The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  Maureen glowed back. She’d been happy, that was clear in every curve of her expression. Strangely, I didn’t mind that it had been Barrett who’d made her smile so. I’d seen that smile, too.

  She’d changed me, and it wasn’t to do with my return from the grave. I’d loved her. A man doesn’t fall in love like that and not be permanently changed. Everything in my life to follow had been shaped by that love, up to and including how I now felt about Bobbi. Things were good for us because I’d learned the hard way just how fragile and brief a thing happiness could be.

  I wanted to hear Maureen’s voice, hear her laugh again. Scraps of her tone if not her words survived in my memory. It wasn’t enough. She was gone, taken away forever by a stupid act of selfish, vindictive insanity, and it wasn’t fair.

  At least I could look at her. Like Barrett, I’d also never seen her in sunlight under the intense blue of an untroubled sky.

  Maureen suddenly blurred as tears welled and stung my eyes. I swiped at them. They kept coming.

  I’d mourned for her before and had thought it was all out of me. The tears flowed despite that, and my chest ached from trying to hold things in.

  Dimly, I was aware of water running elsewhere in the vast house. Barrett was taking a shower. Grief is a private thing. I don’t share that pain.

  The rush of water meant he wouldn’t hear.

  I’m not made of stone; alone in this hushed and private place I broke down and wept, truly wept for her.

  * * * * * * *

  * * * * * * *

  Cleaned up, shaved, and in my good black suit, I waited in the parlor with Maureen, looking at her portrait, sometimes softly talking to her. It was crazy, but that was my business.

  Barrett kept himself elsewhere in the house. He’d gone out to get a car from the garage and bring it around to the front, then retreated to his basement sanctuary. When the pastor and the others arrived, he came up to answer the bell. I caught a glimpse as he crossed the entry hall; he’d gotten rid of the beard, washed and combed his too-long hair straight back, and was in a suit so sharp you could cut paper on the creases.

  He brought the pastor in, introduced us, and smoothed over what might have been an awkward moment by explaining that this was a re-internment for the deceased who had died outside the country.

  “It was her wish to be brought home,” he concluded.

  “You show a great benevolence of spirit to go to such lengths, Mr. Barrett,” the pastor said.

  “She was a good and kind lady, the like of which I shall not see again.”

  “Were you related?”

  “There was a distant blood relation between the three of us, yes,” he said with an absolutely straight face. He shot me a look, but I’d not made a sound, having successfully resisted the urge to snort.

  “You gentlemen are cousins?”

  “Several times removed,” I put in.

  “Miss Francher the younger will not be attending?”

  By that address I understood Emily, assuming the identity of a young namesake invented for the purpose, had been accepted by the community.

  “Miss Francher will not be attending,” Barrett confirmed. “You may have heard she sold the estate to me and moved away.”

  “I’m not one to pay mind to town talk,” the pastor said, proving himself to be as human as the next man with that fib. I decided I liked him and wondered if he’d crossed his fingers or would later do some sort of penance or prayer to get himself off the hook with his Boss.

  The imperfect clergyman noticed the portrait and offered praise for the artist’s skill. Barrett discussed the painting’s history while sturdy guys in black suits took the casket from the room to load it into a hearse parked under the porte cochère. They came back for the flowers—two trips—and then it was time to leave.

  We pulled on coats, hats, and gloves against the cold night. My snap-brim fedora looked racy next to Barrett’s aggressively somber Homburg, but then my hair wasn’t sticking out from under like a circus clown’s wig.

  Parked a few yards behind the hearse was an impressive white Studebaker Champion; Barrett must have bought it from Emily along with the house. A nice car, but I preferred my newer two-door coupe.

  “Blood relations,” I muttered, getting in.

  “Perfectly true,” he said, starting the motor. He let it idle and warm up while the muscle brigade made adjustments to the loads of flowers. Some had to be put in with us, filling the car with the out-of-season smell of fresh greenery. As the estate sported a generous covering of snow from the last fall, I considered the miracles of modern living that made roses in February possible. It kept my mind off what was to come.

  When things were resolved with the flowers, the hearse took the lead down the long drive to the main road. The white painted ironwork gate showing the name FRANCHER was wide open, the gatehouse utterly dark, its shutters closed. I asked after the couple that lived there. The woman had been the head housekeeper, the man the gardener.

  “The Mayfairs left not long after Emily’s accident.” There was no hesitation from Barrett on that last significant word. Apparently he was long used to referring to her murder in that way. “At first I thought I could influence them into accepting her changed condition, but she said it wasn’t something she wanted to force upon anyone. Mrs. Mayfair gave notice for the both of them, and they found employ with one of the Francher relatives in Connecticut.”

