Dan of the Dead

by Wendy Meadows

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” mused Helena, the memories coming back to her. “I think that’s the first time I kissed a boy.”

  “Stuart?”

  “Yeah.”

  The bald man, who introduced himself as Monty, had an unlit cigar in his hand and used it to point to Helena.

  “I was wondering if I could get a light. I see you, much like myself, can’t quite kick the habit. I smoke cigars,” he said, though that much was obvious. “I seem to have come without my lighter.”

  Adroitly twirling it around in her fingers, Helena gave the man her Zippo, which he took and sucked the flame into the fat cigar wedged in his teeth. Immediately the smell of the pungent smoke took Cassy back to the house across the lake and to John Wellington’s office. The door was ajar, and through the crack, a young Cassandra could see Stuart standing by a large oak desk. Directly facing him on the opposite side was John himself, berating his son for some unknown indiscretion. A wisp of smoke climbed from a stub placed carelessly on the surface of the desk and all Cassy could think of was that the veneer would be damaged.

  “Shouldn’t you use matches?” asked Cassy.

  “Zippo’s easier, darling,” said Helena, retrieving the object from Monty.

  “I mean for cigars,” continued Cassy. “The taste of the fuel spoils the leaves, or so I’m told. Which is why you always light them with matches.”

  Monty stared at Cassandra for a moment. “Well, that’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years, is it?” He laughed uproariously. “You’re a smart little cookie, ain’t ya? I’ll have my eye on you.” His temperament changed suddenly, awkwardly. “All that business earlier. Do you know that man?”

  “We do.”

  “Can’t say I blame him really. Don’t condone it, but can’t say I blame him. It’s hit us all very hard,” he puffed.

  Cassy nodded in agreement. “Did you know Stuart?” It was a question designed to upset the man. Not emotionally, but the way you might upset an apple cart and see the fruit fall. She wanted to prod him and see how he reacted.

  “Well, I’m the nephew—I mean, he’s my nephew. I’m Uncle Monty. Known him since he was yay tall.” The man held up the languorously fuming cigar by way of comparison. “Very sad business all this.”

  “Do you know how he killed himself?” Helena questioned the man. The words shocked Cassy. They hadn’t discussed Stuart in those terms ever since they’d found out what had happened. It sat over them, waiting to pounce. An ever-present shadow they had unconsciously chosen to ignore.

  Monty was also taken aback. Until then he’d been quietly avuncular. Now he seemed to stiffen. “Well, it’s all a sad business,” he said once again as if that was all that was needed. He left them unsure if he didn’t know or preferred not to talk about it. As he walked away he left a trail of smoke like a passing steam engine.

  “This is all very strange,” said Cassy aloud, though to no one in particular. “Shall we go back in and find Maybe? It’s getting cold and I just want to get to the fun part.”

  “Where is the wake again?” asked Helena as she crushed the second cigarette into the ground. As they walked back to the church entrance, Helena slipped her arm through Cassy’s.

  “It’s a small place near here. I guess you might call it a pub.”

  “Oh, is it Jackson’s?” asked Helena. Before Cassy could reply, Helena pulled away as if distracted by something. “What was that?”

  Cassy hadn’t heard anything. She’d been too distracted by the logistics of getting the entire congregation into somewhere as small as Jackson’s. Perhaps they weren’t expecting everyone.

  Helena spoke again, more urgently this time. “Something’s happened Cass-”

  As they passed the entrance to the small church, Maybe was waving to them from beside Elliot’s car, beckoning the two of them to come over. Cassy went toward her old friend, keen to reacquaint herself and catch up on the years in between, but Helena held tight.

  “Cassandra, I’m telling you. In there—” She lifted a finger to indicate the church door. “I heard a scream.”

  “It was probably just Dan coming to his senses and wishing he hadn’t.”

  “I think it was Dan.”

  There was something about Helena’s tone of voice that made Cassy uneasy. It was rare for her older sister to be so troubled.

