Marcia Talley: In Death's Shadow

"No fucking way."

Chet's shadow disappeared for a minute, and then it returned, dragging a chair. He positioned the chair directly in front of the door and sat down in it. I imagined him with his arms folded across his chest, a deputy sheriff in a spaghetti western.

I used the corkscrew to open a bottle of merlot, then poured it carefully under the door. Chet seemed to be ignoring the wine that had to be wicking into the carpet at his feet. Every few seconds he'd tip his head back, and I could see the vague outline of a bottle. Chet was drinking beer.

"Chet," I called through the door. "You really should let us go. You know why?" I giggled drunkenly. "Because my brother-in-law is a policeman, that's why! You don't believe me? His name is Rutherford, Chet. Lieutenant Dennis Rutherford. You can look it up. And if anything happens to me, he's going to come looking for you. And he's going to find you, and when he finds you he's going to cut off your balls and feed them to his cat!"

On the other side of the door Chet drained his bottle. I saw him set it on the floor next to his chair. Then he paid another visit to the refrigerator. I heard the door slide open and the psssst of a bottle being uncapped.

"You know something, lady? You are full of shit!" Chet faced the door defiantly. He tipped the bottle up and took a long swig. "I gotta do what I'm told. Ain't no independent thinking in this outfit. Last time I tried, he ripped me a new one."

I turned to Mrs. Bromley and rolled my eyes. "If Chet ever had an independent thought, the New York Times would report it."

"Boss not very understanding, then, is he?" Naddie was getting into the act.

Chet plopped down in his chair. "No way. Don't ever want to screw up with this dude or you could end up a floater."

"It can't be that bad," she drawled.

"Wanna bet? Kee-rist!" He snorted and upended the bottle. "Was supposed to get papers back from this broad. Ended up capping her instead. Didn't mean to. Was he pissed !”

The image of Gail's body swam before my eyes. I clapped my hand to my mouth, trying to suppress a scream.

Naddie touched my arm. To Chet, she said, "Why don't you get out of this business, then. Do you have a mother, Chet? Go home to her. Get a job at Wal-Mart."

"I don't usually work with guns," he mused, ignoring her. “Too fucking loud."

"Messy, too, I'll bet," Naddie said.

The refrigerator door slid open. Psssst . However this comes out, I thought, it'd probably be the last time Pottorff stationed Chet next to an unlocked refrigerator door.

"So, Chet, if you don't like guns, how come you got one stuck in your belt?" I asked.

"That?" He snorted. "Adds to my street cred, you know? Gets respect."

"So, what do you usually work with, Chet?" I hiccupped. "I really want to know. Knives? Poison?"

Chet laughed. "Nah. I make it look like natural causes, you know, like those geezers at the nursing home."

Naddie's fingers dug into my arm.

Chet was on a roll, so I pressed him. "And just how did you do that, Chet?"

"I burked 'em," he said simply. He tipped up his bottle and took another drink.

Somewhere a horn blared. Chet arose from his chair. When the horn blared again, Chet disappeared.

I turned to Naddie. "What the heck is burking?"

"My God," she said, grabbing onto the edge of the tasting table for support. "It dates back to nineteenth-century Edinburgh," she whispered. "Burke and Hare were these two fellows who dug up bodies to sell for anatomical dissection. When digging got to be a lot like work, they decided to streamline operations. They'd get a victim drunk, and while Burke sat on his chest to keep the lungs deflated, Hare would cover his nose and mouth, neatly asphyxiating him. It's extremely difficult to detect," Naddie continued, "unless you're looking for it."

"Jesus," I said. I thought about Valerie and Clark and those other poor folks at Ginger Cove and felt an overwhelming urge to force a pillow over Chet's face and hold it there until he quit squirming. Then I'd let him breathe. Then I'd mash the pillow over his face again. And again.

"Quick! Before he gets back!" In the light coming in from the window, I was able to identify the bin holding the champagne. I rushed over and pulled out a magnum. I held it in both hands and was about to use it like a club to smash down the door when I realized Chet was no longer alone.

"Hey, Nick. What's happening, man?"

"What the fuck?" It was Pottorff. His shadow, shorter and bulkier than Chet's, blocked the light coming in through the door. He was lifting his feet, examining his shoes. He'd stepped in the wine.

"Asshole! I thought you were supposed to be watching them?"

"I am watching them. They didn't go nowhere."

"Son of a bitch!" Stepping high, Pottorff's shadow receded.

"I didn't break them bottles, Nick. Them bitches did." Chet sounded desperate.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Look at this mess!"

"Look, man-" Chet began.

"Just get rid of them!"

I wrapped an arm around Naddie and dragged her with me as I retreated to the far corner of the wine cellar. I handed her my magnum and picked out another one for myself. Whatever happened, we'd go down fighting.

I braced myself, expecting Chet to burst in at any moment, gun blazing.

Then, from somewhere upstairs, a new voice shouted, "Not here, you morons!"

"Who is that?" Naddie whispered.

"I don't know!"

We heard muffled conversation, and within minutes the door opened and Pottorff slunk in, followed by Chet.

I raised the magnum to my shoulder like a baseball bat and got ready to swing.

"Drop the bottle, lady." It was Chet, backing up the order with his gun pointed directly at Mrs. Bromley. "You, too," he snarled.

Prudently, we did as we were told.

Pottorff grabbed my arm and dragged me roughly out of the wine cellar. Chet escorted Naddie, a bit more courteously. Maybe he hadn't emerged fully formed out of the primordial slime. Maybe he had a mother after all.

Retracing our steps, they hustled us back through the family room, up the stairs, through the kitchen and into the garage, where they shoved us into the back of the van and slammed the door.

Once again we heard the garage door grind open, and with Chet at the wheel and Pottorff riding shotgun, the van peeled off into the late afternoon sunshine.

The plan, apparently, was to pummel us to death.

Traveling at a high rate of speed, the van lurched through our captor's neighborhood with Naddie and me ricocheting off the walls as it careened around corners and joggled over potholes.

Naddie held onto the lawn mower. "Can you get the door open?"

On my hands and knees, I crawled to the cargo door and tried the handle. "It's locked!" I yelled over the roar of the engine. "But even if I could get it open, they're driving too fast. We'd be killed if we tried to jump."

Chet slammed on the brakes and I slid forward into a bag of grass seed. I looked up to check on Mrs. Bromley. She was still hanging onto the lawn mower, but under its tie-downs the mower had shifted alarmingly. I crawled forward, dragging the grass seed with me. Before the van began to move again, I helped Naddie into a corner on the passenger side of the van and cushioned her on both sides with seed bags. "You okay?"

She nodded, looking pale.

I piled two more seed bags around her for good measure, then the van took off and I slid back toward the cargo doors.

Where the hell were they taking us?

I cast a desperate eye around the van. A canvas bag containing gardening tools dangled from a single handle, its contents jingling and clanging like pie tins. I crawled across the floorboards and dumped the bag out: a cultivating fork, some pruning shears, a bulb planter. I set the Garden Weasel mini-claw aside, thinking it might come in handy later, grabbed the trowel and crawled back to the cargo door. Kneeling, I used the trowel to scrape at the paint covering the window.