by Bryn Donovan
The older man’s dark eyes narrowed. “You pay me or you don’t. That’s your business. Does it look like I’m running a tight financial operation here?”
David didn’t have a response to that.
“There’s something very bad in that house and I’m going to try to get it out. That’s what I do. And if I need help and there is help, I’ll take it. Multiple spirits. I don’t know if I can do it without her.”
“David,” Andi said. “I want to help.”
He suddenly felt very tired. “It just seems like you’d be so much happier not dealing with this.” Or me.
Her jaw set in determination. “I want to do it.”
“She can’t help it. People are who they are,” the psychic said. He shook his head. “Which is exactly what I’m trying to say to you, Mr. Girard.”
“You’re saying I’m an evil bastard.”
“I’m saying you could become one.” Morty spread his hands. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. But you don’t know when the lights are going to go dim.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I brought bagels,” Andi told Carlos as soon as he got out of his truck. She wanted him to know she didn’t hold him responsible for what the crazy house had led him to do. “Do you want one? I’ve got either plain or jalapeno cheddar cheese. The jalapeno’s my favorite.”
He backed up from her a couple of paces, not meeting her eyes. “I’m all right. I’ll just drink my coffee.” He went to the back of the pickup and lugged out the jackhammer.
Andi followed him into the house, where David and Morty were standing around, not talking. Their conversation the day before had no doubt made things tense between them. On top of that, maybe David was having second thoughts about the whole dig-up-the-basement idea.
When Carlos came in, the men exchanged curt greetings. Andi remembered David telling Carlos that Morty was something like a priest. She wondered if being around a quasi-priest made Carlos feel even guiltier about what had happened with her before.
Or maybe digging for bones was just an awkward social situation in general.
Andi went with them down into the basement. “At least the rats are gone now,” she piped up, but no one responded to this cheerful sentiment.
She showed Carlos where she thought he should start. As he set up his equipment, he asked, “So, you guys are just going to hang out here and watch me?”
“Yes,” David affirmed.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Morty added. “That’s not a problem, is it?”
“No,” Carlos said. “Not at all. I brought some extra earplugs.”
David and Morty each took a pair, but Andi said, “I’m just going to go upstairs.” Watching a guy jackhammer up cement was not her idea of a fun time.
She sat down cross-legged on the floor in the parlor, leaned her back up against the wall and pulled out the knitting she’d brought. The racket from the basement went on for a good hour or two, and it occurred to her that maybe she could get the scarf done in time for Lissa’s wedding after all, just as an extra gift.
Finally the noise stopped. Once the concrete was broken up, they would dig into the uncovered earth with shovels.
She hollered down the stairs, “Do you need help?”
“No, we’re fine,” David called up. “You don’t need to work.”
She went back to the parlor and knit some more, becoming absorbed in the project. She jumped when David yelled, “Andi!”
“Coming.” Maybe they would ask her if she was sure she had the right spots to dig. How could she be? She tromped down the stairs.
The men stood along the west wall, shovels in hand, backs to her. Carlos had decimated a huge portion of the basement floor: piles of rubble and huge chunks of concrete surrounded them. As Andi drew nearer, she saw that they were looking down at a skull.
Why was it grinning? All skulls did that, she remembered. Some hair stuck to the crown of the head like dried weeds. Andi cringed, covering her mouth with her hands. Under rags caked with filth, she could make out part of the rest of the skeleton.
“Good morning, Irene,” Morty quipped to Andi. “Am I right?”
Andi caught a scent of the woman’s perfume, the same she had noticed the other night. She nodded, trying to relax, even though the sight of the skull horrified her. “That’s her.”
“Well, let’s be careful digging her the rest of the way out,” Morty said. Andi got the feeling he’d done this many times before.
As she looked down at the remains, she saw a glint in the cavity where an eye would have been, as though someone still looked out. A large, shiny cockroach scuttled out of the socket. She let out a little scream as it disappeared along the wall.
Andi writhed in disgust. “Oh, God.”
“That was pretty terrible,” David said.
She fingered the beaded rosary around her neck, underneath her shirt. Although you weren’t really supposed to wear one as a necklace unless you used it to say Hail Marys and such, she didn’t think Busha would mind.
After they finally managed to extricate the bones from the packed dirt, Carlos began tearing up the floor near the other wall to look for a second body. Once he cleared away quite a bit of concrete, all three of the men dug with shovels again.
At around two o’clock they took a break for a spectacularly untalkative lunch. Andi didn’t have much appetite.
As the men went back to work, they no doubt felt, as she did, that there wasn’t a second body.
They found the foot first. It took a while to uncover the rest.
“It’s got to be a man. It’s a good-sized skull,” Morty told her. “What do you think, babe? Is this our bad guy?”
She closed her eyes to better concentrate, and after a few long moments she opened them again. “I don’t know.”
Maybe she was disappointing them, but she had to be honest. She didn’t get that feeling of evil that had terrified her so much in the past. She sensed something sad…and that was it.
