The Vanishing Girls

by Callie Browning

  Chapter 8

  A strange request

  “I didn’t realize so many people died until I took this job,” Eileen mused the following Friday as they drove north on the island’s tiny west coast highway. The sunset’s golden light filled the car and occasionally, just over the top of a galvanized paling, glimpses of the Caribbean sea came into view, the gilded surface shimmering under the lowering sun.

  Holden smiled. “Life is a cycle. But, maybe it just seems like a lot because we handle government collections. Oddly enough, before we did it, Happy Home had the contract.” He puckered his mouth. “Our families used to get along very well before, sharing resources and materials until we outbid them for the government tender. That’s one of the reasons Lloyd doesn’t like our family very much anymore. Dorothy, on the other hand, realizes it’s just business and never took it personally.”

  Eileen glanced at Holden. “Yikes. I used to think morticians were just as dull as librarians except they actually got to see naked people, instead of just reading about them.”

  He chuckled. “Death is a whole industry which means it comes with its fair share of backstabbing and high-jinks. There are stores for it, schools for it… I went to university in Britain for four years to become a mortician. You have seen for yourself how much more there is to it than just embalming bodies.”

  Eileen nodded as she turned off the highway and onto a narrow road. He was right about that. In just over two months, Eileen had instituted cost and time-saving measures and made suggestions to increase business. Holden had been impressed with her business savvy, declaring her a valuable asset to Davis and Sons. Clifford agreed to an extent, jokingly saying that her ‘hot-coal typing' was the only thing keeping her humble. The three of them had morphed into a well-oiled machine, functioning so seamlessly that Holden no longer went into fits of melancholy when the bills arrived.

  “So why do you go to almost all of the pick-ups if Clifford is already going?”

  “It’s an old practice called touting — basically face-to-face advertising. Some mortuaries post touters outside the hospital’s A&E to solicit the relatives of new decedents. They do their best to outbid each other and can be a rather unruly bunch."

  Eileen cringed. “That’s heartless.”

  Holden agreed. “Which is why I do it myself and offer a more sympathetic ear. But touting is good business. If I’m there to listen and offer advice to the bereaved, I’m more likely to get the job.”

  “Ah…” Eileen smiled. “…so that’s why you needed an assistant with a car?”

  “Yes. It’s bad form for Clifford to be dawdling with a corpse while I try to drum up business. A family may wonder what sort of indifferent brutes we are.”

  Eileen laughed.

  “By my father’s logic, a family may open the yellow pages and pick whomever they see first. Due to the disadvantages of alphabetization, ‘Davis’ isn’t the first name on the list.”

  Not for the first time, Eileen realized how much she regretted not having met Holden Senior. “Your father was a regular renaissance man, wasn’t he?”

  "That he was. This is the turn we're looking for."

  They were driving through an overgrown area that was so unkempt that the grass formed a bushy blanket over the sidewalks. Holden pointed to a narrow gap ahead of them. “Slow down by the lime grove opposite the cane field and you’ll see an old mill as soon as we turn in.”

  Eileen manoeuvred the car onto a rocky lane. Above the treetops, the funnelled tip of a mill wall loomed like a dark shadow in the waning light. Plumes of white dust coated the car as the tyres bobbled down the gritty track. On both sides of the lane, tall trees grew wide branches that melded overhead to form a bright yellow arch that extended the entire length of the driveway. Warm sunlight illuminated the bright yellow blossoms, making them glow like tiny comets as they fluttered down into flowery drifts on either side of the path.

  The leafy tunnel opened up to a wide courtyard, complete with a rustic villa that looked as though it had been freshly plucked from a natty little vineyard in the French countryside. Clifford and his son were closing the back door of the boxy white van at the foot of the flared staircase. Next to the circular fountain, two police officers spoke to a harried-looking middle-aged woman and Dr Thorpe, the Crown's pathologist. Even without him turning around, Eileen recognized Derricks from his broad-shouldered build. She was surprised to see the commissioner at a collection for a man who died of a stroke. But then again, this was no routine collection.

