“Go to it, Mag,” he whispered with a wink, then stretched and went upstairs to dress. He was just drawing on his boots when he heard the ring of the telephone and nearly fell the last three steps in his haste to catch it before it stopped.
“Doug, have you got a minute?”
He smiled at the empty room. It was Liz, and the thought struck him that he was awfully lucky to have two women interested in him at the same time. He wasn’t unaware of Liz’s confused feelings for him—or of his own reluctance to help her—just as he was aware of Judy’s increasing desire to get him into her bed. It felt good, actually, and at the same time he knew their interest was making him overcautious.
“Douglas, are you into heavy breathing these days, or are you just listening.”
He sat on the arm of the couch and turned so he could see through the front window. “I’m here, Liz. Just thinking, that’s all. How are you?”
“I think I’m crazy is how I am. Last night—”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Doug, look, I can’t talk on the phone. I need to see an honest-to-god real human being. The kids,” she lowered her voice, “they don’t know anything except that I stopped World War Three last night, thanks to Clark’s imagination. I can’t. . .” Her voice threatened to break. “Look, would you like a free lunch?”
“Sure,” he said, an automatic glance at his watch surprising him by showing it was just past noon. “I have a couple of things to do first, then I’ll stop by, okay?”
“You sure it’s all right?”
“Sure, no problem.”
She exhaled loudly and laughed. “Thank God! You know, I’m really not with it today. After all that earthquake business busting up the car and—”
He sat up, frowning. “What? What earthquake?”
“Never mind,” she said, entirely too quickly.
“I—”
“Liz, there are no earthquakes in New Jersey.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “Don’t you think I know that?”
He rubbed a finger across his cheek, into his hair behind his ear. “Hey, Liz, take it easy.” Wind? What wind? “Liz, this is going to sound dumb, but do you remember what time this . . . this earthquake happened?”
“Doug, if you’re in a bad mood, I can call someone else. Today of all days, I do not need to be laughed at, or humored.”
“I’m not humoring you,” he assured her gently.
“You know me better than that. Look, was it sometime around four, maybe a little after?”
When she didn’t answer immediately, he felt a cloud pass over the sun, felt shadows stirring in the fireplace.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, standing.
“Doug, wait! What do you know about that earthquake?”
“I don’t know anything about an earthquake,” he said calmly, realizing he had sounded too anxious, too intense. “But I sure do know something about a hurricane out of season. Put the kettle on. I’ll look for . . . I’ll do my stuff later. Fifteen minutes, Liz. Maybe sooner, okay?”
“All right,” she said. “And Doug?”
God, he thought, c’mon, Liz, c’mon.
Gently then: “Yeah?”
“I’ve got news about Parrish, too. The sonofabitch is trying to sell Winterrest out from under us.”
The phone call; he snapped his fingers. “Right! I nearly forgot. Some guy wants to turn it into condos and stuff.”
“He told you, too?”
He nodded, rose, and stood impatiently by the endtable. “Yep. Yesterday. Now I don’t know if he’s trying to spook us or rally us, but that’s something we’d better not let go too long, either.”
“I know. But first the lunch. Please, Doug, don’t be long.”
“Then hang up, counselor, or I’m gonna sprout roots.”
He rang off before she could respond, walked to the kitchen door, and looked out at Maggie. She was grazing, switching her tail at flies, every so often raising her head to check for marauding squirrels. He had no idea why she went after them the way she did; it was a battle she’d been waging since he’d gotten her, at four.
He smiled, cocked his head, then hurried back to the phone and dialed the Lockharts’ number. Liz’s call had reminded him about the fight Casey had with Hallman, and he wanted to know if the idiot had been caught, turned himself in, or had been found, as usual, sleeping it off in the woods.
There was no answer. And none at the Depot. He debated calling Bud, and decided against it. If there was news, someone would have been in touch by now. Casey, the jerk, was probably still out and running. As soon as he was done with Liz, he would have to go over to the tavern and see how Judy was faring.
