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He showered and dressed in jeans, a crewneck T-shirt, and tennis shoes, then ate a couple of pieces of d
ry white toast. Food was another pleasure he’d long ago lost interest in. The drive east to Mount Dora, then to the cemetery, took less time than he’d envisioned. Traffic was a nightmare in Orlando, but he was headed out of town, not in, against the Wednesday-morning flow, which made the trip its usual thirty minutes.
He arrived just before ten and spotted a work crew inside the low brick wall, among the matsevahs, at his father’s grave. Bright sunshine flooded the sacred ground, the humid air rich with the scent of turned earth. He made his way to the site, where the headstone had been removed, and peered down into the hole.
No coffin.
Apparently, Zachariah Simon had obtained his order and was in a hurry.
He walked toward the ceremonial hall. It was single-storied, wood-sided, and steeply roofed. Black shutters framed its many windows. He could recall as a kid being inside during several funerals—his mother’s and uncles’ most notably. Abiram had been laid out inside, too. Now he was making a return engagement.
A woman stepped from its half-open doorway into the sunshine. She was short, stout, and dressed like a lawyer, which he assumed she was. Simon’s lawyer. Smart of him not to be around. Less witnesses to see his face and to overhear their conversations.
He approached and she introduced herself. She offered a hand to shake, which he accepted, forcing a grin and saying, “Let’s get this over with.”
“The law requires an heir be present. You can, of course, satisfy that by simply waiting outside, so long as the medical examiner knows you’re here. He’s inside waiting on your arrival.”
“I can handle it.”
He wasn’t exactly sure that was the case, but he knew he wasn’t going to wait out here. He’d been thinking on the drive over. Simon had gone to a lot of trouble to obtain whatever was in that coffin. Once he had it, there was no guarantee he would release Alle. In fact, why would he? She could just go straight to the police and be a witness against him. Of course, the same could be said about himself. But he assumed Simon wasn’t concerned with that threat. The last person on earth the police would believe was a disgraced reporter.
Besides, he may kill himself before the day was out anyway.
Or maybe not.
Still debating that point.
He entered the building and stepped down a short hall that led to an open door. The décor inside the room had not changed much. Same drab carpet, bland walls, and musty smell.
An unplaned pine coffin lay on a stout oak table, the same table that had been there for decades. The box’s exterior was reasonably intact, considering it had rested in moist Florida earth for three years. A man in a blue jumpsuit that identified him as MEDICAL EXAMINER introduced himself and asked for identification that confirmed he was Tom Sagan. He produced his driver’s license, even as his eyes stayed on the coffin. Did he want to see the decomposing corpse? Not really. But he had to know what Zachariah Simon wanted. Alle was depending on him. So he steeled himself and gave the okay to open the lid.
It took a few minutes to pry off. Long nails had been used, which was appropriate. Abiram would have kept things traditional. Tom listened as each one squeaked its way free. The lawyer stood beside him, unemotional, as if she opened coffins every day.
The final nail was removed.
The medical examiner stepped aside: Now was time for the heir to do whatever it was that had compelled the exhumation. Since he was that person, all eyes locked on him.
But Ms. Lawyer started toward the table.
He grabbed her arm. “I’ll handle it.”
“I think it would be better if I did.” Her eyes conveyed an even more emphatic message. Stay out of this.
But she wasn’t the man in Barnes & Noble. “I’m his son. The petitioner. I’ll handle it.”
She held her ground and his eyes conveyed their own message.
Don’t screw with me.
She caught his drift and backed off.
“All right,” she said. “Handle it.”
———
ZACHARIAH CHECKED HIS WATCH.
10:20 A.M.
The lawyer he’d hired to both obtain the court order and be on site had called twenty minutes ago to say Sagan had arrived. They should be inside by now, and things should be over shortly. The report from Vienna was good. Alle Becket was a problem no more. Nothing would be learned by anyone from her. Rócha sat beside him in the car, just off an overnight flight from Austria to Orlando, via Miami. He’d taken the flight Alle had thought would be hers.
Tom Sagan required handling.
With no daughter to produce once the exhumation was complete, the only course was to eliminate the last remaining witness.
They’d actually be doing Sagan a favor.
He wanted to die.
So Rócha would oblige him.
———
TOM CAUGHT THE BITING SMELL OF DECAY. THE MEDICAL EXAMINER advised him to move quickly as things would only get worse.
