by Cave, Hugh
Staley Howe was a man of his word, or nearly so. Though he missed a morning delivery of the car by twenty minutes, he did bring it.
Susan, too, had been true to her word. Half an hour before the car came, Everett returned from what he called "a trip to the village" and handed Jeff the missing license plate.
"Seen something shiny in the grass while I was drivin' by where you went off the road," he said with a straight face. "Stopped to see what it was. You bein' from Connecticut, no doubt it's yours."
With the plate on the car, Jeff headed for town, again passing Clandon's little cemetery and promising himself this time to stop there on his way back. You sometimes learned things in cemeteries. At the Western Union office he picked up the money he expected. Then he drove about town looking for somewhere to buy an extra pair of slacks, a shirt, underwear, and some drugstore items, including a razor to take the place of the one he had used that morning.
A diving shop now, he thought. He needed a phone book.
There was a phone booth outside the drugstore, and he found some diving shops listed in the book's yellow pages. The nearest was in a town half an hour or so distant.
He called it.
Could he rent the gear he needed?
He could, a cheerful male voice informed him, but "not today, buddy. I run a school here and I got a class goin' out for a dive in five minutes. Be gone the rest of the day. Why'n't you come 'round tomorrow, hey?"
"I'll do that. Thanks." And he would probably have to put down a sizable deposit, Jeff told himself. What he needed was the checkbook that had disappeared with his suitcase, or the bank credit card stolen with his billfold. Come to think of it, he had better report the card stolen right now, before the thief or thieves used it for more of the drugs or booze that were probably responsible for their running him off the road in the first place.
He did that. At the same time he arranged for the bank to wire him more funds and mail him some emergency checks. Thank God for telephones, and for bank managers who recognized your voice over them. It was getting to be quite a day.
On the way back to the Everols' he stopped at the cemetery.
Judging by its stones, it was a very old one. Woods still hemmed it in on three sides. As he walked among the graves, he read some of the inscriptions on the stones.
Close to the trees in the far right corner he found a cluster with the name Everol on them. In front of the newest one, Jacob's, he stood for several minutes.
It was important, Jeff felt, to get the timing of various events fixed in his mind, and with Jacob's death date as a starting point, now would be a good time to do it. All right. Verna Clark's sister, Kim, had discovered fossils in Clandon in April and with Easter break coming up had stayed to look for more. She had disappeared soon afterward, just before Jacob was killed. Ethel Everol had encountered the vulture the night after its attack on her brother.
When, exactly, had Earl Watson dived for the child's body in the Drowning Pit? In February? Someone, either Verna or Watson, must have told him. Anyway, it was before the Haitians had come on the scene and before the disappearance of Verna's sister. What he remembered most was not a date but the determined way Watson had warned him to stay away from the sinkhole.
Thinking about these things, frowning over them, he finished his return trip to the house and found that Everett and Blanche had gone out. Susan was alone and eager to talk.
They sat in the old-fashioned living room, Susan perched on the edge of her chair, one hand uplifted and a forefinger seeming to fire the words at him like a toy gun as she unburdened herself.
"Soon as my sister and that man were out of here, I looked in on Amanda," she said. "She was awake, just lying there looking at the ceiling, and she didn't know me. I've seen that look in a woman's eyes before, Jeffrey. In Ethel's eyes. I know what it means."
"Did you try to talk to her?"
"Yes, I did, but she couldn't or wouldn't answer me. All she did was lie there." Susan nearly fell from the chair as she leaned farther forward to bring the toy gun forefinger closer to his face. "Now before I say what I'm going to say next, Jeffrey Gordon, just remember that I'm not an Everol. I'm only Blanche's sister and my name is Susan Casserly. So! What I'm going to tell you is that I think Everett is somehow mixed up in all these terrible things that are happening here. And I want you to think about it."
"What proof have you?"
