the
rings and spun it around a finger. “Wanna give it a shot?”

“Sure,” Janet said, figuring she could aim
for something less breakable
and
less creepy. She stepped up
to the counter.

“They’re spaced close together,” Rodney said,
motioning to the pegs. “So the hoops bounce off real easy. But I
could’ve been throwin’ too hard.”

Janet balanced the ring between her thumb and
forefinger and felt Ellie press against her leg.

“Don’t miss, okay?” Ellie said anxiously.

Janet winked at her, then flipped her wrist,
sending the rubber doughnut across the booth. Heather squealed as
it bounced against the wall, teetered over a peg, then fell to the
floor.

“This is nearly impossible,” Janet said to
Rodney. She reached for another ring. This time she held it so she
looked through its center. Instead of tossing it, she shoved it
vertically toward the wall.

“Number seven!” the barker shouted as the
ring found its way around a peg. He grabbed a plastic doll from a
shelf and handed it to Janet.

“Well I’ll be doggone,” Rodney said. With a
laugh, he stuck his hands into the bib of his overalls. “You’re a
natural, Little Bit.”

With a laugh, Janet took the doll and placed
it on the counter. She saw Ellie eye the last ring dejectedly. “One
more toss,” she said to both girls. “If I don’t get another prize
with this one, I get to keep the doll. If I do get a prize, we’ll
flip a coin to see who gets what. Deal?”

Heather nodded, and Ellie took a deep
breath.

Holding the last ring in the same vertical
position, Janet aimed for the number seven peg. If she was lucky,
she’d win another plastic doll and not have to worry about flipping
any coin. She let the ring go and closed her eyes.

“Number forty—” The barker’s voice was lost
to shrieks of joy.

Janet’s eyes flew open, and she scanned the
pegs. The rubber loop hung on a peg near the barker, three feet to
the left of where she’d aimed. The number taped below the peg was
42.

“You did it, Mama!” Ellie shouted. “You did
it!”

Janet stood open-mouthed as the boy placed
the glass horse on the counter.

Ellie scooped it up and clutched it to her
chest. “I’m gonna name him, Joe-Joe.” She grinned up at her mother.
“That’s a good name for my pony, huh?”

“How about another round?” the barker asked
Janet.

Janet’s mouth snapped shut. She shook her
head at the barker, picked up the doll on the counter, and handed
it to Heather. She caught Rodney’s eye, and he scratched his chin,
a bewildered look on his face.

“Don’t you think so, Mama?” Ellie asked. She
kissed the horse on the nose and stroked its hooves.

“It’s a great name, honey,” Janet said,
trying to compose herself as she shooed the girls away from the
booth.

“But I wanted the Pooh bear,” Heather whined.
Her bottom lip began to tremble.

“Tell you what,” Rodney said. He shoveled
Heather into his arms, and she giggled when he propped her up
against his shoulder. “What say we take one more ride on the Ferris
wheel before calling it a day?”

“Can we, Aunt Janet?” Heather begged, the
Pooh bear seemingly forgotten. “Please?”

Janet looked up at the thickening clouds.
“Think there’s time before the rain?” she asked Rodney.

He lowered Heather to the ground and arched
his back. “I believe so.”

Janet glanced down at Ellie who walked
alongside her engrossed in the details of the glass figurine. “How
about it, honey?” she asked. “Want to ride?”

Ellie adjusted her fanny pack, then slid her
fingers across the horse’s back and down the length of its tail.
“Okay,” she said absently.

As the four of them neared the Ferris wheel,
Janet leaned into Rodney. “I don’t have a clue as to what happened
back there,” she whispered. “I aimed for number seven.”

“Was the damndest thing I ever saw,” he
mumbled back. He smiled down at Heather, who suddenly looked up at
him. When she turned away, he said, “Saw the ring skip over a
handful of pegs before it landed on that one.” After a long pause,
he added, “Lucky shot I guess.”

Janet shrugged for lack of a better
response.

The Ferris wheel operator, an overweight
woman with facial hair, pulled on a long lever connected to a
control box, and the ride offered her another half-cup-shaped
chair. The few people in the seats swung back and forth as she
checked the lock bars lying across their laps.

