Alice glared. "That was childish and unnecessary, and quite untrue. You just have to understand my position, too. Evan and I are new here. We're trying to make Silver Dunes into something big. We've put in a lot of time and money, and I'd hate to see one unfounded rumor ruin the entire thing."
"There's no unfounded rumor. Cathy has disappeared. Or maybe you don't care how many people get hurt, as long as you make your profit."
The corners of Alice's mouth went white. "You've been doing your homework, haven't you?" she whispered urgently. "You don't have to talk about it, you know. We'll do everything we can for Cathy, but you don't have to mention it to anyone. Just give us a chance. It really doesn't have anything to do with us, anyway. It's not our fault and it's not fair that—"
"My God, Alice," Janet said. "You don't mean that bunch of murders ten years ago, do you? What possible harm—"
But Alice's eyes widened and she put her hand to her mouth, turned abruptly, and strode toward the bar. Janet gasped and ran after her.
"You didn't mean those, did you?" she demanded. "There's something else." Alice shook her arm away. "Damn it, Cathy's not the first, is she? There've been others, and you're covering it up, and—"
"Leave me alone!" Alice snouted, broke away, and ran around the corner of the building. Janet turned quickly toward the parking lot.
"Janet!" Al strode across the lamp-lit patio. "I'm sorry. Those idiots at the office can't do a damned thing by themselves and I spent the past two hours—"
She grabbed his hand. "I think Cathy's in trouble— big trouble—and I've got to find her." She outlined Cathy's absence, her missing car and keys, Alice Baker's refusal to help. "And Cathy's not the first, Al. Alice as much as said so, but she's hiding it. There have been others."
"Another psychopath? I don't believe it."
"I don't care!" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Even if she's just been in an accident—I know she's in her car, or near it—I've got to look for her, Al. I know she needs help."
"I'll come, then. I'd hate to lose you, too."
She squeezed his hand, relieved, and led the way to the parking lot. Her battered Toyota started, for once, without protest. Al buckled his seat belt as she flicked on the headlights and drove out of the lot.
"First toward the beach." Al nodded. She lowered her window and drove slowly, peering at the low brush and the ditch beside the road. Al leaned from the passenger-side window.
"Nothing," he said when they reached the small parking area by the beach where the road dead-ended. The parking lot was deserted. Janet turned the car around. At least the road ran inland here, not along the cliffs as did Highway 1 for most of its length. If they had to search the coast road too ...
She drove by the resort gate, peering at her side of the road. The land dipped and the road entered a small stand of eucalyptus and oleander bordering the marsh. Janet squinted, trying to see through the underbrush. A barbed wire fence ended in a tangle of vines; some of them—and the bushes a few meters away—looked bruised. She stopped the car and put it into reverse.
"What do you see?" Al looked at her side of the road.
"Over there, it looks like ..." She stopped the car on the shoulder and peered across the road. "It is, Al. Something's been through there. Can you see the tracks?"
"I don't—oh, by the big tree? They could be pretty old."
"Maybe." She killed the engine and hauled on the parking brake. "I'm going to take a look."
"Janet, it's dark. God knows what's out there. Let's go back and call the sheriff—and to hell with Alice Baker."
"No. If Cathy's in there, she probably needs help. Come on, I've walked night marshes for years. There's nothing to be afraid of."
She took the flashlight from the glove compartment and slammed her door, letting the beam of light play on the ground as she crossed the road and walked toward the oleanders. Al walked behind her and slightly to the side, peering over her shoulder at the ground.
The tire prints were sharp and clean of any fallen leaves or mud. A patch on the eucalyptus caught the light, strips of bark torn away to expose the shiny underwood, just where a car's bumper would hit it.
"There," she said.
Al took her hand. "I see it. Let me take the lead. It might be dangerous."
"Don't be silly." She marched ahead, both annoyed and comforted by his solicitude. She reached her hand back and he laced his fingers through hers, coming up to walk beside her. The trees fell away behind them; ahead the land dropped abruptly into the marsh, and the tire prints ran straight and clean toward the overhang. Janet stood on the lip of the drop and raised the flashlight. Cathy's green Mustang rested unevenly in the marsh below, its right headlight almost buried. The car windows were dark. Janet's skin went cold under the warmth of her sweater.
