I went to work on the cold water faucet. I removed the top screw and the handle, then I took the pliers and loosened the stem. Water shot up like a broken fire hydrant. I grabbed a towel and jammed it down on the gusher of water, but the pressure was too strong. "Shut it off," I said softly. I didn't want to upset Sofie and have her think we were a couple of boobs. Willey was under the sink working furiously. The water fountain stooped as quickly as it had started.
Willey stood up. "I must have turned it the wrong way," he said.
I grabbed a couple of towels and tossed one to Willey. "Help me soak up the water." We dried the place pretty well, then we rung out and hung the wet towels over the shower rod to dry. I took a look at the stem I had taken out. I had to squint without my glasses, but the 'O' ring looked pretty beat up. "I think this is the problem," I said. Just let me get a dry shirt on and we'll go get a couple of rings."
I took a dry shirt out of the drawer full of clothes Sofie had found for us. Willey and I would have to buy some clothes of our own soon. We told Sofie we had to pick up some parts at a hardware store, and we'd be back in twenty minutes. Sofie gave us the name of a small hardware store and directions. We knew it would take us forever to find what we needed in one of those big box stores and then have to stand in a long line at the registers.
Willey and I got into my Wrangler, and on the way I couldn't resist asking Willey,
"How the hell could you have turned the water shut-off the wrong way?"
"I just did," Willey said. "Not everybody is perfect like you."
"Don't you know that clockwise closes a faucet and counter clockwise opens it?"
Willey gave me a dumb look. "Clockwise?" he asked.
"Never mind." I never know if he's pulling my leg.
We pulled up to the curb in front of Tarpon Springs Hardware. The store looked like it had been there for a long time. It was just what we needed. There would probably be a knowledgeable clerk who would help us find what we needed.
We got out of the Wrangler and I said, "Wait a minute, is my camera still here?" I reached down under the driver's seat and pulled the camera out. "Good, I was afraid they might have found it." I tucked it back under the seat. We fed the parking meter and went inside. The inside of the store was packed to the ceiling with hardware. It was bigger inside than it looked from the outside, kind of long and narrow. We looked around for someone to help us. We walked down the length of the store looking for a clerk--no one around. Then Willey stopped so suddenly I bumped into him. Willey pointed down the aisle to our left.
"What?" I asked. Then I saw it. A cadaver was propped up in a chair. "Is he dead?" I asked.
"Sure looks like it." We stepped a little closer so we could get a better look. The dead guy must have been at least ninety, maybe older. It happens sometimes when you're that old. You sit down in a chair and you never get up again.
The eyes were closed and sunken deep into their sockets. The prominent nose emphasized the shrunken, toothless mouth. The skin looked waxy--a bloodless white. I watched the chest to see if there was any sign of movement, there was no indication that he was breathing.
"Hello," I yelled, nothing.
"How long do you suppose he's been dead?" Willey asked.
"From the looks of the skin I'd say about twenty-four hours. You'd think someone would have seen him and called the police or an ambulance. Nobody wants to get involved these days."
"I guess it's up to us," Willey said, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. As he did, he accidentally knocked over a stack of metal paint buckets.
They crashed to the floor--and the cadaver's eyes popped open.
"What kin I do for you gentlemen?" the dead man asked.
After my heart rate slowed a little I held out the "O" ring. "We need two of these," I said. The newly alive man turned his chair to face a metal cabinet on his right. He started pulling out small, plastic drawers until he found what we needed. He handed me two of them.
"There ya go. That'll be two -twenty."
I handed him two dollars and two dimes. "Thanks," I said, and we started toward the front of the store. I said to Willey, "Two dollars and twenty cents is a little high for two skinny little rubber rings, but the horror show was worth the price of admission."
Willey said, "Remind me never to come here again. I don't think my heart could stand it."
When we got back to Sofie's she had the pie out of the oven and cooling on the window sill. I didn't think people did that anymore, putting a hot pie on the sill of an open window to cool it. But then, Sofie was from our era. The pie smelled delicious.
