Thought You Were Dead

by Nick Craine

  “What fascinates me,” Moe had said, sipping her post-prandial bark tea (her tree), and studying Mrs. Havlock’s graveyard snap, “is this fuzzy halo thingy on the left-hand side. You might have some supernatural activity here.”

  Sweet Moe. No wonder Elaine called her the airhead of the house. Women could be exceedingly and sneakily mean to one another. Men were much more direct. And death was occasionally the result.

  “About the circumference of a can of orange juice?” he’d said, chirpily.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “It’s pollution, Moe, your super-unnatural activity. Very scary it is, too. So any ideas?”

  Forget the ditsy reputation, Moe had come up with ideas by the score. If only he could retrieve some of them from the sodden files in his recently flooded memory bank. Elaine claimed that alcohol turned your brain into lace, but that opinion came from her prissy side, not her scientific one. (Which was only two sides to a woman who was tetrahedral in complexity. In portraiture, only a Picasso would be able do her justice. Thus reflected her spaniel.) If his cogitations were like tatting, then there’d be plenty of vents for the irrelevant to drain away. Of what Moe told him, he did recall the bit about how the location of a cemetery could be pinpointed, or at least narrowed down to a particular country or county or settlement, if the tombstone offered enough idiosyncratic clues. This involved sussing out the kind of material used for the stone, the type of script and contents of the text, the decorative embellishments, the flora that grew around it and on it, the physical context in which it was set. Local stone carvers may have worked in an identifiable style. Bless her, she had made his quest seem somewhat less impossible.

  Moe had tapped the photo with a bread stick that looked suspiciously store-bought. “If this gravestone had a winged death head carved on it, or a crescent, which would indicate heraldry, then it’s Old Country, a dead giveaway.”

  “So to speak.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Bob’s your uncle.”

  “I thought Bob was your uncle. Where is he, anyway?”

  “Home. Hangin’ loose. Hasn’t come out of the closet yet this year.”

  “Right, okay, you’re lucky the script on this marker is Roman. Italic doesn’t weather very well. It wears away, which can be totally frustrating. This stone has to be granite, though. See all the lichen, it loves to grow on granite, moss too. If you magnify it, you might be able to identify the species, which could be a help.”

  “Moe, are you showing off?”

  “A weeny bit. Hunt isn’t interested in any of this and it’s so much fun.”

  “Careful, I’ll tell Hunt you called him a weenie.”

  “Chel, I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

  “No!”

  “Seriously, the best place to start is where you would have started anyway without my help, right? There’s tons of death stuff on the web, lots of cemetery sites, it’s fantastic. This could be way easier than you think. A quick search might lead you right to the spot, and to this person you’re hunting for, this woman.”

  “She flew the coop.”

  “They do sometimes.” Moe patted his hand and then slid a piece of paper between his fingers. “Ready for dessert?”

  “Is it green?”

  He delved into his shirt pocket, where the paper she had given him was resting flush against Mrs. Havlock’s list. He didn’t want the two lists to get overly intimate, thereby producing even more work for him to do. Retrieving Moe’s, he read over the urls she’d made note of (Url, now there was an orc moniker if ever he heard one). What undreamed-of riches the cyber-world had to offer if one had the patience of a prospector. Moe had listed a site called, eerily, City of the Silent and another, the more upbeat Funeral Central and, most promising, Find a Grave. One site dealt only with haunted graveyards, another archived tombstone photos, and one even allowed you to leave messages for loved ones (or the not so loved) that would be delivered to them after your funeral. Imagine the surprise – I’m baaaack! – and the potential for recrimination. The thought of leaving a gag message at this site for Elaine was so stimulating that Chellis stretched, yawned, and considered going inside to boot up.

  He took a deep breath, life beginning to reassert itself in his person. It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood, he hummed. And unusually quiet. He could practically hear Joe “Roach” Caruso’s weed growing in his backyard, embraced by a sisterly stand of gently rustling sweet corn. A faint alien sound did however begin to register. A distant truck, Chellis decided, attending closely. The sound grew louder as the truck turned off MacAbre Street, and then much louder as it headed down Burke. By gar, it was a FedUPS truck, a rare enough sight in this part of town . . . and what do you know, it squealed to a stop in front of his place. Not next door, where the little achievers reigned and a courier might be expected to show up with biz homework or bags of cash. Chellis was thrilled. What could it possibly be?

