“By the way,” asked Tim, “where are we going?”
“To inform Joe’s closest relative,” said Oh. “It’s the right thing to do, don’t you agree, Mrs. Wheel?”
Jane wondered if Oh had heard her telling the EMT that she was Joe’s closest relative.
“It’s pretty late for a pop-in,” said Tim. “You two might be used to city hours, but in our little towns around here, especially on a Sunday night, ten o’clock would be the absolute cutoff for a visit.”
Oh swung the car onto the main street and parked in front of Edna’s Diner. The to-be-expected closed sign hung on the door, and the bright neon window sign was off; however, there were interior lights on and a few customers remained at tables already cleared of dishes. The woman behind the counter was not the same waitress to whom Jane had leaked the news about Swanette’s farm being a potential crime scene. This woman, slightly older, was glaring at the occupied tables, but was having no success at driving the lingering diners out. Jane was reminded of her first visit to Edna’s when she spoke with the old-timer who first directed her to James Speller, to Cousin Ada’s house. That waitress couldn’t wait to get out the door and Jane imagined whoever pulled the Sunday-evening shift would be equally impatient to be off duty.
Something about the woman behind the counter reminded Jane of her mother. The way she held the rag with which she mopped the counter? Her flat-footed stance, one hand on her hip, when she cocked her head to listen to a request from someone at one of the tables? Jane was watching this through the lit storefront windows, an Edward Hopper painting brought to life, when she realized that the reminder of Nellie was all in the impatience of the woman. Jane watched her yell back at her customer, head shaking, her whole body shaped into a no.
“They’re open later than I would have thought,” said Tim.
“They closed a while ago, but she can’t get rid of her customers,” said Jane, translating what she read in the scene.
They had gotten out of the car, Tim hoping to run in and get some food, any food, to sustain them for whatever the rest of the night was going to hold. A couple walked out of the diner and Tim stopped them.
“You think they’ll take a to-go order?”
“Are you kidding?” the man asked. “Edna used to stay open for Scary Night, but there’s no way her daughter wants to miss her beauty sleep. She’s booting everybody out.”
“Yeah,” his wife added, “Edna used to serve pie and coffee till midnight. Was the best Sunday night of the year for her, but this one thinks she’s got better things to do. And they wonder why people end up going in to Kankakee or over to the Wendy’s on the highway.”
“Scary Night?” asked Oh.
The man waved as he climbed into a car parked down the street from the diner.
“Cover me,” said Jane. “I’m going in.”
Jane wanted to forestall any “we’re closed” wrath, so she held up her hand as she entered Edna’s.
“I know you’re closed. I just had a question about the apartment upstairs. I heard it might be available,” said Jane.
“Where’d you hear that?” the woman asked. How old was she? Jane had trouble distinguishing forty-something from fifty-something. The woman’s hands argued for the older end of the range, but then again she was in the restaurant business which was also the dishwashing business. Everybody knew that was a hand killer.
“My brother was talking to Joe and since I just got a job at—”
“In case you or your brother haven’t noticed, Joe is a few bricks shy of a load. He isn’t even the tenant. Nobody’d let him sign his X on a lease, so whether he hitchhikes out of town or not doesn’t mean anything about the apartment.”
Jane was trying to think of another reason, any reason, to prolong this discussion when the woman added, “The other one up there might be available at the end of the month.”
“Yeah?” asked Jane.
“I can’t show it to you tonight. I have to wait until these losers leave, and I’m already late to meet my boyfriend. If you come back tomorrow, though, someone can take you up. Em’s leaving before the end of the month.”
“Moving out of town?” Jane asked, more and more aware of the inanity of this conversation. Oh had always told her that if she just listened for the right answers, it would be more important than asking the right questions.
“They got her into assisted living in Kankakee,” she said, grabbing the check and a twenty-dollar bill from the last party to head for the door. “Need any change?”
They shook their heads and exited quickly.
