I heard the promise in Skidmore’s voice. I believed it.
Able heaved a sigh, pulled himself out into the misty rain.
“If I get killed up here,” he said to Skid, “my sister’s going to be very upset with you.”
“She’d get over it,” Skid said softly, hand on Able’s shoulder. “She don’t care for you that much.”
Able smiled for the first time, I was guessing, since Thursday night.
“We’ll start at her parents’ grave,” Rud said, launching himself off the porch.
Without a further word, he set off down the path in the direction of Davy and Eloise.
Somehow the rain encouraged the landscape in the graveyard to be more serene, almost comfortable. Little blue drops caressed the stones; the high cloud cover was nearly white. Sunlight found its way, however nimbus-filtered and feeble, onto everything.
The Deveroe parents’ grave was not attended.
“She could be anywhere,” Rud said.
“I know you-all saw her,” Able said to me. “But are you sure of what you saw?” He was shivering a little.
“We talked to her,” Andrews said impatiently.
“You know what I mean.” Able continued to lock eyes with me.
“‘It is not only the souls of the departed,’” I quoted as best I could remember, “‘who hover unseen on the day when autumn to winter resigns the pale year. Witches then speed on their errands of mischief.’”
“Not Shakespeare,” Andrews said wearily.
“No,” I assured him. “Frazer’s Golden Bough again. It’s been on my mind lately.”
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” Able said, rasping.
“‘Those departed, gone before,’” Rud began very softly, “‘sleep in peace, return no more. Some poor souls that peace ignore. The witch’s grave is an open door.’”
“Jesus.” Even Andrews heard the bizarre menace in the caretaker’s words.
“A witch is not permitted to die like the rest of us,” I explained to Andrews. “Death is not, to her, a closed portal. Entrance between this world and the next is left open. In some cases dying only makes the witch more powerful. She works unhindered by a material body.”
“That’s what Tru believes,” Able said to Andrews, imploring him to understand. “That’s why she’ll be hard to talk to. She really thinks she’s wandering between life and death.”
“The hell she does,” Andrews answered flatly. “Who would believe that crap? A girl who understands geothermal pockets and manages those three brothers is not the sort who loses herself in rubbish.” He cast his eye over the landscape. “She’s hiding because she’s scared. She was witness to a murder. Or worse. And that’s why we’ve got to find her—show her she didn’t kill you.” He tossed a glance Able’s way. “Keep her from harming herself. It’s why we’re here, your spooky fun aside.” He pulled the coat more tightly around himself. “Now. I’m getting wet; I’d like to round her up before it’s dark. So let’s get on with it.”
“I reckon that says it,” Skid agreed, a slight glint in his eye.
“After you,” I told Rud.
He assented with a single lift of his chin and trudged past me into the trees.
Two hours later we still hadn’t found the girl. Our eastern side of the mountain would begin to lose light by four-thirty or five. The rain had not increased, but steady mist had soaked us all to the bone. Everyone was shivering.
“I’ve got to dry out and have something warm,” Andrews announced, glancing at his watch. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’d have tea in your cabin.”
Rud refused to look at Andrews. “Darjeeling, green tea, Earl Grey, valerian, and something called Calm that I think has tarragon in it.”
“I could murder a pot of Earl Grey.” Andrews didn’t bother to keep his enthusiasm low.
“And some scones,” Rud went on, his tone grown arch. “Maybe a cucumber sandwich.”
“Oh.” Andrews looked away, realizing Rud’s derision. His shoulders sagged; a short blast of air escaped his nostrils.
“Let’s put on a pot of coffee,” Skid said, starting back toward the caretaker’s cabin.
We slogged silently through the mud and weeds. I dared look once at Andrews; anger ground his jaw tight.