  Holden said, “Eileen, I’m sure you remember Commissioner Derricks from the office and Dorothy Greaves of Happy Home Funeral Parlour.”

  "I'm very sorry for your loss, Ms Greaves," Eileen said as she reached out to clasp Dorothy’s hand, but the woman merely nodded and clutched a lacy handkerchief to her nose as she wrapped her other arm around her midsection. Dorothy’s stocky frame was clad in a pale pink dress with far too many frills, her grey wig trembling as she shuddered. Eileen stepped back awkwardly. Dorothy had been warm and friendly the first time they'd met, but her brother's death had made her cold and distant.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Dorothy, her deep voice a sad murmur. “I thought Lloyd had overslept. But when I shook him this afternoon I realized how cold he was.”

  “Yes, yes… rigour had already set in by the time I arrived,” offered Dr Thorpe as he adjusted his glasses on his nose. “Truth be told, it’s not unusual for someone with Lloyd’s history to have a stroke.”

  Dorothy sniffed. “High blood pressure runs in our family.”

  Holden’s face was pained as he looked at the older woman. “Dorothy, if you need anything at all, you call us. We’ll handle Lloyd free of charge.”

  Dorothy squeezed the handkerchief in her fist and shook her head. “No need. He wanted to be cremated.”

  Dr Thorpe fished a slip of paper out of the top pocket of his shirt jac and scribbled a note. “Very good. I’ll write up the certificate tonight so you can organize the paperwork and ship him to Trinidad.”

  Derricks tapped Holden on the arm. “Davis, now that you’re here, there’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.” He tilted his head toward the covered verandah and tipped his hat to the rest of the group. “If you’ll excuse us.” He strode away and Holden followed in his wake.

  “Love, I real sorry ‘bout this,” Clifford said soberly as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t think twice to call if you want to talk or need any help.”

  Eileen wasn’t sure if her eyes deceived her, but Dorothy seemed to recoil slightly before she smiled feebly at Clifford. It just went to show that even people in the business of death weren’t immune to grief.

  * * *

  HOLDEN AND THE COMMISSIONER stepped carefully around the multitude of plants Dorothy kept in the verandah, hoping that he wouldn’t be there too long. He never liked the tense energy Derricks gave off, and it was especially profound in the gathering darkness beneath the flickering overhead bulb.

  “What’s going on?”

  “This is a delicate matter. I don’t want to be difficult, especially since the man is ready for retirement…” started Derricks. He glanced across as Dr Thorpe drove his pristine Mercedes Benz slowly out of the courtyard. “I’m not trying to make him lose his pension, but I’m finding inconsistencies in Thorpe’s reports.”

  “Oh?” Holden twisted his mouth in confusion, unsure as to why Derricks was telling him this. “Just let Lynch verify them.”

  “Dr Lynch is on holiday and won’t be back until Thorpe retires in two weeks so I’m stuck with the old man until then.” Derricks scrubbed his beard. “The thing is that I normally wouldn't be so uptight about it, but there are certain things — little things — that he didn’t list in the report for the girl we found in the factory.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, I saw some yellow dust on the side of her face. There are photos of it and everything, but Thorpe didn’t mention it in the report
so I have no idea if it’s chalk or paint flecks.”

  “It was pollen. My assistant saw some of it in the victim’s ears and washed it out. Along with some mud that was under her fingernails.”

  “Hmm… pollen,” mused Derricks. “Do you know what kind?”

  “No…and to be honest, we had to do more washing than we usually would when Lynch sends a decedent.” Holden raised an eyebrow. “Don't forget that we work under the assumption that the pathologist has already done his job by the time we get involved."

  Derricks heaved a deep breath. “Look, I normally wouldn’t ask, but would you be willing to submit reports for the crown’s cases? Just for two weeks so I can create some redundancies.” His face was serious, his voice earnest as he leaned in. “Thorpe is a good man, you know. It’s just old age and the drinks. Plus, he’s been a little off since his wife left him. So just help him out a bit.”

