Wreathed (21 page)

The street was empty, and I parked right in front of the house. The landscaping needed serious work, and the right-side banister on the front steps looked to be loose. The exterior paint looked even worse up close. The pink was a wretched pastel shade, like Pepto-Bismol. The green trim looked like dead pine needles. I had to resist the urge to take the battered white wicker chairs off the porch and put them on the curb so that someone could put them away in a nice landfill somewhere where they couldn’t poke anyone ever again.

The only interesting thing on the porch was the door, which was a massive thing, hand-carved, with two lovely slender stained-glass panels running down its length. They needed to be cleaned, but that would take somebody five minutes with Windex. And right in the center of the door, there was a wreath.

It was a large wreath, with white roses and orange flowers that I didn’t know the name of, and a fading black ribbon. The flowers looked like they had been cut three weeks ago. This was because they had been.

I had seen this wreath once before, but it was attached to the door at Sheldon Berkman’s apartment.

I felt the stereotypical cold chill skitter up my back, but I shook my head to dismiss the momentary feeling of dread.
All it means is that Adam moved the wreath from there to here
, I thought.
Nothing to worry about.
I found the house key and turned it in the lock. I heard an audible
click
that said the key had caught, and opened the door.

The foyer was narrow, and had a gorgeous long mahogany table in front of a graceful staircase. The flooring was a deep, rich red wood, gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. The side of the staircase had matching paneling, except that there were dark maroon inlays in complex geometric patterns. The banister was hand-carved from what looked to be ebony. I looked up, and there was a glittering reddish copper chandelier hanging down. Its metalwork was as intricate as the woodwork on the stairs.

I went into the parlor on the right-hand side. It was a large room, with crown molding whose pattern was echoed in the deep-red Persian rug. The furniture was clearly antique but looked comfortable and inviting. A huge brick fireplace was decked out with gleaming brass tools. On the back wall, there was an ancient upright piano which had been polished, deep and glossy. A set of sheet music sat on the piano, and I looked to see that it was an old Elvis song, “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.”

The chill down my spine came back, stronger than before. I sat down on the piano bench. I noticed I was breathing hard, and I tried to relax.

It wasn’t just that the inside of the house was as gorgeous as the outside wasn’t. It was that everything looked bright and new and shiny. Somebody had put a hell of a lot of effort into making it that way. Based on the price that the house had sold for, and the description on the listing, it hadn’t been the previous owner. If the rest of the house was like this, it was worth a million dollars.
Easy.

Of course, the smart move wouldn’t be to sell the house. The smart move would be to
keep it
, to
run it
, to rent out rooms all summer for an exorbitant, astronomical price. You could earn enough to pay the mortgage for the year in two months, if you had full occupancy, and the rest would be pure profit. It might be enough to live on, even, if you had a law practice on the side that made you a little extra money.

It could work
,
I thought.
It could
. All I had to do was prove that poor dead Sheldon Berkman was not as crazy as everyone else thought he was—which shouldn’t be that hard—and take over the house. Mother didn’t want anything to do with the house; she’d be happy to let me take it over and handle the rentals and keep up the maintenance. I could sell my condo and quit my job and move down here full-time. I could put out my shingle, too, and do wills and divorces and contract work during the quiet winter months. Once I got my student loans paid off, I could buy the house from Mother outright, or wait until after she died and buy out my siblings, whichever made more sense. I could spend my mornings walking on the beach, and my evenings watching the sun set over the bay.

All this could be yours someday, kiddo
, one side of my brain said.

As long as this is what you want
, the other side said.

“Too early to make any kind of decision,” I said, and then I jumped because I had said that out loud without meaning to. “I must be getting nervous in my old age,” I said, mostly to reassure myself. “Let’s move on to the next room.”