“That’s all right, kiddo,” Morty said in a quieter tone. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”
David kneeled down beside the bones. “It’s got to be our guy, though.” He knelt down by the bones and dusted the dirt from what remained of the clothing. “Look, it’s black. He was wearing a black suit.”
“All right then,” Morty said.
Carlos said, “Are we almost done?” Leaning on his shovel, he looked both disgusted and exhausted.
“We’re done with the jackhammer,” David said. “You want to take off?”
“Yeah. I mean…if you can take it from here.”
“I think we got it,” Morty said.
Carlos nodded and set the shovel up against the wall. “Okay, well…good luck.” He started toward the stairs.
“Carlos, thanks,” David said after him.
He looked back at David, then to Andi. “Yeah. Thank you.” He went up the stairs.
David looked back down at the skeleton at his feet. “So, now we bury these?”
“Well, we wait ’til after nightfall,” Morty said. “Burying bodies in your backyard, that attracts some notice, you know? But you don’t even have any streetlights near the back of your property. Once it’s good and dark, we should have no problem.”
“How illegal is what we’re doing?” Andi asked.
“The burial of the bodies itself isn’t an issue,” David replied. “They’ve changed the requirements about burials in Illinois because more people want to do green funerals, like where the bodies decompose naturally. So it’s okay to just bury them in a shroud.”
“But what about finding bodies and not telling anyone?” Andi persisted.
“Yeah, that’s the illegal part. And so is selling a house without disclosing bodies buried on the property.”
“I’m still worried the buyer is going to, I don’t know, dig a garden or something and find them.”
“I know,” David said. “But where we’re putting them, under those pine trees, it’s not
like you could grow anything there. And it’s so far from the house I don’t think anyone would bother.”
“Even if your someone did find the bones, a while later,” Morty added, “it would be hard to say that you did it. As long as we don’t get caught tonight.”
The whole thing was starting to make Andi feel a little sick and panicky. “Maybe we should just call the police right now.”
“You could,” Morty said. “But they’ll take these remains into custody for God knows how long. Months, for sure. Like I say, it’s just going to be hard to get these spirits to rest without a proper burial.”
“The truth is, I can think of ways to get charges dropped, even if we do get caught,” David said. “But I’d rather not get caught.”
Andi sighed. “At least there’s never anyone around here at night. The closest house is empty right now, and that corner of the yard backs up to the woods. We’ll probably be okay.”
Andi remembered how, the other day, she’d considered telling Lissa more about what she was doing. Now she knew better. If her younger sister had been freaked out by Andi seeing ghosts, God only knew what she’d think of clandestine burials.
David looked at his watch. “I wonder how long ’til it’s really dark.”
“One and a half hours,” Morty said, without looking at his. “You guys want pizza again, or what?”
* * *
The sky had deepened to black by the time they got back from the pizza parlor. “We’ve hardly even got a moon,” the psychic noted. “This is good.”
“I brought a flashlight,” David said.
“Yeah, that should be okay.”
Andi wound up holding the flashlight as Morty and David dug. Many times growing up, she’d done this for her dad, but that had been for much more innocuous jobs, like fixing the car engine or fiddling with the pipes under a sink. She kept peering around them, as though someone might jump out from the bushes demanding an explanation.
“We can just dig one big hole, right?” David asked as they worked.
“What? No, no no,” the older man said, panting. “The idea is to pay proper respects. They each get their own hole.”
The wind picked up and Andi shivered. “It’s getting cold out here.”
“We’re just lucky the ground isn’t frozen,” Morty said. “This time of year.”
David wiped his brow. “I’m warm enough.”
Finally they finished the holes—not quite as deep as the one Andi had seen at the cemetery after her Busha’s funeral, but she supposed that was all right. As they walked back to the house, she had the queasy realization that now they would have to handle the bodies.
“How are we going to carry them?” she asked Morty, imagining taking hold of one bony foot.
“It’s all right, babe,” Morty reassured her. “We’re going to wrap them in a couple of sheets I’ve got in the car.”
Andi went back down with them but shuddered as David and the psychic carefully moved the remains from the floor and onto the sheets. “God, I hate this basement,” she said.
David and Morty carried the first bundled skeleton up the basement stairs and to the back door.
“I really hope none of the neighbors are out for a walk,” David said, looking out before they took the body across the back lawn and to the first gaping hole.
After depositing both bodies in their places, the men shoveled dirt over them. Andi grabbed the third shovel from the basement and helped. This was the last thing in the world she had ever imagined herself doing—burying bodies under cover of night. But they could all be arrested at any minute. The sooner they got it done, the better.
They finished covering the bodies and dragged back the large fallen pine branch with rusty needles to cover up the site, as well as some of the dead leaves from the rest of the yard. Soon the ground would freeze, and in the spring, grass and weeds would cover this area.
David said, “All right. Now what?”
“Now we say a few words over them,” Morty replied. By the light of the flashlight, Andi saw him draw a stole out of the pocket of his leather coat, touch it to his lips and drape it over his shoulders.