  “Probably giving them an earful.”

  “Hardly. She’s of a breed apart from most servants, very correct, intensely loyal, with no tale-telling. I can’t say her husband has the same disposition, but she’ll see to it he keeps his mind on his work.”

  Nursing a broken heart or not, Barrett had a good life ahead, no loose ends from the old one lying around to trip him. If I had a suspicious mind I’d have thought he’d arranged it that way from the start. I only had his word on everything. For all I knew he’d done away with Emily, fired the servants, and had gotten me here to bump me off in revenge for Laura’s death.

  Imagination can be an ugly, illogical thing. I’d been mingling with rough company for far too long. Escott trusted the man, and I could trust Escott. He was good at figuring people out, and didn’t waste time on bad guys unless it was to put them away. He also didn’t waste time on fools, which gave me hope for myself.

  The road wound eastward, threading past various estates belonging to people who didn’t worry about money in the same way that others do.

  Sometimes I’d see a mansion through the skeletal trees and think about what living was like for those inside, but not for long since I didn’t know much about that kind of life, only what’d I’d seen in the movies. And how accurate was that?

  I bet those people all had really good cars, though.

  Our parade eventually passed the gates of a very old cemetery on the grounds of an equally old church. The brake lights for the hearse flickered, then held. Barrett slowed and stopped, and we quit the Studie, standing out of the way while the men with the hearse did what they had to do.

  I noticed Barrett slump again, head down.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “This is difficult. Many of my family are buried here.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make him feel better. Uncomfortable, I thought of my own family and what the passage of the years would eventually accomplish. This wasn’t the first time it had crossed my mind, but I usually pushed it away, determined not to worry about things over which I had no control. I’d not told any of them about me; I didn’t know how or if I even should.

  Maureen’s sister had known about her change, and that had ended in disaster. Barrett and I wouldn’t be here tonight if—

  Damn it. Back roads named “if” were the worst. They wandered off in too many directions and no one had ever gotten anywhere traveling on them. But still. . .

  I couldn’t help feeling that I’d failed Maureen. I
f she’d just come to me I could have done something to help, and she would have never gone to Long Island. I’d looked at that if from every angle for almost two years, and frustration was the only result. Her choice had been to seek out Barrett. He knew all the background and was the right one to go to, but it hurt that she’d said nothing to me. Maybe she didn’t want to have the new man in her life meeting the old one. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Maybe—

  Back roads named “maybe” were bad, too.

  Whatever her reasons, she could never have anticipated a jealous fifteen-year-old girl would murder her.

  The men lighted a few kerosene lanterns rather than using more efficient flashlights. I liked that. The glow from the flames softened and warmed things, though the shadows seemed to get darker. The big bare trees looked forlorn now, but in summer their shade would make things cool and peaceful.

  “Barrett . . . is Laura here?”

  His eyes sharpened for an instant. This was the first time I’d mentioned her. “No. She was taken to Connecticut. The Franchers have a family plot someplace. I’ve not been. I couldn’t stand to go.”

  “Don’t blame you. This is a good place for Maureen.”

  She was in a part of the cemetery so old that I didn’t see how they’d found room for her. I noticed headstones going back to the 1700s, and saw the name BARRETT on some of them.

  “The place picked itself. She’s . . . she’s in my grave.”

  “Wha—?”

  “That spot was mine. Once. For a day, until sunset when I woke. I never went back. It’s been empty all these years. I didn’t think she’d mind being with my family since hers was so disagreeable.”

  He was the pip. He was also right. Maureen wouldn’t have minded.

  Every so often Barrett took a deep breath of the chill air and released it as a long, slow sigh. I didn’t think he was aware of doing it. Then he spoke, his voice soft, “If only I had not been so blind about Laura . . . Maureen might still be alive.”

  This was new. I’d never thought he might blame himself for her death. There was bitterness in his tone. He’d been mulling it over for a very long time.

  “You’d have done something if you’d known,” I said. “You weren’t blind—Laura was just too good at hiding herself. Who in the world could have expected it? Not even Einstein could have figured her out.”

  He shook his head a little. “Don’t you mean Freud?”

  “I meant Einstein. Freud might have, but you’re not him. It’s no one’s fault but Laura’s, and she’s gone now.”

  “Yes. And just as well. She was an appallingly clever girl . . . I suppose it was for the best she took those pills.” He let that one hang in the air.

  I’d worked on my poker face, but was glad he wasn’t looking at me. If my heart could still beat, it would have hammered hard for a moment. Barrett had figured things out. But was he going to do anything?

  He drew another deep breath, then cleared his throat. “We’re here for Maureen, not the one who took her from us.”

  Maybe not.

  Or just maybe not here and now.