The kitchen was splendid, with gleaming white cabinets and salt-and-pepper granite countertops flecked with quartz. The big appliances were stainless-steel and showroom new. There was a shiny silver espresso maker and a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer. At the far end of the kitchen was a breakfast area with a sturdy butcher-block table. It looked like the Crate and Barrel catalog had come to stark, glittering life. The next room was a dining room with lush, velvety green wallpaper and a handsome antique table and spindly, elegant chairs. The table was set with silver candlesticks, and I imagined how exquisite it would look by candlelight.

Of course, the make-or-break item was the state of the guest rooms upstairs, and the bathrooms. People might file in and out to gawk at the house, but if nobody wanted to stay there, we’d be better off selling it. I went up the stairs, checking the banister to see if it was loose anywhere, and it wasn’t.

The first room I checked out was painted a dark blue, with stark white crown molding and a brushed-nickel chandelier by way of contrast. The bed had a soft, squishy down comforter, and all sorts of comfy throw pillows. I had to suppress a sudden desire to dive in and take a long, restful nap. The room had a fireplace as well, but the bricks were painted white, with contrasting iron tools.

There was a white display cabinet in the corner, which I went over to check out because it was the first modern piece of furniture I had seen in the house. It was glassed-in, and had three or four airplane models inside. The one at the top was the largest, and had pride of place. I took a close look, and it was a large bomber plane.

Adam said that it was a B-52
, I thought. It was the same plane, the one I had seen at Sheldon’s old apartment.

Well, the wreath got here some way, why not this? If Adam didn’t bring it over himself, maybe one of Sheldon’s friends did. No reason to worry about it.

“I thought I heard somebody,” a voice said. And it wasn’t my voice. It was a hard voice, harsh and stern.

I must have jumped sixteen inches in the air. I came down awkwardly, twisting myself to see where the voice was coming from. I banged my left hand on the glass of the cabinet, hard enough to hurt my hand but luckily not enough to crack the glass. I yelped loudly, partly out of pain and partly out of fear.

I could see him framed in the doorway. He was short and balding, with powerful arms and dirty hands. He was wearing a leather tool belt that bristled with sharp implements. His face was cold and still at first, but then as I looked at him, I saw his eyes widen and the corners of his mouth crinkle with happiness.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “You came. You came after all.”

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“You haven’t aged a day,” he said. “Do you know that? Still as beautiful as the last time I saw you.”

A bright pinpoint of realization dawned in my brain.

“You are a dead man,” I said.

Chapter 25

“Don’t be scared,” Sheldon Berkman said. “Look. Everything’s all right. Calm down.”

I did not calm down. I screamed. It was a high, pure note that would have cracked any wineglass in the general vicinity. With my uninjured right hand, I picked up a navy throw pillow and chunked it as hard as I could at Sheldon. My momentum carried me towards the fireplace. When Sheldon took a step backwards to dodge the pillow, I grabbed the fireplace poker and brandished it in his general direction.

Sheldon Berkman was a dead man, and he was standing between me and the stairway and the front door and my car. I tried to extract my phone from the pocket of my hoodie with my left hand, but my hand was still smarting like anything and I abandoned the effort. I couldn’t think who to call anyway. The police? The local exorcist?

“Wait just a minute,” he said. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else. I didn’t mean to startle you like that. Can you put that thing down, please?”

I was not going to calm down. I wanted Sheldon to get out of my way, and if that meant running a fireplace poker through his eye socket, I could handle that. I tried to say that, but I was hyperventilating just then and it came out as a vicious hiss. I held the poker up and cocked it back, as though I was getting ready to bring it down on Sheldon’s unprotected skull.

He put his arms up in what he must have thought was a nonthreatening way and took a step into the room. “Are you OK?” he asked. “Looks like you banged your hand there.”

“What are you
doing
here?” I said, slowly and deliberately. It came out as a rattle, deep and throaty. “Get out of my way.”

“I don’t want to upset you,” he said. “But I can guess who you are. You’re Patricia, right? The daughter.”

“No!” I shouted. I took a swipe at him with the poker, and he took a step back. “I am
not
Pacey.”

“Gwendolyn, then.”

