Frank Tuttle - The Cadaver Client

“And this is for Granny Knot.” A final bag, the contents wet and dark and dripping.

Out in the night, something shrieked.

Mama nodded at me. I called in the troops and had them gather around, more to block the view from the street than for any other reason. The very last thing I wanted was a sudden mob of enterprising grave robbers showing up the moment we were at home in our beds.

I called out. True to his word, Skillet scampered up, out of breath and grinning. If he’d followed my instructions, and his mere presence suggested he had, he’d carried the bag aimlessly around Rannit, keeping anything attached to it occupied while we’d dug it up.

I opened the bag and made a quick count. Skillet looked hurt. I eased his delicate feelings with a handful of perfectly good silver and sent him on his way.

The dead man’s coin was all there, aside from the few I’d spent. Mama had assured me that which remained would be enough.

“This is for my window pane, you bullying worthless spook,” I said. “Take your money. We don’t want it. I hope the winged Angels drop you on your nasty head.”

And I poured the bag of treasure out, coin by coin, onto the scattered corpse.

I heard it. We all did. A long, high, agonized scream, a scream mad with rage and fury and, finally, defeat.

The chill in the air died as the last coin joined its brothers.

Mama spat down into the casket.

“Now stay dead.”

I nodded, and shovels were replaced with bright new hammers and silver nails, and if anything remained aware inside that casket after Mama’s bags and Summers’s shovel, I almost pitied it.

Almost.

The rest was anticlimax.

Granny Knot started moaning and moving about the time we got the new coffin lowered into the grave. I had the boys scrape the bits of the former Horace Gorvis that had spilled onto the ground on top of the lid, and then we covered it with a thin layer of earth.

Next, we burned the old coffin. Mama added some of her own special items to the flames, and whatever she added made them burn high and fast and blue and hot. When the sudden inferno finally died, there was nothing, and I mean nothing, left but ashes and a handful of melted iron nails.

They went into the grave too. With so many men working, it was over before I’d had time to say much to Mrs. Mays or her daughter.

They kept watch over the proceedings though. They held one another, and I suppose they both cried a bit. Ten stalwart Runners kept them in the middle of a tight circle of swords the whole time.

I let go a sigh of relief.

“Granny any better?”

Mama’s face was blank. She does that when she has unpleasant things to say. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll get her a doctor,” I said. “Least I can do. Should have seen that coming.”

“Wasn’t your fault, boy. You put down the one what done it.”

I spoke softly. “You sure about that?”

Mama nodded an affirmative. “I ain’t got to be a spook doctor to know when Death has took his own. That one there won’t be troubling nobody never again.”

The men with the shovels stopped and leaned on them. The grave was filled in, neatly mounded.

And occupied. For good.

“I consign this evil, worthless blight on the earth to the worms and the devils,” I said, loud enough for wives and daughters and Runners and revelers to hear. “I hope they both choke on him. Amen, amen and good night.”

And that, as they say, was that.

Epilogue

I made it to Natalie’s wedding, by the way. In the pleasant company of a certain Miss April Hawthorne. I even met Mr. Mays. He thanked me for what I’d done, so I guess Mrs. Mays finally told him the truth about Cawling Street and a man named Gorvis. He sent a man around to my office the next day, and when he left, I was twenty-five crowns richer.

Natalie greeted me at the reception, but no more than that, and I was glad. The last thing I’d wish on a new bride was any remembrance of that night in the cemetery.

The day after the wedding, Mama and I set out once again for Elfway.

Mama Hog can bake a fine pan of biscuits, when she puts her mind to it. Those biscuits and that Pinford ham were filling the cab with an aroma that set my stomach growling nearly loud enough to spook the horses.

Mama laughed. “You done et two of ’em, boy. Leave a few for poor Granny.”

We were nearly there. Granny had lain insensate for three days, tended by the best doctor I could afford. Despite the doctor’s best efforts, Granny woke, got up and was showing every sign of making a full and speedy recovery.

We’d been by every day since she’d awakened. Mama took her something new each trip-so far we’d shared a chocolate cake, a plate of deviled eggs, a platter of tomato sandwiches, and now, biscuits and ham.

According to Granny, we’d done all the right things, laying Gorvis to rest like we had. She had chortled about my arrival in the coffin, which she’d said was just my way of making a grand entrance.

The cab finally rattled to a halt, and Granny Knot herself, the right side of her face still swollen and blue, met us on her stoop.

“Well, well, if it ain’t Mister Markhat his-self. Leave your funeral wagon to home, did you?”

“Hello, Granny. You’re looking spry today.”

“I look like a beat-up, old woman, son, but thank ye all the same. Ya’ll come on in. I’ve got us some coffee a brewin’.”

We went in. Granny peeked under the cloth covering Mama’s basket and grinned.

“Now that there will set a body right.”

Granny’s shack stank of something burning. No, not just any something-I knew that smell.

“Granny, why are you baking dog crap?”

“I ain’t baking it, boy. I’m makin’ candles. Grave candles, for our favorite friend’s grave.”

Mama’s eyes went hard.

“Why? He ain’t tryin’ to come back, is he?”

Granny cackled. She waved her handful of rags in triumph.

“Whatever is left of him ain’t never comin’ out of that grave. Not after what you done. But these here candles stink worse to spooks than they ever will to us. I ain’t of a mind to let bein’ knocked in the head pass without some vengeance. So I reckon if there’s a shred of Mister Big Britches left he can choke on my candles every night for a spell.”

Granny winked. “Might be a long, long spell.”

Mama nodded. “Serves him right.”

“Look what I done. Left the coffee in the kitchen.”

“I’ll get it, set yourself back down.” Mama waddled off into the next room.

“I commend you, finder,” Granny said in a whisper. The rags she clutched fell into her lap. “Your actions saved my life and well as the lives of the Sellway woman and her daughter.” She frowned. “I apologize for allowing that beast to deceive me so easily.”

“That beast had a lifetime of practice at being a two-faced bastard, Granny. You’re here eating biscuits. He’s decomposing and sniffing dog crap candles. I’d say you didn’t have a thing to apologize for.”

She smiled. Mama trundled back inside, cups in her hands, a big grin on her wide whiskery face.

“Now, Granny. Tell us how you’re a feelin’ these days.”

I opened a window, grabbed a biscuit, and headed back out into the sun. Mama and Granny gabbed. The cemetery was so close I could have thrown my biscuit right over the hedge-wall.

Marris Sellway could sleep sound, these nights. And walk the streets without fear that the next turn of a corner would put her face to face with the monster of Cawling Street.

I finished the biscuit and wiped off the crumbs and wrapped a chunk of ham in a napkin for Three-leg.

I got up. “Need to stretch my legs, Mama,” I yelled. “Be back in a bit.”