Deeper Than the Dead

20

“So what are you thinking, darling?” Franny asked. He handed her a glass of white zinfandel and sat down beside her on her back porch steps. “Are you harboring a fugitive in your fifth-grade class?”

Anne drank a good third of the glass. The evening was chilly. They were both wrapped in thick sweaters. They sat close together to share body heat while Franny’s basset hound and cocker spaniel sniffed their way around the backyard, drifting in and out of the pale back porch light.

“Of course not. I just find it unnerving that Dennis may have seen something going on in the woods before yesterday. Are there other bodies out there? What the hell is going on? Now another woman is missing ...”

“It’s like yesterday we woke up in a Disney movie, and tonight we’re in a John Carpenter movie,” Franny said. “Maybe Jamie Lee Curtis will play you in our movie.”

Anne looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Will you be my sidekick?”

“Honey, I AM your sidekick.”

“Who will play you in the movie?”

“Richard Gere, of course,” he answered without hesitation. “He’s secretly gay, you know.”

“You think every good-looking man on the planet is secretly gay.”

“No, I don’t. The hot detective from this morning? Definitely not gay.”

“You didn’t see him. How do you know he’s hot?”

He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “You just told me.”

Heat rushed to Anne’s face. She blamed the wine.

“You should definitely take a run at him.”

“He’s a little busy right now,” Anne said. “So am I. I need to find a way to get through to Dennis. Frank Farman tells me Dennis is fine. He found a horribly murdered woman, but why should that bother him? I guess if it wasn’t the first dead person he’s seen buried in the woods, it’s old hat to him.”

“He probably made it up, honey,” Franny said. “Dennis Farman is a nasty, creepy little shit. He’s been looking up his teacher’s skirts since he was in the third grade. He’s probably got a collection of S and M porn magazines under his bed by now. It’s not a stretch to imagine him making up stories about bodies buried in the woods just to scare other kids.”

Anne sighed, reaching out a hand to touch the nose of Chester the basset hound, who had lumbered up the steps to check on them. “I guess not. He did try to bring a dead cat for show-and-tell one day.”

“No effing way!”

“Oh, yeah. The first week of class. He found it on the road on the way to school, flattened.”

Anne shuddered at the memory of the incident, and at the memory of the look in Dennis Farman’s eyes. She had dismissed it that day, preoccupied with the need to properly dispose of the carcass, but she could see it now in her mind’s eye: a weird kind of excitement that went beyond a child’s natural curiosity.

“He probably bit it and gave it rabies,” Franny said. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“You were out sick,” Anne said. “The root canal.”

“Oh my God!” he exclaimed, dramatically throwing his head back and clamping his hand over his heart. “I thought I would die! That was horrible. I thought I would have to go directly from Dr. Crane’s office to the morgue.”

“Peter Crane?” Anne asked. “Tommy’s father?”

“Yes. Dr. Dream Dentist. He’s hot.”

“But not gay.”

“No. And his wife scares me. Have you seen those shoulder pads? Yikes! Honey, Joan Crawford had nothing on that one.”

“So I’m learning,” Anne said.

She checked her watch and sighed. She had gone to the sheriff’s office to speak personally to Mendez, but had been told he was gone for the day. She had called the number on his card and left a message for him to call her back as soon as possible. She had yet to hear from him.

Now that it was getting late and she was worn out from the day’s events, she began to think maybe she had overreacted, that Mendez would listen to her message and roll his eyes and think she was being hysterical. He and Frank Farman could have a laugh at her expense.

“You know,” she said. “I’ve always felt like I can read my kids pretty easily. I’m a quick study. I meet their parents at conference time and think I have a handle on their home life. Boy, was I naïve . . . or arrogant . . . or something.”

Franny put his arm around her and hugged her tight against him. “Put it away for tonight. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. What happens tomorrow? The four horsemen of the apocalypse ride into town? I’ve lived here my whole life. People don’t get murdered in Oak Knoll. Women don’t get kidnapped. Fifth graders don’t find dead bodies in the park,” she said. “I’m upset. I’m scared. How are my kids supposed to deal with it? How am I supposed to convincingly help them deal with it?”

“You do the best you can,” Franny said. “It’s easier for me. Five-year-olds are focused on themselves, their immediate little worlds. And their immediate little worlds are safe and mostly happy. They don’t really understand death. They don’t know what evil is.

“Your kids have started to figure out there’s a world out there that isn’t always a nice place. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you let them know it scares you too,” he said.

“Fear: the human condition,” Anne said. “Hey, kids, this is what you have to look forward to as you grow up: a world gone mad.”

Franny tossed back the last of his wine and set the glass aside. “Enough of your dark thoughts, Negative Nancy. I’m going to pour more wine, and then we’re going to talk about my favorite topic: me! I’m going to throw a fabulous party for my fortieth birthday next year. It’s going to have a carnival theme. I’m calling it Franival!”

Tired as she was, Anne managed to laugh. “I love you, Francis.”

He smiled like a saint. “Everyone does.”