Death Notice (25 page)

Pissed off.

That’s how Nick felt. Pissed off and taking names.

It was a common state police phrase used to describe a trooper’s desire to catch a bad guy. It also summed up Nick’s mood. So did angry. And exasperated. And most maddening of all, disappointed. After having virtually no real leads and no tips, a juicy one just dropped in their laps, yet Kat seemed content to do nothing about it.

Nick knew she was different from the other law enforcement yokels he had met. He also knew she wanted to lock the killer up as much as he did. That’s what made her refusal to go along with the sting so frustrating. Unlike the Grim Reaper, she still planned on playing by the rules. But rules only got you so far. In order to win, you sometimes had to cheat a little.

He was back at the Sleepy Hollow Inn, and it was just like his first stay—a swirl of pastels and potpourri. The only difference was the Norman Rockwell print that normally hung on the wall opposite the bed was gone. Nick had taken it down, replacing it with newspaper clippings, photos, and his own handwritten notes about the case. He assumed whoever cleaned his room in the morning would think he was crazy. Or the killer. Either way, the display had the look of insanity.

He paced back and forth in front of the wall, scanning articles from the
Perry Hollow Gazette,
snapshots of evidence, and his own barely legible musings scrawled in blue ink. Because the collage faced the bed, it would be the last thing Nick saw before going to sleep. He hoped that by looking at it, the case would
stay in his consciousness, working through his brain during the night and giving him new insight in the morning.

Only he had all the insight he could hope for. Lucas Hatcher, their prime suspect, was burying people for cash in the town graveyard. What he really needed was someone with enough balls to help him catch Lucas in the act.

Nick stopped pacing when he heard a rap on the door. He froze, suddenly aware that his footsteps could probably be heard throughout the entire bed-and-breakfast. Someone somewhere had just been roused from their sleep. And now they, too, were pissed off and taking names.

He crossed the room on tiptoes. Opening the door, he saw not an angry guest but an obituary writer.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Henry Goll said.

“You’re not. Come on in.”

Henry remained in the hall. “After you left, I tried to convince Kat to let me help in the sting.”

“I guess she didn’t change her mind.”

“No. She didn’t. And I haven’t changed mine.”

It dawned on Nick that Henry was there for a very good reason. He was volunteering for the sting, even though the chief had told him not to. His respect for the obituary writer instantly increased tenfold.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that Kat was right. There is some danger involved. So, are you certain you want to go ahead with this?”

“Of course.”

Although Henry didn’t smile, Nick’s grin was wide enough for both of them.

“Then let’s get over to that cemetery and do it.”

By the time Henry entered Oak Knoll Cemetery, a fog had descended on the town. It hung over the graveyard in a haze of
swirling opaqueness, causing him to bump into the crooked headstones. Occasional statues broke up the monotony of the modest tombstones, marble angels and virgins lurching out of the mist.

Moving through the graveyard, Henry listened for signs of a human presence other than his own. He didn’t hear much—a car rumbling in the distance, the forlorn hoot of an owl, the murmur of leaves in the trees.

Then a different sound sliced through the fog. Whistling. Someone else was in the cemetery. Henry headed toward the noise, trudging between the graves. In the distance, the fog changed color and brightened, casting a yellowish glow on the horizon.

The whistling grew louder as Henry got closer. He even recognized the song—“(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. It was a surreal sound, the eerie tune emerging from the fog and echoing off the marble slabs dotting the cemetery.

Before approaching any further, Henry plunged a hand into the waistband of his khakis and switched on the transmitter taped precariously close to his crotch. Attached to it was a thin black wire that ran up the inside of his shirt to the microphone positioned near his collar. Turning away from the whistling and the brightened haze, he lowered his chin and spoke into the microphone.

“Testing. One. Two. Three.”

He scanned the lengthy swath of cemetery he had just passed through until the beam of a flashlight blinked twice in the fog. A signal from Nick Donnelly. Everything was in working order.

He spoke into the microphone again. “I’m going in.”

Resuming his walk through the graveyard, Henry struggled to comprehend the events that brought him there. A few months ago he was Henry Ghoul, content in his solitude. Now
everything was different, unexpectedly so. In February, if someone told him he’d be marching through a cemetery trying to help the state police catch a serial killer, he would have had them committed. But there he was, doing exactly that.

He followed the light until he was able to see its source through the fog—a lantern sitting on a headstone. Leaning against an adjacent grave was a bulky man in a dirt-smeared denim jacket. He stopped whistling when he spotted Henry.

“Who are you?”

Henry cleared his throat and spoke loudly, making sure the microphone picked up every word. “Are you Lucas Hatcher?”

“That depends,” the man said. “You with the police?”

“Of course not.”

“Step into the light.”

Henry moved forward until he felt the lantern’s warmth on his face. Lucas approached, eyeing him with suspicion.

“What do you want?”

“I hear you provide a service. I want to hire you.”

Lucas’s eyes drifted to the right. Henry’s gaze followed, stopping a few yards away at a heap of dirt next to a canvas tarp thrown on the ground. Henry didn’t need Lucas to tell him that beneath it was a hole roughly the size of a grave.

“Where’d you hear about this?” Lucas asked.

“Does it matter? I still want to hire you. Now tell me how much.”

“One hundred. Cash. Nonrefundable. If you wimp out, you’re not getting your money back.”

“Do a lot of people wimp out?”

