She took Mick by the hand and tugged. Mick followed her complacently.
“What about the dry clothes?” Mrs. Sanders asked, looking with compassion at Mick.
“It’ll just have to wait till we get back,” Mick sighed as Geri yanked him out the door.
She led him to a blue Ford station wagon, and as they climbed in Mick noticed two men on the Grimes side of the property arguing. One was grey-haired and stooped, with a yellow plaid shirt and overalls, and he was chewing out a young man in his early twenties, a good-looking fellow in blue jeans, a knit white shirt, and an abundance of black hair. The latter was obviously employed by the farmer, but there was something in their features that suggested kinship.
Meanwhile, Geri was starting the car and talking a mile a minute. “He has real strange old stuff,” Mick heard her saying while he concentrated his attention on the argument across the way. “When somebody dies around here, he moves in like a vulture. He gets the greatest deals; roll-top desks, Tiffany lamps, you name it.” She backed out of the driveway and spun the steering wheel.
“I wonder what’s happening over there?” Mick mused.
“Oh, they’re always fighting,” Geri explained. “That’s Willie Grimes and his son Roger. They own the worm farm. Willie’s such a grump. He’s always hounding Roger to do things.”
But accustomed as she was to the Grimes quarrels, even Geri had to admit that this one seemed pretty intense. As she pulled past the parked worm truck, she noticed Roger gesturing to her, waving his arms for her to stop. She jammed on the brakes, almost striking the boy as he stepped in front of the car. She rolled down her window and Roger thrust his face through, his jaw jutting with indignation. She noted his eyes were damp as if he’d been fighting to hold back tears. “Geri, you know I’m responsible for this truck. I only lent it to you because you promised—”
Geri’s mouth dropped. “What’s wrong?”
Roger walked to the truck and flung open the back doors. Willie stood beside them, his cheeks huffing with anger. “The crates are empty,” Roger declared, waving his arms at the vast empty darkness in the back of the truck.
Geri could only gape. “But I never left the truck,” she protested. Then she added, “Except to get ice.” She looked at Mick questioningly.
“It’s strange to me,” he hastened to put in. “I didn’t let them out.”
Roger returned to the car and peered at his rival “Then who did?”
“. . . hundred thousand,” Roger’s father was fuming. “That’s three hundred dollars’ worth, boy.”
“Look, Roger,” Geri reasoned, trying to take the fuse out of this explosive situation, “maybe the door was loose and you forgot to close the crates.”
“Damn right he forgot,” Roger’s father hollered. “His mind’s always on other things.” It was plain from his disapproving stare that he was referring to Geri. Then he returned his wrathful gaze to Roger. “Try to run a business. There’ll be no more lending of my truck, you understand? It’s going to take me the good part of a week to replace them worms and you’ll be diggin’ deep.” He slammed Roger in the shoulder blades with the heel of his hand. It made a resounding thump, but injured the strong lad’s pride worse than it did his body. Roger drew himself up, as if contemplating retaliation, then skulked away.
Geri got out of the station wagon, ran past Mr. Grimes with a scornful glance, and caught up to Roger. With a hand on his arm she said, “Roger, I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can do?” She could feel his bitterness through her fingertips. He shook his head. She squeezed his arm and said, “Well, we’ll see you later, then, okay?”
“Poor guy,” Mick said as they pulled away from the unhappy scene. “His father was right. The way Roger looks at you I’m surprised he hasn’t driven the truck into a wall yet.”
Geri supposed she ought to be flattered, but the thought simply depressed her. “Sometimes he frightens me.”
Geri reflected as she turned right onto a paved road. “Maybe we can help replace them somehow,” she said.
For a moment Mick didn’t understand what she was referring to. Then, startled, he blurted out. “A hundred thousand worms?”
Geri laughed. “What’s the matter, afraid of worms?”
Mick puffed out his chest, waved his hand derisively, and sneered, “Me? Afraid of worms?” After giving the matter a moment’s consideration, he answered his own question. “Yeah.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Geri. “As long as you hold them by the tail.”