  “Well…I…” Holden wasn’t sure it was a good idea. A lot could happen in two weeks. “By the way, that tip my assistant had shared about the man in the brown car… did that yield anything?”

  Derricks flicked his eyes toward the courtyard where Clifford and his son had left Eileen alone with Dorothy. They stood six feet apart, Eileen swatting sandflies and Dorothy looking as though she wished the sandflies would eat her alive. “No. Seems like her and the nosy neighbour just like blabbing for the sake of it. Try and keep this thing with Thorpe quiet for now. Your assistant is clearly a talker.”

  Holden frowned at Derricks. If anything, Eileen was more clandestine than Holden was, which was unusual in and of itself. Derricks clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Thanks, young Davis.”

  The commissioner jogged down the stairs, calling to the station sergeant who had driven him to the scene. Dorothy also got in her car and in a few seconds, both engines roared to life and the headlights cut a wide swath across the courtyard before they both drove away.

  Fruit bats screeched overhead in the ring of trees around the courtyard, camouflaging the crunch of Holden’s footsteps on the gravel as he walked toward Eileen. She had been watching the cars leave and she startled when he touched her shoulder; he dropped his hand, wondering if he had been out of line for touching her. As much as he wanted to tell her about what Derricks had asked him to do, he felt now wasn’t the time.

  “Let’s go. I’m sure you don’t want your chariot covered in bat guano,” Holden gestured toward the bats overhead. “Plus, it’s going to rain.” Eileen glanced at the grey clouds that gathered and nodded.

  The engine wheezed the way it always did whenever Eileen turned the key.

  Except this time, it didn’t start.

  Chapter 9

  Between a Rock and a Dark Place

  The Baygon tin tucked behind her seat was empty. Holden had given her a small raise the previous week, but it was nowhere near enough to buy a new starting motor. Eileen was grateful, but between rent, petrol and utilities, her desires often eclipsed her assets. There were many other things she would have loved to upgrade, like the threadbare bedsheet at the window that kept the sun from roasting her to a crisp every morning. She sighed.

  “There’s a phone booth at the gas station on the main road. I’ll go and leave a message at Thorpe’s office. He can tell Clifford to come back for us,” Holden said as he reached for the door handle.

  “Oh, geez.” Eileen leaned onto the steering wheel and looked around. Her eyes caught the lurking shadows in the broad verandah and she heard the branches that creaked and twisted in the whistling wind. Fear curled in her belly, resolute and indifferent to her pride. Being with a man as tall and strapping as Holden should have made her brave, but her fear of the Slasher was too strong. Yes, they needed to leave, but she wouldn’t feel safe walking between two cane fields on that lonely road. Nor would she ask Holden to go alone because that meant staying in the car by herself. She imagined him returning to find her gone, leaving only a trail of bloodstains that disappeared among the drifts of yellow blossoms until she turned up a week later.

  “Can’t we just…” her shoulders sagged; she felt like a child scared by the Heart Man. “…stay here?”

  “Here? All night?” Holden’s face contorted in confusion. “Why ever would we do that?”

  Eileen stared at him like he’d asked for directions to Mars. “There’s a serial killer on the loose. I don’t want to wander in the dark.”

  He rubbed his face and said, “I’m like a bull in a verbal china shop. I mean well, but my words are clumsy. It’s one of the reasons I don’t talk much; I save time by not having to explain what I meant to say ten minutes after I said it.”

  Eileen sighed. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t taught to feel fear the way she had been. She wondered what it was like to be a man, given respect and privilege just for the sake of it. Still, she couldn’t discount that being a beneficiary of a system didn’t make Holden a victim, even if it made him unknowingly complicit.

  “It’s stressful always looking over your shoulder when you’ve done nothing wrong,” Eileen said, shaking her head at the injustice of it.

  “You’re not wrong, but I didn’t think you’d be okay with being in the dark all night. I assumed going for help was the wisest thing to do.”

  Eileen felt guilty for jumping to conclusions. “It’s not that dark,” Eileen said, motioning to the flickering light in the verandah.

