Jake's Wake (7 page)

Emmy turned beseechingly to Mathias. “I never went to bed with him! I swear, I never did…”

The whore laughed. “If I know Jake, he had you wigglin’ like a fish…”

“I’M STILL A VIRGIN…!”

PA-POW! A knot in the blazing fireplace exploded. Everyone jumped, but none more than Emmy, who snapped in that moment and broke down, sobbing. She could feel Mathias shrink away from her on the couch, as if something unclean was seeping out of her.

And it was. Dear God, it was. She could feel her sweat burning and cold all at once, drenching her as her walls tumbled down. She had been so strong all day, had come here ready to be
so strong
…

…but all it took was one well-placed kick to pop her like a ketchup packet, letting everything out for all to see. So weak. So vain. So exposed and ashamed.

Not just in front of them.

But in the eyes of the Lord.

“So,” Evangeline said, “what else do you want to know?”

The demons hung above for the moment, eating it up, enjoying all the people from an angle askew. Watching the shadows dance, as the house lights faded once again, then reared back up. Wind roaring.

And the fireplace roared as well, as Eddie knelt before it, pulled back the screen, and thought
this can’t be right.

The typically slow-burning dogwood and yellow birch was going up like sugar pine, thick quartered logs that should burn for an hour reduced to cinders and ash in fifteen minutes.

It didn’t make sense. The wood was dry, but not
that
dry. Not like somebody poured gasoline on it. He piled the last couple pieces on, and watched them ignite the second they hit.

“I have to chop more wood,” he said.

Jasper’s cell phone rang. He passed the ebbing joint back to Christian, reached into his jacket. “Excuse me for a second.”

Christian nodded. “Time to check in on the ladies.”

“Exactly.” Then into the cell phone, without losing a beat, “Lisa. Hey, baby. How you doin’? Yeah, yeah. We’re almost done…”

Christian moved to the glass back door, which opened just before he got to it. Eddie nodded at him, slipped past, headed off behind the front of the house. Christian entered, pulled the door shut behind him.

The cold was bracing as Eddie rounded the corner of the house in his shirtsleeves. It was a nice little shock to his system after the heat of the fire. And the sound of the wind was a merciful balm from the emotional war zone inside.

In the wide walkway between the house and the property wall, the moonlight barely penetrated, leaving darkness so thick you could cut it with an ax.

Fortunately, one was waiting for him.

Right next to the woodpile, and the chopping block.

Eddie flipped the switch to the overhead light, yanking back the shadows. It was a hanging lamp, and it swung on its chain in the wind, casting its light beam back and forth in long, unnerving semicircles.

In the background, he could hear the voice of Jasper, smooth and low. “You’re hilarious. No…no. I can’t wait to get my hands on you, too…”

Eddie put a log on the block, picked up the ax. The women were still arguing inside, but he couldn’t quite hear what they said.

“Yeah, yeah. Exactly.” Jasper’s voice, louder. “You get the fucking joke, honey. That’s all I ask.”

Eddie looked over, saw Jasper round the corner, having wandered back to see what was up. Jasper waved with his cigarette-and-scotch hand.

Eddie brought down the ax.

It didn’t take long for Esther to bring things back around to money. Now Evangeline was contemplative, looking back over the years.

“Well,” she said, “there was a boat I know he totaled. Every couple of weeks, he went to the casinos, gambled, had strings of call girls. And I think he had a Hummer for a couple of weeks that ended up at the bottom of a ditch.”

“Oh—I did see that Hummer.” Esther nodded to herself, as much from alcohol as memory. “He told me it was a congregant’s. Never mind that not once did people congregate here, but…”

“He told me he would show me the inner sanctum…” Emmy said quietly.

Christian laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it. Evangeline bit back her own laugh, and shushed him loudly.

Emmy, for her part, was a little too stunned to do anything but flinch as she continued. “Heaven’s Glory. A magnificent temple he was building…when I was ready to finally be saved…”

“Oh, sweetheart. No, no, no,” Esther admonished, slightly slurring the words. “No magnificent temple. And no life everlasting. At least not for him.”

“Amen to that,” said Evangeline.