"We'll just be a minute," I said, as we walked toward the bathroom. We quickly put the new rings on the two stems and tightened them down. Willey opened the shut-off under the sink, and the water flowed through the faucet. No puddle formed behind the faucet. The "O" rings were working. I turned off the hot water, and then I turned off the cold water, only it didn't shut off. No matter which way I turned the handle the water wouldn't shut off.
Sofie walked in to see how we were doing. She looked behind the running faucet--the puddle was gone. It had stopped leaking. "You guys are terrific," she said. Then she tried to shut the water off. She moved the handle back and forth. "Why won't it shut off?" she asked.
"It just needs a minor adjustment," Willey said. Then he reached under the sink and turned the water off. I loosened the stem and took it out. Willey and I both looked at it wondering what went wrong.
Sofie looked at it and asked, "Have you tried turning it around?" We both gave her dumb looks. Sofie said, "See these small ridges on either side, they slide into the grooves. "Try turning them around and putting them in the opposite direction. That might make a difference." Sofie turned the stem half-way around and inserted it. I picked up the pliers and tightened it down. I put the handle on it and Willey opened the shut-off below. The water started running again. Sofie reached over and shut it off. Willey and I stood there with our mouths open.
"Wash your hands and come have some pie, Sofie said. Do you like it with vanilla ice cream on top?"
"Yes," we both said. As we were washing up Willey said, "Well I sure feel
like a dope."
"Just be quiet," I said. "She thinks we fixed it."
"Being shown up by a girl, how embarrassing."
"Shut up and let's go get some pie."
That evening Willey and I were watching television when Willey's phone rang. "Hello," Willey said. "Oh Hi, Chester, how did you get my number? Yeah, tell Mary I said hello. What's up? Yeah, yeah . . . what's wrong? Hold on." Willey covered the phone with his hand. "It's Chester Morgan, you know Chester and his Mother Mildred. He says he needs my help right away--a matter of life and death. He doesn't want to say why over the phone. He wants me to come right away. Can you come with me?"
Chester was Willey's friend. I didn't really know him but I would help if it was something serious. The only thing that bothered me was going back into the park.
"It's still daylight," I said. We can't chance going into the park until after dark."
Willey got back on the phone. "Chester, me and Barney McGee will come by after dark, around nine o'clock. Would that be alright? Okay, I'll call you as soon as we come over the fence. Yeah, we're staying with friends. I guess Mary told you what's been going on. We think it's too dangerous to come back yet . . . Okay. We'll see you about nine. Goodbye." Willey closed the phone.
I said, "I wonder what kind of trouble he got himself into that's a matter of life or death."
"Don't know," Willey said. "But he sounded desperate. We'll find out when we get there." We watched a National Geographic special until it started to get dark, then we told Sofie we had to go help a friend.
"I hope you're not going back into that park," she said. "Eduardo told me how dangerous that would be."
"No," I lied. "We're going to meet him at a McDonald's."
"Well, be careful. And why don't you take Oscar along with you? He needs to
get out of the house once in a while."
"Sounds like a good idea," I said. Willey took Oscar's hand and we all trooped out the door to help Chester with his problem--whatever it was.
It was dark as we drove down 19A into Citrus bay and parked near the remains of the tree house. It gave me a shiver just thinking about how that tree house exploded when it hit the ground. We could see pieces of it scattered around in the brush. We pulled into the brush and parked the Wrangler. We searched around until we found a couple of plastic crates in the remains of the tree house. We dropped one on our side of the fence, and one on the park side. We picked Oscar up and put him on the park side. Then Willey and I climbed over. I took Oscar's hand and we started walking behind the houses. We stayed in the shadows until we reached the middle of the park, where Chester and Mildred live. Willey called Chester on his phone and told him we were inside the park. Chester was waiting for us, nervously pacing back and forth. Chester is kind of small and wiry, with big sad eyes like a bloodhound. It's hard to say "no" to him.
"Thanks for coming, Willey, and you too, Barney. We shook hands. Chester asked, "Why the monkey?"
