“Do you think he helped kill Butch? I mean, he had a crush on Regina,” she whispered.
I didn’t want to get sucked back into the mystery, but I couldn’t help myself. “According to Claudia, he had more than that,” I said. I was back…back to normal, I thought.
I couldn’t believe Katie’s energy; she was wide awake and alert.
She went on, “Do you think he knows about Butch and Regina?”
“It does look bad,” I said, but I really didn’t want to be awake. “C’mon. Go to sleep. Remember, he swore he wasn’t involved.” I sighed and pulled her head back under the covers.
Chapter Fifteen
ANSWERS AND MORE QUESTIONS
We woke the next morning physically refreshed, as if nothing had happened. A soft breeze cooled us and swayed the gauzy curtains behind the bed. In our absence, since we had slept the better part of two days, lots had happened. We learned about what had transpired through the cracked door to Katie’s room.
Katie and I heard Jeremiah Chandler, the owner of the Owl Lake Lodge and former camp cabin boy, come into the McGuilvry’s. Leaning forward, we peered through the doorway and were just able to make out Jeremiah planting his overalled bulk into a rocker. He pitched forward on his kicker boots and spoke of his great respect he held for Doc and the mistrust of Bud Lawyer and his uncle, the Judge, Butch’s father. Jeremiah was relating how the Lawyer’s had paid off his family to make sure that Butch never returned. Jeremiah believed that the Lawyer’s really had Butch put out of his misery.
We heard Doc raise his voice. “What the heck are you talking about?”
Jeremiah said, “I saw you all messing around out there by the lake. Mr. Mazzini, the girls, and then, Mr. Mazzini again just yesterday. I went out to see what the heck was going on and found that damned tire. I got it out of there and buried the bones. But I want answers.”
Katie said her dad’s face looked even more upset as he informed Jeremiah that he too wanted answers and that Jeremiah had now implicated himself by removing evidence. Katie and I were still drowsy from the pill, and we drifted back to sleep.
The next time we awoke, the sun was already high, brightening Katie’s already cheerful cabin. Sun danced off her turned up nose, and for a second, I thought she was Annette Funicello. Obviously, my head was still cloudy. I knew I needed to sleep some more. But Katie swatted at a gnat and flipped back the stifling covers.
She slipped out of bed, leaving our door ajar I heard her flop herself down in one of the chairs in the sitting room.
“Hi, sugar, you feeling better?” Doc asked.
“Yeah,” she yawned out loud. “Dad, I need to know. I can take it. You’ve gotta tell me more about camp.”
“Can you believe I didn’t do anything?” he asked.
“I want to,” Katie said. “What about Regina?”
“We didn’t call it dating, but I had a huge crush on her.” He hesitated and then added, “We teased about going to the same college.”
“So, she wasn’t a floozy? But it sounds like the other boys…”
“Katie, what is it? Why are you crying?” I could hear Doc shift his considerable weight in this chair. I assumed he was hugging Katie. I didn’t dare peek.
“I think something bad happened to her. Why’d she go away?” Katie asked.
“They said she got sick and had to go home early.”
“Didn’t you write to her?”
From where I lay, supposedly sleeping, Katie’s tone sounded like an accusation.
“No.” Doc coughed. His tone became more doctorly. “My father was very strict.” Doc stifled a yawn and continued, “When he saw I was mooning over Regina, he forbade me to try to track her down. He lectured me about college and how I had to be serious, that I had a brilliant future, following in his footsteps as a doctor. He was very strange, and inexplicably angry about that summer.”
I stumbled into the sitting room where Katie and her dad were talking. Their faces told me everything. Doc was telling a nice story which Katie didn’t believe. Or did Katie think he lacked the courage to do the right thing? Either way, she was acting as if she had made up her mind that he was guilty of something.
Katie was biting her lips and sniffling. She seemed to will me back into the bedroom so that she could continue her private talk with her dad.