“You’re not a priest anymore,” she protested.
“‘Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’.” She didn’t recognize the quote. “Some things don’t wash off,” he added.
“What do we do?” Andi asked.
He shrugged. “Just stand there, pretty much.” Without changing his casual tone of voice, he said, “We’re here to lay to rest Irene Pennington Girard and Clarence Boyd. It’s written in the book of Daniel that many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. Some shall live forever. Others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.”
Dread flowed through Andi at the last words.
Morty went on to say, “But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever.” Holding up one hand, Morty switched to Latin. “Deus, cujus miseratione ánimae fidelium requiescunt, hunc tumulum benedicere dignare…”
Andi listened, uncomprehending, but impressed. When he said, “Amen,” she repeated “Amen” under her breath. David looked over at her with some curiosity.
Morty clapped his hands together. “Okay, that should do it. Good work, you two.”
“Do we have to do the ritual now?” Andi asked. She felt ready to drop.
“I’m still waiting on one of the herbs I ordered,” Morty said. “It’s hard to get it fresh. In a few days, though, we’ll finish what we started.”
* * *
The next morning, David sat in an unfamiliar coffee shop in Skokie, holding a thick mug of black coffee. He blew on it and then looked at his watch. Still a few minutes early.
He and Mr. Willingham had made plans to meet here because the landscaper lived nearby. Had he always lived there? As a kid David had been remarkably lacking in curiosity about other people’s lives, it seemed to him now. The gardener had offered to meet him at the mansion, but David said no.
Using one crutch, Mr. Willingham maneuvered through the door. He looked neat in a denim shirt and khakis and appeared healthy, but his hobbling made David wince.
Seeing David, the gardener smiled and raised a casual hand in greeting before getting in line for coffee.
When the girl placed the steaming mug on the counter, David got up and said, “Let me get that for you.”
“Thanks.”
David snorted as he took the coffee to the table. “Don’t mention it. I still feel so bad about that accident.”
“And I still feel like it wasn’t your fault,” Mr. Willingham rejoined. He settled down in the chair, stretching the one leg out. “Anyway, it’s getting better all the time.” He looked at David, his sharp eyes bracketed with crow’s feet. “What did you want to talk about?”
David had rehearsed this in his mind several times in the last few days. “This is going to sound a little crazy, but I’m just going to say it right out anyway.”
“Sounds good.”
“I don’t know if you knew this, but I believe my mother had…very strong feelings for you.”
Surprise and caution registered on the man’s face. “Yes,” he said. “I did know that.”
“I mean romantic feelings,” David clarified.
“I know.” His eyes narrowed. “But who told you?”
David hadn’t prepared for this reaction. “Well…let me back up here. We talked the other day about that house maybe being haunted.”
“Oh, yeah.” The lines between Mr. Willingham’s brows deepened. “Now, you understand your mother didn’t hurt me, right? That’s someone else playing those nasty tricks.”
“Yeah, I knew that.” David gripped his hands around his mug of coffee. “So anyway, we wanted to get this ghost to leave.”
“You and who?” the man interrupted.
“Andi, the contractor? We’re, um, we’re dating.”
&nb
sp; Mr. Willingham nodded. “Is it serious?”
“Um.” He hadn’t expected this inquiry into his personal life. “Yeah. It is. But anyway. So we wanted to find out more about what was up with the house. We got a psychic and…used kind of a Ouija board.” He knew this probably sounded stupid. “Worth a try, right?”
“Sure. What happened? Did you talk to a pissed-off ghost?”
“Yeah. It sure seems like we did. My great-grandmother. Apparently my great-grandfather murdered her.”
Mr. Willingham raised his eyebrows. “That must have been disturbing to learn.”
David considered how not-disturbing it was compared to the rest of it. “Yeah. But first, we talked to my mother.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Mr. Willingham snapped. His lip curled up in a snarl.
David drew back. “Actually, I’m pretty sure. She wanted me to tell you something.”
The gardener glared at him. “You’d better be very certain of what you’re saying. If you’re not, then I don’t want to hear it.”
What the hell? “I’m just trying to tell you what happened.”
Mr. Willingham looked down at the table then nodded. “All right, David. Go on.”
“She said, ‘Tell John I love him.’”
Mr. Willingham said nothing. He had no expression at all.
“The first thing I said was, ‘Who’s John?’” David said with a half-laugh, filling the silence. “Pretty common name, you know? And I always thought of you as Mr. Willingham. Anyway…she told me she meant you. And she told me to tell you. So I am.”
The man still didn’t speak. David wondered if this had been a mistake. But he couldn’t have ignored his mother’s wishes when it was the only time in his life he’d ever communicated with her. Quite possibly the only time he ever would, if she and Morty were right.
“I’m sorry,” David said. “I’ve embarrassed you. I don’t know if you had feelings for her—”
“She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved,” Mr. Willingham said.
“Oh.” David sat paralyzed. What do I say now?
