by R. L. Nolen
“Mom and I were leaving the kitchen. I turned off the lights and saw his shadow through the blinds. He ducked down.”
“Can you tell me anything about him?”
“No.”
“How tall was he?”
“Not tall.”
“How long do you think he stood there?”
Her good hand moved up and out. “I have no idea. I dialed emergency first, then you. I was very quiet. He couldn’t have seen me. When I put the phone down, he was gone. Look, I can take care of myself, but this sneaking business is making my mother and me jumpy.”
An officer entered through the open front door. He spoke to Jon, “In the garden, sir.”
“Stay here,” Jon told Mrs. Butler.
In the garden, two uniformed officers held torches over a dark pair of men’s shoes, neatly set beside the bins.
“Those were Tavy’s,” Jon said, shocked. “He keeps bringing her shoes, like a cat dragging a bloody mouse to its master.” He bent and with the blunt end of a pen, tugged at the paper showing just inside one shoe. He had one of the gloved officers place the paper in an evidence bag and seal it. “Bag the shoes, too. Let’s take this inside where we can read it properly.”
As they reentered the sitting room, Trewe was standing with Mrs. Butler and her mother speaking into his mobile, “Perstow, we need tracking dogs.”
Jon wondered briefly where Trewe had gone between leaving him at the pub and now.
The beautiful woman’s frightened eyes were huge dark orbs in her pale face, when she asked Jon, “What is it? What’s out there?”
“There were some men’s shoes in your garden, Mrs. Butler,” Jon said. He kept the bagged note behind him. No use worrying her further. He made eye contact with Trewe.
Trewe stepped between them. “I wonder if I might bother you for a glass of water?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Butler said.
Mrs. Thompson struggled up from her chair. “I could use something a lot stronger than water. Wouldn’t you gentlemen care for something more substantial, too?”
“No, thank you,” Trewe answered.
The two women left the room.
Jon smoothed the note in the baggie flat and read aloud, “And we look ahead, into the bottomless lake where nothing awaits us but death. Enjoy our future, love. For your daughter’s sake.”
“Definitely not another Mother Goose rhyme,” Trewe murmured.
Mrs. Butler reentered the room with her mother close behind her. Mrs. Thompson made an odd, choking sound. Jon glanced towards her. Her mouth opened and closed several times. Her eyes rolled upward. Her arms dropped. Her glass crashed to the floor.
“Get him!” Trewe shouted.
Jon turned. Behind Mrs. Butler, a man dressed completely in black stood in the doorway reaching for her. Something was off about his face—globs of red muck, the whites of eyes. Jon leapt to grab Mrs. Butler, but tripped. The lamp went out. A high-pitched scream rent the air, followed by a thud, an “oof!” like someone had the air knocked out of him, then silence.
Jon waved his arms in the dark. He felt nothing but empty space where Ruth had been, but he caught and held on to the person slipping past him. “I’ve got him!” he yelled.
“No, you don’t.” Trewe’s voice boomed in Jon’s ear. Jon released his hold. And the lights came on. Trewe had flipped the wall switch.
Jon backed away. “Sorry.” He plugged the lamp back into the wall socket. The lamp flashed on. “Who was that? Where is Mrs. Butler?”
The room was a mess of bodies and pillows and furniture. The puffy chair had been shoved against the settee. Mrs. Butler was sitting near an overturned chair cradling her hand.
Perstow appeared at the door rubbing at his face. Other officers entered through the kitchen. Trewe yelled at them, “Go! Go! A killer’s running amok and you’re playing in the garden.”
“Did you see anything?” Jon asked Perstow, wondering at his convenient appearance.
“A man covered from head to toe in dark clothing. He was running from here.”
Mrs. Thompson lowered a pillow away from her face. She squeaked, “Where’s Ruth-Ann? Ruth-Ann!”
Mrs. Butler said, “I’m okay.”
“My lands and stars!” Mrs. Thompson grabbed her daughter’s good hand. They helped each other to stand. Mrs. Thompson swayed.
“Mom, sit here.” Ruth led her mother to a chair.
Trewe turned to Perstow. “The dogs. Where are they?”
