Slippin' into Darkness

7:15 A.M.

This is what did the trick for Steve Austin: fifteen minutes under a cold pulsing shower, a close shave with a new blade, a couple slaps of Old Spice aftershave, and a pot of a potent espresso-Kona blend brewed courtesy of Mr. Coffee. Then down to the neighborhood coffee shop for eggs over easy and four link sausages and extra hash browns well done skip the toast and four more cups of coffee that were pretty strong for restaurant brew but paled in comparison to Steve’s double-barreled espresso-Kona blend. The morning ritual took a couple of hours. When it was complete, the alcohol and the Halcion were behind him.

Or so he told himself. He had always treated his body like a twitchy machine that ran out of whack or not at all. It made things easier, just as it sometimes was easier to think of himself as The Six Million Dollar Man. He couldn’t fix the machine, but he could keep it running. For a time the machine ran on nothing more than dreams, April Destino, and Halcion. Last night, when it was ready to blow its main circuit, it ran on April alone.

Today it needed food and coffee. There was work to be done. The girl of his dreams was alive, living in this moment. Everything would be okay if he could just hold on to her.

Sunlight glinted off the spotless windshield of the Dodge Diplomat patrol car. Steve stared at his big hands on the hard black wheel, at the perfect creases in the sleeves of his uniform shirt and the swollen knuckles that had KO’d an umpire. The whole damn thing seemed so unreal. A living, walking dream was locked in his basement. A living, screaming dream. Every passing minute that separated him from April created another little hole in the window of reality. Yet Steve was sure that everything had happened just as he remembered it.

It hadn’t been a dream.

April was back.

He’d dug her up. Her empty shell, at least. That was nuts. Full tilt loony tunes. But he had been certain that he needed the dead husk of April to get to the real April, the April of his dreams. The dead April, the dreamweaver he had known in that sad little trailer, had convinced him that she was the only one who could help him to dream, to find the April he loved. But something had gone terribly wrong when the dreamweaver killed herself.

That was the way it shook out. It had to be. Because the dreamweaver was dead, and the girl of his dreams was here.

Real. Touchable. Beautiful.

No, that wasn’t the way she was.

Frightened. Tortured. Screaming.

That was the April who was locked in his basement. She had killed someone. Doug Douglas. Doug had gained at least a hundred pounds since high school, but Steve was sure it had been Doug. He couldn’t escape the memory of the dying man’s eyes. He’d stared into those eyes for three long years when Doug was his catcher on the baseball team. He knew those eyes.

He also knew that the dreamweaver had seen Doug on occasion. She saw lots of guys. He had never let that bother him, because there was no changing the woman that the April of his dreams had become. But he also knew that Doug had been involved in the nightmare that was born in Todd Gould’s basement. The dreamweaver had told him that.

But Steve didn’t know how, or why, Doug had ended up in his house last night. He stared at his creased sleeves, at his big hands on the steering wheel, and at his swollen knuckles. A fugitive from a dream was locked in his basement, along with her own corpse, and the corpse of a man she had murdered. That was the way it was.

Unless he hadn’t gone to the graveyard. Unless he hadn’t unearthed April Louise Destino’s corpse and brought her home, unless a screaming dream hadn’t been locked in his basement.

Unless he had dreamed the whole thing.

No. That was crazy. He didn’t dream, not at home. He only dreamed in April Destino’s trailer.

And April was dead. The dreamweaver was gone. Jesus. He felt like a cat chasing its tail.

“I’m awake,” he said, and he kept repeating those two words.

He drove around, just cruising, but he didn’t go to the one place that could set things straight in his mind until the call came over the radio and sent him there.

The pinched female voice of Control betrayed not the slightest bit of interest or surprise as she broadcast the call. The location wasn’t on Steve’s beat, but the officer who would have normally handled the call was busy breaking up a fight between a couple who had spent the evening gearing up for a drunken battle of epic proportions. Steve was working the adjoining beat, so the duty fell to him.

He had never handled a call like this one. Grave desecration wasn’t a top tenner on the criminal hit parade. Still, hearing the call on the radio put his mind at ease.

But hearing was one thing, and seeing was yet another. Seeing was believing, and Steve needed to believe. He didn’t hit the siren-no need for that-but he didn’t spare the horses, either. In less than three minutes he wheeled the gold-and-white Dodge Diplomat onto the grounds of Skyview Memorial Lawn, a cemetery that overlooked housing tracts to the east and north, another cemetery to the south, and a closed drive-in theater to the west.

