Death and Douglas Read online

  He was stuck between a gravestone and a hard place.

  The two walked in a heavy silence punctuated only by the leather soles of their dress shoes scraping the cement sidewalk. While they were still two blocks away, night fell completely.

  In the dark, they saw the halo of pulsing red and blue lights before they saw the funeral home. Christopher was the one that acknowledged it first. “Not again.”

  The funeral home was uncharacteristically lively, filled as it was with people who were all more vertical than the place was used to. Policemen, medical responders, and journalists were crowding the vestibule and front rooms of the house, talking excitedly and milling around the funeral home like they were at a party.

  Christopher walked in dazedly while Douglas trailed behind like an afterthought. Douglas didn’t see anybody he knew. They were probably all in the morgue fretting over the new murder victim with the new letter carved into his or her face.

  What was today? Douglas thought. Friday. An F, this time. A quick three slices for a sharp blade. Easy letter.

  Following Christopher through the rooms toward the back of the funeral home, they ran into a pair of police officers who had taken up posts on either side of the double doors that opened into the Hammond Mortimer Memorial Chapel. Douglas didn’t recognized either officer. Things must be getting really bad if they were bringing in policemen from other towns to help. “You guys can’t go in there,” said one of the officers, quickly and authoritatively.

  “I work here,” answered Christopher as if hoping they would disbelieve him and send them away. “And this kid is a Mortimer.”

  “What are your names?”

  “Chris. Chris Shin. And Douglas Mortimer.”

  “Okay. Go on in,” The officer opened up one of the doors and shut it before they had barely crossed the threshold.

  The chapel was empty, except for a solitary man. He was sitting on the front pew staring at the wall behind the lectern. As they came closer, he turned around and stood up wearily, settling into a posture that was slightly bent on top, like he’d hovered over too many sick beds.

  “More murder?” asked Christopher.

  “Officially, I can’t answer that right now. Unofficially, I think I’m going to retire from being medical examiner. Stick to shining lights in people’s ears and hitting their knees with rubber mallets.” Dr. Coffman nodded at the youngest Mortimer. “Hello, Douglas. Nice tie.”

  Douglas absentmindedly brushed at a speck of grave dirt from the red fabric and asked, “Are my parents down there?” He inclined his head in the direction of the side door at the front of the chapel.

  “Yes, they both are. They should be up soon, though. It’s almost showtime. I’m up here going over my lines.”

  As he said this, the door opened, and Douglas’s mother emerged from the storage room that led to the morgue. She looked harried, and one of her three necklaces was caught in her long red hair like it was a strand of spider web. “Oh, there you are, Chris. Could you go downstairs? They might need your help.” Christopher winced, but obeyed.

  Douglas’s mother turned to him. “Douglas, you run upstairs to your room. You have company.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Dr. Coffman smiled at Douglas, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a disc of lemon candy without saying anything. Douglas took the offering automatically and left without a “What’s happening?” or “What’s the matter?” There was no need.

  He made his way back to the front of the funeral home, through the crowd, and slowly ascended the stairs, as thoughts of a dark, fleshless figure haunted his imagination.

  In his room, he found Lowell and Audrey sitting on the floor playing a video game. Lowell was a purple monster with bright red boxing gloves on each of its eight tentacles and Audrey was a furry silver creature with two sets of bat wings on its back and fists that ended in toothy mouths.

  “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Hold on. Give me two seconds to beat this loser … There!” Lowell exclaimed as the purple monster gave a rapid succession of uppercuts with each tentacle until the whole screen exploded in red and yellow. Audrey threw her controller down onto the carpet, and Lowell popped up from the floor. “We came over to plan our next steps for tracking down the Day Killer. Your mom said you’d be back soon, so we hung out in the kitchen with her for a while, but then everything started going crazy, so she told us to come in here and wait. If it hadn’t been dark by that time, she probably would have sent us home.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Audrey. “Plus, my dad’s down there, Lowell’s dad’s down there, everybody’s down there.”

