“I’ll be back in a few, Ed. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll be right here.”
As Mary darted off to the darkened border of the bar, Ed raised the pipe to his mouth and clamped the stem between his teeth. He struck a match across the bar’s lip. It flickered to a flame, dimly swilling his hand with orange light. He raised it to the bowl and put the fire on the leaves. Puffing on the stem, he pulled in smoke that tasted a little like acorns.
Before he could take a second puff, a hand clapped down on his shoulder. Peering up into the mirror between shelves of gleaming bottles on the other side of the bar, Ed found Deputy Worden standing behind him.
“Hey, Ed.”
Ed choked on the smoke. Everything flashed, rolling through his mind like a movie: Black and white, bouncy, with hairs and noise dancing across the screen.
“Thought you could get away with it, did you?” asked Worden.
“Wuh-with what?”
“You took some things that don’t belong to you. Things from our graveyards.”
“I-I-I…just took some parts of the bodies! They won’t miss ‘em!”
“The jig is up, Gein. You’re going to the big house…”
“Not the big house!” Ed flung himself off the stool, shoving Worden away. “You’ll never take me alive!”
“Ed?”
Ed blinked his eyes. Everything was back to normal, and in color. When he looked at Deputy Worden again, he found him staring back with heavy concern on his face. He wasn’t in his uniform, so that had to mean he wasn’t here on business.
“Are you all right, Ed?”
“Yuh-yeah. I’m fine…” He grabbed his mug, straining to keep his hand from trembling as he took a swallow.
“Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Ed waved a hand. “No bother.”
“What brings you out here tonight?” He sat his mug on the counter, and slid his way into the stool next to Ed just as somebody got up to leave. “Don’t usually see you here unless something’s on your mind.”
Ed shrugged. “No reason…not really.”
He wouldn’t dare tell Worden that Bernice had been on his mind some. The deputy would probably drive him off somewhere and put a bullet in him as if he were a horse with a broken leg.
Worden frowned. He raised his own mug to his mouth and took three heavy gulps. When he pulled it away foam dotted the spiky hairs above his lip. He used the back of his hand to wipe it off. “Sorry if I was prying.”
Deputy Worden looked how Ed figured Timmy would at forty. He had about two days worth of beard on his face. His wavy hair was combed and looked as if he’d put some oil in it to keep it under control.
“No apology needed. What brings you by?”
Worden sat his mug on the bar next to Ed’s. “Just getting my usual three drafts for the night. Then I’m going to head home. Pot roast tonight.” Deputy Worden pointed at Ed. It made his heart lurch in his throat. “Surprised you didn’t eat with Mom tonight.”
Ed shook his head, puffed his pipe. “I was invited. Vegetable soup.”
Worden moaned. “With deer meat, I’m sure.”
Another nod. “Yes, sir.”
“I could sure go for a bowl of that myself.”
Smiling around the stem of his pipe, Ed gave another nod. He puffed smoke into his lungs. “I think Timmy might have thought the same. I think he was going over there.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Was at the store before she closed up. Timmy was there, asking if he could.”
Worden nodded. “That means I have a wife sitting home alone, probably wishing I was there to eat some of her pot roast.”
Ed smiled. “Probably.”
“Barb gets a little…worked up about all of us eating together. With Timmy at Mom’s, she’s probably a wreck thinking her food’s no good.” He looked around the room, eyes focused and narrowed.
Seeing Worden was doing it made Ed join him. Ed figured Worden was trying to spot Mary. All Ed saw were heavy shadows with hints of movement inside.
Worden spun back toward the bar. “I noticed you chatting with Mary earlier.”
“Yeah…” He shrugged.
“A woman like that is trouble.”
Ed knew this already. If Mama was still around to know he was here, she’d have left red stripes on his back with a belt.
Worden continued. “She’s good for one thing, Ed, and one thing only. And I wouldn’t normally say this to anybody, but I feel it might do you some good. Take what she’s offering you, enjoy it, and send her on her way. Maybe when she offers it again, you take it then too, but just as long as that’s all it is. Don’t bring the likes of her home for good. Understand?”
