by Kin Platt
I’d gone about a block when I realized that I should be going into real estate offices, too, to ask about that old castle of Captain Billy Murdock’s. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to find out but my brain was telling me to get on the ball and find out something.
I circled back and come down Plymouth again. When I got there the tan XKE was gone.
The red-headed girl who had been laughing with Don Defoe was now sitting at her desk typing. She had her eyes fixed on some long white papers and just kept on going like a blue streak, reaching her hand over and slamming the carriage back; then she was off again and churning through another line. She finally noticed I was living and stopped her mad typing, but she didn’t look too happy.
“Yes?” she said with a big question mark.
It was a small enough question but I had a lot of trouble trying to answer it. About a million different things came into my mind but none of them seemed right. Finally I thought of an answer. “Who owns Captain Billy’s house?” I asked.
Her green eyes opened wider. “Huh?” she said.
“You know,” I said, waving my hands. “The castle.”
“The castle?” she repeated. “What castle?”
“Captain Billy,” I said, feeling foolish. “Murdock,” I added. Then I put it all together for her to be surprised at all over again. “Captain Billy Murdock’s castle,” I said.
She had a nice voice now that she got over being stupefied, but it wasn’t laughing. “Did you ask me who owns it?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“How should I know?” she said, looking angry again.
I explained that I was just hoping she did. That I was just trying to find out.
“Find out what?” she asked crossly.
“Find out who owns it,” I said. She was even getting my voice cross.
Then she asked me why I wanted to know and I couldn’t answer that one either. She looked at her typewriter longingly.
“It’s for a friend,” I finally said.
Her eyes flashed. “That’s a relief,” she said. “I thought you wanted to buy it for yourself.” After she got off this snippy one she felt a little better. “Just a sec,” she said. She turned and walked to the rear to speak to the man at the desk there. I saw him peering around her at me, and I tried to look nonchalant. Like maybe I’d buy that old castle after all.
He scribbled something on a card. She came back holding it down at arm’s length as if it might bite her, her black skirt swishing.
She didn’t hand me the card. She just stared like I’d spoiled her whole day. I guess she really liked typing.
“If you don’t know who owns it, that’s okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll try some other real estate places. I just happened to see your place.” I didn’t even know the name of it.
She placed the little card on the counter but kept it covered with her hand. I guess girls like to be mysterious. Even when they got older, like Mrs. Teska.
“Mr. Gideon Pickering,” she was saying.
I guessed I must have missed something while I was day-dreaming about the time Mrs. Teska covered her old photo.
“I don’t know any Mr. Gideon Pickering,” I said.
The girl curled her red lips. “We are not authorized to permit anyone on the Murdock premises without Mr. Pickering’s direct authorization,” she said.
I wondered who he was. The red-headed girl must have read my mind. She uncovered the card and handed it to me. On the top was scrawled in pencil Gideon Pickering and on the other side the name and address of this real estate office. Mints and Marks, it said. Real Estate.
I didn’t know if this girl was Mints or Marks, or even maybe somebody else.
“Does this Mr. Pickering know who owns it?” I asked her.
“Certainly,” she said, giving me her best disgusted look. I thanked her and turned to go. Her voice stopped me. “Do you know where to find Mr. Pickering?”
I had to admit I didn’t. She just looked weary now. “Across the street,” she said. “The lawyer’s building.” She didn’t blow me a kiss when I left.
The lawyer’s building across the street was one of the few high. Streamlined ones we have in Hampton. Here in the new village it’s okay for the business people to spread out some.
The elevator operator helped me find the listing in the marble lobby and took me up to the twenty-fourth floor. Before I could thank him the door was closing, his hand just barely winning.
The girl in Mr. Pickering’s office wasn’t mad at anybody and seemed very sorry I had missed him but he was having a late lunch someplace near the courthouse. She asked if I cared to leave my name and I said I would come back another time, it wasn’t any urgent matter. She gave me a nice smile. She even thanked me for calling. Then she went back to her typing. She typed as fast as that other girl but I guess it wasn’t that important to her.
The elevator operator didn’t seem too happy about being brought up all the way again so soon. I couldn’t figure him out either. He certainly wasn’t going any place. So what difference did it make?
I realized for once in my life I knew what, besides old buildings, I was talking about. And that was, you sure can’t tell anything about people.
CHAPTER 23
Mystery Of The Five Murdocks
Actually my brain had done a pretty good job on that last order. Even though the red-headed typist acted surprised and disgusted, she had referred me to the lawyer she said would know who owned the castle.
So now when my brain said, okay, drop everything and head for the old graveyard, I didn’t argue. At least it was trying to get us someplace.
And it turned out to be right again. So that made twice in a row.
The grave of Captain Billy was still there, naturally, and the tombstone with that crazy riddle:
FIRST DOGWATCHERS
FOLLOW ME
TWO BEATS FOUR
THE LAST IS THREE
There was nobody else in the old cemetery so I backed off a little to concentrate better. That’s when I saw all the other Murdocks.
