Night of the Living Deed

by E. J. Copperman

“Why would they do that, anyway?” I asked. “Then the people who hid it would never be able to retrieve the deed.”

  “Unless they put in a marker, or a secret door to get in,” Tony said. “It’s possible to put in hinges that nobody can see.”

  “Was it possible a hundred years ago?”

  “Sure,” he insisted.

  “How would we find them?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “The problem is, they’re hidden.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Paul said.

  I let out a long breath. The fact that finding this object might actually save my life was not making it easier for me to think about where it might be. I put my head down and massaged my temples.

  “Might the history teacher know something about where a thing like that could have been hidden back then?” my mother wanted to know. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Among the things I’d neglected to tell my mother was that Ned had been acting really strangely about the deed, and I was trying not to bring up the topic when he was around. This didn’t seem the time to mention it.

  “He doesn’t know where it is,” I mumbled.

  “Suppose you find the deed,” Tony said. “How do you get in touch with this person? Have you been given instructions?”

  “Good point,” Paul answered. “There’s no point in threatening violence if there’s no mechanism in place to assure you’ll get what you’re after.”

  “They said there’d be ‘more instructions at the proper time,’ whatever that means,” I said.

  I didn’t like the idea of all this talk of violence in front of Melissa, whose eyes were spinning just a little bit. “Don’t worry,” I said to her quietly. “I’ll be fine. It’s just talk.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about my English quiz,” she lied.

  “Is it possible to make a fake document?” I asked Paul and Tony. “Does anybody really know what this thing looks like? Suppose we give them something that looks old and has a facsimile of Washington’s signature on it. That couldn’t be too hard to do. Does Kinko’s make phony historical documents?”

  “I don’t think you want to take that kind of chance,” Paul said quietly, and after the translation interval, Tony nodded in agreement.

  “Well, I don’t know what else to do!” I hadn’t intended to shout, but the situation was starting to get to me. “We can try to figure out who killed you two, but the reality is, whoever did it wants the deed, and they want it tomorrow night. We have to find the deed, but I don’t know where else to look.”

  “What about the yard?” Melissa asked. “At school, we buried a time capsule with a notebook and a CD of songs somebody burned and a picture of our class so that people millions of years in the future could dig it up and see what we were like,” she explained. “Don’t you think they might have done that with the deed?”

  And a child shall lead them.

  The five grown-up faces in the room, both alive and not so much, all shot up at once (Mom shot up a little slower). That threw Melissa off her game.

  “I guess it’s a stupid idea,” she said.

  “You couldn’t have a stupid idea,” her grandmother told her.

  “Let’s get some shovels,” Jeannie said. We all turned to see her in the doorway, finished curtains in hand.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,” I said.

  “I don’t. I think you’re all nuts. But somebody really is threatening you, and if it’s because of this deed, we need to find it. Now. Where are the shovels?”

  “There are some in the shed,” I told her. “But where do we look? There’s two acres of land out there.”

  “Didn’t the Prestons say they’d done some digging back there?” Paul asked, stroking his chin. “Wasn’t David Preston complaining about all the excavation Madeline had made him do?”

  He was right. “Maybe the Prestons weren’t just gardening,” I speculated. “Maybe they were . . .”

  “Looking for something,” Tony finished.

  We were on our way out the back door before anyone could say anything else. Paul took the early lead, since he didn’t have to worry about walls or doors or anything.

  But he had to wait for us once he was outside, because he wasn’t yet able to pick up a shovel and dig.

  Tony, however, was taken aback by the amount of dirt flying through the air. Maxie, as usual, was showing off.

  An hour later, we assessed the situation. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Paul said.

  My backyard was going to need some serious landscaping help. Between Maxie, who had taken the lightest shovel; Tony, who had insisted on the most lethal-looking and heaviest; and I (just a regular shovel), we had made, by my count, seventeen holes in the ground, from just barely beneath the surface of the grass to, in one case, Tony hitting something he thought was a wooden box that turned out to be a vintage glass bottle of Coca-Cola. Melissa, Mom and Jeannie (who always seemed to be looking away when a shovel with no visible human behind it broke ground) had taken over whenever I got tired. Maxie never got tired. Neither did Tony.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” Melissa said. She seemed near tears—it had been her idea to dig.

  I dropped down to my knees and looked her in the eye. “It’s not your fault, Liss. This was a really good idea.” I gave her a tight hug, and she relaxed a little in my arms. I stood, and held her hand.

  “The problem is, we don’t know where to dig,” Maxie said. She wiped something resembling sweat from her brow. I had no idea that dead people could overwork.

  “No kidding, Captain Obvious,” I told her. “How does that help solve the problem?”

  “You know, you’re mean to me,” Maxie said, but she didn’t skulk off like she might have under less serious circumstances.

  “Sorry,” I said, and suddenly, I meant it.

  Maxie didn’t answer, and then she was gone. She didn’t leave; she was just gone. They can do that.

  “I said I was sorry,” I grumbled after her.

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Mom said after a moment. “Where do you want to eat?”