"My God." She dropped Al's hand abruptly and slid down the wet hill. The beam of the flashlight danced crazily.
"Janet! Wait!"
Viscous water filled her shoes and lapped at her ankles, slowing her. Al caught up with her and took her hand. She shook it free.
"Cathy! Cathy, can you hear me? Cathy!"
Even the marsh birds were silent. Janet cursed the uneven footing and tried to keep the light steady on the car's rear window.
"Janet, you'll break your neck." Al pulled her to a stop. "You can't help her if you're hurt yourself. Slow down."
She leaned against him, trying to catch her breath. His heartbeat was slow and steady and strong. Then she stood away from him and together they slogged to the car. Janet put her hand on the rear fender. Dirty water had splashed over the windows as the car fell; she couldn't see in through the mud. Al took the flashlight from her, moved to the driver's door, and opened it.
"Al? Is she.. ."
He gestured and looked away. Janet's throat tightened. She splashed toward him and he wordlessly handed her the flashlight.
"Cathy?" she whispered.
Cathy's forehead rested against the steering wheel, her long blond hair hiding her face. The strands near her cheeks looked slick and dark. One hand, palm up, lay relaxed on the seat by her thigh.
"Janet, come away," Al said. "Let's call the sheriff. This can't help."
She heard the words distantly and they seemed to have no meaning. Her hand rose, almost without her volition, and touched Cathy's cold shoulder, then Janet tightened her grip and pulled the girl away from the steering wheel. Her bangs were dark with blood, but her forehead was smooth and unbroken.
"Janet, please."
Her fingers brushed Cathy's stiff hair, pulling it away from her temples and cheeks. Such a pretty, flighty, innocent child . . . Cathy's face was serene, smoothly youthful; her lips tilted in a slight smile. And where her left eye had been there was a hole, a smooth emptiness that swallowed the light of the flash as though it went back forever and ever, all the way to the back of Cathy's skull. There was nothing in Cathy's head, save the diffuse beam of light. Nothing within at all.
Janet dropped the flashlight and stepped away shakily, unable to scream. She stumbled into Al's body and he put his arms around her, holding her tight.
"Hush. It's all right, baby. It's all right." He turned her around in his arms and she buried her head against his shoulder.
"I don't understand—Al, how could—what did—" She shuddered convulsively in his arms, seeing Cathy's serene face and the hideous darkness where her eye had been. "After," she said, fighting against sobs. "It must have been—after. She didn't know about it—she was smiling—she couldn't have—Christ, Al," she screamed, "what was it? What did that to her? What kind of—of monster ate her brain?"
"A careful one, I'd guess," he said easily. "And a very, very fast one." She jerked away from him in shock. Al smiled, hands at his sides, his eyes bright in the darkness. Janet stumbled backward.
"A gentle sort of monster, who likes leaving smiles behind." Something flickered between his lips, pale and cylindrical and hard. She backed against the car, remembering t
he feel of his lips on her eyelids.
"This isn't funny," she said shakily. Her foot hit the flashlight.
"It's not meant to be." The pale something appeared again, framed in Al's smile. He stepped toward her and she grabbed the flashlight. "Come, Janet, you're an intelligent woman. You can understand a gentle monster, can't you? One who doesn't like to fight?"
She jumped to her left. As he lunged, she turned and slammed the flashlight against his temple. He staggered. She scrambled across the hood of the car, tilting it into the marsh; Cathy's body toppled from the seat. Janet leaped from the car and tried to run. The marsh sucked at her. Al Hamilton laughed.
"Marsh walker," he cried derisively. Janet struggled frantically toward higher ground. He was heavier; he'd sink deeper; it would slow him down—she clawed at the bank, the flashlight tight in her hand, fighting against the pull of the marsh, the mud, the slope. She gasped and the marsh released her; she reached for a twisted root overhead and Al's hand closed around her ankle, pulled her back, twisted her onto her back. He knocked the flashlight away and dropped his body onto hers, pinning her to the mud. She twisted her head wildly, trying to escape his eyes and his smile and the terrible thing between his teeth.
