Page 56 of The Undead

“The car’s here, honey,” her mother whispered gently, and urged her to stand. Somehow Maggie did that. Her mother’s hand was under her elbow, supporting and guiding her through the house and out the door; the chauffeur, a dark-suited man who might have been faceless for all Maggie noticed, covered her head with an umbrella for the five or six feet between the door and the rain-beaded black limousine.

Funny, she’d always wanted to ride in one. This one didn’t have any of the typical amenities, no bar, no TV, no fold-out seats. It was just a car, only the seats faced each other. There was a brief fuss as Larry and Berna tried to enter the limo, but Connie’s hiss warned them off. They waddled off to their rental car, and the chauffeur got in the front and pulled away from the curb.

There was a large crowd in the church pews by the time the family arrived, but of course there was no problem finding a place to sit. Maggie found herself staring at little details—the trim on her mother’s black dress, the wine-colored stained glass over the altar, the regulation Southern Baptist flip of Pastor Carlson’s hair. The casket was closed. Why had she—oh, yes. Adam had told her Mike had wanted it that way. Once he’d mentioned it, Maggie had decided that it was a fine idea, but suddenly she wanted to unlatch that lid, take one more look at him before he was gone for good.

Her mind was suddenly wrenched away on aside rail to the last autopsy she’d witnessed. Dr. Kay Gillespie, young, aggressive, and with an inappropriately sunny manner, had staked out the corpse like a lab experiment, all the while telling Maggie gleefully about the time she’d gotten a drowning victim with eels breeding in his guts. This time, in Maggie’s memory, it was Michael on the table with his beautiful blue eyes staring and clouded, and in the white mass of his intestines something dark and snakelike whipped and hissed.

Maggie flinched and gasped, almost knocking the hymn book out of Connie’s hands as they rose to sing. The pastor had been speaking, she gathered. The church was too full, too hot, the coffin too close. She just wantedout.

Everybody was crying before it was over—everybody except the widow. Maggie’s eyes were dry and feverish. Mike’s colleagues and friends came to touch her hands and murmur uncomfortable words of sympathy. The worst moment was when Carl Voorhees, reduced to a whisper, came up to kiss her cheek. He clung to her as if he couldn’t let go, and when he pulled away, his eyes flooded and filled with the helpless hurt of a tortured puppy. He finished by patting Maggie awkwardly on the shoulder, shoved his hands in his coat pockets, and walked away with his shoulders hunched and bowed in against the pain. She felt a distant sympathy for him, but she just wanted out. Out of everything.

Eventually, the pastor and her mother got her out of the church and into the limousine again. It glided out, following the curlicued splendor of the hearse and trailing a long snaky caravan of cars with their lights on. When they passed cars that stopped to let the procession by, Maggie saw the wonder and curiosity on the faces of the passengers. She’d gotten the same looks on her wedding night when she and Michael had driven to the reception still in gown and tux—wonder and curiosity. Ceremonies. Was there any difference, really? Well, the funeral was splashier, maybe. And better attended.

Because it was still raining, the graveside service was shorter than usual, and the crowd smaller. The powers-that-be didn’t lower the casket anymore in the presence of the family—too distressing, apparently—so after the pastor finished his words of support and encouragement, they stood awkwardly around in the mud and rain until someone handed Maggie a rose. She walked up and put it on the casket, pressed her hand flat on the wood, and turned away.

Her knees gave way. She didn’t think she tripped. Anyway, someone grabbed her and got her back upright; she was surprised to see that it was Larry, foul-mouthed, mean-spirited little Larry. He very carefully helped her to a bench and tried to get her to accept a little water from the ever-prepared funeral director. Nothing, Maggie told him.

That wasn’t really what she wanted, of course, but there wasn’t anything Larry or the funeral director could do about that. Eventually they wandered off and let her sit in silence. That was when Maggie noticed a woman, a stranger, standing under a huge black umbrella about a hundred feet away.

She’d never seen her before, but there was something about her that was notable; middle-aged but still exotically beautiful, coppery skin and Indian cheekbones, pale strange eyes. She was crying, her eyes fixed not on the grave but on Maggie. She turned quickly away when Maggie noticed her, walked to a dull green car, and drove off without a backward look.

Larry came back to collect her for the limo driver. He turned out to be kind of decent, all things considered. He even got her a bottle of Glenlivet and took Laisha out to dinner and the movies. Maggie was well into the bottle when Carl Voorhees came by and delivered the package that contained Michael’s personal effects; she waited until he was gone before she unwrapped it.

Item: one pair pants, waterstained, bloodstained. Item: one shirt, ditto. When she held it close to her she could smell him on it, however faintly. Belt. Underwear, splashed with pink stains like he’d gotten careless with some pastel tropical drink. Socks. One shoe, the other had been lost.

Item: one gold wedding band. On the inside, in tiny letters, it saidTil Death.

Oh, dear God.

Dear, merciful God.

She finished the bottle.

Chapter Twelve

Vigil

I had a lovely funeral, by all accounts. The day was appropriately rainy and gray, the crowd large, the flowers lavish. My widow looked fragile and determined, and—according to Sylvia’s firsthand account—she had stayed well away from Nick Gianoulos, even though Nick had tried hard to be of service in escorting her around. Maggie had walked through the services alone, faltering only when she had to put a rose on the casket at graveside.

“Who’s in the casket?” I asked, yanking myself out of the depths of an imaginary—or very real—grave. Sylvia looked up from the tarot cards she was idly shuffling and shook her head in ignorance. I turned to Adam, who sat on my left. “Anybody I know?”

“Nobody anybody knows,” he said distantly, watching Sylvia’s fingers as she coaxed the thick cards into orderly piles and riffled them together. We were sitting in the kitchen, Sylvia sipping hot coffee and Adam and I drinking something colder and thicker. “A JD, on his way to a cut-rate coffin and a plastic notecard in the pauper’s corner. I figure he got a good deal.”

“I figure he doesn’t really care,” Sylvia shot back, and took a sip of her coffee. The steam writhed up to veil the brilliance of her eyes, the challenge. “I don’t think I want to know how you managed that.”

“No, you probably don’t,” Adam acknowledged with an absence of expression more descriptive than a sigh. “Cheer up, Michael, you’re the only man in Dallas I know who can visit his own grave.”

“Can I?” I was startled. The idea hadn’t occurred to me. Adam sat back, sipping at his dark mug, and tapped his fingers lightly on the table.

“Do you want to?”

That gave me pause. I wasn’t exactly sure I was ready for that, but I was going crazy in the house, and the oppressive waiting for Sweet William’s next move had already taken its toll on me. The more I thought about Nick and Maggie, the crazier I got. I nodded. Adam drank the rest of his radon, waited while I drained mine, and looked past me to where Sylvia turned over cards.

“Who are you casting for?” he wanted to know, staring at the polished pasteboard. She tapped the first card without looking up. “Ah. Must be me.”

“The Fool,” she agreed dryly. I picked up the card and looked at it—at the long-haired young man stepping trustingly over the abyss, eyes clear and unafraid. There was an odd resemblance.

“And what do the cards have in store for me?” Adam continued, taking the Fool and studying it. She turned over cards and showed them, green eyes intent and searching.

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