Cemetery of Angels by Noel Hynd Read Free Book Online Page B

Moore agreed. Essie called Ted Nickels back and told him that he had just sold a house.
    The Moores’ home in Connecticut sold two weeks later at the end of July. Rebecca made immediate plans for the move from East Coast to West. She made sure that their belongings and furniture would be packed properly, and she hired the movers with the best reputation for a coast-to-coast trip. Her mother came east again from Illinois, helped her, and stayed with her during times when her husband went to California to initiate work with McLaughlin & Company.
    While on the West Coast, Bill Moore also oversaw his mortgage application. It was approved by the first Friday in August.
    Essie Lewisohn was more than helpful. She bullied Ted Nickels into letting the Moores have access to the property they were purchasing in advance of the closing date. Thus Rebecca and Bill, in a subsequent visit west, were able to enter the house, measure rooms more accurately, and make decisions on what furniture would go where and what they would need to buy.
    One afternoon, Essie came over to see how they were doing. They were doing fine, as it turned out, though Rebecca was engaged in a battle with the fourth bedroom on the second floor, the one which had the reluctant doorknob.
    “The turret room,” as she now called it, in reference to the architectural quirk that gave the room its odd shape. And she could not get the smell to depart that room, although strangely enough, the odor seemed to come and go on its own.
    Perhaps because of weather. Perhaps because of humidity.
    What bothered her most was that the odor was reminiscent of a dead animal, as if some household pest had gotten lodged in a wall and was decomposing. Why, she wondered, didn’t it just go away, once and for all, rather than recurring?
    Rebecca was working with a spray disinfectant the afternoon Essie came by. And Bill was measuring the turret room, making plans to take out a plasterboard wall that had formed a small storage area in front of the real wall.
    “By the way,” Essie said in passing, glancing at the window. “Those burial grounds behind you? I’ll tell you something interesting. “
    Both the Moores stopped to listen. “What’s that?” Bill asked.
    “I told you it was called San Angelo Cemetery. But that’s only the proper name. The people in the neighborhood have their own name for it. It’s had its own name for many years. Generations, I think.”
    “Don’t spare me,” Bill said. “What do they call it? I just bought this house. I suppose it’s called ‘Graveyard of the Walking Dead’ or ‘Land of the Chainsaw Zombies,’ or something that will keep my children awake all night.”
    “Nothing of the sort,” Essie said. “In fact, the name that’s used is rather quaint, I think. Very reassuring.” Bill and Rebecca Moore waited. “They call it, ‘Cemetery of Angels,’” Essie said.” Isn’t that nice?”
    “‘Angels’? From ‘San Angelo’?” Rebecca asked.
    Essie pursed her lips and made a mystified expression. “I have no idea how it acquired that name,” she confessed. “But I think it sounds rather poetic, don’t you?”
    “Just what we need,” Bill said, his sarcasm surfacing. “A poetic graveyard nearby. In case a houseguest drops dead suddenly.”
    “Cute remark,” Essie said. Then she bade them goodbye.
    “‘Cemetery of Angels,’” Bill said, repeating the phrase.
    Rebecca shrugged. It
was
poetic. She already felt a certain kinship with her backyard burial plot.
    Bill walked to a second story window and looked across the brick wall behind his new property. His eyes were upon the cemetery.
    “What do you think of that?” he asked his wife.
    “Like Essie said,” Rebecca answered, “poetic.”
    There was just one other disconcerting note. After the purchase of the property was complete, on a hot afternoon in late August, Bill Moore drove over to the house without his wife. He took with him some carpentry tools.
    Bill was