Under-Heaven

by Tim Greaton

  Clay hugged her. “Kids are resilient. He’ll get through this. I know he will.”

  “You know what the worst part is?” she said stepping back. “When he went missing, all I could think about was my Uncle Nate. I never met him. He was killed by lobstermen up in Maine almost sixty years ago. They broke into my mother’s house when she was just a baby.”

  Clay couldn’t say why, but suddenly a series of chills shot up his spine. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise.

  “My Uncle Nate was just about Jesse’s age when it happened.” Karen’s hand went to her mouth. “I was so scared that I was going to lose Jesse the same way. I was so scared that my little boy was going to die.”

  Chills had grown to envelop Clay’s entire body. It was as though a herd of ghosts had arrived to pinch and poke at him. He found himself strangely compelled to know more about this woman’s family.

  “And your mother?” he asked.

  Karen reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue. It was barely adequate, but she wiped it across her eyes and down her cheeks.

  “The fishermen didn’t want my grandfather to fish off their coast anymore, so they killed him. My grandmother and my Uncle Nate, who was only nine years old at the time, were also murdered. Believe it or not, a dog saved my mother. His name was Whiskey.”

  Clay felt as though his nervous system had just been plugged into an outlet. Chills and tingles roared up and down his body, a ringing began in his ears. He dipped his hand into a pocket and rubbed his pewter charm.

  “The police believe that Whiskey somehow dragged my mother, who was only two years old, out through a broken window. Even though one of the men shot him in the hind quarters, the dog somehow kept her safe until a sheriff found her the next morning.”

  The ringing in Clay’s ears had grown so loud that hearing became difficult. He felt faint.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Gromkis?”

  Clay nodded and forced the eerie feeling out of his mind. Still, though, his ears continued to ring. There was something so compelling about this woman’s story, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “And your mother,” he asked. “How is she?”

  Karen shook her head.

  “She died a few years ago in a car crash with one of her drunken boyfriends. She sure did have a way of picking the bad ones. It’s a trait I’m afraid I may have picked up. The next guy, though, is going to be a saint. I don’t care if he’s the most boring man on the planet; I want a good man in Jesse’s life.”

  “That sounds nice,” Clay agreed. “He’s been through a lot. He deserves it.”

  Suddenly, Clay felt the need to sit. The chills were back and his knees felt weak. He excused himself and went up the hall where he could sit in a small waiting area. What was wrong with him? Had he eaten something bad earlier in the day? He waited nearly twenty minutes for the odd feelings to pass.

  It would have been a good night to find a couple of beers and spend some quiet time in a hotel room, except he had a meeting scheduled in Ohio for the next evening. Two nights before, an eleven-year-old girl had been abducted right out of a crowded public mall. There were hundreds of witnesses, but the police were having no luck tracking her down.

  He made his way back to Jesse’s room. The boy was still asleep.

  “Mrs. Largess—I’m sorry, Karen.”

  “Yes.”

  Clay took an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to her. In it was a bank check made out to her for ten thousand dollars.

  “One of my clients recently lost a child in an incident similar to what happened to Jesse. He wanted you to have this, and he wanted you to call him if there is anything else he can do.”

  She opened the envelope and peeked inside.

  “Oh my god!”

  “He’s very wealthy,” Clay told her. “He paid my fee to help you, and when I told him what had happened he insisted on helping more.” Clay handed her Mr. Imodo’s card. “I know he’d be thrilled if you thought to send him a picture of Jesse when he gets better.”

  “I will,” Karen nodded, “I promise.”

  Clay smiled. “You also have my number should you ever need it.”

  She hugged him.

  “You are an angel,” she said to him. “You really are an angel.”

  Clay hugged her one last time and left the room.

  Before he could close the door she called out, “Would you thank your friend for me?”

  Clay peeked his head back in. “Friend?”

  “Yes, the policeman from Florida who called a few weeks ago and gave me your number. He said you worked on the last case together.”

  Clay shook his head. He couldn’t remember working with any particular policeman to find the last girl.

  “I’m sorry but I don’t know who it might have been. Are you sure it wasn’t someone from Oklahoma or maybe Texas?”

  “I don’t think so.” Karen rummaged around in her purse and pulled out a pink napkin. She smiled. “From the restaurant I work at,” she said in explanation. She unfolded the napkin and read the name.

  “He called himself Officer Finneus. Does that ring a bell?”

  Clay’s face flushed at the mention of the name. He felt as though he’d just become a player in a supernatural movie. Why did these random names and events strike such a strong chord in him? And who was this Officer Finneus? Clay didn’t know.