Steve knew where to find the grave, and he drove to it.

Saw the lip of the open hole and the dirt piled high around it.

Knew for certain that he hadn’t dreamed the events of the previous night.

Knew that was true, unless he was dreaming still.

The elderly man appeared from behind the cemetery office and headed across the grass toward the patrol car. He wore a black suit, a white shirt, a black tie, and yellow galoshes. That might have seemed odd had the lawn not been a slick, muddy mire.

The man hurried toward Steve with careful steps, as if he were afraid that his rubber boots might turn into water skis at any moment. Steve ignored him, concentrating his attention on a set of muddy tire ruts that led up the hill, stopping at April’s grave. The ruts seemed completely out of place, simply because Steve knew that he hadn’t made them. He hadn’t driven his car over the grass. And it wasn’t that he had forgotten doing it-judging from the size of the ruts, the tires that had done the damage were those huge, balloon-like things that kids mounted on their trucks.

Steve drove a ’66 Dodge Monaco. He couldn’t have made the tracks.

Mystery number one. There it was, but Steve didn’t let it rattle him. The ruts were mostly filled with water, but in a few places they were dry. Maybe the lab boys could get some plaster casts. That would certainly turn attention in another direction, away from him. If this investigation ever threatened to turn in his direction, which was something Steve doubted with the self-assurance of a man who had seen his share of unsolved crimes and then some.

Steve heard slick little rubber footsteps. Sharp little gasps. He raised his head and found that the man in black clothes and yellow boots was holding out a very white hand. A rictus grin was plastered on the undertaker’s face. The grin became an embarrassed smile. “Good morning, officer. I appreciate your prompt attention. This is all so awful.”

“Yeah, my boots are going to be a mess,” Steve said, knowing full well that wasn’t anything close to the undertaker’s definition of awful.

The man flushed. “I’m sorry about the water. The sprinklers come on at four. Last night we watered the Eternal Garden-that’s what we call this section. On at four and off at six-thirty. We rotate our watering schedule. For instance, we left the sprinklers off last night in the Meditation Garden, as we’re having a service there this morning. It doesn’t do to have wet grass during a service.” The man paused as if expecting a reply. Steve rewarded him with nothing more than a long moment of silence. It could have been an eternal moment in the Eternal Garden for all he cared. He was enjoying the hysterical picture of himself hip-deep in the dreamweaver’s grave, and the sprinklers coming on. It was a good thing he hadn’t lingered over his work.

The undertaker glanced discreetly at Steve’s patrol car, then studied his gold wristwatch. He spoke without making eye contact. “Officer? Would it be possible for you to park behind the office? As I said, the Meditation Garden is just across from us. We’re having a graveside service in about an hour. It might be upsetting if-”

“I don’t see how this is going to take an hour.”

“Very well, then.” The undertaker strained to maintain the pleasant, chirpy tone of the professionally unflappable. His gaze traveled to the wrought-iron gates at the end of the curling drive as if he expected a hearse and a line of rented Caddys to appear early because the family had other things to do today and they were real eager to plant Uncle Bob. “I just don’t want to upset anyone unnecessarily,” he explained.

“No problem. I’ll move this along as best I can. And don’t worry about upsetting me-my boots will clean right up.”

Steve stared at his reflection in the milky water that filled the tire ruts, stared at the emerald grass. “Beautiful lawn.” He spied cleat marks on a nearby grave. He hadn’t been dreaming. Damn. That meant he’d really had a no-hitter going when the little umpire interrupted his game. “Y’know, I wish I could get my lawn to look like this. What do you do to it? You use some special fertilizer?”

The undertaker blanched.

“Oh, Jeez.” Steve chuckled. “I didn’t mean that. Special fertilizer. Oh, Jeez. I wasn’t trying to make a bad joke or anything.”

“I understand.” The undertaker straightened his black coat, seemingly oblivious to the comical way his pants cuffs gathered at the tops of his yellow boots.

Steve dipped his thumbs under his gun belt. The hand-tooled leather creaked, and his keys jangled. “Okay,” he said, taking a little notebook from his perfectly creased pocket. “Let’s you and me try to figure out what happened here.”

It took nearly five minutes to get the undertaker’s story. His name was Ernest Kellogg, and he had arrived at work shortly after seven. Usually he was an on-the-dot kind of guy, but this morning his dog had done a nasty on the living room carpet, something Ernest hadn’t noticed until he put his foot in it on his way out the door.