“Better run, you losers. This bill’s for nineteen twenty-five,” she said, ringing up the sale and pocketing three quarters. “Big spenders wonder why they can’t sit in here all night like I’m running a hippie coffee house.”
“Em’s going into assisted living?” Jane asked, stalling.
“How do you know her?” she asked, untying her plain white apron and locking the register.
One question too many. Jane shrugged and did her best I-don’t-really-know-and-I-was-just-making-conversation kind of shrug.
“Are you a friend of one of her kids?”
Jane shook her head knowing she had a fifty-fifty chance of giving the right answer.
“Good. I’m already late and I don’t want to get started. I could give you an earful of what I think of them.”
“What’s your name?” asked Jane. “In case I come back to look tomorrow . . . so I can tell them who told me about the apartment?”
“Mary Jane. Edna’s daughter,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Jane. Just plain Jane.”
“I go by MJ around here, so if Lou or anyone’s around, just tell them you’re interested in Em’s place. I’m hardly ever here. Just filling in tonight. Why anyone would choose to live in this town is beyond me, but—”
Tim tapped on the window, one hand clutched to his middle, hoping that he was miming hunger effectively.
“No way!” shouted MJ. Jane watched her bump open the kitchen door with her hip and rake her hand across the panel of switches that controlled the lights. Everything went off and only the glow from the street outside illuminated the diner.
Jane preceded her out the door. She thought about grabbing a few bags of chips off the rack and laying a five down on the counter, but didn’t want to risk losing any goodwill she might have built up with MJ. She would remind Tim that they had to find Nellie, and as Nellie always said, hunger built character.
Jane rejoined Tim and Oh on the street in front of the car. MJ, who had said she was meeting her boyfriend, crossed the street. Jane assumed she was headed to her parked car, and was surprised to see her continue past the street toward Ada’s side yard.
She was about to mention this when there was a loud noise from the rear of Ada Speller’s house. It was an explosive and ominous chord of music, the beginning to a lugubrious-sounding organ piece that must have been carried over loudspeakers since it blasted through the whole main street. At the second note of the music, lights flared up from the backyard. They could see the light climb in the sky, over the front of the house, flickering and wavery.
“The house must be on fire,” Jane screamed.
All three of them had their cell phones in their hands as they ran across the street, following the path of MJ who had walked around the side and disappeared into the backyard.
The tall wooden gated entrance to the backyard stood open. Posts were stuck into the ground on either side with grotesquely carved pumpkin heads spiked on top of them. Tim was the first to rush through the gate, stopping short so that Jane ran right into his back. Bruce Oh, at a more moderate pace behind them, simply stopped when he saw what lay before them.
Thirty to fifty people stood ringing the enormous yard, oohing and aahing as if they were watching Fourth of July fireworks. Instead of exploding chrysanthemums, wagon wheels, and waterfalls in the sky, however, there were rows and rows and rows of carved and lit pumpkins, starin
g out at them from the makeshift brick and board shelves that ringed the yard. Gigantic scarecrows had been stuffed with straw and were standing on poles and strung up in the trees, crouching over the spectacle.
“Scary night,” said Oh.
“You can say that again,” said Tim.
“That’s what the guy at the diner called it,” said Jane. “Scary Night. Ada talked about getting the pumpkins ready, talked about having parties and festivals.”
A woman next to Tim turned to them with a smile.
“First time here?” When they nodded, she went on. “Scared me to death when I was a kid. I had nightmares for weeks. See how few little kids are here? It’s all about the adults now who remember being scared. The teenagers in town think it’s corny and the parents know better than to bring the little ones, so the crowd just isn’t that big. Only those of us in between hoping we won’t be scared out of our wits all over again.”
“How does Ada manage to get all of this set up?” asked Jane.
“Who carves these things?” asked Tim.
“Who lights them?” asked Oh.