  “Including another murder victim,” Douglas finished.

  “We eavesdropped at the top of the stairs for a while, but somebody busted us and sent us back here. It’s definitely the Day Killer, and the victim is a man,” said Lowell.

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “No, we didn’t catch a name. We can find out later. But that’s not the important question.”

  “What is?”

  Audrey piped up. “We have to find out about the letter.”

  “F for Friday, right? F as in big fat failing grade. What does it matter?” asked Douglas.

  “Because, if it’s an F, maybe the Day Killer idea holds up,” Audrey explained.

  “In other words, F means it doesn’t matter that I got chased.”

  “Don’t put it that way, Doug,” said Lowell. “It means that us keeping our mouths shut was the right decision. You don’t always get that kind of confirmation in life, so you might as well jump on it when it comes around.”

  As soon as they said it, Douglas knew it was the truth. They had to find out if the Day Killer had left his mark, and what that mark was.

  “So how are we going to find out?” asked Audrey.

  “Well, I’m sure as hockey sticks not sneaking into the morgue again,” said Lowell.

  “You snuck into the morgue? That’s crazy.”

  “Worse, it was at midnight.”

  “Invite me next time.”

  “Eddie will probably tell me,” Douglas interrupted. “Or, heck, my father will probably tell me, now that these murders are out in the open. We’ll have to wait until everything dies—settles down. I can message you guys later tonight.”

  “I don’t think I can wait that long,” muttered Audrey.

  “Well, now that we’ve got nothing to do but wait, you up for a game? You’re marginally better than Audrey.” Lowell held up a controller as a shield while Audrey mock-punched him in the face.

  “Nah,” answered Douglas. “I think I’m going to hang out at the top of the stairs. See if I can hear anything. I have more practice doing it than you guys.” He slipped off his shoes and soft-footed down the hall, keeping to the edges of the passageway until he reached the top of the stairs. He crouched to one side so that if anybody below got too close, he could be out of sight in seconds. From this vantage point he could see most of the vestibule area where all the officials and reporters were wandering around talking to each other and, like the Ghastlies upstairs, waiting for further developments.

  A slight breath behind his ear made him realize that somebody had followed him. Assuming it was Lowell, Douglas almost threw an elbow behind him. Instead, he turned his head, and his face came within inches of Audrey’s. She smiled tightly and directed her attention downstairs.

  After about ten minutes of innocuous chatter, Douglas heard his father’s unmistakable voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Then Chief Pumphrey’s voice boomed across the funeral home.

  “We’re going to have to ask all non-essential personnel to go home now. That includes reporters. Actually, that’s aimed straight at reporters.” A brief burst of argument was cut off when Chief Pumphrey continued. “We’ll hold an official press conference tomorrow at the station. You guys have as much information as you need right now to go wild with all kinds of morbid rumors, so please—” An unintelligible drone of protest interru
pted the chief.

  The doorbell chimed to announce a new visitor, but the din from the reporters faded for only a second before returning to its protesting roar. Douglas craned his neck to see the front door. His father walked over and opened it. A woman stood on the front porch, a large canvas bag thrown over her shoulder. Douglas almost yelped when he recognized the tall woman. She really was following him around Cowlmouth.

  “Mr. Mortimer?” she asked crisply.

  “Yes, but I’m sorry, ma’am, we’re closed right now. If you need immediate assistance, I can refer to you another funeral home close by.”

  “I’m not a client, sir. My name is Melinda Basford. This is my colleague, Diane Keeney.” She motioned to someone behind her that Douglas couldn’t see. “We’re here to talk about your son, Douglas.”

  “Okay, but this is really, really a bad time. As you can see, we have quite a bit going on.” He motioned to where the police chief and reporters were sparring behind him. “Please come back another time, and I’ll be glad to talk to you.”