  “Come on, Hell. I don’t want to hang around in the parking lot of some old church. We’ve paid our respects so let’s get going.” Despite her words, Cassy did not move. Instead, she followed Helena inside the church. “You said yourself it was Dan, so what’s the worry? When he’s sobered up and apologized then maybe I’ll talk to him, but right now he can suffer.”

  Either she didn’t hear what Cassy had said, or deliberately wasn’t paying attention. Helena continued through the vestibule, past the casket (which thankfully was now closed—Cassy couldn’t bear another look) and into the main presbytery. Presumably the priest (Cassy hadn’t caught his name and vowed to track him down and thank him, as well as apologize) had allowed Elliot to take Dan to a room at the back.

  “I did hear a scream Cassy, but not quite. It was half a scream.” She stopped and turned back to Cassy. The room was eerily quiet, doubly so because of how high the walls were. “It was cut off half way through.”

  “Half a scream?”

  “That’s worse than a whole one.”

  There was some truth to that, Cassy had to admit. Even so, she hadn’t heard anything, but trusted Helena anyway.

  “Okay, let’s investigate.” The hairs on the back of Cassy’s neck rose sharply. It wasn’t the cold, although the stone walls did little to keep the fall frost at bay. As the two of them got nearer to the small wooden door just beyond the pulpit, her heartbeat began to quicken. Something had been off from the very start of the day. There hadn’t been one significant thing that she could point to; just bits and pieces here and there, but they were all forming a sense of unease that had led her to this moment. As they came upon the small wooden door, Helena’s hand tentatively touching the polished handle, Cassy felt certain that she would find something terrible on the other side.

  The door opened silently, and a sliver of light snaked in, catching movement. Then Helena threw open the door to reveal a man trying to force his head through a robe several sizes too small. He was doubled over, hands firmly grasping the vestment as he tried to remove it. On hearing the door open, he stopped as if caught red-handed. Slowly his head swiveled to the interlopers, which was only visible from the nose up.

  “A-ha,” he said as if it had been they who had been caught in a compromising position. He stood upright and allowed the white robe to fall back into place leaving only a red mark around his face as evidence of his struggle. “How may I help you?”

  It was almost an impossible task to not laugh and Cassy had to clamp her hand to her mouth to prevent any such impropriety. The whole picture looked perfectly constructed; the priest in a tangle of clothes, face red and marked, alone in a room as two giggling sisters burst in fearing the worst. Except one sister wasn’t giggling.

  “So sorry,” said Helena, backing out of the room and taking Cassy with her. The door slammed behind as they teetered away from it.

  “Oh my God, Hell,” said Cassy, suddenly aware that she should watch her language considering where they were. “You had me so worried for a second.” But judging from the look on Helena’s face, something was still worrying her. “You really think you heard something, don’t you?”

  All of a sudden, Cassy felt concerned for Helena, the high spirits she’d found herself in just moments earlier evaporating. “What is it, Hell?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure I heard—”

  A scream.

  Both sisters turned in unison to see Cat tottering down the aisle towards them, her hands raised above her head and a look of shock on her face.

  “In the back,” she squeaked inelegantly, then composed herself so that she was merely sobbin
g, “it’s Dan. He’s dead.”

  It was the weekend after the infamous—and now legendary, in Cassy’s eyes—night when Hell and her friends had broken into someone’s house, one of the big ones on the other side of the lake, and partied in their pool until the sun came up. It wasn’t so much an act of rebellion as it was a triumph of good over evil, of kids who just wanted to have a good time versus the cold-hearted adults that seemed determined to crush any kind of fun by keeping such treats to themselves.

  To Cassy, her bigger sister Helena had now been elevated to something approaching sainthood. She was cool, wore what she wanted (chunky Doc Martens, pants AND a skirt—fashion exemplified), and didn’t take no for an answer. On top of that, there were rumors, quite possibly spread by Helena herself, that she had kissed Stuart Wellington and would do so again tonight.