  Or I could try kicking myself and stop being so damned paranoid.

  Unexpectedly he dropped a hand on my shoulder. “Mr. Fleming, don’t ask me why, but Maureen loved us both, each in our own time. You are right: her death wasn’t my fault or yours. We’re better men for her life touching ours, however brief a moment. We can best honor her memory by never forgetting her.”

  I mumbled something or other in agreement. He’d abruptly reminded me of my grandfather. The feeling I got was the same: that of an old man dealing with his pain by offering consolation to a much younger one.

  “They’re ready,” he said. “One more walk.”

  Thus did I find out I was to be a pallbearer. It wasn’t my first time, and I’d have just as soon shirked the honor. Hat in my off hand, I shared the weight of Maureen’s casket with three other men—Barrett paced slowly next to me, supporting his side—but it was a hard and heavy burden.

  We set it down on the two-by-fours bridging the grave, and I was glad to back away from that gaping hole. Barrett caught my arm, preventing me from tripping over one of his relative’s stone markers. I grunted a thanks and composed myself to listen to the service.

  Since the pastor hadn’t known Maureen, he limited himself to appropriate scripture with an emphasis on comfort for her two mourners. No hymns were sung, but we bowed heads in prayer, and I murmured along with the others. It was the bare basics, but done well. The pastor had an easy, sonorous voice, and read sincerely from his book. I liked what he read, and at the end I did feel comforted.

  They lowered the casket; I picked up a bunch of roses and dropped it in after. Barrett did the same. The pastor said the ashes to ashes part. I had no idea what denomination he belonged to, not that it mattered. He’d done well by her.

  Barrett cleared his throat again with a slight jerk of his head. I followed him from the grave.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “They’ll finish things when we’ve gone. Believe me, the sound of the earth falling in is not something you want in your memory.”

  I could agree with that. I shook hands with the pastor and thanked him. Barrett took his turn, discreetly slipping the man a more tangible expression of appreciation, then we trudged off to our respective cars.

  Barrett drove as before. Neither of us talked, but it was an oddly companionable silence.

  The service was over, and I felt strangely lighter for it. Funerals are indeed for the living. I’d had that internal catharsis of saying good-bye; it was done. I’d spend the day in my room at the Francher house and leave at sunset tomorrow, taking the train back to Chicago and Bobbi. All I wanted was to be with her, and I was sure Maureen would understand.

  We pulled in through the estate gates; Barrett didn’t bother to shut them. Perhaps he wasn’t as reclusive as Emily.

  He followed the drive up to a point, then veered off, the Studie’s wheels churning uncertainly over the snow-caked lawn toward the site of the old house’s excavation. What the hell?

  He cut the motor, shrugging a little in response to my look. “I’ll explain. If you would come with me . . . ?”

  The deepest night is like daylight to us, but he dug a flashlight from the trunk. Skirting the big piles of raw earth and mud-smeared trash, we moved closer to the pit, the heavy digging equipment looming like snoozing elephants. The wind had picked up and whistled a freezing note in my ears. I hunched futilely against its annoyance.

  “This was dreadful work,” he said. “Brought back such a lot of unpleasant memories.”

  All I could think was, that despite what he’d said earlier, he might have some archaic debt of honor to settle with me about Laura. Guys from his century fought duels for less. He could be planning to cosh me on the noggin and drop what was left into the deep end. A few minutes with the bulldozer would finish the job.

  “I need your advice.”

  So he’d said earlier. At the first sudden move I’d vanish.

  “I left it here.”

  In a broad space between the big machines was a roughly folded tarp with the remains of cut rope dangling from its eyelets. That must have come from the back porch where it previously covered the summer furniture. When I drew breath to ask a question the stink of decomposition from the excavation hit me between the eyes. Damn, why had he brought me here?

  He pulled the tarp away, revealing an oblong wooden tool box. He squatted next to the box and opened it. The inside was packed to the top with snow. It being so cold and with the tarp for shade, there wasn’t much melting.

  Barrett brushed snow from something about the size of a loaf of bread. With thumb and forefinger and no small distaste, he picked out the mud-smeared object from its icy nest and set it down across one corner of the box. Just so there was no doubt about what he wanted to show, he played the flashlight’s beam over the thing.

  It was
a man’s shoe—with the foot still in it.

  * * * * * * *

  * * * * * * *

  I’d seen death before, but had to turn away, fighting the urge to heave.

  “Jeeze, you could warn a guy can’t you?” The stink got worse. I moved upwind.

  “How?” he asked dryly.

  “Whose is it?”

  “I don’t know. I found it down there, of course. The mechanical shovel separated it from the rest of the body. I’d have missed it completely but for the reek. I thought it was—”