When I Am Laid in Earth (Damnatio Memoriae Book 3)

by Laura Giebfried

  “No, I figure her wrists were slit,” I said. “I just wondered … I don't know. Maybe there was a way to tell if she'd really done it, or the marks were off angle or something as though someone else had done it.”

  “I wouldn't think that would be too hard to fake, though,” Jack said, pushing the last bit of bread into his mouth and chewing it over. “Up not across, right?”

  I made a face.

  “Could you be a little less morbid?” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. “Some of us don't have strong stomachs.”

  “Let's just get back to potential killers, then,” he said. “What'd you say before? Who would benefit from this?”

  “Right. I mean, there's got to be a reason that someone would kill them.”

  “Not always, though,” Jack said, referring once again to Bardom Island.

  “But there was still a reason behind all that,” I countered. “Even if it was just because something went wrong inside his head.”

  “True, and I'm pretty sure we can cross that off of our list this time around – unless we're in the running for the biggest coincidence ever.”

  I took another few sips from my coffee and wiped the rim with a napkin before setting it back on the table.

  “Well, Mrs. Perenna doesn't like it here,” I said. “And she won't get any money if she divorces her husband.”

  “Are you saying she's trying to kill her husband to get it, then?” Jack said. “But why kill her kids first? In fact, why kill her kids at all? She could've just cut the wires in Mr. Perenna's car years ago – or killed him in a grouse-hunting accident.”

  I shrugged. I hardly thought that any mother – no matter how desperate she was for money – would go so far as to kill her own children to get it, though after discovering what Albertson had done, I was rather disillusioned about the morality of humankind. As I squinted over my coffee cup, though, and remembered watching her walk back through the snowy cemetery long after the burial was over, I resigned that it had not been her, after all.

  “True,” I said indefinably. “So maybe Mr. Perenna's accident really was an accident, and he did it.”

  “But why would he kill his children?” Jack said. “Talk about being morbid, Nim: what's your obsession with thinking that parents are out to murder their offspring? That goes against all evolutionary benefits.”

  “Maybe he's not really their father.”

  “Now you're just getting off-track,” he said. “Or projecting.”

  “Projecting?”

  “You know, attributing things about yourself onto others.”

  “But I know that my father's my father,” I said.

  “Are you? You look way more like Karl.”

  “Thanks,” I said irritably, “– and yes, I'm sure.”

  “Fine, but you've never hoped otherwise?”

  I raised my coffee to my mouth and took another sip, eyeing him with a resolute look over the rim. As he remembered that my father was dying, he dispelled the previous idea.

  “Right. I guess that was just me, then.”

  “Anyway. I'm just trying to think of who would benefit from their deaths.”

  Mrs. Coffey returned and put a plate piled high with food in front of me, and I smiled graciously at her.

  “Say, Mrs. Coffey,” Jack said, catching her as she turned back to the counter. “Could I ask you a question?”

  “Is it appropriate?” she replied, raising her brow at him.

  “Partially.” He gave her his most virtuous look, which was still far less innocent than the average person's, and she consented with a nod. “If Mr. Perenna had died today – which, thank God he didn't, I might add – would Mrs. Perenna get his money?”

  Mrs. Coffey frowned.

  “What sort of question is that?”

  “A hypothetical one,” Jack replied. He threw me a glance. “Nim's going to law school.”

  “Are you?” she asked, looking over at me momentarily before turning back to Jack. “Never met a lawyer I liked.”

  “He feels the same way,” Jack told her lowly. “So, for educational purposes, would the money have gone to her? Or can that sort of thing be fixed in a pre-nup, too?”

  “It can, and it was,” Mrs. Coffey said deliberately. “His fortune's going to his children – or child, I suppose I have to say now. You have to ask yourself how much a man can trust his wife if he's too frightened to stick her in the will, even.”