  Cassy had always been comfortable in her mother’s shadow, always by her side and hanging on every indelible word. She was the perfect daughter and would eventually take on many of the traditions that had been laid down for her by the elder Mrs. Dean. The two of them were close and Cassy liked to think that the respect she had for her mother was reciprocated in more ways than the conventions of motherhood. But—there was always a ‘but’—Helena had shown that there was a life outside their single parent’s idiosyncratic way of life. It didn’t all have to be ‘us against the world’ and doing things such as studying ancient tomes of spells from long since deceased witches, or spending entire weekends trekking the mountains for a particular type of blossom. A gate had been opened that led to a normal life; normal but not boring. A place where you could have friends and fun and let down your hair and get down to your underwear in front of boys and go swimming and maybe, just maybe, you might kiss Stuart Wellington. Helena had passed through that gate and the latch had been left off.

  For weeks Cassy was thrilled at the prospect of following in her big sister’s footsteps, imagining what she might do in that same situation. Just her and a few friends out late at night, way past seven; they’d go to Joe’s Diner and drink coffee. The bowling alley was the place Cassy had always seen other kids hanging out, so maybe she could, too. They never seemed to do much, but even sitting on the curb blowing gum bubbles and tossing stones seemed like the height of insouciant luxury.

  Maybe it was a whim on Hell’s part. Maybe she genuinely wanted her little sister to come along. Either way, it was Saturday night and Cassy was sneaking out with a group of friends; Maybe, the girl with the strange name and the multi-colored hair, who Cassy would only later discover is a surprisingly sensitive person; and Stuart, Hell’s first kiss (or so she said). He was a kid from a wealthy family and they owned a lot of land in these parts, though Cassy could never figure out why you’d want to. He was cute enough but it had always been Elliot that had appealed to Cass, even at that young age. Unlike the mumbling, morose Dan, Elliot was funny and always talking at such a speed it became overwhelming. Sure he looked like a geek with his thick-rimmed glasses and buttoned-up shirts, but all that did was make him seem larger than life by comparison.

  Catherine—who simply became Cat by the end of that summer— was a sweet thing that Cassy had felt sorry for ever since she’d first met her. She just had a fragility about her, a kind of delicate teetering as if tiptoeing to reach something at all times. To her secret delight, Cassy fit in with the gang almost immediately. It was all down to Maybe who took the young girl, who was her junior by no more than a year and a few months, under her wing.

  It was always going to go wrong, even if Cassy hadn’t suspected a thing. What had been set in motion the week previous could only escalate. It had started innocently enough with the late night break-in for some harmless fun in a pool no one was using in an otherwise empty house. But with the precedent laid out and the expectations set in place, for the kids of Havenholm, there would be no satisfaction unless they bested themselves.

  “The Holloways have stables with ten horses. They breed them for racing. And to stud?” It was Stuart who had proposed the idea, keen to remain the instigator of their hijinks.

  “Why would you want to put studs on a horse?” asked Cat innocently. “I’m sure they don’t like it.” Her nose crinkled in disgust.

  They had just finished off a round of shakes in town and were walking aimlessly through the streets looking for something to do. They filled the sidewalk like a single entity, pushing and shoving, each vying for prominence while clinging to one another.

  “No, you dork. It means finding partners for them.” Stuart almost tripped over his words, realizing he didn’t have the right ones to explain. Cassy noted that his cheeks had gone bright red and wondered what could have been so embarrassing.

  “Aw cute. Like a dating agency for horses?”

  “Yes, Catherine. Dating for horses,” said Helena, running forward from the group and turning back toward them. “More like speed dating.”

  Those that understood laughed. Cat didn’t.

  Then, with a fluid and careless movement, Helena positioned herself back within the group and found herself next to Stuart who now had his arm firmly wrapped around her shoulders.