“Why’s that?”
“They bite,” she declared matter-of-factly.
Mick gulped. He’d never heard of worms that bite. Actually, aside from worms he’d bought at bait shops whenever he went fishing—and they’d never bitten—he’d had nothing to do with worms, which was, he concluded, as it should be. He’d have nothing to do with worms and would be more than content if the worms made it mutual.
“The worms around here are all glycera—‘bloodworms’—from the ocean.”
“How do you know which end is the tail?”
“The one,” Geri explained with a straight face, “opposite the end that bites you.”
After a few minutes Geri slowed down and swerved onto a muddy dirt and gravel driveway that led to an old, decrepit brick and wood house, dark green paint flaking off in unwholesome patches. Several warped white wooden pillars barely supported a verandah that looked as if it was about to collapse. The house was surrounded by a yard filled with rusting junk ranging from refrigerators to a set of children’s swings.
They got out of the car, surveying the house through a haze that had steamed up beneath the blazing sun. The house looked eerie and deserted, and the crunch of their footsteps on gravel as they approached amplified their irrational sense of anxiety created by the ghostly mist that swirled around the brick chimneys.
“One favor,” Geri whispered, touching Mick’s arm affectionately as they approached the side door. “Even if you don’t see anything you like, please buy something?”
“Gotcha,” said Mick.
Geri knocked on the door and they waited. And waited. And waited.
“Maybe he had second thoughts about opening just for us and went fishing or something,” Mick said.
Geri shook her head. That didn’t sound like Mr. Beardsly. “No, he promised,” she said, walking over to a side window and peeking inside. She saw the cluttered parlor she’d been in many times, but no sign of life. “Mr. Beardsly?” she called. “Hello?”
Mick went to another window and peered through glass that looked as if it had never been washed. He tapped on it and waited.
Geri’s look of curiosity became one of concern, and she circled around to the back of the house calling Mr. Beardsly’s name. Frustrated, she stood with her hands on hips wondering what to do next.
And that’s when she heard the crack. It sounded like a branch breaking, followed by a patter, as of footsteps. She padded over the weedy turf to investigate.
And she found something.
Something that froze her heart and brought screams of horror to her throat.
CHAPTER
VI
Mick seemed to have traversed the distance from the side of the house to the side of Geri in a fraction of a moment. He found her standing before a ditch at the end of the backyard lawn, near the edge of the woods. Her hands were clutched to her cheeks, her face was drained of blood, and her eyes bulged. She was still as a statue and didn’t appear to be breathing as she gazed down at something lying at her feet.
“What happened?” Mick asked, heart tripping. He followed Geri’s line of vision to her feet. “Whoa!” he yelped, hopping back instinctively.
It was a skeleton.
A human skeleton, half buried in the mud.
In a few seconds, overcoming his revulsion, Mick kneeled to inspect it more closely. He noted that the soil in which it lay was freshly turned, as if someone had taken a spade to it.
The next thing he observed was that there was not a shred of clothing on or around the skeleton. And the skeleton itself seemed to be of recent vintage, indeed it glistened as if someone—or something—had polished it with an oil cloth. Mick had seen old skeletons when he visited his friends in medical school. Those had been yellow and brittle, not ivory white like this one.
“Who do you suppose it is?” he gasped.
Geri finally found her voice. “It could be a hunter. Every deer season you hear about somebody who disappeared in the woods. My father actually saw one of them shoot another hunter by mistake.”
They stared at it for another minute, transfixed by its mute mystery. Then Mick straightened up, wiping off his hands. “I think one of us should go get the Sheriff.” They looked at each other, and it was plain that the task of babysitting for this skeleton was not going to be one of life’s profounder pleasures. “I’ll stay here, okay?” Mick said chivalrously.
“Okay,” Geri quickly agreed.
As she started the car, Mick looked again at the skeleton, then at the dark, forboding woods aswirl with mist. Suddenly his chivalry encountered an entirely opposite virtue, discretion, which the proverb describes as the better part of valor. “Uh, Geri?” he shouted, breaking into a trot. “I’d better go with you.”
