What It Was Like (37 page)

I stooped down and, one at a time, grabbed each of Nanci's fat, fleshy ankles. I think it was my imagination, but her body already felt cold. Colder than normal.

First the left leg, then the right leg, I lifted over the side and into the bottom of the canvas cover. Then I scooted back to her head.

I got a grip under her arms, in her armpits that were cold and moist, and hoisted her top half into the pocket of canvas. Or, let's say, I
tried
to hoist her. She was one heavy girl, and I could barely move her off the ground. I slid her more than lifted her.

“Here,” I called to Rachel. “Please! Help pull this under her.”

Rachel quickly knelt down and pulled the canvas under Nanci's body that I was just able to get a little bit off the floor. It took a couple of tugs and grunts, but we got her into the canvas cover and pulled the sides up all around her.

I looked down Nanci's large, fairly shapeless body, so still.

“Now I see why she wore so many clothes,” I said. “To cov –”

“Don't – !” Rachel cut me off. “Please. Don't say anything. Let's just get them in the car.”

“OK,” I said. I tried to clear my mind and be logical. “Put all her clothes in here. Her boots, her purse. All traces of her. Put her whiskey sour glass in too.
Everything
.”

“How about the cards?” Rachel asked. “She touched the cards.”

“The cards,” I agreed. “Everything.”

I got the whiskey sour glass, figuring out pretty easily, by position, which one was Nanci's, and picked up the cards while Rachel got her clothes and other things.

She dropped the clothes in delicately alongside of Nanci's body and put the boots at her feet. Then she picked up the big, fringed purse that Nanci always carried from the corner where “Eric” had dropped it.

“Nanci Jerome's famous suede purse!” said Rachel ruefully, holding it up like some kind of rare specimen. Then she walked back to the canvas cover and dropped it in.

“She still might have some clothes upstairs,” Rachel said. “But I could explain those away. If I had to. ‘She slept over last week.' There.”

I put the whiskey sour glass in and tossed in the deck of cards lightly on top. The cards scattered and slid all over Nanci's body and clothes. I could see one card on top, right at the peak of her belly, almost covering her deep, dark navel: it was, I swear, the King of Hearts. The Suicide King.

“We have to move, baby,” said Rachel. I guess I must've been looking at Nanci, daydreaming or day
nightmaring
, before she snapped me out of it. “It's getting late.”

I didn't want to look again at the clock with no numbers over the mantel, but I knew that she was right.

“Right,” I said. “Let's move Eleanor first. She's lighter.”

“The one good thing about her,” Rachel muttered, walking over to Eleanor to take her place at the foot of the canvas. How quickly could Rachel recover her Rachel-ness!

“OK,” I said, going over to Eleanor's canvas and getting set.

I got a good grip on the two corners by her head, purposefully not looking down at Eleanor's body.

“You ready?” I asked, seeing that Rachel, copying me, had the other two corners tight in her fists.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“OK,” I said. “On three. One . . . two . . . three!”

And we both lifted the canvas up – it was surprisingly, pleasingly light – and started carrying it out of the back room.

“Great,” I said as we shuffled the canvas as quickly as we could across the room, inches off the floor. “You OK?”

“Yeah,” Rachel grunted, though I could see by the stretching in her neck cords and arms that it was a heavy carry for her. Rachel was strong, yes, but that's only strong
for a girl.

We were out of the back room and halfway through the dining room when the telephone rang, scaring the hell out of both of us. I hate to say it, but we dropped Eleanor.

“Who is
that
??” I said.

It rang again, sounding even louder, resounding from the kitchen to the living room to the back room. They had phones all over the house.

I looked at Rachel. Her eyes were wide and glistening, blinking widely.

“Don't answer it,” she said.

It rang again. We didn't move a muscle.

“Who do you think it is?” I asked her.

It rang again.

“Herb,” she said.

It rang again.

“Then
definitely
don't answer it!” I said.

It rang again.

“I bet he's calling to apologize,” I added.