  Eat? Isn’t that how they got Paul and Maxie? “I think I’m on a diet tonight, Mom,” I told her.

  She curled her lip. “I’m going to get some subs—from out of town, where nobody knows you. How’s that?” And before I could answer, she and Melissa had taken off in Mom’s Viper.

  Jeannie and Tony went inside to clean up, having insisted they’d spend the night here again. The last of the group, Paul and I, stood out in the backyard as the sun began to set, and I started to feel water on my cheeks. Warm water. When it reached my mouth, it tasted salty.

  I hadn’t cried since Dad’s funeral. Not even when The Swine left. Just when I realized nobody was ever going to call me baby girl ever again. But here I was, weeping into my own mouth.

  “It’s not fair,” I whined. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just trying to build a life for me and my daughter, and now somebody wants to kill me.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Paul said quietly.

  “I hope not,” I said. And then I thought about it. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I don’t want you to be on this side, either.”

  I sat down on the grass. “What’s it like to be dead, Paul?” I asked. “Should I be scared?”

  “You’re not going to die, Alison. We’ll see to it.”

  “I will sooner or later. Everybody does.”

  He thought about it. “It’s a lot like being alive,” he said finally. “Except you don’t really feel things that much.”

  “You mean you don’t care?”

  “No. You still have emotions. But you don’t feel pain or anything physical. It’s like being asleep and dreaming something that’s really happening.”

  That didn’t help all that much, with visions of my mother and daughter crying over my open casket (although I have to admit, I looked quite wonderful) barreling their way into my head—after all, there was n
o guarantee I’d end up like Paul and Maxie; it seemed most people who died didn’t. I felt completely overwhelmed, taken up in the current of a river I couldn’t fight.

  “Paul,” I said, “do you think I’ll be alive the day after tomorrow?”

  “I’ll do everything I can to make sure you are,” he answered.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” I said.

  Paul looked away.

  Forty-three

  Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a restful night.

  Mom was sharing a mattress with Melissa, but even on my own, I never really slept at all. Which was too bad, because I was very tired, but not surprising, because I was also—what’s the word?—terrified.

  The constant threats against my life since I’d first seen Paul and Maxie in the house were finally becoming real to me, and that wasn’t a good thing. I had been treating the situation as if it were the work of some harmless crank, and now I was wondering exactly how harmless a crank could be.

  I’d very clearly gotten the message that unless the Washington deed showed up in the mail today, I’d be next to follow Paul, Maxie and Terry to the grave.

  A thing like that gets you thinking: Is this my last day of life? Is this the last time I’ll try to sleep? All those plans I had for the house, for my life, for Melissa—were they all about to be erased entirely?

  Was I about to become the third ghost in an already crowded spectral guesthouse?

  Things are always worse at night. In the morning, however, I noticed quite clearly that my situation was not improving.

  How appropriate that it was Halloween morning.

  I finally gave up on sleep entirely, went downstairs, and stained the wood floor in the dining room. One coat of urethane remained and the house would be officially renovated (aside from the mammoth hole in the wall, but I just couldn’t deal with that today).

  Mom got up at seven, but she didn’t sound the least bit weary; her usual cheerful tone sounded only a little bit forced.

  “I’ll drive Melissa to school this morning,” she offered.

  “No. I’ll take her.” If this was my last day, I was going to spend as much of it with my daughter as possible.

  Mom’s tone was a little more serious when she answered. “Of course, dear. You know what’s right.”

  She went out to pick up some breakfast for the growing crowd in my house, however, and promised to be back in a half hour.

  Melissa came down at seven-thirty, like always, showered, dressed and prepared. She was working very hard at being normal, and wouldn’t talk about anything but trick-or treating later that day with her friends.

  “Do you think we can get the ears done right after dinner?” Melissa asked.

  “After dinner? How late do you think you’re going to go out tonight?”

  She rolled her eyes. My daughter could be captain of the Olympic eye-rolling team. “Nobody’s going out before dinner, Mom,” she protested. “We’re not little kids anymore!”

  At nine, they’re no longer little kids?

  “Fine,” I told her. “You can go out after dinner. But you’ll be home by eight-thirty, and that’s not negotiable.”

  “Eight-thirty!” Melissa wailed. “It doesn’t even get dark until six!”

  “You want to negotiate down to eight?”

  She folded her arms and attached her chin to her chest. “Fine. Eight-thirty.”

  I drove her to school, and she was silent the whole way there. She got out without so much as a kiss and walked into the school without a backward glance.

  I certainly hoped that wasn’t a last.

  I started to get out of the car to run after her, and—I don’t know, tell her to take the day off from school?—when Ned Barnes spotted me from the parking lot and stopped me dead just by walking over to me.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  “I’m still standing,” I said.

  “Would it be all right if I came to the house tonight?” he asked. “I can help hand out Halloween candy or something.”

  I tried to think of excuses. If Ned was the killer, it would probably be a bad idea to invite him over. On the other hand, Tony and Jeannie would already be there, as would my less-alive tenants.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Alison. Please.”

  Maybe he wasn’t a homicidal maniac. I nodded my agreement.

