Read The Graveyard Game for Free Online

when she laughed. Apparent age, in immortals, is largely a matter of facial expression. Most of the time she seemed older, austere and withdrawn. Lewis thought he must be the only person who’d ever seen her eyes sparkle, her cheeks flush. That is, outside the mortal men who’d loved her.
    Resolutely, he got to his feet and peered into the empty bedroom. The bed was neatly made, though Joseph must have been in bad shape when he woke. Funny how army training never wore off, especially when one had been a centurion. He sent a vague questing signal, and there came a response, faint through hills and traffic:
Getting the car. You can borrow one of my shirts
.
    Thanks
.
    Lewis stepped into the kitchen and opened Joseph’s refrigerator. There was more Theobromos, which he couldn’t bear to look at. There were several six-packs of Anchor Steam beer. There was a loaf of Roman Meal bread and a package of unidentifiable sliced delicatessen product. Lewis groaned and opened the freezer. Ah! Ten boxes of frozen fettuccine Alfredo. He slid out the whole stack, opened them all, and put them in the microwave. Then he went to take a shower, uttering another silent prayer of thanks to Apollo, lord of civilized amenities.
    Only after he’d eaten all the fettuccine did he gather up the pizza boxes and liter bottles and little black plastic dishes and fill a trash bag, which he set carefully beside Joseph’s front door. He found an ironing board and was pressing his suit when he heard the Lexus pull into the carport.
    A moment later Joseph came across the gangplank and let himself in, rather awkwardly because he was carrying a large cardboard box.
    “I got two dozen doughnuts,” he said, offering it. “I think there’s a couple left. I meant to leave more. Sorry.”
    “Oh, no, thank you, you needn’t have. I ate all your fettuccine Alfredo.”
    “Okay then,” said Joseph, and sat down to eat the remaining doughnuts. No Armani suit today; he was wearing a brilliant Hawaiian shirt over black Levis, and black high-top sneakers. “I phoned in sick,” he explained through a mouthful of doughnut, taking in Lewis’s stare. “We need to talk to somebody today. Do you have to get back anytime soon?”
    “Not immediately, no.” Lewis unplugged the iron and pulled on his pants. “With whom do we need to talk?”
    “I did some checking,” Joseph said, licking glazed sugar from his fingers, “on the operatives who were posted at Cahuenga Pass with Mendoza. One of them is still in California. Right here in Marin County, in fact.”
    “That’s convenient.” Lewis tied his tie carefully.
    “It gets better. It’s the ornithologist. The kid who was there with her when she went AWOL. The one who testified. Who actually saw the Englishman.” Joseph’s eyes were black and shiny as coal this morning, his gaze hard and direct. “So. We have another six hours before the effect of the helmet wears off and we start transmitting data to the Company again. Here’s what we do. We go see this guy right now, somehow or other we get him to put on the helmet and walk through Stonehenge, and then we ask him a few questions. Okay?”
    “Nunc aut nunquam,”
said Lewis grimly, slipping on his coat.
    “You said it, kiddo.” Joseph picked up his car keys and rose to his feet.
    They took Highway I north, winding along coastline and cutting over to Tomales Bay. In the late twentieth century this was all pastoral land, dairy pastures on sea-facing hills, with redwoods along the creeks and wild rose and blackberry bramble thick beside the road. Here and there an isolated farmhouse sat back in the shadowsunder its grove of laurel trees, unchanged in a hundred years except for a satellite dish for television reception.
    At last there was a steel-framed gate across a dirt road on their left, with a posted sign. Joseph slowed and stopped as they came abreast of it. It read:
    AUDUBON SANCTUARY, TOMALES BAY

RESTRICTED ENTRY
    “Good place for an