Teddy (The Pit)

by John Gault

  Automatically David checked the cylinder and then placed the hammer back on the one empty chamber. He holstered the weapon, adjusted the gunbelt to distribute the weight a little more comfortably, and eased out into the sunshine. After the first wave of pain passed, he climbed into his prized candy-colored ’67 Camaro and slipped into the morning rush-hour traffic.

  Silently he blessed his father for buying a house, his house now, so close to the police station. Five minutes. I should call dad and mom some time, he thought, feeling guilty for his recent neglect of them. I wonder how they’re doing out there in Santa Barbara.

  David checked in at the station, keeping his sunglasses on inside. This, naturally, provoked the usual—and painfully accurate—comments on his inability to cope with alcohol. He discovered, nevertheless, that he was still officially on the Morley disappearance. A farmer named Engstrom, who lived about halfway between the town and the paper mill, had called the station last night (oh yes, now he remembered vaguely), claiming to have seen an old man who fit Morley’s description walking along a side road. He hadn’t been sure if it had been on Sunday or Monday, but he knew it was around dusk. He hadn’t called before because he hadn’t even known about Morley being missing until he’d read Wednesday’s—yesterday’s—paper.

  “Anything else?” David asked Annie Goring, the night despatcher, who was just going off-duty.

  “Nah, not directly. Just a couple of nut calls.”

  “Nut calls?”

  “Yeh. You know. People claiming the devil got the old man in Whately’s Copse. Old people, I think. Senile, probably.”

  “Did you get their names?” David asked. He couldn’t share the smile on Annie’s face.

  C H A P T E R

  11

  Despite her hurry-up efforts in the bathroom and in dressing, Sandy arrived in the kitchen just as Jamie was dropping the last of the crispy bacon onto the pad of paper towelling. Four slices of bread were in the toaster, waiting for her, and four brown, range-free eggs sat in an off-white china bowl beside the electric frying pan. The kettle had just begun to boil; there was the prescribed amount of coffee in the percolator; the table was set; and the orange juice poured. Again she had been one-upped, again the keeper found herself in the uncomfortable role of keepee.

  “Well, Jamie,” she said with just a little too much cheerfulness, “you’re certainly going to make some woman a great wife some day.” Jamie again looked mystified. Another bomb-out, O’Reilly. You’re doing really well for yourself. “All that means, Jamie”—she tried to recoup—“well . . . it’s kind of a joke. I mean, people used to tell women who were good at cooking or sewing and things like that, that they’d make some man a good wife some day. And now, with women’s liberation, we’ve kind of turned it around and made it into a joke, and . . .” Oh shit! “Never mind, Jamie. All I wanted to really say is that you’re a wonder.”

  “Oh?” he said brightly. “Thank you, Sandy. Do you like your eggs fried over or sunnyside up?”

  “Why don’t I . . .” No, let him finish what he’s started, and try to catch up with lunch and dinner. “Over,” she said. “Easy.” She watched as he expertly broke the eggs, one-handed, against the edge of the bowl and dropped them into the crackling bacon fat; he checked his watch, waited perhaps fifteen or twenty more seconds, then dealt with the toaster.

  “You are a very efficient young man,” she marvelled. “Where did you learn to cook like that, from your mother?”

  “Some,” he replied, taking the compliment with apparent equanimity. “And from my other . . . uh . . . babysitters. There was a black lady in Atlanta who could really cook stuff—everything—and she liked teaching me. I mean, at first she did. Later she told me to stay out of the kitchen. And later, when Barbara and Tom came home, the lady left without even saying good-bye to me.” He looked out the window for a moment, then went on, “Barbara says we don’t have much luck with baby-sitters; she says that good help is hard to find these days.” He made a worried look, and for the first time Sandy could see some of Barbara Benjamin in her son’s face. Of her husband, there was not a trace.

  The toaster made a pop, and the four slices of bread, now perfectly browned, rose in their slots. Jamie lifted them out quickly, using just his fingertips to avoid burns, and distributed them on two dinner plates. He buttered them there, and next, just as expertly, he flipped the eggs. In about thirty seconds he slid eggs and bacon onto the plates beside the toast and brought the plates to the table. “Coffee?” he asked.