Ed nodded.
“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sneak out of here and head home before Barbara…” Worden began to stand.
Mary appeared behind him. “You weren’t leaving, were you Tom, dear?”
He dithered a moment, then shook his head.
Ed heard a smack come from behind Worden. The deputy jerked forward as if he’d just been popped. Ed assumed he had been, and on his ass by Mary’s hand.
“I looked for you earlier,” she said. “Thought you might’ve changed your mind again.”
“I didn’t,” he said.
“Ready?” she asked.
Worden nodded again. Before following her away from the bar, he glanced at Ed from the lower regions of his eyes. Ed saw a flicker of shame in them.
Mary hooked her arm around Worden’s arm and led him away. Ed continued watching until they reached a door on the right side of the bar. She opened it for Worden. He went inside first. Mary turned to Ed, gave a wicked devilish smile, and waved before following him in.
Then the door closed.
Some people at the tables began to clap.
“Getting him a piece…”
“Fucks her all the time…”
“Wonder if his wife has any idea…”
“Does your wife know you been sticking it in Mary, too?”
“Shut up!”
“Who cares? It’s not our business anyway.”
Ed puffed on his pipe. He was never one to keep up with the town’s gossip, but he’d gathered enough information to know that Deputy Tom Worden had been fooling around with Mary for almost a year. It seemed everyone in Plainfield knew about it except for Barbara.
Maybe she did know, but chose to ignore it.
Did Bernice know?
How about Timmy?
Heat rushed up Ed’s skin knowing Timmy’s father was back there with Mary while his wife sat at home wondering where he was.
Worden probably had his face sandwiched between Mary’s enormous breasts right now.
Ed had been in the back room before, not doing what Deputy Worden was, but fixing the drain in the sink. The front section of the back room was small, but opened on an alcove where she kept a stove for the rare occasions when Mary was offering cooked meals. And at the far back was a bed where people could sleep off their drunk. One thing Mary never allowed, was somebody to drive home if they’d had too many to drink.
Ed pictured Mary sitting at the edge of the mattress, her heavy breasts spilled out of her shirt. Her skirt was hiked up her meaty legs that were curved around Worden’s head. Head arched back, mouth parted and moaning as Worden’s tongue worked...
“He just can’t get him enough of that woman, can he?”
Ed nearly gasped. He looked to where Worden had been sitting and found Burt Maxwell now occupying the stool. He’d sat down like a phantom without Ed’s knowledge. He held a cigar between two fingers of his right hand, a mug of beer with his left. Burt had cut Ed’s hair when he was younger and still did now. It was his shop where Ed used to sneak peeks in magazines Mama wouldn’t let him read. Age hadn’t been kind to Burt over the years. His cheeks sagged to meet the skin under his chin, pulling his nose down with it. His lips puckered out in a constant, hound dog pout.
Burt hocked a laugh. “Eddie, you know as well as I do what’s going on in there.”
“Even so. Ain’t my business.”
“Aren’t you close with Bernice? And Timmy?”
It was like he’d been reading Ed’s mind.
“Maybe you should say something to them,” Burt added.
“I wouldn’t know how…”
Burt’s mouth twisted, eyebrows pointed up. “Maybe you’d better not. Might do more harm than good. After all, he is the law. Might make your life hell if you did.”
Thinking about his graveyard carousing, Ed agreed. Probably a good idea to steer clear of Worden’s bad side.
“So how have you been holding up, Eddie?” Squinting, he swiveled his head from side to side. “I see you’re in need for a trim. Hair’s getting scruffy over your ears and it’s curling out in the back.”
Ed blushed, embarrassed by his shabbiness.
“You’ve got straight hair, Eddie. If it’s curling then that means it’s long overdue for a snip.” He thrust his cigar-pinching fingers in the air as if they were scissors and accidentally snapped his cigar in half. “Shit!”