“
Don’t call me that
.” I edged towards the left side of the room. If I could get him to maneuver to my right, I thought I could squeeze past him and rush down the stairs. “Wendy,” I yelled. “My name is Wendy.
What
are you doing here?”

“OK,” he said. “OK. Look. Wendy. You need to calm down. Your face is all red. Just put that thing down, and let’s talk like civilized human beings.”

“Get out of my way first. And answer my question.”

“I’d rather not do either one, right this second. I would also rather not get skewered by that poker. If we go downstairs, quietly, I can get you some ice for your hand.”

“How do you know my name?” I asked.

“Well, you’re Emily’s daughter,” he said. “It’s obvious. You look just like she did at that age, which was the last time I saw her. I thought you were her. I didn’t mean to startle you just now, but you look extraordinarily like her. And you have the same kind of temper, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“You
are
a dead man. I am going to smash your head in with this fireplace poker for scaring me like that. Since you’re already legally dead, I can’t be tried for murder.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You’re a lawyer. I had forgotten that. Were you at the funeral? I know your mother went, but I didn’t know if she was by herself or not.”

“Get out of my way,” I yelled. I raised the poker over my head and cocked my wrists, as though I was getting ready to hit a baseball over whatever it is that you hit a baseball over.

Sheldon opened his mouth to say something, thought better about it, and retreated down the hallway. I held on to the poker and made my way to the top of the stairs. My knees were shaking, and I took the steps slowly, one at a time. I tried to transfer the poker to my other hand, but it was too sore for me to work my fingers. The poker went clattering down the stairs. I clutched the banister with my good hand, and stomped my way down the staircase. I felt light-headed by the time I got to the bottom, and I sat down on the last stair. I was still breathing heavily and I tried to calm myself down.

I looked up to see Sheldon standing with a kitchen towel wrapped around some ice cubes. “For your hand,” he said. “Are you all right? I came down the back steps. I thought you might’ve fallen.”

“Just give me the ice,” I said. I wrapped the towel around my left hand. The ice stung, but it took a bit of the pain away. “If my hand is broken, I am blaming you.”

“I do want to thank you for not breaking my cabinet. Or my skull. Why don’t you take a minute to pull yourself together, and I’ll make you some coffee. If you drink coffee.”

I looked up at him, taking his measure. He looked amazingly vital for someone who had been dead for three weeks. He was wearing a dark-gray T-shirt with the Air Force logo, jeans covered with sawdust, and heavy work boots. He had a close-cropped fringe of gray hair and kind eyes. His nose was permanently bent to the left.

“I don’t want your coffee,” I said. The last thing I needed right then was a stimulant. “I want you to tell me why, in the name of God, you thought any of this was a good idea.”

“That’s a long story,” he said.

“You have the time to tell it. You don’t know it yet, but you’re coming with me. We are getting in my car and driving north out of here.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why would I want to do that?”

“You wanted to see Emily Thornhill? You’re going to see her. Today. What she decides to do with you is her business.” Mother would never believe me if I just called her and told her that Sheldon was alive. But if I brought him to her, in the flesh, she’d have to believe me. And I had no doubt that she would find a way to settle Sheldon’s hash for pulling this stupid stunt.

“I don’t think that you and me driving up there would be a good idea,” he said.

“You don’t get a vote,” I said. “You were perfectly willing to get her here and surprise her, by which I mean scare her out of her mind, because that’s what you did with
me.
I don’t see any problem with driving up there and letting her know that you are alive, in person.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I want to see her. That’s the entire point of the plan. But I was hoping that she would come down here. Maybe you could call her and have her drive down tomorrow?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “You are not getting out of this that easily. You can’t scare me that badly and expect me to fetch my mother down here for you.”

Sheldon threw up his hands in frustration. “I said I was sorry. I never had any intention of scaring you. I was up on the third floor, sanding the baseboards. Hence all the sawdust. I thought I heard someone moving around down here, so I came down to check it out. For all I knew, you were looking to buy the place. With all the work I’ve put into it, I ought to turn a pretty decent profit.”