Jane realized that Oh had gotten to the heart of the matter. Ada drafted anyone and everyone into carving pumpkins during the week. Schoolkids probably came by . . . people who were in and out of Edna’s all day. All of the ghosts who lived in her house were kept busy carving jack-o’-lanterns.
Who was responsible, though, for all of them coming to life, lighting up all at once to produce this spectacular show?
“Where is Ada?” asked Jane.
Before she even finished the question, Jane saw her. Cousin Ada wore a long black skirt and a cloak that had large pockets sewn into the outside. As she walked regally through the crowd, Jane saw some people dropping matchbooks into her pockets. A few folks next to the banks of shelves holding the lit pumpkins were slipping butane lighters back into pockets and purses. Jane could see that everyone who attended Scary Night was participating in the event. Scary Night regulars must have positioned themselves all over the yard and on some signal from Ada did their best to light the jack-o’-lanterns and back away so the blaze could be as coordinated as possible. Jane also noticed that one whole section of pumpkins was lit with strings of white Christmas lights inserted into the backs of the hollowed-out shells. Someone was in charge of plugging all those strings in to supplement the candlelight, and the effect, Jane had to admit, was spectacular.
Jane tried to follow the cord and find the outlet, wondering who might be the link to the house, since Ada’s ghosts normally stayed behind the scenes.
A crouching figure behind one of the scarecrows slinked back toward the kitchen door. Since the only lights came from the jack-o’-lanterns, it was hard to make out whether the figure was male or female.
“Did you lock the car?” asked Jane. “Is Rita still in the backseat?”
Jane looked at Tim, who was still staring from pumpkin to pumpkin, openmouthed. She remembered Rita then because she noticed that Tim still carried the photo album under his arm, the one Rita had seemed so insistent upon Jane noticing.
Jane wrestled the book from Tim and told him that she was going to slip into the library and make sure the binding really was the same. She didn’t know whether or not he heard her, but she couldn’t hang around and make sure. She wanted to be right behind the person slipping into the kitchen. If ever there was an opportunity to catch a ghost, this was it. If she had the photo album with her, at least she could make an excuse that she had found it at the farm and was trying to return it.
It also made sense to Jane that one of these ghosts might lead her right to Nellie.
The last time Jane had been in Ada’s kitchen, it had been filled with pumpkins in various stages of carving. Replacing all the jack-o’-lanterns were large bowls of candy. Homemade caramels were wrapped in waxed-paper twists, candy apples stood upright in rows on the counter. There were some bowls of purchased candy, too. Lollipops and small chocolate bars. Ada had made a few compromises, but Jane was pleased that she had been able to follow at least some of what she was learning were the family traditions.
Ada had a small lamp on the kitchen counter. Jane pulled the chain and set the album down, just to take a quick look at it before she began searching the house. For the first time she noticed that a matchbook was stuck between the pages.
Had Tim found one out in the yard and stuck it in there or has it been there all along?
“The EZ Way Inn?” said Jane aloud, reading the matchbook, noting its folds but recognizing the familiar script on the bar giveaway. This matchbook had not changed color or typeface in twenty years, so despite the peculiar configuration of the matches, Jane recognized it right away.
Nellie had left her a clue.
“Okay,” said Jane. “Nellie wanted her name to be prominent so we would know that she left this in the album. Why?”
Jane fingered the matchbook, then bent over the pages it had marked. A few photos were missing. The old paper corners remained and some writing in white ink.
The hay wagon . . . with neighbors.
Veronica, Nellie, and Ada. Sisters and cousins.
Those were the titles of the missing photos. There were three that remained. One of them was a copy of the same photo that Jane had seen at her mother’s when they searched for a photo of Michael. Nellie’s parents holding two babies. Jane had speculated that the two were Nellie and Veronica but Nellie had said no. It was too early. They would not have been born yet. Here, in Ada’s album, or what was most likely Ada’s parents’ family album, this photo was captioned.