  Jamie ate greedily, she noted; but then, so did she. As bacon-and-egg breakfasts went, this was as good as she’d ever eaten. When they finished she told him so, and he shrugged happily. Then he stood and began to carry the dirty dishes toward the sink. “Stop!” Sandy ordered. “I’m going to do those dishes if I have to tie you to a chair.” This time, thank God, he understood she was joking and laughed with her.

  “Sandy,” he said to her back, “I want to tell you my secret now. You know, the one I promised to tell you.”

  “Okay, Jamie,” she said. Then, checking the kitchen clock and seeing that it was 8:20, she added, “But you’d better try to make it quick; you’ll have to leave for school in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, I’ve got lots of time. Anyway, about my secret: first you have to promise never to tell anybody, ever.”

  “I promise.”

  “You have to cross your heart and hope to die.”

  “Okay,” she said, making a half-hearted swipe at crossing herself.

  “No, Sandy, it’s like this . . .” He was out of his chair and easing himself between her and the sink. He demonstrated and she tried to follow his instructions. But he still wasn’t satisfied. He took her hand in his and traced the proper cross. And on the horizontal he managed to brush her breasts. She pretended not to notice but made a mental note to herself to start wearing a bra and to keep it on for the duration of the assignment. It wasn’t that she was offended. She couldn’t even be sure that Jamie’s touch had been intentional, it just seemed to be a good idea. “Okay, Jamie,” she said. “My life is in your hands now. What’s the big secret?”

  He checked her face to make sure she was taking the matter seriously, and Sandy, realizing she was being scrutinized, made herself look deeply and sincerely interested.

  “Well,” he began, “first I have to tell you about the hole in the woods. Do you know the woods I mean, not too far from here? It’s called Whately’s Copse, I think, and nobody’s supposed to go there. It’s supposed to be dangerous. But it isn’t, not really, not if you’re careful and don’t fall down the hole.”

  Sandy nodded. She had a vague idea about the woods he was talking about, but the college was five miles out of town, so that, even after four years of living in the area she did not know all the details about Jericho. But Whately’s Copse sounded familiar. Oh yes, that’s where they were looking for that old man, that reverend, who’d gone missing on Sunday. Her mind made a tenuous connection between what Jamie was telling her and the missing preacher but could carry it no farther than that. Besides, Jamie was talking again.

  “It’s not a big hole—I mean it isn’t too wide across—but it’s kind of deep. I might be the only person who knows about it, I mean really knows about it!”

  “Just a minute, Jamie.” Now she remembered. There was something in the paper about a hole, about how a policeman had gone down into it looking for the reverend, but how he’d found nothing. “Is that the same hole I read about in the paper? If it is, then a lot of people know about it now. The paper said it was probably caused by the earthquake we had three years ago . . .” She could see his face getting cloudy, but she didn’t interpret it properly. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” she said, touching his hand across the table, where they had repaired for his secret-telling, “I interrupted you. Please continue your story.”

  But the cloud didn’t pass. “I’ve got to go,” he said with some urgency. “I’ll be late for school. I’ll tell you tonight. I pro
mise.” Then he was up and gone out the screen door.

  David’s interview with Gus Engstrom, the farmer who’d called about maybe having seen Reverend Morley, was mercifully short. And mercifully was the operative word, because Engstrom was spreading manure when David arrived at the farm, and the smell of fresh cow shit did nothing good for David’s still churning, hung over stomach. Engstrom had taken one look at the good glossy photograph of Reverend Morley and shook his head. He was sorry, he said, but that was not the man he had seen. The picture in the paper had been taken at some church fund-raising a decade or so before. That one looked more like the man Engstrom had seen. But no, he had definitely not seen the man in David’s picture, that he was sure about.