“Just arrived.”
“Is anyone hurt?” Jon asked.
“That man grabbed me, but I gave him an elbow to the face before I fell.” Mrs. Butler bent down behind the settee. She came up with a large white cat, tail fluffed to maximum size. “I must have stepped on Mandy at the same time. Did you hear her scream?”
Jon crossed the short distance between them and patted the fluffy, white cat. “Such an unnerving sound.”
Ruth crumpled to a chair. She was trembling. “I was able to kick him but I don’t think it had much effect. I think the cat startled him into running.”
An officer entered and reported a rubbish bin on one side of the garden wall and a shed on the other side. It was an easy access to the garden. The wall’s gate was locked from the inside. “Likely using that shed to climb in and out.”
“Have you secured it?” Jon asked.
“No, sir.”
“Do I have to give you instructions for everything?” Trewe shouted. “Do something ’bout it and call Constable Craig. Secure this house. Station someone at the front door. These women need to be kept safe!”
11:04 p.m.
Charles limped through the thick mists toward his cave, cursing the night. The chilly damp penetrated his clothing, but could not quench the hot fury that burned deep within. He rubbed his sticky palms against his jacket. The night’s cloud-shrouded moon cast a pale shadow across his path through the swirling of the thick fog. The mists didn’t hide anything.
Dogs could track him despite the wet mists. The scent of grass freshly crushed by his shoes would give him away. The mist was making the blood he’d smeared on his face watery. He walked through the stream down to the cliff’s edge. Surely the heavy air would bury his human flakes and spores beneath its clammy fingers.
Something was wrong with his leg. He had received a severe blow to one hip and now his foot was going numb. He rubbed his chin where the woman had elbowed him. He couldn’t figure out how or what had hit him in the leg. That noise. Bloody cat! He hated cats—smelly, germ-ridden beasts.
“Only a fool would enter the American woman’s house like that.”
He ducked down, limping faster, tears oozing out of his eyes. He didn’t have to listen to her. He was a grown man.
The cold salt air filled his lungs, giving him strength. The whisper of waves crept into the dead stillness of the air. A cool finger of breeze touched his cheek. All would be well soon.
He reached the summit of his climb, turned, and stumbled along the cliff top. The mists wrapped around his legs, then dispersed in his wake. He had to make several sharp turns to find the reed-thin route. He limped down the narrow path carrying the bowl of fruit and cling-wrapped sandwich he’d hidden earlier. He pushed, then pulled the moss-covered twig door into place.
Inside the tiny cavern, he groped along the familiar walls, set the bowl down near the mattress, then found and lit a candle. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears, keeping time with the surf. On his knees before the small pool in the center of the cave, he cupped his hands into the cold, crystal clear water and splashed a bit of the coolness against his burning face and neck.
“Pain. And for what?” he muttered.
He removed his shirts. He was out of the wind but not the cold. He fired up the heater. He only used it at night during his experiments taking blood, and then he kept the heater away from the entrance. He didn’t need infrared cameras finding him. From a supply of dry clothes he took two heavy shirts and pulled them, one at a
time, over his head. He threw his old, smelly shirts across to the pile of rags. Glancing around, he nodded. This place had been a smuggler’s lair, now it was his. It was far enough away from The Wife, which was a glorious thing.
His attempt to get the American woman had been thwarted again. For so many years, he had never seen her face as she puttered about the graveyard at the church, her head down. He’d never paid her the least bit of attention until the fete. She had been there, and she danced! He had seen her face. Her face! Since then his mother’s voice grew louder and more insistent every day. He couldn’t escape. Everything was spiraling out of his control and he had to wrest it back. How could he lure the American woman to his lair without giving the police a way to find him? These are the things he needed to work out.
Lifting the bowl of food, he checked the freshness of the sandwich’s bread and placed it near the heap of rags. The plums were good ones. She better appreciate his efforts. The place was beginning to carry a stench. He would replenish and wash the stash of clothes tomorrow; the place needed an airing. He’d already tried to take her on one outing, and it proved too much. Though she was bound and gagged, her screams had attracted attention. It was by chance the American woman was at the boulders at the same place and time he had planned to let the girl sit in the sun. Such an odd, out-of-place feeling that had been.
