Stealing Faces - Michael Prescott [96]
The Bible clapped shut, and a portable winch operated by one of the groundskeepers hummed into action.
Cray and the others watched as the sling was lowered, the casket committed to the earth.
There was a soft thump as the casket touched bottom. The minister poured sand from a bottle into his open palm, then ritually spilled it into the grave.
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Cray hadn’t cared much for St. Paul’s effusiveness, but he liked this older sentiment. It was the hard, honest dogma of a desert people. What was a person, after all, except earth and dust? What was a life, in the end, except ashes scattered in the uncaring wind? No romanticism here. No illusions. Man was clay.
When the ceremony was over, Cray lingered awhile, watching the groundskeepers remove the sling and fill in the hole with shoveled dirt. One of the men misinterpreted his continued presence as a sign of grief.
“Don’t feel too bad, Dr. Cray,” the man said kindly. “It’s just one of those things, you know?”
There was wisdom in this, too—the unstudied fatalism that got most human beings through the pointless maze of their lives.
“I know, Jake.” Cray smiled. “Still, I wish I could have done more.”
“Nothing you could do. Just happened, is all.”
“I feel it’s my fault, in a way. If I hadn’t agreed to cooperate with the police—”
“You can’t think of it like that. You did what was right. Anyway, you couldn’t have her running around loose.”
“No. No, that wouldn’t have been good ... for anyone.
“The McMillan girl’s better off now,” the man said.
“I suppose she is.”
“And as for Walter ...” The groundskeeper cast a glance at the grave half-filled with dark, damp soil. “Well, maybe he’s better off, too.”
This was the fellow’s first concession to sentiment, and it disappointed Cray. “Maybe so,” he said curtly, and then he left the two men to their work.
Walter was not better off. Walter was dead, and Cray saw no honor in death, no cheer to be found there.
Certainly Walter had not wanted to die. He would have pleaded for his life, if he’d had the wits to do so, on the night Cray killed him.
Cray had waited three days to carry out this necessary task. If Walter had expired immediately after Kaylie’s arrest, questions might have been raised. By Friday, Cray had felt safe enough to act.
He’d made his preparations in the evening. Come midnight, he had visited Walter in his room. At that hour the administration building had been largely empty, and no one had seen him enter.
Even so, he had carefully shut the door behind him, and had kept his voice low....
* * *
“Hello, Walter,” Cray said.
Walter, still awake with a single lamp lit, was sulking on the edge of his fold-out sofa. He looked up with a guilty start when Cray entered.
“Hi, Dr. Cray,” he answered softly, a fearful flutter in his voice.
“You didn’t come to work today, or for the past two days. You hardly even leave this room anymore.”
Walter was silent.
“I hear you’ve been skipping meals at the commissary.”
“Not hungry.”
“Is that it? Or is it that you’ve been afraid to come out and face me?”
No answer.
“You did cause an awful lot of trouble Tuesday night.”
“I know it, Dr. Cray,” Walter agreed morosely. Then, as a plaintive afterthought: “I was just trying to help.”
“Of course you were. But don’t you see, Walter, that you can’t help anybody by thinking for yourself? Your brain is all muddled. What comes out of it is so much goop, of no value to anyone.”
“Kaylie’s dangerous,” Walter muttered. “She could hurt you. I didn’t want you getting hurt.”
“Yes, well, you needn’t worry about Kaylie anymore.”
Walter lifted his head in surprise, showing his first, faintly hopeful smile. “Is she ... dead?”
“Why, no. She’s our guest. Hadn’t you heard?”
“I haven’t been talking to anybody.”
“I see.” Cray had suspected as much, but he was pleased to obtain confirmation of this fact. “Well, Kaylie is staying with us now, locked up tight.”
“So you’re helping her get better?”
“Oh, I’m helping her, all right. But we’re not through talking about you, Walter.