Beyond the Grave

by Judy Clemens

  The bell dinged, and Casey straightened. Vern’s customers didn’t need to see his new cashier readying for battle.

  Lance Victor stood in front of the cashier’s window, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “I need some gas.”

  Casey input the amount and watched as he pumped the gas, not trusting him out of her sight. The last she’d seen him he’d been sitting by his parents in church, a red flush on his neck from the stares of the other congregants. Casey hadn’t felt sorry for him then, and didn’t now. She wondered if there might be a chance for him. If he wasn’t the one instigating the vandalism, could he be persuaded to think before acting? To say no to his friends when they wanted him to run around painting slurs on people’s buildings?

  He came back in for his change. Casey dropped it into his hand. “You know you don’t have to do everything that Coop kid tells you to do.”

  He didn’t look up. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So?”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “Why?”

  More shifting from foot to foot. “I’ve known him since I was born. He’s always been there.”

  “He’s been there, or been there for you?”

  “There’s a difference?”

  Oh, young Lance. “A huge difference.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means you have to decide. Are you going to let him bully you into hurting people and getting in trouble? Or are you going to look around and see what—or who—else is there?”

  Her words hung in the air. Casey wasn’t sure he was able to catch them.

  He shoved his money into his pocket, and went back out to his truck.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Casey worked the rest of the day under a cloud of low-level anxiety. Had the Beltmore guys seen her photo? Would they rumble up to Vern’s, hoping to make her pay? If they were hiding out in the mountains several hours away, she at least had time to prepare.

  Casey offered to take the last few hours behind the counter so Vern could be home with Dottie, and for once he took her up on it. It only seemed right they would be together after the morning’s news. The deli door and back exit were locked, so the only way customers could come in was through the front, where Casey could see them.

  “This is one sleepy town.” Death lay sideways by the camping gear, hovering over a heavy blanket and wearing flannel, which made Casey think of Deliverance. Not a calming reference.

  “Sleepy is better than a lot of other things.” Casey locked the front door and waited for Vern to come count and store the money in the safe. She pulled out a lawn chair. Her eyes were beginning to droop when a knock came. She shot up, ready to defend herself, even though the door was locked. But the face pressed up close to the window was a friendly one.

  Officer Whistler.

  “Hey.” Casey unlocked the door.

  Whistler checked the front area. Her gaze passed through Death, who now occupied the lawn chair. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  “Just waiting for Vern to come and close. Want to hang out? There are more chairs.”

  “Can’t. Got to drive my rounds. You okay? Maddy told me about the photo. Stupid kids.”

  “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

  “Too much sooner than it should have. But what can you do with dicks like Coop running the show?”

  “He’s not running it.”

  “Yeah, well, you tell him that.” Her radio crackled. “You got my number. Call if something comes up.”

  “Will do. Thanks.”

  “You bet. Oh, hey, Vern.”

  “Officer.” Vern stepped from the shadows of the parking lot. His face, gray during the day, appeared ashen in the night. Casey refrained from feeling his throat for a pulse.

  Whistler gave Casey a salute and drove away.

  “You need anything else?” Casey asked Vern.

  He took his spot behind the counter. “No. Thanks. I enjoy these hours. No customers to bother me.” He grinned.

  “I hear you. I guess I’ll go, then.”

  He waved without looking, already counting. Casey made sure the door clicked behind her.

  “He seem all right to you?” Death swooped alongside her as they crossed the parking lot.

  “All right as he could be, I guess, after a day like this.”

  Casey bypassed the front door of the house and climbed down the fire escape into her room. She crossed in the dark and flipped on the light. And froze.

  “What?” Death stopped. Immediately the room went cold.

  Casey’s breath puffed from her mouth as she spoke. “Someone’s been in here.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I don’t know.” It wasn’t anything obvious. An indentation on the bed, the way the handle on her duffel bag drooped, what looked like a footprint on the carpet. Carefully, she pulled apart the sides of her bag. Everything looked a little out of order, as if someone had gone through, from top to bottom.

  Death peered over her shoulder, making her shiver. “You think it was Vern? He knew you wouldn’t come back if you were the only one minding the cash register.”

  “It could’ve been Dottie. I did find her down here earlier today. But my stuff wasn’t gone through then. I’m sure of it.” A sense of unease began in her stomach and spread to her fingertips and toes. Her scalp itched.

  Death circled the room, searching for clues. “What do you want to do?”

  Run screaming.

  But realistically? It was nighttime. It was dark.

  She was tired.

  Casey locked the window and took a quick shower. When she was sure she was alone, she locked the bedroom door, too.

  Death had to usher some unfortunate but heroic missionaries to the Other Side, so for now, Casey sat alone in her window well, back against the wall. The moon again hung out of frame, but its glow lit the sky. She was afraid to sleep in case the creeps from Beltmore found her. Or Lance and his delinquent friends. She let her fingers graze the crowbar she found on the workbench in the Dailys’ garage. A little something to even the playing field, should she get caught on her own again.

