J. Jance - Lying in vait

The old white dog studied me from her usual place as I stepped up onto the porch, but she made no effort to rise and greet me or even to lift her head off her paws. I walked over, squatted beside her, and gave her silky ears a gentle rub.

"How's it going, Mandy, old girl?" I asked. She leaned into my hand while her tail thumped halfheartedly on the wooden porch, but still she didn't scramble to her feet. Instead, she stared intently up at me through soulful, cataract-dimmed eyes.

Leaving the dog where she was, I rose and walked over to the door. My hand was raised and ready to knock when the porch light snapped on. The door swung open on well-oiled hinges before my knuckles made contact with the wood. My grandmother, Beverly Piedmont, stood before me in the open doorway with her wispy white hair glowing in a backlit halo around her head.

"Just a minute, Jonas," she said quietly. "I'll get my coat."

She came back to the door moments later. A green plaid wool coat that reeked of mothballs was folded neatly over one arm. The pleats in her shiny, silklike black dress made her appear to be far more substantial than she was, but as I helped her into the heavy coat, I noticed there was hardly any meat left on her stooped shoulders. The skin on her liver-spotted hands was as thin and brittle as parchment.

Once the coat was properly buttoned, I waited while she dug a clear plastic, accordion-pleated rain-hat out of her massive black purse. She unfolded the hat, placed it over her hair, and tied it under her chin in a neat bow.

"I'm ready," she announced when the rain-hat was securely fastened in place. "We can go now."

Matching my steps with her small, careful ones and angling my umbrella to fend off the falling rain, I walked her out to my car. When it had been time to go to the mortuary, it hadn't seemed appropriate to pick my grandmother up in my new Guard-red Porsche, but that was the only car I had. I had offered to rent a black limo, but she had turned that down because she didn't "want to put on airs." In the long run, it didn't matter, because I don't believe she even noticed what kind of car it was.

I eased her down into the low-slung seat. She sighed, closed her eyes briefly, and settled back against the soft plush leather. Pulling the strap out of its holder, I reached across her frail body and fastened the seat and shoulder belts around her. As the buckle snapped home, she sat up straight and grasped her purse firmly with both hands.

"Thank you, Jonas," she said in a voice that was surprisingly quaver-free. "Thank you very much."

Most of the time I go by the name of Beau or by my initials, J. P. Only two people in the world have ever called me Jonas-my mother, who has been dead for many years, and now my grandmother. It was only in the course of the last few months, after accidentally encountering my estranged grandparents' name and address in the phone book, that my mother's mother had emerged from the shadows of the long-buried past into the present. At eighty-six, Beverly Piedmont came into my life as both a puzzle and a blessing.

Now she was also a widow.

My grandfather and namesake, Jonas Logan Piedmont, was dead at age ninety-one.

I turned the key in the ignition, and the Porsche's powerful engine roared to life. With headlights slicing through sheets of slanting raindrops, we headed for Newton's Family Mortuary off Aurora Avenue, where Mr. Lloyd Newton, III, at age sixty or so, had been genuinely dismayed when my grandmother had told him in no uncertain terms that there would be no services for my grandfather.

"Absolutely not," she had announced determinedly. "At our ages, there aren't that many people still around that we know, and we only see them at weddings or funerals. These days there are a lot more funerals than weddings. Each time, someone else turns up missing. It's too depressing."

Her decree had brooked no argument. Mr. Newton had been forced to comply with reasonably good grace.

"Are you taking care of yourself?" I asked, glancing in her direction as I threaded through evening traffic made worse by the steady downpour. A rain-slicked layer of newly fallen leaves covered the gutters and blocked Seattle's storm drains, leaving the streets awash. "Are you eating properly? Getting enough rest?"

"Mandy's the one you should be worried about," my grandmother returned with a shake of her head. "That crazy old dog won't eat a thing."

I remembered how Mandy used to sit for hours in mute companionship with my stroke-silenced, wheelchair-bound grandfather. She usually stuck close enough to his side that the slightest movement of his faltering hand would bring his flesh into contact with her patiently waiting head.

"Try bread and peanut butter," I suggested. "That's how Kelly and Jeremy get their dog, Sunshine, to take her arthritis medicine. Kelly claims there isn't a dog in the world that doesn't love bread and peanut butter."

Six months earlier, it would have been inconceivable to me that my daughter-Kelly, the complete airhead, as I once disparagingly called her-would end up passing out dog-care advice to her great-grandmother, but Beverly Piedmont nodded as though granting Kelly's suggestion serious consideration. "That sounds like a good idea," she said. "I believe I'll give it a try."

At the mortuary, we were ushered into Mr. Newton's private, rosewood-furnished office, where we were seated at a small conference table. The man himself appeared a few minutes later, carrying a small metal box in one hand and a file folder crammed with an unruly sheaf of papers in the other. Despite my grandmother's physical presence in the room and at the conference table, Mr. Newton's primary focus seemed to be aimed solely in my direction.

Before he said a word, he pushed an invoice toward me across the smooth expanse of polished wood. "We generally ask for payment upon receipt of the ashes. And I've made two certified copies of the death certificate. If you need more than two, just contact my office."

My grandmother's bony hand reached out and snagged the bill away from Mr. Newton's fingers before I could grasp it, but she left the death certificates lying where they fell. She groped in her cavernous purse and eventually came up with a checkbook. Meantime, I picked up the death certificates myself and studied the top one. On the line titled "Cause of death," it read, "Complications of flu, pneumonia."

I remembered back in August when the news broadcasts had been full of dire pronouncements about how this year's strain of Beijing flu was expected to be particularly bad. People had been urged to get flu shots, especially if they were in one of the at-risk groups.

The detective in me, the part that's worked the Seattle Homicide Squad for more years than I care to count, wondered how that one fatal bit of virus had managed to cross the Pacific Ocean and make its way into my grandfather's stubborn but failing system. Had it come into the house on a bill or with a stray piece of junk mail? Had it tracked him down on one of his infrequent trips to the grocery store or at the post office or in church? And given that he was ninety-one, did it really matter?

Using a fountain pen, Beverly Piedmont finished writing the check in her old-fashioned, spidery hand. After blotting the ink and passing the check to Mr. Newton, she folded the bill neatly, placed it in the back of her checkbook, then carefully returned the worn plastic folder to her purse. When she reached out to pull the metal box of ashes toward her, her thin, bony hand trembled slightly.

"You don't have to do that, Grandmother," I said gruffly, taking charge of the box. "I'll carry it."

"Thank you," she murmured softly. Only then, after all that, did she bury her face in her hands and begin to cry.