Minerva and Sinbad and me were so wrapped up in the riddle the other time we just hadn’t looked around. The rest of the Murdocks were less than ten feet away. I went over closer to see if their old tombstones went in for more family riddles or were the usual “Rest in Peace” type.
The old stones just showed names and dates: Captain Billy’s, you remember, said 1711-1800.
On his left was Simon Murdock. 1750-1830.
On Simon’s left was Joshua Murdock. 1800-1860.
On Joshua’s left was Adam Murdock. 1840-1890.
Big Nick Murdock should have been left of Adam. But he disappeared at sea in 1920 so they didn’t put him down with the others.
I noticed something strange. A Murdock died every thirty years. Starting with Captain Billy. It was a pretty sure thing Big Nick was dead. The River Queen went down in 1920, thirty years from the time his father went.
I wondered if all the other Murdocks had been murdered like Captain Billy. I wondered if Big Nick Murdock saw it was 1920, time for him to go according to his family record, and decided not to hang around and get killed but just disappear instead.
Of course it was just a wild guess but I have to admit I kind of liked it.
I wandered around and looked at some of the other tombstones. I saw four Defoes. The same family name as that reporter’s.
Thomas Defoe 1750-1810
Francis Defoe 1790-1850
David Defoe 1830-1890
Charles Defoe 1870-1930
I saw something strange here too. The Defoes died forty years apart to the Murdocks’ thirty. The Defoes lived exactly sixty years. No more. It looked like we had something going in our town nobody had ever noticed. One of those Hatfield-McCoy hillbilly feud things.
If it was a feud, so far they were all even. Each had lost four men. The Defoes must have started it because Captain Billy was the first to die. It took ten years after that for o
ne of the Defoes to get it. But from then on everybody got his man regularly. They even took turns being born and dying in the same years!
I wrote all the dates and names down in my little book so Minerva Landry could have something else to think about besides the riddle of Captain Billy.
Then I heard a car pull up outside the graveyard, and its door slam. Slow footsteps approached and seemed to be coming my way. I don’t know what I was expecting or why I got into a sweat. Maybe, being in the graveyard and coming to all those wild conclusions, I felt that this was going to be the year they started working on the Forresters, with me being the first subject.
I retreated fast. There didn’t seem to be enough time to go over the old dry wall and hide. So I did the next best thing. I hid behind an old tombstone.
Just my luck it had to be Captain Billy’s.
Then I thought, well, it’s a pretty safe one. Nobody’s going to be coming around laying flowers at his old grave.
But I was wrong. This person shuffling and limping along was coming right my way. Then I heard something drop on the grave. I sneaked a look. It was flowers. I sneaked another look to see who put them there. You’d never guess. Mrs. Teska!
CHAPTER 24
The Curse Of The Kum
She stood there mumbling. I guessed she was praying in her foreign tongue. Then she started to strike her chest, and cry. Tears were streaking her face when she suddenly fell to her knees, her cane in one hand. Then she stretched both arms out as if pleading.
“Oh, Great Kum,” she sobbed. “This sinner no good woman. She sorry now. Too many peoples dead already.”
Why was she praying and going to pieces in front of Captain Billy’s grave?
“No take this little boy,” she cried. “Please, O Great One. Strike Anna dead instead. Please no take little boy.”
Then she collapsed in a shuddering heap, hugging the old grave of Captain Billy.
It was such a nice bright warm day. Yet hearing all this crazy talk and crying made it weird. What was she talking about? Not about her son, Frank. According to Sheriff Landry, Frank hadn’t been a boy for over thirty years.
I felt like a sneak. All this talk and praying and going to pieces was private. I drew myself back behind the old tombstone, trying to hide. My fingers felt thin furrows in the stone. I traced them down like one of those blind students with their Braille alphabet. Then my stomach tightened into a bigger knot. My fingers were tracing out another riddle!
I had my eyes closed. Maybe because I couldn’t stand seeing the old lady falling apart that way. Maybe I felt if I had them closed she couldn’t see me. Like I was some dumb ostrich hiding its head in the sand.
But now I opened them. Two words were carved in long thin letters: JONAH JAWS.
I wondered who this Jonah Jaws was. He could have been the stone cutter. Was everything here going to end up in a riddle? There were too many I couldn’t solve already. Riddles over a hundred and fifty years old.
I looked at the other Murdock stones. They liked riddles too.
Starting with Billy’s: JONAH JAWS
Simon’s said: BALD WITCH CLAWS
Joshua’s said: ONE FROM TWO
Adam’s said: DOUBLE YOUR DUE
Then I heard a terrible blood curdling shriek, reminding me I even had a new live riddle I couldn’t solve.
Mrs. Teska was flat out on Captain Billy’s grave. I didn’t know if she’d fainted or if this kum thing she was talking to finally decided to let her have it and struck her down dead.
Her face was turned to the side. Her teeth were chattering. Her lips were bloody, some froth bubbling at the corners as if she’d bitten them. So she wasn’t struck completely dead anyway.
I tried pulling her off the grave, but she weighed a ton. I finally pushed her over onto the narrow footpath beside the grave.