James and his new “twin” sister, Ada. With “Aunt Hettie.”
The babies seemed to be the same age, maybe six to eight months. Ada, according to the caption, would be the one wearing the bonnet with ribbons. She was not a newborn, a new baby sister. So how could she be James’s new twin? Who captions a photo like that?
Jane didn’t really remember her grandma Hettie very well. Five years old when she died, Jane had feasted on the family stories of her legendary cooking, sewing ability, and violent mood swings. Nellie hated sewing—never even replaced a button or repaired a hem. She said it was because she didn’t have the time, but Jane’s Aunt Veronica had told Jane that their mother, Grandma Hettie, had been such a stern taskmaster that neither one of her daughters wanted to attempt needlework of any kind. Nellie had inherited the cooking gene—she couldn’t stop herself on that—but she refused to keep needle and thread in the house.
Jane stared hard at this picture of her grandmother and grandfather holding the two babies who she now knew as James and Ada. James and his “new twin” with their “aunt and uncle.” Hettie’s legendary temper—the one that drove her to stab her own daughters with their embroidery needles if they made a mistake—was clearly not evident in this photo. Here, Grandma Hettie looked like a sad child, her eyes imploring the camera to look away, focus on the babies, on the tree behind her, on anything or anyone other than her. Jane had never seen a look like that. Pain, despair, terror, resignation—all there battling each other behind her eyes, all fighting to take over this woman, Jane’s Grandma Hettie, standing up straight, wearing a plain black dress and cloche hat.
“Nellie saw something in this photo,” whispered Jane. “That’s why she marked it for us.”
As soon as Jane spoke, she heard the creak of a door behind her. She ran her finger under the photo, freeing it from decades-old glue, and slipped it into her pocket. As soon as it was safe, she swung around, as prepared as anyone ever is to go eyeball to eyeball with a ghost.
Jane had to lower her stare to go eyeball to eyeball with the creature who had entered the kitchen through the swinging door that led to the dining room. Decidedly not a ghost, and very much of Jane’s world . . . but how had she escaped and ended up in the house—through the front door, no less?
“Rita?” Jane asked. Her dog came over to her and licked her knee—the blue jeans that covered her knee anyway—sat down obediently next to her, an
d stared fixedly toward the opposite kitchen wall, where the open shelves and pantry were located.
“Who let you out of the car?”
“Who the hell you think?” answered a gravelly voice from inside the pantry.
Jane managed to keep her scream down in volume, but she couldn’t stop it from escaping altogether.
The pantry door opened slowly.
Jane had been prepared for a ghost when she turned to find Rita, but nothing prepared her for what crept out from behind the pantry door.
Holding a very old—and, Jane knew, fragile—German papiermâché devil mask worth at least five hundred dollars in front of her face, the spookiest figure from Jane’s childhood scampered toward her.
“Scared you, didn’t I?” asked Nellie.
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Before Jane could even begin the litany of how-did-you-get-away-who-shot-Joe-what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-doing-and-put-down-that-mask-before-you-tear-a-hole-in-it, Nellie tossed the mask onto the table and grabbed a chocolate bar from the bowl on the counter, unwrapped it, and bit into it.
“I’m starving,” she said. “Ada usually has a pie around here somewhere, but I guess everything’s out for Scary Night.” Nellie peeked out into the backyard from the window over the sink and responded to her own question. “Yup, she’s got about five or six pies out there and a ton of taffy apples. These just must be her spares.”
Jane half listened to her mother while she contacted Michael. Tim and Nick had tutored her on the fine art of texting and although she was slow, and Nick laughed at what he referred to as “hovering thumb” syndrome, she had mastered the basics. Since she didn’t trust her voice right now, Jane felt this was the safest way to let her brother and father know that Nellie was safe. Safe? Nellie was wolfing down her third Hershey dark chocolate bar and laughing over a private joke with Rita.
Scary Stuff Page 22