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I guess. But if you change your mind, it's not a long walk. We just have to hope that it doesn’t rain too much since this area is prone to flooding.”

  No sooner than he said the words, it started to pour. Eileen sighed. She was caught in the no-man’s-land of bad decisions where no matter what you did there was a downside.

  Holden shook his head in disbelief. “As much as it pains me to quote Clifford, a few years ago he mentioned that scientists created a phone you can use anywhere. ‘Practically fit in yuh pocket, boss’ he’d said. One of those would be perfect now,” Holden said, raising his voice above the din of the rain that pounded the car’s roof and rattled the windows.

  Eileen imagined stuffing a rotary phone in her purse and knocking on doors to ask strangers to use their wall sockets.

  “How would they even work?"

  “Radio frequencies. That’s what makes them completely portable. Clifford predicts that in thirty years, everyone will have one.”

  She frowned. “I can’t picture my bag ringing when I’m in town. And who on earth needs to use a phone all day?”

  Holden wrinkled his eyebrows. “For Clifford to call and ask for orange money all the time? I could do without one.”

  Eileen laughed. Lighting forked and split the sky with thin silvery cracks of electricity overhead and gave Eileen second thoughts about waiting out the storm. She peered through the heavy rain at the house’s covered verandah and wondered if they shouldn’t wait it out there.

  “You’re a man of science. Should we be inside a tin can when there’s lightning?”

  He shrugged. “We’re fine as long as we don’t touch metal.” His eyes lingered on the door’s hanging rods and the exposed ceiling where the roof-liner used to be. “So make yourself small.”

  Eileen giggled.

  A hint of a smile played on Holden’s lips. “The last time I was caught in a storm like this, Paul and I got our asses cut for tracking mud inside the house.”

  In her mind, Eileen wanted to smile and nod, but her mouth had different plans. “Then why do you hate him so much?”

  “I don’t hate Paul. Well…maybe it seems like I do,” he said resignedly. “I hate how easy he’s had it. He went to a better mortuary school and stayed there twice as long because he didn’t focus on his studies. If that were me, my father would have shouted at me to get back to Barbados however I could, because he wouldn’t encourage slacking off with his money. Then Paul got the new funeral home in the will.” He bit into his lip so viciously Eileen thought he would draw blood. “That was the one that hurt.”<
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  She thought about what he said. “It does sound like you got the dirty end of the family stick. But ‘the Lord don’t put more on a man than he could bear’, as the old people always say.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Eileen smiled. “One lesson I’ve learned from working with you is that every emotion has its uses. Sometimes, bitterness can help drive us forward because we become so determined to have the last laugh. You never know; what you’re supposed to have in this life might be even greater.”

  He grunted the way one does when words have too much wisdom to deny, but sting too deeply to easily accept. “These things take some getting used to. I’ve often considered just splitting the two businesses, letting him keep his building and I keep mine instead of having him leech off me. But… I guess maybe I find comfort in feeling like I’m looking after him.”

  Eileen took a deep breath. “All we can hope is that these things are worth it in the end.”

  Holden searched her eyes with his. His voice was low as he said, “It’s hard asking for what you want in this life while feeling you have no right to it.”

  Eileen’s heart skipped a beat and she regretted the infinitesimal moment when her lips parted and she held her breath. Was she reading too much into what he said? Or was there truly more to it?

  “What is it that you want?” Her nerves got the better of her and she hastily added, “From your brother, that is.”

  He tore his eyes away and looked down at his hands. “You’ve seen the bills; you know by now that I’m paying for Paul’s fancy facility.” Resentment tainted his voice as he said, “I co-signed the loan while Paul was studying overseas. I didn’t imagine my father could die, if that makes any sense. Putting people in the ground every day can make you detach yourself from the fact it could happen to you.”

  Eileen was hesitant to ask, but the solution seemed so simple that she had no choice but to make it tangible, give it wings so it could float into the air and alight in Holden’s ears. “Can’t Paul pay the loan himself?”