It was quite late, and he knew the girl would be asleep. He would be very quiet. Undressing from the waist down, he examined the bruise forming over his hip and shook his head. What to do? He splashed cold water on the bruise. It would be better tomorrow, perhaps. It would have to be—a limp would give him away.
Then, he positioned himself over the tiny pool in order to place the object of his true loathing directly into the water. He writhed and groaned with the pain from the frigid water until he could stand it no more. He pulled away gasping. He glared down at his shrunken member and nodded. “Serves you right.”
The candlelight revealed several flashes of gold beneath the water. Amongst the gold pieces, four tiny white objects lay as if randomly cast. Four tiny white teeth. Their owner did not miss them.
38
Saturday
Day fourteen
Jon showered, dressed, and tromped down the stairs, looking forward to Mrs. McFarland’s fresh vegetables and farm eggs. Steaming chafing dishes lined the dining room’s sideboard. He carefully tipped their coverings back to check the contents: rashers of bacon, warm scrambled eggs, fried tomato, smoked herring; toast done to perfection slotted into a silver toast rack; homemade jams, butter, and clotted cream; boxes of cereal and bowls of muesli; and pitchers of milk and orange juice.
He shook out a linen napkin and laid it next to his place at the empty table. No other guests had made it downstairs as yet. This was lovely. He soon topped a full plate with a piece of toast and set it at his place. He poured a cup of hot coffee and sat down.
The door opened on silent hinges. “Oh Inspector!” Mrs. McFarland stuck her head in. “I’m so sorry. Excuse me. I was hoping you wouldn’t be disturbed after yesterday—I’m so sorry about that—but he said it was urgent!”
Mrs. McFarland had “flustered” down to an art.
“It’s alright. Who is it?” He laid his fork down.
“Mr. Trewe. He is here, in the guest’s lounge.”
“Right.” Jon stood up.
“If you’d like, I’ll make you something fresh when you return.” She picked his plate up. “A policeman’s work is never done, isn’t that what they say?”
In the guest’s lounge, Trewe was perched on the room’s one extravagance, a circular settee, complete with gaudy fringe, taking up the center of the room like a velvet mushroom.
Dark circles under Trewe’s ice-blue eyes gave his pallid face a haunted look. He held up a sheet of paper.
“What is it?” Jon asked.
“A copy of a note stuck to my door this morning.”
Jon took the sheet and read, “ ‘Birds of a feather, flock together, and so will pigs and swine. Rats and mice have their choice, and so will I have mine.’ Mother Goose again.”
“Yes.” Trewe did not look well. He winced and sat straighter, and collapsed forward with a groan, his face livid.
“What’s wrong?” Jon attempted to lay the man back but his knees came with him as if he was in a full body cramp. His eyes were closed. “Mrs. McFarland,” Jon shouted. “Call for an ambulance.”
Mrs. McFarland rushed into the room. “Oh dear me! Not the old trouble.” She ran out of the room, shouting, “I’ll call for an ambulance.”
Trewe stirred. His eyes opened. “What’s happened?”
Jon kept his hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, man.”
“I’m fine. It comes and goes.”
“It?” Jon stared at Trewe. The man didn’t answer; his eyes were closed again. “Mrs. McFarland!” Jon called, “The ambulance!”
“Ambulance?” Trewe’s eyes opened. He struggled under Jon’s arm.
“Relax, man.”
“Don’t you dare! No ambulance!” Trewe sputtered. “If I need to go to hospital, I can bloody well drive there on my own. Leave off!” He pushed Jon away.
“You’re not well.”
“I’m fit as a bloody fiddle.” Halfway to an upright position, he bent over double with a groan. “Bugger all!” he said, in a choked whisper. “Damn it to hell! I’ll die in hospital!”
It didn’t take long before an ambulance screeched to a halt outside the inn. Though bent double, Trewe insisted he walk to the stretcher. He complained the entire time. “I’ve things to do! This investigation needs me. Who’ll feed the chickens?”
