The Body In The Basement ff-6

by Katherine Hall Page

  “I didn't do it, I tel you!" Duncan screeched. Ànd I'm not going to any fucking military academy. Go ahead and send me. But you can't make me stay there."

  “Duncan, Duncan, what choice do we have? Your behavior has been so odd lately." It was Valerie and she sounded as if she had been crying. "At least won't you see the counselor again?"

  “I'm not the one who needs a shrink; you are! And this has nothing to do with Daddy. Why can't you just leave me alone!"

  “Fine" Valerie's voice was resolute, the voice of a woman who has come to the end of some sort of tether.

  "We wil leave you alone—and you leave us alone. One more of these incidents and you'l be sent off. Maybe your grandparents wil keep you for the rest of the summer."

  “That's a laugh." Duncan sneered. "Don't forget what they said to you the last time we were there."

  “That wil be enough, young man, I wil not have you address your mother in that tone of voice." The Mil ers were unable to move from their spot right outside the door—in Pix's case from outright curiosity; in Sam's because he was mortified they might be heard leaving.

  “Don't you touch me!" Duncan's voice was frantic and what sounded like a chair fal ing over was fol owed by the more recognizable noise made when a sharp slap connects with flesh on some part of the body.

  Head lowered, Duncan plunged out the door, past the Mil ers, oblivious to their presence. Pix could see two things: He was crying and an angry red handprint streaked across the left side of his face.

  They waited a few seconds before Pix cal ed out, "Jim, are you there? We have to be going."

  “Come in; come in." Nothing was out of place.

  “We've just had another scene with Duncan," Valerie admitted to them. "The last psychologist we took him to said it was al an extended grief reaction, but I'm beginning to think Duncan is milking it. At the moment, he is simply a pain-in-the-ass teenager, no ifs, ands, or buts about it." She laughed at her pun. "Excuse me. This has been a pretty awful morning.”

  Pix patted Valerie's shoulder. "I know—and if there's anything more we can do, give us a cal ."

  “Thank you both for coming." Jim was a bit stiff. Pix knew he must be wondering how much they had heard—

  and seen.

  “It wil al sort itself out," Sam assured him. "Maine Sail has one of the finest reputations of any summer camp in the country. Parents know this."

  “I hope so," Jim said dismal y. "I also hope I can keep it out of the papers”

  As the Mil ers were on the point of leaving, Earl walked into the office. Pix sat down.

  “You can let the kids back into their bunks. Nothing, not so much as a drop of red paint on anything. The only thing we've found with any paint on it is a rubber glove—the kind you use for dishwashing. It had washed up on the shore and its mate, the paint, and brush wil probably float in, too. After being in the water for this amount of time, there's no way we can get any prints off it. We'l just have to hope there is a guilty conscience—or more than one—out there. I'm assuming the paint was down in the boathouse. There's a space between two cans of white primer."

  “We use red paint for the waterlines and the names, so if you didn't find another can of it, that's where it came from," Jim said, then put out his hand for a hearty masculine shake. "Thanks, Earl, for al your work. I'm pretty convinced it was my stepson. We've been having a lot of trouble with him. You know that.”

  Earl nodded and gave them a sympathetic look. The first week in June, Duncan had been picked up for driving his mother's car without a license. He'd only made it down to the end of the Athertons' road when he had the bad luck to encounter Earl. Rather than get bogged down in the juvenile-court system, Earl had placed him on a kind of supervised probation of his own. Now when the boy saw the policeman coming, he tended to walk in the other direction, but not before giving Earl a look that spoke volumes—pretty unprintable ones.

  “If you find out anything more, give me a cal . I'l write it up, plus it wil have to go in The Island Crier. Let's hope none of the eager beavers in the national press are reading

  `Police Brief' these days."

  “Thanks.”

  Pix knew what Earl meant. There had been a spate of quaint column fil ers reprinting items from local Maine papers—examples of life Down East. The latest had a Sanpere dateline and purported to quote an island schoolboy's report on George Washington in its entirety:

  "George Washington was born off-island." True, that said it al , but the image of the life it represented was as faded as one of those daguerreotypes Earl had been mentioning just yesterday?