  When she had gone, I slid my plate over to Jack so that he could eat the pie that she had warmed for me. The ice-cream was melting over the sides and pooling over the ceramic in utter contrast to the still-frozen world outside.

  “Well, at the risk of sounding too cynical again, maybe it was Eliot,” I said, finishing my coffee and placing the empty mug back on the table.

  “That's making more sense,” Jack agreed. “Kill the siblings, get rid of the father, take the money and run. Not even sure if I'd blame him – God knows I'd be itching to get away from that family, too.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said, though I still wasn't entirely sure.

  “Ah, Nim, don't go over-thinking it,” Jack told me. “Sometimes the simplest solution is the right one.”

  “No, I know,” I said, though despite saying as much, I rather thought that the opposite always ended up being true. “I was just hoping that it was someone else.”

  “What? Were you rooting for the creepy, artsy kid to be an innocent bystander?” Jack said. “Or were you just hoping that it really was one of the parents?”

  “I don't know,” I said again. Though in truth, I was still somehow hoping that the demonic figure that had appeared to me in the church was something other than a hallucination, and that I would be alright regardless of where I went or who I was with. After swaying back and forth so much trying to decide if I wanted to stay with Karl or Jack, it was clear that if all else remained constant, I would have chosen the latter: but if I really did need someone to watch over me, Karl was the only one capable – or willing – to do so.

  An odd inkling kept me up for the most part of the night, and in the morning I was so exhausted that I could barely pull myself out of bed to take Mea out. After returning to Jack's room and watching him head through the cemetery on his way to work from the small window, I sat back on his mattress and tried to think of what was unsettling me so much about Anna's death.

  I clicked on my phone and dialed Karl's number.

  “How do you get blood out of a sweater?”

  There was an odd moment of silence.

  “Enim?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you asking? How to get blood out of a – are you alright?”

  “I'm fine. I was just wondering.”

  “Are you – have you gotten hurt?”

  “No, don't worry. It's not my blood.”

  Karl hardly seemed placated.

  “Jesus, whose is it?”

  “Sorry, I meant: it's not my blood, and it's not my sweater.”

  “What in the world is going on up there?”

  Realizing that I had not started the conversation properly, I sighed and tried again.

  “It's a hypothetical question,” I said, though I was rather certain that Karl had no reason whatsoever to believe me. “To get blood out of a sweater – a wool one – what would you have to do?”

  “I … Well, you just blot it with water – cold water, not hot – and then again with a dry towel.”

  “Right. What if it's not fresh?” I asked.

  “Jesus, Enim – I really wish you'd give me some context, here.”

  I waited without answering, and he sighed and went on.

  “If it's dried, then you have to put something on it. Hydrogen peroxide works well, but it'll ruin the color if you don't put a colorfast product on first, though you probably don't have either, so … detergent and vinegar will work fine. Just mix it with water, and remember to blot, not rub.”

  “What does rubbing do?”

  “It des
troys the fabric.”

  “Like pilling it up? Or shrinking it?”

  “Yes.” Karl waited in uncertainty. “And why are you asking this again?”

  “Just wondering. It's been a while since I've done my own laundry.”

  “But you said that it wasn't your blood, or your sweater.”

  “Right. It's not.”

  I could feel him shaking his head over the line.

  “I'm very concerned about you, Enim.”

  “I'm not bleeding, don't worry, Karl,” I said.

  “Are you still fighting with Jack?” he asked, and I wondered if he was concerned that I had murdered him and was trying to get rid of the evidence.

  “No. We're fine.”

  He sighed again, though this time it was a different sort of sentiment.

  “That's good,” he said. “Well, I'm heading out to work, but call if you … need anything else.”

  “Blot, don't rub,” I said. “Got it.”

