Norman Partridge - Slippin' into Darkness

The ambulance screeched to a halt as Steve finished speaking. One of the paramedics headed for Royce Lewis, and the other came to Steve. “What you got for us?” the paramedic asked, but the words didn’t catch Steve’s attention. He was watching the other paramedic work on Royce Lewis. The caretaker had vomited up a bellyful of water before the ambulance arrived, and now he wasn’t doing much at all. But he was breathing, and that simple fact made Steve uneasy.

“Steve? You okay, Steve?”

The sound of his name brought him around. “Yeah…I’m okay Gary,” Steve said, thankful that he remembered the young paramedic’s name. “We’ve got a weird one.”

A few feet away, the other paramedic went about his business, checking Royce Lewis’s pulse and respiration. Gary’s partner was named Bob. Now Steve remembered. Bob…his last name something that started with a Z, something you didn’t hear every day.

Gary clicked a ballpoint pen, oblivious to his partner, intent on his own duties. “What can you tell me?”

“Guy was facedown in that grave over there,” Steve explained. “Grave’s full of water and he wasn’t practicing the backstroke. I got him out. Just in time, I think. He vomited a bunch of water, and then he seemed to breathe okay, but he never really came around.”

“Never a lifeguard around when you need one, right?” Gary grinned. “You got a name for me?”

“Royce Lewis. He’s the night man here at the cemetery.”

Gary scribbled the name. “Date of birth? Social security number?”

“I just found the guy, Gary. I just hauled him out of the grave a couple minutes ago.”

“Okay Steve. We’ll handle it.”

“No problem at all,” Bob called. “His wallet’s in his pocket.”

“Voila,” Gary said.

“Thank God for little miracles,” Steve added.

The young paramedic shot a glance at his partner. “How we doing?”

“Got a head wound, for starters,”‘ Bob said. “Respiration’s shallow.”“ He fastened a blood-pressure cuff around Royce Lewis’s arm.

“Oh my,” Ernest Kellogg said. “This is horrible.” The paramedic noticed the man in yellow boots for the first time and gave Steve the old nudge-nudge wink-wink. “You’re the employer?” Gary asked, and Kellogg nodded. “Can you tell me if Mr. Lewis has any medical conditions?”

“No medic alert bracelet,” Bob volunteered.

Kellogg’s eyes glazed over. “I don’t know… We must have Royce’s employment application around here somewhere. And there is a question on the application about medical conditions; I do know that much. Insurance rates aren’t what they used to be, you understand.” Kellogg hesitated, and then his eyes sparkled as if he’d had the greatest idea in the world. “We could call Royce’s wife! She would know!”

“That’s what we’ll do,” Gary said, taking the phone number. “But first we’re going to get Mr. Lewis out of here.”

The two paramedics took a backboard from the ambulance. Bob put a neck brace on Royce Lewis to prevent further damage from any neck injuries he might have incurred. Steve got a camera from his patrol car and moved in for a few quick snaps of the tough little umpire, including a close-up of the head wound.

Standard investigative procedure was what it was called. But looking through the lens at Royce Lewis, Steve felt an unfamiliar shiver climb his back. It scrabbled over his shoulders, down his arms, and settled in his hands.

His hands were shaking. Something was happening, something that hadn’t happened before. Steve fought the feeling, forcing himself to concentrate on the little umpire’s wound. Beneath the man’s white hair, the skin was the color of steak gone bad. Even through the thick lens, the wound looked horrible. Just seeing it made Steve’s head throb.

The click of the camera brought Steve out of it. He realized that he hadn’t been breathing, and he gasped deeply. No one noticed, because they were concentrating on the umpire.

The paramedics taped the wounded man to the backboard, stowed him in the back of the ambulance, and took off for the hospital. Steve wandered over to the grave. Brown water lapped gently against the muddy walls; he couldn’t see the coffin.

The dreamweaver’s coffin was a sunken treasure in a tiny sea.

No. He had no time for waking dreams or silly imaginings. He needed to get back on track. There weren’t any prints on the coffin to worry about. But there wouldn’t have been any prints even if the grave had remained dry.

Steve had worn gloves during that part of the operation. He was sure of that.

Steve hadn’t worn gloves while he was pitching, though. He skirted the mound of dirt that he had shoveled from the grave and wandered over to the granite cross with April’s name on it. A little pile of broken glass glittered beneath the cross, the morning sunlight dancing off the remains of the beer bottle he had shattered during his game of graveyard baseball. The shards of glass were wet, thanks to the sprinkler system. Most likely, the spray from the aged pipe would have eliminated his fingerprints as thoroughly as any dishwasher.

Still, Steve wished that he had removed the broken glass. Jesus, he had remembered to collect his tools, baseball glove, Royce Lewis’s flashlight, even the beer bottle that had missed the tombstone when the umpire surprised him. Why hadn’t he remembered the broken glass? It could be a real problem. Graveyard baseball wasn’t in vogue anymore, and he had been the main proponent of the game back in high school. There were no official records of that, of course. He had never been caught by night watchmen cops, but there were more than a few people who might remember his passion for a good game under the moon.

Bat Bautista, for one. But Bat Bautista wasn’t a policeman. He couldn’t connect Steve to this scene. He wouldn’t even hear about it, because any details pertaining to the case would be kept out of the newspapers.

Brakes screeched on the twisting drive. Another patrol car. Kellogg hurried toward it, yellow boots squealing over the slick grass. Sergeant Mick Chestney stepped from the patrol car, his lips quivering into a smile at the sight of Kellogg’s yellow boots.

Steve leaned on the broken glass with the heel of his boot, quietly crushing the shards into smaller bits. Pleasant pops and crunches filled the air. He thought of breakfast cereal. Snap, crackle, pop. Yeah. This was the way to get the morning started. Soon the shards were little brown pebbles. Wet pebbles reflecting a brown sky, a brown sun. Wet, sharp pebbles reflecting Steve’s face, chopping his features into weird sections. Steve confronted his smile, dissected there at his feet, as brown as a faded photograph. His twisted lips were trembling, and he imagined that they were a picture of his guts. Ground glass cutting through him, freeing something that had been asleep for a long time, something he couldn’t deal with. Something-

He bit off an uneasy laugh. Hell, there was nothing to worry about. Sergeant Chestney hated baseball. He was a football nut who had come to the department from New England because he was tired of shoveling snow. He had only been in town for a year. He wouldn’t know graveyard baseball from surfing. He didn’t even know that Steve had played high school ball.

But Chestney and Kellogg were heading in his direction, and Steve couldn’t hear what they were saying. He moved away from the glass, keeping his eye on the ground, as if intently searching for clues.

“Is there any way that we can conduct our business in my office?”

Chestney looked at the undertaker as if he were the stupidest creature on earth. “This is a crime scene,” he said simply.

The sergeant took a few moments to get the story from Steve. They talked it over, ignoring Ernest Kellogg as best they could, and then they went into clean-up mode. First Chestney got on the radio and sent another unit to the hospital with instructions to interview Royce Lewis should he regain consciousness. Then he returned to the grave and photographed the crime scene. Meanwhile, Steve popped the trunk of his cruiser and grabbed a fuchsia-colored roll of plastic tape.