  The guy took his time, dicking around in the truck with his clipboard, but finally stepped out and headed toward the porch. He moved cautiously, glancing warily aside, keeping an eye out for any local gangs that might spring suddenly out of the unmown crabgrass. The delivery was small and squarish, an engagement ring perhaps from an secret admirer? But no, as the courier got closer Chellis saw that it wasn’t a small intriguing box, or anything that a normal human being who had been minding his own business on his own front porch might expect to receive. A normal human being would not have Elaine for a friend. The delivery was a bar of soap with a Post-It note attached. After the guy had handed it over – eyebrows arched as he regarded Chellis signing for it, an unexpected feat of literacy for a local resident – he hustled back to the truck and peeled away, taking no further time to sightsee in the vicinity.

  The Post-It note read: Wrong soap. Use this one instead. E.

  Chellis had been thinking about calling Elaine, as he’d forgotten to tell her about his encounter in Pnin’s Variety with Dick Major. She despised the dude, and the mere mention of his name was enough to make her blow a fuse. But now he had a better idea, and getting up stiffly out of his chair, he lurched inside the house like a revivified Lazarus to execute it.

  7

  Decomposed

  CHELLIS WAS UNACCOUNTABLY HAPPY. Was, that is, until the silver Lexus slid soundlessly past his own silver vehicle. Hi Ho Silver. His was more the colour of tin, whereas Dick Major’s glowed like cool cash. Like Ralph Lauren’s numinous locks. Like no vehicle that would ever augment Chellis’s own lowly status unless he stole it. Not that his car was completely worthless, considering that a loonie he’d placed on the dash a while back had slipped into the air vent and reliably clattered there, the lonely coinage in his squealing piggy bank on wheels.

  It might not have been the Dicker who passed him. It was almost impossible to scope the driver, the smoky-windowed Lexus worn by its occupant like a full-metal burka. On the other hand, Chellis was as fully visible behind the wheel of his car as an Amsterdam hooker in a storefront display. He felt his good mood execute an abrupt U-turn and head back to the unknown source from whence it had come. This joy-dispelling, ships-passing-in-the-night event occurred at high noon on Mrs. Havlock’s driveway. Mrs. Hav and Major Dick? A minitightening in his solar plexal region told him that these two separate spheres of his life should not be intersecting. A gurgling plaint from that same intestinal site also told him that it was high time for lunch. Sadly, there was no reason to think that any would be on offer chez Athena’s, as it had never happened before. As far as he knew, she was a confirmed grazer and more likely to hit him up for a snack, even hazarding whatever well-aged, lint-enrobed, grocery store sample he might produce from his pocket.

  As Chellis stood at the front door, envelope in hand and waiting for admittance, he noted that all was silent within Havlock House. There was nary a yap nor a yip to be heard. Bunion and Hormone must have succumbed to the sulphuric fumes emitted by the previous guest. He tried the handle . . . locked
. He knocked again and the cold metal of the door knocker slipped a chill into his palm. It was one of those knockers shaped like a hand, a severed hand holding a ball the size of a plum. He imagined the hand casually tossing the ball away and then snatching at his own hand, refusing to relinquish it, sticking to it as frozen metal does to damp flesh. He liked this creepy bit of fancy, but had the feeling he’d poached it from some higher literary source. That was the problem with being educated, even semieducated, one’s originality was compromised.

  Without the prelude of approaching steps from within, the door opened abruptly. Mrs. Havlock had been standing there the whole time.

  “You’re early.” The greeting was not overly welcoming.

  “You said noon.”

  “I said one.”

  “Must have misheard, Mrs. H.” He had not. His hearing was as sharp as Spock’s ears. “I’ll come back in an hour, then.”

  “No, no, come in.”

  “Where are the furry greeters?”

  “The vet’s. Tummy upsets. Poor babies got into something.”

