Embrace the Grim Reaper

by Judy Clemens

  She wasn’t wearing it in the photo.

  Digging deeper into the bucket she’d found other surprises. Photos of an aging couple, their brown skin wrinkled, mouths missing teeth. Other people, all with Reuben’s skin and black hair, but their surroundings of dirt, sun, and adobe huts.

  Letters, all in Spanish. From Mexico.

  Casey had closed the bucket then. Had stumbled back into the house, where Ricky had grabbed her and led her to the couch. Had finally cried the tears that had so far been evasive.

  Reuben’s family was dead. He’d told her so. No parents. No siblings. She was his only family. And then Omar. It was just the three of them—

  “I’m a little afraid of what’s in there,” Eric said.

  Casey swallowed.

  “You’re not going anywhere, right?” His voice shook.

  She hesitated to answer.

  “I mean, right this minute.”

  “No. No, I’m not going anywhere now.”

  “Okay.” He stepped forward, withdrawing the key from his pocket. “Here goes nothing.” He slid the key into the lock, and turned it. The lock popped open. He stood looking at it, his hand on the bottom half, not turning it away. His shoulders went up. Then down. He glanced over his shoulder at Casey. She tried to look encouraging.

  “I wish he’d just open it.”

  Casey shrieked, and jumped away from Death.

  “What?” Eric jerked away from the locker. “What is it?”

  Casey turned away, her hands on her hips, trying to catch her breath. “Nothing. It’s fine. I thought…I saw a rat.”

  “A rat? In here?” Eric turned in a circle, hands up and out, as if a rat was going to jump out at him.

  “I was wrong,” Casey said. “There’s no rat. It was, just a…just a shadow. A trick of the light.”

  “Oh. Well.” He put a hand over his heart. “Don’t do that.”

  “Sorry.”

  He shook his head and turned back to the locker. Casey glared at Death, who’d adopted an innocent look and munched on some dark chocolate M&Ms from a king-sized bag.

  Eric squared his shoulders, wrenched the lock from the locker, and flung open the door. They stared.

  Casey stepped closer. “What are they?”

  “I don’t know.” Death peered over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Eric said. “Parts for something.”

  Two little pieces, one white plastic tube-like part with a small metal tab on its flat end, and the other, also of white plastic, that looked like an oversized and flattened nail.

  “Something from the plant?” Casey asked.

  “I would think so.”

  They stared at them some more, until Eric picked them up and pulled them out. He walked with them out to the kitchen and set them on the counter. He turned them this way and that, but nothing made it clear what exactly they were.

  “Are there serial numbers?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t see one. That wouldn’t help me, anyway. I don’t see these things enough to be able to identify them.”

  “Your computer?”

  “It would have a list, but like I said, there’s no number.”

  Death had found an empty spot on the counter, and was shaking out the last pieces of the candy. Casey looked over and made a subtle gesture at the plastic pieces, but Death shrugged, obviously unaccustomed to—or uninterested in—appliance parts.

  “So how do we find out?” Eric asked. “I can’t exactly march into HomeMaker and ask around. Ellen hid them here for a reason.”

  Casey scooped an empty pasta box out of the trash. “Put them in here.”

  “And we’ll take them to HomeMaker?”

  “Nope. We’re taking them down the street to our own private mechanic.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “It’s a door latch,” Aaron said. It had taken him about two seconds to identify it. “The two pieces fit together.”

  Eric frowned. “A door latch for what?”

  “A dryer, maybe. At least, that’s what I’d guess. Where’s it from?”

  “We don’t know,” Casey said, cutting off Eric’s reply.

  “But—”

  “Look, Aaron, we’ll tell you when we can, okay? For now, though, can we just…”

  “Keep it quiet?” He shrugged, but his eyes betrayed his interest. “I can do that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Aaron,” Eric said. “We mean it.”

  “Can I at least tell Jack?”

  “No,” Casey and Eric said together.

  Aaron held up his hands. “Okay. Geez. I won’t say anything.”

  Casey tried to smile, but was sure she just looked grim. “It’s for your own safety, Aaron. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He let his hands fall. “So this is serious.”

  “Very.”

  He made a zipper motion across his lips. “I don’t know a thing, and I never saw that.” He nodded toward the box.

  Eric closed the lid. “That’s what we want to hear. Thanks, buddy.”

  They were on their way out when Aaron called, “See you at rehearsal tonight?”

  Eric looked back. “We’ll be there.” He stashed the box behind the driver’s seat and Casey reluctantly joined him in the car.

  “Now what?” Eric said.

  “Now we figure out why she had that particular part in her locker.”

  “What time is it?”

  Casey glanced at the dashboard clock. “A little past noon.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the front office people at HomeMaker only work a half day on Saturday.”

  “So we can go to your office?”

  “It sits there empty most of the time. It’s time we put it to good use.”

  They waited in the parking lot of the diner, Casey not at all hungry after her late breakfast, until almost twelve-forty-five before driving over to the plant.

  “Karl’s space is empty,” Eric said. “And Yvonne’s. We should be clear.” His voice betrayed his anxiety.

  “If someone’s there, you can fake it. You have legitimate reasons to be here, right?”

