The Vampire Who Played Dead

I awoke with a gasp in the middle of the night, after dreaming that a creepy caretaker, the coffin maker, had been watching me from the dark shadow's of Roxi's room.

At least, I hoped it was a dream.

I looked now and we were alone. Thank God. I lay my head back down on the pillow and pulled Roxi's wonderfully warm body to me. She came willingly, mewing slightly in sleep, and I only grudgingly fell back to sleep with my eyes fastened on the far corner of the room. That is, until I could no longer keep my eyes open....

When I awoke in the morning, with Roxi still sleeping hard and the morning light creeping through the edges of the blinds, I knew where to go next.

To meet the one man who, I thought, might have heard the knocking, too. The one man who could have inconspicuously dug up Evelyn's body.

The creepy caretaker, of course.

The man of my recent dreams.

I got dressed and hit Starbucks and was soon on my way to Forest Lawn just as the morning sun appeared in the east, over the Eagle Rock hills, and shining its morning glory.

I was acutely aware that as I awakened with a reasonably fresh cup of coffee, there might be a hidden race of the undead slipping now into a very deep and dark sleep.

Traffic was surprisingly brisk.

Shortly, I was driving through the open gates of Forest Lawn and over to the maintenance building located on the east side of the sprawling cemetery.

It was a Tuesday morning, and a handful of cars were parked here and there. As I parked and exited my car, a nearby Latino woman was walking slowly between the rows of grave markers with a small bouquet of flowers. She looked lost and grief-stricken.

I knew the feeling well, and, sister, it doesn't go away.

The head groundsman was sitting at his desk, flipping through a thick stack of stapled papers. I caught the header of one such paper. It read "Lot 126" before he flipped to the next page. What he was going to do in Lot 126 was anybody's guess, but I figured somebody was getting buried.

He looked up, saw me, and nodded. I never did catch his name, and there was no placard on the door nor was there one on his desk. He was, in my mind, just the caretaker. The uncreepy caretaker, although that might be an oxymoron.

"Still working the Case of the Missing Corpse, huh?" he asked.

"Maybe I was a Hardy Boy in a past life."

He chuckled. "What can I do you for?" He sounded busy and rushed, and he wanted me to know it.

"Is Boyd around?"

He frowned at that, then jutted a thumb toward the back room. "He's in the shop."

"Building more coffins?"

"Always. But be quick. I need him outside soon."

"Of course. Lot 126?"

His mouth was about to drop open until he looked at the stack of papers in front of him. "You're good, Spinoza. Anyway, don't be long."

"Wouldn't dream of it."