"Well, I don't have any real proof, of course, or I'd be talking to the police. But I'm afraid of that man. Yes, I am; I'm frightened half to death of him. Let me tell you something. There was a girl disappeared from around here last month. Her name was Kimberly Mason and she was a professor or something from some college. She was here to—well, the way I heard it, she was looking for old bones and such things. Lots of prehistoric remains have been found in this part of Florida, I guess you know. Even people. Anyway, she disappeared and hasn't ever been found, and I think Everett knows more about it than he's ever admitted."
"What makes you think that?"
"The way he's been acting. Like the way he changed about wanting you to come here, for instance."
Frowning, Jeff waited for more.
"Oh, I know, I know. He wasn't ever too keen about letting you come here. That's because none of us have ever been too comfortable with strangers. But he did let you come in the end. And then before you even got here he began acting as if he wished he hadn't." She paused for breath because she had to, but at once went into high gear again. "And after your accident he hid the license plate off your car and told us not to tell you your name, so's you'd want to leave and go away to find out what was wrong with you—all the time telling Blanche and Amanda and me he thought it would make you stay, mind you, as if we'd be stupid enough to believe black was white." The toy gun finger was still wagging furiously. "If you ask me, Jeffrey Gordon, my brother-in-law is up to something."
"Are you saying he might have had something to do with the Mason woman's disappearance?" Jeff said carefully.
"Well, I don't know, but I wouldn't be at all surprised, I can tell you." Susan's pretty face was suddenly pale and there was a tremor in her voice. "I just don't trust him anymore."
"Did you before?"
"Well, I suppose so, though I never liked him much. Since that woman vanished, though, he's changed. I mean he acts like a man who's hiding something. I'm telling you this so you'll be on your guard." The finger at last stopped shooting holes in the air between them and went limp, as if it had suddenly become tired. "You will be careful, Jeffrey? Won't you?" Susan whispered.
"I will, I promise." Jeff stood up.
A look of alarm touched her face. "Are you going out again? Leaving me?"
"Just to visit your Haitians for a few minutes." He glanced at the inexpensive watch he had bought in the Clandon drugstore. "This should be a good time for it, don't you think? But I'll be back soon."
Chapter Twelve
"There, Lucille. It is finished."
In the shack he occupied with his woman, Lelio Savain took up the object he had been working on for the past two hours and gave it a shake. "At last!" he said.
The object in his long-fingered hand resembled a maraca, one of those percussion instruments used by musicians in his native Haiti to add rhythm to some of their dance tunes. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. Inside its gourd shell now were snake vertebrae and small stones of many colors to provide a chattering sound when it was shaken. Fastened to its outside, like the lace-work of mace around a nutmeg, were strings of colored beads.
Lelio looked at his watch. "Are you ready to go to the hounfor?" He spoke in Creole. Always when alone with Lucille he used the peasant tongue of Haiti.
She turned from the sink to see what he had done, then walked to the table to peer at the asson more closely. "This is nicer than the one you made before, Lelio."
He grunted. "Nice means nothing, woman. What matters is how correctly it is made." There was, of course, no point in trying to explain t
o her what an asson really was: how its very shape called into being the two major symbols of magic in all the universe, the gourd being a near-perfect circle and the handle a smaller version of that vertical rod, the poteau-mitan, that linked the world of people with that of the spirits. Or how, when the asson was ritually shaken, the snake vertebrae inside it had the power to summon the loa. "What we cannot know yet," he said with a scowl, "is whether the person who stole the first one also defiled the pé. That remains to be seen."
"Yes," she said.
"The wrong word or behavior in that sacred place could mean hours more work for me." He let out his breath noisily. "Which of them did it, I wonder."
"Who knows? And you can only hope for the best," Lucille said. "In any case, there is not time enough to go there now. We are expected at the house."
"What for?"
"Lelio, I've told you! Amanda is in a different bedroom now. One that has not been used for a long time and needs cleaning."
The old man's broad nose expelled a snort. "Cleaning! A respected houngan is to wash windows and scrub floors?"
