The Coffin (Nightmare Hall) (3 page)

The house really was pretty, she had to admit that. The prettiest house on the street. Situated on a wooded, corner lot on Faculty Row, Dr. Leo’s home was a medium-sized, two-story structure built of mellowed antique red brick and trimmed in pristine white. Shiny black shutters framed the windows. The stone walkway leading to the front door was lined with carefully tended beds of early spring flowers. A fat wreath of dried flowers adorned the door and a large red mailbox hung on the wall over the front stoop. Although the upstairs was dark, lights shown from the living room and kitchen windows.

The streetlight on the corner cast a soft, pale glow over the house and its surrounding, perfectly manicured grounds, making the property look warm and welcoming. The surveillance cameras installed to continually scan the front yard were at each end of the roofline, unobtrusively placed so they were barely noticeable.

Perfect, Tanner thought, hesitating at the front gate of the white picket fence surrounding the yard. It just looks so very, very perfect.

So why, she wondered, don’t I want to go inside? Why, she wondered, would I rather be anywhere else but here?

Because that was how she felt, standing at the gate. A pulse at her temple had begun to throb, the muscles between her shoulder blades suddenly felt drawn as tightly as her violin strings, and her stomach felt hollow, as if it had a huge, gaping hole in it.

She did
not
want to go inside.

“W
HAT AM I DOING?”
Tanner murmured, pulling the gate open. “He’s not
there!
I should be excited about going inside when I know he’s miles away. What’s wrong with me?” She laughed softly to herself. “Maybe I need a shrink.”

Silly would be inside. She didn’t leave on Tuesdays until eight, because Dr. Leo had late appointments on that day.

Of course, Tanner thought to herself as she opened the front door, maybe now that the good doctor has taken off for exotic islands, Silly will decide to leave early on Tuesdays. That would be disappointing. It was a lot more fun entering the house to the sound of the housekeeper’s voice booming, “Well, hello there, Missy, how was your day? Break any hearts? Got cookies in the oven, out in a minute, you can have a handful and spoil your supper. Then the Doc’ll give me that look, the one that’s supposed to petrify these old bones. Takes more than a look to scare
me,
I’ll tell you. Go ahead, eat up, put some meat on those bones.” Then she’d laugh in that raucous, gutsy way that reminded Tanner, with a pang, of her mother’s lusty laughter.

But a moment later, as she closed the door behind her, Tanner grimaced in disappointment as she entered a house so still, so quiet, it couldn’t possibly have Silly in it. Even if the housekeeper hadn’t called out a greeting, there would have been the sound of pans rattling or cookie sheets sliding out of the oven or the clanking of silverware being loaded into the dishwasher. Something, some sound.

There was nothing.

Tanner dropped her pile of books on a small telephone table in the paisley-wallpapered foyer and moved on down the shiny hardwood floor in the hall toward the staircase. Maybe Silly was upstairs, changing the linens, wearing headphones as she listened to her music, forgetting that she could now blast her radio as loud as she wanted to. The master of the house hadn’t been gone long enough for Silly to realize how free they were.

Tanner ran lightly up the carpeted stairs, calling, “Silly? Silly, are you here?”

There was no answer.

And although Tanner checked each of the three spacious bedrooms, all immaculate, the beds neatly made as always, no speck of dust anywhere, she saw no sign of the housekeeper.

Tanner stood in the center of her own pale apricot and white bedroom, feeling vaguely disoriented. Also unsettled because she suddenly felt very much alone. She had been so eager for her father to leave, couldn’t wait to see his plane take off into the wide blue yonder. Now, here she was, alone at last, and instead of rejoicing, she was feeling blue. What was
that
from? If her father walked in the front door right this very minute, would her heart leap with joy?

Hardly.

It wasn’t that he was gone. It was that Silly was, too. Tanner had been looking forward to a nice, cozy dinner at the small, round, wooden table in the kitchen, just the two of them, talking and laughing. She could tell Silly things, things about Charlie and about school, without getting a frown or a clucking of the tongue in response. But so far, there hadn’t been much of an opportunity, because her father was usually there. Nobody dampened conversation like he did.

Now, just when they were finally alone and could relax and have a good time, Silly hadn’t waited.