“You gonna ride, Aunt Janet?” Heather
asked.

“No way,” Janet said with a grimace. “You two
ride with Rodney. I’ll get Sylvia something to drink and meet you
back here.”

“It’s not so bad,” Rodney said. “Kinda nice
lookin’ over the town from way up there.”

Janet patted his arm. “I think I’ll stick
with the street view, thanks.”

The operator pulled the lever again, and
another empty chair appeared. Heather squealed with delight, and
both girls settled on either end of the seat. Rodney squeezed
himself between them. The operator had to shove hard on the lock
bar to secure it across Rodney’s stomach.

“Why don’t you let me hold your pony?” Janet
called to Ellie. “That way you can hold on with two hands.”

Ellie shook her head, tucked the horse under
her pink T-shirt, and wrapped both hands around the lock bar.

“They’ll be fine,” Rodney said. He spread his
arms across the back of the seat and rested a hand on each girl’s
shoulder.

The lever was pulled again, and the seat
wobbled into the air. Janet shivered and quickly left for the
nearest refreshment stand.

While she waited in line for a cup of
lemonade, a crack of thunder shook the ground. Janet gasped and
hurried past the people behind her, imagining lightning bolts aimed
at Rodney and the girls.

She tried to remain calm, tried not to run,
but a gust of wind slammed against her back, urging her faster.
Janet’s hair tangled across her face when she finally peered up at
the Ferris wheel, which now spun backward in slow, choppy
jerks.

Thank God,
she thought.
They’re
taking them off.

Rodney took his arms off the back of the seat
and sent Janet a reassuring wave as their bucket reached the very
top of the wheel then stopped. He turned to the girls and pointed
in Janet’s direction. Heather flapped a hand at her and smiled.
Janet waved back, mentally urging the wheel down faster.

In a flash, the scene from above changed.
Ellie began to twist and squirm in the seat, and before Rodney
could stop her, she stood on the chair, the lock bar barely
reaching her shins. She raised her hands above her head, the horse
clutched between them, and shouted into the wind, “Mia lona!”

“Sit down!” Janet screamed.

Rodney grabbed for Ellie, every movement of
his body swinging the chair harder.

Janet raced for the ride operator, who was
about to give the lever another pull. “Don’t!” she cried.
“Stop!”

The woman’s hand froze over the lever, and
she threw an angry look over her shoulder.

Janet pointed up. “My daughter—God, my
daughter’s going to fall!”

Bystanders pointed and shouted for Ellie to
sit down.

Heather yelled from above, her voice a high,
pitiful shriek. “Help! Help!”

Frowning, the ride operator looked up.
Evidently not seeing anything unusual, she casually reached for a
hand-held radio, then went to Janet’s side. She gaped when her eyes
locked onto Ellie. Pressing the side bar on the radio, she said
into it, “Bill, get your butt over here, now!”

Suddenly, Ellie’s body pitched forward, and
Janet screamed. She saw Rodney quickly snatch a handful of Ellie’s
shirt, which stopped the child from completely flipping over the
lock bar. The anguish on his face grew more and more pronounced as
he strained to pull Ellie back into the seat. Abruptly, the look of
anguish collapsed into a grimace of pain, and Rodney grabbed the
left side of his chest with one hand, leaving Ellie to dangle
precariously in the other.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Michael hustled to his office with Sally at
his heels. He glanced at his watch again. Still late, no matter how
many times he looked at it.

He barely remembered climbing out of his
recliner this morning at five, when the answering service phoned
with a death call. Chad, according to the woman from the service,
couldn’t make the removal because he’d come down with a severe
stomach virus during the night. Michael had no choice but to throw
on a clean suit and run out to make the removal himself. He’d been
running ever since.

In the last twelve hours, he’d made two more
removals, one involving a three-hundred pound corpse and a flight
of stairs. Then he’d embalmed three bodies, dressed, cosmetized,
and casketed the two Chad had picked up from Magnolia yesterday,
then worked a viewing, and was now in the middle of another one.
The piece de resistance came when his apprentice phoned, informing
Michael that bodily fluids were still making explosive exits
through both main orifices of his body, and he’d be out until
tomorrow. Left with that news, Michael had to call Richard Mason in
for backup.