"We agreed to do what they asked, Lelio. We can go to the hounfor later. Even tonight, if you wish. Night and day are all the same in that place."
Like a small boy sulking, he made a face at her, then slumped in his chair and gazed at the asson again. "It is wrong for us to wait a moment longer than we—"
A sound of footsteps outside the shack caused him to turn his head. Someone knocked.
Lucille went to the door and opened it. The person standing there was the white man who had talked to them in Creole at breakfast the day before.
"May I come in?" He spoke in the peasant tongue again.
She hesitated only briefly, then stepped aside and motioned him to a chair at the table. "Of course, m'sieu. Please sit down."
As he did so, she saw him look at the asson Lelio had made. Then he smiled and said, "I suppose you know about my accident, and how for a while I did not know who I was."
They nodded.
"Well, I know now. And another thing I've remembered is that I spent all of last summer in Haiti, studying your voodoo." Again he glanced at the asson. "You made this, Lelio? You must be a houngan."
"One of no importance, m'sieu."
"From what part of Haiti, may I ask?"
"A small village on the southern peninsula, called Les Irois."
The white man nodded. "I've heard of it but have never been there. I have, however, been an invited guest at a number of voodoo services. To learn something about voodoo is why I went to Haiti."
"Services in Port-au-Prince, you mean?" Lelio tried to keep the sneer out of his smile but knew he had failed.
The white man laughed. "No, not those affairs for the tourists. And not, I'm afraid, anything as difficult to get to as La Souvenance or Nan Campeche. I did attend a kanzo service, though, and one for 'Zaca, and several at which family loa were summoned and honored."
Lucille said with a frown, "Why were you interested in our gods, m'sieu?"
"I'm interested in everything of that nature. Have been for years. It's why I'm here at the Everols' now."
Lelio said carefully, "Because of what has happened here, do you mean?"
"It is still happening. You know, I'm sure, that another something came last night."
They nodded. Lucille said, "M'selle Susan told me this morning."
"What are these creatures? Where are they coming from?"
They shook their heads.
"You are a houngan, Lelio. You must have thought about it."
"Voodoo, m'sieu, has nothing to do with the kind of horrors that have been happening here. We in voodoo simply call upon the loa to help us with our problems."
"Your gods, yes. But you also call upon the spirits of the dead."
"Sometimes."
"The things attacking the Everols are very old, Lelio. Like your oldest voodoo loa. Could they be the spirits of dead things?"
"In voodoo we call up the spirits of people, m'sieu, not monsters."
"Isn't there a loa who is known to assume the shape of a vulture, Lelio?"
"I have not heard of any such."
Aware from his many hesitations that her man was anxious to end the conversation, Lucille came to his rescue. "M'sieu, we are expected at the house," she interrupted. "If you would be so kind as to excuse us now..." She smiled to show him that she was truly regretful. "You will come again, perhaps?"
Their caller stood up. "I'm sorry. Thank you for talking to me."
After shaking hands with them, he departed. With fear on her face, Lucille turned to the old man. "What do you think, Lelio?"
"He believed me. That I am unimportant, I mean."
"I hope so. Can we go to the house now, so there will be time later to do what we must in the cave?"
He nodded.
"Let me put away the asson." She reached for it. "Someone might look in through a window and see it here."
At the house Jeff found Susan seated in the living room, looking as though she were still annoyed with him for having left her. Taking from his pocket one of the crayons Verna Clark had given him, he handed it to her. “Would you like to help me?"
After he had explained what he proposed to do, they began marking the downstairs windows as he had marked his own the night before. Before they had even finished the living room, Lelio Savain and his wife arrived. Susan instructed the Haitians to go upstairs and clean the room Amanda was in.
"She'll be asleep. At least she was when I looked in on her a little while ago. But don't let that stop you. The room's a disgrace."
Lelio frowned at her. "Disgrace, m'selle? I do not know—"
"She means it's very dirty," Jeff supplied.
