Death Notice (19 page)

Henry shook his head. “Nothing.”

The night boasted a half-moon, which made Kat grateful. Low in the sky, it cast a glow over the water so bright they barely needed to use the spotlight mounted on the bow of the boat. On the shore, narrow beams of light bounced through the trees next to the water. Flashlights, no doubt manned by volunteer state troopers. Tony Vasquez’s search party was already under way.

Turning to Carl, who manned the motor in the back, Kat asked, “This guy who called, where does he live?”

Carl pointed across the lake to a massive, lodge-style house pressed against the water’s edge. A solitary figure stood on its wide deck, backlit by the home’s interior lights as he watched the boat pass. When Kat waved, the figure waved back, arm arcing widely in the moonlight. She wondered who the mystery resident was and how he knew it was a coffin floating in the lake.

Overhead, a bottle rocket sliced the sky. A second later, a boom erupted through the clouds. It was followed by a red glow that briefly shimmered in the sky. Next came two more booms and two more flares of color, this time green and yellow.

Fireworks. They were being set off right on schedule.

Kat looked in their direction, seeing the shimmering colors just above the tree line at the lake’s far shore. The more powerful
ones cleared the trees entirely, rising high before exploding into blooms of fire that reflected off the water’s surface.

Next to her, Henry rose to his feet.

“I think I see it.”

Kat’s gaze swept away from the sky and across the lake, stopping at a dark rectangle bobbing a few yards from shore. Following her orders, Carl steered the boat in the object’s direction. He cut the engine when they drew close, letting the boat drift the rest of the way.

As the fireworks continued overhead, Kat swiveled the boat’s light toward the rectangle. Illuminated, it looked like an exact copy of the coffin George Winnick was found in. Untreated wood. No visible markings. Obviously handmade.

Reaching beneath her seat, Kat grabbed a retractable pole with a large metal hook attached to the end. Extending the pole to its full length, she swung it out over the water. The hook caught a corner of the coffin, and with Henry’s help, she pulled it toward them.

The coffin hit the side of the boat with a jarring thud. Something was inside it, that much was certain. A hollow box couldn’t have caused that much of an impact.

Once again, the coffin’s lid had been nailed shut, although Kat had cracked it when she hit it with the pole. That corner was slightly askew, creating an opening large enough for her to slide her fingers inside. With Henry leaning over the side of the boat to steady the coffin, Kat pried the lid up, easing a nail out of the wood. She did the same to each subsequent nail, working diligently until she had one side loose. A grunt and a tug took care of the rest.

Troy Gunzelman lay inside. He was naked, his skin damp from the few inches of water that had leaked into the coffin. The liquid sloshed around his body, a small tide rising and falling against his chalky flesh.

Kat reached into the coffin and pressed two fingers against the inside of Troy’s wrist, hoping to feel the faint bump of a pulse. There wasn’t one.

“He’s dead,” she said.

In the back of the boat, Carl’s voice rose in prayer.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . .”

The prayer continued as Kat examined the body. Blood was smeared across Troy’s mouth and chin. Underneath it lay a pattern of thread pinning his lips together. The same thread was on his neck, sewing up the gash where the killer had tried to play mortician.

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Troy’s eyes were covered by two pennies. In the darkness of the coffin, they resembled empty sockets instead of coins, giving the impression that Troy’s eyes had been removed. Kat aimed the light into the coffin. The beam exposed the blood on Troy’s face, brightening it into crimson Technicolor, and glinted off the two pennies.

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

“Amen,” Kat repeated.

Her voice was drowned out by the thunder of fireworks. Apparently, the display’s grand finale was taking place because the sky was aglow with multicolored lights. The rest of the town was clustered under that glow, oblivious to the grim discovery on the lake.

Kat envied their ignorance. They didn’t know another murder had taken place in Perry Hollow, in exactly the same way as the first. Yet the shock of the situation didn’t the murder the second time. It was worse. Much worse. This time she knew the murder was coming, yet she hadn’t been able to stop it.

She also knew that Nick Donnelly had been right about the situation from the very start. The killer had a taste for it now. He had a routine. And he wouldn’t stop. Not unless Kat stopped him first.

Henry lay in bed, unable to stop thinking about Troy Gunzelman. It was hours after they had found his body in the lake, but the image refused to leave his head. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured Troy’s lifeless eyes, hidden under the two pennies. The image was unsettling, and it kept sleep from approaching.

Guilt also kept Henry awake. It wasn’t his fault Troy was dead. The blame for that rested squarely with whoever had killed him. But it
was
his fault that Troy hadn’t been saved.

Tossing and turning beneath the covers, Henry thought of all the scenarios in which the quarterback might have lived. If only he had grabbed the fax sooner. If only he had sprinted faster on Main Street. If only he hadn’t argued with Kat before she let him tag along.

Had they happened, those events could have rescued Troy Gunzelman from the clutches of a killer.

If only.

Henry was accustomed to such thinking. It was a constant in the past five years. If only he had consumed one less beer. If only they had waited out the storm instead of plunging into the thick of it. If only they hadn’t left the house in the first place.

But it was too late to go back and reverse all that, just as
he couldn’t relive that night’s events and try harder. What’s done is done, and Henry had to live with the repercussions.