“I can’t believe you forgot Mr. Albert’s
rosary,” Sally said to Michael when they entered his office. She
marched past him to the credenza, where they stored the service
accessories.

“With everything else going on, you’re lucky
that’s all I forgot,” Michael said. He went to his desk, scooped up
two folders, and held them out to her. “Here’re the files for
Mason. Make sure he gets the casket forms right this time.”

“For Pete’s sake, hold on,” Sally snapped.
“I’ve only got two hands.” She removed the rosaries from storage
and dangled them on her fingers. “Black, brown, or clear?” she
asked.

“He’s in a black suit.”

“Fine.” Sally dropped the brown rosary on
Michael’s desk, then held up the remaining two. “Black or
clear?”

“Black. Black suit, black rosary. The women
get clear, you know that, Sal. You’ve been doing this long
enough.”

“You don’t have to get testy. I wasn’t sure
with Mr. Albert because he’s . . . was—” She let her hand go limp
at the wrist.

“Tired?”

Sally rolled her eyes. “You’re going to make
me say it, aren’t you? Fine. Gay, Michael. The man was gay, gay,
gay. You happy now?”

“Careful, your bigot slip’s showing.”

“I’m not a bigot. I’m—aware.”

“Right, and the KKK stands for kalm, kool,
and kollected. Just use the black one.” Michael handed her the
folders, which she took reluctantly.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to
leave Richard Mason with two viewings tomorrow, Michael. You know
how flustered he gets sometimes. Look how he bailed on us at the
Stevenson service.”

“I’ve already spoken to Richard about
tomorrow’s schedule, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.
Both services should be small, nothing even close to the
Stevensons’.” Michael rounded the desk and sat for the first time
that day. His feet tingled with celebratory relief.

“But what if we get another death call?”

“Then we get another death call. Quit
worrying. Everything’ll work out fine. You’ll be here, Chad’s
supposed to be back in the morning—Richard will have plenty of
help.”

Sally shook her head. “This isn’t like you,
leaving when there’s so much going on.”

Michael blew out a breath. She was right.
Normally he would have canceled the trip, especially with it being
so late in the day. But after the chaos yesterday, the busy day
today, and the drama sure to come with the Stevensons and the
stolen coin, he needed to give his body and brains a chance to
recharge. More importantly, he needed a little quiet time with his
wife and daughter.

Sally, evidently thinking he was ignoring her
last statement, curled a hand on her hip and scowled. “Well?”

“Sal, I’ve already taken care of most of the
work. All the three of you have to deal with tomorrow are
viewings—yeah, I know—unless you get another death call.”

“But what if Chad’s still sick tomorrow?”

“Then wing it,” Michael said, growing
agitated.

Her brow furrowed. “Wing it? What do you want
me to do? Pull somebody in off the street to do the embalming and
casketing?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Why can’t your
father come in tomorrow and help?”

Because I don’t know where the fuck he
is!
Michael thought. When Michael had returned from making the
first removal this morning, he’d wheeled the deceased into the prep
room and saw the body from the night before still lying on the
embalming table. The corpse had been aspirated, and the trocar,
sharps, and other prep tools cleaned and neatly stored away in
their assigned places. Michael wondered then about his father’s
whereabouts. He hadn’t seen Wilson on the couch when the answering
service woke him, or asleep in the master bedroom when Michael had
rushed through there to dress. Although puzzled and a little
worried, considering Wilson’s claim to vengeful investors and the
threat from the old man who’d vanished last night, Michael had
little choice but to concentrate on the volume of work before him.
He didn’t think about checking Ellie’s room or the guest room for
Wilson until later, when Bill Curry, a local handyman, called to
say he was in Michael’s driveway and needed to get into the house
to repair the broken window. Michael had hurried home, let Bill
inside, then checked the other bedrooms. Wilson was in neither, and
there was no evidence indicating he’d ever been. What Michael did
find, however, was Wilson’s old Cadillac.