  After David thanked Engstrom, he climbed back into the cruiser, and a couple of miles later, he allowed himself the luxury of breathing through his nose again. A radio call to the station told him he had no pressing business or new instructions, so he informed the day despatcher that he would be leaving the car in about ten minutes. He gave the phone number of a Mrs. A. E. Bronwyn on Jackson Street. That’s where he’d be until further notice.

  To his relief, Mrs. Bronwyn was a delightful old lady with pure white, recently permed hair, rimless bifocals, and a smile that belonged to the grandmother of everybody’s dreams.

  They sat outside on a shaded verandah and sipped, of all things, Guinness Stout. Though she said only that he didn’t look too well, Mrs. Bronwyn, who insisted on being called Alice, had diagnosed his condition immediately. Alice had insisted on treating him with her own favorite remedy, and, in fact, said she’d love to join him. The warm, heavy, bitter brew had made David gag at first, but now, half-a-bottle later, he was beginning to feel whole and human again.

  “Now, Mrs. Bronwyn—Alice—you called the station last night about Reverend Morley’s disappearance. Can you tell me what you know?”

  “Well, officer . . .” When she finished her statement, he would insist that she call him David; where were his manners, anyway?

  “. . . I know you’re going to think I’m a silly old woman—God knows, my children do; and maybe I am—and I don’t want you to humor me if you think I’m a fool. And, by the way, I’m not one of those people who claims to have seen old Jared Whately dancing with the devil under the light of the full moon.” David raised an eyebrow in surprise, and he saw it was not lost on her. “So you’ve already heard,” she said, still studying his face. “I was almost certain you would, sooner or later. Oh yes, I’ve heard those stories and maybe they’re true and maybe they aren’t, but I don’t know for sure, and I don’t talk out loud about things I don’t know about. Reporter’s training, I guess.”

  “Reporter?”

  “Yes, that’s right. When I was young, just after the Great War, I worked for the old Advocate. You wouldn’t remember it, but your father would—I’m just assuming you’re Chief Bentley’s son; you’re his spitting image. You are the old chief’s son, aren’t you?”

  “Mrs. Bronwyn—Alice—you are a remarkable woman. Yes, I’m David Bentley the Third. When dad and mom left for California a few years ago, I dropped the ‘Third.’ But please go on, I’m fascinated.” As he was.

  Alice Bronwyn had been born Alice Smart in the year 1901, the first year of the new century—did he know that, did he know that 1900 was really the last year of the nineteenth century?—and had lived almost all of her life here in Jericho. At sixteen she had graduated from high school and gone off to Madison for a course in secretarial training. In the labor-short spring of 1918, she had easily landed a clerical job at the Advocate. And by the time the men started returning the following winter, she had already made herself a name as both reporter and editor. She had kept the job until 1931, when the Depression finally killed the newspaper. In a way, the economic circumstances had made her decision easier. She had been four months pregnant at the time, and her lawyer husband had been urging her to quit, despite how much her small income helped in those hard times.

  Even though she had talked for nearly fifteen minutes and had not come to any point about Reverend Morley or Whately’s Copse, David’s interest never flagged. I could sit here and listen to her all day, he thought, and all night.

  She excused herself for a moment, and while she was gone, David closed his eyes and dozed lightly to the bird chirps and insect buzzes. He was feeling . . . well, amiable. When he opened his eyes again—he guessed it was only a few minutes later—there was a plate of sandwiches and a pitcher of iced tea on the table between them. Alice pointed, and he chose a chopped egg on whole wheat. She did the same and resumed her story.

  “Not many people in Jericho ever saw the Whatelies, David. They kept to themselves. In fact, the only one I ever saw was Jared, the old man. He used to bring the milk in every morning to my father’s dairy. He’d come in the dark, mostly, when the town was still asleep, but a couple of times I got up early and went down there with my dad, and I saw him. Dad called him a ‘very odd duck.’ Dad was English, by the way. Came over in 1892 and opened the first dairy in this area. Anyway, I saw Old Jared, and he was one of those people you don’t forget. He was small and very dark, not Negro dark, more like Mediterranean or Black Irish; but the shape of his face was all wrong for that, it was kind of Swedish. You know, a long thin nose and deepset eyes sort of close together. And those eyes, you’d think they’d be brown or even black, but they weren’t; they were amber colored, almost golden, and . . .” David shivered suddenly, remembering the hole, what he had almost convinced himself he hadn’t seen down there. He could tell that Alice had taken in that shiver, too, but she just kept talking. “. . . and they were small, just a bit too small for the face . . . Is there something the matter?”

