Ghost House Revenge (20 page)

He got up and returned the phone to its stand. Whatever that lunatic tried to do,
she wouldn’t frighten him into giving in to her!

Bryan Davis stopped working on his report and reached across his desk to answer the
telephone. “Belle Bay Police,” he said. “Bryan Davis speaking.”

“Captain Davis?” a woman asked. “It’s Joan Mead, from the funeral parlor. I’m afraid
we have a problem.”

“What can I do for you, Mrs. Mead?” Bryan asked.

“It seems someone stole one of our residents,” Joan said. “Do you remember the Jane
Doe brought in a few nights ago?”

“Yes,” Bryan said. “The one found on the beach. Are you certain she’s missing?”

“Definitely,” Joan said. “As a matter of good business policy, I always have my employees
check each room before we officially open. People so need to be catered to at times
like these.”

“Of course,” Bryan said.

“But when we entered the morgue,” Joan continued, “Jane Doe was gone.”

There was a pause, and Bryan heard the old woman sigh. “To think I found the security
guard sleeping,” she said. “Of course, I fired him. But he’s still waiting here if
you need to question him.”

“Thanks,” Bryan said. “I will. I’ll send someone down there right away.”

He hung up the phone. Wasn’t it bad enough that he hadn’t yet found the bus driver?
Now there was another mystery to solve.

“Oh, God,” Bryan sighed. “Who’d guess what a peaceful town this was, just a year ago?”

Derek waited all morning for the phone to ring again. At lunchtime, while he sat on
the steps with a sandwich, his daughter was making a call of her own. She had told
the cafeteria monitor that her father had been sick that morning and that she wanted
to have flowers delivered to him.

“That’s sweet of you,” the monitor had said.

“I’ll have to use my whole allowance,” Alicen said. “But I don’t care. I love my father.”

Now she stood up in the little hallway just outside the cafeteria, thumbing the phone
book for a number she never intended to call. With the pages opened to “Florists,”
she instead dialed the police.

“Belle Bay Police,” a voice said. “Bryan Davis.”

“Yeah, hi,” Alicen mumbled, turning her back to the cafeteria doors. She covered the
receiver with a napkin. “Listen, I read in the papers that you guys are looking for
a body? Some bus driver?”

“What about it?”

He sounded eager. That was good.

“I sorta saw one,” Alicen replied. “At that construction place, you know? I was driving
by, and I saw this big dude dump this thing in a green trash container. Looked like
a body, but I can’t be sure, you know? I just figured I should call.”

“We appreciate it,” Bryan said. “Would you tell me your name?”

“Never mind,” Alicen said. “Just go—”

Alicen heard a tap at the door and nearly dropped the receiver. Hanging up, she stuffed
the napkin into her pocket, then she opened the door and smiled at the monitor.

“I had to call three florists,” she said.

“Had a hard time of it, huh?”

“Everything’s just fine now,” Alicen said, smiling.

Tim and Rick were certain they were being sent on another wild goose chase, but they
couldn’t question their captain’s orders. So now they stood banging on the newly repaired
fence of the construction site, their shirts sticking to them under the merciless
sun. The crane above them drowned out the sound of their knocking, and Rick was inclined
to give up until the machine stopped. He removed his cap and wiped his forehead.

“Damned hot, ain’t it?” someone said. A broad-shouldered, shirtless man had opened
the gate. Hank Emmons tilted his helmet back. “Are you guys back again?”

“We received a call this morning pertaining to the case,” Rick said. He stepped inside
the fence, followed by his partner. Over the din of the crane, he said, “Do you have
any trash bins around here?”

“Of course we do,” Hank said. “What do you think? But you can’t come in without a
helmet. Wait a second.”

He left and returned a moment later with two hard hats. Rick and Tim donned them,
then followed Hank past work crews and machinery. Along the back fence of the site,
they found two five-yard containers.

Rick went close to one and asked, “How long has it been since you opened these?”

“That one was emptied yesterday,” Hank said. “But this one here hasn’t been opened
in a few days. Since the accident, I guess. We use it for dry rubbish—wood scraps,
you know? Stuff that keeps for a while.”

Rick turned to his partner. “You brought the body bag, didn’t you?”

