Graverobbers Wanted: No Experience Necessary

Chapter 5

WHEN HELEN finally made it to the convenience store, I gave her one of the candy bars as a peace offering, though I was pretty certain that the astounding power of chocolate wasn't going to get me out of this one. She reacted to our injuries with no small degree of concern, and insisted on checking out Roger's wounds right there in the parking lot.

"What on earth happened to you guys?" she demanded.

"Maybe you should wait until you're done fixing him before I explain," I said. "I'd really hate for you to make a mistake because you were pissed."

She regarded me intently, and then agreed that might be a good idea and took off Roger's shirt. "Whoever did this certainly wasn't a doctor," she said, unwrapping the cloth. "Can you lift your arms above your head?"

Roger did so with a wince.

"It got you in the shoulder blade. A couple inches to the right and you could've been paralyzed for life. That's why you shouldn't hang around my husband."

She cleaned out the wound and redressed it, assuring Roger that he was going to be okay. The leg wound was also not going to cause permanent damage, though Roger would definitely be on crutches for a while.

"And I'm driving you two to the hospital for x-rays, just in case," she said. "Don't argue."

I'm pretty stupid on a regular basis, but I wasn't stupid enough to argue.

As Helen drove us back to Chamber, Roger in the back seat, me in the hot seat, I told her the truth about what had happened. Okay, that's a lie. If I'd told her what really happened, she would have been an absolute nervous wreck and I would have been dead from the stress of living with a woman in that state of anxiety.

I wanted to stick to the truth as much as possible, unappealing as it was, so I confessed about thegraverobbing bit. However, in the censored version, we'd been caught by a couple of hunters before we could unearth the coffin. Things got seriously out of hand, things were said, arrows were fired, and we ended up getting the crap beat out of us.

The story sounded credible as I told it, but to be honest my thought patterns were so shaky by this time that I could have been telling my wife that a magical turnip had inflicted our injuries and it would have sounded logical. To Helen's credit, she allowed me to finish my story before freaking out.

"What in God's name wereyouthinking? " she demanded. "What kind of sick, twisted, demented, deviant thoughts were running through your minds to make you agree to do that? I absolutely cannot believe that the man I married, the father of my children, would do something so appalling!"

"I had no idea it was going to turn out this way," I said. "I thought we'd dig a hole, grab a key, and go home twenty thousand dollars richer. Nice simple evening."

"This is just...I mean...it's just...I mean...holy shit, Andrew!"

"I agree."

Helen took several deep breaths. "Okay, look, I am so mad at you right now that I can't possibly verbalize it without an aneurysm, but we're not going to get into that right now. You've had an incredibly traumatic experience and I don't want to make things worse for you. But once you're healed, things are going to be very bad for you."

THE HOSPITAL visit revealed that I did not have a concussion and that if I wanted my face to continue to look nice I was going to have to quit letting people punch me. It also confirmed that Roger's leg and back were going to heal fine, and that he was totally incompetent at walking on crutches. Fortunately, Helen agreed not to call the police to investigate the abusive hunters, since we'd have to explain why Roger and I were in the woods.

Instead of dropping Roger off at home, we decided to have him sleep at our place. While Helen took a shower, I opened the foldout bed on the couch and spoke quietly with him.

"We obviously can't go the police," I said, "but we've got to investigate, see what we can find out."

"Why?"

"Because the killer's still out there!"

"Yeah, but he got what he wanted, there's no reason for him to come after us," Roger insisted.

"You're right, but, Idunno , there's some weird instinct inside me saying that somebody who buries a man alive and stabs a woman to death shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. What do you think?"

"My leg hurts."

"Look, you don't have to help if you don't want to, but I'm going to try and find out what the whole deal is. So what do we know? Our suspect is acquainted with either Jennifer or Michael Ashcraft or both.Probably both.Vicious right hook.Decent archer. What am I missing?"

Roger had nothing to add.

"Okay, so it's not much, but it's a start." I took the business card out of my pocket. "First thing tomorrow, I'll find out what this Ghoulish Delights thing is. Maybe we'll get lucky and the killer will be hanging around in bloodstained clothes."

