Onyx Webb 10 Page 11

  Noah lowered the pillowcase into the hole, then shoveled the dirt back in on top of it.

  When he finished, Noah found himself thinking about the vows he had made to Onyx two weeks earlier.

  “Onyx, today I become your husband. You become my wife. I will strive to give you the very best of myself, while accepting you—exactly as you are.”

  Exactly as you are.

  Noah knew that’s what he needed to do now.

  He had to stop thinking of her as simply being gone.

  He had to start thinking of her exactly as she was.

  Dead.

  After Noah put the shovel away and got cleaned up, the phone rang. He didn’t answer it. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, especially Clay—who, besides a couple people at the restaurant, was the only person who ever called the lighthouse.

  A minute later, the phone rang again.

  Again, Noah let it ring.

  When the phone started ringing for the third time, Noah realized whoever it was wasn’t going to give up until he answered.

  “Hello?” Noah said, irritated.

  “Well, finally,” Noah heard a familiar voice say. “I was about to think the sheriff gave me a bad number.”

  It was Alec Yost.

  CRIMSON COVE, OREGON

  FEBRUARY 6, 2011

  THE RESTAURANT STAN LEE remembered from his previous visit to Crimson Cove was gone, replaced by an upscale little eatery named Noah’s Grille, which he assumed was owned by Noah Ashley, whom Stan Lee had met on two different occasions now.

  The first was during the Onyx Webb Film Festival nine years earlier. The second was just six weeks ago at the solstice eclipse party at the Mulvaneys.

  Worse still, Noah had recognized Stan Lee as the man dressed as Lieutenant Dan—the character from Forrest Gump—simply because he’d called him “sport” over the course of the evening.

  It was always the smallest things that tripped one up.

  The good thing was Stan Lee had driven into town in a completely different disguise—as a bearded trucker. He wore a blue denim shirt, green quilted vest, and a John Deere baseball cap he’d picked up at a Love’s Truck Stop while in Nebraska. For extra measure, he decided to use an exaggerated stutter when he spoke—something people would remember if asked about him later, another diversion.

  “Coffee?” Ellen asked as she approached the booth where the trucker was sitting, holding the pot out in front of her.

  “Y-y-yes, plea-please,” the trucker stammered.

  Ellen smiled and poured the hot liquid into the trucker’s cup. “Cream and sugar are on the table. You want a menu?”

  “Y-y-yes, th-thanks,” the trucker said.

  Ellen dropped a menu on the table. “Breakfast is over, but if you order quick I can still get you an egg burrito,” Ellen said.

  The trucker shook his head. “Lu-lunch is fi-fine.”

  Stan Lee sat in the booth, taking in the scene around him and enjoying the cChipotle shrimp tacos, recommended by the waitress, Ellen, whom he seemed to remember from his previous visit to Crimson Cove. She looked older now, which, of course, she should—it had been nine years—but she wasn’t wearing the years well.

  Then Stan Lee saw a patrol vehicle pull to the curb, and he felt his muscles tense. It was the local sheriff.

  N-no reason f-for c-c-concern, Stan Lee stuttered to himself as the sheriff entered the restaurant and plopped down in the booth directly behind him. J-just act n-n-natural.

  Ellen approached and offered Stan Lee a refill, which he refused, and she placed the check on the table. “Take your time. I’m just leaving it for when you’re ready.”

  Ellen moved to the next booth and poured coffee into Clay’s cup. “Hey, Clay, it’s been a while. Catch any more pot growers lately?”

  “You say that like you don’t approve,” Clay said.

  “Maybe I don’t,” Ellen said. “Marijuana is a victimless crime, and it’s good for the local economy. Speaking of which, Carlos says business is off twenty percent since you decided to become Oregon’s version of Elliot Ness.”

  “Yeah, well, the law is the law, Ellen,” Clay said. “I don’t write them. I just enforce them.”

  “If you say so,” Ellen said.

  “You know Noah left for Los Angeles, right?” Clay asked.

