Dig Deep My Grave

by Cheryl Honigford

  Vivian didn’t need her job to support herself, of course. With the inheritance from her father, she had more money than she knew what to do with. Still, panic welled in her at the thought. If she didn’t have her career, what did she have? She’d marry Charlie and learn how to make pork chops, she supposed. Or hire someone to make pork chops for her—and then she’d have even less to do. She sighed. Regardless, she had to make sure she was on the Friday evening train to Los Angeles. Time was running out to put things right.

  She slipped off her shoes and bent down to rub her feet. Then she saw it. There was a folded square of paper lying on the rug next to the bureau. She bent down and picked it up.

  Boathouse 9:00.

  It was handwritten and unsigned. She flipped the note over, but it was blank on the other side. Boathouse? Someone wanted to meet her at the boathouse? Why? Perhaps someone wanted to offer her an explanation about Hap and Charlie, but who could it possibly be? The skeleton staff had gone home for the evening, and assuming Adaline and Bernard had not returned, there were only three other people in the house—Constance, David, and Gwen. Maybe the family wasn’t quite the united front she’d assumed them to be. Maybe there was a crack. Gwen was the most likely, Vivian thought, and there was only one explanation she wanted. Who had killed Hap, and why had Charlie been allowed to take the blame?

  There was only one way to find out. She glanced at the bedside clock. It was ten to nine now.

  She slipped out into the hall and tiptoed to Constance’s room, pressing her ear against the closed door. She heard her cousin’s rattling snore at once, steady and regular. Then she crept down the back stairs.

  Vivian paused at the bottom of the stairs and rested her palm on the panel of the hidden game-room door. Could someone have stabbed Hap and then disappeared through this door without Charlie or anyone else seeing them? She moved forward a few steps and stood at the end of the main hall, looking toward the parlor at the front of the house. She couldn’t hear anything, but someone had turned a light on. She moved forward again and noticed there was a slight gap in the pocket doors of Bernard’s study letting out a golden sliver of light. Voices came from within. Men’s voices. She approached cautiously and looked into the crack. She could see the back of a reddish-gold head of hair. David was talking to Bernard. She paused to listen, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Adaline and Bernard were back from their afternoon excursion, and Vivian definitely didn’t want to run into either of them right now. She turned and moved quickly toward the back door. Too quickly. Her foot caught on the upturned edge of the hall runner, and she stumbled against the hall table. The legs screeched against the wooden floor, and Vivian clenched her teeth, waiting to see if she’d been heard. A moment passed. Then two. Vivian sighed with relief, but then a voice rang out from the hall behind her.

  “Vivian, is that you?”

  Vivian turned slowly back to the open parlor doorway. Aunt Adaline stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips. “What in the devil are you doing?”

  “I’m… I…”

  “You decided to stay the night, I see,” she said. “Well, don’t just stand there like a booby. Fix that runner before someone hurts themselves.”

  Adaline stood, unmoving, and watched as Vivian bent and smoothed the floor runner. She couldn’t very well scuttle out the back door with Adaline watching. Damn it all. She’d have to pretend she wasn’t up to anything. She glanced at her watch and then walked toward the parlor. There wasn’t much time to spare.

  Adaline had returned to a seat at the card table. She sat across from Gwen and strapping young Marshall from the dock this morning. Adaline picked up the deck of cards and began shuffling.

  “Wonderful timing. We’re in need of a fourth for bridge.”

  The radio mumbled softly from the corner of the room, playing dance music from some live broadcast in the city.

  “I’m sorry,” Vivian said. “I was just on my way out.”

  She glanced at Gwen, and the younger woman rolled her eyes. Adaline was playing eagle-eyed chaperone, and from the looks of it, Gwen wasn’t in any hurry to meet anyone in the boathouse. If Gwen hadn’t left her that note, who had? Constance was sawing logs, David and Bernard were talking in the study, and Adaline was right here keeping a watchful eye on her youngest daughter and her suitor. Who did that leave?

  “Out? Out to where?” Adaline looked at her incredulously.