  “Understood. May we come back tomorrow?”

  “Yes, yes, that’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mortimer.” She turned around and disappeared from Douglas’s line of sight. As his father closed the door, Douglas saw his mother join him.

  “Who was that?”

  “A couple of Douglas’s teachers, I think. They’re coming back tomorrow.”

  Douglas turned to Audrey behind him and shook his head while shrugging. He mouthed the words “not my teachers.”

  “Is anything wrong at school?” They heard Douglas’s mother ask.

  “I don’t know. We didn’t talk. They said they’d be back tomorrow. We’ve got plenty enough to worry about today.”

  “Mr. Mortimer?” Douglas could see Christopher now. “There’s not much more I can do down there. I’m kind of in the way, honestly. Mind if I go up to my apartment?”

  “Sure, no problem. You’re on call tonight, right?”

  “Yes, sir.” Christopher exited through the front door. The entrance to his apartment was on the side of the funeral home, giving him some privacy and a flimsy way to segment his life from his work.

  Douglas motioned to Audrey to follow him back to the room. Once there, he started putting his shoes back on.

  “Where are you going?” asked Lowell, who was playing a video game by himself.

  “Chris went to his apartment. He’ll have the answers we need. You guys stay. I’ll be right back.”

  “Nope. Coming,” said Lowell.

  “Me, too,” said Audrey.

  They followed Douglas down the hallway, through the kitchen, down the back stairs, and around the house to a side door. Behind this door was a set of steps that led above the chapel to Christopher’s apartment. Douglas rang the bell.

  A few moments later they heard the loud thumps of Christopher descending the staircase. He opened the door and popped his head out. A phone was pressed tightly against his ear, and he was speaking in animated Korean. He motioned for the three to follow him up. He had already taken off his jacket and tie, and his dress shirt was unbuttoned all the way to reveal a ribbed tank top underneath.

  He opened the door and ushered them in, all the while speaking nonstop into the tiny piece of technology. The apartment was a studio with few pieces of furniture. A bed against the wall looked like it had never once been made, and a small, battered couch divided the room in two. A gigantic flat-screen television facing the couch was perched precariously on a pair of wooden barstools. Connected to the TV in about three octopi worth of wire tentacles was a DVD player, a cable box, and a video game system identical to the one in Douglas’s room, although a cheap rack beside the TV showcased quadruple the number of games. On the walls were posters for movies Douglas didn’t recognize, and scattered here and there were crumpled fast food bags.

  Christopher finally lowered the phone and tossed it on the couch. “What do you guys want?”

  “You were down there, right? In the morgue? You saw the murder victim?” Douglas was surprised to hear his questions come out more like demands.

  Christopher sighed and rubbed vigorously at the sparse hair of his moustache. “Yeah, I saw him.”

  “Who was it?” asked Lowell.

  “Some guy. Looked kind of old … forties, fifties, something like that. I didn’t recognize him. A bus driver, I think.”

  “What about his face?” pressed Douglas. “Did he have a letter? What was it?”

  “Man, I really hate this job.” Christopher walked over to one of the crumpled fast food bags and rummaged around in it until he came up with a stale french fry. “Why in the world do you guys care?”

  “Just curious,” answered Lowell, his face a stone mask.

  Christopher looked them over while chomping on the potato string. After he’d finished, he turned the bag upside down to see if there were any more survivors. “He had an F on his cheek.”

  “You saw it yourself?” asked Douglas.

  “With my own two bloodshot eyes.” He shuddered.

  Douglas, Lowell, and Audrey looked each other in barely hid relief. “Good,” mumbled Lowell.

  “What?” Christopher shot him a look that was a muscle twitch away from him grabbing the boy by the collar.

  “I said good,” answered Lowell with a strange surge of confidence. “It means that this guy is following his pattern. That’s extremely important if Dad and his officers have any chance of catching him.” Douglas and Audrey nodded as if that was exactly what they had been thinking, too.