  Ellen nodded. “Yeah, can you believe it? First Onyx left, and then he finds out his childhood idol is dying. That’s a lot for one person to handle.”

  “Yeah, life isn’t fair,” Clay said. “Are you guys going to be okay without him here? He told me he could be gone for a month or two.”

  “We’ll be okay, it being winter and all,” Ellen said. “If all this had happened in the middle of tourist season, that would be different. Noah told Carlos that he and Alec were going to do a cross-country drive. Is that what he told you?”

  Clay nodded. “Yep, pretty much. LA to Woodstock. Cool trip to take with a friend, if you ask me.”

  “So what’s happening with the lighthouse?” Ellen asked.

  “I locked it up this morning,” Clay said.

  “You want me to check on it?” Ellen asked.

  “No, don’t bother,” Clay said. “I drive by the place on the weekend. Make sure kids aren’t screwing around out there.”

  “So are you going to order something?”

  Clay glanced at his watch. “Nah, better not. I’m making dinner at the house for Tara tonight. I don’t want to ruin my appetite.”

  Ellen waited there silently and did not move.

  “Oh, hell, why not,” Clay said. “Bring me one of those bacon burgers with fries and a side of that aioli stuff. Oh, and a milkshake.”

  Stan Lee sat in the booth behind the sheriff, trying to piece together what he’d just heard.

  Alec Yost was dying, and Noah Ashley was off on a cross-country trip with him that could last several months. And the Webb woman had moved out of the lighthouse.

  What amazing luck, Stan Lee realized. He’d just found the perfect place to hide.

  Stan Lee tossed twenty dollars on the table and slid out of the booth.

  “Have a good day,” Ellen said.

  Stan Lee smiled and nodded. “You-ta-ta-too,” Stan Lee said. Then he left the restaurant.

  “Don’t remember seeing him before,” Clay said after the trucker left.

  “Nope,” Ellen said, wiping the empty table. “Good tipper, though—for a trucker.”

  Clay looked through the window and watched the trucker walk down the sidewalk and climb into a blue Honda Pilot.

  “Not much of a truck,” Clay said.

  Ellen shrugged and slid into the booth opposite Clay.

  “What’s up?” Clay asked.

  “I wanted to say something about the situation between Onyx and Noah,” Ellen said.

  Clay waited.

  “I don’t appreciate you treating me like I’m stupid. Like I don’t have eyes,” Ellen said. “I know that Onyx isn’t 120 years old. I know she’s a ghost.”

  “I see,” Clay said. “How did you find out?”

  “I saw her,” Ellen said. “I went out there to talk to her one night about Noah. She stood in the shadows, but when I was leaving, I glanced back and saw her face in the moonlight.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, you’re not going to deny it?”

  Clay shook his head. “No, but I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”

  “Show the universe what matters most to you, and the universe will show you… you.”

  The 3127 Immutable Matters

  of Life & Death

  Episode 31

  Dying to be Alive

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  FEBRUARY 6, 2011

  NOAH’S FLIGHT LANDED in Seattle, and he caught a cab to Alec Yost’s pad, which turned out to be a five-bedroom, 6 ½-bath estate on Magnolia Bluff featuring 150 feet of unobstructed waterfront looking across the Puget Sound at Bainbridge Island.

  “Nice pad,”
Noah said after Alec let him in the door, and he set his backpack down.

  “Yeah, well, when your neighbors are Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, seven thousand square feet is laughable,” Alec said. “Come on in the kitchen. I’ll get you a beer.”

  “It’s eight in the morning, Alec,” Noah said.

  “Oh,” Alec said. “Well, have some milk then.”

  S0 how long have you known?” Noah asked once they were in the kitchen.

  “What? That I’m an alcoholic?” Alec said, taking a sip of his beer.

  “You know what I’m asking,” Noah said. “That you’re dying.”

  Alec nodded. “The day of the Mulvaney event. I was up at Mayo in Rochester, Minnesota, and had some tests done. I thought I was going to be in and out. The next thing I know I’m being told I have advanced HCC.”

