by Cave, Hugh
She did not answer. He turned to look at her, and she nodded.
He took the ring from Sister Merle's finger and thrust it into his pocket. "Go on back to the car," he ordered.
"What are you—"
"Go on back to the car!" he repeated sharply. "I want to make sure no one will know we've been here. We're not going to report this. It's none of our business. But if we say anything, they'll make it our business. They could keep us here in Jamaica for weeks. Go on now!"
He watched her walk unsteadily through the front room to the door, and through the doorway into the yard. When she started up the steep, twisting footpath to the road, he turned his attention to the problem at hand. It was true, he didn't want to leave anything that would tell the police Vicky and he had been here. But there was something else.
The death weapon. It just might still be here.
He searched the bed as well as he could without touching the bloody sheets, but found nothing. He walked about the room, being careful to avoid the pool of blood that would have caused him to leave footprints. He knelt and peered under the bed.
It wasn't here, obviously. He turned to go. Then he saw it.
It lay almost dead center in the red puddle, but was so covered with blood itself that it had been all but invisible. Maybe its coating of the dead woman's blood explained why Sister Merle's killer, having-dropped the thing, had not attempted to retrieve it.
Using just the tips of thumb and forefinger, he gingerly took it by the very end of its pointed blade and stood up with it.
A paring knife. A hollow-ground stainless-steel blade riveted into a brown hardwood handle. He made no attempt to wipe it off, simply wrapped it in his handkerchief and thrust it through a belt loop of his trousers, where his shirt would hide it.
A quick last look at bed and floor convinced him Vicky and he had left no evidence of their visit. Swiftly, then, he climbed to the road and ran along to the turnaround, where he found Vicky waiting in the Land Rover.
"Now remember," he warned on the way home, "we haven't been anywhere near that house today, if we're asked. The last time you saw Sister Merle was yesterday, when you paid your usual visit."
"What if we were seen this morning?" she asked nervously. "This Land Rover is known, isn't it?"
They were passing the Wait-a-Bit police station, and he glanced at it. The door was open; the yard was empty. She had a point, though.
"If anyone questions us, I was showing you a low-cost housing development down the road at Stettin. There is one—Sam pointed it out the day he drove me from the airport—and you're interested in that kind of thing."
"I hope we're not asked," she said fervently. "After what we've just seen, I won't remember what to say." She turned on the seat to look at him. "Will, who could have done that to her?"
He shrugged. "Many must have wanted to. What you're really asking is who was brave enough."
"Brave!"
"Yes, Vicky, brave. Courageous. Intrepid. Can't you appreciate what it must have taken to walk in on that woman and attack her, knowing what she's just done to men like Mowatt, Bignall, and Walters?"
She was silent. After a while she said, "May I have my ring?"
He took it from his pocket and handed it to her without shifting his gaze from the road. "Hadn't you better wash it before you wear it? There's probably some of her blood on it."
"Of course." The ring went into her handbag. "But who do you think killed her, Will?"
"I haven't the slightest, and couldn't care less," he snapped back.
Sam was having breakfast when they reached the house. "I want a shower," Vicky said, and went to take one. Will sat at the table and told Sam about Sister Merle.
"You're right to keep quiet about it," Sam said. "Not that you'd be suspected of killing her, but these Jamaican cops are thorough. Don't underestimate them. They'd really question you."
"Has Ima returned?"
"She fixed this breakfast for me. She's out back now, washing the clothes I was wearing when you found me."
Will went into the kitchen. Through the open door he saw Ima sitting by a standpipe, industriously using her knuckles and a bar of brown soap over a huge galvanized washtub. Without attracting her attention, he went to the sink and ran hot water into it, adding liquid detergent.
Then he took the handkerchief-wrapped knife from his belt loop, and scrubbed it clean of blood. After letting the water out of the sink, he scrubbed that, too, before turning to a knife rack on the wall above the kitchen counter.
There were slots in the rack for six different kinds of kitchen knives, and all were full but one. He slid the knife into the rack and it fit perfectly. He was half way across the kitchen when Ima came in from the yard.
"Well, hello," he said, feigning surprise. "Where have you been all night?"
She would have an answer, of course. She was intelligent. And she certainly would not say it was a long walk to Sister Merle's and back.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Will," she said. "A friend of mine was sick, and I stayed with her."
He nodded.
"I didn't expect you and your wife to go out so early this morning," she said. "I'm sorry I was not here to make breakfast for you."
"It's all right, Ima. No problem."
"Mr. Sam says you left him a note saying you were going to visit Sister Merle."
"Yes. She's dead, Ima. Someone has finally destroyed her."
She turned her head—perhaps she could not help it—to glance at the knife rack. He did not see her eyes widen, but they were certainly larger than normal when she swiftly turned back to look at him. Her expression was one of terror.
But as she gazed at him the expression changed. She came toward him and put her beautiful, long-fingered hands on his shoulders and touched her lips to his cheek. "Thank you," she whispered. "But, Mr. Will—"
"Yes, Ima?"
"You must be careful. That woman hated you with a terrible passion because you caused her so much trouble."
