The Dirt on Ninth Grave

  She sucked in a soft breath and took the plate as if it were a delicate treasure. And so the morning passed with the two of us sampling Reyes’s cooking – when he wasn’t looking, of course – and waiting on tables. But only because we’d get fired if we didn’t.

  Mr. P and the dead stripper came in. Ordered the usual. Garrett came in. Ordered the usual. Osh came in. Ordered off the menu, thus the usual. And a plethora of women filled up every other seat we had. The words morning rush were taking on a whole new meaning. Reyes might have been good for business, but I had blisters from trying to outrun the headless horseman last night and then running all the way home after the Reyes incident. And now they throbbed like the fires of a thousand suns. Still, like Dixie had said, dude could cook. I could forgive a few blisters if it meant a steady supply of chile et al.

  When Bobert came in, I asked him if he could look into Mr. Ian Jeffries. Surely I wasn’t his first crush. If he’d gone stalker on other women, there would be a record of some kind, even if he’d never been formally charged.

  I also told him about the phone call I got from the FBI agent.

  “She’s really good at her job,” he told me. “Said she’d get back to me if they found anything.”

  “Bobert, what if I just endangered them more?”

  “Janey.” He covered my hand with his. “You did the right thing. The fact that you noticed what was going on may save their lives.”

  I gave him an unconvinced nod.

  By eleven, Francie and Erin had arrived and dined on the now-famous enchiladas. Francie’s face turned bright red, and her nose ran for the next half hour, but she carried on like a trouper. Mostly to impress Reyes.

  But it was eleven and past time for Mr. V’s usual phone call. I waited for his order, but none came.

  “I’m going on break,” I told Cookie. She was on break herself, sitting with Bobert. They both looked like they’d just had sex, but it was only the enchiladas.

  I wrapped myself in Reyes’s jacket and headed out the front door toward Mr. V’s store. I hadn’t even gone halfway when I noticed a sign on the door. No. This couldn’t be good. Practically sprinting the rest of the way, I read the sign. CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS.

  I threw myself against the plate-glass window and cupped a hand over my eyes. It was dark inside. And empty. I stepped back and glanced at the dry-cleaning store. If the men had tunneled in and stolen something from them, wouldn’t there be cops and investigators? Their open sign flickered, and a woman walked out holding the hand of a young boy, a plastic-covered dress draped over her arm. So it was business as usual.

  A plan formed in my mind. I stepped to the street and studied the buildings. If I was right, I might have a way into Mr. V’s store that did not involve lock picking, which I was pretty sure I’d fail at, or breaking out windows, which I was pretty sure I’d fail at, too. Not the window-breaking part, but the stealthy, not-getting-caught part.

  I hurried back to the café. The lunch crowd would be arriving soon. I didn’t have much time. And I’d need help.

  I hated taking Cookie away from the love of her loins, but people’s lives were at stake. With an almost imperceptible nod, I motioned for her to meet me in the storeroom.

  She squinted at me.

  I motioned again, with a perceptible nod this time.

  She shook her head and shrugged.

  I gritted my teeth and pointed outright to the storeroom.

  “Sweetheart,” Bobert said, trying not to chuckle, “if you don’t meet her in the storeroom posthaste, she’s liable to stroke.”

  I probably should have tried to be discreet at someplace other than right beside his booth.

  After kissing Bobert good-bye for, like, ever – PDA much? – Cookie followed me to my home away from home. “What is so secretive that you can’t tell it to me in front of Robert?”

  “I need your help breaking and entering.”

  “Okay, but I’m not sure how much I can help. I’m good with breaking things. Entering, not so much. Especially if it involves a rooftop and a rope. Just no.”

  “I just need you to be the lookout.”

  “Oh. I can do that.” We walked into the storeroom and locked the door behind us. “Is this going to stress me out?”

  “Probably. And I might need your phone.”

  “I’m just not sure I can handle more stress in my life right now.”

  I nudged a shelf with my body weight until it was closer to the corner that paralleled Mr. V’s shop. There was an access panel to the heating and cooling system there. If I was right, the stores had once shared the system.

