Final Breath

tiller of the soil here.'

Eli shook her hand. 'I'm Eli. I--um, I like your garden a lot.'

She frowned at the fake deer. 'Personally, I think some of this tacky stuff can go, but I've been outvoted. These new petunias ought to be nice. They're such a cheery flower.' She looked him up and down, then smiled. 'Eli, that's a nice name. So what did you want to see me about, Eli?'

'I live in the Tudor Court Apartments with my mom,' he said. 'We moved in about five weeks ago. We're in apartment number nine.'

The smile ran away from her face. 'Oh.'

'We've had some pretty weird things happen in there.' Eli squatted down so they were face-to-face. 'We figured out the place is haunted. I hear this woman killed her son in there, and then she shot herself. I was talking to the caretaker, Larry, and he said you were living next door in number ten when it happened.'

A slightly pained look on her face, she nodded again. 'How is Larry? Does he still have the canary?'

'Yeah,' Eli said. 'Larry's fine.'

'A nice man,' Vera said. 'Bit of an odd duck, but a nice man and a hard worker.'

Eli could tell she didn't want to talk about the murder-suicide. She was changing the subject on him. 'Anyway,' he said. 'I was hoping you could tell me something about what happened with that woman and her son. No one seems to know what really went on. No one even remembers their names and when it happened.'

With a long sigh, the old woman glanced down at the box with three more petunias in plastic pots. The rest of the box held empty pots. 'You know, these petunias can tolerate a lot of heat,' she said. 'But this afternoon sun is a bit strong for yours truly. Why don't we sit over there in the shade?' Pulling off her other work glove and dropping it on the ground, Vera nodded toward a nearby bench--beneath a sycamore tree. 'First, help an old lady up. These knees aren't what they used to be.'

Eli took her by the arm and helped her up from the kneeling pad at the garden's edge. He noticed she had some trouble walking, and she clung to him until they sat down on the bench. 'Whew!' she said, taking off her hat and fanning herself. 'So--you want to hear about Loretta and her boy?'

'Loretta? That was the mother's name?' Eli asked, sitting beside her.

Vera nodded, then she squinted at him. 'Say, why don't you just look up all of this on the Internet World Wide Web or whatever?'

Eli shrugged. 'Because I don't know their names--or when it happened.'

She stopped fanning herself with her hat. Her mouth twisted into a frown. 'You know, Eli, you and your mother should just find another place to live. Ever since Loretta and her son died there, something's been wrong with that apartment.'

'Do you remember the son's name--and how old he was?'

She nodded. 'He was about your age, fifteen.'

'I'm going to be thirteen soon.'

She smiled at him. 'Well, you're very mature for your age. Earl, he was a young fifteen.'

'Earl,' he repeated. The Ouija board had said that the boy's name was Carl and he was fourteen--just one letter and one year off.

'You remind me of him,' Vera said. 'Your names are similar, too, Earl and Eli. He was a good-looking boy, too, and very sweet.'

'What was their last name?' Eli asked. 'Do you remember?'

She nodded. 'Sayers, Loretta and Earl Sayers.' She slowly fanned herself with her hat again. 'They moved to Tudor Court in July 1974. Loretta had just left her husband, an older man who lived in--um, Magnolia, I think. And he had some older children from a first wife who died.' She ran her bony fingers over her mouth. 'I can't for the life of me remember his name. He and Loretta weren't married for very long. His name wasn't Sayers. That was the name Loretta went back to. Earl was her son from a previous marriage, this Sayers fellow. I don't know what happened there.'

'What was she like?' Eli asked.

'Oh, she was a very beautiful girl--or I should say, woman. She was in her late thirties and a bit withdrawn--moody at times. Maybe she was just lonely. I never saw her with a friend or a boyfriend.'

'What about Earl?' Eli asked. 'Did he have any friends?'

'Only one that I ever saw, but he was over quite a lot,' she answered. 'I forget his name, but he was a little older than Earl. He had to be at least sixteen, because he usually drove over, and ended up blocking my car in the garage. It really got my goat, the way he'd just leave his car right in front of mine for hours on end. I don't know how many times I had to call Loretta and ask Earl's friend to move his silly car...'

'When did they die?' Eli asked. 'Do you remember?'

'November, that same year,' she replied. 'The shot woke me up. It was around three in the morning. I thought someone had lit off a rocket-bottle on the beach.'

'Bottle rocket,' Eli said. 'Did you call the police?'

Vera shook her head. 'No, but the next morning, her husband came by--I don't think they'd officially divorced yet. He got the super to let him in, and they found Loretta and Earl upstairs. A lot of people talked about how the murder-suicide looked staged. I don't see how they could say anything like that, because the police sealed off that place right away. So no one saw anything in there except for the authorities. But there was some gossip that maybe the husband had murdered them both, only he'd set it up to look as if Loretta had killed Earl and then herself. I suppose I did as much to fan those flames. The police asked me about him. He visited there quite a lot, especially during the first month or so. It was late summer, and with the windows open, I could hear them arguing. For such a quiet little thing, Loretta's voice sure got loud at times. I'd hear her screaming at him on the phone sometimes, too. I got the distinct impression he didn't want to let her go--at least, not without a fight. And fight, they did.'

'Did you ever hear him threaten her?' Eli asked.

Vera let out a little laugh. 'You sound just like the police.' She pointed to his T-shirt, 'You look like one, too. Well, Eli, I'll tell you what I told them. I tried not to eavesdrop, but it wasn't easy when their voices were coming right through my window. I never once heard him threaten her. But some of the other neighbors, I guess they heard differently, because the newspapers at the time reported he'd threatened to kill her on more than one occasion.'

Vera glanced up at the darkening sky as the sun went behind a cloud. 'The police couldn't find enough evidence to make a case against the husband. But that didn't stop people from gossiping. If you ask me, I believe the official story. Loretta seemed to have a lot of emotional problems. I think she slit her son's throat while he was sleeping. The newspapers said she even tucked him in afterward. Then she got undressed, got into the bath, and shot herself through the head.' She shuddered. 'Well, there's just no polite way to talk about it, is there?'

Eli just nodded. He felt a little numb. He didn't know what to say.

'So--you've been having some strange problems in the upstairs bathroom,' Vera said. 'Am I right?'

'In my room, too,' Eli murmured.

'Oh, of course, that only makes sense. All the different people who have moved in and out of that apartment always reported strange goings-on in the upstairs bath. But most of them used Earl's room as a guest room, and they wouldn't have been in there very much.' She patted his arm. 'You poor boy, having to stay in that room where Earl--' She shook her head. 'Well, I've talked too much.'

'No, I asked to hear it.' Eli put his hand on top of hers. 'Thank you.'

She nudged him. 'You and your mom shouldn't be living there.'

'Right now, I'm trying to get her to move back to Chicago,' he admitted. 'But I don't think it's working.'

Vera glanced up at the sky again. 'Looks like we're losing our sun. And I've been sitting down too long.' She was a bit unsteady as she got to her feet. Eli tried to take her arm, but she pulled away. 'Nope, thank you, dear, but I need to walk on my own.'

He walked alongside her until she reached the garden's edge. 'I'm moving like molasses in January, I know.' She groaned as she got down on the kneepad. 'It's no fun getting old, but it beats the alternative.'

'Thanks for talking with me,' Eli said.

'I hope you don't have nightmares thanks to me,' Vera said. She put her gardening gloves back on. 'Come