  “We have to be going." Ever so gently, Sam pul ed his wife to an upright position. "See you.”

  They spent the afternoon sailing, and despite her every intention to forget the events of the morning for the time being, Pix kept seeing gobs of red dripping down the smooth white sails they passed.

  Ursula Rowe sat on the front porch of The Pines trying to decide whether she should walk down to the beach or stay where she was and finish the book she was reading about Alice James. A few years ago, there would have been no question. She would have leapt up, taken her walk, and returned to read—or even taken the book with her.

  Now she eyed the ascent. First there were the porch stairs, then the sloping grass, and final y a line of low rocks that separated the beach from the dirt road leading to the dock.

  She sighed. It was too much, especial y with no one around at the moment. It was al wel and good to assert her independence when people were near, but she knew she was slowing down and there were things she just shouldn't attempt anymore. It was profoundly depressing.

  It had al started with the car. She'd resisted the cal s of common sense for several months, then when she'd backed over one of the lilacs her mother had planted for her when she first moved into the Aleford house, she'd cal ed Pix and told her to come get the keys. For the first few days, she felt not only trapped but angrily dependent.

  Gradual y, she'd become used to relying on friends, taxis—

  and Pix. Fortunately, the house wasn't far from the center of Aleford. The day Ursula couldn't walk to the library would be the day she took to her bed for good, she'd told herself dramatical y. Now she knew she'd hang on to every bit of mobility she had, from house to garden, from bedroom to bath, as her world diminished.

  The unchanging scene before her lifted her spirits. For al the waves knew, she could stil be that little girl in braids chasing the foam as it swept down the wet sand. Yet this summer had not been a typical one. The murder of Mitchel Pierce hung suspended in the air, accompanied by whispered rumors, hints, accusations. She wished Pix would stay out of it, but knew she wouldn't. Children were so influenced by their friends. Pix was taking a leaf from Faith's book. But then Pix wasn't a child anymore and she, Ursula, wasn't real y a mother—some other category. The magazines talked about role reversal and children becoming parents. Ursula hated that notion. Only it was true. She wasn't walking to the beach anymore without Pix to watch her. Retired mother? Perhaps, but when she thought about Pix and Arnold, named for his father, the fierce pangs of maternal love were not retiring in the least.

  It would be good to see Arnold and his wife. What was the old saying? "Your son is your son until he takes a wife.

  Your daughter's your daughter for the rest of your life" Or was it "her life"? Some daughterly element in one's makeup that just kept on going along, even when the mother was gone? Had she felt this way about her own mother? She didn't think so. Her older sisters had assigned themselves caretaker roles early on and there wasn't much left for Ursula to do save visit from time to time—like Arnold and Claire. He was her son. She was proud of him, but it was a good thing she had Pix.

  She thought about her conversation with John Eggleston at the clambake. "It's no loss to anyone I know or can imagine" She'd been surprised at the uncharitableness of the remark. She ought to tel Pix about it. The clambake had seemed like a kind of play. Perhaps it was because
she knew that at eighty, she wouldn't be at too many more of them. She had tended to regard the day as several acts and many scenes one after another. Addie Bainbridge had been watching, too. Or maybe holding court was a better description. Ursula resolved to invite Addie and Rebecca for tea later in the week, after the Fourth of July festivities.

  Give Rebecca a break. Addie was inclined to ride roughshod over her. What could Adelaide's childhood have actual y been like out at the lighthouse? It sounded idyl ic, and reflecting on her own upbringing, one of seven, in a wel -appointed but unavoidably crowded town house on Boston's Beacon Hil , Ursula thought how lovely it would have been not to have so many people to talk to al the time. That was what had always made The Pines so special. You could be alone.

  She could stil be alone. Except now she didn't want to be.

  Six

  A midnight curfew was a definite disadvantage to detective work, Samantha decided as once more she entered the woods behind Maine Sail Camp with Fred and Arlene. Fred had no curfew, of course, and Arlene's was a great deal more elastic than Samantha's own. Whatever Duncan and his friends were up to, Sam was wil ing to bet, things didn't get rol ing until the wee hours.

  This time, there were lights flickering in the windows of the cabin, just visible through Duncan's elaborate camouflage.