"A monster, Janet?" he said in his pleasant voice. "I haven't hurt you. I've never hurt a single one, and I'm very, very good at this." His hands pressed her cheeks and temples, stilling her. He chuckled softly and lowered his head toward hers.
"And I do love women who think."
Beverly Evans returns with something quite a bit different than her previous "Waiting for the Knight. "Like many dark fantasies, this began with an actual incident. How it ends, however, is something we won't even begin to speculate on.
THE PIANO MAN by Beverly Evans
The piano was almost hidden in the rear of the music store, back behind the "family" organs and racks of returned rental instruments, each one mottled from the sticky sweat of children's fingers. The keyboard had been removed, and the dusty padding beneath was matted and ridged in regular intervals. The oak finish was original, and so fragile that a casual thumbnail could flake it away like chips of mica. The piano seemed to smile across the store, its wide, toothless, cotton-felt gums bared in a steady, strangely compelling expression.
Katie Prescott stood at the entrance of the music store and stared back at the piano. Years of memories welled up inside her; memories of hours spent practicing, memorizing, sometimes crying, eternally practicing; of little black dots buzzing before her eyes, swarming like so many no-see-ums on a hot summer day; of her first recital, with new anklets, new white sandals, a fresh Tonette, and all the confidence of a four-year-old capable of conquering the world . . . and the laughter. Waves of laughter that went on interminably as she had had to pull her long polished-cotton gown up around her waist in order to climb the high piano stool. The people had laughed, how they had laughed at the tiny blond child and her awkward, chubby little legs and her ruffled Carter's undies. Somewhere in her desk at home, a yellowed newspaper clipping from the Atlanta Herald, dated August 1952, still silently proclaimed: "Prodigy Bares All In First Recital."
"It's a beauty, isn't it," the music store's salesman said.
Katie started. "Oh yes . . . yes, it is . . ."
"Just came in yesterday. We sent the keys out for new ivory ..."
Katie couldn't stop staring at the piano. She remembered playing her repertoire of nursery rhymes and sonatinas flawlessly, while hot tears of humiliation ran down her cheeks and made damp stains on the lap of her gown. Katie threaded her way through the weekend shoppers and ran a finger across the curved keyboard cover. The feel of it sent little shivers through her, and she wiped the minute flecks of varnish from her fingers onto the leg of her jeans. LUCHENBACH, grand cabinet was still visible in carefully hand-painted gold lettering.
The salesman prattled on, "An old guy called in, asking to handle the repairs on this one. We don't usually contract out privately, but he was so insistent, we gave him the job. .. ."
Fourteen long years, Katie thought as she looked over the Luchenbach; fourteen years since she had touched a piano, much less played one. She remembered her mother screaming, shouting horrible, unforgivable things at her the day she left home, the day Katie had announced that she couldn't take one more minute of living like the only inmate in a prima donna's prison. Up at five to practice before going to school. Home immediately to practice until dinner, then another hour of practice before homework . . . eight hours a day on weekends . . . and the recitals, the intense competition, year after year ...
"How much?" Katie heard herself ask the salesman.
"Four twenty-five, including delivery and the first tuning in your home."
Snatches of old nightmares whispered at her: losing her place during a performance; the huge wooden church doors closing on her hands, crushing her fingers forever; the old fear of being tied to the piano bench until her hour was up . ..
Katie touched the piano carefully, as if it were alive. She felt a longing—an ache—and a revulsion. She wanted this piano, and she couldn't have begun to explain why.
"Can I leave a deposit?" she fairly whispered, her throat suddenly dry.
"No problem. Why don't you step over. . ."
"Will twenty dollars be enough?" she interrupted.
"That'll be just fine. And your name?"
"Prescott. Katie. Miss."
Katie brushed a wisp of blond hair out of her eyes and looked at the office clock for the third time in five minutes. Only three-thirty. She groaned silently, and turned her concentration once more to the stack of invoices on her desk. Even after five years of bookkeeping for Weston and Smith Manufacturing, the end-of-the-month closing statements still made her irritable and impatient. But today it was something more.