Everyone’s mood shifted, however, when we entered Rud’s cabin. It was immaculate. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but I found the place freakishly clean. It was comprised of one large room with an exposed sleep loft upstairs. The downstairs was divided into four perfectly distinct areas. To our right was the kitchen, very modern, all chrome. To the left of the entrance was the dining area. An ancient French farm table, oak, sturdy as a boulder, nearly filled that quarter of the room. Close to the far wall sat a leather chair and matching ottoman, both luxuriously well worn, the color of coffee with a little cream. They faced a window the way chairs in more modern homes might have aligned with a television set. The back corner comprised an office, furnished only with a rolltop desk, standing Tiffany floor lamp, 1920s desk chair. On the tidy desktop I noticed an open ledger, one small book, a single well-sharpened pencil, and an expensive thin laptop computer.
Rud’s face showed no change, but his voice was noticeably lighter. “Let’s see,” he began, and moved instantly to the cupboard above the sink. “Earl Grey, you said.”
“You mean you do have it?” Andrews stammered.
“And scones.” Rud turned. His face was strangely lit from within, and he was smiling, an expression that appeared to use muscles generally dormant.
“I thought,” Andrews started but seemed to lose his concentration.
Rud pulled a sheet of homemade scones from beneath a towel on the counter by the oven.
“I make them with rolled oats and fresh cream.” He turned on the oven and slid the sheet in to warm them. “They achieve a significant texture that way. Now: butter.” He moved to the tall chrome refrigerator.
“If you pull a cucumber sandwich out of there, I’m moving from Dr. Devilin’s house in here with you.”
“Alas,” Rud said, still smiling, “that was mocking.”
“Still.” Andrews held his eyes on the oven, waiting for the scones. Their scent began to perfume the warm air of the cabin. “My grandmother made them this way, with rolled oats. She was from Aberdeen.”
Rud produced gleaming tea globes from a drawer. “Earl Grey all around?”
I nodded, mute. Able stared blankly.
Skid, at a loss, managed, “I’d take a cup of coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course.” Rud took out the Earl Grey, turned on the kettle. “I’m afraid the only place for us to sit is around the dining table, if that isn’t too much of an imposition.”
The more I stared at Rudyard Pinhurst in his element, the more my heart broke, realizing what he had given up in life. All that was left of enormous family wealth and position, a sumptuous elegance, was to be found on his face, entertaining in the afternoon, offering scones he’d baked on the lonely off-chance we’d come back to his home and taste them.
Once we were settled at the table, our refreshment arrived in due time. We sat in silence awhile, warming, gathering thoughts.
“Where the hell is she hiding?” Skid said at last, taking his cup of coffee with both hands, warming his fingers.
“I don’t mean this to be a sore spot,” Andrews mused, failing in his attempt to sound casual, “but it was mentioned that she shied away from you, Rud. Could that be the reason we’re having difficulty?”
The scones were gone; they’d been perfect, not too dense; buttery; filling. Light was beginning to fail in the east as the opposite horizon grew red. Night birds took up their song. Evening was settling in.
“Could be,” Rud sighed heavily. “I suppose.”
He stood, switched on the light above the table, which only made it seem darker outside.
“You’uns think I’m crazy,” Able said, “but I’m half-s
cared to find her.”
“Don’t start this again,” Andrews objected, setting down his teacup.
“No,” Able answered, “I’ve been studying on this. She thinks she killed me; that’s what put her in her current mind.”
“But Dev’s idea—” Skid began.
“I know,” Able interrupted. “He thinks to shock her back to us, but that ain’t what I’m studying on.” He looked around the table. “She didn’t kill me; she killed Harding.”
“I was wondering if you’d realize that,” I said.
Able turned to Skidmore. “That’s why you want to find her. You want to bring her in.”
Skid avoided his eyes.
“She won’t do in jail.” Able’s eyes implored me. “She couldn’t take it.”
“It was an accident,” I offered. “Everyone will see that.”
“Maybe.” He nodded. “But she’s a person who can’t sit in that lockup, bars and concrete. She’ll die.” He turned to Skid. “You got to keep her at home with you, or something at least, Skid.”
“The law don’t make that kind of exception,” Skidmore answered uncomfortably.