  “Should we try to look through the back window?"

  Arlene whispered.

  “Let's wait a while and see what they do," Fred suggested. "They may go someplace else. The cabin is pretty smal .”

  They retreated behind a row of tamaracks and took turns watching.

  “More kids are coming," Samantha reported. True to Fred's prediction, soon a group of about eleven teenagers came out of the cabin and headed straight for the tamaracks. Samantha froze in position after crouching close to the rough trunk, the sharp-needled boughs pricking her bare arms. Why hadn't she thought to wear a sweatshirt? The weather was stil peculiar for Maine, up into the high eighties every day. She'd been shedding clothes, not adding them.

  The group passed by without noticing anything.

  Samantha, Fred, and Arlene waited a minute before fol owing. Once again, Fred was ful of ideas. "There're only two places where they could be headed, the quaking bog and the old settlement quarry—unless they're planning to dispose of something or someone, which would mean the bog—I'l bet they're on their way to the quarry

  “What do you mean?" Samantha had never been to the bog, deterred al these years by reports of mosquitoes as large as robins and giant Venus's-flytraps.

  “The suction—you put your foot down wrong and it takes two men to help you twist it and pul yourself out.

  People used to junk cars there before Earl came. And there's always talk, especial y on Hal oween, of what may be lying under the surface from years past."

  “You know that's al nonsense," Arlene whispered angrily, "except about the cars. That's true. Stop trying to psych us out Fred. I'm nervous enough as it is.”

  Samantha had to agree with her and was glad the bog had been eliminated as the probable gathering place for the club.

  Fred put out his arm to stop them. "See, they're turn ing left. That leads to the top of the quarry" The flashlights the group ahead of them was carrying did go left, darting like so many fireflies through the dark woods.

  Samantha had been to the quarry. It was one of her favorite places—also her mother's and grandmother's.

  They picked blackberries there and then, later in the season, tiny tart mountain cranberries that appeared as conserve at the Mil ers' Thanksgiving table.

  The view from the top of the quarry was spectacular—

  straight out to sea across vast expanses of granite carved in huge blocks, like Brobdingnagian steps. During the day, you had to be careful not to walk into one of the crevasses where the charges had been set to blast the stone. At night, it would be treacherous. Was Duncan's club an elaborate game of chicken?

  Fred stopped suddenly and led them up a granite ledge until they were directly above the group below. A fire had been lighted and everyone was drinking beer. Duncan was nowhere to be seen. It looked like any other gathering of kids from Maine to California, eager to put themselves at a distance from adult supervision. A few were smoking.

  One of the cigarettes was being passed from person to person—obviously not tobacco.

  “So, what's the big deal? They're partying," Arlene said. "Let's go home.”

  Samantha wanted to wait until Duncan came, and Fred agreed. It was at least fifteen minutes before they heard the music and saw him leap suddenly into the midst of his friends, dangerously close to the fire. He was wearing a black robe—it looked left over from someone's graduation

  —unfastened. They could see that he was stripped to the waist underneath and had covered his body with symbols and lines done in red marker—at least Samantha assumed it was marker. He didn't seem to be oozing blood, but the effect was dramatic and she felt instantly nauseated.

  Everyone grew quiet and the words of an old Black Sabbath song fil ed the stil ness from the tape deck he set down.

  When the music stopped, Duncan began to chant "We are everybody and everybody is nobody" over and over.

  The group picked it up, some laughing a little—maybe because of the beers and the pot. A few of the guys stripped off their shirts and pranced unsteadily around the fire.

  Duncan took out a chicken that looked like a roaster from the IGA and made a great show of slitting its throat—

  or rather, the place where the throat would have been if the head was stil attached. Blood flowed; he must have stuck a sack of red-colored liquid inside.

  “The asshole!" Fred whispered. "He couldn't even get a live chicken.”

  Samantha wasn't finding the scene humorous. Duncan's intent was the same as if the chicken had been alive

  —or if it had been something other than a chicken. She shuddered and gripped the granite hard with her hand to remind herself that this wasn't a movie. She wondered what would happen next. The kids below her looked so normal.