  “Nonsense. You’re like tea. The hotter the water and all. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just everything. New town. New house.”

  “New friend who sees dead people?” As Cookie held the shelves steady, I climbed up and lifted the access panel.

  “Not at all. You’re one of the best parts.”

  “Thanks. Can I see your phone?”

  She handed it to me. “That’s what’s crazy. Everything is great. My husband is great. My house is great. I love the area. I mean, seriously, this town is beautiful.”

  “I agree.” I turned on the flashlight. The panel gave repairmen access to the wiring and the sprinkler system. The lower ceiling was only made up of two-by-fours and Sheetrock. I hefted myself up. Kind of. I mostly stacked boxes on the top shelf and made myself a ladder. “But all change, even good change, puts stress on our bodies and minds.”

  “True. Wait, why are you doing this again?”

  “Mr. V is out sick.” I scanned the entire length of the buildings with the flashlight and found what looked like a cutout in the dividing bricks about fifteen feet from me.

  “I don’t think we should be taking advantage of his illness by breaking into his store.”

  “He’s the one.”

  “Which one??

  “The one I told Bobert about. The one being held hostage.”

  “Janey, really?” she asked in alarm. “And you’re breaking into his store because?”

  “I need to see exactly what they’re doing.” With only about two feet of clearance, navigating the claustrophobia-inducing space was proving tricky. “Also, I need to figure out where his cabin is. Do you know?”

  “I have no idea what they’re doing, but I feel awful for Mr. Vandenberg.”

  I placed a knee on one board, then a hand on another, crawling forward at a snail’s pace. My break was going to end before I got halfway.

  “No, I mean do you know where his cabin is?”

  “Oh, no. But Robert could check into it.”

  Oh, yeah. I didn’t think of that. I made it to the opening. Sadly, it was the size of a credit card. I swiped at a few spiderwebs, then slid through. It was touch-and-go where my ass was concerned. Took a little while and a lot of wriggling to get her through. Mr. V’s ceiling was exactly like the café’s. His access panel was closer to the opening, thank goodness.

  The muffled tones of Cookie’s voice wafted up to me, but I didn’t respond. Partly because I couldn’t understand her, but also, I didn’t want to have to shout loudly enough to be heard. From what I could tell, the opening was somewhere above Dixie’s office. I doubted she’d appreciate my creeping about her attic.

  I army-crawled to Mr. V’s access panel, ignoring the pain in my knees and rib cage where I lay across the boards. Who knew the edges of a two-by-four could be so painful? Prying the panel up proved to be harder than planned, but I finally got my fingernails under it and lifted one corner slowly.

  It was still dark inside his store, so I lifted the panel and set it aside. Then, with the stealth of a drunk ninja, I lowered myself through the hole. Sadly, Mr. V didn’t have any shelves conveniently placed under the panel for me to climb down, so I had to drop several feet to the floor. The second my feet hit the ground, I looked up and wondered how I was going to get back.

  I’d worry about that as soon as I figured out
exactly what the captors had been up to. Using Cookie’s flashlight, I wound my way around antiques of every size and nature. There were simply too many breakable things. I’d never be comfortable working in a store that carried so many breakable things.

  The plasma cutter sat on the side of Mr. V’s desk. It was connected to an extension cord, so either they’d already used it or they planned to soon.

  I finally found the door to the back room, held my breath, and opened it. If they had set some kind of guard to watch over their handiwork, I was dead. I could live with that. Thankfully, it was just me and a gaping hole.

  The entire floor had been torn out. The whole thing. It was a small room, more like a closet really, but still. I felt they got a little carried away. The dark hole lurking beyond the battered floor was my main concern. More tiny spaces. Great.

  I got onto my hands and knees and was shining a light into the tunnel when I heard a growl. A low, deep grumble right behind my left ear.

  I turned slowly and came face-to-face with a snarling set of teeth. The Vandenbergs’ German shepherd. He growled and snapped at me. It was the cutest thing.