  I clicked off the phone and leaned back against the wall as I thought it over. It was what had been bothering me about seeing Anna's sweaters lined up in her room the day that Jack and I had wandered about the Perenna house: the sleeves, unlike the rest of the garments, were worn as though they had had to have been washed with more force. The sight suggested that she had cut her wrists before her death which, in turn, suggested that whoever had actually killed her must have known that she frequently did so. I frowned again as I tried to imagine someone staging the suicide: they would have had to get her into the bathtub without her causing a fuss, and then slit her wrists in a way in keeping with how she would have done so. The latter part hardly seemed difficult, though, seeing as her arms more than likely already had marks to show where to slice against the skin.

  Leaving Mea in the room, I descended the stairs and crossed down the hall to exit the church. As I was approaching the door, though, someone called me back.

  “Ah, Enim: you've returned.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Father Taggart was standing in the doorway to his office.

  “Yep.”

  “I'm glad,” the priest said, stepping from the room to join me in the hall. He peered down at me with a small smile, seemingly unfazed by my blatant indifference to him. “Jack was … rather down when you left.”

  “Well, I'm back.”

  “Yes, you are,” he confirmed unnecessarily. “I rather thought that you would be.”

  I hummed noncommittally.

  “Where are you off to?” he asked.

  I shifted in my spot, not certain that I wanted to tell him but also uncomfortable with the idea of lying inside of a church.

  “I was … I was going to visit the funeral home, actually,” I said.

  “That's an interesting place to go,” he said. “Not that Kipling has many hot-spots, but … the diner is a more common place for men your age.”

  “I'm not looking for men my age, Father Taggart.”

  “I wasn't suggesting that you were, Enim,” he replied. “Why are you going to the funeral home?”

  I shrugged, still unable to tell a complete lie.

  “I … My father's dying.”

  “I'm so very sorry to hear that,” the priest said quietly. “Has he been ill for some time?”

  “No, it's a pretty recent diagnosis.”

  “That can be even harder,” he said. “But … you're from Connecticut, aren't you? Why are you looking into the funeral home here?”

  I chewed the insides of my cheeks.

  “I … thought that the mortician might be … helpful. To talk to, that is.”

  “Oh, I see.” Father Taggart nodded. “Well, I applaud you for seeking some guidance. In a time such as this, it can be especially useful.”

  “Right. So … I'll be off, then.”

  “Enim,” he said again, calling me back before I could slip out the door. “You know, I know that you're not … strongly religious, so to speak, but if you find that you need someone else to talk to, I would be more than happy to listen.”

  I gave him a look up and down.

  “I'll keep that in mind, Father,” I said, though I knew that he would be the last person I would ever seek to confide in.

  When I reached the main part of town, it occurred to me that I didn't know where the funeral home actually was. Despite the quaintness of the place, it was rather difficult to tell one shop from the next in the thick snow, and more than one of them didn't seem to have signs altogether. Pushing my hands into my pockets, I wandered over to the bookstore to ask Jack.

  “Are you dying?” he asked, glancing up from the register with an amused look on his face.

  “I want to ask him about Anna,” I said, not bothering to keep my voice down given that we were alone.

  “What about her?”

  “I thought I'd ask about the cut marks on her wrists, see if he noticed anything weird or whatnot.”

  Jack frowned.

  “You mean, weird other than the fact that she cut her wrists?” he said dubiously. “I don't know, Nim. I'm not sure that the mortician's the best person to ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “He's a bit ...” Jack made a face and then raised his hand to his head, circling his finger next to his ear. “Loopy.”

  “Loopy?” I repeated flatly, giving him a look.

  “I would've said, 'fucked in the head,' but I thought that loopy was more politically correct.”

  “I think the term's 'mentally disabled.'”

  “Right. Well, in any case, he's a weird one. And by weird, I mean other than the fact that he hangs around dead bodies all day.”

  “Okay, so … maybe he's weird enough to not mind answering our strange questions.”

  “Maybe,” Jack said, giving a halfhearted shrug.

  “Do you want me to wait until you're off work?” I asked.

