“Before you go any further,” Doc interrupted me, “I need to say something first.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Okay.”

  The light coming from the window went dark. I covered the earpiece of the phone, muting Doc’s voice just to be safe. I couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the wall.

  Whoever had been in the room was either gone, or had heard me and was standing in the dark listening. I waited another couple of seconds, and then held the phone back up to my ear.

  “… leaving you alone,” Doc was saying.

  Leaving me alone? Was he really breaking up with me over the phone? Right now? In the middle of my attempt to sneak a glimpse of a crematorium?

  “Wait! No.”

  “What?” Doc asked.

  “I swear, I had no idea he was going to have us there to talk to ghosts.”

  “Are we even sharing the same conversation, Violet?”

  “Yes. No.” I covered my other ear as a loud, rattling and clattering sound passed by on the street in front of the funeral parlor. Someone was losing a muffler. When the vehicle moved on, I said, “I don’t know. What were you saying again?”

  Silence came through the line.

  “Doc?” I whispered. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes,” he said, but he didn’t sound thrilled about it.

  The door to the garage thumped shut again. The sound of shoes hitting asphalt rang clear in the night.

  I peeped around the corner of the building, catching sight of Eddie Mudder’s silhouette walking toward his new pickup.

  Something crashed in the trees behind me.

  What was that?

  I couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

  “Violet,” Doc’s voice reminded me that I was still pressing the phone against my ear. “Where are you right now?”

  I checked in on Eddie—he was looking my way.

  Jerking back, I flattened myself against the back wall again. Crap!

  “I can hear you breathing, Violet,” Doc said.

  Double-crap! I didn’t dare say a word.

  “Fine,” Doc said. But his tone sounded anything but dandy. “When you’re ready to stop playing games, Violet, come and see me.”

  He hung up on me.

  Fuck!

  The growly sound of Eddie’s truck cranking to life made me wilt in relief. I could hear his stereo cranking out some organ-heavy riff through the closed windows.

  When I looked around the corner, Eddie’s red taillights were coming right toward me. Pulling back, I waited as he shifted into gear and rolled off. I counted to ten and checked to make sure the coast was clear. Much more of this sneaking around and I’d have to add adult diapers to my spy kit.

  As my breathing slowed, I realized how dark and quiet it seemed behind the garage.

  Extra dark.

  Unusually quiet.

  I reached for my flashlight, covering the face of it, and clicked it on.

  A twig snapped close behind me.

  Spinning around, I raised the light, spotlighting a grizzled face.

  I sucked in breath.

  “Gotcha!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “God damn it, Harvey,” I growled under my breath and snapped the old bugger’s suspenders. “You scared the bejeezus out of me.”

  His two gold teeth gleamed in the flashlight’s beam. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re lousy at sneakin’ around in the dark?”

  “I was doing just fine before you crept up on me.”

  He snatched my flashlight away and shut it off. “If you were good at this, you would’ve heard me comin’.”

  I had heard something crash earlier, but I hadn’t wanted to let my imagination wander while tip-toeing around alone in the dark outside a funeral parlor.

  “And I suppose you’re a real pro at it.” I whispered.

  “Damned straight.”

  I grabbed my flashlight back, catching a whiff of something sweet with a hint of lemon. I sniffed in his direction. “What’s that smell?”

  “I got carried away with the lemon meringue.”

  My stomach gurgled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch with Mona. “I love Miss Geary’s pies.”

  “I’m not talking about pie. This was some of that homemade love gel.”

  Before he could explain in greater detail, I told him, “No. Don’t tell me.” I didn’t want him to ruin all future lemon meringue pies for me. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We’re not done yet.”

  “Yes, we are.” I glanced around the corner of the garage again, feeling sweatier and more paranoid with Harvey standing next to me. The last thing I needed was to be caught creeping around in the dark behind Mudder Brothers with Detective Cooper’s uncle.

  “Did you take a look-see inside this place yet?” He knocked on the wall of the garage.

  “Shhhh.” I grabbed Harvey’s hand mid-knock. “Mostly. The only thing suspicious is a basket full of scorched surgical parts.”

  “I always wondered what George did with all of the stuff that didn’t burn.”

  “Now you know.” I tugged on his hand. “Let’s get out of here before someone hears us and tattles to your nephew.”

  He didn’t budge. “Nobody is out here sneaking around but us, and Cooper’s too busy right now to care.”

  Knowing Cooper’s squinty-eye glare as well as I did, I doubted Harvey. “What do you mean he’s too busy?”

  “He’s in the middle of a poker game with that lousy, good-for-nothing sheriff.”

  “The one who stole the love of your life and married her?”

  “She wasn’t the love of my life.”

  “Then what’s with this big grudge of yours?”

  I heard more than saw him scratch his whiskers. “A man needs to have something to hang on to and growl about all of his life.”

  “Death and taxes aren’t enough for you?”

  “You can’t pick fights with either of those things.”

  “But you can with the county sheriff?” I preferred to run from the law, not throw punches at it.