  “Hello, pretty boy,” I said to him. He was beautiful. “Aren’t you the prettiest thing?”

  Despite the growls, I raised a hand to pet him. He whimpered instantly and licked my face instead of ripping it off. We played tackle-and-roll a bit, and then I asked, “Do you know what they’ve been doing down here?”

  He barked, then offered an apologetic whine.

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. We’ll figure this out together, okay?”

  He barked again, and I took Cookie’s phone and climbed down the rabbit hole.

  15

  I don’t understand your specific kind of crazy,

  But I do admire your commitment to it.

  —T-SHIRT

  Barely wide enough for one good-sized man, the tunnel extended only about ten feet, then stopped under another rabbit hole. Just as I thought, they were tunneling into the dry-cleaning business.

  I reached up and felt the cool smooth texture of metal. The plasma cutter. They were going to use it to cut their way inside. Two questions came to mind immediately: Why would a dry-cleaning business need a metal floor¸ and what could they possibly be keeping in there?

  Was it a vault of some kind? If so, it had to be massive. Like a bank vault. Or maybe it was a panic room. Or an old bomb shelter, though the metal had glistened a bright silver. It couldn’t have been very old.

  GS, for lack of a better name, whimpered again when I started to back out. He picked his way through the dirt, then bounded up into the shop. I didn’t bound, but I did hoist myself up using the brute strength God gave me. And the frame of the door. My fingernails would never be the same.

  GS and I searched Mr. V’s desk for some clue as to where the cabin might be and found nothing. I glanced at all the pictures again, examining them closer this time, reminiscing about Mr. V’s wonderful kids while looking for a house number or a street sign. Nothing again. Sadly, I just didn’t know the area well enough for any of it to look familiar. Those pictures could have been taken in Nepal for all I knew.

  Giving up, I took one of the pictures out of its frame, ran my fingertips over the kids’ mischievous faces, then folded it and put it in my back pocket. Then I turned to the next challenge. How to get back up to the access panel. The answer presented itself by means of a massively tall ladder, the kind that looked like it would topple over at any moment.

  After positioning it under the panel, I climbed it the way I imagined I would climb to my execution: slowly and reluctantly.

  When I made it to the top, I clutched the opening and had little choice but to jump as hard as I could. The ladder would surely fall, but I had no alternative. I simply wasn’t strong enough to pull myself up from that distance.

  “Bye, sweetheart,” I said to GS.

  He barked and disappeared through an old chest on the wall opposite me.

  With one final prayer, I shoved off the ladder as hard as I could and pulled with everything I had. Sadly, everything I had wasn’t going to be enough. I heard the ladder crash into a myriad of fragile things. Mr. V was going to kill me. Now I had antiques to pay for along with my hospital bills. I’d never get a phone. And my arms were beginning to shake.

  When I heard a bark above my head, I glanced up to see GS standing over me, his tail wagging as though we were playing a game. But my arms were giving out. I kicked to try to heft myself up, to no avail. Then GS took hold of my shirt at the shoulder and pulled.

  It was working. I slowly ascended until I had enough leverage to pull myself up. Why on earth did people make ceilings a thousand feet high?

  I crawled back as quickly as I could without falling through the ceiling, but my shaking arms weren’t helping. Neither was GS’s desire to play pounce-the-human. Basically, the next chain of events was the result of a combination of several key factors, the main one being a sudden and devastating lack of strength. Despite all the careful navigation, I fell through the ceiling. I know. I never saw it coming either.

  And I had been this close.

  Part of me landed on the shelves we’d dragged over, and the other part, namely my ass, did not. I executed this cool flip thing – I knew this because the ceiling was there, then it wasn’t, then it was again – and landed face-first on the linoleum floor.

  “Janey!” Cookie screeched and rushed to me. “Oh, my God, are you okay?” She pried me off the floor and helped me to my feet.

  “I – I think so.” I blinked and tried to fill my lungs. They refused to take more than a quarter of a tank. It would have to do for now.