Her Luchenbach had arrived at her home in Marathon in less than a week, and Katie was glad to be set apart from her neighbors by large-acre lots. The piano was horribly out of tune. The notes were so sour that she winced just trying to limber up with some simple scales. Some of the keys were sticky; the ivories overlapped the black keys and caught on the edges; the soundboard was cracked and the buzz was noticeable, but not too distracting. When the piano had arrived, the pedals were disconnected, but she had remedied that with a rubber washer and a common nail.
But today the tuner was coming and Katie caught herself humming stanzas of Chopin and Mozart with pleased anticipation.
Four-thirty came and Katie raced up I-81, keeping a cautious watch for radar traps. Once at home, she found she couldn't sit still, so she changed into her jeans and T-shirt and tackled the broken front door bell—a chore that had cropped up on her weekly "must-do" list ever since she moved in three years ago. A white picket fence, the border of petunias and marigolds running to the front step, the trellis alive with morning glory and honeysuckle, the massive oak spread protectively over one side of the roof. FOR lease or rent the sign had said. Katie did neither. Instead she put up her entire savings for a down payment on the vacant little farmhouse, purchased a Handyman's Hints from the local True Value hardware store, and spent her spare time plastering walls, restoring woodwork, and earning every blister on the hands that she used to treat with such care.
Katie was on the front porch, busy with pliers and screwdriver, when a soft voice from the sidewalk brought her upright.
"Miss Prescott? I'm the piano man—or what's left of him."
He stood on the sidewalk, case of tuning tools in one hand, a white-tipped cane in the other. He was perhaps five foot nine, and his thick lenses only magnified the fact that his eyes were hopelessly clouded with cataracts. The right eye was pure milky white; the left navigated a curious circle every so often—down, to the left, and then up and behind the lid.
For a moment Katie just stared at the filthy, stained beige nylon shirt, the thin cotton pants held by tattered suspenders that in turn kept slipping from his stooped shoulders. The tuning case looked disturbingly like a doctor's bag, and s
he remembered the Christmas when she was eight, when she had been too ill to leave the house and would wake from fevered nightmares to see the big black satchel at her bedside.
The piano tuner's fingers beat a silent tattoo on the handle of his cane.
"You must be Mr. Trister," Katie finally stammered. "Please come in. . . . I . . . I'm so glad you're here."
The old man grunted and tapped his way up the porch and through the door.
"You have a lovely house, Miss Prescott," he said in that same hushed tone, as if a baby slept nearby.
"Why, thank you," Katie replied, thinking that he couldn't possibly be seeing a thing, but she continued, "This used to be the music room years ago, when the original owners lived here."
"Isn't that fitting," Trister said and smiled. "It's almost like coming home again, isn't it?" He reached out and patted the Luchenbach.
Katie shivered involuntarily and excused herself as the piano man groped in his kit for his tools. Trister made her uncomfortable. She wasn't sure whether he was talking to her, to the piano, or to himself, for that matter. She began to rewire the doorbell and found her fingers unusually clumsy and uncooperative. As Trister tuned the strings one by one, she could hear him humming a song she hadn't thought of since she was a child—"Mairzy Doats." How can he concentrate like that? she thought with irritation as she pushed the last wire into place.
"Miss Prescott?" Trister called. "Could I trouble you for a glass of water?"
Katie returned from the kitchen and set the glass on a coaster to the left of the keyboard. His hand met the glass as if directed by habit and returned it unerringly to its place.
"It's a lovely old piano, isn't it?" Trister said as he continued to chock the strings with his wedge-shaped strips of rubber.
"I fell in love with it the minute I saw it," Katie replied. "I don't know what it was about this one ... It ... well, it seemed to be meant for me."
"Good, good." Trister nodded his head and smiled, then took another delicate sip from his water glass. The McDonaldland characters grinned up at his milky-white eyes . . . down, to the left, up and behind the lid . . . down, to the left, up and behind the lid . . .
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