“Right here,” Tim replied, holding it up.

Hank looked around at his work crew and saw they were still busy. Then he said in
a low voice, “What in the hell is the body bag for?”

“What do you think?” Rick asked, almost sarcastically.

Now Hank laughed at him. “Oh, hell! There ain’t nothing in there but trash. Just get
out of my way and I’ll prove it.”

Before Rick could stop him, the foreman climbed up the side of the container and threw
it open. The smell that shot up from it was so horrendous that tears welled in his
eyes. He backed away, choking.

“Shit! That’s like rotten meat!”

“She’s in there, then,” Tim said.

“Damn right she is,” Hank growled. “And you’d better get her out.”

Tim and Rick had brought special masks with them, and they tied them around their
mouths and noses. Rick was first to climb to the top of the bin, and what he saw made
his heart skip a beat. The young woman’s twisted body had been thrown on top of the
trash, a broken two-by-four pushed into her stomach. One arm reached for the side
of the container, the fingers at its end clawing as if the woman had tried to climb
out. Tiny worms made a feast of her flesh, or what was left of it.

“She
looks
like she’s been dead for six months,” he said.

Tim was looking at her now, too, a grimace on his face. At last, wearing canvas gloves,
he jumped down into the container. He had to fight a wave of nausea as he knelt down
on the floor, feeling the wet, bloated flesh through his gloves. He pulled the heavy-weight
bag over her head-first glad her face was down. When he reached her feet, he stopped
to study them for a moment.

“Want me to come in?” Rick shouted.

“I can do this,” Tim said, resuming his work. “Just be ready to lift her out.”

Something about her feet bothered him. They had been white and bloated, cut by the
thin straps of her sandals. It was horrible, horrible. But why did he single out that
one feature?

At last he tied the end of the bag, stood up, and lifted the gruesome parcel to Rick.
He climbed from the container as his partner laid the body on the ground. The work
crew stood at a distance, curiosity taking precedence over their duties.
Suddenly Tim understood what bothered him about the victim’s sandals. Determining
that Hank had kept the crew far enough away so as not to hear him, he turned to Rick
and asked, “Didn’t the kids say their driver was wearing boots?”

“I think I remember that.”

“This one’s in sandals,” Tim said quietly.

Rick shook his head at his partner.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life looking for a body?” he asked. “Who the
hell else would she be?”

“But the kids said—”

“The kids were lying,” Rick interrupted.

“You said that before,” Tim reminded him.

Rick didn’t answer. He stooped down and grabbed an end of the bag. Tim picked up the
other, and in silence they carried the body to the car. Rick made it clear that he
didn’t want to discuss this any further. He had his body, and he didn’t care what
she was wearing.

Bryan Davis’s emotions were mixed when he heard the news. He was sad that a woman
had died but happy that he at last had something to say to the irate parents who called
all day long. Horrifying as all this had been, it was at last over. Bryan could return
to keeping the peace in Belle Bay while the county worried about finding the woman’s
next of kin.

Melanie glanced at her watch and saw it was time to meet Gary. She walked toward the
exit of the art gallery she had been visiting. The street outside was filled with
people and cars that seemed to glow in the hot sunlight. Melanie could see ripples
of heat rising from the cracked sidewalk as she opened the door to her car and climbed
behind the wheel.

The engine turned over easily, as it had done every day since she had had it overhauled.
Looking behind her, she turned the front of the car just slightly into the street.
A taxi came speeding down it, forcing her to stop. Another followed, then a bus and
a few cars. It was five minutes before Melanie was able to pull out.

“Nice way to waste gasoline,” she mumbled, zooming into the road while she had the
chance. Following traffic, she crossed Sixth, then Fifth Avenue. Except for the stops
and starts expected of New York City traffic, the going was smooth. And then, just
as Melanie turned onto Madison, the car began to choke. It slowed down to a complete
stop.

Angered, Melanie pumped the gas pedal and tried to start it again. How could this
be happening now? She was embarrassed
to hear a dozen horns honking behind her. Angry drivers cursed loudly. Melanie was
about to answer them in kind when a loud thud cut off her words. Someone had hit the
car, sending it spinning. Melanie heard herself cry out and felt her body stiffening
in reaction to the impact.