“That’s why, if I can just get the two of you to help me…” Esther continued, gaze swimming between the two of them with drunk, conspiratorial fervor.

“Then what?” Evangeline, straight to the point. “What else do you want from me?”

“An affidavit—”

Evangeline’s turn to laugh. “You want me to go to court?”

“And testify against him. Yes.”

“And I would do that why?”

Esther looked at her like she was supposed to be smarter than that. “Revenge?”

“Fuck revenge,” Evangeline sneered back. “He’s already dead. You honestly think he gives a shit?”

“Okay, then. Justice.”

“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen…”

“It could, though!” Esther took a staggering step forward. “It could, if people would just tell the truth!”

“Let me tell you something about telling the truth,” Evangeline said. “Most people tend to frown upon it. That’s why it hardly ever gets told.”

“But—”

“Let me put it this way: I don’t have an album’s worth of my original songs up on MySpace, okay? This is not a career move for me. The only thing that happens is, I’m Whore Of The Week on national TV, and my life gets more fucked up than it already is.”

Esther jittered in her heels. “So you’re saying no?”

“I’m saying fuck no.”

“What if I gave you money…?”

“Yeah,
that’d
look great in court!” Evangeline barked out a laugh. “Have you even thought this shit through? ‘Widow Pays Prostitute to Testify Against Dead Husband.’ I mean, Jesus Christ almighty!”

Esther stared at her empty glass.

“And what about her?” Pointing at Emmy. “You gonna drag her ass up on
Judge Judy
, or
Dr. Phil
? ‘I Was a Philandering Slut For Jesus’? You honestly think that’s a plan?”

Emmy reacted as if physically slapped. “I think it’s time to go…”

Jasper wrapped up his chat with to night’s little hookup—the lovely Lisa—just as Mrs. Connaway’s faithful servant finished scooping up the firewood.

This Eddie guy was an interesting piece of work. Very smart, in that he said very little. One poker-faced, inscrutable motherfucker.

The only gaping hole in the charade was the fact that he was here at all. Which was, clearly, because he loved that woman. And she loved him, too, though maybe not in quite the same way.

In other words, he and Eddie had an awful lot in common.

So Jasper felt kind of bad about his natural flirtation, the fact that Eddie had instantly pegged him as a scumbag. It was not a label he carried lightly—like Eddie, he cared far more than he was liable to admit—so he hung by the light switch, flashed a grin, and said, “Hey, man. You need a hand with that?”

Eddie shook his head, said nothing, stepped forward. Jasper nodded, waited for Eddie to pass him before flicking off the overhead light and following.

Then they were walking semiuncomfortably together, and that shit had to end. So Jasper muscled it up
and said, “Hey, Eddie. Listen. Just so you know, I’m not here to fuck up your life. Okay?”

Eddie kept walking, said nothing.

“I’m just here for my friend, cuz she was scared to come alone. And as soon as they’re done, you’ll never see my ass again. Or any of us. We don’t want anything from her.”

Eddie nodded, said nothing, kept going. So Jasper stepped ahead of him quickly, up to the back door, put his hand on the handle, turned, and looked Eddie straight in the eye.

“All I’m sayin’ is, guy to guy: you’re a thousand times better man than Jake. Okay?”

Eddie said nothing; but as they looked into each other, their eyes said it all.

They were—at least for the moment—cool.

The women were really going at it in there. Jasper smiled and opened the door, stood back and made way for the Firewood Express. Eddie stepped through. Jasper followed into the fray.

Neither of them saw the headlights that poured in through the driveway, made their way across the back of the house.

The cold yellow glow of the harvest moon seemed to eat up the stars as it crept up over the horizon. To the north, the deeper black of massing thunderheads piled up like new mountains, marching on forking snake tongues of dry lightning.

The flood of moonlight muted the blazing Cadillac high beams that painted the yard. Then the moon, gobbled up by outrider clouds, seemed to avert its gaze.

The Caddy’s headlights cut out along with the rumbling engine, entombing the yard in perfect darkness.

“This is it,” said the driver. “You comin’ or what?”

“In my pants. Just gimme a second.” Gray thumbed the wheel on the tarnished brass Zippo and lit his
smoke, exhaled with genuine pleasure, and opened the passenger door.