  Thinking of Lance, she wondered if he was the one who had been in her room. Nothing had been spray-painted on her wall, she thought—with what might have been humor if she hadn’t been so tired—so it probably hadn’t been him.

  Casey pulled the quilt tighter around her shoulders and thought about Dottie asleep upstairs. She wondered when Vern slept, or ate, even. How he survived with his schedule. It was a wonder he wasn’t as sick as his wife. But then, who would care for her?

  That was how it was supposed to be. Growing old together, loving each other to the end. Casey had loved Reuben to the end, of course. She still loved him. But they had been stripped of the later chapters of married life. Those things had been stolen from them in that brief moment, in the flare of fire and wreckage.

  Death had changed her life in ways she’d never imagined. Who ever thinks, when they get out of bed in the morning, that their life is going to be irreparably damaged before the sun goes down? But you can’t think that. You can’t live each day fearing the worst, waiting for your life to be destroyed. Because what, then, would be the point of living?

  Casey pulled up the app on her phone where she could Find a Friend. Reuben and Omar, of course, couldn’t be found. She closed her eyes. So many people had uttered those clichés when they’d died. They’re somewhere better now. God needed more angels. They aren’t gone, just in a new place.

  Such utter crap to say to a freshly grieving widow and mother. But that didn’t mean she was unbelieving. She’d always thought heaven was real. Where it was, exactly, she didn’t know, but…somewhere.

  Were Reuben and Omar watching her? Did they have their own Find a Friend in the afterlife, where they co
uld keep track of her? She shifted uncomfortably. If they were watching, what did they see? Were they pleased she still thought of them? Or were they frustrated with her? Impatient for her to get her act together and move on?

  Casey gazed at the corner of her room with the shrine that seemed half about the Dailys’ stillborn baby and half what they had hoped for her to become. Casey didn’t want to be like them. Shells of former people. Waiting to die.

  Her phone had gone to sleep. The screen refreshed to show the little circle with Eric’s photo. Eric is at Home, it said. Casey’s heart leapt, but then realized that Home meant Ohio, where he’d grown up. Where his mother lived. Where he ran his nonprofit soup kitchen.

  Home, for him, was not Colorado. Not with her.

  She gazed at her phone. At what it said. What it meant.

  She didn’t like it.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Casey awoke suddenly. She lay scrunched in the window well, a crick in her neck. What was that sound? A slap? A bang? She strained to hear another noise, but there was nothing.

  A chilling breeze blew over her. Death floated by the door, half mist, half swirling black robes. The bedside clock glowed red, not yet midnight.

  Death flowed away. “Come.”

  Casey hopped down from the window well, adrenaline taking over. Death rushed through the basement and up the stairs, leading Casey to Dorothy and Vern’s bedroom.

  Casey’s heart leapt to her throat. “Is she dead?”

  Death disappeared through the door. Casey knocked, but received no response. She turned the knob and eased the door open. “Dottie?”

  Only silence.

  Casey pushed the door wider and stepped into the room. One side of the bed was empty. She went to the other side, where Dottie lay.

  “Still breathing.” Death hovered close. “But barely.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been keeping a close eye and felt the end coming. But I wasn’t expecting it tonight. I thought she had a few more days.”

  Casey felt for a pulse. Very slow. Very faint. She reached for her phone, but of course she didn’t have it, wearing her night t-shirt and shorts. She ran downstairs and dialed 911 as she threw on a sweatshirt. She spoke to the dispatcher while she hurried to the store.

  She banged on the locked door. The light from behind the counter glowed, and Vern appeared in the rectangular opening. Casey gestured frantically and he pushed open the door.

  “It’s Dottie. I called the ambulance.”

  Vern ran from the store and Casey followed after hearing the click of the lock.

  “Dottie!” He shook his wife when he arrived at her beside. “Dot!”

  Casey put a hand on his shoulder. He flung it off. “Did she say anything? Was she talking?”

  “She was like this when I found her.”

  He stroked her cheek. “I’m here, Dot. I’m here.”

  “I’ll watch for the ambulance.”

  Casey ran downstairs to scoop up her shoes and pull on warm-up pants, then raced outside. The siren split the night before she saw the lights, and she stood by the side of the road to flag down the driver. The EMTs were efficient and professional, asking Casey questions as they worked. Within a minute they were in the bedroom sliding Dorothy onto the stretcher.

  Casey searched for Vern’s car keys and found them on the kitchen counter. “Let’s follow them. Do you have your wallet?”

  They climbed into the car, Casey behind the wheel, and were ready when the ambulance pulled away. Fifteen minutes later they arrived at a hospital in a neighboring town.

  Casey helped Vern find his insurance cards and take care of those things you don’t want to think about while your loved one is in the ER. She swallowed the anxiety attempting to clog both her breathing and her brain. Hospitals held only pain for her.

  “I don’t understand.” Vern’s pen drooped. “When I left to go to the store she was fine.”