  “You betcha. Just the sound of his name gets me all riled up—huffin’ and puffin’, jabbin’, dodgin’.” His clothes rustled in the shadows as he showed me his version of Mohammed Ali.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, chuckling when he did a spin move that had him stumbling into the back of the garage. “Huffing and jabbing and dodging, huh?” I couldn’t resist and added, “Sounds similar to what you do with Miss Geary during Jeopardy.”

  Harvey snickered. “Not quite. For one thing, when I’m riled up about the sheriff, I’m wearing my skivvies, so my boys aren’t swinging along with me, keepin’ time with each poke.”

  Bleck! What had I been thinking encouraging him? “Stop right there,” I whispered.

  “You started it.”

  “And now I’m ending it.” I headed for the hills … or rather the hill behind Mudder Brothers that led up to Mount Moriah.

  “Hold up there, girl.” Harvey grabbed my arm, pulling me back. “I told you, we’re not done yet.”

  “We were finished with that subject last week as far as I’m concerned.”

  “I mean we’re not done here.” He tugged the flashlight from my grip and flicked it on, directing the beam at the base of the garage. “There is something you need to see.”

  “I told you I already looked inside. The place is full of autopsy goodies and cremation leftovers.” Yuck. That came out wrong. I shouldn’t mix death and food.

  “Did you look in the other window?”

  “There is no other window.” At least I hadn’t seen one earlier when I was checking the place out from the trees.

  “I’m not talking about the garage.” Harvey tugged me around the other side of the building, pausing at the front corner. He leaned out. “You see anybody?”

  I pulled my arm free and took a step back into the safety of deeper shadows. “The only thing I see is an ornery old man who is going to land my butt in jail.”

  “Quit being such a girl,” he whispered. “You really need to grow a pair of balls if you’re gonna to do this sneakin’ around stuff more often.”

  Again with the testicle talk. “I’m not being a ‘girl,’ I’m being a responsible parent.”

  “You’re being a big weenie,” he said in a slightly louder voice.

  “Fine. When they start selling ball sac seedlings down at the hardware store, let me know. I’ll be the first in line.”

  He chuckled low and quiet. “I don’t think Doc would have as much fun fondling those as he does your—”

  “Leave Doc out of this.” And my you-know-whats.

  He grunted. “Seems to me that’s what keeps gettin’ you into trouble with the boy. You two need to work on your communication skills and stop building these walls between you.”

  I stared at him in the dark for a handful of seconds. “Have you been reading Miss Geary’s copies of Woman’s World again?”

  “It has some really good recipes, and I need something to look at when I’m lollygaggin’ in the john.”

  Shaking my head, I leaned back against the garage. “Trust me, romance therapy is not your forte. You should stick to reading the backs of shampoo bottles.”

  “Quit trying to change the subject. You know I’m right. Doc should be the one standing here with you right now, not me.”

  “Doc would never have come.”

  “You don’t know that. You didn’t even ask him.”

  “Of course not. He would’ve tried to talk me out of coming.”

  “See, that right there is the problem with your relationship. A lack of communication, starting with you.”

  “We don’t even have a relationship yet.” It was sex mixed with a few steamy phone calls.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Harvey, I don’t even know where the man is from.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “Kind of.”

  “How do you kind of ask someone something? You do or you don’t.”

  “Doc is a closed book.”

  “And you’re all open arms and secret-sharing?”

  He couldn’t see my eyes roll. “Are we really going to stand here in the dark outside a crematorium and discuss my love life, Dr. Ruth?” Or lack of it, as it was lately.

  “She’s a sex therapist, not a love doctor.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Don’t ‘whatever’ me,” he scolded under his breath. “Think about it. If you’re not in a relationship, why has he hustled to save your bacon time and again? Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

  “Doc has saved my bacon once, thank you very much.” An old lady with a shotgun saved it the other time. Well, mostly.

  “That’s because you won’t give him a chance to come to your rescue, like I did tonight. Men like to play the Lone Ranger, ridin’ in with guns drawn.”

  “Come to my … like you did, my ass.” I jammed my hands on my hips.

  “Like I said, think about it.” He turned and walked away from me then, stealing across the drive toward the house.

  “There’s nothing to think about,” I murmured and rushed to catch up with Harvey as he reached the back corner of the funeral parlor. Thinking too much about my fears revolving around Doc meant opening dusty old trunks in my brain that were better left shut and locked.

  “You know, I was doing just fine here before you snuck up on me.”

  He harrumphed me and whispered, “You call finding nothing but a bunch of stainless steel bedpans ‘just fine’?”

  “They aren’t bedpans. They are autopsy pans.”

  “Piss or blood—what’s the difference? Both get sticky when they dry.”

  I frowned at his back as he slipped into the deep shadows along the side of the big house. Sticky? I mouthed. What had he been drinking?

  I caught up with him as he bent over with a grunt next to a basement window surrounded by a half-circle of corrugated tin that kept the earth at bay.

  “Here.” Harvey handed me the light, then leaned over and spoke low in my ear. “Crawl down in there and take a look. Tell me if you see what I think I saw earlier.”

  “What do you mean ‘earlier’? How long have you been here tonight?”