He stepped close and peered into the coffin.
Not much remained. Alle had apparently kept to tradition and not embalmed. The corpse was wrapped in a white shroud, most of which had disintegrated, exposing what little was left of a face. Empty eye sockets looked like black caves—the querulous, sometimes hostile gaze he remembered was gone. Flesh and muscle had collapsed. A fold of skin, like the wattle of a lizard, sagged from the neck. He tried to recall the last time he’d seen that face alive.
Five years ago?
No, closer to nine. Before the fall. At his mother’s funeral.
Had it been that long?
Not once in the intervening years had Abiram tried to contact him. No note, letter, card, email, nothing. While the press and pundits destroyed him, his only surviving parent remained silent. Only after dying, in his final note, sent with the deed to the house, had some consolation been offered—“I felt the pain of your destruction”—but that was nowhere near enough. True, Tom could have called, but he never did, either. They were both at fault. Neither willing to give.
And they’d both lost.
He struggled with waves of fear, apathy, resentment, and resignation. But he drew himself up and regained a measure of poise.
A sealed packet lay embedded in what had once been Abiram’s chest. It appeared vacuum-sealed, airtight creases evidencing that fact. He reached for it, but the medical examiner removed it for him.
“Better that way,” the man said, displaying gloved hands. “Bacteria is everywhere on a corpse.”
The packet was paper-thin, about a foot square, and appeared light. The medical examiner asked if there was anything else. He saw nothing else unusual inside so he shook his head.
The lid was replaced.
A sink adorned one wall—used, he remembered, for cleansing. The medical examiner rinsed the package off and brought it over to him.
Ms. Lawyer stepped forward. “I’ll take that.”
“Like hell you will,” Tom said. “Last I looked, I’m the petitioner here.”
Anger fortified him.
“And by the way,” he said. “Do you have something for me?”
She seemed to understand and retreated to a satchel that lay on the floor. From within she removed a small FedEx box and handed it to him. She then turned back to the medical examiner and asked for the packet again.
But he grabbed it first. “That’s mine.”
“Mr. Sagan,” the lawyer said. “That was to be given to me.”
He was not in the mood to argue. “I’m going to assume that you have no idea what’s really going on here. Let’s just say that you don’t want to know. So how about you shut up and stay out of my way.”
He’d decided that whatever may have been in the grave was his only bargaining power, and he wasn’t about to give that away. He had to make sure Alle was okay. Never had he believed in a heaven, or an afterlife, or anything more than when you died, just like Abiram, you turned to mush, then dust. But on the off chance that his parents and Michele would be waiting o
n him after he finally did blow his brains out, he wanted to be able to say that he’d done the right thing.
He backed toward the door.
The lawyer advanced.
He asked, “I assume you know what’s in this FedEx box?”
She stopped. Apparently she did. And she also seemed not to want to have too much of a conversation in front of the medical examiner.
“Tell your client that I’ll be in touch about a trade. He’ll know what I mean.”
“How will you find him?”
“Through you. What firm are you with?”
She told him.
And he left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ALLE WATCHED THE VIDEO FEED. SHE SAT WITH BRIAN IN A house across the Austrian border in the Czech Republic. They’d driven here last night from Vienna. She was still unsure about any of this and had spent the day in her room, her mind simmering with anxiety. Now, watching the images from Florida, new worries lunged at her.
She recognized the place where her grandfather lay buried. The pictures they were receiving were being shot through a car windshield, from a distance, and elevated. The cemetery was located in Lake County, which had the distinction of having some of Florida’s highest terrain. There were actually hills there, along with over a thousand lakes. Brian’s man had chosen a hillock near the cemetery as his vantage point. She recalled it. A wooded mound of scrub oak, pines, and palms. She’d watched an hour ago while workers exhumed her grandfather, hauling the coffin into the burial house, the same wood-sided building where she’d kept vigil over him after he died. The camera offered a clear view of its front door.
“Why are you filming this?” she asked.
“To try and find out what the hell is in that coffin.”
“What are you going to do? Steal it?”
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but if I can get it I will.”
Matsevahs dotted the foreground, a portion of the waist-high brick wall enclosing the grounds visible. During summer visits with her grandparents she’d often visited the cemetery, helping her grandmother tend the graves.
She’d yet to see Zachariah and commented on that.