Roger shrugged. "Could I have an extra pillow?"

Helen's shower ended. As I heard the hair dryer turn on, I quickly looked through the phone book and found Michael Ashcraft's name. I dialed the number and got his answering machine. It was a man's voice, presumably Michael's. He sounded a little different when he wasn't shrieking.

"Hi, you've reached the residence of Michael and Jennifer Ashcraft. We're going to be on vacation until the first of September, but if you leave your name and number at the tone we'll get back to you when we return. By the way, we have a state of the art security system and a couple of really vicious Dobermans named Rabid Assassin I and Rabid Assassin II, so any potential thieves may want to find a safer target, such as Fort Knox. Ready yourself, here comes the beep."

So nobody was likely to be looking for them. I hung up.

I sat on my bed and stared at the wall for a few minutes until Helen came out of the bathroom. "Honey, you aren't even undressed. You really should get some sleep."

"Well, I got a little bit of sleep after I was knocked unconscious."

Helen sighed. "Don't make jokes."

I took off my clothes and got into bed, even though in my spooked condition I figured there was no way I'd be able to fall asleep without an elephant tranquilizer.

As it turns out, I was wrong. I managed about three hours of sleep, though with the worst nightmares I'd had in my entire life. And I'm counting the recurring dream of Mr.Boogedy -Bones from pre-school.

AFTER I GOT out of bed and showered the nightmare sweat from my body, I dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I called the number on the Ghoulish Delights card and got another answering machine.

"Thank you for calling Ghoulish Delights, where we make your worst fears a reality," said Michael's voice. "Our office hours are by appointment only, but if you leave your name and number at the tone we'll get back to you as soon as possible."

I hung up, figuring I'd try back later.

So, what next? I had Michael's street address from the phone book, so I'd pay a visit to his house to see if there was anything of interest. After that, I supposed that I could find out the names of Jennifer and Michael's friends and family and just start going down the list, but what would I say? "Hi, I'm doing a survey on premature burial habits in the Chamber area. Have you or anyone you know buried a person alive within the past week?" I couldn't ask "Where were you on the night of August fourth, between midnight and 4 a.m.?" because anyone could say "I was in bed sleeping, you brain-dead moron!" and it would be almost impossible to prove them wrong.

I left Roger asleep on the couch and set a note on the nightstand for Helen that read "Went out." At least that kept me entirely truthful.

As I was on my way toHallowayStreet , where Michael lived, I came up on the Chamber Eastside Mall. Remembering that they had a game store inside, I decided to make a quick detour and see if the piece of card I'd found last night could be identified.

I pulled into the parking lot, went inside, turned down a free sample of nasty-looking Bourbon chicken from a vendor in the food court, and proceeded toGamer's Castle.

"Hi," said the gawky teenager behind the counter. I nodded and briefly looked through the racks of role-playing game merchandise. There was Dungeons and Dragons stuff out thewazoo , and even kits for hosting your own murder mystery parties, should I ever grow weary of having my murder mystery needs satisfied by real life.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" the teenager asked.

"Actually, yes," I said, approaching the counter and taking out the piece of card. "Could you tell me which game this belongs to?"

He took the card from me, glanced at it for a split second, the handed it back. "Oh, sure, it's a level one imp. It's one of the weakest characters in Prophecies of the Night. They're very common, not collectible at all."

"Prophecies of the Night?I've never heard of it."

"That's not surprising. It's really not very popular. It has a very weak character generation system, not anywhere near as realistic as the designer's last of couple games. But he was having personal problems and a tight deadline on this one, so it's understandable."

"Of course," I agreed.

"We returned a bunch of stuff to the distributor, but we have a few enemy decks left if you're interested. That's where the piece you've got came from."

"Well, if it has an unrealistic character generation system I'll probably have to pass. You wouldn't happen to know of any groups that play regularly, would you?"

The teenager shook his head."Nah. Like I said, it's not very popular. Actually, you could check the bulletin board against the far wall in case somebody posted one and I didn't notice, but I'm pretty sure there's not."