  As he left the hospital followed the Boston signs to the highway, he tried to understand his strange reaction to Karen’s family drama. Did it remind him of a similar case, or was it something else? He had driven halfway through the state of Connecticut and his thumb was sore from rubbing his pewter charm when he pulled into the parking lot at a Will Rogers restaurant right off the highway.

  The meal was okay, fried chicken and fries, but might have sat in the warmers for a bit too long. Clay finished up a Diet-Pepsi before finally leaving the restaurant. He was walking back toward his car when a heavyset woman who looked to be in her fifties approached him. She wore a long, white jacket that nearly covered her bare legs. Her shoes were white with short, white socks. Possibly she was a nurse. She had a kindly smile. In her hand was a leash, and at the end of the leash romped a young golden retriever. His amber eyes sparkled with mischief but also, Clay thought, intelligence.

  “It’s nice to see my boy all grown up,” the woman said to Clay.

  If it hadn’t been for her smile, he might have found her comment menacing.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “That’s my boy,” she said, “always right to the point. Let’s just say I’m a relative of young Jesse. You did an amazing job finding him.”

  Clay couldn’t say why, but he sensed he did know this woman. She didn’t exactly look familiar, but there was something about her.

  “How did you find me?”

  The woman chuckled. “It doesn’t matter where your soul flutters off to, little one, as I told you once before I will always be able to find you.”

  Clay’s mind was afire with half-memories and strong feelings of affection for this woman. But none of it made any sense. He had no memory of her. He was sure they had never met before.

  “We found him,” the woman said, holding out the dog’s leash. “It took almost three hundred angels and nearly forty years to track him down, but you’re worth it. We all feel you’re worth it.”

  Clay found the angel comment odd, but no more so than the other statements she made. He felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to step forward and hug her.

  But instead, he said, “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s yours,” the woman said. “Or maybe it’s you who are his. Either way, you two belong together.”

  Clay glanced at the dog who was staring intently at him. Something seemed so familiar about those eyes. Clay glanced toward his Corvette and its impeccably neat seats. “Thanks, but I’m not a dog kind of guy. I’m on the road a lot.”

  “I’d like to see your key chain fo
r just a moment,” the woman said.

  Knowing that his day had just gone from strange to totally off-the-wall bizarre, Clay removed his keys from his pocket.

  “I’m not stealing it. It really is my Corvette.” He held up the Corvette key. “See.”

  She smiled. “No, I was hoping to see the other key chain, your charm.”

  Clay reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his good luck charm. He dangled it between them. Though he had been rubbing it for years, it had been a long time since he actually looked at it. It was the perfect, even if somewhat worn, shape of a golden retriever.

  “May I,” she asked and extended her free hand, palm up.

  Though he couldn’t understand why, Clay didn’t want to disappoint this woman. He gently placed the pewter dog into her hand. She slipped the leash into his.

  “You’ve got a little girl to save,” she said, “so you probably should be going, Nate.”

  Suddenly the gale of chills was back and the internal sirens were ringing. Nate? Why had she called him Nate? On the one hand, she might have been the strangest person he had ever met, but on the other he had an inexplicable desire to wrap his arms around her and just hold her. Was he going crazy?

  “I love you, too,” she said.

  Clay felt himself go dizzy, and by the time he had refocused his eyes, she was gone. He let his eyes roam the parking lot, but there was no sign of her. Confused but strangely buoyed, he opened the passenger door of his car and the dog eagerly jumped in. Clay slid behind the wheel and reached over to scratch his new friend behind the ears.

  “How helpful will you be in finding missing children?” he asked the dog.

  They were destined to find out.

  EPILOGUE

  Uncle Finneus sat at the head of the table, a cheerful broad smile spread across his face. To either side of him were Grandma Clara and my Uncle Albert, who looked especially content. Beside him was my Aunt Bertrice who had recently found her way into Heaven. Earlier, my Uncle Albert explained how he’d finally brought Mr. Thomas Edison down to her purgatory to talk with her. Whether the exchange had been proper was a bit of a gray area, but judging from the gathering here, damned and risen alike, my lineage didn’t have too much trouble with the gray areas. Across from Aunt Bertrice was an empty chair. At the other end of the dining room table, across from Uncle Finneus, is where I sat, just a nine-year-old among adults.

  Uncle Finneus raised his glass to me, “Welcome home, young Nathaniel. It’s good to have you back.”

  “We’ve all been so proud of you, Nate,” Grandma Clara said, “the way you’ve helped so many children.”

  It seemed odd to have them talking about Clay as though he were me. I knew it was true, but I hadn’t yet had time to absorb that second life, and it still seemed as though Clay’s memories were more of a movie in my mind, rather than my own experiences. I had to admit, however, that it had been an exciting movie, even if—

  I glanced down at my otherwise white tee shirt. There I could see a solid red stain in the center of my chest as well as the old stain I had always worn on my shoulder. The details were still a little hazy to me, but Clay had been buying something at a small store when it had been held up. He had been shot. I also knew that Clay had been married and had fathered four beautiful children, and that his first granddaughter had already started school. Though murdered a few years early, Clay had enjoyed a long and happy life.

