Mr. Smith folded his hands in a position I recognized. He was about to give a lecture.
“I’ll tell you what happened, Chief Santos,” the cemetery sexton said. “What happened today was a victory of the Fates over the Furies.”
“What?” Chief Santos said.
I wasn’t sure I understood, either.
“It’s very simple,” Mr. Smith said. “In everyday life, we’re given a choice. Do the right thing, do nothing, or do the wrong thing. All too often, people choose to do nothing. And that’s all right. It’s easier. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what’s right and what’s wrong. But every so often, a few people choose to go out of their way to do the right thing … like your gentleman with the chain saw, Pierce.”
I felt as if a burden had been lifted from my heart. Suddenly, I understood.
“He was a Fate,” I said. “All those people trying to help me today … the man with the chain saw, the woman at the gate — even the little girl. They were Fates.”
“Yes,” Mr. Smith said. “Exactly. Fates are anyone who chooses to be on the side of good. If enough people go out of their way to help someone else, the spirit of kindness eventually breaks through the darkness, the way sunshine breaks through clouds after a storm and allows even more kind acts to follow. My hope has always been that some day kindness will prevail, and there won’t be any Furies for us to fight.”
John stared at Mr. Smith in disbelief, looking, in his own way, as jaded as Chief Santos. These two had more in common than either of them probably knew, each having seen his fair share of hardship; John having lived it, and Chief Santos having arrested it.
“I hope that, too,” I said, because I wanted to believe in Mr. Smith’s version of the Fates, whether or not it was true.
Chloe sighed happily, dropping her head to Reed’s shoulder. “Me, too. That story reminds me of angels. I wish he’d tell it again.”
“Do not tell it again,” Chief Santos said testily. “Something went on today in this cemetery. Something goes on in this cemetery all the time, doesn’t it? Not only during Coffin Week, but all the time. It doesn’t matter if we keep the gates locked; something’s always going on in here. Something no one ever talks about. Something’s wrong with this island, and no one will tell me what it is. Well, I’m going to tell you people, whatever it is” — he jabbed his finger at the ground for emphasis — “it stops right here.”
“Chief Santos.” My father rose from the porch railing, his cell phone in his hand. “I’ve got my wife on the line. She wants to speak to you.”
I’m sure I was the only one who noticed he said wife and not ex-wife, and the only one whose heart gave a happy flip over it.
Chief Santos looked at my father as if he were crazy. “What?”
“My wife,” Dad said, holding his phone towards the police chief. “She has something she wants to tell you. It’s about what’s wrong with this island. It has to do with Nate Rector and the luxury homes he’s building out at Reef Key. Something to do with some bones.”
I sucked in my breath and looked around for Alex. But Alex was still nowhere to be seen.
“Bones?” Chief Santos was beginning to look like he was developing an ulcer. “Could you please tell your wife I’ll call her back? I don’t have time to talk about bones right now.”
“Actually, Chief,” my father said in a voice as cold as ice, “I think you do. My wife is an expert. She has a PhD” — if he said wife again, I was pretty sure my heart was going to fly out of my chest and flutter up to sit next to Hope’s husband — “and knows some pretty important people. They’re flying down from the Smithsonian up in Washington, DC, to look at these bones. I guess they’re pretty old, and Nate Rector’s built his houses right on top of them, and the people in Washington are pretty ticked off —”
Chief Santos took the phone from my dad, holding it as if he expected it to give him an electric shock.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be happy to take the call.” His expression said he’d be anything but.
He began following my dad from the porch as they walked to Chief Santos’s car. The last thing Chief Santos said, before raising the phone to his ear, was to John.
“You.” He pointed from John to Alastor, whose reins had been tied to the porch railing. “It’s a violation to keep or ride a horse within city limits, unless of course you’re an officer with the mounted police unit.” He glared at John. “Which you ain’t, kid.”
John nodded. “I know, sir. It will never happen again.”
“It better not,” he said. Then he lifted the phone to his ear. “Dr. Cabrero? Hello, yes, it’s me, Chief Santos. Yes, I was just with your daughter. She’s fine. Your mother? Well, ma’am, she was taken to the hospital for observation, along with a few dozen other people. No, no, she’s going to be fine, superficial injuries to her throat, broken arm, burn mark, seemed a bit disoriented. Well, best I can figure out, ma’am, it’s all from” — he turned as he approached the cemetery gates to shoot Mr. Smith a murderous look — “heatstroke. Now what’s this your husband is telling me about some bones? Is that so? I’ll be very interested to speak to Mr. Rector about that. Tell you what, we’ll swing by his house and pick him up right now.”
As soon as he was out of earshot, Chloe exploded with laughter.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said. “I was sure I was caught that time!”
“You murdered your dad?” Kayla said. She’d been silent almost the entire time on the porch … understandably. The Fates may have won this round, but it was hard to call it winning when we’d lost Frank, though none of us as yet had had the courage to admit this to Kayla. Perhaps, in a way, she was beginning to sense it.
Chloe’s laughter quickly died. “I know it’s a sin,” she said. “The Bible says he who strikes his father or mother shall surely be put to death. But I did die because of what I did. So maybe someday the Lord will forgive me.”
Kayla and I exchanged glances. I supposed this logic made a certain sense to Chloe, although I didn’t think it was fair for her to have died for defending her mother.
“I thought you’d been waiting your whole life to go to heaven,” I said to her gently.
“How are you so sure this isn’t heaven?” Chloe said, looking very serious.
“Because innocent people like Frank get killed here,” Kayla said. “I highly doubt that happens in heaven.”
I nodded. “Seriously,” I said. I didn’t want to cause Chloe to second-guess her decision, especially since there was nothing she could do about it now, but I wanted her to understand the consequences … which made me feel a bit like John. “The Underworld is not heaven.”
“I know that,” Chloe said. “But maybe I feel the way that old man said … like I want to do things to help people. I don’t think you get to do that in heaven.”
“Old man?” Mr. Smith was on his phone, presumably with the hospital, checking on Patrick, but he paused his call to cast a scandalized glance at Chloe. “Did that young woman just call me an old man?”
“Oh, no. She was talking about Mr. Graves,” I lied to him.
He nodded and returned to his phone call, though I wasn’t certain he believed me.
“In the Underworld, I’ll get to help people, and to me, that seems like heaven,” Chloe was going on, oblivious.
Kayla stared at her. “You know,” she said. “I kind of get what she’s saying. Only I want to help people have better hair.”
“Well,” I said to Chloe. “Great. Because the Underworld is where you’re going to have to live now. It’s where we all live now, at least seventy percent of the time.”