Lots of stuff was piled back there.
For some reason I recalled the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. When Howard Carter opened the tomb and thrust a candle inside, he was asked, “Can you see anything?” “Yes,” Carter responded. “Wonderful things.”
Me?
I saw things. None particularly wonderful.
I carefully reached in and pulled out one, two, and three bottles of Four Roses bourbon. Then some rusted cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Narragansett Ale. Soggy cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes. A plastic-wrapped package of what the police would have probably called “green leafy matter” at the time.
I carefully placed everything on the dirt floor. Turned back to the opening.
There were three other soggy cardboard boxes back there, almost falling apart in my hand as I slowly pulled them out.
There was official lettering on the covers. I opened one soggy cover and saw little yellow cardboard boxes, nestled in rows, scores of them, each about the size of a small travel toothpaste box.
I flipped one open with my thumb, holding the flashlight in my other hand. A little glass ampule with a needle came out.
A morphine syrette. Made to be used on a battlefield by a corpsman or a medic, or even a wounded soldier or marine. Break the tip by tugging on a little wire, insert the needle under the skin at a certain angle, and squeeze, and the person in question in terrible pain will get some relief.
Morphine.
Opioid.
Lots and lots of it.
All piled up in my house, undisturbed from one century to the next, until now.
From upstairs I heard my front door open, and the familiar voice of Paula Quinn calling out.
“Lewis? You here?”
“Be right up,” I said. “You won’t believe what I’ve found.”
I stuffed one of the cardboard packages in my pocket, and then gimped upstairs, feeling full of energy and vigor. Now it all made sense.
Finally.
The search hadn’t been for silver.
It had been for this old stockpile of opioids.
At the top of the stairs I bore right, and Paula was standing in my open doorway, not looking very happy to see me.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind you being late.”
Her face …
Then she was shoved into my house, nearly stumbling.
Dave Hudson came in, face set, eyes hard. “Then I hope you don’t mind we’re late, as well,” he said.
He was followed by his wife, Marjorie.
Who was holding a shotgun aimed at Paula’s head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I said very carefully and plainly, “Let her go. It’s just us. Not her.”
With bitterness in his voice, Dave said, “Oh, now you’re friendly, now you’re open for reason. Too late now, fool. We could have done this easy, we could have done this in a friendly manner. You could have stayed up here with Marjorie while I went in the cellar and quickly did what had to be done, but no, you had to be a stubborn, arrogant prick. Well, now you’re going to pay the price, and pay it in full.”
The three of them were now in my house and Dave closed the front door, locked it. “There. We won’t be disturbed now, will we.”
Thoughts were trampling fast through my head like horses on the last stretch of the Preakness. “Dave, I told you before, I’ve been sick. I’ve got two tubes draining blood and fluid out of my back and—”
“Shut up!” Dave shouted. A revolver was now in his right hand. “Just shut up. So you’re sick. So what? Lots and lots of people are sick out there, and what do you care?”
I tried to catch Paula’s eye but she wasn’t looking at anyone, just at the floor. My heart felt like a lump of cold lead. Marjorie prodded Paula with the shotgun and I remembered.
The first time I had seen Marjorie.
Picking up dropped papers in my yard, how she winced, like her arm and shoulder were hurting—
Hurting from the kick of a shotgun blast the night before.
“Why did you kill Maggie? For God’s sake, why?”
Marjorie spoke up, eyes flashing. “Yap, yap, yap. That’s all the old bitch did. Yap, yap, yap. I told her if she didn’t stop talking, I’d blow her goddamn head off. She laughed, said I didn’t have brass to do that. So she yapped some more—and I showed her.”
Words and thoughts failed me.
Marjorie looked to her husband. “David, I need it.”
“Not now, hon.”
“David, I really … I need something.”
“Wait until I go in the cellar.”
“I can’t wait that long!” The shotgun was wavering in her hands. “Please … please …”
“I can’t help you, Marjorie. Not now.”
The shotgun was now pointed at him. Paula sat down on the couch, head slumped forward. Marjorie took a long, hacking breath. “David, you always carry something for me. Something for an emergency. This … this is it.”
Dave looked at me with despair and I matched his look. “Okay, honey,” he said. “Relax. Just relax, all right? The shotgun, go put it up against the fireplace, okay?”
As she walked over, Dave said to me, “You don’t move, all right? I mean it. You move and your girlfriend gets shot. I’ll aim for her leg or shoulder, but I’m not that good of a shot, and I might miss and hit something more vital. Got it?”
Paula had both hands up to her face.
“I’m not moving,” I said.
“Good.”
As Dave moved around the coffee table he reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of folded dollar bills. He opened one of the bills to reveal a pill of some sort inside; Marjorie smiled and her eyes lit up like Christmas had come eight months early.
With trembling hands, she took the dollar bill and folded it back up again. I watched, horrified and fascinated at the same time. She took the folded bill and put it in her mouth, and crunched down with
