Page 48 of Stay Buried

Now Benjamin looked at me with his one good eye. “Think of Pearl,” he said. “The one thing you and I may have in common, Frankie, is that neither of us would ever want to see her get hurt, isn’t that right?”

I drew in a jagged breath of air, both at the thought of Pearl being injured and the knowing way he was looking at me. I understood that Benjamin had heard enough in the pantry to comprehend what was between his daughter and me—to guess at it, at the very least.

He turned back to Uncle Thomas. “Perhaps the illness will progress to the next stage, will burn itself out. But whatever happens, you’ll be able to monitor my condition. And keep me from harming myself or anyone else.”

Thomas glanced at me, then back to Benjamin.

“Do it in the interest of science,” Benjamin pleaded. “Maybe what you learn from me can help someone else.”

“All right,” Uncle Thomas agreed at last. “But not until you’re ill with fever. And perhaps it won’t come to that.”

“Perhaps not, but if it does, it means I have less than twelve hours. And I need to find my wife.”

TWENTY-TWOASHLEY

October 17, 2016

The Loon’s Call Pub was decorated in much the same way as the motel: worn-out hunting motifs. A dusty deer head with enormous antlers hung on the wall, along with a moose head and a stuffed trout. In front of the neon Budweiser sign, a weasel of some sort was posed with his front right paw raised, head cocked, frozen and waiting with dim, scratched glass eyes. Country music drifted from a tinny-sounding speaker somewhere. Two heavyset men in flannel shirts and ball caps were sitting at the bar, nursing beers and talking quietly. They swiveled their heads around like owls when the bells on the door announced Ash and Mal’s arrival. A third man, with tangled hair, a thick beard, and filthy clothes, sat at the far end of the bar. Another man in navy work pants and matching jacket sat at a table near the door—he looked up from his sandwich and fries and glared at them. No sign of the woman Ashley had seen walking in earlier.

If she’d even been there at all.

There were a few sepia-toned photos on the wall. Ashley steppedcloser to one and saw it was dated 1915, showing the Stoddard Factory with rows of men posed in front of it. She was studying a photo of a group posed in front of the small white church in town when Malcolm lightly pulled her arm. “Look, another Lorelei Prentice original,” he whispered, nodding toward the large watercolor behind the bar: a stag and doe standing by a stream, both slightly misshapen, their eyes too far back and painted a vivid aquamarine. “Now, I’m no expert woodsman or hunter, but I have to say that’s the first blue-eyed deer I’ve ever encountered.”

“Artistic license,” Ash said, grinning at him.

As they made their way to a table toward the back, Malcolm stopped, studying another old framed photo on the wall: two girls in dresses with matching ribbons in their hair, one maybe ten, the other twelve or thirteen. He pointed to the older, more serious-looking one: “She kinda looks like you.”

But Ashley barely glanced at the photo. Her eyes were drawn to the shelves behind the bar to the left of the deer painting, where rows of liquor bottles were crowded together. Standing among them were half a dozen little dolls similar to the one at Lorelei’s: yarn hair, wooden painted faces, little cloth outfits. As if they too had just noticed her gaze, she felt all of their tiny painted-on eyes watching her.

Ash and Malcolm settled in at a table. There was yet another old photo on the wall above them: a shot of Main Street with a horse-drawn wagon. The photo was a little out of focus, making the driver of the wagon seem almost ghostly, his bearded face blurred, body lost in a long coat.

A waitress came through the swinging doors from the kitchen and watched them for a long moment. She turned back to confer with someone on the other side of the doors. Finally, she decided it was time to come over to their table.

She arrived with menus and place settings. Ash guessed her to be around forty, with dyed red hair, growing out at the roots.

She set down menus and silverware with a clang.

“Anything to drink?” she asked.

They both ordered the burger and beer special. The waitress sighed as if they were inconveniencing her greatly, but jotted their order on her pad and sauntered back toward the kitchen.

She came right back out with a burger that she put in front of the disheveled man at the bar.

“Compliments of Jeff,” she said with a smile.

The man was smiling down at the plate. “He even put a fried egg on top.”

She nodded at him. “We’re thinking of putting it on the menu. Naming it after you—the Sad Willy Special.”

He laughed. “That would be something. You tell Jeff thanks for me, will ya?”

She looked over at Ashley and Malcolm’s table. She was studying Malcolm now, squinting at him, her face all pinched up in concentration like he was a problem she was trying to solve. Though Mal didn’t notice, Ash certainly did.

After a few long seconds of this, the waitress turned away, grabbed two mugs, and went over to the beer taps.

At the end of the counter, the man who was apparently known as Sad Willy dove into his burger, eating quickly, messily, egg yolk and ketchup running down his beard.

The man in the blue work clothes said something inaudible to the waitress, pushed his chair back, and walked over to them. “Ashley Flanders,” he said, looking at Ash. It wasn’t a question.