"But she's dead now," Will protested, puzzled.
"Mr. Will, who knows what death is? Dead people often return. All the Gèdés are dead loa—I am sure you know about that—yet when they are called to a service, they come. Please, Mr. Will, be on your guard. That woman will seek revenge."
He remembered the curse shrieked at him by Sister Merle as she died. Scowling, he said, "Won't she want revenge on you, too?"
"Of course. But I have the loa to protect me." She paused, then touched him on the arm. "There is someone else you must be careful of, Mr. Will. Someone close to you."
He knew what she was getting at, but asked anyway. "Who?"
"Your wife. Those two were like this." Holding up her right hand, she crossed one finger over another. "And who can say what your wife may have learned there in that house of evil? Perhaps she learned very much."
He nodded. When he realized she had no more to tell him, he said quietly, "What will you do now, Ima? I'll be returning to the States tomorrow. Sam will be leaving when he's rested."
"It will be no problem, Mr. Will. When I am no longer needed here, I can find other work."
"I'm sure you can, a woman like you. And Ima—"
"Yes, Mr. Will?"
"I'm sure Juan Cerrado will rest better now. Everyone in this part of Jamaica should thank you."
The following afternoon Ken Daniels drove Will Platt and his wife to the Montego Bay airport in his taxi, and they boarded a plane for the eighty-minute flight to Miami.
Only eighty minutes, Will mused, from obeah and black magic to condominiums and shopping centers. Vicky, he noticed, was wearing her opal ring again, and was strangely quiet.
BOOK THREE
The Face-Off
26
"I Need You, Sam"
Lynne Kimball's concern for Will after the strange events of the evening brought it home to him that, for the first time in his life, he was truly loved. They stayed together—for what remained of the night—in Lynne's apartment, but
slept little, speculating about the eerie visitor and its horrible, evil aura. And wondering what to do.
The footprints were dry when Will went back up to his apartment in the morning. A close examination of the carpet puzzled him, however. Any foot heavy enough to have made such distinct prints—such wet prints—should have left impressions, he told himself. There were no such impressions. It was as though the intruder had never existed.
He searched the entire apartment, determined not to overlook any clue. He examined every inch of the veranda, through the screen of which the thing had entered.
Nothing.
What now?
Lynne and he had talked for hours, getting nowhere. She thought he ought to go to Jurzak, that relentless homicide investigator from the sheriff's department. "Tell him the truth about you and your wife," she had begged him. "Sooner or later he's going to find it out anyway."
"I can't."
"Why can't you? Wanting a divorce is no crime."
"Lynne, I've been stupid. I've already denied there is anything between you and me. Already told Jurzak I'm a happily married man trying desperately to find my wife."
"Will, you'll just have to admit you were lying. We need help now!"
She was right about that, of course. He needed all the help he could get. But not Jurzak's. Jurzak hadn't the kind of mind to understand the nature of the thing in the lake. There was only one man who might be able to help at a time like this.
Sam.
Six weeks ago Vicky and he had left Sam in Christiana. A week later Sam had telephoned from Massachusetts to say hi pal and thanks for everything, he was home safe and rapidly recovering from his ordeal. Will recalled how Vicky, after attentively listening to his end of the conversation, had said, "That ought to make you happy, a call from good old buddy Sam."
He had put the phone down and turned to gaze at her, trying for what must have been the twentieth time in the past week to read her mind. With every passing day she seemed to behave more strangely.
"Vicky, what's wrong with you? You can't be jealous of Sam?"
"Why should I be jealous of anyone? We're getting a divorce, remember?"
That night she had come to the doorway of his room at two in the morning and stood there in her nightgown, silently staring in at him the way she had done in Jamaica. With that same strange glow in her eyes. For five minutes she stood there, a hand gripping each side of the doorframe and her body faintly swaying back and forth while her gaze remained fixed on him.
He had been awake when she appeared. Had been lying sleepless since one o'clock, his mind full of questions about her behavior since their return from the island. Then, just when he was about to let her know he was awake by challenging her, she padded silently on bare feet back to her own room and quietly closed the door.
And the following night.
No one, but no one, knew about the events of the following night. Or ever would. But if he telephoned Sam now and told him what had been happening here at Lakeside Manor for the past few weeks, Sam would come to help. Of course he would. Just as I went to Jamaica to help him when he was in trouble, Will thought.
He stopped pacing the apartment and frowned at his watch. Seven forty-five A.M.—a good time to call. Sam probably wouldn't have left for work yet. He strode to the phone, snatched it up, and dialed the number.
After the footprints, after the long talk with Lynne about summoning Jurzak, after all the thinking about the problems and the options, it was good to hear Sam Norman's familiar voice again.
"Sam, I'm in trouble."
"You this time? Well, I owe you. Shoot, pal."
"It's too long a story to tell you on the phone. But since Vicky and I got back here, all kinds of things have been happening. I don't suppose the mystery deaths of Heron Lake, Florida, have hit the papers up your way yet, but they may if they continue. Not to mention the news magazines and tv networks."
"Mystery deaths did you say, Will?"