  “HCC?”

  “Hepatocellular carcinoma,” Alec said. “Cirrhosis of the liver.”

  “Due to drinking?” Noah asked.

  Alec nodded and downed the last of his beer.

  “So is this a smart idea?” Noah asked, motioning to the row of empty beer bottles on the counter.

  “Seriously?” Alec said. “If you were dying of food, would you give up food?”

  “Booze isn’t food,” Noah said.

  “Yeah, if you say so.”

  “So, what’s the treatment?” Noah asked.

  “You’re looking at it,” Alec said, holding up his beer bottle.

  “Besides beer, I mean.”

  “There is no treatment,” Alec said.

  “None at all?”

  “None that I’m willing to put myself through,” Alec said.

  “Doctors make mistakes. Did you get a second opinion?”

  “They were the second opinion,” Alec said. “It’s no mistake. Nobody’s better than Mayo, right?”

  “How long do you have?”

  Alec shrugged. “Six months, more or less.”

  “Okay. I’ll have a beer.”

  Alec nodded and walked to the refrigerator. “That was a hell of a thing that night, wasn’t it? At the party, I mean.”

  Noah shrugged.

  Alec came back with a bottle of Fat Tire Amber Ale and handed it to Noah. “Come on, man. It’s not every day a person gets to see a ghost.”

  Noah said nothing.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Well, the party wasn’t my first experience with a ghost,” Noah said.

  “Wait—are you saying you’re married to a ghost?” Alec asked once Noah finished telling him about Onyx. “How does something like that happen? You get married, and one morning she rolls over in bed and says, ‘Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you something. I’m dead?’”

  “No, I knew she was a ghost beforehand,” Noah said.

  “And you married her anyway?” Alec said. “Jesus, no one thinks the person they marry is going to be perfect, but being alive is usually a minimum expectation. How does that work anyway? You know…?”

  “How does what work?”

  “You know, all of it,” Alec asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Sex?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, is everything the same, or—?”

  Noah leveled a stare at Alec and remained silent.

  “Okay, sorry,” Alec said. “It’s just weird.”

  “It gets worse,” Noah said.

  “Worse? There’s something worse than being married to a dead person?”

  “Yep,” Noah said, taking a swallow of his beer. “She left me.”

  “She left you? What, for a dead guy?”

  Noah shook his head. “Very funny. No, she just wasn’t happy.”

  “Man, and I thought I had problems.”

  N0ah sat in a chaise lounge chair on the back deck of the house, watching ferry boats filled with morning commuters make trips back and forth from the island to the city. Alec was sleeping off his morning drinking binge in the chair next to him.

  Eventually Alec woke up.

  “So tell me about this road trip,” Noah said.

  “Not much to tell,” Alec said. “You, me, in a vehicle.”

  “What? We drive and laugh and get in trouble like in the movies?”

  “Pretty much, except you do the driving,” Alec said. “I’ll be passed out half the time.”

  “Wow, sounds like fun,” Noah said. “Why don’t you just hire a driver?”

  “I don’t want to hire a driver. I want to go with you,” Alec said. “Spend some time, get to know each other before I go down to the front desk and check out.”

  Noah stayed silent. It was not what he’d expected. Until that moment, he didn’t even think Alec really liked him.

  “Okay, so where are we going?” Noah asked.

  “Come on. I’ll show you,” Alec said.

  Noah followed Alec back inside the house and down the hall to one of the spare bedrooms. “Here’s what I had in mind,” Alec said, pointing to a large map pinned to the wall.

  Noah studied the map and followed the route—drawn with a red Sharpie—starting in Seattle and running across the country to New York.

  “South Dakota?” Noah said. “What in the hell is in South Dakota?”

  “Hell, man, South Dakota’s probably the coolest state in the country,” Alec said. “The Black Hills, Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee, Sturgis, Mt. Rushmore—Devils Tower from Close Encounters—tons of great shit.”

