The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
“See what?” Bobby demanded.
“It’s a casket handle.” She turned it over, and used her gloves to rub off some of the tarnish. “And it’s silver. See, funeral companies used to make these kits for people who couldn’t afford a nice casket. They’d stick the nice hardware on for the service, just for show. When all the prayers were said, someone would yank everything off before the box went into the ground—then use it again later.”
“That’s…” Brad looked like he wanted to say “gross,” but he settled for “strange.”
“Nope. It was logical. If you weren’t rich, why would you pay a fortune for silver or gold casket trimmings, just to bury them? The dead didn’t care, and the living needed the money.” Dahlia thought she’d found another one, but it turned out to be the corner of an empty box, rusted and crushed into a lump of scrap. “So bring out the lights and get yourselves some shovels or something. Dad will go apeshit for Victorian casket bling, even if it’s not solid sterling.”
Brad used a pry bar, Dahlia took a shovel, and Bobby dove in with his hands and feet, lifting and shoving the bigger pieces with Gabe’s help.
Gabe took a door panel that was partly intact, and turned it around. There was artwork on it, something painted but terribly faded. She could almost make out the words “funerary services.” He pointed at the letters and asked, “How did you know, Dahl?”
“Know what?”
“How’d you know this was a hearse?”
She tagged something heavy with the shovel’s edge, and squatted down to dig it out by hand. “You know those tombstones we found in the carriage house?”
“Yeah?”
“The Withrow family used to make them. They had their own business: the Withrow Monument Company.” She extracted another handle from the rubble. “Got another one. Y’all need to catch up.”
“What if there aren’t any more?” Bobby fussed.
“There should be four, at least, more likely six. Assuming the set’s intact. So keep looking.” She dropped the handle with a clank beside the other one. “Anyway, I figured if the Withrows were making tombstones, they might have branched out in the death business. I saw the curtains, and the glass … it was an educated hunch.”
Bobby grunted, signaling that he was about to argue, or accuse her of making a lucky guess—but the grunt turned into an exclamation. “Hey, I got one over here.” He picked it up and rubbed it on his jeans. “This fucker’s heavy. I bet it’s solid.” He tossed it to her.
She added it to the pile. “Solid something. We’ll let Dad decide what it’s made of.”
Gabe stumbled forward, catching himself on his hands and turning one of the hearse’s back panels into sawdust. It crumbled beneath his weight, and beneath years of termites and rodents and rot, all doing their worst. “One more,” he chirped. “Bruised the shit out of my hand, but if it’s silver, I’m not complaining!” He passed this one Dahlia’s way. “So did Mrs. Withrow tell you about the family business?”
“Yep, just now. I showed her that photo album we found, and she told me about some of the people in it.”
Brad paused, and rolled up his sleeves a little higher. He pushed them past his elbows. “Is that why she was here? You called her about a photo album?”
“I called her about the cemetery. She said we shouldn’t worry about it. I showed her the album as an afterthought.”
Brad’s eyes were full of dubious concern. “She said … not to worry about the cemetery?”
Dahlia wondered if he’d told anyone else about the spectral soldier. “According to her, it’s not a real cemetery, and nobody’s buried there. It’s an old Halloween prank, using unclaimed tombstones from the shop.”
“So you’re saying there aren’t any bodies,” Brad stated flatly.
“No bodies, no coffins. That’s what she told me.”
He shook his head and paid an awful lot of attention to the task of digging in the remains of the collapsed hearse. “Bullshit. I call bullshit.”
Gabe had his back. “I don’t buy it, either.”
Bobby stopped what he was doing and watched Dahlia with interest.
She stood up straight, and leaned on the handle of the shovel. “Why not? Because all of y’all think the place is haunted?”
The barn went quiet. Everyone stopped scrabbling around in the dirt, the crumbled timbers or wheels, and the ashy dust left behind by the hearse as it’d rotted through the decades. Nobody said anything in reply.
She sniffed. “At least nobody’s arguing with me.”
Brad put his hands up in that half-shrug, half-surrender he did so well. “You said it yesterday—we were talking about ghosts and old houses. Why shouldn’t the Withrow house have a haint or two hiding in the woodwork?”
She adjusted her grip on the shovel. Its metal head scraped on the unfinished floor. “I never said it wasn’t haunted,” she said carefully. “This is an old house, an old estate. Lots of people came and went. Some of them probably died, and if you believe in ghosts, there’s no good reason to think there aren’t any here.”
“You saw something?” Bobby asked. It was barely a question.
She wanted to pitch it right back at him, and ask if he’d seen anything himself. She didn’t. “It’s … not exactly like that.”
But Gabe pushed the matter. “Well, did you, or not?” And in his eyes she saw something very close to desperation.
“I’ve felt things,” she said, still playing it cool. It wouldn’t do any good to scare the whole crew half to death. They were jumpy enough as it was. “Like someone’s watching me, or like maybe I saw something out of the corner of my eye. None of it was worth getting too excited about, and there’s nothing to worry about, that’s for damn sure. Let me make myself clear: I never said there aren’t any ghosts on the grounds. I only said there wasn’t anyone buried in the cemetery—because it’s not a cemetery. That’s what Augusta Withrow said.”