A replay of his recent conversation, and he scolded himself for scaring Liz with that nonsense about a hurricane. It wasn’t important anyway, only odd. What was important was the Winterrest deal, and Liz’s need to talk.
With a slow shake of his head he took a step toward the front of the house, and heard Maggie calling. When he asked himself how much of a real hurry he was in, he made an about-face and walked out to the fence. A clicking sound with his tongue on the roof of his mouth made the mare look up, snort, and walk slowly over.
“Girl,” he said, “how would you like to visit Heather today?”
Maggie tossed her head and he laughed, opened the gate and followed her to the tackroom. Ten minutes later she was saddled, and he was riding her around the side of the house. Midway across the lawn to the drive, he saw something stuck into the gap between the front door and the frame. Maggie waited patiently while he leapt down and hurried over, plucked out an ivory-colored envelope and stared at his name on the front.
There was no stamp, no cancellation marks, and when he saw it wasn’t sealed he opened it carefully and pulled out a square sheet of paper that crackled like parchment. The writing, he saw with mild surprise, had been done in fountain pen, and in a script that bordered on the Gothic style.
You are cordially invited to hiqh tea Winterrest Estate
4:00 P.M. Sunday, July 14th
Informal dress R.S.V.P. not required
He read the invitation twice more, not knowing whether to smile or frown as he climbed back into the saddle, replaced the paper in the envelope, and slipped it into his shirt pocket.
“A tea party,” he said to Maggie’s nodding head. “Can you beat that, Mag? I’ve been invited to a damned tea party!” He laughed, and cut himself short. “Jesus, the fourteenth is tomorrow!”
3
When Doug reached the Clearys’ house, Piper was standing in his front yard, a broom in his hand, and Doug eased Maggie over to the hedge. Piper looked up, grinned, and dropped the broom as he ambled over. His cap was jammed on, his face unshaven, and from the open front door Doug could hear singing.
“Well, if it isn’t himself,” Piper said genially, “and the old nag.”
Maggie snorted and tried to reach her teeth over the hedge for his arm. He danced back and took a pugilistic stance, laughed, and flicked a thumb against his red-veined nose.
The music grew louder—the white-sweatered Clancy Brothers being boisterous about a cheating, loving tinker.
“How’s it going, Pipe?” he asked.
“Could be worse, could be better, I could be right but I ain’t. That fool hound of mine, Dumpling, has chased herself into the woods, she has. Her pups, I guess. The idiot doesn’t know how valuable she is.” An emphatic headshake to show his disgust. “We got work today?” He asked so eagerly Doug knew the man’s daughter-in-law had ordered him to clean house or else—a monthly command Cleary dreaded and sought escape from whenever he could.
“Not today, sorry.”
The man shrugged. If he couldn’t get out of it this way, there was always looking for the hound. He pointed at Maggie. “You riding posse or something?”
“Huh?”
“Lord, Mr. Muir, ain’t you heard about Casey and the fuss at the Depot?” Piper pointed as though Doug did
n’t know the direction.
He nodded. “Sure. I was there.”
“Oh, right.” Piper touched at his cap; a slip of the mind. “Well, so was I. Outside in the parking lot when he comes barreling out like a madman.” He lifted his shirt with a dramatic wince to display an ugly spreading bruise high on his side. “Damned fool gave me a clout into Ohio. Thought for damned sure all my ribs was busted.”
Doug shifted, and the saddle creaked. “You heard anything?”
Piper spat in disgust. “Nothin, not a blessed word. But I tell you, Mr. Muir, that crumb ever comes around here, I’m gonna teach him a lesson he’ll never forget.” He laughed then, a hoarse wheezing. “Jerk stabbed himself, you know that? Stabbed himself with his own damned knife.”
“No, no I didn’t.”
“Sure. Poor Bud Yardley thought it was the lawyer lady that got stuck, had her halfway to New York the way I hear it before he found out he had the wrong one.” He laughed again, and a dribble of tobacco juice slipped from the corner of his mouth. He choked, wiped it away with a sleeve, and spat again. “Nice kid, that Yardley, but boy is he dumb.”