Though he did wonder about the chickens, Jon assured him he would see to everything. As the ambulance doors closed, he heard Trewe yell, “Call Perstow!”
Jon shook his head and ran both hands through his hair. Trewe had the entire department on edge. All the noise in the world couldn’t disguise it; the man was scared to death. Why was that?
Trewe’s well-being had now become a priority among many priorities. Which would be the urgent and which would be the immediate? And which of the immediate urgent would become the most important? He would follow the ambulance south to the hospital to make certain Trewe was well and settled. On the way to the hospital he passed the morgue. It wouldn’t take a minute to stop and check on Tavy’s postmortem.
Pathologist Roger Penberthy held a jar of orange opaque liquid up to the light as Jon entered. The man’s white mustache bristled. “Sorry to hear about Peter.”
“How’d word get out so quickly?”
The man pointed to the radio nearby and Jon saw the long insect-like antennae. “I listen to the calls. Like to know what to expect.”
Jon swallowed. That’s morbid.
The man spoke in a thoughtful manner, his blue-veined hand touching his chin. “Can’t imagine what could be the matter with Trewe. He’s tough as nails. I’ll drop by on my way home. You asked about Mr. Tavish’s age? Nineties, and he’s been dead since last Saturday afternoon, I’d say.”
“How’d you come to your timeline so exactly, Dr. Penberthy?”
“Insects, flies, you know, cycle of life—we measure the stage of the insects in the body, and there you have it, to the day. Contents undigested of the stomach—egg—so his last meal was breakfast, I imagine.”
Jon’s stomach rumbled in disgust. “I’ll take your word.”
“One more thing.”
“What’s that?” Jon asked.
“He didn’t have long for this world anyway—a month, maybe two. Our time is in God’s hands. Who knows the hour?”
“You’re saying?”
“He had lung cancer—inoperable, metastasized to the lymph nodes, liver, and brain.”
Jon thanked the coroner and left. He wondered if Tavy had known.
When Jon entered the hospital ward, he found Trewe sitting up in a bed at the end of a long row of beds, most occupied. Jon stopped at the end of Trewe’s bed.
With eyes closed, the man’s face looked almost peaceful. Trewe’s eyes opened.
Jon asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
“What?” Trewe muttered through cracked lips. “No preliminary small talk? No, ‘How are you? Glad to see you’re alive.’? You’d best be watching that. Someone may suspect you’d been hanging about with the likes of me.” Trewe grimaced, though it may have been a smile. “The doctors know damned little, and what they do know would fit in that shit bottle. Here and I thought it was my heart. They say no. They’ve got me on bloody awful clear liquids. Don’t happen to be carrying a spare pizza under that coat of yours? No? They’ll run tests tomorrow—early morning. Going on some horrid fast starting at midnight.”
“They’ll get to the bottom of this, surely.”
“Don’t say bottom. That’s one of the tests.” Trewe moved uneasily under the covers. Glancing around, he waved Jon closer. “The curtains have ears and I want information. They’ll figure something out about me by tomorrow. Can’t keep me in here too long taking up a bed. Have you learned anything new about Tavy’s death?”
Jon leaned in and explained what the coroner had told him about Tavy. Then he said, “You’ve got my number. I’ll post a constable outside the ward’s door. No, don’t argue. The note taped to the door at your house this morning was addressed to you, not me. I’ll be around again this evening.”
“No, don’t come. I insist.” Trewe fluffed his pillows. “I’ve arranged for you to take charge till I’m out of here. You’ll have plenty to do.”
Jon stared for a moment and then said, “Why?”
“Why do I leave an investigation such as this in your hands? Because I was too stubborn to listen to a capable and inventive young man.”
Jon was shocked speechless.
Trewe raised his voice, “But don’t expect an apology!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just shake it up and see what falls out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jon drove north to Perrin’s Point. From the hospital it was about an hour’s drive. His mind filled with lists of things to prepare for the general assembly’s direction tomorrow morning. He made verbal notes on his mobile. The blue posters requesting any information concerning Annie Butler were still tacked up on notice boards or on shop windows. Some were already in tatters.