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to you.
What is it?
It s in my office. Follow me. He stuck his head into the
hall, looked both ways, and scurried out of the Middle
Chapel toward the business office.
Who was this friend? I asked, trotting after him. Did
he leave a name?
It was a woman. According to Miss Ivy she blew
through here like a bat out of h-e-l-l, he spelled, and I won-
dered if, like me, Manny feared the karmic consequences of
cursing in the presence of the dead.
I followed him through the empty reception area and
down the corridor to his no-frills office. A black rolling suit-
case, the kind favored by flight attendants and frequent
fliers, leaned against one wall.
You don t know who left it? I asked.
I didn t see her. You can ask Miss Ivy in the morning.
Listen, I ve got to go. I m on the board of the Rotary Club,
and we re meeting at Inn Kensington in ten minutes.
Manny, did Miss Ivy say if the woman told her any-
thing? Left a note, maybe?
106 Hailey Lind
Nope. I assumed you were expecting it. I thought maybe
it was an artist thing.
An artist thing?
I m a CPA, Annie. What do I know from artistic tem-
perament? Manny shrugged his well-padded shoulders,
locked up his files, and left me alone with the mysterious
black suitcase.
Chapter 7
I often think that the night is more alive and more
richly colored than the day.
Vincent van Gogh (1853 1890), Dutch painter
Van Gogh had a unique talent. And, apparently,
unique vision.
Georges LeFleur
I stared at the ordinary suitcase from across the small room
as though it were a poisonous snake. Had a resentful Dr.
Gossen spent the afternoon thumbing through his tattered
copy of The Anarchist s Cookbook? Would a tug on the zip-
per rocket me into the fourth dimension? This ll teach an
artist to mess with an anthropologist, I imagined him cack-
ling as he stuffed fertilizer and diesel fuel into the bag and
rigged it with a timer.
Get a grip, I scolded myself. Dr. Gossen was a re-
spectable college professor.
This line of thinking failed to reassure me. My father was
also a respectable college professor, and some of his col-
leagues were downright certifiable.
Was that a ticking sound I heard?
Okay, Annie, calm down. Manny said a woman left the
108 Hailey Lind
suitcase. It couldn t have been Mary; Miss Ivy would have
recognized her. Maybe Evangeline dropped off a few things
for the night in the cemetery. But surely she would have
called first to tell me. I pulled my cell phone out of my over-
alls pocket. Recently I had made a vow to keep the gadget
charged and on my person, figuring that as a communica-
tions device it might work better that way than when it had
a dead battery and was stuffed in my sock drawer.
It was fully charged. There were no messages.
The only other woman who might associate me with the
columbarium was Cindy Tanaka. With a sense of urgency I
crossed the room, knelt, and held my breath as I unzipped
the suitcase.
No bang, no explosion, no homemade bomb. Only a
leather camera bag and a bundle wrapped in a bright orange
towel with Garfield the Cat s grinning face. Inside the cam-
era bag was the dismantled camera Cindy had used the other
night along with several murky snapshots of La Fornarina.
Sitting back on my heels, I listened for the sound of any-
one lingering outside Manny s office. All was quiet. Slowly
I unwrapped the Garfield bundle. Inside was the metal box
from Louis Spencer s sepulcher. The old lock was in place
and looked untouched.
I checked the suitcase s side pockets for a note or a let-
ter anything that would provide a hint as to what was
going on here. I knew that suicidal people often made a
point of tying up loose ends before making their final depar-
ture, and Cindy had struck me as the type to get her affairs
in order. But why would she leave all this for me? Why
hadn t she turned in the metal box to the cemetery office, as
we had agreed? Did she want me to take care of it?
Another wave of sadness washed over me, and I strug-
gled to push aside the memory of finding Cindy s body.
Minutes passed as I debated my next step. I repacked the
BRUSH WITH DEATH 109
suitcase, zipped it shut, and eased Manny s door open. All
was quiet, so I pulled the black bag, its plastic wheels clack-
ing loudly, out of the office, along the hallways, and up and
down the short flights of stairs to the Chapel of the
Madonna. Mary was on the scaffolding, touching up the
paint of the blue sky as she grooved to her iPod.
Swear to God, Annie, she said, peeved. Evangeline had
left a message this morning that Mary was in a rotten mood
because she had chickened out of last night s graveyard
slumber party. Tonight they were set to try again. That Roy
dude? Hung out trying to talk to me, like, for-ever. If you
leave me alone here one more time, I m gonna . . . She
glanced down at me. You okay?
Sure, I said. Just a little tired. Not wanting to relive
this afternoon s gruesome discovery, I decided not to men-
tion it to Mary.
What s with the suitcase?
I need to hide it.
Where?
One of the many things I loved about Mary was that
when I showed up trailing a suitcase to hide, she asked
where rather than why.
Somewhere in the columbarium. I don t want to be seen
leaving with it, I said, thinking of Russell, the observant
cemetery savant. I had no idea why Cindy had left the suit-
case for me, but she must have had a reason. The least I
could do for her was to find out what it was.
Do you need to hide the whole thing? Mary asked,
clambering down from the squeaky scaffolding. Or can we
unpack it? It d be easier to hide smaller objects.
Good point. Ex-drug-user teenage runaways made by
far the best assistants when it came to skullduggery. I un-
zipped the suitcase and removed the camera bag and the
towel-shrouded box.
110 Hailey Lind
Can we lose Garfield?
Sure, I replied, unwrapping the metal container.
What s in the box? Mary said, grabbing and shaking it.
Hey! I said, snatching it back. Be careful with that.
Why? Is it gonna explode?
Hard to say.
What s in it?
I don t know.
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