"That's Oscar," Willey said. "He's sort of a family pet."
"Hi, Oscar," Chester said. Oscar gave him his monkey smile.
"Come inside." We followed Chester into his kitchen.
"What's wrong?" Willey asked. "You sounded desperate on the phone."
"It's Mildred," Chester said. "She's dead."
"Your mother?" Willey asked. Chester nodded.
Willey and I both said we were sorry.
"Thank you," Chester said. "But her death brings another problem--they'll stop her social security check as soon as they find out she died. I can't survive on just my check. Without her check I won't be able to pay the park's monthly rent and be able to eat, too. I can't let them find out she's gone."
Something strange was going on. I could feel it.
"Chester, where is Mildred now?" I asked. Chester turned and pointed to the floor behind him. There, lay a black plastic cargo carrier, the kind you strap to your car roof when you go on a trip. I always thought they looked like small coffins. Mildred was a tiny woman, she probably could fit into a cargo carrier. Oscar was sniffing around the tiny coffin until he got a good whiff, then he jumped back. Animals can smell death long before we humans can. Yes, Mildred was in there.
"Chester, you can't hide the fact that she's gone," I said. "They're bound to find out. And Mildred would have to sign those checks in order to cash them, anyway."
"I can forge her signature," Chester said. "I've done it before. They'll never know. I've already told her friends she's gone up north to live with my sister. She's done that before. I was getting a creepy feeling about all this. If I remembered right, Mildred was a bit of a crank. She was always complaining about one thing or another. Could Chester have finally snapped, listening to his mother's griping, and whacked her over the head with a cast iron frying pan? Was that the real reason he wanted to hide her death? Would the coroner reveal that Mildred was murdered? And if we helped him, would we be accessories to murder?
"But what about the burial?" Willey asked. "She'll have to be buried and it'll be in the newspaper." Here it comes, I thought.
"That's why I need your help," Chester said. "I can't bury her alone."
Bury her alone! Was he going to bury his mother in the back yard?
"I can't carry her outside by myself," he said. "And when I try to drag her outside, the latches on the box snap open and I'm afraid she'll fall out. Will you help me?"
You're going to bury her yourself?" Willey asked. "Where are you going to bury her?"
Chester rubbed his chin. That told me the second part of the story would be even more odious than the first.
"I can't bury her behind my house," Chester said. "Because that would leave the ground dug up, and it might look suspicious. The only place I could bury her would be in Sarah Jones garden next door."
Yikes! "Isn't it kind of illegal to bury somebody outside of a cemetery?" I asked.
"No," Willey said. "You can have yourself buried in your backyard if you want to, or even have yourself stuffed and propped up in a chair so your family won't miss you."
"Sounds delightful," I said. "But don't you have to get a death certificate first?"
"Barney," Willey said. "If he gets a death certificate they'll know she'd dead and they'll stop the checks." I wanted to say, Why don't you just put her in a plastic bag and toss her out with the garbage? But I held my tongue. Besides, Chester might think that was a good idea.
"I bought two shovels," Chester said. I looked at Willey, hoping he'd come to his senses. Instead, he handed me the two shovels. "C'mon, Barney," he said. "Let's get this over with." Chester and Willey picked up the coffin, and Oscar followed us out the side door to the carport, and then to the back yard. There was no moon and the darkness helped to hide us. We looked around--no one in sight. That was good, because it might be hard to explain what we were doing with a dead woman in a cargo carrier, and carrying shovels.
"There's no lights on in Sarah's house," Willey said. "She must have already gone to bed." We crossed over to the small garden behind Sarah's house. The garden was about twelve feet by twelve feet, and bursting with vegetables.
"Put it down here," Willey said. He and Chester gently put Mildred down on the grass. I handed Willy a shovel. I figured it wouldn't be right to ask Chester to bury his own mother.
"Let's take out these four tomato plants and dig here," Willey said. "Be sure to dig up the whole root ball so they won't die when we put them back in the ground."