  “I guess so. It certainly frees up everybody’s Fridays,” answered Christopher.

  OCTOBER 8

  SATURDAY

  What I wouldn’t give for a sturdy coffin lid, thought Douglas, finally realizing why eternal rest mandated six feet of sunblock. He rolled over in his bed and pulled his blanket over his head to block the rays of late-morning sunlight that were infiltrating his window and burning the membranes of his eyelids.

  Douglas didn’t feel like getting out of bed. Didn’t feel like getting dressed. Didn’t feel like closing the blinds. Didn’t feel like doing much of anything. He’d already ignored three texts from Lowell and one from Audrey. After they had learned which scarlet letter had been given to the murder victim, they decided to get together the following morning in the cemetery and figure out what to do. After all, the third murder victim had died on their watch, and the police now had three strikes against them. Everybody seemed at a dead end, especially the victims.

  Based on how the murders had affected him so far, the fact that the Mortimer Family Funeral Home was hosting a third victim in its morgue should have made Douglas want to rip off his tie and run screaming from the house. However, at some point yesterday, whether it was seeing the mob of people in the funeral home or hearing Christopher’s account of the dead man or even just waking up this morning angry at the sun, that terror had slipped down the emotional scale to apathy.

  He looked at his alarm clock. The digits glowed a reproachful 10:00 A.M. His mother hadn’t even come up to make sure he didn’t sleep the day away. The murder victim was keeping her busy, he was sure.

  Suddenly, he realized that his stomach didn’t share his apathy. He wanted cereal. Douglas got out of bed and padded down the hallway toward the kitchen, still in the T-shirt and sweatpants he had slept in. As he passed the stairs, he heard the pleasant chimes of the front door downstairs. Another death, that’s what those chimes usually meant. Someone else needing to put another ex-person into the ground. Another victim, regardless of the circumstances of the death. Murdered and mutilated or peacefully passing in sleep, just another victim of death, of the Grim Reaper.

  Douglas really wanted that cereal.

  He stopped at the top of the stairs and squatted down to give himself a better view of the front door. His father approached it. He was dressed in a black suit with a tranquilly patterned blue and green tie, and his black hair was combed with a precision that w
as the result of decades’ worth of practice. He opened the door.

  “Oh, hello …” His voice trailed off.

  “Hi, Mr. Mortimer. I’m Melinda Basford. And this is my colleague, Diane Keeney.”

  “I remember.”

  The woman was back. Who on earth was she? Douglas could see her standing there in a maroon dress with flowers so tiny they might as well have been polka dots. Her brown hair was tightly curled and she wore thick-framed brown glasses. Over her shoulder was the same large canvas bag that she had brought yesterday. He couldn’t see the other woman.

  “I hope we didn’t come too early.”

  “No, not at all,” answered his father politely. “We’re a twenty-four-hour service. Come on in.” As the two women accepted the invitation, Douglas saw the one named Keeney. She was a black woman, much shorter than Ms. Basford and wearing a gray pantsuit with a ruffle-fronted burgundy shirt. He had never seen her before. “We can go into the sitting room,” his father continued. “It’ll probably be the most comfortable for us. Can I get you some coffee or something … ?” His father’s voice trailed off as they walked deeper into the funeral home.

  Douglas jumped up from his perch and ran back into his room. After rummaging through his closet for a few moments, he threw on a red robe, the one he had received for his birthday last year from his parents and hardly ever wore because, well, why would he? He was twelve years old.

  He crept along the hallway and down the stairs and slunk his way to the entrance of the sitting room. As he approached, he heard his father say, “Sorry my wife couldn’t be here. She had some business to attend to.”

  Douglas crouched with his back to the wall, right beside the entrance. Turning his head, he could see a corner of the room, the table with the golden Tutankhamun on it, and a bit of the cabinet of Mexican funerary figures.

  “You and your wife are pretty busy right now.”