Now Emmy was standing, and the women had triangulated: face-to-face, emotions running high. Eddie scooted quickly to the fireplace, set down his armload. The rest of the men wisely hung back and watched. Even Mathias, who blurted out, “Emmy?” while remaining glued to the couch.

“I don’t think I can be here anymore,” Emmy continued, turning toward the door.

“Good for you.” Evangeline stepped aside. “Get out, while you still have something to save.”

“NO!” Esther shouted, stepping up in Emmy’s face. “Emmy, please! Talk to me! I could lose this house!”

“Honestly?” Evangeline said. “No offense, but I hope they burn it to the ground—”

All at once, the lights flickered, then went out entirely. Yelps of surprise in the dark.

Then everyone stopped to stare at the only light in the room…

The fireplace.

Which was roaring like a doorway to hell…

Gray jogged across the yard to pull the gate into the yard shut, buttoning up the house. He could only just make out the nearest neighbor’s split-level ranch house, a hundred yards back from the road, all lights out but the fitful blinking of a TV in an upstairs bedroom.

Lightning stabbed at the land, some miles off to the northeast. He heard the thunder, an arid, angry detonation, only five seconds behind the flash. It reminded Gray of a police helicopter’s searchlight.

The air tingled with charged ions, but there was no smell of water: just angry, electric air, and the relentless lightning strikes, drawing closer.

Like something upstairs was looking for someone down here.

Fuck, his brain must be broken. Gray ran to catch up with his companion, who had crossed the yard and clomped up the stone walkway that girded the house with long, elastic strides…

Inside, the lights flickered back on, strobing unnervingly all the way down the hall to the back. For the first time, Emmy found herself staring down its length. It looked, suddenly, like a low-rent version of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland: up until to night, the scariest place she’d ever been.

Mathias stood at last, and she clung to him, half dragged him toward the door.

Then the phone rang, and she actually screamed.

“JESUS CHRIST! Just wait, please!” Esther grabbed the phone. “Hello…? Yes. Yes, it is, Officer. Thank you. But this isn’t a good…what?”

Emmy opened the front door, but didn’t quite exit. Watching Esther’s whole body tense.

“I don’t…oh my God…”

“What?” Evangeline’s shoulders hunched up defensively, and Emmy noted with awe that she was terrified, too.

“Oh, Jesus, God…” Esther moaned into the phone, her narrow eyes widened as far as they would go.

Emmy backed out of the doorway, onto the front step, into the strobing porch light…

…and there was a man striding toward her in the darkness. Her own eyes widened to accommodate the sight. The flickering lightning lit him from behind, so that she could only see his shape.

But the silhouette was huge, and impossibly familiar…

…and as the first rays of the porch light hit him, she knew for a fact who it was…

Esther hung up the phone, let it dangle from her hand. All eyes were upon her as she struggled toward speech, unable to believe it herself.

“There’s been a…” she stammered. “They said it was a massacre, at the chapel.”

“No…” Evangeline moaned, letting the word stretch out.

“And Jake’s coffin—the—”

“Omigod…”

“The body is missing—”

BLAM! Emmy raced into the room, slamming the front door behind her. She fumbled with the lock, flush with panic.

It went
click.

And as she turned to face the rest of them, a huge black silhouette filled the stained glass window behind her.

For a moment, time itself went paralytic. No motion in the room. No sound. A universe in stasis, locked between off and on.

Jasper felt the paralysis in his bones, for that long frozen moment. It was a feeling that he recognized,
very clearly, as terror: the kind you normally only had in dreams.

Then the moment unfroze.

And things started happening very fast.

BAM! BAM! BAM!
A fist slammed against the wooden door, so hard that the stained glass began to shatter.

Everyone screamed, including Jasper, his adrenaline jacking up into the red zone.

BAM! BAM! BAM!
As the wood began to splinter as well.

“Who IS it?” Esther yelped, cringing back.

“It’s not him. It can’t be him—” Emmy muttered mechanically.

BAM! BAM! BAM!
Then the doorknob started to furiously jiggle, at speed-freak speed.