  “Not serious, I hope.”

  “They have delicate constitutions, but I’m optimistic they’ll pull through.”

  Delicate? Those two tiny toughs? They were in the Keith Richards /cockroaches category of the indestructible.

  “How do you know Dick Major?” He followed her, not to her den this time, but to her front sitting room. The style here was Early Ice Age: impersonal, formal, uncomfortable, unthawed. Chellis sank onto the settee that his boss indicated. It was made of some kind of stiff, red-veined material, tight as a new facelift. He swept his hand over it. If he were a lycanthrope (or a masturbator, heaven forbid) this stuff would shear his hairy palms clean.

  “Never heard of him.” She settled opposite him on an equally forbidding French Provincial chair, misanthropic in its demeanor.

  “Richard Major?”

  “No again, why do you ask?”

  Was she being cagey? He couldn’t tell. “The Lexus I passed on the way in. Thought it was his.”

  “Unfortunately cars do turn around in my driveway once they realize that there are only miles and more miles of cornfields to be had out this way. I’ve been meaning to install a gate, and will do.”

  They stared at one another, but not so long that it amounted to a contest.

  “I must say, Chellis, that you’re looking awfully hale . . . considering.”

  “Considering?” Damn, she’d seen it.

  “In the Penny Pincher. The obit?”

  “Oh that.”

  “Not the usual venue for such a grave announcement.”

  “What were you doing reading the Penny Pincher?”

  “I like a bargain as well as anyone, my dear, but don’t change the subject. That was quite a work of fiction.”

  “All true.” The obituary he’d composed while in the grip of unprecedented inspiration was a work of gritty realism. He hadn’t mentioned orcs once, he’d stuck to the facts, albeit facts dressed up in their Sunday best for the occasion.

  “Except for the small matter of your death.”

  “Just a prank.” A dumb prank, even he had to admit.

  “I do hope you realize that your peculiar sense of humour is going to get you into trouble one of these days.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t be smart. I have to admit I did find it funny. Especially that bit about the soap. A skin-dissolving compound, was it? Not so much Dial as Dial M for Murder. Oddly enough, your prank wasn’t far off-base with that detail. I read in the local paper only this morning about this poor young fellow, a bookstore clerk I believe, who’d been admitted to emergency with a bar of soap stuck fast to his cheek. They had to operate to remove it and do a skin graft. He said that some psycho-customer had given it to him.”

  “No guff, eh.” Jesus. “What a weird coincidence.”

  “Isn’t it?” Mrs. Havlock entrusted him with one of her inscrutable smiles. “So, what do you have for me? Given your recent demise, I imagine you’re now an expert on morbidity.”

  “Pretty much.” Chellis handed the envelope to her, his homework completed, and watched as she performed the reading glasses ritual: unsnapping the case, cleaning the lenses, slipping them over her long, elegant nose, index finger and thumb on the frame making the final comfort adjustment. She pulled out the sheaf of papers and began to read quickly through them, pausing here and there, nodding, the occasional twitch or pursing of the lips.

  “Good,” she said. “Very good.”

  It had been a grim list this time, but no less involving for that. The stages of decomposition, rates of decay, putrefaction. A guaranteed lunch-spoiler. Not that any seemed immanent, as he had surmised.

  “Livor mortis?” This pleased her.

  “Blue death. A lyrical term for postmortem lividity.” Actually he thought livor mortis sounded more like a menu selection from The Age Spot. “When the blood stops circulating, it pools in those parts of the body that are closest to the ground. It clots, turns blue, and leaves a pattern that becomes fixed after about four hours. The extent of it gives some idea of the time death occurred, but it also indicates whether or not the body has been moved. It’s all there in the report, how it works, lots of grisly detail.” Good thing Mrs. H didn’t watch TV, or she’d be much less impressed with his fact-finding. This forensic stuff was everywhere, and what did that say about us as a culture, he thought? Ghouls, ghouls, ghouls. Topless, headless . . . the burlesque of death.

  “Wonderful. I see you’ve been thorough on insects as well.”

  Insects, the real strippers.