  “I guess. But I was here yesterday. And the day before. They’re going to start to get suspicious that I’m working so hard.” He gave a wry smile.

  “So you’ve turned over a new leaf. Gotten interested in Daddy’s business.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m new in town. You’re just being friendly.”

  “Yeah. They’re sure to buy that.” He sighed. “All right. Come on, then.”

  The front door was locked, which was a good sign. “The line workers go in the back,” Eric said. “So they don’t need this door. The only ones coming in here are administrators and visitors.”

  He unlocked the door and went in, punching the numbers on the alarm key pad.

  “I’m surprised you remember the code.”

  “The first thing Karl taught me. He hates getting called away from bed—or a golf game—for a false alarm.”

  The office was silent. No clicking keyboards, no phones. No receptionist.

  Eric unlocked the door to the back and they went in. Neither Yvonne nor Kathy was there. Eric walked quietly to Willems’ door and knocked. No response. He tried the door, but it didn’t open. “Not here.”

  Casey let out the breath she’d been holding. “So let’s get to work.”

  In Eric’s office, she pulled a second chair around to the back of his desk so she could see the computer screen. He typed in a search for dryer parts, which brought up about a hundred listings.

  “Try dryer door latches,” Casey said.

  He typed it in, and about a dozen lined up on the monitor. “Well, we can rule out several of those.”

  Seven of those displayed had entirely metal parts, where theirs was all plastic, except for the small piece on what the computer called the “catch.”

  Casey scooted her chair up closer. “What about the others? Ar
e there dates for when they were manufactured?”

  He clicked on the first one. “The ones with the completely metal ‘strike’ are marked as only special order. The dryers themselves went off the line ten to twenty years ago. It’s amazing anyone would still have one.”

  “How about the pieces like ours?”

  He clicked around. “Looks like the only ones that match and are currently in production are the last three.”

  “Can we get close-ups?”

  He enlarged one of the photos, and Casey reached into the box and pulled out the parts, setting them on the desk separately, beside the computer.

  “Is my door locked?” Eric asked.

  Casey made sure it was, and sat back down.

  “Okay,” Eric said. “Let’s go through these one by one.”

  “Ours isn’t the same as this photo.” Casey pointed at a piece on the computer. “That one, on the catch, it has another metal piece there I didn’t see before. On the rear part.”

  “Right. Next.”

  They studied the second photo. “Almost the same as ours,” Casey said. “But our strike looks…”

  “Skinnier.”

  “Yes, and longer.”

  Eric held the piece up against the screen. “Nope. Definitely not the same. Here’s the third.”

  It didn’t take long to see it wasn’t a match either, this one being entirely made of white plastic.

  Eric sat back. “You think Aaron was wrong?”

  “No. I mean, look at them. It’s definitely the same type of part. It’s just not exactly the same.”

  “So is it from a different manufacturer? But why would Ellen keep that?”

  “Let’s see if we can find it.”

  They looked them all up. Whirlpool. Kenmore. Sears. Lots of parts that looked almost like theirs, but weren’t an exact match.

  Eric put his elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I can’t look much longer. My head’s bursting.”

  Casey got up and paced. “Okay. There’s no record of this part in your computer. No sign of it anywhere else on the web. But…” She stopped and poked at the part. “It exists. It’s sitting right here. Could it be a prototype?”

  Eric exhaled, letting his head drop back. “Sure. It could be.”

  “And where would we find the schematics?”

  He waved at the computer. “Should be in here. Unless the part’s so new it hasn’t made it in yet.”

  “Who would know?”

  He jerked a thumb behind him, toward the plant. “Someone over there. I mean, somebody made this.”

  Casey nodded. “Jack.”

  “What?”

  “He’s still working here. We can ask him.”

  “At rehearsal tonight?”

  “No, we don’t want to take this there. Too many people.”

  “He could be working now. We could find him.”

  “Huh-uh. We can’t go take this into the factory.”

  Eric sighed. “Of course. You’re right.”

  “You know what shift he works?”

  “No clue. But I guess it could be on here somewhere.” The computer.

  “Doesn’t matter. We can just call him. If he’s home, we can go see him.”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  With a sweep of his hand, Eric cleared the parts from the desk, dumping them into the box. Casey shoved the box under the desk while Eric clicked out of the screen displaying the parts.

  “Yes?” Eric said.

  “Eric?” A woman’s voice.

  Eric got up, scooted around Casey, and opened the door. “Yvonne?”

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you here again.” She looked past him to Casey, who still sat behind the desk.

  “Oh, um, I was just showing her around.”

  Yvonne’s eyes flicked to the door, which had been locked, and to the sofa in his office. “Of course.”

  Eric’s face reddened. “I thought you left at noon.”

  “I did. But I left my book in my desk.” She indicated the novel in her hand. “I wanted to read it this weekend.”

  Eric nodded. “Sure.”

  They stood awkwardly for a moment before Yvonne stepped back. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, then.”

  “Have a good weekend.”

  Yvonne hesitated, glancing once more at Casey, before walking out of the office.

  Eric put one hand on the doorjamb and circled the other around. “Now there will be all sorts of rumors. I’m sorry.”

