"Who steals a dead body?" I asked. "Who does that?" I stared through the glass doors at the drenching thunderstorm. Thunder was growling. Lightning was clawing at the sky. We were a power failure and a knife-wielding maniac away from a slasher movie.
Curt shook his head. He hadn't said much since the lecture by the police about wasting police resources. His knuckles were white on his bottle of beer. His jaw muscles were bunched. "Thing is, did the cops get pranked," he said, "or did we?"
I looked at him. "You think this was a prank?"
He didn't answer.
The obvious question occurred to me. "We're sure she didn't get up and walk away," I said finally. "Right?"
He snorted. "I know dead, Jamie."
Right. Because he knew me. I decided to let that slide. It had been a long day and a strange night.
It got stranger when the doorbell rang three stories below, pealing somberly through the house like the bells of Westminster Abbey.
I glanced at the clock. "It's almost midnight."
Curt got up and went to the window. "It's not the police. No cars out front."
"Maybe we should ignore it," I said.
The doorbell chiming changed to a pounding knock.
"I don't think so," he said. "We don't want to disturb the neighbors."
He had a point. Since the median age in Ocean Beach was 80, activity stopped for the day around nine. Lights out by eleven. Besides, the neighbors probably had Howard on speed dial. If he heard about suspicious activity, I was pretty sure my vacation would be over, and so would my employment.
We traipsed down the Gone with the Wind staircase. Curt glanced through the sidelight. "This should be good," he muttered.
I took a peek. The man standing there was so Everyman that I could hardly describe him while looking right at him. He had hair, two eyes, one nose, and an oversized thrift store wardrobe of board shorts and a T-shirt that hung on his thin frame like laundry on a clothesline. He had that baked-in leathery look of someone who'd spent too much time in the sun. Once the tan faded, so would the one feature that kept him from blending into the sand.
"Whoever he is, he looks harmless enough," I said.
Curt punched in the alarm code, and the system beeped three times, acknowledging his command.
I wrapped my arms around myself as thunder rumbled a warning.
Curt opened the door.
Up close, the man looked no more interesting. He just stood there being rained on without making a move to come inside or shelter himself. His hair was plastered against his scalp, showing a gold stud in his left ear, which was about as exotic as he got. His parting was sunburned.
"You two was on the beach earlier," he said without preamble
Oh, boy. I opened my mouth, but Curt did a slight headshake, so I closed it again.
"What about it?" Curt asked.
"You found somethin'."
Curt took a subtle sideways step that shielded me. "I didn't catch your name."
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. People are always tellin' me I got no manners." The man stuck out his hand. His veins were a road map of blue threading beneath the skin. Surprisingly, he wore a wedding ring. "Call me Ernie."
Curt ignored the hand. Ernie didn't offer it to me. I didn't want it anyway.
"I saw youse on the beach before." Youse, the curious plural of "you" unique to South Philly. That wasn't unusual at the Jersey Shore in the summertime, when a lot of city residents headed for either the shore or the Pocono Mountains to escape the wilting heat.
What bothered me more was that there'd been a witness to my shining moment of grace. "I'm not usually that clumsy," I said.
The corner of Curt's mouth twitched.
"Yeah," Ernie said. "I could tell you're a regular ballerina." His attention moved back to Curt. "I figure it was you called the cops. Am I right? And they didn't find nothing."
"There was nothing to find," Curt said.
"Yeah." Ernie took another glance over his shoulder. I didn't see anything out there. Thunder growled like a feral animal. The rain wasn't letting up, but Ernie still wasn't making any moves to shield himself from it. "Thing is," he said, "there was somethin' to find. And I found it."
I glanced at Curt. His expression was firmly set on blank.
"I could let you have it," Ernie went on, "for, say, twenty bucks."
"What is it?" Curt asked levelly.
Ernie scrounged around in his pockets and came up clutching something on a gold chain. He held it between two fingers, as if demonstrating it was this big. The chain dripped between his fingers.
A locket.
Something uneasy curled around my spine. "Can I see that?" I asked him.
He passed it over with obvious reluctance. It wasn't especially heavy, and I wasn't sure it was real gold. It had a lot of fancy filigree on its face and engraved initials on its back. A.H.
Ernie was a grave robber.
"You took this from her," I said, unable to keep the hostility from my voice even if I'd wanted to. And I didn't. What he'd done was despicable.
Ernie managed a convincing "who, me?" expression. "I didn't wanna keep it or nothin'. Ernie don't keep what ain't his."
"No," I said. "He sells it."
"I'd expect that attitude, seein' as how youse live in a place like this," he said, "but twenty bucks is a lot of money to someone like me."
Curt crossed his arms over his chest, watching us. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but I hoped it involved castration of the parasite at our door.
"Why were you on the beach tonight?" he asked.
Ernie blinked. "I live there. I got a nice little place in the dunes, about a quarter mile up the beach. Don't look like that—it ain't so bad. I got the view without the taxes, and I'm always seein' educatin' things." He swallowed. "Like I said, I could do with a little cash. And I don't want this necklace anyways. Like I said, Ernie don't keep what—"
"You could have given it to the police," Curt told him.
"The cops?" Ernie swiped his forearm under his nose. "Are you kiddin' me? The cops got no interest in someone like me."
My guess was they might have a very strong interest.
"Look if you ain't buyers, I'll move on." He reached for the locket. I pulled it back.
"Why come to us?" I asked. And how. That was something I didn't want to think about. The how meant he'd followed us home, or at least far enough to learn where we were staying. And we hadn't noticed him. Not a reassuring thought.
He looked at me. "Look, you can turn it over to the cops if you want. I just wanted to get a little cash and be on my way."
Curt's voice took on an edge. "Do you know who left that girl on the beach?"
Ernie's eyes grew wary. "No, not the killin' part, no. But the leavin' part, yeah. Might be I know that part. Maybe it's one and the same."
"Who?" Curt's question was harsh.
Ernie shifted from foot to foot. He was wearing orange sneakers with the laces untied. He had surprisingly big feet for a grave robbing ghoul. "I'm thinkin' that kind of thing might be worth another twenty."
Curt's legs were slightly spread. His back was rigid. His arms were at his sides, his hands in loose fists. I'd seen this posture before. It didn't look good for Ernie. The two stared each other down for a long moment before Ernie shrugged and looked away.
"I ain't askin' for the moon here, mister," Ernie muttered. "Cut me a break, will you."
"What happened tonight?" Curt asked sharply. "Who took that girl off the beach?"
When Ernie looked back, he had two bright red spots on his Barcalounger cheeks that made me think of railroad crossing lights in the glare of morning.
"All right, fine," he said peevishly. "I'll tell you. Sasquatch took her."