Town In a Lobster Stew (20 page)

Feeling a sense of urgency, Candy pulled the Jeep into the driveway at Wilma Mae’s house and slammed on the brakes. She slipped the transmission into park, unhooked her seat belt, flicked off the engine, and withdrew the key from the ignition, all in one fluid motion.

She jumped out and, in a dozen steps, was across the yard and up on the front porch. In a couple more steps she was at the front door, which stood wide open.

“Hello?” she called through the screen door. Without waiting for an answer, she opened it and walked inside.

She was halfway along the hallway when something particularly offensive, a smell like rotten eggs, assailed her nostrils. She made a face. “Mrs. Wendell? Maggie? What’s that smell?”

“We’re up here!” Maggie called from the second floor.

Candy retreated back along the hall and turned up the stairs, taking them two at a time. On the second floor she found the two of them in Wilma Mae’s back bedroom.

The elderly woman was stretched out on an antique fourposter bed, which had a white frilled coverlet on it. Her eyes were closed, and she was holding a cold cloth to her head. Maggie turned toward Candy as she walked in. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“Didn’t you smell it downstairs? You can’t breathe down there.”

“So what do you think it is?”

Maggie looked around at Wilma Mae, then took Candy’s arm and led her out into the hallway, well clear of Wilma Mae’s room. “I don’t know,” she said in a worried whisper, “and I’m not sure I want to find out.”

“You don’t think . . . ?” Candy let the sentence trail off, unable to finish it.

“I don’t know what to think,” Maggie said. “I just know that something’s wrong. That smell isn’t . . . normal, if you know what I mean. It smells . . . well, it smells like something died.”

Candy suddenly felt all cold inside. “I guess we have to check the house. I’ll do it—but you have to come with me.”

“Should we call the police?”

Candy thought about that. “Let’s find out what it is first. Maybe we’re just overreacting. Maybe it’s just a dead critter in the walls. Maybe a cat crawled in the basement window and couldn’t crawl out again.”

“Or maybe it’s something else.”

“Or maybe it’s something else,” Candy echoed. “That’s what we’ve got to find out. So . . . are you with me?”

Maggie looked doubtful. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“I don’t know if I can either. But we have to find out what’s going on. And I can’t do it alone. I need your help. Okay?”

Maggie chewed her lip for a few moments. Finally she gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Okay. I’ll do my best. But you lead. I’ll follow.”

“That’s good. Just stay right behind me, so I know where you are.”

“Trust me—I’m not going anywhere on my own.”

“Good. So where should we start? Did you look upstairs here?”

Maggie shook her head. “I’ve only been in Wilma Mae’s bedroom and downstairs in the kitchen. But the smell is stronger down there.”

“Have you been in the living room? Or the dining room?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay. That’s where we’ll start.”

They checked on Wilma Mae, but she had fallen into an uneasy sleep, so they let her be as they started back down the stairs.

The putrid smell grew stronger as they reached the bottom and turned into the hall.

“Let’s look in there first,” Candy said, pointing to the living room. She had been here just a couple of days ago, interviewing Wilma Mae, but now the place looked foreign to her, and for a moment her head spun. She stopped to orient herself.

“Are you okay?” Maggie asked, touching her lightly on the shoulder.

Candy jumped involuntarily. “Yeah, I’m just . . . nervous.”

“Me too.” Maggie sniffed. “The smell’s pretty strong in here.”

Candy nodded. “Come on.”

She made a quick tour of the living room, checking under and behind the sofa, in the corners behind the tables, underneath the cabinets, and even behind the grandfather clock.

“Look in there,” Maggie said, pointing to a coat closet tucked into a back corner of the living room.

Candy nodded and took cautious steps toward it. Closing her eyes, she reached out, grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and flung open the door. She opened one eye and peered into the darkness as Maggie looked over her shoulder. “See anything?”

A musty smell came from the closet. Candy opened the other eye and leaned in for a closer look. She saw some old coats hanging on a wooden rail, boxes stuffed on a shelf above that, and well-worn boots, galoshes, and sneakers on the floor. A broom and dust mop stood in one corner, while a few more boxes were stacked on the floor to the left of the door.

“Nothing,” Candy said. She turned, surveying the room. “Whatever it is, it’s not in here. Let’s check the dining room next.”

The formal dining room occupied the right front corner of the home’s first floor. They found an antique mahogany table with a half dozen chairs, an oak hutch with dinner plates and more ketchup bottles arranged neatly on shelves, and an old cabinet-style stereo that probably dated back to the sixties. Again, Candy checked in the corners and under the furniture, as well as another closet stuffed with tablecloths, linens, and other soft goods, but found nothing.

They moved back out into the hallway and stood for a few moments eyeing the kitchen at the rear of the home. “I guess that’s next,” Maggie said, obviously not really wanting to move at all.

“I guess,” Candy said, her voice sounding a little hoarse.

Reluctantly they both started along the hall. As they moved toward the back of the house, the smell grew worse, more potent, like rotten trash that’d been left out in the sun too long. Maggie made a little sound of disgust in the back of her throat, and Candy had to swallow several times to settle her stomach. But they kept moving forward.

When they reached the kitchen, Candy immediately crossed it and opened the back door, letting in a cool breath of air. They both lingered by the door as they looked around the kitchen.