Tanner sank down on the white eyelet bedspread. She hadn’t expected to have to rattle around in this good-sized house all by herself, not just yet. Not right off the bat like this. In fact, she had thought seriously of asking Silly to stay overnight. Just for a night or two. It wasn’t as if Silly had family of her own. She didn’t. Her husband had fallen off the railroad bridge behind campus in a drunken stupor years ago, and Silly’s two children, she had told Tanner matter-of-factly, lived far away and were ashamed of what their mother did for a living. They never called or wrote except for Christmas cards.

“Course,” Silly had added drily, “what I do for a living is what put them two through college so’s they can hold
their
heads up, but there’s no sense fightin’ about it. I’ve got my friends and my church and a nice, fine life. No complainin’ here.”

Tanner thought Silly was one of the bravest women she’d ever known. Silly had to be lonely sometimes, whether she was willing to admit it or not, so wouldn’t she love to stay here in this nice, big house with someone who liked her and wouldn’t give her that look designed to petrify her old bones?

But she’d already left, so she wouldn’t be staying on this, the first night of freedom in the Leo house.

Maybe tomorrow night.

Tanner thought briefly about calling the housekeeper to invite her back that night. Her number was on the cork bulletin board beside the refrigerator.

But that would mean another long bus ride. Didn’t seem fair.

I could go pick her up, Tanner thought, standing up. Wasn’t that why I insisted on taking him to the airport, so that I could have the car while he was gone?

Making up her mind, Tanner ran back down the stairs and into the kitchen. A chocolate layer cake, thickly frosted with more chocolate, slick and shiny as glass, sat on a plate in the center of the wooden table. At least a quarter of it was missing.

That was weird. Silly never ate sweets. She had too much trouble with her teeth. “A few minutes of pleasure,” she said, “ain’t worth the hours of pain. Or the money. Hardly anything’s more costly than a visit to the dentist these days.”

Maybe this one time she’d decided the few minutes of pleasure would be worth it. Tanner didn’t blame her. Silly’s chocolate cakes were out of this world.

Then she saw the note, propped up against the cake plate. Of course. Silly wouldn’t take off early without leaving a message of some kind. Usually her notes told what was for dinner and which chores she’d left for Tanner to do. Dr. Leo believed in young adults having responsibility. He said it built character. Then I must have lots of it, Tanner had thought in response. Her mother hadn’t been really big on housekeeping and if Tanner hadn’t done it, it wouldn’t have been done at all.

She did her chores, such as they were, without complaint. The one thing she had insisted upon was that she wasn’t dusting the music room. “Afraid I’ll break something valuable,” she’d confided to Silly, and Silly had grinned and said, “Me, too. But I get paid and you don’t, so I’ll take the risk. You can unload the dishwasher instead.”

I should have looked here in the kitchen first, Tanner told herself, instead of scouring the house for Silly. This kitchen practically belongs to her. Where else would she leave a message?

The note, neatly printed in pencil, read:
Ice cream in freezer. Help yourself. Mavis.

Tanner frowned. Also weird. Nothing about dinner, nothing about leaving early, nothing about baking the cake to celebrate their freedom. They had joked about it, Silly doing a little dance around the kitchen, waving a wooden spoon in the air like a magic wand, saying, “Oh, aren’t we just going to have the grandest time, just the two of us, when His Majesty is gone?”

As for the ice cream, Tanner did understand why it was mentioned in the note. Dr. Leo absolutely forbade the confection in his house, saying it was nothing but sugar and air and he expected a “decent” dessert at the end of a meal; that was one of the reasons he paid a cook. Tanner loved ice cream. Silly knew that, and must have made a special trip to the store to buy some, probably the minute Tanner and her father had left the house that morning. What a nice thing to do! She hadn’t had ice cream after a meal since she’d left Ashtabula.

That explained Silly telling her about the ice cream. But, the note still seemed unusually cryptic. Tanner sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, studying the piece of paper. Weird that it didn’t say what was for dinner.

And Silly had signed the note “Mavis”? Tanner never called her that.

Still, glancing at the cake again, Tanner guessed what must have happened. Silly had given in to temptation, chowed down on chocolate cake, and before you could say, “Big mistake!” that back tooth that gave her so much trouble had started throbbing and she’d had to rush to get to the dentist before he left for the day. Hadn’t even had time to write down tonight’s menu.

