“Worms?” asked Sheriff Reston, eyebrows raised.
“They bite,” Geri said quickly, following up on the sheriff’s first sign of interest. “It’s horrible. Thousands of them. They attacked Roger Grimes and we still can’t find him.”
The sheriff’s companion had raised a forkful of spaghetti to her sensuous open lips, but now she wrinkled her nose, stared at the food, and placed the fork back on her plate.
This time the sheriff didn’t hesitate. He shoveled a load of spaghetti into his maw and ground it resoundingly, lips smacking, sauce dribbling over his lower lip. But his friend was obviously revolted, and he didn’t care much for that.
“If you’ll only come with us to the worm farm, I can prove it to you,” Mick pleaded.
The sheriff’s companion had turned pale and looked at his pleadingly, asking him with her deep dark eyes whether there weren’t some way he could stop this disgusting conversation before it ruined her meal entirely.
That did it. Up to now the sheriff had been patient with these two. Especially with Geri. He could understand the city kid pulling a bit like this, but he’d never have expected it from a nice girl like Geri.
The time had come to put a stop to it.
From under his blond eyebrows he cast his deadly gaze at Mick, “Fella, there’s a lot of spaghetti here. Might take us ten, fifteen minutes to finish it. That’s a bigger head start than you deserve.”
He delivered his threat with such finality that Mick couldn’t believe it when Geri started to remonstrate with him. “But Mr. Reston . . .”
“Geri,” Mick commanded, restraining her by the arm. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER
XII
One thing that these teen-agers could say in favor of the black-out, reflected Mr. Quigley as he polished some glass beer steins behind his bar: it made it easier for them to do their illegal drinking. With only candlelight to see by, they were bold enough to put their booze right up on the table, challenging him to say something about it. He supposed he should, but what the hell, the kids weren’t hurting anybody, nor were they overdoing it with the liquor. Of course, if Sheriff Reston came in, that flask had better disappear pronto or he’d lose his license. Well, maybe not, Sheriff Reston was pretty tolerant about these things, especially when his tolerance was stimulated by a twenty dollar bill passed into his hand when he shook it.
The teen-agers, Jeff, Eddie, and Susanne, were fooling around with the bayonet Eddie had brought to sell or swap with Geri’s city boyfriend. Jeff held it close to the candle, studying the workmanship and the German engraving that proved the weapon was authentic. Suddenly Jeff thrust the knife out at his pal, grazing the startled kid’s gizzard.
“Hey, watch out where you point that thing,” Eddie warned. He didn’t find such pranks funny—unless he was on the handle end of them and Jeff was on the blade end.
They took another swig of the flask, washed it down with Coke, and stared through the window of the bar, hoping to make out through the darkness the person they’d come here to meet. “I’ll bet you that guy doesn’t even show up,” Eddie said despairingly, his hopes of turning a few bucks on this piece of junk fading like the light of his guttering candle.
“There they are!” Susanne squealed, tapping on the window to get Mick’s attention.
Mick and Geri acknowledged them and a moment later entered the bar.
“Here she is,” Eddie said, proudly displaying the bayonet. It gleamed a glorious yellow in the reflected glow of the candle.
Mick took it and held it respectfully, left palm supporting the haft, right palm the steel blade. He examined it closely, though truth to tell, his heart wasn’t in it right now, with far more important matters weighing on his mind. The blade was beautifully honed on both cutting edges, and Mick tested the sharpness on the hair of his forearm. Several hairs floated down to the tabletop, testifying to the keenness of the blade. Mick then hefted the bayonet, balancing it on his index finger. You had to hand it to the Nazis: they sure did make excellent instruments of war.
Susanne found weapons boring and peered out the window, trying to see who was with whom on the town’s main street, though she had only pale blue starlight to aid her vision. But there is no eye so sharp as that of a gossip, and her straining surveillance was rewarded by the sight of a couple leaving the Casa Roma and strolling toward the courthouse.