Geri smiled. Cowardice under these circumstances was nothing to be ashamed of.
In the car, Mick attempted to divert attention from the sickening thing they’d just viewed. “After we get the Sheriff, how about a little tennis?”
“Sure,” said Geri. “I wouldn’t be any good, though. I never really played before.”
As soon as she’d said it she gulped, realizing her goof.
Mick picked up on it at once, eyeing her critically. “You wrote in your letters that you were another Chris Evert.”
“Well,” the embarrased girl said, trying to make light of it, “I did play in gym class. The teacher said I had great potential.” She paused a moment, then tried a surefire way of getting out of being caught in a fib. “You can teach me.”
“No I can’t,” Mick said, flushing with his own embarrassment. In response to Geri’s shocked look, he admitted, “My racket still has the price tag on it. I’ve never played either.”
They laughed.
“Then it’s settled,” Geri announced. “We’ll go fishing.”
To get to the sheriff’s office they had to go back into town. The road took them past Geri’s house, and she hit the brakes as they zoomed by. “That’s funny,” she murmured, putting the station wagon into reverse. “Sheriff Reston is at my house.”
“Convenient,” Mick said. His stomach, still a little fluttery from that skeleton, now acted up at the thought of again seeing the man who’d given him such a hard time at the luncheonette earlier this morning.
Reston was talking to Geri’s mother in front of the garage, whose doors were opened to reveal a clutter of old furniture in various stages of repair, along with knick-knacks, antiques, old books and musty magazines, pictures, lamps, and just plain junk.
The sheriff was examining a tray of costume jewelry when he saw Geri and Mick ambling up purposefully. He seemed considerably less than thrilled to see Mick again.
“Here she is,” Mrs. Sanders said to him. To Geri, she said, “Sheriff Reston wants to pick up a little something for Mrs. Reston.”
Geri waved away formalities. “Mr. Reston, we were . . . This is my friend Mick.”
“We’ve met,” the sheriff said, looking contemptuously at the young man and declining to offer his hand.
“We were just heading into town to get you. We found a skeleton in back of Beardsly’s Antiques.”
The sheriff scarcely looked up from the jewelry tray. “Did you show it to Beardsly?” he asked with a dry smile. “He’d give you top dollar for it.”
Mick didn’t find it funny. “He wasn’t around. I think you should look at it.”
The sheriff eyed Mick with annoyance. “I intend to, fella.” He turned to Geri and held out an old necklace. “How much for this, Geri?”
“They’re all marked,” Geri said in a businesslike way. She’d never particularly liked the sheriff, who was a bully and reputed to be a lecher. If he was picking up jewelry for his wife, it was probably to atone for a sin. More likely, he was picking up a trinket to give to his latest girlfriend.
To Geri’s annoyance, her mother piped it with, “But of course, ten off to you, Sheriff.”
Reston tucked the necklace into his shirt pocket, reached into a pants pocket and produced several bills from a wad held by a silver money clip. Mrs. Sanders accepted the money, but then returned one bill to him. “Jim, that’s not right.”
Reston pushed her hand back. “That’s for the tax,” he grinned, flashing a row of perfect white teeth. Mrs. Sanders shrugged and accepted the bonus. “Now,” Reston said to Geri, “if you’ll kindly show me the way?”
“Give my regards to Julia, Jim,” Mrs. Sanders said naïvely. Geri made a face which, luckily, the sheriff didn’t see.
Geri and Mick followed the sheriff’s blue police car to the Beardsly place. “Where is it?” the sheriff asked, stretching his long frame as he got out of his car.
“Around the side,” Geri said, clutching Mick’s hand for comfort.
The sheriff looked skeptically at them, and saved a lingering look of malice for Mick, then ambled with his virile gait to the back of the house, followed by Mick and Geri.
Geri pointed to the spot where the skeleton had been. The ground was freshly turned, as it had been before.
But there was no skeleton there. None at all. Not so much as a bone.