  “To take a walk,” Vivian said. “Clear my head.”

  “In the dark?” Adaline said.

  “I… Well, I was hoping to find a flashlight,” Vivian said lamely.

  “There’s one on the top shelf of the hall closet,” Gwen said.

  Vivian flashed a quick smile of gratitude at Gwen. “Thank you.” She stood awkwardly in the doorway for a moment more before turning back to the front door. “I won’t be long.” She hurried through the door and down the steps before Adaline could delay her any longer.

  Halfway across the lawn, she realized she’d forgotten the flashlight. She stopped and glanced around the clearing. There was only a sliver of moon tonight, and everything was delineated in shades of gray and black. She had that feeling again—of being watched. She scanned the black copse of trees off to the right. A tiny pinprick of orange-red glowed among the yellow-green of the winking fireflies and then disappeared. A cigarette. Someone was standing there watching her as she walked across the lawn. She started moving toward that orange glow. Something small and black raced in front of her, and she jumped backward. A squirrel had scampered through the tangle of vegetation and up the huge elm in front of her. She paused, catching her breath, her hand over her heart.

  She heard a muted pop, like someone springing cork from a bottle of champagne. Vivian looked in all directions, but she failed to locate the source of the noise. Perhaps it had actually been a champagne bottle. Sometimes on calm evenings, sounds traveled all the way from the estates on the other side of the lake.

  Vivian started walking again, the gingerbread boathouse coming into view as a dark shape against the slightly lighter shape of the moonlit lake. There were no lights inside—no lantern, no flashlight.

  She opened the outside door, which screeched on its hinges. People didn’t come up here very often anymore. Her heart fluttered erratically in her chest as she started to climb the stairs. There was a growing tension in the air—a thickness; it fairly crackled with electricity.

  It was dark above. The three sides open to the air emitted the welcome breeze from the lake. It could have been that night eight years ago, Vivian thought, when she’d come up here and found Hap. She had the same giddy sense of anticipation thrumming through her veins. For a moment she saw him sitting there, looking out onto the lake with his broken leg propped up on the railing, and her heart skipped a beat. But it wasn’t Hap, of course—just a rolled-up tarp and her mind playing tricks on her.

  “Hello?” she whispered. “It’s Viv.”

  Nothing. No sound. No movement. She checked her watch. It was 9:06 p.m. Maybe she’d missed the note writer. Then she heard a noise—a sort of strangled gurgle from the shadows. Then the shuffle of feet. Someone was coming toward her.

  It’s Charlie, she thought. Charlie! He’s here. He’s fine. Relief flooded through her. She took a step forward, her arms already rising to embrace him. But then the man moved into a shaft of moonlight, and though she still couldn’t make out his face, it was clear that this man was shorter than Charlie, his shoulders narrower. His hair was dark instead of blond. It almost looked like… No, it couldn’t be. That was impossible.

  A ghost, she thought then, her mind spinning to make some sense of what she was seeing. But she could not see through him, and his shoes made a scuffling sound against the floorboards as he moved out of the shadows.

  No, it was Hap in the flesh, and he was very much alive. He moved toward Vivian slowly, shufflin
g forward toward her across the shadowed boathouse. Hap is alive. Alive. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t think of anything to say. Or rather, she could think of so many things to say that they all jammed up in her throat, allowing none of them through her lips. How was this possible? Had he faked his death? Why would he do such a thing? She stared at him openmouthed as he crossed the distance between them, her pulse pounding in her ears.

  Charlie hadn’t killed Hap. He would not go to the electric chair. None of it made any sense, but the details didn’t matter to her at the moment. Everything was fixed. Everything would be fine. Despite what Hap had put her through, she felt a dizzying smile spring to her lips as she watched him advance out of the shadows.

  “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she said.

  Hap’s dark brows knit together over his nose. He stretched one hand out to her. His mouth fell open. He paused a few feet away from her, and a fine trickle of dark liquid spilled from the right side of his open mouth. Then his knees gave way as if he’d been felled from behind, and he tumbled inelegantly to the floor at her feet, the odd angles of his limp body thumping against the boards of the boathouse, the fingertips of his outstretched hand coming to rest on the top of her left shoe. His forehead hit the floor last between her pumps, landing with a meaty thump.