"A man, a woman, two dogs. And last night I might have been the next victim had I been in my apartment. The thing left wet footprints all through the place, searching for me."
"Wet footprints?" Sam echoed.
"It's coming out of the lake here, Sam. And it's nothing human, nothing even solid—just a thing of mist or vapor. I've seen it. How soon can I expect you?"
"Where do I fly to?"
"Orlando."
"I'll get onto it and call you back. A thing of mist, you say? Will—how is Vicky?"
"She left me right after we got back from Jamaica, Sam. Walked out without a word. I've been trying to locate her."
Sam's long silence was not unusual. He was a man who normally let a conversation hang while thinking. "All right," he said finally. "I'll check the flights and get back to you."
The following afternoon Will drove to Orlando to meet him, and was pleased to see that the Jamaican ordeal had left no mark on his friend. On the drive back to Heron Lake he showed a disinclination to waste any time, firing questions as fast as Will could field them.
"You say Vicky left you? I don't get it, Will. You told me the two of you had agreed on a divorce."
"We had."
"Then why the walkout?"
"She was behaving strangely, Sam." Will told of the night before Vicky's disappearance—the night she had come to his doorway and stood there staring in at him. And of other times when, in talking to him about even commonplace things or events, she had seemed to be out of tune with reality.
"Sister Merle," Sam said.
"I think so. Yes."
Sam shook his head and let a moment of silence go by as the car sped south through miles of citrus groves. The scent of orange blossoms was at times almost overpowering. "I don't have any doubt, Will, that when Merle got her hands on someone as susceptible as Vicky, she made the most of it."
"There's something you don't know, Sam." He went on to tell Sam about the opal Vicky had bought from the Indian woman in Mexico, and how Sister Merle had borrowed the ring and he himself had removed it from her finger when Vicky wanted it back. Sam knew, of course, who was responsible for the obeah woman's death.
After a brief silence, Sam said, "This thing that comes out of the lake. You think it's after you?"
"I do now. I didn't at first."
"And Vicky is somehow responsible for it? Created it, maybe? Why?"
"Because I told her I wanted a divorce. I suppose."
"But she's never been a wife to you. You've told me that more than once."
"That doesn't mean she wanted to be put aside, Sam. I've been just the kind of man she could live with without too much effort—successful, a good income, and too wrapped up in my work to be sexually demanding. In other words, nice to have around and still easy to handle."
"All right. She had a reason to create this thing—she wanted revenge—and she learned how from Sister Merle with maybe some help from the ring you've just told me about. Now how do we protect you?"
"That," Will said, "is why I asked you to come down here. It was you, not I, who fought Margal and beat him."
They continued the talk that evening in Will's apartment. Then after a phone call to the apartment below, Will took Sam down to meet Lynne Kimball. "She knows Jamaica," he said as they walked down the stairs. "Her husband worked for the bauxite people in Mandeville. Died there."
"That should make her easy for me to talk to."
But the Jamaican link was not necessary, Will happily noted at once. Sam took to Lynne as quickly and completely as he had, and in only a few minutes they were talking like longtime friends. He always knew when Lynne liked someone or something. Her eyes sparkled. Her whole face glowed with inner pleasure.
They talked in Lynne's living room for hours, Lynne and he taking turns at filling in the details of what had been happening at Heron Lake. Now and then Sam interrupted with questions.
"Let me be sure I have this straight, Will. Vicky walked out on you a week after the two of you returned from Jamaica?"<
br />
"We got back here March twentieth. It was the morning of the twenty-ninth I found her gone."
"And those two people on the third floor—the Ellstroms—first saw the lake thing when?"
"April tenth," Lynne said. "Tuesday, April tenth, at night. At the Wednesday cocktail party the next day they made a point of trying to find someone else who'd seen it, and came up with Haydn Clay."
"So," Sam said, frowning as he did his mental arithmetic, "there was a gap of—let's see—eleven days between Vicky's departure and the thing's first appearance."
Will nodded.
"Then how long before the woman was found dead in the road?"
"She was killed Friday the thirteenth," Will said without hesitation. "More than a few people saw some significance in that."
"So between the first appearance of the thing—the night the dogs died, that is—and the death of the Abbott woman, we have a gap of only three days?"
"Right."
"Then what? You two saw it come out of the lake and go up to your apartment?"
"No," Lynne said. "It killed Tom Broderick first."
"When was that?"
"Sunday. The twenty-second? Yes, that's right."
"The thirteenth to the twenty-second," Sam said, frowning again. "A nine day gap. There's no pattern, is there?"
Will said, "There doesn't seem to be."
"Then—finally—you two saw the thing and discovered the footprints in Will's apartment. That was two days ago. A gap of ten days this time. No, there's no pattern. We could wait for days, or it could reappear tonight."
Lynne looked at her watch. "Do you know how long we've been talking, you two? It's half past one."
"We had a lot to talk about," Sam said.
"You must be tired after your flight." She looked toward the veranda, where the sliding glass door was open. "Have you seen our lake at night, Sam? Really looked at it? It's beautiful, even if it does seem to harbor something awful." She walked out onto the veranda. "Oh-oh. Someone's taking a boat out."