Steve figured that the open grave was in the same league as the dog’s nasty. It upset Ernest, but it wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. After spotting the tire tracks and the open grave from the safety of his office window, Ernest had called the cops, because, unlike the dog shit, he figured that he could get a lawman to clean up this mess for him.

“Is there a caretaker?” Steve asked.

“We’ve got three men. Two work during the day. Gravediggers.” He pointed in the direction of the Meditation Garden. “They arrived shortly after I did. As you can see, I’ve already put them to work in preparation for this morning’s activities. Our other works at night-he’s an old fellow, more of a watchman than anything else.”

Steve almost asked, What’s the umpire’s name? But he kept that one to himself. “What’s the night man’s name?”

“Lewis…Royce Lewis.”

“Did he work last night?”

“I…I don’t know. I mean, I think so. He was scheduled. But he wasn’t here when I arrived this morning.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Yes. Royce and I almost always have a cup of coffee before he goes home. I believe in maintaining good relations with my employees, no matter how humble their position.” Ernest Kellogg paused. “Wait a minute. The coffeepot was on in my office. I smelled the coffee when I was on the phone. Royce must have made it. He must have been here last night.”

“Is his car around? I mean, where does he park?”

“Royce lives not far from here. He walks to work. Likes to take the air, he says.”

Steve pointed at the tire tracks. “Know anything about these?”

“No.” Once again, the undertaker glanced at his watch. “The tracks were here when I arrived.”

Steve glanced at his watch, too. Two more minutes had passed. Probably warming up the old hearse right this minute, he thought. Getting old Uncle Bob battened down for his last ride, yessiree.

Yessiree, Bob.

“Look,” Ernest Kellogg said, “is there any possibility that we could do this in my office?”

“Only if you’ve got another open grave in there.” Steve remembered the heft of the shovel and the crazy cartoon clang it made when it bashed Royce Lewis’s head, remembered how the handle had vibrated in his hands for a short second upon impact. He looked again at the tire tracks and his grin held, but he began to wonder why he hadn’t seen Royce Lewis lying dead on the ground where he’d left him, between the headstone that had served as second base and the grave that had been the pitcher’s mound.

Okay. The tire tracks. Someone else had been here.

And the night man was missing.

Maybe I don’t have anything to smile about, Steve thought. But he kept smiling. “Have you looked at the grave?”

“No. I thought it would be prudent to wait for you. I…I wasn’t sure about disturbing the evidence.”

Steve grinned. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”

“Jesus!” Ernest Kellogg leaned heavily against the granite cross that bore April Louise Destino’s name. “Sweet blessed Jesus!”

Steve didn’t hear any of it. He was already halfway into the hole, bringing a cliff of mud with him as he slid into the open grave.

The grave should have been empty, dammit. The dreamweaver was locked in his fortress of solitude with the dream. Both Aprils were there. They were locked in the basement, dammit, and the hole should have been empty!

But it wasn’t. It was full, at least by half. Full of water from a sprinkler head Steve had damaged while digging the grave.

But the sprinklers hadn’t been on then. They had come on later. At four o’clock in the morning. And then the water had turned the grave into a swimming pool.

“Royce!” the undertaker exclaimed. “Oh my God! Royce!”

Floating in the dirty brown water, facedown with a pink silk shroud bubbling up around his shoulders, was a fat little man dressed in Ben Davis work clothes.

The umpire. Steve got a grip on the man, flipped him over, and checked his pupils. Jesus. The umpire must have managed to crawl over here just a few minutes before Kellogg’s arrival. Crawling blind with his head bashed in and he had slipped down the muddy embankment and then couldn’t escape because the walls of the grave were slick mud and he was little and round and operating with a bashed-in skull.

What a tough little bastard. He must have been floundering in the grave while Steve questioned Kellogg. All the time trying to get out. It was a wonder they hadn’t heard him splashing around, doing the Australian Crawl.

I should have let the jerk take me up to his office, Steve thought. I should have moved the patrol car. A few more minutes and nature would have taken care of everything for me.

The thought hit him hard, like a slap. Steve was suddenly shivering, and it wasn’t just from the cold water in the grave.

He glanced at Kellogg. The man’s eyes were big and round, like the shiny face of his gold wristwatch.

“Is he going to be all right?” Kellogg asked.

As if on cue, Royce Lewis coughed and a thin trickle of water spilled over his fluttering purple lips.