Cemetery Dance Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked, rising. She drew back the curtain with one hand, revealing a neatly made bed, as tight as a drum. "You see? Just a dream."
    Nora lay back, her limbs growing heavy. It hadn't been real, after all.
    The nurse leaned over her and smoothed down the covers, tucking her in more firmly. Vaguely, Nora could see the second nurse hanging a new bottle of saline and reattaching the line. Everything seemed to be going very far away. Nora felt tired, so tired. Of course it was a dream. She found herself not caring anymore and thinking how wonderful it was not to care …
    Cemetery Dance
    Chapter 6
     
    Vincent D'Agosta paused at the open door of the hospital room, giving a timid knock. The morning sun streamed down the hall, gilding the shiny hospital equipment arrayed against the tiled walls.
    He didn't expect the strength of voice that answered. "Come in."
    He entered, feeling awkward, put his hat down on the only seat, then had to pick it up again to sit down. He was never good at this. He glanced at her a little hesitantly and was surprised by what he saw. Instead of the injured, distraught, grieving widow he expected, he found a woman who looked remarkably composed. Her eyes were red but bright and determined. A bandage covering part of her head and a faint shadow of blackening under the right eye were the only marks of the attack two nights before.
    "Nora, I'm so sorry, so damn sorry …" His voice faltered.
    "Bill considered you a good friend," she replied. She chose her words slowly, carefully, as if somehow knowing what needed to be said without really understanding any of it.
    A pause. "How are you doing?" he asked, knowing even as he said it how lame it must sound.
    Nora's response was simply to shake her head and return the question. "How are you doing?"
    D'Agosta answered honestly. "Shitty."
    "He would be glad you were handling … this."
    D'Agosta nodded.
    "The doctor will see me at noon, and if all is well I'll be out of here soon thereafter."
    "Nora, there's something I want you to know right up front. We're going to find the bastard. We're going to find him and lock him up and throw away the key."
    Nora gave no response.
    D'Agosta rubbed his hand over his bald spot. "To do that, I'm going to have to ask you some more questions."
    "Go ahead. Talking … talking actually helps."
    "Okay." He hesitated. "Are you sure it was Colin Fearing?"
    She gazed at him levelly. "As sure as I'm here, right now, in this bed. It was Fearing, all right."
    "How well did you know him?"
    "He used to leer at me in the lobby. Once asked me for a date — even though he knew I was married." She shuddered. "A real pig."
    "Did he give any sign of mental instability?"
    "No."
    "Tell me about the time he, ah, asked you on a date."
    "We happened to get on the elevator together. He turned to me, hands in his pockets, and he asked — with that smarmy British accent of his — if I wanted to come to his digs and see his etchings."
    "He really said that? Etchings?"
    "I guess he thought he was being ironic."
    D'Agosta shook his head. "Had you seen him around in, say, the last two weeks?"
    Nora did not reply right away. She seemed to be making an effort to remember, and D'Agosta's heart went out to her. "No. Why do you ask?"
    D'Agosta wasn't ready to go there yet. "Did he have a girlfriend?"
    "Not that I know of."
    "Ever meet his sister?"
    "Didn't even know he had a sister."
    "Did Fearing have any close friends? Other relatives?"
    "I don't know him well enough to say. He seemed a bit of a loner. He kept strange hours — an actor type, you know, worked in theater."
    D'Agosta referred to his notepad, where he'd scribbled some routine questions. "Just a few more formalities, for the record. How long have you and Bill been married?" He couldn't bring himself to put the question in the past tense.
    "That was our first anniversary."
    D'Agosta tried to keep his voice calm, neutral. There seemed to be an obstruction in his throat, and he swallowed. "How long