Doc looked more and more puzzled. Puzzled, but maybe too much so, as if pieces were sliding into a place he never expected them to go, a place he had unconsciously fought all his life. He was seeing his youth come to life through Katie.
“Good morning,” Doc greeted me and seemed glad for the interruption.
“I’ve been asking my dad about Regina. You ready to talk about her?”
Again, Katie’s tone…
“You don’t have to talk,” said Doc.
“Just don’t be angry with me. I hurt all over, and I feel dirty,” I said.
“Go slow.” Doc coughed and adjusted himself in the chair. It looked like he was trying to get more comfortable, less uptight maybe.
“Well, it’s like my dreams, but not. He hurt me and did things to me. I could hardly breathe, and he touched me all over.”
I heard my name as if through cotton. My face was hot and cold with sweat and heat rising up from the neck of my pajama top. Then, cold water, and Doc was holding me still, sitting me up, and putting my head between my legs.
“I think I’m okay. I’m back.”
“Take your time. Who did this to you? Where is he?”
I watched Doc’s face twist with anger. I thought I saw pain in his eyes. It matched what I was feeling. The physical pain was gone, but the picture I had in my head made me feel dirty and wrong. Doc softened his face, leaning over to me and touching my arm.
“Butch. It was Butch,” I told him.
“But Butch…Butch is, I mean, should be, an old guy, like me,” said Doc.
“Yes, but I was Regina in the dream, back at her camp, back then.” I wrinkled my face. I knew how weird this sounded. “I know she was assaulted a long time ago, but I’m reliving it now.”
“What?” asked Doc.
“He sang that church song, Regina coeli, but slurred the coeli, like it became Jayli or Gayli or Gaylo. He woke me up from my bed.”
“This can’t be.” Doc was up on his feet, pacing. “In your dream, did you kill Butch? I mean, did Regina kill him?” Doc’s eyes were darting all over. He was no longer calm.
“I don’t think so. I don’t know,” I answered. Doc tried to get his arms around me to hold my fists. I had begun to pound the arms of the chair.
Doc was up pacing again. As if he were arguing with himself, he said, “Of course you didn’t hurt him. Butch got hurt a long time ago.”
“So did Regina. But I feel like I got hurt a few days ago,” I added.
Katie, who had been sitting, looking small in the nearby rocker, came over to comfort me as her father turned to go. Now rather pale, he left the sitting room to go into his room like a man with a mission. He closed the door a bit too hard, and it crept back open.
We could see him and hear him. He punched the wall first, then threw his head back, and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t know we were watching. He did know about Regina, but not enough. He had asked me if I – or Regina had killed Butch. We saw him drink a glass of water and pull out a small bottle of whiskey. The smell came all the way into where we were sitting in the sitting room. When Doc came back out to the sitting room, he bent down to give me some water. The strong, sweet-like smell of whiskey seemed to jump out of his mouth. He told us not to think about this, to go play.
Chapter Sixteen
I AM SPECIAL
We scuffed around that day, coddled by our mothers. We piled pine needles and flopped in rocking chairs. Half bored, half scared to talk about anything, we swiped ice cream bars from the kitchen in the main house, rolled on the barn floor under the pool table, got bored with that, found the kittens, and teased and tickled until that grew stupid
. All the while, floating, eating, smacking flies. Not a word.
We were in one of our “flop” states, sprawled out in front of the dining hall. There was always a bunch of umbrellas outside the hall, at the ready for one of those sudden downpours. We had rounded the umbrellas up in a circle and covered them with a blanket. While we were in this makeshift tent, we heard Katie’s dad talking to my father. We lay real still so they wouldn’t see us under the umbrellas.
The Doc told my father I needed tests. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he mentioned my dreams and wondered about hallucinations or a “conversion” disorder. I was totally confused. Did he think I had changed religions? That I was a witch or devil worshiper? The more I heard Doc tell my father not to be scared, the more frightened I became. My father didn’t seem worried, but maybe angry or ashamed. He mumbled something about his mother and before her, his “damn grandmother,” Vincenza Daidone. About experiments with her father, the Doctor Daidone. About herbs and local lore in Giuliana, in Sicily.