“You’d do it if you weren’t running for office,” Able spat back bitterly.
“Gentlemen,” Rud intervened, his voice the soul of calm, “I’d prefer not to disturb the peace of my table. We haven’t found her yet, and we may never at this rate.” His lips thinned. “Reluctant as I am to agree with Dr. Andrews, I may be the problem. Allow me to suggest that you get back out there, unaccompanied, before it gets completely dark.” He gazed out the window, his voice turning from frost to glacier. “I recommend the far corner, where the Newcomb graves are. We haven’t been to that section yet.”
Skid stood. “Right.”
I finished my tea; Andrews skated his finger over the plate in front of him, gathering up the last crumbs of scone.
Able didn’t move.
“I don’t want to go back out there,” he said slowly.
There was more than mere concern for his fiancée in the voice.
“The whole point of our being here,” Andrews said wearily, “is for you to go back out there.”
“Come on, brother,” Skid coaxed.
Able looked to Rud for help, but Rud was still staring out the window.
“Okay,” Able said hoarsely. “Let’s do it.”
We were out the door without another word. Rud stood in the archway watching us for a moment. We heard the door close as we turned onto the path that would lead us to the Newcomb corner of the cemetery.
Contrary to what might have been expected, twilight shadows added nothing to the ambience of the landscape. There may be a degree of strangeness that no environment is allowed to exceed, and our graveyard had reached its limit.
We walked in silence. I suspected that none of us had any hope left of finding the girl. We were loud men trudging through an overgrown landscape—hardly a difficult group from which to hide.
The path to the far corner of the yard went upward through an unused half-acre or so: brown grass, gangly wild privet, a gnarled rhododendron or two, a kingdom of nigella pods each the size of a baby’s fist—eerie, alien, bending in the night wind. Someone had sown the area with a flower called love-in-a-mist, and these brown, devil-horned seed pods were all the autumn had left of them.
We topped a small ridge; the Newcomb area was revealed.
Tidy, well-arranged, uniform to a fault, the graves and vaults were significantly out of step with the rest of the cemetery. It was impossible to miss the fact that the entire section had been spotlessly groomed recently. No weeds, no stray growth—only sterile order.
“Rud does his job,” Skidmore said softly. “Let’s start with the big one.”
We started down the slope, headed for the largest of the structures in the center of the area.
“Hang on,” Andrews said after a step or two. “I thought his job was to care first for the Pinhurst family holdings here.”
Skid stopped. I took in a breath.
“What?” Andrews said to me, noticing our new tension.
“It never occurred to me—but of course you wouldn’t know,” I answered slowly. “Pinhurst is the maiden name of the woman who married Jeribald Newcomb.”
“Tubby,” Andrews said. “The one who started the family curse. The one who got the name of the town changed from Newcomb to Blue Mountain.”
“Right.”
It took him a second. His eyes widened, and he scoured the graves all around him. “Pinhurst is Newcomb.”
“Most of the Newcomb family left for Chattanooga when all that happened,” I told him, “and the ones that stayed took the maiden name, Pinhurst.”
“We don’t talk about it,” Skid said.
“But I’ve just realized you wouldn’t know that,” I apologized to Andrews. “Sorry.”
“It’s a kind of salient fact,” he objected loudly. “Wait.” He rubbed his face. “This means Rud is a Newcomb.”
“Rudyard Pinhurst,” Able chimed in, “is the illegitimate son of Tristan, The Newcomb Dwarf.”
“I’ve got to sit down,” Andrews managed, looking around for a spot. “This is huge!”
“We kind of take it for granted,” Skid said, not looking anywhere. “Plus, we don’t talk about it much, like I say.”
“It’s Peyton Place from hell.” Andrews found a convenient stone bench a few steps from where he stood. “Little people can have normal-sized children?”
“Of course,” I answered.
“You said illegitimate,” Andrews went on. “Who was the mother?”
Skid looked at me.
