“Well, there’s a lot of wooden crates and some long boxes and a metal worktable and some kind of machine contraption with small hoses hanging out of it.”
“That must be where they repair watches and do work on the jewelry,” replied Beaumont. “I always wondered where they did that stuff.”
Yarnell took two steps forward as he detected a rustling in the newly dug tunnel behind him just before he heard the words, “Watch out, I’m sending our bags through.”
Plop. Plop.
Two black nylon bags hit the floor at his heels.
“Do you see any security cameras in there?” came Beaumont’s hollow voice from out in the sewer.
“No.”
“Well put your mask on anyway. I’ll be right in.”
Yarnell dug the rubber werewolf face out of his bag. He then removed the miner’s lamp from his head, donned the mask and tried to place the miner’s lamp back on over the werewolf’s forehead. With the extra material from the mask, the lamp’s headband was now too tight, it no longer fit. He settled for jamming the band over one wolf ear and part of the forehead, except that awkward position forced the eyeholes out of alignment and gave him only partial vision.
“Okay,” said Beaumont behind him, “I’ve got my mask on. You ready?”
Yarnell turned around to find he was confronting some version of Frankenstein, but the look wasn’t quite right. The face seemed too flat. It was too — what was the phrase? — oh yeah, too two dimensional.
“You’re wearing a cardboard mask.”
“Yeah, I cut it off an old cereal box I found in my uncle’s cellar a few years ago when we had to put him in a nursing home. Of course, the rubber band’s new. The original one lost its elasticity a long time ago, and the cereal was stale, so the only good thing I got out of the deal was the mask. C’mon, let’s go.”
Beaumont led the way up the basement stairs, where he tested the doorknob at the top. The knob turned. Cautiously, he pushed the door open and stepped into the main floor room.
“Keep it quiet just in case somebody’s close by the building,” hissed Beaumont. “There may be some trick-or-treaters passing on the sidewalk outside.”
“Yeah, I know,” came Yarnell’s low voice, then he followed his partner in.
They both stopped short to take in their surroundings.
“This don’t look like the inside of a jewelry store,” whispered Yarnell.
“You’re right, it don’t.”
They moved noiselessly past several long boxes just like the ones Yarnell had seen in the basement, only these seemed to be set up on display for some reason.
“I hear music somewhere,” whispered Beaumont.
Yarnell rolled up the right side of his rubber mask to free that ear.
“I don’t hear nothing.”
“Maybe they got piped-in music and forgot to shut it off for the night.”
Yarnell rolled up the left side of his mask.
“I still don’t hear nothing.”
“Forget it. Just keep your eyes open.”
Yarnell figured he might have an eye and a half worth of vision, if he was lucky, with these misplaced eyeholes. He’d try, but it wouldn’t be easy, which left him wondering. “So where are we if we’re not in the jewelry store?”
“Hold on.” Beaumont stopped by a small wooden table in the hallway. “I’ll see what it says on one of these brochures they left out.”
“Well?”
“Well, it says here this is a quality funeral home.”
“Funeral home? What happened to the jewelry store?”
Beaumont shrugged. “Evidently I paced off the wrong number of feet before we started digging in the sewer.”
“So now what? We don’t have time to make a new tunnel.”
Beaumont held up a pacifying hand. “No sense wasting all our efforts, we’ll just have to capitalize on our mistakes and see what valuables we can find here.”
“You mean rob the dead? On Halloween night?”
“I was thinking more of looking for a safe in the office. But, since you mentioned it, I’ll check out the office while you have a look in the coffins.”
“Coffins?”
“Yeah, I think that’s what all them long boxes are that we passed back in the display room. See if anybody’s got any, you know, gold jewelry or diamonds on them. Some people try to take it with them.”
“I can’t pull a ring off a corpse.”
“And while you’re at it, Yarnell, check the pockets for money.”
“Money in the pockets?”
“Yeah, some mourners feel guilty about past debts or prior transgressions, so they stuff a little folding money in the pockets just in case there’s a waiting lounge in purgatory.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“That’s what I say, too, so when Murph died all I did was slide a check for a thousand dollars into his vest pocket at the wake. Man, his people sure knew how to throw a going-away party. Lots of food and drink there, but if’n Murph had still been alive, I’m sure he’d have hit me up for more than a thousand, what with the vig and all his other charges for a personal loan without collateral. You know how he was, a real leg breaker. Anyway, I didn’t have enough cash on me at the time.”
“So you gave him a check?”
“Hey, it cancels my debt, and I sleep just fine at night now, thank you.”
Yarnell opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the right words to say anything.
Beaumont kept talking.
“Don’t worry, if I find a safe, I’ll be right back to get you. Now go ahead and search any body you find, we can’t leave here empty-handed.”
Beaumont and his white beam of light disappeared down the hall.
Yarnell slowly looked around. His yellow beam didn’t reach out very far into the dark. Well, no caskets here in the hallway, so maybe he’d go back to the display room they’d passed through earlier. Not that he would actually steal from the deceased, but if he did find something of value, then he could always guilt Beaumont into doing the dirty work. After all, Beaumont was the one responsible for getting them into the wrong building.
Moving into the display room, Yarnell shined his fading yellow beam on all four walls. Six coffins on display. Cautiously, he approached the first one. The casket lid was split in half crossways, which allowed two openings, one top, one bottom. He wasn’t sure which end was which, but since he’d rather see a pair of shoes first than to gaze directly on a dead face, he took a chance and raised the right-hand side.
Empty.
Relieved, he almost laughed.
But then he rationalized, it could always be a midget in there and maybe the guy wasn’t long enough for his feet to show. Gingerly, he raised the left-hand side.
Also empty.
This time, Yarnell did give a small chuckle to reassure himself.
At the second and third coffins, he continued his pattern of opening the right side first and then the left side. All empty.
He breathed a great sigh of relief. Beaumont was right, this was merely a display room for potential buyers of coffins.
At the fourth coffin, Yarnell screwed up his courage and this time opened the left-hand side first. Empty like all the others. But, to be sure, he also flipped up the right side of the coffin. No occupants in here either.
Approaching the fifth coffin, Yarnell cheerfully threw up the left-hand lid, and immediately froze.
A body lay there on the white silk. It was a thin-looking man dressed in a nice pinstripe suit, his eyes with dark, double bags underneath were closed, and his pale white hands with long slender fingers were peaceably crossed at his chest. A glint of gold with a diamond chip showed on his left pinky finger. Whoa, right here was grave trouble.
Yarnell turned loose of the lid, took two steps back, and quickly inhaled three times. The lid stuck in the up position.
Boom.
He listened to his heart pound in fortissimo. The rhythm seemed to echo in both eardrums at once.