“We’ve always called Pina ‘sensitive’,” my father told the doc. “She seems to be an old soul. Somehow, she knew how to chat in French with her teachers in kindergarten and first grade, and by fourth, she was mumbling some Haitian prayer. It seemed harmless.”
“Seemed? You no longer feel this way?” said Doc.
“My mother died in fifty-three. Pina took her death really hard. She walked around in a fog, her eyes glazed, didn’t wash, didn’t eat. One night, she woke up screaming, ranting on about her dead sons. She raved about ‘that damn castle.’”
“My sister Maria, a bit of an historian and psychic, asked me if Pina had said Constance, Constance of Aragon and Frederick II, fourteenth century Norman rulers of Sicily.”
“She also said the shock of Mom’s death had opened up a death field, a kind of region of negative energy. Mom had to return to her roots, the white stones of the castle in the village of Giuliana, a life-giving energy field. In this way, she was able to stop death from sapping the life of her spirit and that of Pina. Pina had tapped into those energy fields.”
Katie opened her mouth as if to speak, but I placed a finger over her lips.
Dad was still talking. “We took Pina to the doctor’s after a week or so. Then, she was back to her normal self.”
Doc spoke, “Well, Barney…both girls have had a shock, and the more we can surround them with warmth and safety and no more talk of severed hands…I don’t know if you know this, but they found the ring hand in a glove in the lake…”
“Jesus! And the police?” asked my father.
“Listen, Barney, Bud Lawyer wants to call his family first, and I need to find Regina Gallo. Pina had dreams, where Butch attacked her, and Butch molested Regina Gallo. Regina Gallo was a real person. My girlfriend, in fact, at the girls’ camp, and she had to leave unexpectedly. We knew she was sick…that’s all. Pina said it was as if she was Regina in her dream, and…I’m sorry, Barney, this may be difficult for you to hear…but Pina told me in her dream she was assaulted by Butch. Barney!” Doc had raised his voice. “I want to be clear: Pina was not physically harmed.”
“God damn bastard!’
“I am sorry. She’s okay. I want to reassure you,” said Doc.
“You call what happened to Pina the last few days okay? Come on, Ron.” My father choked up. “I know one psychiatrist I contacted did say that if she truly is intuitive, episodes like this might return around puberty or in instances of extreme emotion. But she’s my daughter, for Christ sakes. Take it easy.”
“Cut off fingers, scenes of violence, I think that qualifies for extreme emotion. Should I stop?” Doc asked.
“Just slow down.”
Doc continued, “Psychologically it is as if she’s been beaten, while physically there’s not a scratch on her. I would like to call some colleagues, with your permission, and just check some things out.”
“You’ve got it,” said my father, lighting up his second cigarette. Katie and I started to slap each other around playfully when we heard footsteps going away from the dining hall. We added tickling and pinching.
Katie stopped abruptly. “Dangit, Pina! Why are we doing this? This is serious. I am serious!”
“I know…” My voice trailed off, small and quavering. “I don’t want to panic. Don’t want to think. Please, just hold me.”
Chapter Seventeen
A MAN FORSAKEN
It was late afternoon now, grayish and cool outside for a change. We had been grounded to Katie’s cabin so that Doc could continue his observations, but he hadn’t done a terrific job. We had been able to sneak out to our umbrella tent and back inside without being noticed. Playing Monopoly in Katie’s room, we were in a perfect spot to witness major communications between her dad and other key players.
This time it was Bud on stage. Katie’s father took him into his sitting room, poured him a drink, and offered him the old leather-seated rocker to talk privately. Yet, despite the thicker walls of Katie’s cabin, voices carried, especially those primed with alcohol.
“I called my father,” Bud announced in a flat tone.
Doc tapped the side of his glass with his ring. “Well, what’ve you got? Your father spill the beans on your cousin Butch or his father?”
Bud sighed as he rocked back and forth. “The long version or—?”
