Graverobbers Wanted: No Experience Necessary

Chapter 8

"IT'S NO BIG deal," I said, trying to sound casual."Just a jack-in-the-box. Turn the crank, hear a catchy tune,see a clown pop up, squeal with delight."

"Uh-huh. So why is it sitting here on your car?"

"That I can't answer."

"You think the killer put it here, as a warning?"

"How should I know? I don't even think anyone inthereis the killer! One of them, or all of them, probably just stuck it out here as a prank. We'll turn the handle and see a clown with an axe in his head or something."

"Or it could explode and kill us both," Roger pointed out.

"Now you're getting a little paranoid. Do you think the killer just happened to have a booby-trapped jack-in-the-box sitting around in case we showed up?"

"I don't know, but I certainly welcome you to turn the handle and see what happens. I'll be way the hell over there behind that tree."

"Okay, look, this is stupid. I'll pick it up, march right back in there, and demand to know who put it out here."

"It could have been any of them," said Roger. "Rachel could've done it while I was in the back being tortured, and anyone else could've done it while we were in the waiting room."

"If there's a back door, yeah.Farley could have snuck out unnoticed when Carl came out to gripe about his tripod. Were Dominick and Linda with you the whole time?"

Roger shook his head. "Dominick wasn't with me at all. And Linda was kind enough to give me some privacy while I took a leak. But if we go in there and raise hell over a jack-in-the-box, we're going to look really stupid."

"I never intended to raise hell," I said. "We'd just walk back inside and ask who left it. No big deal."

"I say we knock the stupid thing off your car with a stick and then get out of here," Roger suggested. "If the killer did leave it, he wouldn't have been stupid enough to let himself be seen going outside with it, and if we ask too many questions about it we're going to blow the whole reporter setup."

"You're right," I agreed. "But I don't think we should throw it away. It could be an important clue."

"Well, sure, when knives shoot through the sides at us, that'll be an importantclue leading us to conclude that it was a trap!"

"Roger, it's a jack-in-the-box! A toy! Nobody knew we were coming! Who the hell keeps explosive knife-shooting jack-in-the-boxes around?"

"Who the hell buries people alive?"

"Okay, look," I said calmly. "It's there for a reason. If our friend wanted us dead, he would have stabbed us to death right after he murdered Jennifer. He would not leave a trap on our car. It's impractical. And unless everyone in Ghoulish Delights is in on it, having us die right outside of the house would immediately get him questioned by the police!"

"Everyonecouldbe in on it," said Roger. "They were all pretty scary. That Farley lunatic enjoys his work a little too much, if you ask me."

"Now you're just being ridiculous," I said. "At the very least we need to quit standing around debating this and get out of sight in case somebody comes out to ask us what we're doing. Get in the car. I'll grab the box."

"You're actually going to touch it?"

"Yes."

"Idiot."

"Oh, shut up." I reached for the box...but then hesitated at the last moment. Damn that Roger. Now I was scared to touch a children's toy. The stupid thing couldn't be a trap. There were so many better ways to get rid of us.

"Gee, Andrew, why are you pausing?"

"I told you to get in the car and shut up." I took a deep breath, and slowly extended my index finger toward the box. I made contact, and then pulled back as if I'd just touched a hot stove.

"Something wrong?" asked Roger.

"No, you've got me all freaked out." I forced myself to pick up the jack-in-the-box with both hands, revealing a small piece of paper underneath. Written in blood-red letters were the words "Badgraverobbers !"

This was not good.

I tucked the jack-in-the-box under my arm, picked up the note, and then got in the car. I handed the note to Roger as I set the box in the back seat.

"Oh, piss," said Roger.

"Yep.So, either the killer followed us here, or it's somebody inside."

"Or somebody else could know."

"Right, that too." I started the engine. "We need to find out what's in this box."

"Screw that. I say we take it to the police, let them check it out."

"Roger, are you using your brain on a time-share program?" I asked as I backed out onto the road. "Did you forget that the whole reasonwehaven't gone to the police is that we got into this mess by agreeing to dig up a corpse in the boondocks?"

"We could make something up," said Roger. "Jennifer's dead, it's not like she'sgonna contradict us."

I shook my head. "Even if we could come up with a convincing story that answers all the questions they'd throw at us, we don't have anything to give them but a jack-in-the-box. And we don't know what it means yet."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

"Find out what it means."

"I don't know, Andrew, this kind of reminds me of a really nutty decision made by some guys I used to know. They agreed to dig up a coffin for twenty thousand dollars. Where are we going, anyway?"

"ToMerriamLake ," I replied. "I might be able to ease your worries."

"I CAN'T BELIEVE we're doing this," said Roger.

I couldn't quite believe it myself. We were parked at the edge ofMerriamLake , standing outside watching the water. The jack-in-the-box had been submerged for the past fifteen minutes. If Roger was so worried that it was going to blow up, I figured we'd dunk it for a while.