“An honest mistake, Pipe. I thought Bernie got it.”
Cleary’s eyes widened. “Bernie? Are you kiddin?”
He scowled as if vital gossip had been snatched from his grasp. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Oh lord, he thought. “No, Pipe. I said I thought it was, but it wasn’t. I take it, though, that Casey isn’t back yet.”
“Not until he sobers.” Cleary folded his arms across his chest and looked up from under the cap’s bent and stained beak. “The way I have it figured, see, is he’s gotten himself over to Sparta or someplace, rousted a doc to fix him up, and he’ll be back by tonight. Hung over, feelin stupid, and on the wagon again—until next week. ‘Course he ain’t never gonna live this one down, you can bet on it. Christ, what an idiot.”
Doug squinted in the bright sunlight, wishing he’d worn his hat, and spied the Clearys’ less than road-worthy pickup at the side of the house. In the bed was a jumble of grey stones.
“Building a fence?” he said, nodding to the truck.
Piper looked over, looked back. “Yeah, I think so.” He grinned sheepishly. “Got a little under the weather, you might say. Don’t really remember what the hell I was doin.” Then he pointed at the envelope poking out of Doug’s breast pocket. “Hey, you got an invite, huh?”
Doug looked down at his shirt, taking a moment before he focused on the envelope. “Yeah. You, too?”
“Of course,” Cleary said indignantly. “I live around here too, y’know.”
Doug managed a neutral smile. “Then maybe you know what this is all about. I thought the place was empty.”
Piper spat, picked up his broom, and shrugged as he headed back for the house. “Beats me. But I sure don’t ever turn down a shot at free food. Somebody probably bought it and wants to get in good with the new neighbors. Casey, the idiot, he’s been talkin about lights over there since Monday. Now I ain’t sayin he’s got it right, but on the other hand, he must’ve been almost right or we wouldn’t have got the invites, right?”
“Yes, Pipe, but nobody else—”
Cleary waved impatiently at the house, and held up the scrawny broom. “Look, Mr. Muir, I gotta get goin. Nell’ll skin me if I don’t do what I gotta. And than I gotta get after that damned dog before she does some-thin stupid.”
“But who delivered the invitations?” he called out as the little man reached the front door.
“Who knows?” Cleary yelled back. “Who cares? What the hell, a party’s a party. See you later.”
The door closed, not quite slammed, and Doug nudged Maggie back onto the road. He didn’t know what high tea meant, but it sounded somehow formal, an affair that fit neither the town nor Piper Cleary. Right now, however, it was the least of his worries. He had seldom gone to any of the parties he’d been invited to. At first he had been afraid someone would recognize his name; and when he realized that the hot news from Seattle would hardly reach this far, much less linger for a decade, he had already established a lifestyle that accommodated his fears, one he eventually learned to believe was comfortable.
Left at the highway had him heading for the traffic light, Saturday drivers passing him, staring, especially kids in the back seats, a few of them waving. He waved back, but twice had to talk to Maggie softly when a driver thought it great fun to lean on his horn in an attempt to spook horse and rider.
Just before reaching the intersection he frowned. Sitter’s chair was there by the hedge, but the man himself was missing. A perfect summer day, and the town’s unofficial greeter was absent from his post. He hoped the old guy wasn’t ill. There had been other occasions when he had skipped a day or two, and Doug found it amusing that he should feel unsettled. That says something about something, he thought with a quick laugh, and checked his watch.
“Nuts,” he said. He had spent more time with Piper than he’d imagined. “Maggie, there are too many cars for us to rush, but I think we’re going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
4
The living room was dark, all the shades drawn against the afternoon sun. Sitter was in his favorite chair. He was nervous, and very uncomfortable. He had offered his unannounced guest the best seat in the house, but it was refused, and five minutes had passed before he remembered to turn off the television.