  She stared at one girl in particular: short dark hair, a striped tube top, and cutoffs—a typical teenager on a summer night. Maybe she wore a little too much makeup, especial y the exaggerated black mascara around her eyes. But she wasn't typical. The whole gathering wasn't typical at al , and Samantha began to feel frightened. Duncan had somehow managed to tap into an unhealthy fascination shared by this group, and it was a vein better left unopened—and it might wel have been if he hadn't come here to live.

  The kids passed the chicken around. Solemn now, each smeared some of the "blood" on their foreheads. One girl almost broke the mood by declaring she was not going to touch something so gross, but the boy next to her did it for her, loudly declaring she was a wuss. The dark-haired girl fiercely told them to shut up. "You're spoiling it!" There was no question about her own dedication.

  Throughout, Duncan watched intently. If the scene had not been fil ed with such potential y evil symbolism, Samantha began to think, it would have been pathetic.

  Duncan was pitiful y thin and his chest concave. Al the kids seemed to have spent more time indoors than out; and if they were robust, they were overly so—tending in one boy's case to obesity.

  “Do you know everybody?" Samantha whispered to Arlene.

  “Yeah, I'l tel you later. It's what we've been saying—

  loser kids. But sometimes it's not their fault, like Karen over there. Her old man beats her pretty badly. Everybody knows it." It was the girl with the dark hair.

  Now Samantha did want to leave and she poked Fred.

  They started to back away from the ledge.

  “Let the games begin!" Duncan threw off his robe and turned on the music again, louder. He grabbed a beer, chugged it down, threw the empty can high into the air, and stripped off his pants. The beer can clattered down the rock and rol ed off into the darkness.

  “We are al and al is in us. Join with the darkness.

 
Cast off your garments." He'd definitely been reading more than comics, Samantha thought. His language was getting positively gothic.

  “Nobody wants to see your dick, Duncan," one of the girls said. "And besides, I'm not al owed to take my clothes off. My mother says so.”

  Duncan looked at her with scorn. "You are not a true sister of blood."

  “I'm not a sister of anybody here. If you're going to get foolish, I'm leaving.”

  A few others stirred and Duncan appeared to weigh losing his audience against maintaining his noble position.

  He decided to go for the numbers and pul ed his jeans back on. "Al right. Let's go climbing instead." This appeared to find more favor. Armed with beers and smokes, they set off, teetering dangerously close to the edge of the quarry precipice.

  “Someone's going to get kil ed!" Samantha started forward.

  “No, come on. We'l make an anonymous cal to Earl from the CB in my pickup. They're not going to stop because we tel them to," Fred advised.

  The three climbed down to the woods below and went back to the truck as fast as they could.

  “Assholes," Fred was muttering. "And Duncan's the worst. After we cal , I want to see what's in that trunk of his.

  Obviously, the black stuff was the thing he was wearing. He is real y into it.”

  Sensibly, Arlene pointed out that as soon as Earl got the news, he'd be up at the quarry and they'd come running back to the cabin.

  “Another time, then," Fred said.

  Samantha wasn't so sure. The day had been fil ed with images of blood—intended images: the gory sails that greeted them in the clear light of the morning and the streaked faces around the flames in the dark of night.

  Another time?

  She'd have to think about it.

  * * *

  The next morning Pix was putting away her chowder pot. She must have been more fatigued than she'd thought to have left it on the beach. Louise had dropped it off. As Pix was pushing it up onto the top shelf in the pantry, the lid fel , clattering to the floor and narrowly missing the side of her head. As she put the pot down and bent to retrieve the lid, she discovered a large Tupperware bowl had inadvertently been placed inside. She opened it up and found a few cookie crumbs. A piece of masking tape clearly marked BAINBRIDGE was on the bottom. The two women had brought a number of desserts to the clambake and this must have been an offering Pix had missed. The crumbs smel ed delicious. She washed the bowl out and decided to go to the vil age to drop it off. Norman might be around and she could pick up some more information about fake antiques. She'd also like to get him alone to ask him about Mitchel Pierce. Mitch dealt with museums, and presumably a New York dealer in the know would be familiar with Mitch's name, even if there hadn't been any business transacted between them. She'd try him on Mother's Brewster chair story again, too.