  She didn’t move for one long moment. Then she wiggled just her foot, attempting to dislodge his fingers. They were like individual lead weights. Deadweights, she thought. The alarm bells started in her head—shrill and piercing. Still, when she spoke she found her voice calm, if slightly exasperated.

  “Hap, this really isn’t the time for a tasteless joke.”

  There was no response.

  “Hap?” He didn’t move. “Hap?” His hand was heavy and unmoving on her foot. She stood motionless and watched his back. It was not rising and falling with his breath. She crouched beside him, poked his ribs with a finger. He didn’t acknowledge her. This was taking it too far, she thought numbly. “Hap, come on.”

  She pushed his shoulder with the heels of her hands and grunted as she heaved him over onto his side. The metallic coppery tang hit her in the face immediately. Blood. A lot of blood, judging from the sheer force of the smell. Her hand came away wet. In the dim light of the moon streaming through the row of windows facing the lake, she could see the still-growing stain on his chest. She sat back on her heels. That pop she’d heard crossing the lawn hadn’t been a champagne bottle. Shot, she thought numbly. He must have been shot.

  “Oh Jesus,” she whispered. Her fingers ran down his stubbled cheek, down his jawline to his throat. She pressed her fingers there, not sure what she was looking for. Something. Anything. She felt nothing. No blood pumped through Hap’s veins. She placed her hand on the wet spot on his chest where his heartbeat should be—thumping strong and solid. There was nothing. She shook him and smacked his face, then leaned down and shouted nonsense into his ear. No response.

  Then she just sat back and stared silently into his grass-green eyes. They were already vacant.

  Hap was dead. Again. Somehow, absurdly, he had died in front of her twice now. As Vivian stared down at her bloodstained hands, an insensible ditty to the tune of the Sultan’s Gold cigarette jingle started to run through her mind:

  Murder’s so nice, they did it twice.

  A most killable fellow.

  Vivian stared at the blood on her palms and fought the hysteria rising in her chest. She took in a hitching breath, intending to scream, to cry, to do something. Nothing came out, save a dry wheeze. This was a nightmare. Hap, she thought. Oh, Hap, wake up. Please don’t be dead. Please. Not when you could explain everything. Not when you could save Charlie. She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples. What now? What would she do?

  Something rustled outside and Vivian froze, the breath ragged in her throat. The door to the boathouse opened.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vivian looked up into Aunt Adaline’s shocked face, the older woman’s mouth open in surprise. Adaline gasped as her eyes fell on Hap’s lifeless form. Vivian lost her balance and fell heavily onto her backside. She grunted in pain, and Adaline finally rushed forward. She paused a moment over Hap’s body, her hands held out in front of her, elbows locked as if pushing the very idea of him away. Then she seemed to steel herself. She crouched near his torso and leaned forward to feel for his pulse.

  “He’s dead,” Vivian whispered.

  Adaline’s hand fell away, and she sat back on her heels. She looked around the boathouse, over the railing and out toward the lake and the star-dusted sky above, and then back to Hap’s prone form. She stared down into his face, reaching down to close his eyes with a delicate swipe of her fingers. She clenched her jaw and nodded once. And then she stood, skirting Hap’s body, leaned down, and grasped Vivian by the shoulders. She squeezed, and when Vivian didn’t respond, Adaline shoved both hands under Vivian’s armpits and began pulling her upright. Vivian got sluggishly to her feet.

  The air around them was heavy, stagnant. It would storm soon, Vivian thought. She heard a rhythmic thumping from somewhere below. Her first thought was that it sounded like someone chopping wood. But how could that be? How could any of this be? She stared numbly into Adaline’s pale face.

  Adaline’s eyes flitted over Vivian’s face, her chest.

  “You’re not hurt, are you?” she said.