I figured maybe rubbing her hands might bring her to. But her right hand still clutched that old silver-headed cane and her grip was steel like Sinbad’s. I saw there were thin Old English letters engraved in the silver top, about an inch down, looking like the initials WM. But you can’t ever be too sure with that Gothic lettering. And these were so worn they were hardly legible.
I slapped at her hands some more and finally got her tipped over. When she rolled and her shoulder hit the ground, one eyelid fluttered. Then she stared from behind her steel-rimmed glasses, not recognizing me.
“Are you okay? Mrs. Teska,” I said.
That did it. Her eyes rolled and she looked frightened.
She began to cry again.
“Oh, little boy. So sorry. Great kum take you away with old lady. I tell him no.”
I had to smile. “No, he didn’t take me, Mrs. Teska. I’m still living. So are you. Honest.”
Her eyes looked shocked. Then she struggled to sit up and I helped her.
“Not dead?” she asked and I shook my head.
Now she wanted to stand on her feet. She put her weight on me and that old cane and she made it. I could see now why she always carried that old beat up cane around with her. It didn’t buckle like I did.
She brushed herself off almost angrily.
“How long I be here?” she asked.
“Not long,” I said.
“Where you come from?”
I told her I just happened around.
“Why you here this old place?”
I told her I was trying to figure out something.
“You go home. Is no place for young childrens here.”
I laughed and patted her thick shoulders.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Teska. I’m big boy now. I’m not afraid of graveyards anymore.”
She looked up in the sky. “Kum no hear,” she pleaded.
That again! “Say. What’s with this kum thing anyway, Mrs. Teska? That’s all you keep saying lately.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What you know about kum?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Is better that ways,” she said.
“It’s probably some old superstition,” I said.
She stared at me. “What you know these things?” she demanded. Then she turned and started to hobble off.
“Say, Mrs. Teska,” I said, reaching after her to catch her arm, “did you ever know an Anna Myszka?”
She stopped as suddenly as if I’d shot her. She looked hastily over her shoulder and crossed herself.
“Why you ask that?” she said at last.
“I saw a picture of her in an old newspaper,” I said.
“Where you see that?”
I told her.
Her glasses glittered in the sun.
“She looked just like the girl in the picture you showed me,” I said. “She was sitting at a table with that same man. The one with the big hooked nose.”
Her voice was low and frightened. “Murdock!” she said.
“You mean you knew him?”
Her next answer surprised me even more. “He once my husband,” she said. “I Anna Myszka.”
I couldn’t believe it. “You were married to Big Nick Murdock?”
“Long time ago,” she said. “Long, long time ago.”
My head was reeling. If that was true then she didn’t lie to me about being the girl in that picture.
“Maybe you know what happened to Big Nick Murdock when his boat burned down?” I asked.
“You know that too?” she said slowly.
I nodded. She stood there breathing hard. Then I asked her the million dollar question.
“Mrs. Teska, was this Big Nick Murdock murdered?”
A low moaning sound came from behind her clenched teeth. It shook me up. Then she cried: “Is curse of the kum!”
“How do you figure that?”
“Why you think I come here?” she said.
I didn’t know the answer to that one at all.
She made a short gesture toward the tombstone of Captain Billy. “He great spirit,” she said. “His ghost very strong. Him only one strong enough to h
elp this old lady from more trouble. Kum cannot harm ghost.”
“What’s a kum?”
Then she crossed herself quickly again. “In old country, in Serbia, is custom of kum. Kum is godfather at christening. Sometime you pick somebody for to be witness at wedding. So then he is kum.”
“You mean he’s a man?” I said.
She nodded. “Yes, kum is man. Some holy mans. Like to help peoples. Everybody in village love this kind kum.” She stopped and became silent.
“Okay,” I said. “So what’s the big deal?”
Her laugh was harsh. “Not every kum is good man. Some like have devil inside. Have same devil power too. Can bring peoples much harm. Much bad luck. This kind devil-man I have for kum. Urosh Blagojek.” She practically spit his name out.
It sounded to me like some kind of witch doctor. You know, like they have in those islands.
“Well, if this one was so bad, why didn’t you get rid of him?” I asked.
She almost smiled for a second. “Is good idea. Only cannot do. Kum himself is only one who can say there is no more kum. Is like break contract.”
“So what did this one want from you anyway?”
She looked old now, and shriveled. All the fight and spirit out of her. “My kum not want much. Only I should marry his son. This son no good thing like father. Evil, mean man. I say no. I have other boy I love. Mirko. He leave village, come this country.”
“That’s the fellow you came here to marry.”
She nodded. “Mirko Walvik,” she said. “He come to make living here. When he be ready with house he send money. I take ship to come to marry.”
“Did that kum of yours know?”
“I tell him. Like big fool. That why my man Mirko dead when I get here. Was curse of kum,” she said. “Kum strike Mirko dead.”
“From all the way over there?” I said. “From your little village in the old country?”
“Kum’s curse find you any place. If kum say ‘die’ you die all right.”