Doyle After Death Read Free Page A

gaze down the dark sea. “I’ve got so I like it here. Mostly.”
    She smiled self-­mockingly, toyed with her hair, and then turned back toward the beach. She started down the hill. I watched her descend into the mist, hoping she’d turn and wave to me. She didn’t.
    When I lost sight of her, I turned and walked the other way, down into the valley.
    I thought, The Valley of the Shadow of death ?
    But there wasn’t much shadow of death in the valley. Mostly, I’ve found, Garden Rest is a nice place. Except for the occasional murder.

 
    SECOND
    â€œW hy’d I come here ?” I wondered, aloud, walking along the cobbled road. “Why this place, particularly?” Birds were stirring in the trees shadowing the cottages. Ravens squawked, and small, brightly colorful birds trilled. Now and then, mixed with the birdcalls, some of the birds seemed to mutter actual words in shrill, faintly mocking voices . “ Gettaclue. Gettaclue. Here I am. Here I am. Here I am . . . Openandsee . . . gettaclue . . .” My boot steps echoed along the quiet row of cottages. A few larger houses were set back from the rest, behind intricate wrought-­iron fences tangled with flowering vines. The blossoms, red and blue, both familiar and unfamiliar in shape, seemed almost Day-­Glo in the morning light. The larger houses, partly coated in moss, looked old, more weathered.
    I shook my head. Had Fiona said I’d chosen this place? I had been an urban person all my life. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Las Vegas. This place was so rustic—­it wouldn’t be like me to choose a place like this, even subconsciously.
    I felt a twinge, thinking of Las Vegas. What a lonely, stupid death it had been, choking to death in the muted blue light of a casino sign, the thin glow coming all sickly through my apartment window.
    The blinking casino sign had spoken to me, as I’d died. You gambled one more time, and you—­
    â€œYou lost?” The question came from a man leaning against an unlit streetlight, hands in the pockets of his creased trousers. “Easy to feel lost when you first get here.” The streetlamp fixture looked old-­fashioned, something from the gaslight era. The man was old-­fashioned, too.
    He wore a salt-­and-­pepper suit, cut 1930s, tight waist, a speckled bow tie, and spats. He had slicked-­back brown hair, high forehead, a long nose, a sardonic curve to his mouth. He was chewing a fibrous plant stem, like a piece of green twine, the way a hayseed in an old movie chews straw.
    I strolled toward him. There didn’t seem much reason to hurry. I was dead, after all. (But urgency does come to men in the afterlife. It comes hard and fierce sometimes.)
    â€œWhat’s up,” I said. “I’m not exactly lost but not exactly oriented. I’m dead, is all. Name’s Nicholas. Nick if you want. Who’d you be?”
    â€œName’s Bertram.” He grinned. “Bertram if you want. You don’t have a cigarette with you, at all?”
    I couldn’t help laughing. “No, haven’t got one. Fiona asked, too.”
    â€œFigures. I don’t know why nobody’s ever quite managed to make a damn cigarette here. Isn’t like smoking’d kill us.” His accent seemed Texan, with you sounding like yew . He took a gooily-­chewed stem out of his mouth and looked it over frowningly. “No goddamn tobacco. Just these here frip things. They’re not bad, though. You get a buzz off ’em. And we do have liquor of a sort. You wanta drink, hoss? You can get a drink any hour, day or night here. Buy you a drink at Brummigen’s or at the Sour Grapes. They got a pretty good imitation of wine there.”
    â€œRelieved to hear there’s liquor here. But uh—­is that the first thing I should do, getting into town—­go to a bar? Not supposed to