  “He’s dead. Again,” Vivian said. She swayed toward Adaline, staring down at the blood on her hands, a black smear in the dimness of the boathouse. “How? How is—”

  “Vivian,” Adaline said sternly, placing her hands on either shoulder to steady her. “Have you been hurt?”

  “Hurt? No. But Hap…”

  “Come on.” Adaline pulled on Vivian’s arms as she walked backward, maneuvering them both toward the door.

  “Yes, we have to call the police,” Vivian murmured. “I think someone shot him.”

  Adaline didn’t answer. She shoved Vivian through the open doorway, but did not follow, slamming the door in Vivian’s face.

  Vivian stood on the stairway landing just outside the closed door and bit her tongue in an attempt to come to the surface of her haze. This was important. She had to pay attention. She pushed the door open again, stepped back over the threshold, and glanced around the near-empty room. Adaline’s body blocked most of her view. Adaline whirled, grasped Vivian’s arm, and pushed her back out the open doorway. Vivian felt oddly detached from her own body. Her feet moved, but she felt nothing. Every bit of her was numb with shock. Adaline pulled Vivian, without speaking, down the steps and across the darkened lawn.

  Vivian glanced over at the copse of trees where she’d seen the orange glow of a cigarette prior to entering the boathouse. There it was again. The tiny orange pinprick of light glowing and dimming and then disappearing. She lurched toward the light, but Adaline held her fast by the arm. Vivian lost her balance and stumbled, coming down hard on one knee. The grass was sparse in that area of the yard, and the skin on her knee was scraped raw.

  She grunted in pain as she pitched forward and caught herself with her hands. She stayed motionless on all fours, stunned.

  Adaline had dropped Vivian’s arm as she fell, but took it up again. She said nothing, but simply yanked Vivian to her feet once again and began walking.

  “Adaline,” Vivian said. But Adaline didn’t seem to hear.

  The world was a blur of motion and sound for the next few minutes. Vivian was hustled into the house. She couldn’t stop shaking. Smears of rusty blood covered her fingers. Hap was dead. Well and truly dead. He had not died in the game room, stabbed by Charlie with a scissors. No, he’d been alive until a few moments ago when someone had shot him in the boathouse. Hap had wanted everyone to think him dead the first time. Why? None of this made any sense.

  “Adaline, I—”

  “Hush now. You’ve had quite a shock.”<
br />
  “But Hap.” She couldn’t manage to say any more.

  “Everything will be taken care of, Vivian. I think what you need to do right now is rest.”

  Vivian shook her head but allowed Adaline to lead her toward the stairway. Two faces watched from the parlor as they passed, silent, wide-eyed. But Vivian could not register who they were. They were round, white orbs without definition. A man? Two women? Two men? Gwen and the boy next door? Perhaps no one at all. Vivian shook her head, but the haze would not clear.

  They climbed the stairs slowly, Vivian grasping the banister as if it held the secret to life itself. The police, she wanted to say. We must call the police. But her tongue felt too thick in her mouth. Her hands were cold, and when she glanced down, she saw her skin was tinged blue under the smears of Hap’s blood.

  Vivian blinked as they reached her bedroom, and found that her eyelids wanted to stay closed. Sleep, she thought. Yes, perhaps Adaline was right. Sleep would be a blissful release, and perhaps when she awoke, all of this would have been just a terrible dream.

  Adaline settled her into bed. Vivian’s eyes drooped. She was unbearably, unaccountably exhausted. Likely in shock, she thought vaguely. Something warm touched her hands. Vivian felt Adaline’s hand wrap around hers. She looked down at a mug, the sides warmly soothing against the palms of her hands.

  “Drink this, dear, and try to sleep,” Adaline said, hovering somewhere in the darkness.

  “What is it?”

  “Warm milk and brandy. It’ll settle your nerves.”

  Vivian stared down into the mug. Thin wisps of steam escaped and hovered in the air. “Thank you,” she murmured. She took one tiny sip. It was indeed warm milk, heavily laced with brandy. The liquor burned pleasantly. Warming her from the inside, setting light to kindling in her belly. She took another sip and smiled up at Adaline.

  “I feel better already,” Vivian said.