The Haitians went to the kitchen for what they needed, then climbed the stairs. When Jeff and Susan had finished all the downstairs windows, they, too, went upstairs.
In Amanda's room the Haitians watched them as they drew the five-pointed stars on the windows. On the bed, Amanda appeared to be in a sound sleep with her eyes shut. After awhile Lelio said, "The stars are to keep those things out, m'sieu?"
"We hope so."
"I do not understand."
"It's a belief that goes back to the days of your oldest voodoo gods, the ones even your most learned houngans admit they know little about," Jeff said. With a feeling that Susan, too, would want an explanation, he stopped work for a moment. Of course for Lelio, with his limited grasp of English, the explanation must be kept simple. "Inverted pentagrams are a symbol of evil used in almost every Satanic cult the world over. But when drawn right side up, with the single point at the top—blazing stars, they are sometimes called then—they are thought by many people to be a powerful force against evil."
Lelio frowned. "Against evil, m'sieu? How, please?"
"When you draw a vèvé on the peristyle floor at a voodoo service, you believe there is power in it, don't you?"
"Certainly. Without question."
"The five-pointed star has a similar power. There are many ways of using it, just as there are many ways you use the vèvé. Its five points, with one at the top and two at the bottom, have been thought to represent many different things down through the ages. One belief, for instance, is that they are the five wounds of Jesus when he was crucified."
Gazing at a pentagram already drawn on one of the room's windows, Lelio only nodded. Then with a quiet "Merci, m'sieu," he motioned to his wife and both went to work at cleaning the room again.
Jeff and Susan finished the upper rooms and went back downstairs. "Is that all we can do?" Susan demanded.
"I'll do the rest myself." Tempted to add, "The mind probably has more to do with this than any symbols on windows," Jeff decided that such a remark would require more explaining and let it go. "When will Everett and Blanche be back?"
"They didn't say. Once a week they go shopping together. With Amanda in bed, Everett gave me strict orders not to leave the house while they were away." She fro
wned. "Why? Does it matter?"
"Not now. But I have to go out later." Jeff tried to keep it casual. "By the way, do you suppose you could lend me a key, in case I'm a bit late again? Everett wasn't too happy last night."
Seemingly displeased herself, she rose without answering him and went into another room. Returning, she handed him a key in silence, then sat down, frowned at him, and said, "Just when will you be going out?
"Before seven." She would, of course, ask him where he was going. Should he confess he was seeing the prowler they so disliked?
She did not ask it. "Well, seven's a long way off yet," she said. "So why don't I make us some tea?"
"We are finished upstairs," Lelio said. Lucille and he had come down together, and Lucille had gone into the kitchen to put away the cleaning things they had used. "Unless there is something else, we will be going now, Miss Susan."
Alone in the living room, Susan looked up from a magazine. "Mr. Gordon is in his room. Did you ask him if he wanted you for anything?"
"He said no."
"Is Amanda still asleep?"
"Yes, m'selle."
"I suppose it's all right, then. Everett didn't tell me anything different. Lucille needn't come at suppertime, remember."
Returning from the kitchen, Lucille heard that and said, "Yes, m'selle. I know." On their weekly shopping day, Everett and his wife always brought back a ready-cooked supper from a fried chicken place. With a quiet "Bon soir, m'selle" she nodded to Lelio and headed for the front door.
Outside the house Lelio said to her, "The cave now."
"Yes, Lelio. Don't forget the asson."
They stopped at their shack only long enough for her to go in and get the sacred rattle for him. Five minutes later they had circled the sinkhole called the Drowning Pit and were climbing the knoll from which Lelio had watched the wrecker pull Verna Clark's car from the pond.
The pond, Lelio reminded himself, from which their employer, M'sieu Everol, had warned them to keep away because there were places where the ground at its edge was a kind of quicksand.
Atop the knoll, Lelio went straight to one of several large boulders that seemed to grow like huge gray toadstools among the clumps of high grass and brush. When he put his shoulder against it and pushed with his legs, the boulder rocked.