  “No, it’s okay,” David replied. “You just made me think of something that frightened me—when I was a kid.”

  His response was too quick and too feeble, and he knew she didn’t believe him; but she was a gracious woman, and she let it pass. Her story went on for another hour-and-a-half, and while it was all fascinating, David’s cop’s mind zeroed in on and retained thoroughly a few major and possibly useful points.

  First, the 1911 fire’s origin had never been determined, although Alice’s father, deputy chief of the volunteer fire department of the day, went to his death believing it had been set deliberately. A hunch, he had told Alice when the then-nine-year-old girl had asked, but she still believed he knew more than that.

  Second, the disappearance of the Whately family was even more mysterious, more bizarre, than David had thought. The snow had been five feet deep, with drifts three times that high, and the roads, what there were of them, impassable to even the most modern of cutters. And, finally, there were no footprints found around the Whately farm except for one set leading to and from the barn and house. If the snow had filled in the others, why not the ones between the house and barn? No answer, not even a guess. Besides, it hadn’t snowed that night and the wind was calm.

  Third—and David had known this already—the children of Jericho were warned on their lives never to set foot in Whately’s Copse. Alice thought this had been true even before the fire, but it was one of the few things to do with the story she wasn’t fully certain about. As adventurous and brave a child as she’d been, she too had stayed prudently away. When other children disappeared from Jericho—and she could remember at least two before Danny Trowbridge—most parents had seized the opportunity to drill home the lesson to their own kids: see what happens when you disobey, when you go to that place? The copse had been thoroughly searched, of course, but not a trace of the lost children had been found. And that was before the quarry, which had been one of Roosevelt’s New Deal work projects in the mid-Thirties, so there was no question of their drowning in that.

  “Well,” David said, standing up to leave, “we should have more witnesses like you.”

  He then thanked Alice two or three times for her generosity, from the stout to the lunch to the information she had provided, and he promi
sed to drop around again as soon as he had a chance. On the way back to the station he stopped at Roy’s Florists and ordered a dozen yellow roses, for immediate delivery “To a Great Lady.”

  C H A P T E R

  12

  When Mrs. Lynde dismissed the class a half-hour early that June afternoon, even Jamie had joined in the applause, surprising himself as much as the other kids and Mrs. Lynde herself. What’s more, he was the second kid out the door, a somewhat astounding break with personal tradition. As soon as he was outside the building, he broke into a run, which was something else he simply never did, not even to get away from taunts and bullyings. His body had been at school that day, but his mind had been elsewhere, as evidenced by the fact that, for the first time ever, he’d been knocked out of a spelling contest—or “bee” as Mrs. Lynde called it—for his failure to remember the “ease-rule” for cemetery: “Ease, or eees, into the ground.” Of course the other children had cheered when he lost, but he’d been so preoccupied that he’d hardly noticed. Mrs. Lynde, however, had assigned all the offenders extra homework.

  In the morning, when Sandy had mentioned the stuff in the paper about the hole, Jamie had gone into a state of near panic. Sure he knew, because he was there watching, that the hole itself was no longer a secret. The cop knew, and the rest of the searchers did too. But, Jamie realized, if it was in the paper, then others might come and learn the real secret. He had, that morning, seriously considered skipping school and going directly to the woods. But that would have got Sandy in trouble as well as himself. And then, when the lunch hour finally came, he’d thought about not going home, but then Sandy would have been worried about him. And besides, it was really good to be with her, and he had come to jealously look forward to the time they had alone together. Fortunately, she hadn’t reopened the matter of the hole in the woods and he, of course, had very deliberately avoided it.