“Hey, dig it, there’s your answer,” she said lustily.
“Answer to what?” one of the boys asked.
“Where he’s gonna take her.”
The kids crowded against the window and followed Sheriff Reston and the woman in white with excited eyes. Yes, they were definitely going up the courthouse steps. Reston fumbled with a chain heavy with keys until he found the right one, then unlocked the door. With a glance behind him, he ushered the woman in, then slipped in behind her, hastily shutting the courthouse door and locking it behind him. The kids peered across the street, hoping to see something more, but had to settle for the faint glitter of a candle as Reston escorted the woman to the second floor of the courthouse.
“I wonder what he’s up to,” Eddie mused “There aren’t any beds in there.”
Jeff and Susanne giggled. They knew that as far as the lecherous Sheriff Reston was concerned, where there was a will there would be a way. Somewhere in that building was a bed, you could count on it as surely as you could depend on daybreak.
Mick and Geri did not participate in this little spry episode. They were too distracted by what they had seen, and too distressed by what they feared was to come. Mick looked at the blade of the bayonet as if it were a crystal ball that could help him solve the mystery of the agitated worms. He was thinking about Mr. Beardsly’s skeleton. What had killed the man? Natural causes? Or murder? And how had his bones been transported from the yard of his home to the back of the Grimes’ truck? Was there any connection between this and the uprising of the worms?
Mick vowed that once this thing was over, he’d leave detective work to the professionals. But right now he was sorely vexed and desperate to get some insight into the Beardsly case. “What time did you talk to Beardsly on the phone?” he asked Geri quietly, so that Alma’s friends couldn’t hear.
“I don’t know,” Geri said, scratching the back of her head. “Not too late.” She closed her eyes and made an effort to remember. It came to her. “Oh, just before the lights went out. There was this big flash of lightning and thunder. All the lights went out. He said he had to get some candles so he couldn’t talk any more. The phones went dead before I could say goodbye.”
“Well,” said a voice, penetrating through the fog of Mick’s reflections. “What do you think?”
Mick blinked and returned to the here and now of Quigley’s Bar. Eddie was leaning over his shoulder, gesturing at the bayonet. Mick looked at him. “Very nice.”
“Tell you what,” the kid said. “Since you’re a friend of Geri’s and all, twenty bucks and she’s yours.”
Mick looked him straight in the eye. “No, for twenty bucks she’s yours.” Abruptly he got to his feet and was out of the bar, Geri tagging behind, before Eddie could lower his price. Eddie shook his head, wondering about these New York City types. It was true that an effective bargaining ploy, when a potential buyer thought the price of an item too high, was to walk away. But this guy Mick was walking too far too fast. That looked like No Sale. Oh well, there were lots of other suckers in the world, he said to himself, tossing down the contents of his flask . . .
“Where we going?” Geri asked, walking doubletime after Mick.
“Back to Beardsly’s,” he said as they arrived at the car.
This announcement pleased Geri very little. Wandering around the sites of recent deaths where bodies had been consumed by vicious worms was not precisely what she’d expected to do with Mick when she’d invited him down to Fly Creek.
Beardsly’s house, silhouetted against the starry sky, virtually shrieked warnings at them to call off
their investigation. The night sounds of crickets and toads and bullfrogs reverberated through the black woods, but they listened for another sound even though they had no idea what that sound would be like: the sound of worms. As Geri trod the ground of the Beardsly property, she wondered if her next step would fall on a seething mass of them, which would swarm over her feet and slither up her legs, gnawing her flesh as they went along, burrowing under it, eating their way up her calves, knees, and thighs until . . .
She shook her head, trying to shake off the hideous fantasies that had crawled out of her imagination. She stayed very close to Mick as he led her to the edge of the woods where they had first come across the bones. “What do you expect to find?” she said.
They stood over the patch of ground, mutely taking in the vibrations of the awful event that had taken place here scarcely more than twenty-four hours earlier. Mick looked back at the house’s antique shop. “What was he doing in the shop that late at night?”