  “I came down right after you hung up. Just in time to see you trying to play Cy Young with that rock. You throw like a girl, too.”

  “I am a girl, and I can throw just fine, big mouth.”

  “Not from what I saw.” He nudged me forward. “Get down there and take a gander before somebody sees us.”

  Now he was worried about that? I hopped down in the hole and squatted in front of the window. When I flicked on the flashlight, my breath whooshed out.

  “Holy shit!” That came out as more of a hiss after I’d filled my lungs again. Staring at the strange, barbaric-looking tools nailed to the walls, lining shelves, hanging from the ceiling, I whispered, “What is all of this stuff?”

  It looked like a scene from the house in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

  “Antiques,” Harvey said.

  “From a butcher shop?”

  “No. Those are mortician’s tools. See that black box over on the floor under those big ol’ shears? The open one?”

  I nodded, pointing the flashlight at it.

  “That’s an amputation kit from the Civil War era.”

  I leaned in closer to the glass, shining my light at other similar-looking open boxes. Rows of long, razor-sharp looking knives lined up like little soldiers in the gold and scarlet velvet-lined cases. I grimaced at the scenes of filleted cadavers that popped into my head. Pointy-ended pinchers snuggled up alongside the knives. An array of uncomfortably long dental-like drills and scrapers were placed perpendicular to the blades. My grimace became a series of winces as I studied each frightening tool, my imagination running wild, screaming like a banshee. In three of the cases, I noticed some specialized kind of handsaws secured to the lid. I’d seen too many gory movies to spend any alone time in this room in the dark.

  “How do you know it’s from the Civil War era?”

  “Don’t you ever watch the History Channel?”

  “I’m a little busy raising kids and working my ass off.”

  “Yet you have time to sit on the couch eating peanut butter fudge ice cream and watching old Bogart whenever you feel like it.”

  “Leave Humphrey out of this,” I said with a low growl.

  “Or those Elvis—”

  “Zip it with the blasphemy.” I directed the flashlight’s beam up the wall, stopping on a pair of glistening blades. “What are those?”

  “I already told you—big ol’ shears.”

  “They’re very shiny.”

  “I’m betting they’re nice and sharp, too. Good for amputating.”

  “Are those from the Civil War, too?”

  “Nope, not with that tooling. Those babies look pre-Civil War to me.”

  I glanced up at Harvey. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen shears that big. How do you know they aren’t just old-fashioned garden loppers?”

  “Because they’re hanging in a room with a collection of death tools.”

  “Maybe that’s because the garage is full of autopsy equipment,” I said, rising to my feet.

  “I don’t think those belong in the garden shed. I think they’re used to cut off something big.”

  “What do you mean? Like a leg?” I asked.

  “Or a head.”

  “Or a head.” I shivered as the words sank in.

  Funny thing, there was a headless corpse with a very cleanly sliced neck chilling somewhere on this very property. I stared up at Harvey. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  He shrugged, looking toward the front of the funeral parlor. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you can see that police cruiser inching by out front with the really bright spotlight heading our way.”

  “What?!”

  “You better duck, girl,” he said and jogged off toward the back of the building, leaving me there alone in the hole.

  Shit! I scrambled out onto the grass, pushing to my feet, and chased after him, slipping around the back of the building as the spotlight swept past.

  “That was close,” I said, huffing as much from fear as the sprint. I socked Harvey in the arm. “I can’t believe you just left me back there. Some bodyguard you are.”

  “What?” He rubbed where my punch had landed. “I warned you, didn’t I?”

  I glanced around the corner, the cruiser was gone. “What are we going to do about those shears?”

  “Nothing.”

  With a frown, I turned on him. “Well, that seems a bit anti-climactic after dragging me to that window and filling my head with stories of amputation and decapitation.”

  “Haven’t you learned anything about jumping to conclusions yet, girl? You can’t just go running around playing town crier without hard evidence to support your crazy notions.”

  “So, what do we do? Wait until someone else loses their head and shows up on your ranch clutching another one of my business cards?”

  “No.” He caught my wrist and dragged me toward the trees. “But I have an idea that just might work.”

  * * *

  Tuesday, August 21st (just after midnight)

  Once again Mr. Sand Man was refusing to pay me a visit. After lying in bed for an hour, listening to Natalie call out Bingo ball numbers in her sleep, I gave up and escaped to Aunt Zoe’s kitchen.

  Alone in the darkness, I dropped into a chair and stared at the bottle of sleeping pills on the table in front of me.

  Speculating.

  Worrying.

  Twitching.

  Scratching—but that had more to do with the mosquitoes that had been sneaking around Mudder Brothers along with me.

  All of the “what ifs” from my snooping field trip had my brain churning, keeping the sandman away like a nocturnal restraining order. I’d played Bo-Peep counting my stupid dang sheep for an hour, but the images of all of those horrible antique tools the Mudder brothers had collected kept distracting me.

  And what in the hell were they transporting in those crates?

  I wanted to talk to someone about it all, someone more rational than a trigger-happy old man who was just looking for a reason to drag his favorite shotgun, Bessie, down to Deadwood for a night on the town.