Brad didn’t buy it. “She might be lying.”
“She might be, yeah. But I went looking through that photo album, and I didn’t see any of those family names on any of the tombstones over there. There’s not a single Withrow stone, and that doesn’t make any sense if it was a private cemetery on their land. The names are just … they’re all random. So can we let it go?” Dahlia lifted the shovel, jabbed it into the rubble, and resumed her search for the silver casket handles. “Ghosts or no ghosts, we’re burning daylight. We can’t salvage ghosts. They don’t sell for shit.”
One by one, the guys resumed digging, but they did it in silence—until Brad scored the final two handles, hiding side by side under one of the back wheels.
“That makes six,” he declared. “I’ll go lock them in the truck.”
“Why?” Dahlia asked.
“Because … they’re valuable? Maybe?”
Bobby grunted. “Everything’s maybe valuable. Nobody’s here to take it. Don’t be paranoid.”
Gabe shot Dahlia a dark look, but he didn’t say anything.
She didn’t sigh, but she wanted to. “I don’t know, Brad’s probably right. They’re shiny and easily portable. If anybody comes up around here, scrapping or scavenging, these would look like an easy score. It’s no more effort to lock them in the cab than to stack them in the rear. Gabe, you still got my keys?”
“Yes ma’am.” He tossed them back to her.
“I’ll go ahead and put them away. You and Bobby, get the generator out and running. Brad, get the Sawzalls ready to go. Check the blades and unroll the extension cords.”
“Why don’t we use the cordless models? This generator business is a pain in the ass,” he complained.
“You need electricity to charge batteries—so on a long job with no power, you’ll need the generator anyway. Just … go get everything. We’ll need it all, before the day’s out.”
The crew spent the rest of the morning disassembling the biggest pieces of the barn; and when lunch rolled around they were nearly finished—so they
“Then what?” Gabe asked. He was wrapping up an orange extension cord, folding it in loops between his elbow and thumb. It coiled tighter and tighter, thicker and thicker.
Dahlia didn’t have anything hard and fast in mind, so she guessed. “By the time we get all that lumber loaded, and all the nonscrap items into the other truck, it ought to be getting dark.”
“Then we could always get started on the house’s interior,” Brad suggested.
Bobby disagreed. “Or we could have a drink and take a fucking rest. I could use a beer. Or two, or three. Hell, we’re ahead of schedule, so we might as well relax. You think it’ll take us all day tomorrow and Thursday to break the house down? You’re crazy.”
“Like you’d know anything about how long it takes,” Dahlia grumbled.
“Hey, I might not have done a million of these, but I’m no idiot. The house is mostly empty, except for the stuff we plan to pry loose and make off with. It shouldn’t take a whole day.”
“I have done a million of these, and I can tell you those mantels will take for-fucking-ever to get out.” Dahlia took another long snake of extension cord and started winding it, somewhat more fiercely than Gabe. “You have to reinforce the marble where it’s cracked, or else the whole thing will crumble, and then what? Then the mantels and surrounds aren’t worth shit, that’s what.”
“Only two of them are marble.”
“Either one could wind up taking us all afternoon to secure—and they’re valuable enough to spend the time doing it right. Who’s the boss, Bobby?”
“Go to hell.”
“Who’s the boss? Tell me now, or pack your shit and go back to Nashville.” She flung the rolled cord onto the ground, and started picking up the power saws. “You’ve been getting too comfortable here, Bobby—thinking you can jerk off like usual, and all you have to do is be a little nice once in a while. Well that ain’t the case, and you can’t just squeak by on the bare minimum. So I’ll ask you again: Who’s in charge?”
He spit on the floor and turned on his heel. “You are, bitch.”
She told him, “Go get some lunch, asshole.” But he was already out of the barn and halfway back to the truck he called his own. She kept twisting the cords, squeezing them like she’d prefer to squeeze somebody’s neck.
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Cute. Real cute.” He collected the rolls of cord like oversized bangles on his forearm. “You two are real mature.”
She did her best not to snap, to be a grown-up and the boss instead. “I love you, Gabe, but you’ve gotta leave it alone. He can call me a bitch if he wants, so long as he does what I tell him.”
“You didn’t have to ride him so hard. He’s done all right, so far,” he protested.
She carried the Sawzalls out of the barn and to the back of her truck, which was parked much closer. “You mean except for now? And last night, when he ran off drinking?”
“He was here working this morning, while you were hanging out with that old lady.”
“He was here arguing with you all about what you found. I could hear you, you know, the whole time. Inside that house, with that window broken on the second floor … you can hear everything, all over the property. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat.”
“He was working before that. We all were, except you.”
“Gabe, seriously.”
“I’m just saying, you should cut him some slack,” he said, stubbornly. He followed behind her with the cords, and loaded them up.
She left him there, and went back for the rest of the equipment. Over her shoulder, she said, “He’s had nothing but slack, his entire life. Always needing a break, always needing money, always needing another chance, and this time, things will be different. Now, at his age…” She seized the last of the power-tool cases; they knocked together in her arms as she walked back to the truck yet again. “He doesn’t know how to behave like a goddamn adult, because nobody’s ever made him.”