She shrugged. “He fiddles—uh, fiddled—with the antiques, glueing and painting things.”
Mick walked across the yard in back of the shop. Looking down as he did, he circled his way around to the other side of the shop, Geri trailing behind, mystified. Suddenly Mick stopped and stooped over what appeared to be a fragment of a soaked, paint-stained smock, torn almost in half.
He looked over his shoulder, gauging the distance between this point and the place where they’d discovered the skeleton. Then he looked at the shed at the side of the shop.
“What’s in there?”
“Tools, paint, brushes, like that. I think he gets his well water from in there.”
“Candles?”
Geri held her palms up, indicating she didn’t really know. Could be.
Mick approached the shed, stood before it for a moment, listening. Then he put his shoulder to the door and his hand on the handle. Geri backed away and Mick hesitated. What was he looking for? What did he hope to find? What if the shed were filled with . . . ?
Mick decided that whatever was on the other side of that door was a mystery best not solved for now. He walked away, grasping Geri tightly by the arm and guiding her firmly to the car.
“I have a feeling Roger and his father are off the hook as far as killing Beardsly is concerned.”
As they climbed into the car, Mick taking the wheel, he elaborated. “I think Roger followed us here, spying on us like a little kid. Then he saw the . . .” It still didn’t make sense. “But why take the skeleton?”
It did make sense to Geri. She remembered that just before Roger had made that fatal pass at her in the rowboat, he had said something about having a surprise for her. “That was the surprise,” she explained.
Mick turned into the road and looked at Geri, hungering for the answer.
“He wanted to surprise me with the skeleton. It could bring at least a hundred dollars at one of the shows. Roger was talking about going into business with me just before . . .”
Yes, that was it. It had been Roger who’d picked up the skeleton and loaded it on the truck. After someone—or something—had killed Mr. Beardsly. That was the last piece of the puzzle. She looked at Mick, hoping he could fit it in. “Then who . . . ?”
He could. “The worms.”
CHAPTER
XIII
The table was set magnificently. Mrs. Sanders had set out her best antique linen tablecloth with the embroidered border and matching napkins, the best china and glassware, and an English silver service that had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. She’d even gone into the garden and cut fresh flowers for the centerpiece. The only thing that was out of place was Roger. He was very late, and after waiting as long as was decent, she’d yielded to Geri’s suggestion that they begin without him.
The sight of that empty fifth place at the table had thrown her even deeper into the depression that had come over her in the kitchen, the kind of depression that had come over her with more and more frequency since her husband’s death. She had hoped that the presence of two attractive males at the dinner table, seated beside two young and wholesome girls, would bring a little laughter and happiness into her increasingly dark and humorless life. But now that empty chair at the table was like a grin with one tooth prominently missing. She could think only of the man missing from her life, the man moldering in his grave. She gazed with nearly lifeless eyes at the splendid spread laid out on the table.
No, she musn’t go on this way, she told herself. That way lay misery and death. She must try to keep out of it, to involve herself in life, to remain young by cultivating the young. She would make an effort.
Turning to Mick, she said, “How do you like Fly Creek?” It was pretty feeble, admittedly, but it was a start.
“Oh, fine,” Mick said. “It’s nice to get away from the city.” There was something insincere in the way he said it, as if his mind had removed itself to wander elsewhere while his lips mouthed meaningless replies to meaningless questions. The boy had been behaving quite peculiarly ever since he and Geri had returned home a little while ago. What was distracting him? Mrs. Sanders wondered. Probably just in love with Geri, that’s all.
But would being in love account for that strange, haunted look in his eyes, as if something unspeakably savage were dogging his footsteps?
Most puzzling . . .
Geri and Alma huddled at the sideboard, cutting the roast and putting the finishing touches on the side dishes. They kept up a pleasant demeanor, so as not to alarm their mother, but their voices gave away the real state of their emotions. “Attacked!” Alma whispered.