Now it was silent.
Except for the intermittent passing of a car outside, the room was quieter than midnight, and Sitter couldn’t help tapping a finger against his leg.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. He mumbled something about his throat being awfully dry and escaped into the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer, pulled back the tab, and drained the can before lowering his arm. He reached for another, and changed his mind. His head was already buzzing, his stomach was telling him he should have eaten first, and a tic began pulsing on the side of his neck. He slapped a hand against it, willing it to stop.
An eighteen-wheeler thundered by and his left hand lifted automatically in an unseen wave.
Go back, he told himself. It isn’t polite to stand out here while we have company inside.
He looked fearfully to the doorway, to the dim twilight beyond, and puffed his cheeks. But this wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to be here, not here in the house.
Not in broad daylight where anyone could see. It wasn’t right, and he thought about saying so until he searched and realized he couldn’t find the courage.
He reached for a beer a second time, changed his mind again, and dried his face briskly on the clean towel drawn through the refrigerator’s handle. When he was positive he wasn’t going to be betrayed by shining skin, when his lower lip stopped its quivering, he drew himself up and returned to the living room, took his seat, and watched as his finger started tapping again.
He heard a horse’s hooves and looked alarmed until the animal had passed.
“A splendid day for riding,” Eban Parrish said smoothly, from his seat on the couch. His features shadowed, hands placed just so in the middle of his thighs. “You should take up riding, Mr. McMahon. The exercise would do you good. Sitting is no way to keep yourself fit.”
“I . . . I don’t like horses, sir,” he said apologetically. “They’re too big. They might fall on me.”
“I see.”
“They’re very nice, though,” he added. “Pretty. I like to look at them.”
“Yes. I’m sure you do.”
Sitter wished the man would hurry up and leave. This wasn’t right, him being in the house like this in the middle of the day; he had to watch the news. If Mr. Parrish stayed too long, he might miss important word about the witches. And that would be terrible, so terrible he began to squirm.
“Tomorrow,” said Parrish.
At last. Now he was going to learn something. And once that was all over, Mr. Parrish would leave h
im alone and he could watch the news. The news about the witches.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yessir, I did,” Sitter said. “Tomorrow.”
“Excellent, Mr. McMahon. Excellent. Now suppose I tell you a few things about tomorrow. You will have to listen carefully because I do not have the time to repeat them. Please listen, and if you have any questions about what you hear, you will wait until I am finished before you ask them. And when you ask them, be positive you are sure you want to know the answers.”
Sitter was perplexed, but he said nothing. He knew better than to ask for explanations when he was told that the question period would come later. When Mr. Parrish said later, he meant later, and there was no getting around it no matter how silly it seemed. He would have to wait. He would have to be sure he was listening so he wouldn’t have any questions to ask.
“There is going to be a party tomorrow, Mr. McMahon. What you might call a tea party. A large number of people from town have been invited.” The voice softened. “You, I’m afraid, are not invited. I wanted to tell you that myself, so you would not be offended if you saw people going and wondered why you yourself were not asked.”
“That’s all right, sir,” Sitter assured him. “I don’t like parties. And I don’t like tea. It’s all right.”
“Marvelous,” Parrish said, by his tone informing Sitter he had transgressed by interrupting. “Marvelous.”
Sitter nodded, told himself to shut up, and waited.
“This—and we shall continue to call it a tea party, if you don’t mind—this tea party, Mr. McMahon, will be held at Winterrest.”
Sitter closed his eyes; he didn’t want to hear any more.
“I am going to ask you to do me a great favor.”
No, please, Sitter thought; please don’t please don’t.
“I want you over there right away. As soon as I leave.”
No, please; no, please.
“It won’t take long. I know you have many things to do on a beautiful day like today. All I ask is a quick look around, to be sure none of the older children have been using it for their private playground. Bring a bag with you. Pick up any cans or bottles you may find. Bring the bag back here and dispose of it with your own garbage.”
The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror Page 13