labored, they complained to the sheriff that they were not being paid extra for getting up at dawn and missing breakfast and coming in early, but they got very little sympathy from him; he just urged them to work faster.
At 7:45, Avril Tannerton and Gary Olmstead arrived in the Forever View hearse. As they walked across the green hillside toward Laurenski, Olmstead looked properly somber, but Tannerton was smiling, taking in great lungfuls of the nippy air, as if he were merely out for his morning constitutional.
'Morning, Peter.'
'Morning, Avril. Gary.'
'How long till they have it open?' Tannerton asked.
'They say fifteen minutes.'
At 8:05, one of the workmen climbed up from the hole and said, 'Ready to yank him out?'
'Let's get on with it,' Laurenski said.
Chains were attached to the casket, and it was brought out of the ground by the same device that had lowered it in just last Sunday. The bronze coffin was caked with earth around the handles and in the frill work, but overall it was still shiny.
By 8:40, Tannerton and Olmstead had loaded the big box into the hearse.
'I'll follow you to the coroner's office,' the sheriff said.
Tannerton grinned at him. 'I assure you, Peter, we aren't going to run off with Mr. Frye's remains.'
***
At 8:20, in Joshua Rhinehart's kitchen, while the casket was being exhumed at the cemetery a few miles away, Tony and Hilary stacked the breakfast dishes in the sink.
'I'll wash them later,' Joshua said. 'Let's get up to the cliff and open that house. It must smell like hell in there after all these years. I just hope the mildew and mold haven't done too much damage to Katherine's collections. I warned Bruno about that a thousand times, but he didn't seem to care if--' Joshua stopped, blinked. 'Will you listen to me babble on? Of course he didn't care if the whole lot of it rotted away. Those were Katherine's collections, and he wouldn't have cared a damn about anything she treasured.'
They went to Shade Tree Vineyards in Joshua's car. The day was dreary; the light was dirty gray. Joshua parked in the employees' lot.
Gilbert Ulman hadn't come to work yet. He was the mechanic who maintained the aerial tramway in addition to caring for all of Shade Tree Vineyards' trucks and farm equipment.
The key that operated the tramway was hanging on a pegboard in the garage, and the winery's night manager, a portly man named Iannucci, was happy to get it for Joshua.
Key in hand, Joshua led Hilary and Tony up to the second floor of the huge main winery, through an area of administrative offices, through a viniculture lab, and then onto a broad catwalk. Half the building was open from the first floor to the ceiling, and in that huge chamber there were enormous three-story fermentation tanks. Cold, cold air flowed off the tanks, and there was a yeasty odor in the place. At the end of the long catwalk, at the southwest corner of the building, they went through a heavy pine door with black iron hinges, into a small room that was open at the end opposite from where they entered. An overhanging roof extended twelve feet out from the missing wall, to keep rain from slanting into the open chamber. The four-seat cable car--a fire-engine-red number with lots of glass--was nestled under the overhang, at the brink of the room.
***
The pathology laboratory had a vague, unpleasant chemical odor. So did the coroner, Dr. Amos Garnet, who sucked vigorously on a breath mint.
There were five people in the room. Laurenski, Larsson, Garnet, Tannerton, and Olmstead. No one, with the possible exception of the perennially good-natured Tannerton, seemed happy to be there.
'Open it,' Laurenski said. 'I've got an appointment to keep with Joshua Rhinehart.'
Tannerton and Olmstead threw back the latches on the bronze casket. A few remaining chunks of dirt fell to the floor, onto the plastic dropcloth that Garnet had put down. They pushed the lid up and back.
The body was gone.
The velvet- and silk-lined box held nothing but the three fifty-pound bags of dry mortar mix that had been stolen from Avril Tannerton's basement last weekend.
***
Hilary and Tony sat on one side of the cable car, and Joshua sat on the other. The attorney's knees brushed Tony's. Hilary held Tony's hand as the red gondola moved slowly, slowly up the line toward the top of the cliff. She wasn't afraid of heights, but the tramway seemed so fragile that she could not help gritting her teeth.
Joshua saw the tension on her face and smiled. 'Don't worry. The car seems small, but it's sturdy. And Gilbert does a fine job with maintenance.'
As it ground gradually upward, the car swung slightly in the stiff morning wind.
The view of the valley became increasingly spectacular. Hilary tried to concentrate on that and not on the creaking and clattering of the machinery.
The gondola finally reached the top of the cable. It locked in place, and Joshua opened the door.
When they walked out of the upper station of the tramway system, a fiercely-white arc of lightning and a violent peal of thunder broke open the lowering sky. Rain began to fall. It was a thin, cold, slanting rain.
Joshua, Hilary, and Tony ran for shelter. They stomped up the front steps and across the porch to the door.
'And you say there's no heat up here?' Hilary asked.
'The furnace has been shut down for five years,' Joshua said. 'That's why I told both of you to wear sweaters under your coats. It's not a cold day, really. But once you've been up here awhile in this damp, the air will cut through to your bones.'
Joshua unlocked the door, and they went inside, switching on the three flashlights they'd brought with them.
