Cemetery Dance

Chapter 9

Nora Kelly softly closed the door to her basement anthropology lab and leaned against it, closing her eyes. Her head throbbed steadily, and her throat was rough and dry.

It had been far worse than she imagined, running the gauntlet of her colleagues with their well — meaning condolences, their tragic looks, their offers of help, their suggestions she take a few days off. A few days off? And do what: go back to the apartment where her husband was murdered and sit around with only her thoughts for company? The fact was, she'd come straight to the museum from the hospital. Despite what she'd told D'Agosta, she just couldn't face going back to the apartment — at least, not right away.

She opened her eyes. The lab was as she had left it, two days ago. And yet it looked so different. Everything since the murder seemed different. It was as if the whole world had changed — utterly.

Angrily, she tried to force away the sterile train of thought. She glanced at her watch: two o'clock. The only thing that would save her now was immersion in her work. Complete, total immersion.

She locked the door to the lab, then turned on her Mac. Once it had booted up, she opened the database of her potsherds. Unlocking a drawer of trays, she pulled one open, exposing dozens of plastic bags full of numbered potsherds. She opened the first bag, arranged the potsherds on the felt of the tabletop, and began classifying them by type, date, and location. It was tedious, mindless work — but that's what she needed right now. Mindless work.

After half an hour, she paused. It was as silent as a tomb in the basement lab, with the faint hissing of the forced — air system like a steady whisper in the darkness. The nightmare at the hospital had spooked her — the dream had been so real. Most dreams faded with time, but this one, if anything, seemed to grow in clarity.

She shook her head, annoyed at her mind's tendency to keep circling the same horrifying things. Rapping the computer keys harder than necessary, she finished entering the current batch of data, saved the file, then began packing away the sherds, clearing the table for the next bagful.

A soft knock came at the door.

Not another condolence visit. Nora glanced over at the little glass window set into the door, but the hallway beyond was so dim she could see nothing. After a moment, she stood up, walked to the door, placed her hand on the knob. Then she paused.

"Who is it?"

"Primus Hornby."

With a feeling of dismay, Nora unlocked the door to find the small, tub — like anthropology curator standing before her, morning paper folded under one fat little arm, a plump hand nervously rubbing his bald pate. "I'm glad I found you in. May I?"

Reluctantly, Nora stepped aside to let the curator pass. The disheveled little man swept in and turned. "Nora, I'm sodreadfully sorry." His hand continued to nervously rub his bald spot. She didn't respond — couldn't respond. She didn't know what to say or how to say it.

"I'm glad you've come back to work. I find work is the universal healer."

"Thank you for your concern." Perhaps he would leave now. But he had the look of a man with something on his mind.

"I lost my wife some years ago, when I was doing fieldwork in Haiti. She was killed in a car crash in California while I was away. I know what you must be feeling."

"Thank you, Primus."

He moved deeper into the lab. "Potsherds, I see. How beautiful they are. An example of the human urge to make beautiful even the most mundane of objects."

"Yes, it is." When will he leave? Nora suddenly felt guilty for the reaction. In his own way, he was trying to be kind. But this just wasn't the way she grieved, all this talk and commiseration and condolence offering.

"Forgive me, Nora…" He hesitated. "But I must ask. Do you plan on burying your husband or having him cremated?"

The question was so bizarre that for a moment Nora was taken aback. The question was one she had been deliberately avoiding, and she knew she had to face it soon.

"I don't know," she said, rather more curtly than she intended.

"I see." Hornby looked unaccountably dismayed. Nora wondered what was coming next. "As I said, I did my fieldwork in Haiti."

"Yes."

Hornby seemed to be growing more agitated. "In Dessalines, where I lived, they sometimes use Formalazen as an embalming fluid instead of the usual compound of formalin, ethanol, and methanol."

The conversation seemed to be taking on an unreal cast. "Formalazen," Nora repeated.

"Yes. It's far more poisonous and difficult to handle, but they prefer it for… well, for certain reasons. Sometimes they make it even more toxic by dissolving rat poison in it. In certain unusual cases — certain types of death — they also ask the mortician to suture the mouth shut." He hesitated again. "And in such cases they bury their dead facedown, mouth to the earth, with a long knife in one hand. Sometimes they fire a bullet or drive a piece of iron into the corpse's heart to… well, tokill it again. "

Nora stared at the odd little curator. She had always known he was eccentric, that he'd been touched a little too deeply by the strange nature of his studies, but this was something so monstrously out of place she could hardly believe it. "How interesting," she managed to say.

"They can be very careful about how they bury their dead in Dessalines. They follow strict rules at great financial expense. A proper burial can cost two or three years' annual salary."

"I see."

"Once again, I'm so dreadfully sorry." And with that, the curator unfolded the newspaper he'd been carrying under his arm and laid it on the table. It was a copy of that morning's West Sider.

Nora stared at the headline:

Hornby tapped the headline with a stubby finger. "My work was in this very area. Voodoo. Obeah. Zombiis — spelled correctly with twoi's, of course, not like how they spelled it here. Of course, the West Sider gets everything wrong." He sniffed.

"What — " Nora found herself speechless, staring at the headline.

"So if you do decide to bury your husband, I hope you'll keep what I've said in mind. If you have any questions, Nora, I am always here."

And with a final, sad smile, the little curator was gone, leaving the newspaper on the table.