The car skidded across the road and sideswiped a lamppost. Melanie never saw it coming.

A moment of stunned silence followed, and then suddenly a dozen people were swarming
about the wreck.

“Did you see that guy? Hit and run!”

“She’s bleeding!”

“Of course she’s bleeding, you idiot! Someone call an ambulance!”

The proprietor of a nearby men’s store had already taken care of that, and even now
the group could hear sirens wailing. More curious than helpful, they didn’t move when
the ambulance turned the corner. A police car followed, and two policemen jumped out
to push the crowd back as the paramedics tended to Melanie. They carefully pulled
her from the wreck and laid her on a stretcher. Twenty minutes later, she was wheeled
into the emergency room of nearby Saint Joan’s Hospital.

In the meantime, Gary was waiting patiently in his office for Melanie’s arrival. It
didn’t surprise him that she was late, since traffic was always heavy at this hour.

The secretary announced that Derek Miller was on the line. Wondering what he wanted,
Gary picked up the phone.

“Saint Joan’s Hospital just called,” Derek said. “Gary, your wife was in an accident
just a short while ago.”

“What?!” Gary cried. “When did this happen? Where is she?”

“At Saint Joan’s,” Derek repeated. “They found this number in her handbag and called
here. But they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“I’ll go there at once,” Gary said, reaching behind him for his crutches.

“Don’t go by yourself, okay?” Derek said.

“My partner will take me,” Gary assured him.

It only took twenty minutes to get to the hospital, but to Gary it might have been
two hours. Warren opened the glass door for him, and the two men walked up to the
reception desk.

“Can you tell me where my wife is?” Gary asked.

“Melanie VanBuren,” Warren explained.

The nurse flipped through a file. “She was admitted just a short while ago,” she said.
“Would you please wait over there while I call the doctor?”

She indicated a small gathering of orange vinyl couches in a corner of the lobby.
An elderly woman frowned at Gary over the top of
Reader’s Digest
.

“What about my wife?” Gary asked, turning back to the nurse. “Is she all right?”

“The doctor will tell you everything, sir,” the nurse said politely. “Please sit down.”

“But is she—”

“Gary, come on and sit,” Warren said. “The doctor will be out in a minute.”

Half an hour, then an hour passed with no word, and Gary found himself knocking his
crutches together in frustration. At last, though, the doctor appeared.

“Your wife had a bad blow to the head,” he said quietly. “She’s suffering from a concussion.”

Gary closed his eyes and steeled himself. “What else is wrong?”

“Nothing,” the doctor said. “She has a nasty cut on her forehead, of course. But there’s
no internal bleeding. She’ll be able to go home after a few days of rest.”

“How did the accident happen?” Warren asked.

“It seems Mrs. VanBuren’s car had stalled,” the doctor said, “and was struck by a
speeding car. She hit a lamppost, but luckily there wasn’t much damage done to her.”

“Not much!” Gary cried. “You just said she had a concussion, and—”

“Relax,” the doctor said. “Would you like to see her?”

Gary nodded. The doctor led him down a long hallway and opened a door at its end.
Gary felt his stomach twist to see his wife lying in that bed, her face swollen beneath
a gauze bandage. Her hair was in disarray, some of it plastered to her cheeks. Gary
leaned awkwardly on his crutches and brushed it gently away.

“God,” he whispered, “can we ever live in peace?”

Kyle was at first delighted to find pizza on the table for dinner, until he realized
his mother wasn’t there to serve it. When he and his sisters had come home from school
to find her studio empty, they had assumed she was still in the city with their father.
But why wasn’t she home yet? Why was Derek taking care of dinner?

“I’m afraid your mother isn’t coming home tonight,” Derek said, tearing the top off
of one of the boxes. “There was an accident today.”

“Oh, no!” Kyle cried.

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad,” Derek said, realizing he had spoken too bluntly. “Another
car hit hers. All she has is a little concussion, and she’ll be home in a few days.
Nothing serious.”

“What’s a ca-cussion?” Nancy asked.

“Concussion,” Derek corrected. “It—uh—it just means her head hurts a little bit. But
everything else is okay.”