  Casey shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.”

  He looked over at her, a question in his eyes.

  Casey stood. “So do you want to call Jack from here?”

  He watched her for a few seconds before straightening. “Why don’t we just go over? It’s not far, and I’m ready to get out of here.”

  She couldn’t argue with that.

  It took only a few minutes to reach Jack and Aaron’s home. On the way, Eric pointed out a gray two-story house. Several beautiful large trees graced the yard, but the shrubs needed trimming, and the yard hadn’t seen a mower for just a little too long. Other than that, the place looked well taken care of. Not exactly inviting, but in basically good shape.

  “My place,” Eric said.

  Casey studied it as they drove by. “Nice.”

  “Yeah.” He gave a little laugh. “It’ll do. Not exactly House Beautiful, though, is it?”

  “You put your time into other worthwhile things.”

  He laughed shortly. “That’s the polite way of saying it needs some help.”

  “The thing is, I mean it.”

  He let it drop, and they drove the rest of the way to Jack and Aaron’s place, which sat on a street Casey had toured during her bike ride. The house was one of those with a flowerpot on the porch, and a Welcome sign on the door. Cheerful, well-kept. A not-so-subtle difference between their place and Eric’s.

  Jack was mowing the lawn, but turned off the machine when Eric and Casey got out of the car.

  “Hey!” Jack called. “What’s up?” He left the pushmower where it had stopped.

  Eric held up the box. “We were wondering—”

  The screen door on the front porch slapped shut, and Aaron came trotting down the steps. “It’s okay, Jack, I got this.”

  “Actually, Aaron,” Eric said, “we need him this time.”

  Aaron looked at the box. “I was wrong?”

  “Nope. You were right. But we’re confused.”

  “I am, too,” Jack said, with a grin. “What is it?” He leaned toward the box, as if to see inside the closed lid.

  Eric glanced at the neighboring houses. “Can we go inside?”

  “Oh! Right. Sure,” Aaron said. “Come in.”

  He led them into the front room, where they stood in a circle around the box. Eric held it out to Jack. “Can you identify this?”

  “Sure, it’s a box of pasta.”

  The rest of them didn’t laugh.

  “Sorry.” Jack took the box and opened it. “Oh, it’s a dryer door latch.”

  “I told you that.” Aaron frowned.

  “Yes,” Casey said, “you did. But we need to know exactly which dryer door latch this is.”

  Jack squinted into the box. “Can I take it out?”

  “Of course.”

  He set the box on the coffee table and sat on the couch behind it. Aaron took a place beside him, and Casey knelt on the floor. Eric perched on a close-by chair.

  Jack pulled the two pieces out, turning them over in his hands. He looked up at Eric. “It’s a HomeMaker piece. For sure. You checked inventory?”

  “It’s not there. Several that look almost like it, but none with that metal piece.” He pointed at the side of the catch.

  “Yeah. The ones we’re doing now are all plastic.” Jack’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and he set the pieces down on the table. “Last year. Last spring. We made these. And then all of a sudden they were gone, and we were making t
he all-plastic ones.”

  “No explanation?”

  He shook his head. “None was needed. They bring in the instructions, we make the parts. It doesn’t really matter to us what we’re making or why. We just put in our hours and come home. Everything goes to the all-mighty HomeMaker, no matter what it is, so what’s the point in worrying about it?”

  Casey sat back on her heels. “We didn’t find it in the computer at all. There were other parts that were either out of production or special order, but this was gone completely.”

  Jack shrugged. “Don’t know anything about it.”

  “So as far as you can remember,” Casey said, “you made this a year ago last spring?”

  “Yeah. Don’t know how long we made ‘em, but long enough it looks familiar. Why does it matter?”

  Casey glanced at Eric. He said, “We found this, and got curious.”

  Aaron frowned again. “But you said—”

  “—it could be dangerous. I know. And it could be. So please, neither of you mention this to anybody, okay?”

  Jack looked at Aaron, and back at Eric, half laughing. “What is this? CSI? Law and Order?”

  Eric glanced down at his hands, and Jack’s mouth fell open. “It is. It is Law and Order.”

  Casey leaned forward. “Promise you won’t tell anyone.”

  “Except Aaron?”

  Aaron punched him on the arm. “I already know, dude.”

  “But we can talk about it.”

  “Actually,” Casey said, “that would be good. See if you can remember anything more about these.” She stood. “We’ll take it with us.”

  Jack picked up the pieces and looked at them some more before placing them back in the box. “There’s something…”

  Casey closed the box’s lid. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I just think I heard…” He shook his head. “Can’t get it. But I’ll let you know when I remember.”

  “Thanks.” She stuck the box under her arm. “Eric? Eric.” She nudged him with her foot.

  “What? Oh. We going?” He blinked, and his eyes focused on Casey.

  “Come on.”

  Aaron and Jack followed them onto the front porch, Jack continuing down to the lawn and the mower. Eric slid into the driver’s seat, grabbing his keys from the seat, and Casey opened the back door on the same side, placing the box in the back seat. She shut the door and bent down to Eric’s open window. “You okay?”