“Cut to the chase,” Doc said, clearing his throat.
“You’ve got it. According to my father, my uncle, Judge Reginald Lawyer couldn’t whitewash all of Butch’s dalliances with under-age girls, and certainly not the problem with Regina.”
“Problem!” Doc raised his voice.
“Easy, Ron. Fifi Gallo had accused Butch of molesting Regina. Butch definitely had to disappear. My uncle paid Fifi off big time to shut up and to scare the crap out of Butch so that he would never come back.”
“Ha! Scare? And Fifi wasn’t going to kill Butch? What the—?”
“No. Listen! Fifi supposedly had some religious vision and—”
“Yeah, right. Saint Jude, I suppose, Patron Saint of Lost Causes.” Doc snickered.
“Ron, my uncle firmly believed Fifi wouldn’t kill Butch. He placed a lot of faith in money and his own corrupt power. He even paid off Jeremiah Chandler, the owner of the Lodge. Gave him his share of all this property.”
“How’s that?” Doc shifted his weight in his chair.
“Jeremiah was also supposed to keep Butch away and to notify my uncle if he did show up. End of story!” Bud rocked back heavily in the rocker and poured himself another drink.
“No, not quite.” Doc blew out a long breath. “I called Regina. After some awkward small talk, she admitted that Butch had attacked her. I told her Butch was dead…murdered. She had no reaction. I heard something in the background, her father, I believe, and then there was silence. The phone had gone dead.”
“No news…they say…” Bud sighed.
“Shut up!” Doc scraped his chair back. “Bud, can we forget about this for a bit and hit the lake? Too much old crap…”
Katie looked dazed. I was wondering how a smart man like the Doc could have buried his head in the sand so deeply. Of course, I couldn’t say that to Katie, but I think she was having a really hard time knowing what to make of him. She closed her eyes and leaned against me, hard. It felt good, as if she could trust me and needed me.
Her touch felt more than good. I felt other stirrings too. A big part of me wanted to explore that mystery. I had been ignoring those clues. What if I put them under a microscope? What would they say, and could I pretend I didn’t get the message?
Chapter Eighteen
BOYS WILL BE BOYS
The next morning after breakfast, I twiddled my thumbs as we hung out on Katie’s porch. I was devising a getaway. Our parents had eased their restrictions on our movements, but we would have been tarred and feathered if they had caught us going off to the camp. It was too dreary, too wet just to sit here, and our mothers were at the main house, s
ewing. We didn’t have a clue where our fathers had gone.
We left the cabin and slogged through floating pine needles and slick grass. The latrine beckoned us. We were half-wet, and the stuffy confinement of the bathroom had a sauna-like effect on us. The rain pinged on the corrugated roof and splashed occasionally on the plywood floor where the roof patches hadn’t held.
Water seeped into the room from the window that was still wedged open from the last visit. We pushed and shoved to get it closed; the window was really stuck. Finally, we got it closed, breaking some of the molding in the process. Splinters and dust came down and frosted Katie’s hair, which had already been damp from the rain. It made her look ancient and gray. We both giggled, glad for the chance to laugh and be silly twits again. I smeared dust on her face, and she pushed me down to the ground, pinning my shoulders and threatening to dribble spit on my face. We rolled around laughing big, belly laughs and holding each other tight. Safe in each other’s arms, we finally let ourselves feel just how scared we were. We started to sob. We stayed like that a bit, a long bit, and then I felt Katie’s hand gently touch my cheek.
“You know I love you,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” I kissed her forehead and just hugged her close to me. We sat up and stayed leaning against the wall a while.
“I’ll never forget you or this summer,” said Katie. “But it’s not over yet.”
“Well, maybe…just maybe, I could be sick and have to recover at your house. What do you think?” I fantasized.
Even though we’d been seeing each other up here in Maine every summer since we were seven years old, I had only visited Katie at her home in the Hamptons once last Christmas vacation. The thought of being able to stay with her for a while really excited me.
Death and Love at the Old Summer Camp Page 8