  “I’ve got a soft spot for the under-appreciated. Particularly maggots, but then don’t we all. There’s a mathematical formula you can use to figure out time of death and all that. If you’re going to get into this entomological thing.” Blowflies, beetles, wasps, ants, mites arrive in waves and dig in like avid diners at a popular new restaurant. All the bug sprays and pesticides humans lavish on them and they still get the last licks. “Mere minutes after death, flies are on the case, the soulcase, that is. If it’s exposed to the elements, like your guy. Did you know that a pregnant female fly can sense chemical changes in the environment a mile away, whereas a human can walk within thirty yards of a dead body and not even notice?” He did wonder if he was telling her anything she didn’t already know.

  “Nature is most efficient.”

  “We’re nothing but recyclable material.”

  “Well, you are, dear.”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “Just kidding.”

  “Ohh-kay.”

  Mrs. Havlock skimmed through the last of the pages.

  “How is your corpse doing?” he asked.

  “Hasn’t budged an inch.”

  “Your first case of writers’ block?” He at least tried to make this sound like an innocent query.

  “Now you’re kidding, Chellis. Writers’ block is for amateurs.”

  “Your man should be picked clean by now, his bones carried off by wild animals. Or stomped on by deer. They do that to get at the marrow. They’re thugs, ask any gardener. First your deer antagonist wipes out the Flowering Judas, munch munch, then stomps the hell out of the guy underneath. Hey, maybe he died of lyme disease.”

  “Thank you for the plot accelerator, Chellis, but do stick to research, will you? My corpse is preserved at the moment in my superior imaginative formaldehyde.”

  “I’m crushed.” He hugged himself in an attempt to generate some heat. “While we’re on the topic of rigor mortis . . . .”

  “Are you cold? I suppose it is a bit frosty in here.”

  “Like a morgue. But my desires were running more along the lines of having a stiff one. If I may be so bold.”

  “You may. Excellent idea.” She rose from her chair – it emitted a crotchety groan – walked over to a mahogany cocktail cabinet, bent down to open its double doors, and reached in. The room seemed so much like a stage set that Chellis hal
f-expected her to produce a cut glass decanter of port and matching crystal glasses . . . which in fact she did. Were there any other writers in the land who actually owned these heavy, post-suave, banker-style wares? She poured two hefty portions of port, an aged, clot red. He’d have much preferred a warming tumbler of whisky, but beggars can’t be choosers. Unless they happen to be the hostess.

  “What did you bring to eat?” She handed him a glass.

  “I was supposed to pack a lunch?” He patted his pockets. “Nada. A few pre-chewed sunflower seeds.”

  “Never mind,” she sighed. “I’ll check the kitchen. There must be something.”

  Chellis watched her depart, trusting (for no reason he could think of) that this wasn’t going to be the same “something” that the doggies had gotten into. He sipped his drink, decent, and mused about how broken-up Elaine was going to be when she read the obituary. He knew she would as she was a faithful reader of the Penny Pincher, a reliable source of cheap machinery, parts, tools, and other inventor materials. He supposed that’s what had made him so fleetingly happy, his childish prank, his goofy hybrid of revenge, silliness, yearning, and . . . death wish?

  The unexamined life may not be worth living, but he felt that if he examined his too closely, the revelations would not be delightinducing, or even useful. Much better to examine something else. At the moment this only left him with the room in which he was slowly being freeze-dried. He took another, deeper drink, and smacked his lips with a lordly Churchillian gusto. He shifted in his seat, which was about as comfortable as sitting on a stale cracker. The fireplace was cold, the mantel bare, no personal trophies or mementoes on display. A glass case in the corner did contain three Royal Doulton figurines, but they were of no distinction (were they ever?) and not, he suspected, the sort of conventional gewgaw that meant anything to her. The wallpaper was off-white, the curtains those shroudy, balloontypes, the rest of the furniture straight off the high-end sales floor, including a pair of love seats in a matching, glossy pink fabric, skin tone. There wouldn’t be any point in sliding a hand down behind the seat cushions in an exploratory gambit, for bottoms had never graced those virgin pieces of upholstery, those chaste love seats. The drinks were the only sincere props in the whole room.