  “Great.” Ned’s smile, truly a work of art, made suspecting him very difficult. “I’ll bring something for dessert.” Uh-oh.

  But the real shock of the morning came on the ride home when my cell phone rang, the call coming from a number I did not recognize. Worried that it might be the killer, I pulled over. Wouldn’t want to cause an accident. I’m a responsible driver.

  “Hello? Is this Alison Kerby?” a woman’s voice asked. She didn’t sound very threatening.

  “That depends,” I answered.

  “This is Bianca Valessy. I’m Adam Morris’s assistant?”

  She’d gotten my note! “Yes, Bianca,” I said.

  “I read your note. Can you meet me?”

  That posed a difficult question. If Adam Morris was the person threatening me, he might try to lure me to a particular spot where he could do me harm. Or Bianca herself could be the killer, innocuous though her voice sounded. “Where?” I asked.

  “Someplace we can’t be seen,” Bianca said. That didn’t sound at all positive. “I could get in a lot of trouble.” Sure you could, honey. How stupid do you think I am? “Anyplace you can think of?” she asked.

  “How about my house?” I asked.

  Forty-four

  If there’s one thing you want when you’re meeting with a person who could be dangerous—or representing someone dangerous—it’s witnesses. Luckily, my place was packed with them.

  I’d been planning this since I’d written the note to Bianca on my way to Adam Morris’s office the day before. I had finally recognized her as the blonde woman who’d met Kerin Murphy at Oceanside Park and taken the appointment book. I had figured (with some help from Paul) that Bianca was probably just a messenger, not the recipient of the book, and might be persuaded to talk if my knowledge about her was revealed. So I did just that, on the back of a receipt from HouseCenter. I assumed she’d be smart enough to look up my cell phone number (I couldn’t be bold enough to write it down, given that Adam Morris was in the next room) through the records on my house.

  When I hadn’t heard from Bianca immediately, I’d been a little concerned that she’d shown Morris the note, but luckily, it appeared she’d spent just as sleepless a night as I had, before deciding to make the call. I was ready.

  I phoned Jeannie after I got off with Bianca, and alerted her to the meeting. She and Tony were in the kitchen when I got there. They said Mom had called from her house, where she’d gone to shower and change, and would be back soon. They hadn’t told her about Bianca’s visit.

  “Where do you want us to hide?” Jeannie asked before I’d even made it all the way inside. “We can ambush her anytime you want.”

  “I don’t want you to hide at all,” I said. “I want you visible, to help intimidate her.”

  “This should help,” Tony said, and opened his jacket to show me he had a gun tucked into his belt.

  “Okay, that’s scary,” I said.

  “Gotta be prepared,” Tony said.

  “Don’t even think of using that unless she pulls out a nuclear bomb,” I told him. “I don’t want bullet holes in my walls.”

  Jeannie shook her head.

  Maxie swooshed through the ceiling as we walked into the living room. “Look out!” she yelled, and darted in and out of walls, still looking for the deed.

  “You didn’t tell them?” I asked Jeannie, pointing around the room.

  “Tell who?” She could see Maxie lift a hammer and fly it across the room, and she’d still deny anything unusual had happened. As long as Maxie didn’t hand the hammer to Tony—something Tony had discovered
the night before, trying once again to square out the hole in my wall. Jeannie had given him a look that could have caused frostbite. And then insisted he had made the hammer levitate.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  I asked Maxie for Paul’s whereabouts as she made a quick circle of the living room. Jeannie walked to the kitchen, acknowledging nothing.

  “Basement. He’s trying the crawlspace again.”

  “Would you zip down there and ask him to come up?” I requested. “I need both of you.”

  “Oh yes, ma’am!” She groaned like the annoyed teenager my daughter would be in four years and disappeared into the floorboards.

  Jeannie returned to arrange lawn chairs in the front room, and Tony checked his gun for at least the third time to make sure it was loaded.

  Paul rose up through the floor and accidentally through Tony, who shuddered and looked around, no doubt worried that Maxie was striking again. I shook my head to reassure him.

  “What’s going on?” Paul said, professional demeanor at the forefront.

  There was a loud knock on the door (despite the fact that the doorbell was perfectly functional). “This is,” I told Paul, and hurried to let Bianca inside.

  “This is what?” Jeannie asked.

  Tony and Jeannie rushed toward the door as she came in, and Bianca’s eyes widened. She looked terrified.

  “I can’t talk with all these people here,” she said as Paul floated near and Maxie rose up from the basement.

  You have no idea, I thought.

  “They’re my friends,” I told her. “You can trust them. Please, have a seat.”

  That proposed something of a dilemma, as I had only the old, dusty lawn chairs to offer. I actually took a towel from the downstairs bathroom and spread it over a chair for Bianca, who was eyeing the house warily.

  “I hear there are ghosts here,” she said.

  “Oh, that’s just people talking around town,” I said. “It’s just silly stories.”

  “No kidding,” Jeannie said out of the corner of her mouth.

  I pressed on. “Now, you said you had something important to tell me?” I asked Bianca.