  “I’m pretty sure Devils Tower is in Wyoming,” Noah said.

  “Close enough.”

  Noah shrugged and returned his attention to the map. “Then what, straight to Chicago?”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking we spend a week or two sleeping all day and then spend all night in the blues clubs down in the city. Blue Chicago in the North River district. Rosa’s Lounge, too. Lots of the legends have played there. Honeyboy Edwards, Homesick James, Pinetop Perkins. There’s also a few other places, like Kingston Mines and Fat Sal’s Freezer—real old-school stuff. We’ll do them all.”

  “I didn’t know you liked blues music,” Noah said.

  “No one does,” Alec said. “My voice is rock, so that’s where the money guys at the labels have always wanted to market me.”

  “My grandfather always talked about the clubs in Chicago,” Noah said. “I’ve always wanted to check them out.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  Noah nodded and looked back at the map. “What’s in New York?”

  “Woodstock,” Alec said.

  “Bad news. Woodstock’s over,” Noah said.

  “I’m talking about the city, not the concert,” Alec said. “Levon Helm has a place up there.”

  Noah was very familiar with Levon Helm, the original drummer from The Band. Helm had been diagnosed with cancer—which, fortunately, was in remission—and Noah wondered if that played into Alec’s desire to go there.

  “Levon’s got a studio there called The Barn,” Alec said. “I thought maybe we could rent the place for a week or two, write some stuff together, make some music. What do you think?”

  “You want to write music? With me?” Noah asked.

  “Jesus, what do you think is going on here, man?” Alec said. “I’m not asking you to come with me to hold my hand while I die. I want to write music. With you.”

  “You want to write music with me?”

  “Yeah, dude. Of course.”

  “Why?”

  Alec snorted. “Hell, man, you’re one of the best songwriters I’ve ever met. The band’s biggest hits are all songs that you wrote, Noah. This house you like so much? The only reason I have it is because of your songs.”

  CRIMSON COVE, OREGON

  FEBRUARY 7, 2011 – 7:24 A.M.

  STAN LEE SAT in the front seat of the Honda Pilot, watching strands of early morning light work their way through the trees.

  As much as he wanted to break into the lighthouse the night before, he needed to be sure it was empty. Not that he didn’t trust the sheriff, but—well, he didn’t entirely trus
t the sheriff.

  Paranoia, pure and simple.

  Every hour throughout the night, Stan Lee looked through the windshield at the lighthouse and neighboring building—which he assumed to be the caretaker’s house—and both structures remained dark.

  Stan Lee got out of the car holding a flashlight he’d bought at the Wal-mMart in Ogallala and worked his way through the trees until he reached several graves at the edge of the clearing.

  The headstone of the first grave was damaged, as if someone had hit it with a hammer. It read:

  Catfish Webb. Beloved Father. Passed, Oct. 3, 1955.

  The second headstone was much smaller. It read:

  Poe.

  The third was a freshly dug grave that was still unmarked.

  But the grave that interested Stan Lee most was the fourth one: Sister Katherine Keane. Lifelong Friend. Passed, July 20, 1969.

  July 20, 1969, Stan Lee thought.

  A sudden understanding swept over Stan Lee as he realized the young girl in the photo standing next to Onyx in front of the Ferris wheel at the St. Louis World’s Fair grew up to become a nun—the nun who’d come to Wisconsin and tried to kill him.

  What in the hell was going on here?

  Another coincidence?

  There was something else going on, only he had no idea what it was.

  Something bigger.

  Something cosmic.

  Stan Lee crossed the clearing and tried the door to the lighthouse, which—as expected—was locked. So was the caretaker’s house.

  Stan Lee walked around to the rear of the caretaker’s house and found a window large enough to climb through. Then, as he’d done at Judd Coker’s house, he knocked the pane out with his elbow. He reached in and undid the latch, lifted the window, and climbed in.

  Stan Lee found a light switch and flipped it on, happy to see the electricity was working. Then he switched the light back off.