The burning half fell onto the bar as the clumpy chewed tip dropped into Burt’s lap. He brushed himself off, then picked up the burning half. After giving it a quick inspection, he plopped it back in his mouth.
“I’ll try to get by soon,” Ed said, though he had no intentions of doing so in the near future. He stuffed more tobacco in his pipe. His eyes made their way to the door again. He fought the images of what Mary and Worden were doing in there from surfacing.
Burt must have noticed. “I can’t believe they aren’t a little more discreet about it, you know?”
Ed nodded. He supposed being the deputy of a small town had its benefits, one of them being the only negative comments that were made about you were behind your back.
“How’re you maintaining the house on your own?” asked Burt.
“Fine.”
He nodded. Sipped from his mug. “It was a damn shame about your Ma, but at least she’s not suffering anymore, right?”
He patted Ed’s back. Though it had happened a few years ago, Burt spoke of Mama’s death as if it were recent. That was okay with Ed, because it felt recent. Wasn’t a day that didn’t go by he didn’t wish she was still in that big house with him. How it used to be, before her episodes began to slowly ravish her brain.
Burt looked around the room. “I think I’m going to head home. It’s getting dead in here.”
“Doing the same when I finish my beer.”
“I hear you, Eddie.” He stood up, his hand digging in the front pocket of his trousers. He pulled out a dollar bill and smacked it down on the bar. “That ought to cover it.”
Ed glanced at the craggy piece of cash. If Burt had drank as much as Ed assumed he had, then a meager dollar was nowhere near enough to cover it.
“Oh, by the way,” said Burt, turning. “Been meaning to ask you. What were you doing driving around at dawn last week?”
Ed’s stomach gave a sickening lurch.
Burt continued as he buttoned up his coat. “I was driving back into town from visiting my sister and I saw your truck heading down seventy-three, didn’t I?”
Ed remembered exactly where he was.
The old graveyard.
Ed cleared his throat, not trusting his voice. “Nope. Wasn’t me.”
Burt wrinkled his nose, baring his upper teeth. “Are you sure? I swear that was your truck. Coming back from the rural area? Nothing but woods that far out and I thought it was odd that you’d be back there. Hunting maybe?”
Ed shook his head. “Nope.”
Burt stared at the floor as if he wasn’t sure what it was. Then he shrugged. When he looked at Ed again, he was no longer frowning. “Oh, well, guess I made a mistake. I do that sometimes. Take care, Eddie. Get in the shop next week so we can take care of that wild nest on your head.”
“Yes, sir.”
Looking back at the door opposite the bar, Burt made a face. “Still not right.” Then he spun around and walked away, vanishing into the tavern’s darkness.
Ed sat at the bar, smoking his pipe and drinking his beer. When he finished what was left of the tobacco, he slid over an ash tray, and tapped the ashes from the pipe into it. He blew into the stem to make sure nothing was clogged in there. It seemed fine.
Then he got up from the stool. He put down enough money to cover his tab. Then he added what he thought was sufficient to cover Burt’s. He turned around and left the bar.
Ed made his way through the flock of drunken customers. It was a good thing they all feared Mary and wouldn’t dare try stealing from her. How long she’d been in the back room with Worden, they could have robbed her blind.
Cold air dropped onto Ed when he exited the tavern.
In his truck, he drove along Highway 73.
The graveyard was waiting.
-6-
The graveyard was spooky in the pale glow of the moon. Flicking the head of a match with his thumbnail, a spark ignited, singeing the tip of his thumb. He ignored the minor burn as he lowered the sputtering flame into the lantern. The fire jumped onto the wick. Shaking out the match, he tossed it behind him.
Leaving the truck on the side of the road behind some brush, he’d hiked the narrow path back here. Now he stood just a few steps from the rusted gate, the lantern held out before him. It spread a soft golden shimmer in front of him.