  She brushed me off, and then we turned in unison to the gaping hole in the ceiling.

  “Think Dixie will notice that?” I asked Cookie.

  It really wasn’t that big. And it was right beside the original access panel. Now Dixie could have two.

  “We can cover it up,” Cookie said, panicking.

  “That’s going to take a lot of spackle.”

  “No, with the shelves.”

  “Oh, right.” We pushed the shelves over until they were directly under the hole.

  “Okay,” I said, assessing our work. “As long as everyone stands right here, right in this very spot, they won’t be able to see it.”

  “This sucks,” Cookie said, suddenly despondent.

  “Don’t worry, hon. I’ll pay for it. Dixie won’t mind.”

  “Wait, maybe Robert can fix it. We can offer his services in exchange for us keeping our jobs.”

  “Cook, you are not taking the blame for any of what happened here. This is all on me.”

  “Let me at least try. I’ll text him to see if he’s still here. He can come take a look. You got my phone?”

  I patted my front pockets. My empty front pockets. My eyes rounded, and fear shot lasers up my spine. Did I lay it down somewhere? I couldn’t remember.

  “Janey,” she said.

  This was not happening.

  “Oh, Janey, no. No, no, no. You did not leave my phone in Mr. V’s shop where any terrorist could find it.”

  “Cook, I never said they were terrorists,” I said as I patted my back pockets. My fingers touched something square, and I almost fell to the ground in relief. But I’d already done that today, and once was good enough for me. I grinned.

  “Oh, thank God,” Cookie said.

  I pulled it out and handed it to her, pretending not to notice the shattered screen.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I bet a little shipping tape will fix that right up. You’ll hardly be able to tell.”

  She tried to stop a giggle from escaping and ended up snorting in the process.

  “I’m sorry, Cook.”

  “Janey, do you think I care?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you’re right, but not at the expense of your safety. It broke your fall.”

  “That was my face.”

  “Was any
of that worth the effort?”

  I told Cookie what I’d found as we headed to the door and opened it to a sea of heads.

  Dixie stood on the other side. Along with Reyes, Bobert, Garrett, Lewis, and Sumi, though I could only see the top of her head. They were all packed into the tin-can hallway like sardines. Osh was there, too, but he stood back a little, wearing his signature smirk. He would be the smartass sardine.

  “Could you two be any louder?” Dixie asked.

  “We could try,” I said, my brows scrunched together with worry. “This was my fault. Cookie had nothing to do with it.”

  Cookie stood behind me, biting her bottom lip. “Yes, I did. It was my idea.”

  “It so was not.”

  “Was too.”

  I glared at her. “Cook —”

  “What on God’s green earth?” Dixie had spotted the ceiling. She stepped inside.

  “It just fell,” Cookie said. “It was crazy.”

  Dixie turned back to… Reyes? An accusing expression on her face. An expectant one.

  He nodded, and she brightened. Like surface-of-the-sun bright. “No harm, no foul,” she said, ushering us out. “That happens all the time. We’ll get it fixed in no time. Herb Wassermann. Best handyman in town.”

  Cookie and I exchanged confused glances.

  Wait. No we didn’t. I exchanged a confused glance. Cookie didn’t seem surprised in the least. Relieved, but not surprised.

  “So weird how that happens,” she said to Dixie.

  Dixie nodded. “Water damage from the storm back in ’22.”

  As in 1922?

  “You mean ’82?” Bobert asked.

  “Yes.” Dixie chuckled. “Sorry. Get my decades mixed up all the time. Back to work, girls. Place is hoppin’.”

  She practically pushed Cookie and me into the café. Everyone else either went back to work or sat back down. We were thoroughly glared at by Erin and Francie. Apparently they’d been handling the lunch crowd on their own and were none too happy about it.

  I pocketed the keys I’d lifted while in the storeroom and went back to work. Dixie was right. The place was definitely hoppin’.

  My first stop was a table with a single white female. Probably here for dinner and the show. If Reyes would learn to strip, we’d be set for life.