I walked back to the bulletin board, which was covered with index cards advertising gaming groups. I took a few moments to scan them, but the teenager had been right, there were none for Prophecies of the Night. Oh well. It was a long shot anyway.

I was about to thank the teenager and leave, but something stopped me. Okay, all I'd found was a tiny little piece of card stuck to my jeans. But unless it was already in the ditch, it had to have got there when the killer was moving me, and so there was a good chance that he was a player. And I'd read a few mystery novels, enough to know that it was usually the insignificant clue that solved the case.

I returned to the counter. "Actually, I'd like a deck of those cards, if you don't mind."

"No problem." The teenager left the counter and returned an instant later holding a small deck. He punched some keys on the cash register. "That'll be eighteen eighty."

"Say what?"

"Eighteen dollars and eighty cents, including tax."

"For a deck of cards?"

"Yeah."

"No, no, no, cards don't cost eighteen dollars and eighty cents," I explained."Cards a buck or two. A little more if they have naked women on them."

"You're not a seasoned gamer, are you?"

"Obviously not."

"I can give you a ten percent discount if you join ourGamer's Castle frequent buyer club. It costs ten dollars and is good for a full year."

"No, thanks, I'll pay retail." I dug out my wallet and grudgingly handed him a twenty, hoping that these damn cards at least came with bubble gum. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to know a Michael Ashcraft, would you?"

The teenager thought for a moment."Nope."

"Jennifer Ashcraft?"

"Nope."

"Okay. Thanks for your help."

NOT BEING Sherlock Holmes has its disadvantages. While Sherlock would have been able to solve the whole mystery based on the composition of the dirt on the jeans I wore last night, I managed to pretty much bumble around for the next couple hours without learning anything of interest. I stopped at Michael's house, a fairly nice one-story deal in the suburbs, but the neighbors on one side were having a yard sale, and the neighbor on the other side was out mowing his lawn, so I decided it would be best to postpone any serious investigating.

I returned home to find that my mother-in-law had just brought the kids back, so we sat down to a soup and sandwich lunch. I tried to be a cheerful daddy, but with everything that was on my mind it was difficult to be as immature as my kids would have liked, even while listening to Kyle's vivid description of yesterday's activities.

"An' we played Squish the Bug an' we—"

"It's Stomp the Bug, stupid," Theresa corrected in that special way big sisters have.

"An' we played Stomp the Bug an' Theresa was the bug six times an' I was only the bug four times an' then Aunt Marcia came an' she took us to get frozen yogurt an' I got chocolate vanilla swirl an' Theresa got regular chocolate an' she dropped her cone in Aunt Marcia's car an' Aunt Marcia got mad an' said not to drop her cone again or she wouldn't be allowed to have food in the car an' Theresa said okay."

"Wow, busy night," I said.

"Yeah.An' wewatchedThe ElrodMcBugleShow . Elrod drank a whole swimming pool an' everyone who was swimming got mad."

"Will you take us swimming, Daddy?" asked Theresa.

"I can't today, sweetie. Daddy has stuff to do. But I promise I'll take you pretty soon. Just play outside today, but remember what I said about staying away from the boy next door. Anyone who tries to feed you kitty litter is not a true friend."

"Are you going off to be a freeloader?" Kyle inquired.

Helen nearly choked on a spoonful of soup. "Where did you hear that?" she asked.

"Aunt Marcia. What does `freeloader' mean?"

I decided to field that one. "It means your Aunt Marcia needs to keep her enormous mouth—"

Helen cut me off. "It means Daddy is currently testing various career opportunities."

"Oh," said Kyle, nodding with understanding.

Roger grinned."Testing various career opportunities. That's exactly the way I would have phrased it."

"Shut up," I said.

"Daddy, you're not supposed to tell people to shut up," Theresa informed me.

"Roger doesn't count. You can tell him to shut up all you want."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," sang Kyle.

"Andrew, please don't talk to our children any more than is absolutely necessary," said Helen.