  “How’s Russian cheesecake sound?” Aunt Alice said as she came into the dining room with a large fresh-from-the-oven dessert. Her gown was buttoned high up around her neck and her white lace hoop skirt was wide and elegant. Though some souls might have found her to be stiff and formal, I knew better.

  “There’s my favorite Russian flower,” Uncle Finneus said, gesturing to my Aunt Alice. Of everyone, it was he who had changed the most. His suit had gone from a medium gray to a gray so light that it would soon be cream-colored. I wondered what Hell would do if one of their own turned white?

  Though no one blushes in Under-Heaven, Aunt Alice’s body language said she was gushing under my uncle’s compliments. She placed the cake down in the center of the table as Uncle Albert and Uncle Finneus rose and rapidly cleared the potato, squash and cranberry dishes away. The smell of the freshly baked cake was heavenly.

  Now you might be asking yourself, “Since when do they serve food in Under-Heaven?” The truth is it’s a trend that had just started with my “Welcome Home” party. We’re all independent souls who can make decisions for ourselves, and though there are rules that everyone knows are too important to break, there are others that aren’t so much rules as traditions. Sometimes you just have to stretch out and take a little risk. Who knows what rewards you might find?

  I slipped a few bits of food under the table where a friendly tongue removed them from my fingers.

  I, for my part, intended to take an extended rest and spend time with my family. Already, Uncle Albert was planning a reunion for Vicky, my parents and I. I also wanted to give myself time to absorb Clay’s life into my own experience. It was possible that I might even break my own previous record for residence in Under-Heaven, but ultimately I knew I would go back again. Like the elderly man I had met so many decades before, I knew my ties to life and the Earth below were too strong. Heaven would have to wait for a while longer.

  “I want a big piece,” I said to Aunt Alice.

  “You’re the guest of honor,” she said cheerfully. She plopped an especially large slice on my plate.

  THE END

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  A NOVEL OF HOPE

  TIM GREATON

  Prologue

  I forced a vision of Tabitha and Derek upon myself again. I saw their deaths in the smoke and their dual caskets. I imagined Tabby, impatient and accusatory in her death. The debating team fled again, unable to function with the obvious gilt of the blood I had caused right before them. Finally, once again, my mind fell silent.

  Now was the time to jump.

  Now!

  Taking one last gulp of brutally cold air, I took another step up the rail. I faced the ravine and flexed my legs for the final two steps that would carry me into oblivion…

  Chapter One

  A Holiday of Peace

  "Why are you dressed like that?" Karen asked. "It's Christmas not Halloween, you know."

  I smiled at her petite reflection in the large oval dressing mirror. She was barely a step behind me. I finished buttoning the black robe that I had pulled over my normal jeans and flannel shirt. "Saint Nick's in the heart, not the clothes." I turned and drew her to me. "Do you know how much I love you?"

  "Yes, but tell me again."

  "A whole lot," I said as I gently brushed a lock of brown hair from her forehead and kissed her lips—lips jus
t as sweet and soft as they had been that first time. It was hard to believe that a year and a half had already passed.

  When we finally parted, I surveyed the bedroom. The deed to the house and the toyshop were both lying neatly on top of the dresser. Both Karen and I had properly signed and laid them out for David to find when he began moving in the next day. He'd be surprised at the Christmas gift. Though he was expecting to move in, he didn't know we were giving him both the house and the shop.

  Five suitcases were lined neatly alongside the recently-made bed. Other than the two, medium-sized boxes in the living room, four of those suitcases represented everything we were taking with us. Karen had already removed our pictures from the wall. I knew she would have taken special care to pack the photos of Tabitha and Derek safely. Both she and I had been vacuuming and cleaning all day and the place looked easily as good as the day we had taken it over.

  I glanced outside. The sky was dark and the street lights of the little Vermont town were shining through our windows. This Christmas Eve other families were likely huddled around their holiday meals, while we, however, were on our way to begin a new life. We were going to miss this wonderful place.

  The melody of Jingle Bells drifted in from the living room. For weeks now, Karen had been playing Christmas music and even in these, our last few hours in this house, she was appreciating the magic of the season.

  “I should be going,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said. “I’ll finish things up around here.”

  “Shouldn’t I put the luggage in the car?”

  “What and waste these bulging muscles?” She did an imitation of a body builder’s pose. “I can handle it. Just do what you need to do. I’ll pick you up the way we planned.”