It didn’t matter. There was probably a casserole or some chicken in the oven, and there were always salad fixings in the vegetable drawer of the fridge.

The ice cream in the freezer beckoned, but Tanner decided to be the responsible adult her father was so convinced she wasn’t, and eat a decent meal first. Anyway, Silly had made it; it shouldn’t go to waste.

When she pocketed the note and stood up, she moved to the refrigerator, anticipating a chilled pasta salad or thick sandwiches on a plate.

But there was no prepared meal on any of the shelves.

Tanner closed the door. No problem. She’d make her own sandwich. Heaven knew she’d been doing it most of her life. Wasn’t a bad little cook herself, if the truth were known. But it was so unlike Silly to leave without fixing something. That toothache must have come on before she’d got around to cooking dinner. She’d be apologizing all over the place when she returned. She’d probably cook a bunch of meals at the same time and stick them in the freezer, just in case.

In fact, maybe she’d already done that, sometime before Tanner arrived. There could be all kinds of goodies in that wide, squat freezer on the back porch. Anything in there would thaw quickly in the state-of-the-art microwave beside the stove.

First things first. She’d call Charlie and talk for, oh, maybe an hour now that no one was here to say, “Did you not speak with this person today on campus? What could possibly have happened between then and now that you must discuss at length, I wonder?”

Yes, she would talk for hours, first to Charlie, then to Jodie and Sandy. If she lived on campus in a lovely, noisy dorm, she wouldn’t have to spend so much time on the telephone.

She got up from her chair. Her right foot caught on something, almost tripping her. Glancing down, she found an inexpensive fake-leather strap looped around the toe of her black flat. She reached down and tugged gently on the strap.

Attached to it was a purse, brown and worn and overstuffed.

Silly’s purse. She only had one. Tanner knew that was so, because no matter what brightly colored, sometimes gaudy, outfit Silly was wearing, she always carried the shabby brown purse. She liked colorful things, and if she had had a bright yellow or red or kelly green purse, she would have carried it.

What was Silly’s purse doing under the kitchen table? Had she left in such a rush that she’d forgotten it? Wasn’t her bus pass in it? Without that pass, how had she got to the dentist’s office?

Maybe the bus driver knew her so well by now that when he’d seen how she was suffering, he’d relented and let her travel for free.

But why hadn’t she called by now to make sure her purse was indeed safely at the Leo house? Could she still be at the dentist? Maybe she was home, but her mouth was still numb from novocaine and she couldn’t talk.

Tanner went to the cork bulletin board, found Silly’s number, and dialed it.

No answer.

Still at the dentist’s? After all this time? She had to have left early, since she hadn’t had time to fix anything for dinner.

Tanner hesitated. Maybe the number of Silly’s dentist was in her purse somewhere. She could call the dentist’s office, ask them to tell the housekeeper that her purse was safe, and that if Silly needed it before morning, Tanner would be happy to drop it off once she knew Silly was home. A ride downtown on such a beautiful spring night might be fun. Maybe she’d call Charlie and ask him to join her. It wasn’t that late. And it wasn’t as if she had to sign in when she came home. That was one nice thing about not living in a dorm.

Feeling a little guilty about invading Silly’s private property but telling herself it was necessary, Tanner hunted until she found a small, black telephone notebook. The only doctor was a “Dr. Leidig.” Maybe he was the dentist, maybe not. It was worth a try.

She called, aware that it was late in the evening. If they weren’t still working on Silly’s mouth, no one would be there.

A woman answered on the third ring, saying in answer to Tanner’s first question that yes, Dr. Leidig was a dentist. She sounded impatient. They had just finished an emergency procedure, she went on, and she devoutly hoped that Tanner didn’t have another one, because she was late getting home as it was.

“No, it’s not an emergency,” Tanner explained. “But a friend of mine is a patient of Dr. Leidig’s. In fact, I think she’s probably there now. I need to tell her that she left her purse at my house.”

“You said she,” the woman replied. “Our emergency isn’t a she. It’s a he. Emergency root canal. What’s your friend’s name? She’s not here now, but I can tell you if she came in today.”