  “Nah, he'll be gone by then,” he said, closing up the register. “I'll just take an early lunch break. You'll never find the place on your own.”

  Just as he had supposed, I wouldn't have been able to locate the funeral home without his direction. It was located behind a wool shop on one of the backstreets, and the name, which simply read Zapatero, gave no indication that the place was anything other than a shoe factory.

  A bell clinked from somewhere above as we entered, and my eyes squinted as we stepped into the dark area. For a moment, as I stood behind Jack on the dirty, dust-covered hardwood floors, I thought that he had made a mistake with the address: though there were a few coffins laid out in the center of the room for viewing purposes, the walls, corners, and every bit of usable floor space had been dedicated to a series of dead, mounted animals.

  My arm brushed up against a fisher standing on its hind legs and I startled and jumped back. Its dead eyes stared at me glassily.

  “Ugh,” I said, looking at it in distaste.

  “Did I mention he's also the local taxidermist?” Jack said conversationally.

  “There's a local taxidermist, but there's no local doctor?” I asked, wiping at my sleeve in case any residue from the creature had brushed off on me. “This place is screwed up.”

  Jack, who was standing beneath the mounted head of a moose on the side wall, nodded his head from side to side in agreement.

  “True. But if you ever needed a dead animal preserved for all of eternity ...”

  “That shouldn't even be a statement that enters your mind,” I told him.

  “Ah, come on, Nim,” he tried. “Say Mea died – you know, years down the line when she's a hundred and six in dog years. Wouldn't you want the option of having her sitting in your living room, staring up at you lovingly?”

  “I'd want her buried in a shoe-box in the backyard, like anything is supposed to be when it dies,” I countered.

  “You do realize that she's going to get bigger, don't you?” Jack asked. “A shoe-box won't work – not if you're going to bury her in one piece, that is.”

  I made a face. Jack chortled.
r />   “This place gives me the creeps,” I muttered, backing away further only to find myself cornered between a bobcat and a raccoon.

  “Hey, look at this,” Jack said suddenly, waving me over to the other side of the room. Sliding carefully between the animals, I stepped over to see what he was excited about. “It's a grouse.”

  The dead bird was perched on a fake branch at eye-level with one of the coffins.

  “That's disgusting,” I said.

  “Sorry, thought you'd like it,” Jack replied. “I'd try to find you a real one, but I'm a bit wary of grouse-hunting now, for some reason.”

  He grinned and looked back at the stuffed bird.

  “I'll give you twenty bucks to touch it.”

  “Jesus, no thanks,” I said, backing away. “And I have an inheritance, remember? Twenty'll hardly convince me to do anything.”

  “Ah, suit yourself,” he said, waving me off. “But your inheritance will run out eventually – and I'm pretty sure I've convinced you to do loads of things without bribery ever being involved.”

  “Like this.”

  “No, this was your idea,” he said, referring to the funeral home rather than the situation with Anna's death. “I warned you that you wouldn't like it.”

  I glanced around the place again for any sign of the mortician, but was only met with a thousand pairs of glassy eyes instead. Wrinkling my nose, I crossed my arms and turned back to Jack.

  “Should we go look for him, do you think?”

  “I wouldn't,” he said darkly. “He might be embalming something.”

  No sooner had he said it, however, than a man appeared in the doorway between the backroom and the one that we were in. He stood illuminated by the orange lights for a moment, wringing his hands together as though they were pained from arthritis, and didn't seem to notice nor care that we had been standing there for several minutes since the bell had alerted him to our presence.

  He was an older man, for certain, with wrinkles that melted off of his skin and hung down around his eyes and neck, and though he had gone completely bald on the top of his head, long, white hair fell from the perimeter of his scalp to brush against his shoulders. He was wearing a suit that appeared to be older than he was, and – had he not been moving – I might have thought that he was one of the preserved creatures standing about in the room, or possibly a corpse that had gotten up and begun to walk around again.