The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook

Author:Elizabeth Crook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

TWENTY-ONE

Slowly, she drove back to Las Vegas and the Plaza, pulling to the shoulder of the road to avoid icy places. There was no traffic, and the sky remained dark. The clouds were low and threatening, but no precipitation was falling. For a while she drove in silence listening to the sound of the wheels crunching on the ice, but this, along with her thoughts, became depressing to her, so she turned on the radio and listened to an NPR interview with a woman who had written a book about her experience working on the boat docks of New Zealand.

She was trying to corral her feelings. The strange night and the vision of the skeleton shrouded in plastic and illuminated by the fading lantern light, with Jim keeping his strange vigil—his face shadowed with stubble, his hands scratched and dirty—these images troubled her. Numbed by exhaustion, she arrived at the Plaza and trudged up the wide old staircase and down the hallway to her room. Bassie’s room across the hall was dark and quiet. Meg changed into a T-shirt and got into bed, willing herself to sleep.

She was awakened by the telephone and was holding it to her ear before she was fully aware that it was ringing.

“It’s Jim,” she heard him say. “I’m downstairs in the lobby. I’m glad you’re here. I was worried.”

“I should have left a note,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Is Bassie awake?”

Her eyes moved to the window. She had not drawn the curtains, and could see that dawn had hardened into daylight. “I don’t know,” she answered.

“What time does she usually get up?”

Meg looked at the clock. “Before now.”

“I’m going to call her room and call you back. I need to talk to you together.”

He hung up, but called back in a moment. “She’s awake. Can you meet us in her room?”

When Meg stepped across the hall, Bassie was already in the doorway letting Jim into the room, and Meg noticed that his face was still unshaven, his hair uncombed, though he had washed his hands.

Bassie let him into the room without a word, and Meg went in also, closing the door behind her.

“It isn’t just a dog’s grave,” Jim said, looking at Bassie. “There’s also a human skeleton. I uncovered it last night. I believe it’s Elliott’s.”

She opened her mouth to draw a breath, her shoulders slumped forward, her hand clutching the handle of her cane, which wobbled back and forth. Meg reached to take her arm, but she pulled away. Jim stood watching, his own shock at the news he had just delivered seeming almost to equal Bassie’s.

Bassie stepped back and lowered herself to the bed. Then she stood again, as if to leave the room, but looked distractedly around and lowered herself onto the bed again. “It can’t be,” she said, bringing her eyes to bear on Jim. “He died in Mexico.”

“I found surveying tools in the grave, Bassie,” Jim said. “A barometer and hand level. And the cover of a notebook with a record of some fruit purchased in Mexico.

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