  Well, as fine as she could be after being told she only had weeks to live. And after Casey had asked her really uncomfortable questions. And after Dottie thought Casey was their stillborn baby, all grown up.

  Death wafted through the doors separating the ER from the waiting room, wearing a doctor’s white coat. Casey excused herself and went to the water cooler on the other side of the room. Death met her there. Casey turned toward the wall, facing away from Vern.

  “I don’t think she’s going to make it through the night.” Death’s nametag read, Douglas Ross, MD, and Casey was taken back momentarily to those days when her mother faithfully swooned over George Clooney in his scrubs. Casey, too young to care, went more for the gore factor of the show.

  “What happened? Why would Dottie die so suddenly after being told she had a few weeks?”

  “I don’t know.” Death glanced at her. “You were half awake when I came to get you. Why?”

  “Something…a sound. I’m not sure. Did you see something? Someone?”

  “No. I went directly to their bedroom and saw she was as near to death as possible without actually being ready to go.”

  “And now?”

  “I think it will be only moments. Perhaps an hour.”

  “Shall I see if Vern can be with her?”

  “They’ll soon come get him.”

  The double doors to the back swished open and a real doctor in a white coat appeared. She searched the occupants of the waiting room and her eyes landed on Vern. Casey strode across to meet her at his chair.

  “Mr. Daily?”

  Vern stood up suddenly, the clipboard and pen clattering to the floor. “Is she…?”

  The doctor shook her head, but Casey could see in her face that it wouldn’t be long. “There’s nothing more we can do, Mr. Daily. Since she has the DNR, the Do Not Resuscitate clause you wrote up a few years ago, we can’t use our more extreme lifesaving measures.”

  “No. She doesn’t want that. I don’t want that.” He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “May I be with her?”

  “That would be good.” She turned to Casey. “You, too?”

  “Oh, no. But thanks.”

  Vern grabbed her wrist. “Please?”

  Death shooed her toward the doors. “He needs you. Who else does he have?”

  “All right.”

  The doctor led them into a circle of curtained-off rooms. A movement caught Casey’s eye, and she stopped. A woman in green scrubs stood at the curve of the hallway. A woman with bright white hair. Nell’s mother hovered like a rabbit ready to run, then straightened her shoulders and walked the opposite direction until she was out of sight.

  So this was where she worked.

  Had she checked on Dottie? Did she care, or was it to gather gossip, like when she wanted to talk about the basement room? Or was Casey being too hard on her?

  “Miss?”

  The doctor came back for Casey.

  “Sorry. Saw someone I knew.”

  “A patient?”

  “Nurse. Gracie Achabal.”

  “Oh, sure. She’s a great nurse. Wonderful with patients. Are you from Armstrong, too?”

  “This week I am.”

  The doctor either didn’t hear her, or didn’t know how to respond, for she led her without speaking to a curtained-off square of a room with a washing area, bed, and cabinet. There were two chairs, one beside the bed, one by the sink. Dottie’s body was barely a lump under the white sheet. Her eyes were closed, and her age-spotted arms lay over the covers, connected to machines by a clip over her index finger. A screen showed her vital signs and beeped every few seconds.

  Vern eased into the chair by the bed, his eyes on his wife’s face. He stared at her silently, his breath rasping, his hands clutching the arms of the chair.

  “What happened?” Casey asked the doctor. “They
were told today she would have a few weeks.”

  The doctor held her clipboard against her chest. “It’s hard to be exact about these things. Sometimes the body, no matter what the signs, decides it’s just…done.”

  “But it could be something else?”

  The doctor frowned. “What are you suggesting?”

  Casey let the events of the past few days roll through her mind. The anonymous note. The Halloween party photo. The graffiti. And a few minutes ago whatever noise had awakened her. She could almost convince herself it had been the sound of a door slamming.

  “I want to make sure no one helped her along.”

  The doctor’s eyes angled toward Vern. “You mean…?”

  “No! No, I don’t mean that at all.”

  The doctor stepped beside Dottie’s bed and visually examined Dottie’s neck and face. She rolled Dottie’s arm to view the crook of her elbow, and used her fingers to open Dottie’s eyelids, then her mouth. She indicated that Casey should join her outside the curtains. She spoke quietly. “I can’t see anything to indicate violence, although I can’t rule out a drug. We can do a tox screen to make sure nothing is in her bloodstream that shouldn’t be.”

  Casey rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know that anything happened, but they got that news today that it would be a few weeks. It seems odd this should happen tonight.”

  “It’s not unprecedented. A patient hears the end is near and subconsciously decides they are ready to die. Was she suffering?”

  “She didn’t seem to be in pain. She was confused earlier today, but I’m not sure if that’s unusual.”

  Death’s upper body appeared through the curtain. “I will be taking her soon. You might want to encourage Vern to tell her whatever is left to say.”

  Casey stepped toward the curtains. “Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry if I’m making this something it isn’t.”

  “I’m glad you told me your concerns. I’ll pass them along.”