Every House Is Haunted by Ian Rogers Read Free Book Online

meatloaf, Rachel drifted back to the partition. Henry had taken a single piece of newspaper and was folding it carefully and methodically. Curiosity finally got the better of her and she went back to the booth, under the auspices of refilling Henry’s coffee cup. As she topped him up, he raised his head.
    “Do you know what this is?”
    On the palm of his hand was a folded-paper animal. A cow, she noticed, complete with tiny paper udders. Its head was lowered as if it were cropping.
    “A cow?” Rachel guessed.
    “That’s right.” Henry set it on the table. “Origami. The Japanese art of paper-folding.”
    “Paper-folding, huh? I thought they just made electronics.”
    “This is a much older craft.”
    “Secret of the Orient?” Rachel asked.
    “Something like that,” Henry conceded. “It can be traced back to the sixteenth century. Can you believe that knowledge of something like that could be kept for so long, passed down from one person to the next?”
    “The only thing passed on in my family is insomnia and an old moth-eaten quilt that my great-grandmother made while she was snowed in one winter.”
    Henry chuckled.
    Rachel eyed him suspiciously. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask: have you been drinking or something?”
    Henry chuckled again, louder this time, then stopped suddenly. “I thought about drinking today,” he said in a solemn, thoughtful tone. “I thought it might be for the best to, I don’t know,
sedate
myself, before the main event.” He shook his head ruefully. “But I decided not to. It seemed kind of . . . cowardly.”
    He
is
sick
, Rachel thought.
I knew it. It’s cancer, or something like it.
    “The way I see it, nobody dies with a clear conscience, but I plan to go out with a clear mind.” He looked down at the origami cow. “I’m afraid the only thing I planned to get drunk on today was cholesterol. And why not? Long-term health effects are not exactly my concern anymore. Hell, the long-term in general isn’t my concern.”
    Rachel gave him a long, considering look. He didn’t sound self-pitying or self-deprecating. He was speaking lucidly, almost clinically, as if he were talking about something he had read in the newspaper spread out before him. He had taken his time eating the food she had served; he hadn’t wolfed it down. He had made it last. He acknowledged each forkful before putting it into his mouth. Like he was counting the bites. Like he knew there were only so many more he was ever going to take.
    The sound of Reg dinging the order-up bell almost made Rachel jump. She went over to the partition and retrieved Henry’s meatloaf dinner, delivering it to him without comment. Henry didn’t say anything, either, just smiled that damn smile of his and started eating.
    When he was finished it was almost eight o’clock. Like the rest of his meals at the Crescent Diner, Henry had made his dinner last.
    After clearing his empty plate, Rachel came back and filled his coffee cup. “Dare I ask?” she said. “Dessert?”
    Henry was breathing heavily now. Rachel thought it was a wonder his sides hadn’t split.
    “What kind of pies do you have?”
    “Apple, blueberry, strawberry-rhubarb, peach, and pumpkin.”
    “One of each,” he said without smiling. “Please.”
    Nothing surprises me at this point
, Rachel thought on her way back to the kitchen.
    But she was wrong. After she brought out the pies, Henry surveyed each one, picked up his fork, and began to eat. Rachel couldn’t watch any longer. Henry was sick, this whole thing was sick, and she didn’t want to look at it anymore. She felt like she was participating in an execution. She wished she hadn’t taken Josie’s shift.
    She was turning away when Henry said, “This is a good place.”
    “What?”
    “The Crescent Diner. This is a good place. Good food, good service. I like it.”
    Rachel stared at him.
    “I’m fit to burst,” he said. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to finish