I don't know anything about bombs, so I had no idea if this would even do any good. And in fact, I was more inclined to believe that it was really, really dumb. But if it were something low-budget and gunpowder-based, soaking it might work. So that's what I was doing.

Finally I waded out and retrieved the jack-in-the-box. I brought it back to shore and set it down on the grass. "Are you happy now?" I asked.

"No. That couldn't possibly have been enough time to rust any knives in there."

"There aren't any goddamn knives! Do you see any place a knife could come through?" I tapped on the side of the tin box, causing Roger to flinch. "See?Solid. No knives. I'm just going to turn the crank and see what's inside. If you're going to keep being a big baby, you can go hide somewhere and I'll tell you what happened later."

I could tell that the idea was appealing to him, but to his credit Roger stayed where he was. "Okay, I'll watch you turn the crank. Just keep your head away from that top part."

"I was going to." I knelt down beside the box and firmly gripped the handle. I took a deep breath, braced myself, and then let go of the handle. "All right, I don't see any harm in pushing a big mud pile around three of thesides, to sort of block anything that might shoot out, do you?"

Roger agreed that he saw nothing wrong with the idea, so we scooped up some mud from the shore and built a protective barrier around the jack-in-the-box, covering everything but the lid and the handle. That finished, Roger returned to his position of relative safety next to the car and I gripped the handle once more.

I turned the crank. "Pop Goes the Weasel!" began to play. It occurred to me that I didn't know any of the lyrics to this song besides the "Pop Goes the Weasel!" part. I'm sure my brain chose to share that information with me just to distract me from the fact that I was excessively nervous.

Dah-dah,dah-dah ,dah-dah-dah-dah-dah ,dah-dah ,dah-dah ,dah -DAH,dah ,dah-dah ,dah-dah ,dah-dah-dah-dah-dah ...

I stopped turning right before the weasel went pop.

"Is it broken?" asked Roger.

"No, it's not broken. Leave me alone."

"I'd understand if you want to forget the whole thing."

"Don't talk—you're distracting me."

"From turning the handle?"

"Shut up or I'm yanking this thing right out of the mud and coming after you with it."

"Maybe we should soak it another fifteen minutes."

"No! Just be quiet! I'm going to turn it!" I continued holding the handle, but eased myself as far away from the box as I could and still reach.

Then I turned.

DAH!

Dah-dah-DAH-dah.Dah-dah,dah-dah ....

The lousy weasel didn't even know when to pop. I continued turning the handle, and it went through the second verse of "Pop Goes the Weasel," the one that reportedly caused the songwriters to break up over creative differences.

This time, I didn't hesitate at the pop, and the lid sprung open. A cute little clown burst out, bobbing to and fro on his little spring. Taped to one of the clown's hands was a small wet envelope. I tore it off.

"Are yougonna cover that thing with mud, just in case?" Roger asked.

"No, I'm not going to...okay,I'll cover it up to make you feel better." With my foot, I moved a huge glob of mud over the top of the jack-in-the-box. Then, worrying that some kids might come playing aroundhere, I pulled the box out of the mud and heaved it as far into the lake as I could. Nothing blew up and no dead fish rose to the surface, so I figured everything was cool.

I opened the envelope and removed the folded piece of paper inside. Roger apparently decided there was nothing to fear from it and walked over to join me.

On the paper, in the same blood-red letters was written: "If you want to see Jennifer again, be at theEverlifeCemetery at midnight."

"Oh,nowthat's interesting," said Roger.

"That's impossible," I protested. "I heard—"

I stopped. I'donlyheard her die. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to fake a death that I never got to see.

But why?Why would somebody kidnap Roger, threaten to use him as a hostage but let him go, then fake Jennifer's death, only to use her as a hostage...or something like that?

This whole situation was becoming slightly quaint.

WE WERE both completely baffled, and so I made the decision for Roger to engage in some real detective work.Meaning that I told him to hide in the woods around the graveyard to see if he could learn the identity of the killer. For some odd reason he was not all that keen on this idea, but using my expert skills at encouraging others to obey my will ("Quit your whining and just do it, for God's sake!"), I managed to convince him. I dropped him off at his apartment with instructions to buy some more bullets for Michael's gun, drive to the cemetery, hide well, and not try to apprehend the killer himself. Not that he ever would.

I drove home to spend some quality minutes with my family before heading out again. Nobody was there, but I saw the light blinking on the answering machine. This pleased me, because Helen had insisted that the new message I'd recorded would cause people to decide they didn't really want us to return their call:

"Hi, you've reached the residence of Andrew, Helen, Theresa, and Kyle Mayhem. Because we've lost a number of close friends lately in telephone-related accidents, we're unable to bring ourselves to answer your call at this time. But if you leave your name and number at the tone, we'll get back to you as soon as therapy cures the problem."

I pressed the button, listened to the message, and immediately got back in my car and drove to the hospital.