Rachel said, “He's going to have a
whole lot
to apologize for when they think he killed Eleanor”

“Ssshh!”

It rang again. Wouldn't it stop??

“What if he comes over here?” I worried. She looked back at me with fear and uncertainty in her eyes.

“He
better
not come over here!” I said, right on the edge of panicking when it suddenly stopped. It didn't ring again. We waited a moment . . . no more rings.

“We better move,” she said. “Fast.”

She couldn't have been more right. We picked up Eleanor in the canvas and took her the rest of the way at double-speed, through the kitchen and into the laundry room.

We put Eleanor down as Rachel opened the door to the garage.

“You OK?” I asked when she regained her grip on the corners.

“Yeah,” she huffed, “let's go.”

We had to bend Eleanor a little to get her out the door and down the two steps to the floor of the garage, but we did it pretty easily. We had to carry her around the Mustang, and that made things tight.

“You should move this,” I said grunting, meaning the Mustang. The weight of Eleanor swayed side-to-side and we bumped her into the garage door, but we got her past the Mustang.

“Wait!” gasped Rachel, putting her half of Eleanor down.

I put my half down too. Eleanor was pretty heavy, even for me, and Nanci would be even worse. We might have to
drag
her.

“OK,” she said after a couple of breaths. “I'm ready.”

We picked up Eleanor and carried her the rest of the way over to the Cadillac – Eleanor's beautiful, white Cadillac – with the trunk wide open, and put the canvas down on the cement floor.

“I'm gonna move my car,” she said. “And open things up.”

“Good,” I replied.

I took her hand.

“You're like ice,” I said, feeling her freezing fingers with both my hands.

“I know,” she brought her other cold hand up to mine. “Don't worry. I'm fine.”

“Me too,” I lied.

I took her freezing hand in mine, and we ran back into the house to continue doing what we were doing, trying to think carefully and not think about it at all, both at the same time.

“I'll get my car keys,” said Rachel as we went back through the laundry room.

“Where's Max?” I asked.

“Maid's room bathroom,” she said, running ahead of me and through the kitchen.

I heard her run upstairs while I walked through the dining room to the back room, thinking that I didn't even know that there
was
a maid's room, much less that it had a bathroom.

The back room looked like a battle zone. Not that I've ever been in a battle zone, but I can imagine. The room was super quiet, as if Death had sucked all the life out of the air. Hanging over the whole room, over Nanci laid out in the big, tan canvas cover, was a palpable cloud of Nothing. Stillness. No life.

But I had to walk into this void, and do what I had to do, for Rachel.

I looked around the room. There was so much to do: Nanci to move, everything to finish cleaning up. We had to get everything ready for the long drive up to Mooncliff and then
finding
the Quarry because the only way to drive into the Quarry was from the Boonie side, through the forest, not from the Mooncliff side, the side that we knew well. With two cars.
And
two bodies. What the hell was I doing?

“OK,” said Rachel, bouncing back into the room with fresh energy. “Let's keep moving.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“I'm gonna go get my car out of the way,” she said, jingling the keys in her hand.

“Good idea,” I answered.

“You finish up in here,” she said, “Then we'll move her. And
then
we'll get out of here.”

“Another good idea,” I said as she turned and left the room again.

I looked around for more things to clean up. All of Nanci's stuff seemed to be in the canvas with her. I saw Eleanor's expensive purse on the bar and went over to get it. When I picked it up, it was surprisingly light, made of this very nice black lizard or alligator or something, with bejeweled clasps at the ends. It was really a fine piece of leatherwork, much fancier and more delicate than anything my mother had ever owned. I carried it over to Nanci's open canvas and was about to drop it in when Rachel came back in.

“Don't worry,” she said, a little out of breath. “I took all the money out.”

“Oh,” I said. “Good.” I guessed.

“Let's move her,” said Rachel, approaching Nanci. “Then I'll clean up the rest, and we'll get out of here. We should already be on the road.”

“I know,” I said, taking my place at the head. “Come on.”