Flopping onto his side, he checked the clock on the nightstand. It was just past midnight. Many hours of sleeplessness lay between him and dawn. It was going to be a long night.

When the doorbell rang five minutes later, Henry thought it was Kat Campbell. She probably had the same thoughts of regret he did. Padding out of his bedroom and down the hall, he suspected she wanted to commiserate. Human nature made us want to wallow in bad thoughts with those who shared them.

But instead of Chief Campbell, Henry opened the door and saw Deana Swan. There was sympathy in her eyes as she said, “I heard about Troy.”

“Word travels fast.”

“Martin told me,” she said. “He said he’ll probably be up all night working on the story.”

Despite that fact, Henry imagined Martin Swan was having a field day with the news. A town’s football star was murdered. A killer thought to be behind bars actually wasn’t. Another grisly murder had rocked a place more quiet than Mayberry. This was the kind of story most reporters dreamed about.

“I also heard you were involved. I thought you might like to talk about it.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Henry said, “but there’s nothing to say.”

“That’s not what your eyes are telling me.”

Henry tried—and failed—to understand what made Deana tick. She barely knew him, yet she had the bravery to show up at his apartment at midnight checking to see if he was okay. The violation of his privacy should have made him angry. But it didn’t. He really did need some company, and he was touched that Deana hadn’t been afraid to approach him about the murder.

“So are you up for a walk?” she asked. “The heat’s died down.”

“Actually,” Henry said, “I could use a drink.”

Exiting his building, they walked down a deserted Main Street to the Jigsaw. It, too, was empty, yet still open. The bartender poured their drinks with a minimum of small talk and told them to sit anywhere they liked. They went to a corner booth far away from the bar.

Once seated, Deana raised her glass of red wine, clinking it lightly against Henry’s scotch. “A toast.”

“What are we toasting?”

“Your heroism. You tried to help save someone’s life. That was very brave.”

“Even if I failed?”

“Yes. Even if you failed.”

Henry took a gulp of scotch, feeling its burn deep in his chest. Deana took a gentle sip of her wine.

“So what’s your story?” she asked. “I know you have one.”

“Maybe I want to know yours. There must be a good reason why you work in a funeral home.”

“I suspect it’s the same reason you write obituaries.”

Henry cocked an eyebrow. “Morbid curiosity?”

“Far from it,” Deana said. “My mother worked there for ages. She was the receptionist for the McNeils, just like I am now. But she did more than that. Because there was no woman in the house to take care of them, she sometimes cooked dinner and offered to clean the living areas. I spent a lot of time there as a girl. In a way, I sort of grew up there.”

There was sadness in her voice, as if she wanted to talk more but was afraid to. Henry could relate. There was so much he could have told her. He just chose not to.

“My father died when I was ten and Martin was twelve,”
she continued. “He worked at the mill, like everyone in this town, I suppose. One day there was an accident—his second. The first one only left a scar. The second one did a whole lot more damage. I don’t know all the details. Honestly, I don’t want to. I just know that he left for the mill one morning and never came home. It was devastating to all three of us. Martin took it really hard. So did I. I was Daddy’s little girl.”

Henry didn’t offer his condolences. He had heard too many in his lifetime to know they were meaningless. Having someone tell you they were sorry did nothing to ease your pain. So he said nothing, letting Deana talk uninterrupted.

“Then my mother died a month after I graduated high school. Art McNeil was wonderful about everything. Because my mother had been so devoted to him, he covered the funeral expenses, which helped out a lot. A week after she was buried, he offered me her old job.”

“That was very kind of him,” Henry said. “But it sounds to me like you didn’t choose your job. It chose you.”

“I suppose. It’s just like life, I guess. What we plan to happen and what actually happens never seem to coincide. For example, ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to live in Paris. I even took French in high school to prepare for my new life there. But after my mother died, I realized very quickly that living in Paris would probably never happen.”

“For me, it was Italy.”

Henry tried to stop himself, surprised by how easy it was to reveal such information to Deana. But the combination of scotch and exhaustion urged him to reveal more.

“I was going to live there. Milan. I became fluent in Italian. Studied the food, the wine, the music. I even had an apartment all picked out.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

This time Henry was able to stop himself. Some things
were too hard to say, even with the help of booze and sleep deprivation.

“Something happened,” he said.

Deana’s gaze flitted to the burn mark and scar. It was quick—a mere glance—but Henry noticed it.

“Is that when you became an obituary writer? Martin told me you were once a really good reporter.”

Emphasis on
once.
Now Henry was just a humble obituary writer, and it suited him fine.

But a long time ago—a lifetime ago, actually—he had been a great reporter. At the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
the police beat was one of the paper’s most coveted jobs. And Henry had loved it. He was good at it. He was a star in the newsroom, earning praise and awards in equal measure.

Then everything changed. His face. His life. His whole reason for living. It all vanished in a split second one night on Interstate 279.

After the accident, Henry quit his job and moved to Perry Hollow. It wasn’t Milan by any means. But it was remote, which helped when you didn’t want to be found. Plus, it was on the opposite side of the state, where no memories of Gia existed.