  Chapter Nine

  “I can’t bear to look,” chirped Cat through her fingers, which she held against her unwavering face. Cassy could sympathize. Seeing Dan dead on the floor was a hypnotic thing; so curiously out of place that it seemed dream-like. It couldn’t really be true, could it? Only a few minutes earlier he had made a spectacularly flamboyant re-entry into all their lives and now here he was, laid out on the cold stone tiles of the Oak Hill Church. Half a dozen people stood around him, each unsure of what to do. It was being in such a holy place that rendered them immobile. It was as if there was no reason to do anything about it. Wasn’t he already in the right place? Wasn’t there already a person lying to rest just a few feet behind them in the silver trimmed casket?

  “I’ll call the police,” offered the priest. They all agreed; this was his house after all. It took a minute more of dumbfounded gawking before the priest got up and retreated to an anterior room, where presumably the landline was kept. Didn’t priests have mobiles? Did they even have pockets?

  Cassy was doing that thing again, letting her mind wander to distracting areas instead of focusing on the thing in front of her; or rather, her now deceased friend, who seemed so alive, vibrant, and embarrassingly drunk, moments before.

  He’d been stabbed. Once. That much was evident. The trail of blood indicated that he’d been attacked somewhere on the other side of the area. While the others were still occupied with Dan, debating whether they should move him or leave him there, Cassy scouted out for the origin of the trail of the victim’s blood. As far as she could tell, it originated somewhere just beyond the first row of pews, though she’d have to take a closer look.

  “Did you find the body?” she asked Cat.

  “He was just right there. I’d come in to get out of the cold, you know? It’s so cold out there.” Cat drew in an enormous gasp of air then let it out in halting little hiccups. “I didn’t touch him. I swear I didn’t, Cassy.”

  Cat fell into Cassandra’s arms. From over Cat’s shoulder Cassy saw that the group was making some kind of a decision. Even though it was clear there was no hope for him, Elliot checked Dan’s pulse by putting two fingers on his neck and counting silently.

  “The body’s cold,” he said softly. “How long’s he been here?”

  “The flagstones have drawn away the heat,” said Cassy. “We don’t need that to figure out the time of death. He only got here a half an hour ago.”

  “And in that time someone decided that they were going to kill him,” said Maybe, who stood at Dan’s feet. “I’ve had enough of this.” Dramatically she pulled a bright red sheet from one of the supporting columns. It was embroidered with gold detail and was part of a larger decoration that slumped away when the essential element was removed. She draped the fine sheet over Dan, bringing the spectacle to an end.

  “Who could
have done this?” asked Cat, still clinging to Cassy.

  “Can I suggest that we make sure nobody leaves?” said Helena, vocalizing exactly what Cassy was thinking. Whoever the killer was could still be here. The narrow window of time, from Elliot bringing Dan inside to now, meant that he or she couldn’t have gone far. It might even be easier to remain undetected as one of the mourners.

  “We need to get everyone back inside.” Taking control of the situation, which was her default setting anyway, Cassy singled out Elliot and another one of the family who had been drawn in by Cat’s scream. “Can you guys round everyone up? Make sure the vans don’t leave.”

  Cat pulled away from Cassy and dropped to her knees to lean over the covered body.

  “Why would anyone do this to Dan? Poor, sweet Dan. He was the gentlest person.”

  Aside from someone taking offense at his disastrous entrance, there was really no reason Cassy could think of. No one could be so scandalized by what he had done to warrant this. She thought back to what Uncle Monty had said—he didn’t like it, but he could understand it.

  “Somebody stay with the body until the police get here. If the killer’s still around, they may return to the scene of the crime to tamper with evidence. We cannot allow that to happen.” Maybe raised her hand solemnly in acceptance of the duty. “Helena and I are going to take a look at where this happened.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Helena. She was taking the whole thing remarkably well, but Cassy suspected that it was all a front.

  “The blood trail leads away from here. I don’t know if it’s significant.”

  “You always have to go snooping, don’t you? You get that from Mom.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cassy was trying to ignore what her sister was saying, or at least not let it get to her as she walked them back along the splats of blood past the closed casket.

  “This has nothing to do with us. It had nothing to do with you,” said Helena, pulling her sister close as if reprimanding her. Cassy brushed her off.