Lucas let out a ruthless chuckle. “Most of them. A few days ago, I had some little bitch start screaming after ten seconds in the coffin. It was her boyfriend who had ponied up the cash, too. Bet he was pissed.”

“How long can I stay down there?” Henry asked. “If I don’t chicken out?”

“I’m not answering anything else until I get paid.”

Henry reached for his wallet. The cash was Nick’s, extracted from an ATM on their way to the cemetery. Henry hoped the lieutenant wouldn’t later regret the expense.

Lucas quickly counted the money before shoving it into his back pocket. “That’ll do it.”

Henry’s response was intended solely for Nick. “Good,” he said, lowering his chin closer to the microphone. “I’m ready if you are.”

Lucas yanked away the tarp, revealing the ragged hole beneath it. A dirt-smeared casket rested at the bottom of it. Dark gray with a gently rounded lid, it reminded Henry of a submarine—heavy, strong, impenetrable.

“Where did you get that?”

“That’s my little secret.”

Lowering himself onto his stomach, Lucas eased over the hole and opened both halves of the coffin lid, top one first. He gestured to Henry and said, “Go on. Hop right in.”

Staring at the coffin, it dawned on Henry that he actually had to do this. He had to be inside it, for an undetermined length of time. He approached the hole and inspected the inside of the coffin. All of it—bottom, sides, inside the curved lid—was lined with white satin, which in spots had turned a sour yellow. A small pillow, also made of satin, sat at the head of the coffin.

“Has it been used?”

“You asking if there was a dead guy in there at one point?”

Henry nodded. That’s exactly what he was asking.

This time Lucas’s chuckle was accented by a slight ratlike hiss. Hearing it made Henry almost as uncomfortable as the sight of the coffin.

“Nah. Only used for the living—as far as I know.”

Taking a deep breath, Henry stepped into the coffin. After another breath, he sat down inside it.

“Now lay down,” Lucas said.

Henry leaned back. Even with the satin lining, the coffin wasn’t comfortable. Head resting on the pillow, he was barely able to cram the entire length of his body inside. The soles of his shoes pressed against the bottom edge of the coffin, and the hair on his head brushed the top. It was also too narrow for his frame. He had to wedge himself inside, his shoulders straining against the walls.

The confinement made Henry’s heart beat faster. His arms felt constricted and his legs began to twitch. His whole body urged him to get out.

Lucas knelt beside the coffin and peered down at him. “Ready?”

Henry forced himself to nod.

Lucas reached into his jacket and pulled out a black pager, which he thrust into Henry’s hand. “You’ll need this. Use it when you want to come out. It’s set to beep me, so all you need to do is press the button.”

Holding the pager close to his face, Henry saw the flat plastic button Lucas was talking about. He pressed it. Seconds later, a series of high-pitched beeps emanated from the grave digger’s jacket.

“See.” Lucas pulled out a matching pager that emitted a blinking green glow. “It works.”

“Do you really think this is necessary?”

Lucas switched off his pager, the insistent beeps cutting off and bringing silence back to the cemetery.

“You’ll want to come up at some point,” he said.

“How long can I stay down here?”

“You’ll start to run out of air after about fifteen minutes. Not that anyone’s lasted that long.”

Lucas meant it as a taunt. He was daring Henry to tempt fate by staying down that long. Henry wasn’t going to bite. He intended to be out of the coffin in less than a minute.

“If you have a watch, you might want to set it,” Lucas told him. “In case you fall asleep or something.”

Henry doubted he’d fall asleep. The discomfort he felt jammed into the coffin wouldn’t allow it. Besides, he wouldn’t be down there long enough to sleep. But he set his watch anyway, mostly to call Lucas’s bluff. After programming the alarm to go off in fifteen minutes, he looked up at the grave digger and said, “I’m ready.”

Lucas closed the bottom half of the coffin lid, trapping Henry inside from the waist down. He swallowed hard, resisting the urge to kick himself free. After two more swallows and some deep breaths, the sensation subsided, leaving him feeling slightly more calm but no less constricted. Lucas next stretched over his head and started to close the top lid.

“Have fun down there,” he said. “I’ll wait right here until you page me.”

With one last hissing snicker, he shut the coffin lid, letting it fall over Henry’s face with a deadened thud.

The first thing Henry noticed was that being in a closed coffin was entirely different from lying in it with the lid up. He immediately went from feeling merely constricted to downright claustrophobic. His body writhed in agitation, surrounded on all sides by mildewed satin and coffin walls.

It was also dark, alarmingly so. The blackness was so dense that Henry felt like he had gone blind, cursed to never see the light again. Pushing aside the sensation of helplessness the dark and claustrophobia produced, Henry dipped his chin toward the microphone at his collar.

“I’m completely inside,” he said. “I hope you can still hear me.”

He heard a sudden noise inches from his face. A dull thumping sound, it was followed by a slight skittering against the outside of the coffin. It wasn’t until he heard the noise again that Henry understood what it was—dirt.

Lucas Hatcher was doing exactly what Henry had paid him to do. He was shoveling dirt onto the coffin lid. He was, Henry realized with growing terror, literally burying him alive.

Nick crouched behind a marble crypt, surrounded by the humid mist that filled the cemetery. It was uncomfortable against the tomb, and his aching body wanted to be anywhere but there. Yet in this matter, as in most, Nick’s brain won out. His desire to catch Lucas Hatcher was so strong that he was willing to spend the whole night in the cemetery if necessary.