Those other visits seemed forgotten, as if this was his first time gazing at the piercing contours of the wrought-iron gate. The tops of the fence narrowed to sharp tips that pointed at the sky, making Ed jittery inside. He could almost feel their cold sharpness punching into his flesh.
Time to get to work.
Tools clattered inside the duffel bag hanging behind his back as he adjusted the strap on his shoulder. But he didn’t move.
He stared.
The headstones were inky shapes in the moonlight. Fog hovered above the stones, curling around the tops like cottony snakes.
Tonight felt different. It made his skin feel as if ants were skittering all over, made his head feel as if a cold ball was growing in his brain. His stomach buzzed and cramped. His heart sledged in his ears.
He took another deep breath to calm himself, then started walking up the short dirt path. Reaching the gate, he pushed it open, and entered.
Inside, he sunk to a crouch. He set the duffel bag on the ground, holding the lantern close to his face. He felt the heat drifting from the glass, smelled burning oil. Standing, he held the lantern up, and started walking alongside the headstones. The woods seemed to absorb all outside sounds, making his footsteps sound as if he were walking on newspaper.
Gold light flickered across the ragged markers jutting like the fingertips of a giant stone man reaching up from the earth. He examined the three he’d already dug up. They looked as if he’d done a good job recovering them. Nobody should be able to tell they’d been tampered with.
Unless they checked inside the caskets, then they’d realize the heads were missing.
He went to the tree with the low-hanging branches, sliding the lantern’s hooped handle over a narrow, leafless branch. It bent slightly with the lantern’s weight. He walked back to his duffel bag, and squatted.
Ed slid out the shovel, setting it on the ground beside him. Then he grabbed the pickax under its bowed blades and tugged it out. He didn’t think he would need it tonight. Since there hadn’t been snow in weeks, the ground wouldn’t be hard.
Keep it close, just in case.
Ed twisted around. The lantern’s orange spread tented the graveyard. The four headstones spread out in an arc, forming a grin of rock on the dead ground.
A hand clutching the shovel, Ed walked to the fourth grave—a lanky headstone that sat crooked in the ground. Fissures spread across the rock like webbing.
Putting the s
hovel’s blade to the ground, he used the heel of his boot to stomp it in. The blade chomped into the dark earth. He pushed the handle down, tearing out a large clod of soil, and hefted it to the side. Dirt from the sides of the hole sprinkled down, as if trying to rebury itself. He shoveled out another clump, and added it to the small pile.
With the soil so loose, it took him longer to make his way down. One thing he preferred about digging in the winter months, the ground remained firm as he burrowed, keeping the dirt compacted and stiff. It was harder work and he needed to use the pickax more, but at least there wasn’t the risk of the dirt collapsing and burying him alive.
That would be a horrible death—buried alive. Trying to breathe, but all you managed to inhale was old dirt. He wondered how long it would take somebody to die if they were planted like a seed.
Too long, he figured. Each second of life under a dirt blanket would be excruciating. Anybody would pray for their death at that point. Just begging God to kill them, though the suffering would last forever…
Thump!
The shovel came to a juddering halt and skidded out to the side. Looking around, Ed saw he was in the ground over his head. The hole was wide and long, the dirt wall sprinkling like an hourglass. It made soft trickling sounds around his feet.
He used the tip of the shovel to scrape what remained of the dirt away. The shovel bounced over something hard that seemed to jut under the dirt.
Crouching, Ed wiped with his hand. The glove worked as a duster that pushed the dirt away. The object began to take shape as he wiped and wiped.
A cross.
Carved of wood, the cross was attached to the top of the lid. He fingered the grooves, scraping away clinging dirt. The cross was part of the lid, as if whoever had carved it had whittled the religious symbol out of the lid. The craftsmanship was spectacular. Though Ed assumed the toe-pincher was as old as the others, he could be fooled into thinking it had been recently buried. Good wood and a talented builder had left this casket in great shape.
The Vampire of Plainfield Page 5