The Messenger: A Novel by Jan Burke

again and walked off with the dog.
    Julio watched them for a few minutes before locking the gate again.Most of the time, the last thing you wanted running around in a cemetery after dark—okay, second to last to a high school kid on a dare—was a dog off leash. They pooped. They peed. They dug. They rolled around in the mud on top of the new graves.
    This dog never did any of that. He patrolled the place as if he had some kind of duty. Tyler had explained that he was a cemetery dog, and Julio supposed there must be darned few of them, because he had never heard of the like. Not that he mentioned these midnight visits to anyone. Would have cost him his job.
    This dog wasn’t like any other dog Julio had ever met. Shade had an ability to find graves that needed a little work or had been damaged. It was as if he took that as a personal affront. Well, so did Julio.
     
    Tyler carried a flashlight, but there was nearly a full moon tonight, so he didn’t use it. He walked patiently beside Shade, who was never so happy as when he was working. Tyler didn’t understand all that went on with the dog, despite their long companionship, but he was aware that Shade sensed things in a cemetery that Tyler could not.
    The dead were lost to Tyler, but he did not think this was true for Shade. At times, Shade would stop in a cemetery and stand very still, as if he saw something or someone Tyler could not see. Usually, whatever it was would hold the dog’s interest for a time, then he would move on.
    On rare occasions, he would growl. Though few things frightened Tyler these days, a growl from Shade always sent a chill down his spine.
    Shade seemed to dominate whatever it was, though, for after these encounters he would step a little higher on his toes, as if exhibiting a kind of dog pride in a job well done.
    Tyler found himself thinking of Colby again, of his odd visit. He wondered if he had failed to hear the real message, if Colby was growing lonely and could bring that up only by accusing Tyler of it. There were serious differences between them, ones that made Tyler unwilling to spend a lot of time with him. In truth, Shade was a better friend.
    They were strolling through a particularly old part of the cemetery—always Shade’s favorite place to be in any graveyard—when Tyler’s cell phone rang. The dog looked back at him in annoyance.
    “I agree,” Tyler said, “but then, if someone is calling me now, I should take it, don’t you think?”
    Shade sighed and kept moving.
    Tyler answered the call.
    “Mr. Hawthorne? This is Samuel Gunning. I—uh, I don’t know if you remember me.”
    “Of course I do, Mr. Gunning.”
    His business in St. Louis had been to help a dying man named Max Derley, who wanted desperately to convey news to Mr. Gunning—the boy being raised as Max’s son was in fact wealthy Samuel Gunning’s son. Gunning had been shocked, and then pleased. When Tyler left the city, Gunning was talking to the boy’s mother—an old flame—about caring for the two of them.
    “I’m sorry to bother you so late, Mr. Hawthorne, but here in Max’s notes, it says it’s best to call you at this time of night.”
    “Please call me Tyler. Max was correct about the time to call. How are you this evening?”
    “Yes, well, you call me Sam—and I’m fine. I can’t thank you enough for that, although I’m still not sure how—”
    “I can’t really explain it myself. What can I do for you now, Sam?”
    “Well, Tyler, I just wanted to let you know that someone at the hospital where Max died has gossiped a bit, and as will happen with gossip, didn’t get the story quite right. To make a long story short, I’ve got some relatives out there in California who never had a snowflake’s chance in hell of inheriting my money, but they’ve taken it into their crazy heads that you cooked up some plot with Max to trick me into changing my will.”
    “You’ll pardon me for asking this, but are you so certain they’re