Chester unfolded a small plastic tarp and spread it over the grass. "We'll put the dirt on this," he said. "So it won't show on the grass that we've been digging here." The frying pan scenario came back to me, but I put it out of my mind. Maybe Chester was just thorough. Removing the four tomato plants gave us just enough space to dig a hole big enough to put the coffin in.
Willey and I went to work digging, and throwing the dirt onto the tarp. When we got about three feet down we hit the limestone bedrock that covers all of Florida just under the surface. It wasn't the standard six foot depth for a grave, but nothing about this burial was standard.
I was wearing flip-flops, not the best footwear for grave digging. When I took a step something bit me hard on my big toe. I almost let out a yelp, but I caught myself just in time. I was hopping around on one foot. I could see the thing had corners. What kind of animal has corners?
"What's wrong?" Willey asked.
"Something bit my toe," I said. I held my foot up and Willey pulled the thing off my throbbing toe.
"It's a mouse trap," Willey said.
"Oh, yeah," Chester said. "I should have told you, Sarah puts out mouse traps around her garden to keep the rabbits from eating her vegetables."
"Damn, that hurt," I said.
Willey said, "Be a brave little soldier and don't whimper."
"I didn't whimper." What kind of a nut puts mouse traps around a garden?
Willey said, "Give me a hand with the coffin, Barney." We picked it up and slowly lowered it into the hole. Then we all stood there looking down at it.
"We should say a prayer for the deceased," I said.
"May she rest in peace," Willey said. Chester and I said amen. Willey and I picked up our shovels and gently started shoveling dirt into the hole. Soon the coffin was out of site and we started shoveling faster. When the hole was full we dug four small holes and re-planted the tomato plants. The leftover dirt was in the tarp, so we just rolled it up and Chester carried it. I carried the shovels.
"Come on, Oscar," Willey said. Oscar just stood there just staring down at the grave. Willey took his hand and we started back to Chester's house. We put the shovels and the tarp full of dirt in the storage shed.
"Thanks for helping me guys. I couldn't have done it without you." Chester shook our hands.
"Don't mention it," Willey said. We all said good night
and Willey, Oscar and I headed for the fence.
"That certainly was an enjoyable way to spend an evening," I said. "We'll have to do this more often.
Chapter Thirteen
THE NEXT DAY Willey, Oscar, and I were sitting on Sofie's back deck as usual, watching the boats going up and down the river. The deck had a roof over it that kept the sun off, and even though the temperature was in the mid-nineties the breeze cooled us off nicely.
"This is nice," I said. "I wouldn't mind staying here for a while. Too bad I don't have my laptop here. I could work on my article for Weeki Wachee right here on the deck."
"It's back at your house, isn't it?" Willey asked.
"Yes," I said. "Where I can't reach it."
"We'll go and get it tonight."
"Are you nuts? My house is up near the front of the park. They're sure to be watching the place, waiting for us to come back."
"It's been a while now," Willey said. "They probably think if we haven't come back by now we won't be coming back at all. If we're careful we can go over the fence and move behind the houses like we did last night, until we get to your place. We'll be in and out in a flash, and they'll never know we were there."
"You think so? I sure would like to keep going on that article."
Willey said, "You could always go to the Saturday flea market in Oldsmar and pick up a second-hand laptop for a couple of hundred bucks. You have the money now."
"I know, but I have all of my research on my computer. And I've already started on the article."
"In that case," Willey said, "we better go get it."
"Okay, we'll get it tonight. But I'm bringing my gun, just in case. And we'll leave Oscar here with Sofie. I don't want Oscar to get hurt."
"Sounds like a plan," Willey said.
Later that night we told Sofie we were going out to buy some clothes. We asked her if she would mind if we left Oscar with her until we got back. She said she didn't mind at all. We drove down to Citrus Bay, and down the street just before the park, to the back of the farm. We pulled off into the brush and parked. We found the plastic crates we had used the night before, when we were playing at being undertakers, and got over the fence easily. I had my gun in my pocket.
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