“When did it become your job to make him?”
“When Daddy hired him, and put me in charge—that’s when.” She flung the cases into the truck and yanked the rolling door down. She locked it in accordance with Gabe’s preference, even though she was starting to get a little pissed with him, too. “Now, aren’t you hungry? Go get yourself some lunch.”
Out by the front entrance, she heard the sound of Bobby’s tires peeling out through the grass and gravel. Well, at least he hadn’t started drinking yet. Maybe he wouldn’t have half a dozen beers at lunch, and he’d make it back in one piece. Unless two days of decent behavior in a row was too much to hope for. “He’d better drive careful in that thing. Every time he takes it out, it’s carrying more loot, and we can’t afford for him to crash it or get it stolen. Now, where the hell did Brad go?”
Gabe paused and looked around. “I don’t see him. He could’ve left with Dad…? They get along okay.”
“I admit, it kind of surprises me.”
“Why? Because Dad doesn’t have any friends?”
“He doesn’t have any friends like Brad. Gabe, honey, come on. You know what I was trying to say.”
The boy relented. “Brad is kind of fancy for this line of work. But he’s doing all right, too. Maybe he went back inside. There’s plenty of sandwich stuff, if you don’t want to walk or drive all the way to Saint Elmo.”
“Do you want a sandwich?” she asked him.
“Not the kind we got in here. I want something hot. There’s a barbecue place down the hill, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, I saw that.” It was a good excuse to cool down. She didn’t need Gabe thinking she was angry with him, because he wasn’t the problem. “Hop into the cab, kid. Let’s go find some real food. We’ll bill it to your Uncle Chuck.”
“Will he be okay with that?”
“As long as we don’t expense any booze, I doubt he’ll care.” She paused, and said, “Let me look in the house. We’ll see if Brad wants to come, if we can find him.”
But when she rounded the truck, she spied him right away. He wasn’t in the house; he was standing in the cemetery that wasn’t a cemetery. “Brad!” she called. If he heard her, he ignored her. Maybe he was listening for the rustle of fabric, or the whispering rush of nonexistent ghosts clamoring for his attention.
They could get in line. She wanted his attention first.
She tagged him on the shoulder. He didn’t jump like he was surprised when she asked, “Dude, are you all right?”
“It’s bullshit…,” he whispered, looking down at the graves that weren’t graves. “I know there’s something buried here.”
“Honey, I wish you were right—believe me. I halfway thought, maybe, if there was a cemetery here, then we’d get lucky. I thought there was a chance the demo crew wouldn’t be able to take down the house if this was in the way. I thought it might buy the place some time.”
He looked at her, confused. “You want to save the house?”
“I always want to save the house.” She sighed. “Except for the one time when I bought the place myself, it’s never worked out. But this one, this Withrow house … it’s a hot mess, but I really love it. It speaks to me.”
“Yeah? What does it say?”
Because he sounded honestly interested, she answered him. “It’s unhappy. It’s angry.”
“The house, or you?”
“Can’t it be both of us? Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you except … I’m going to look up the Withrow graves—the real ones—and if I find where they’re buried, I’ll let you know. I’ll … I’ll call the county, too. If there was ever a cemetery opened on this property, even if it was just a family plot, there’d be some record. I might be able to buy the place a stay of execution.”
Brad nodded, and kicked gently at the nearest stone. “Okay. But I know what I saw, Dahli
From the other side of the truck, Gabe cried out, “Dahlia? Brad? Where the hell are you?”
“Over here!” she shouted back. “We’re coming.”
Brad frowned. “We are?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you hungry?”
He shook off whatever spell had held him there, and said, “You know what? I am. What’s on the menu?”
8
LUNCH WENT AS planned, and so did the afternoon’s truck loading—even though Bobby came back to work smelling like beer. He didn’t act any drunker than usual, and at least he was on time. He also kept his mouth shut, and he did his part to hoist the lumber up, over, and into the back of the truck right alongside Gabe, while Dahlia and Brad stayed inside the truck.
The trucks always held more than it looked like they ought to.
The day had warmed up to seventy-five degrees, and it was downright hot inside that truck; but the sun went behind the mountain around six, right about the time the last of the timbers were jammed into place.
It was as good a stopping point as any.
They packed up their equipment and locked the trucks, then headed inside for a cold supper—as penance for the money they’d spent on lunch. While the guys made sandwiches and cracked open cans of Chef Boyardee, Dahlia checked her messages and plugged in her phone at an outlet in the dining room. She set it on one of the built-in cabinet shelves and checked its display. The signal was good, but her battery was dying, and she didn’t want to drag her laptop all the way back down to the coffeehouse for Internet … but she did want to look around online, to see if she could find those Withrow graves. But first, a bite to eat.
She turned around to join the kitchen crew, and Bobby was there. Right behind her, like he’d snuck up and was about ready to yell, “Boo!” … only he looked just as surprised as she felt. He held up his hands and took a step back.