Geri shrank and signaled with her hand for Alma to cool it and keep her voice down. Then she put her face close to Alma’s and spoke almost inaudibly. “We’re not sure. Mick thinks Mr. Beardsly went to his shed to get candles when the lights went out. He still had the matchbook when we found him.”
“Did you look in the shed?” Alma asked, laying a sprig of parsley across the sweet potatoes.
“No,” Geri said, her memory drawing her back to that fateful moment when Mick had actually stood with his shoulder against the shed door, and then decided not to satisfy his curiosity. “I’m glad we didn’t,” she said.
They picked up the platters and casserole dishes and carried them to the table.
Mrs. Sanders looked absolutely desolate. “Did you try Roger next door? I feel terrible starting without him.”
Geri and Mick exchanged glances, and Mick actually came close to breaking into an ironic smile. Geri interpreted it to mean, “You wouldn’t feel so terrible starting without him if you knew what we know.”
“He’s probably working late at the farm,” Geri said as nonchalantly as possible.
Mrs. Sanders clucked and shook her head. “Willie doesn’t appreciate how hard that poor boy works. I never could understand that man.”
Geri and Alma took their seats. Geri placed herself with Alma on one side and her mother on the other.
“That’s Roger’s seat, dear,” said Mrs. Sanders.
“What’s the difference?”
“I thought you’d want to sit next to Mick,” she said sadly. Then she sighed lugubriously. “I guess it doesn’t make a difference, does it?”
It didn’t as far as Geri was concerned, but she did want to please her mother, who seemed these days to be hunting for reasons to be unhappy. Geri got up and sat down again beside Mick.
The family started passing the food around, and though the meal could have been festive, a celebration of their conquest over the electricity failure, a romantic evening of candlelit gaiety, it was closer to a wake than anything else. Nothing was heard but the hollow tinkle of silver on china, chewing sounds, and an occasional “Pass the salt” or “May I have some more cranberries?”
Oh yes, there was one other sound. The first time they’d heard it they’d paused in their eating to cock their ears and look at each other curiously. It was a splintery cracking sound, as if someone outside were bending a
green branch over his knee. Only it was louder than that. Much louder indeed, as if someone were bending an entire adult tree over his knee. Geri had gotten up and looked out the window into the blackness of the night, but she saw nothing nothing but the enormous old elm tree that had stood like a friendly sentinel, casting its leafy protection over their home, ever since the house had been built.
Geri shrugged and returned to the dinner table, but from that point on she listened for the sound again. She wondered if Roger was out there, lurking, his tortured body driving him to seek help among the only people who cared about him.
The second CR-A-A-A-CK was disconcertingly loud, causing Mick to leap to his feet, heart pounding madly in his chest. He too had thought of Roger, but when he went to the window he saw nothing but the old elm tree, its tall branches swaying in the stiff breeze that had got up a while ago and was now whistling through the surrounding woods.
Mick returned to the table but didn’t continue eating. He thought about that sound, and the tree . . . the tree! Of course! Last night’s storm had probably dislodged the elm tree’s secure hold in the ground. All day that tree’s roots had bathed in the muddy soil of the storm’s inundation, grappling for solidity the way a drowning person reaches for a spar or life preserver to clutch before going under. And there may have been another element, too: worms.
My God! Mick’s mind shrieked at him. The worms! If light was their enemy, then the nighttime, if the moon and stars were obscured by a cloud layer as they were tonight, would bring them to the surface of the earth in a frenzy of activity, the way they’d done with Mr. Beardsly and Willie Grimes. Especially if they were being stimulated by some force, as they seemed to be. That was the one aspect of this mystery that didn’t yet jibe in Mick’s mind: what was making the worms so desperately hungry?
Whatever it was, with the darkness would come the boiling ferment of millions of starving worms. Their turmoil would weaken the soil beneath any tree whose roots had been dislodged by the storm.
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