“It was always rumored that my mother was the culprit,” I said lightly. “No surprise, she was prodigiously promiscuous, as I have explained to you many times. But in the end a girl from Tifton, Georgia, claimed the child was hers, looking for a bit of the family money. Tristan had dallied with her when the Ten Show toured near her home. Tests were performed; her maternity was confirmed; she was paid and never seen again.”
“Christ.” Andrews shook his head. “No wonder Rud is such a mess.”
“Good-looking boy, though,” Able offered. “You know he and Truvy . .
“She loves you, Able,” Skidmore said comfortingly.
“I know,” he answered, but his voice shook a little.
“Well, this is more news than I can absorb in a day,” Andrews said, keeping his seat. “Rud makes scones the way my grandmother used to, and by the way, his father was a famous dwarf.” He peered at me through the dim light. “Any chance you’re making this up?” He surveyed the place again. “You’d have a right. It’s the perfect stage.”
“What sounds unbelievable on first hearing,” Skid began philosophically, “becomes commonplace in a generation.”
“It don’t seem that odd to us,” Able explained.
“Did you ever meet Tristan?” Andrews asked me.
“Toward the end of his life, I’ve been told. I think I was four or so, don’t remember it.”
“And he left the traveling show to your parents when he died.”
“Perpetuating the rumor of his relationship with my mother.”
“I’ve seen pictures,” Able said. “He wasn’t strange-looking. Aside from the height. I mean he was … proportional.”
“His limbs and features were not stunted,” I explained, “and I recall Mother’s telling me his laughter was very musical and engaging.”
“This is why you kept telling me all those Newcomb stories.” He was beginning to piece things together. “This is why Rud had all that money, not just from his rich ex-wife. And it explains a lot about Harding Pinhurst, too.” He slumped. “Wait. And Truevine is their cousin. God!”
“Hold on,” Skid told him. “It’s not as bad as you think. You can’t hardly find anybody up here that’s not related to someone else in some kind of way.”
“Weren’t but five or six original families settled on Blue Mountain,” Able added.
“Everybody’s somebody’s cousin,” Skid concluded. “I know it’s a bad joke from a Yankee comedian, but if you count fourth or fifth cousins, hell, even Dev and I might be related.”
“Stop.” Andrews held up his right hand. “I’ve heard enough. The conceptual bliss of ignorance has never been clearer to me.” He stood. “I can’t think about this right now. Let’s just get on with the show.” He looked about. “Where to?”
“Seems appropriate, under the circumstances,” Skid answered, grinning, “to head for Tristan’s grave.”
“Lead on, Macduff,” Andrews said gamely.
He started down the slope, into the Newcomb yard, headed for the largest vault.
A lone figure, swathed in black, sat hunched over the reclining marble image of Tristan Newcomb. Skid was first in the entrance, frozen, transfixed by the tableau. The crypt was sparkling, looked polished. Two torches, depended from iron wall sconces, blazed bright as day. The figure was so still, I thought for a moment it might be a part of the carving, but the head moved when Andrews gasped.
A bone white hand, rough and gnarled, beckoned.
No one moved.
“This carving is very lifelike, I believe,” the voice whispered reverently.
I took a step inside, past the others. “May?”
She looked up. “There is a plethora of fine statuary here in this place, you know, not just the Angel of Death.” She looked back down at the recumbent Tristan as if he were her child: pietà by Dalí.
“What are you doing here, May?” I asked gently.
“He’s just sleeping,” she said serenely.
“May, damn it.” Skidmore powered into the vault. “You like to scared me to death.”
Andrews and I exchanged a lightning glance. He failed to resist the question on both our minds.
“You know this woman?” he said to Skid.
“Yes, God,” he answered, exasperated.
“I thought you were Truvy,” Able said, shaken.
“She’s not here,” May said, having difficulty focusing. It was clear she’d had a drink or two.
“You shouldn’t be out, sugar,” Skidmore chided, moving closer to her. “It’s rainy and cold.”
The Witch's Grave: A Fever Devilin Mystery Page 19