Reston took a deep breath, and seemed to be counting to ten to control his rage. Then he cast his icy blue-eyed glare on Mick. “Listen, fella, I don’t know what you’re up to but you’re sure as hell not going to pull this bull around Fly Creek.” He stepped closer to Mick, staring him in the eye almost nose to nose, Mick refused to be intimidated, and stood his ground as the sheriff growled, “I want you the hell out of this town.”
It’s hard to say what would have happened if Geri hadn’t interceded. “But it was right here, Mr. Reston. We both saw it.”
Reston relaxed a little. “Geri, now that’s enough,” he said with paternal tenderness to the girl he’d known since she’d been an infant. “I’d expect this kind of bull from your sister, but not you. Your father used to be real proud of you. If he were still alive and saw you now, he’d tan your fanny.”
Mick was outraged. “She didn’t do anything.”
The sheriff ignored him.
“I’m gonna let this go because it’s too hot and I’m too busy to book this little city weasel. I’ve got a town to put back together.”
He pivoted and walked purposefully back to his car, but abruptly stopped and whirled to point a threatening finger at Mick.
“If I even see you one more time, fella, you won’t be able to call a city lawyer. ’Cause all the phones are dead.”
They watched him climb into his car, which rumbled into life and roared out of the driveway with a shower of gravel.
Mick and Geri looked at each other, utterly confused and mystified, then turned back to the fresh earth. There was absolutely nothing there, nothing—but a matchbook. Mick picked it up, studied it, shrugged and put it in his pocket.
“I just don’t understand it,” Geri sighed. “It didn’t just walk away.”
Mick looked around the woods. He didn’t understand it any better than she did. Mick pulled a cigarette out of its pack and took out his butane lighter. He flicked it a few times but it was still damp and refused to burst into flame. “Got a light?” he asked Geri.
“I don’t smoke,” she said.
He remembered the matchbook he’d just picked up, and picked out a match that didn’t look as if it would fall apart on the first strike. To his delight, it caught flame. “Son of a gun,” he said, returning the matchbook to his top pocket.
They returned to the c
ar. “But whose skeleton was it?” Geri mused, shutting the door and turning the ignition.
“Might have been from the revolutionary war for all we know,” Mick said, keeping his doubts to himself for fear of alarming Geri. “It takes a body a long time to rot down to a clean skeleton. When I was a kid I dug up my dog that we’d buried in the back yard. I thought it would be a skeleton but it wasn’t. I threw up.”
On that happy note they returned to Geri’s home, and the prospect of fresh clothes at last.
CHAPTER
VII
The attic smelled musty, and its poor insulation raised the temperature up there to broiling. Light filtering through a transom illuminated the clouds of dust thrown up by Mick as he rummaged through the trunk.
A red checkered flannel shirt struck his fancy and he hauled it out, holding it up. Though scarcely the sort of thing he’d ordinarily wear, it did have a certain appeal. If you’re going to go rural, dress as the rurals do.
Alma Sanders, straddled in undignified adolescence over an old loveseat, shook her head and made a face that left no doubt about her reaction.
“That’s not all too groovy,” she said, suppressing a guffaw. “Unless you want to blend in with the creekers.”
“What’s a creeker?” Mick asked, holding the shirt up to his chest and modeling it for her.
“Fly Creek people. Very un-hip.” To demonstrate her hipness, she reached into the cleavage of her wraparound blouse and produced a thin joint rolled in canary yellow paper. Mick looked at her with faint disapproval. He wasn’t prudish about grass, but he wondered if perhaps Alma was a little too young for it.
“Smoking in Fly Creek is a bust,” she commented, fingering the thin yellow tube and running it under her nose. “Did you meet Sheriff Reston yet?” The thought of Sheriff Reston sent the kid into near-hysterics. “Just too far out for words. Got a match?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I do.” Mick said, remembering the soggy matchbook he’d picked up behind Beardsly’s house. He reached into the top pocket of his shirt and handed them to Alma. “Keep ’em,” he said. He looked into the trunk some more and was about to rummage deeper when he felt an itch on his leg. This was the second time he’d felt it, and he scratched it heavily.
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