Norman Partridge - Slippin' into Darkness

“I don’t see how this is going to take an hour.”

“Very well, then.” The undertaker strained to maintain the pleasant, chirpy tone of the professionally unflappable. His gaze traveled to the wrought-iron gates at the end of the curling drive as if he expected a hearse and a line of rented Caddys to appear early because the family had other things to do today and they were real eager to plant Uncle Bob. “I just don’t want to upset anyone unnecessarily,” he explained.

“No problem. I’ll move this along as best I can. And don’t worry about upsetting me-my boots will clean right up.”

Steve stared at his reflection in the milky water that filled the tire ruts, stared at the emerald grass. “Beautiful lawn.” He spied cleat marks on a nearby grave. He hadn’t been dreaming. Damn. That meant he’d really had a no-hitter going when the little umpire interrupted his game. “Y’know, I wish I could get my lawn to look like this. What do you do to it? You use some special fertilizer?”

The undertaker blanched.

“Oh, Jeez.” Steve chuckled. “I didn’t mean that. Special fertilizer. Oh, Jeez. I wasn’t trying to make a bad joke or anything.”

“I understand.” The undertaker straightened his black coat, seemingly oblivious to the comical way his pants cuffs gathered at the tops of his yellow boots.

Steve dipped his thumbs under his gun belt. The hand-tooled leather creaked, and his keys jangled. “Okay,” he said, taking a little notebook from his perfectly creased pocket. “Let’s you and me try to figure out what happened here.”

It took nearly five minutes to get the undertaker’s story. His name was Ernest Kellogg, and he had arrived at work shortly after seven. Usually he was an on-the-dot kind of guy, but this morning his dog had done a nasty on the living room carpet, something Ernest hadn’t noticed until he put his foot in it on his way out the door.

Steve figured that the open grave was in the same league as the dog’s nasty. It upset Ernest, but it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. After spotting the tire tracks and the open grave from the safety of his office window, Ernest had called the cops, because, unlike the dog shit, he figured that he could get a lawman to clean up this mess for him.

“Is there a caretaker?” Steve asked.

“We’ve got three men. Two work during the day. Gravediggers.” He pointed in the direction of the Meditation Garden. “They arrived shortly after I did. As you can see, I’ve already put them to work in preparation for this morning’s activities. Our other works at night-he’s an old fellow, more of a watchman than anything else.”

Steve almost asked, What’s the umpire’s name? But he kept that one to himself. “What’s the night man’s name?”

“Lewis…Royce Lewis.”

“Did he work last night?”

“I…I don’t know. I mean, I think so. He was scheduled. But he wasn’t here when I arrived this morning.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Yes. Royce and I almost always have a cup of coffee before he goes home. I believe in maintaining good relations with my employees, no matter how humble their position.” Ernest Kellogg paused. “Wait a minute. The coffeepot was on in my office. I smelled the coffee when I was on the phone. Royce must have made it. He must have been here last night.”

“Is his car around? I mean, where does he park?”

“Royce lives not far from here. He walks to work. Likes to take the air, he says.”

Steve pointed at the tire tracks. “Know anything about these?”

“No.” Once again, the undertaker glanced at his watch. “The tracks were here when I arrived.”

Steve glanced at his watch, too. Two more minutes had passed. Probably warming up the old hearse right this minute, he thought. Getting old Uncle Bob battened down for his last ride, yessiree.

Yessiree, Bob.

“Look,” Ernest Kellogg said, “is there any possibility that we could do this in my office?”

“Only if you’ve got another open grave in there.” Steve remembered the heft of the shovel and the crazy cartoon clang it made when it bashed Royce Lewis’s head, remembered how the handle had vibrated in his hands for a short second upon impact. He looked again at the tire tracks and his grin held, but he began to wonder why he hadn’t seen Royce Lewis lying dead on the ground where he’d left him, between the headstone that had served as second base and the grave that had been the pitcher’s mound.

Okay. The tire tracks. Someone else had been here.

And the night man was missing.

Maybe I don’t have anything to smile about, Steve thought. But he kept smiling. “Have you looked at the grave?”

“No. I thought it would be prudent to wait for you. I…I wasn’t sure about disturbing the evidence.”

Steve grinned. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”

“Jesus!” Ernest Kellogg leaned heavily against the granite cross that bore April Louise Destino’s name. “Sweet blessed Jesus!”

Steve didn’t hear any of it. He was already halfway into the hole, bringing a cliff of mud with him as he slid into the open grave.

The grave should have been empty, dammit. The dreamweaver was locked in his fortress of solitude with the dream. Both Aprils were there. They were locked in the basement, dammit, and the hole should have been empty!

But it wasn’t. It was full, at least by half. Full of water from a sprinkler head Steve had damaged while digging the grave.

But the sprinklers hadn’t been on then. They had come on later. At four o’clock in the morning. And then the water had turned the grave into a swimming pool.

“Royce!” the undertaker exclaimed. “Oh my God! Royce!”

Floating in the dirty brown water, facedown with a pink silk shroud bubbling up around his shoulders, was a fat little man dressed in Ben Davis work clothes.

The umpire. Steve got a grip on the man, flipped him over, and checked his pupils. Jesus. The umpire must have managed to crawl over here just a few minutes before Kellogg’s arrival. Crawling blind with his head bashed in and he had slipped down the muddy embankment and then couldn’t escape because the walls of the grave were slick mud and he was little and round and operating with a bashed-in skull.

What a tough little bastard. He must have been floundering in the grave while Steve questioned Kellogg. All the time trying to get out. It was a wonder they hadn’t heard him splashing around, doing the Australian Crawl.

I should have let the jerk take me up to his office, Steve thought. I should have moved the patrol car. A few more minutes and nature would have taken care of everything for me.

The thought hit him hard, like a slap. Steve was suddenly shivering, and it wasn’t just from the cold water in the grave.

He glanced at Kellogg. The man’s eyes were big and round, like the shiny face of his gold wristwatch.

“Is he going to be all right?” Kellogg asked.

As if on cue, Royce Lewis coughed and a thin trickle of water spilled over his fluttering purple lips.

“Control, this is 66Lincoln3,” Steve said, thumbing the extender mike on his handpack radio. “I’ve got a 10-53 at Skyview Memorial Lawn. Request fire and ambulance. Code 3. We’ve got a white male down, approximately sixty-five years of age.”

Control acknowledged the call. Three minutes later, Steve heard the siren. Knowing that the cool wail was the calm before the real storm, Steve radioed Control and asked that the sergeant on duty roll by; he wanted to do everything by the numbers, just in case something nasty came up later.

Another minute passed before the ambulance arrived, screaming down the twisting blacktop that snaked through the cemetery, wig-wag lights blinking in steady rhythm. Steve thumbed the extender mike. “Control. 66Lincoln3. Ambulance is on scene. Cancel fire.”