I grabbed my corners, and Rachel grabbed hers.

Rachel said, “She looks so –”

“Don't!” I cut her off. “Please?”

“I was just going to say that she looks so pretty,” said Rachel calmly. “That's all.”

I had already seen too much that night, too many things I wouldn't want to remember: dead Nanci Jerome's pretty face was just one more of them.

“Ready?” I said. “On three. One . . . two . . . three!”

We hoisted Nanci in the canvas and started to carry her, but I could barely get her off the ground. Rachel's end, hardly at all. Nanci had to weigh over two hundred pounds: all those layers of clothing concealed quite a lot of person.

Rachel cursed. “What a load.”

“OK,” I said, regripping the canvas. “Do your best. We'll slide her if we have to.”

“We have to,” said Rachel, grabbing onto the corners of the canvas and lifting.

It was a relief that the canvas was good and thick because we had to drag, bump, and bounce Nanci into the garage over many different surfaces. If it had torn, I don't know what we would have done.

We finally got her into the garage and plopped the whole thing next to the Caddy, next to Eleanor.

“I wish we didn't have to have the lights on,” I said, breathing hard. I was sweating a lot by now, but the cool air in the garage felt good on my skin.

“I told you . . . no one's going to see. We're
behind
the house,” she said, breathing hard, too, her hands on her hips, bending over a little. “I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't had these covers.”

“We would have done something else,” I said, regaining my strength. “OK, let's open this door, and we'll get Eleanor in first.”

“How are you gonna lift Nanci in?” Rachel asked.

“Just show me how to open the door, and I'll deal with Nanci later.”

“I'll get the door,” said Rachel walking away from me, back toward the door to the laundry room, “but we still have more cleaning up to do.”

“I know!” I said, my voice echoing across the mostly empty garage.

Rachel said, “Sssshhhh!” just as I spoke, and she was right. I was waaaay too loud. The whole idea was to not attract attention, and there I was, not watching my big mouth.

“You're right!” I shout-whispered. “Sorry!”

Rachel got to the wall and flipped a switch. Behind me, the garage door behind the Cadillac abruptly jerked open and started to rise with a grinding of gears and pulling of chains that scared the hell out of me. Talk about being quiet!

Who knows who heard or saw what was going on? The lights, the noise at this time of night. We were so vulnerable, so easy to see. Fortunately, we were around the back of the house, or it would have been over (earlier) for us.

“OK,” I said. “Let's do Eleanor first.”

I got by the head of Eleanor's canvas, and Rachel took her place at the foot. I could see out of the open garage door: the black night was out there, waiting for us. We were just at
the beginning
of this madness.

“Ready?” said Rachel, her hands set at the corners.

“Yeah,” I said, gripping the canvas.

“On three,” Rachel said, usurping my job, but it was OK if she wanted to. “One . . . two . . . three!”

We raised her up and carried her around to the back of the Cadillac, wobbling and shuffling along the cement floor of the garage until we were right in front of the open trunk.

“Wait,” I said, when I saw how high the trunk was, over the big chrome bumper. “Put her down.”

We put her down quickly.

“What?” asked Rachel.

I looked into the trunk. Fortunately, it was, as I expected, huge. We would have no trouble fitting both canvases in there.

“Let me do this,” I said.

I took a position at the middle of Eleanor's canvas and, in one motion, just picked the whole thing up in my arms and put her into the trunk. She was heavy as hell, but it was the only way to get her over the trunk gate. Rachel and I, wrestling two sides back and forth, would never have done it so smoothly.

I grunted hard as I dumped her in not too gracefully, but she stayed inside the canvas, and nothing fell out.

“Wow,” Rachel said. “You're strong.”

“You know that,” I said to her semi-modestly as I pushed Eleanor's canvas toward the back of the deep, deep black-carpeted trunk, one side at a time.

“But now I do need you for Nanci.”

Rachel groaned once. And she was right. Sorry, but we needed a
forklift
for Nanci.