“I should check the cupboards and cabinets,” Candy said finally.

Maggie nodded. “I’ll check the pantry.”

They moved in different directions, opening doors and peering into the dark recesses inside. A few minutes later they rejoined by the back door. “Nothing,” Candy said.

Maggie looked back out into the hallway and pointed at a door halfway along, underneath the staircase. “Where does that lead?”

Candy shrugged. “A storage area? Or the basement?”

“The basement?”

They both looked at each other.

“I guess we have to look down there too, don’t we?” Maggie asked finally.

Candy nodded, feeling chilled. “I guess we do.”

“Okay.” Maggie paused, breathing hard. “You go first.”

Candy clenched her jaw tightly, pushing down her fear. She’d just checked out a basement yesterday, over at Mr. Sedley’s house. That had been creepy enough. Now she had to go down into another one. For some reason, the basements of these old homes always gave her the willies. For the most part they were dark, silent, cold places, full of spiderwebs, shadows, and secrets. She didn’t relish the idea of what she’d find down there. But she knew it had to be done.

Gathering her courage, she walked along the hall to the door, with Maggie right behind her. Gingerly she turned the knob and pushed open the door. Instantly they were assaulted by a smell that reminded her of decaying meat, only a hundred times worse. Candy held her hand to her nose and started breathing through her mouth, while Maggie coughed violently.

“It’s coming from down there,” Candy said, stating the obvious.

Maggie trembled in fear but managed to put her hand on Candy’s shoulder. “I’m with you,” was all she could say.

Her hand still holding shut her nose, Candy reached out to flick on the light switch, then stepped through the door onto a landing. With only a moment’s hesitation she started down the wooden steps, which creaked loudly as they descended. She had a fleeting concern that one of the steps would break on her, like she’d often seen in the movies, plunging her down into a dark abyss. So she held tightly to the railing, while Maggie held tightly to the back of her blouse, whimpering softly.

Fortunately none of the steps broke, and they reached the bottom safely. Here, the smell was partially consumed by the dankness of the basement, resulting in a sickening miasma of odors. Candy had to fight down a sudden urge to gag. Her eyes began to water.

“This is crazy,” Maggie whispered in a high voice behind her. “We should go back up and call the police.”

“Just give me a minute,” Candy told her. “I have to find out what’s causing it.”

“We know what’s causing it,” Maggie said, finally giving words to what they both were thinking. Her voice crackled in anguish.

“Then where is he?” Candy’s eyes swept the room.

Finally Maggie pointed. “There.”

Candy studied the area of the basement Maggie had indicated. She saw it then: a bulging blue tarpaulin, wrapped around something thick and heavy, stuffed into a far corner.

Slowly Candy approached the tarpaulin, feeling numb, as if she were outside of her own body and someone else was doing what she was about to do. Maggie didn’t follow her now; she stayed behind at the foot of the stairs, unable to move any farther. Candy didn’t blame her. She couldn’t believe she was doing what she was doing. Only thoughts of Wilma Mae and Mr. Sedley, and the love they shared, drove her on.

When she reached the tarp, she knelt on the cold, dusty cement floor. Holding her breath, she held out a hand and placed it delicately on the bulky wrapped mass in front of her. Whatever was inside felt cold and stiff.

She quickly removed her hand and looked for a seam, a way to unwrap it. But she could see nothing.

Uncertain of what to do next, if she should even disturb the macabre bundle in front of her, if it indeed turned out to be a crime scene, she did the only thing she could think of.

She started to roll it toward her.

Slowly she unspun the bundle across the floor, and slowly the tarpaulin began to unwrap, the leading edge falling away. She rose and stepped over it, so she could push the bulk of it along across the cement floor. It was a large tarpaulin, perhaps eight feet square, and it took her several seconds to unroll it fully, as Maggie watched in silent, horrified fascination.

And when Candy was done, when she had fully unrolled the tarpaulin, the dead, stiff body of James Sedley rolled out across the cold cement floor of Wilma Mae Wendell’s basement.

The flashing lights of four squad cars and an ambulance danced across Candy’s eyes, making her blink rapidly before she turned away. The sun was sinking toward the western horizon, casting long slants of yellow sunlight along Wilma Mae’s tidy front yard. Blackbirds chattered noisily in the high branches of a tall, sparsely limbed pine tree, angry about something. Candy looked up at them, wondering what had got them so upset and thinking how wonderful it would be to become a bird right now, and just fly away into that sun-paled blue sky, out over the trees into the far distance, to disappear forever. . . .

She was still dazed and disturbed by what she and Maggie had discovered in the basement. Her breathing had returned to normal, but her chest still felt empty, like someone had plucked out her heart.

When an officer led her out here to sit on the front porch steps, she had felt ill, probably from the smell, which still clung to her. But as she sat here in the sun and breathed deeply of the cool Maine air, she began to feel better, and the nausea receded.

Still, she didn’t want to risk standing at the moment, afraid her legs might be too weak to hold her, or the nausea might return, or her head might start spinning. So she sat—though she stayed well off to one side of the steps to avoid getting tramped on by the police officers and EMTs, who were moving rapidly but carefully in and out of the house.