“This shouldn’t be happening,” Omar said.
“Could it be kids? A Halloween prank?” I was asking. “Could it have happened the night of the party?” I paused and then, trying to gain favor with Jayne, added, “I bet Jay did it.”
“No,” Jayne said. “This started happening at the beginning of the summer and it’s just been accelerating.”
Omar touched the side of the house (I shuddered) and then brushed his palms off on his khakis. “Well, it looks like . . . claw marks,” he said.
“Is that some kind of tool?” I asked. “What’s a clawmark?”
“No—like something’s clawing at it.” And then Omar stopped. “But I don’t know how anybody—whatever it was—got up there.”
“Well, who lived here before?” I asked. “Maybe it’s just naturally peeling.” And then I reminded them of the heavy rains from late August and early September.
Jayne and Omar both glanced at me.
“What? I mean, why was this painted over?” I asked, shrugging. “That’s . . . a nice color.”
“The house is new, Bret,” Jayne sighed. “There was no other paint.”
“Plus that wasn’t the base color,” Omar added.
“Well, maybe the paint’s oxidizing, y’know, the enamel, um, underneath?”
Frowning, Omar grew quickly tired of me and pulled out a cell phone.
Jayne took one more look at the wall and then turned my way. She seemed inordinately cheerful this morning, and when she looked at my face she smiled again. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I reached out to touch it—a gesture that only widened the smile.
“I don’t know why you’re smiling, baby. There’s a dead crow in our Jacuzzi.”
“It must’ve happened after you got out of it last night.”
“I didn’t take a Jacuzzi last night, babe.”
“Well, there was a wet pair of shorts on the railing by the deck.”
“Yeah, I saw them but they aren’t mine,” I said. “Maybe Jay stopped by.”
Jayne’s forehead creased. “Are you sure they’re not yours?”
“Yeah, I’m sure, and hey—did somebody from the decorating company come by this morning?”
“Yeah, they forgot a gravestone.” She paused briefly. “And a skeleton and a few bats.”
“That always happens on Saturdays, doesn’t it?” I grinned and then, trying to keep everything on a light note, I asked the following in a manner as casual as possible: “Did you know that someone wrote my father’s name on that headstone?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“When I came back last night—wait, you’re not mad at me because I got tired and had to skip out on trick-or-treating . . . are you?”
She sighed. “Look, it’s the first of the month. Let’s forget everything that’s been happening and let’s try to start over. How’s that? Let’s just start over. New beginnings.”
The hangover vanished. The fear was gone. This could all work out, I thought.
“I love your recovery time,” I said.
“Yeah, fast to get pissed, faster to forgive.”
“That’s what I love and admire about you.”
She flinched. “What—that I’m a total enabler?”
Behind her, Omar was on his cell, pacing and gesturing at the wall, which I couldn’t help looking up at again. How could something get up there? I wondered. What if it could fly? came back in response.
“What about the gravestone?” Jayne was asking. “Bret—hello?”
I made the effort and focused away from the wall and back on Jayne. “Yeah, when I came home last night I noticed it was left over from the party and when I went down to take a look at it I saw that somebody had written my dad’s name on it . . . and they also knew his birth date and, um, the year he died.”
Jayne’s expression darkened. “Well, it wasn’t there this morning.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I took the guys out there when they removed it.” She paused. “And there was nothing on it.”
“Do . . . you think it rained last night?” I cocked my head.
“Do . . . you think you had too much to drink last night?” She also cocked her head, mimicking me.
“I’m not drinking, Jayne—” I stopped myself.
We studied each other for a long time. She won. I settled. I rose up to it.