“No,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking about staying for awhile; probably staying in the house.”
The young woman made a face. “Yukk!”
“Amy.” A man’s voice, containing a clear note of warning, came from the left side of the small office.
Jay turned and came face to face with the voice from out of his past. His smile became more genuine and he extended his hand.
“Ellis Fletcher. It’s been a long time, Ellis.”
Ellis took the hand. “Twenty years, Jay. Good to see you.” He glanced at Amy. “The Clute house is not haunted, Amy.”
The young woman, probably home from college, and quite lovely, was not about to be intimidated by her boss. “You sure couldn’t prove that by me.”
Jay looked at her, then at the expression on Ellis’s face, and laughed out loud. He got the connection then. Amy was Ellis’s daughter. Sure. The family resemblance was strong.
Ellis shook his head and had to grin. “Girl certainly has a mind of her own, Jay. You two meet?”
“No. Not formally.”
They were introduced. Ellis said, “Jay, you do remember that I married Julie Hampton?”
“Yes. I recall, now. But I’ve got a lot of catching up to do this summer.”
“Then you’re planning on spending some time with us?”
“Well, yes, I think so. I brought my daughter with me. Kelly. I haven’t had a real vacation in years.”
“And your wife?” Amy asked.
“Divorced.”
“Oh.” This time her eyes were more than a bit flirty.
“Staying at the Clute house, Jay?” Ellis asked.
“Sure.”
“I ... see.” Something shifted in the man’s eyes. What, Jay didn’t know. But whatever it was, it came and went in a flash. “What do you do for a living, Jay?”
“I own a business in New York City.”
“Wow!” Amy perked up. “What a fun place to live, huh?”
“That’s . . . certainly one way of putting it, yes.” Jay looked more closely at the young woman. Lovely. This time their eyes met and held for a moment. Hers containing some heat and hidden promises.
Victory is certainly looking more and more promising, Jay thought.
Ellis cleared his throat. “Come on in the office, Jay. We’ll get my part of the paperwork done on the transfer of ownership. Parnell did all the legal work and then left it with me. You remember Parnell, don’t you?”
“Oh, sure. I graduated with him. I didn’t know he became an attorney. Last I heard he wanted to be a test pilot, or a cowboy. He wasn’t quite sure.”
Laughing, Ellis waved Jay into his office. Before the door closed, Jay said, “Amy? If a little blond girl shows up, she’s with me.”
She winked at him.
Yep, Jay thought. Victory is going to be interesting.
The door closed, Ellis said, “Sit down, Jay. Parnell’s daddy got those ideas out of his head pretty damn quick. Parnell took over the firm a couple of years ago.”
“Oh? What happened to Mr. Harper?”
“Uh, he . . . died.” Ellis shuffled some papers on his desk and did not elaborate on the matter of death.
Jay did not push it.
Ellis laid some papers in front of Jay. “You sign here, here, and here, Jay. And then you give me a check for this amount.” He pointed with the tip of his pen. “And the old house is all yours.”
He looked up and smiled broadly.
Jay nodded and took the pen. “What kind of shape is the old place in, Ellis?”
“Fine shape. Place is worth a lot of money. Paintings, vases, antiques, the toy soldier and old doll collection. Well, you remember all that stuff, Jay.”
Jay sure did remember. And a lot of it he wished he could forget.
“Jay, are you interested in selling the old place?”
“I might be, later on.”
No! the silent voice thrust deep into Jay’s brain.
Jay blinked, then could not recall it.
“Well, keep me in mind. Anyway, your Aunt Cary was worth a lot of money, boy. A hell of a lot of money.”
“I thought she might be. But I don’t understand why she left it all to me. The old woman didn’t even like me. She never did like me.”
Ellis shrugged. “But she still left it all to you.”
Jay wondered how Ellis knew all that. He damn sure hadn’t known it. Jay never thought his aunt gave two hoots in hell for him.
Jay was conscious of Ellis looking strangely at him. He wondered if Ellis’s sister, Anne, had ever told her brother about that night out at the old Clute place. Jay doubted it. They had all made a very solemn pact to never speak of it. Except among themselves.
“... seem far away, Jay.” Ellis was speaking.
Jay pulled his wandering mind back to the present. “Lots of memories in this town, Ellis. Everything just sort of hit me at once, I guess.”
“Yeah,” the real estate man said softly. “I just bet that’s true. For you.”
Jay glanced at him. What an odd thing for him to say. Amy came in, placed some papers on the desk, and stuck her ass in Jay’s face. Jay resisted an impulse to pat it.
The men chatted for a few moments, then Jay finished the signing of the papers and wrote Ellis a check. Ellis said he’d see Jay around, and that was that.
Jay closed the door to Ellis’s office on his way out.
“I might stop by and see you,” Amy said. “Maybe help you get settled in.”
“That would be nice. Any sign of my kid?”
“Right out front. She’s made some friends.”
“That’s her.”
Amy smiled at him, her tongue snaking out, licking her lips.
Jay was somewhat relieved to exit the office. He was introduced to Kelly’s new friends. Good-looking, wholesome bunch of kids.
“Ready to see the house, baby?” Jay asked.
“Good luck,” Jenny whispered.
2
Victory, Missouri, in the rolling hill country of Central Missouri. A little south and east of Jefferson City. Standing joke was that nobody just passed through Victory. You had to go somewhere else and turn to get there.
Kelly got into the car, and Jay stood for a moment, looking up and down the main business drag of the town. Ellis had told him the population was still right around ten thousand. Some die, some are born; some leave, others stay.
Victory.
“What was all that ’good luck’ business, Kelly?”
“I really don’t know, Daddy. Can I have a bike?”
Jay smiled at the sudden shift of conversational gears. “I don’t see why not. Well get one tomorrow; that all right?”
“Fine.” She grinned at him. “Thank you.”
“What do you mean, ’you don’t really know’?”
“Jenny told me the town has turned weird the last year or so. But she wouldn’t explain exactly what she meant.”
“If she ever does get around to it, you let me know, okay?”
“Okay. Here’s Clute Street!” she said excitedly.
“I know the way, baby.”
She ignored that. “And there’s number six!” She pointed. “God, what a house!”
“It’s pretty old, all right.”
“A hundred years old?”
“Older than that. It was built either just before or just after the War Between the States.”
She giggled at the southern interpretation of the term, Civil War.
“Look, Yankee kid – you’re in the South, now. Pass the grits and thank y’all.”
“Missouri was a border state, Daddy.”
“Not this part of it, kiddo. And you can tattoo that on your arm.”
“Anita Cohen just got one.”
“Just got a what?”
“A tattoo on her arm.”
“What!”
Kelly laughed at him. “But it washed right off.”
Shaking his head at how easil
y she’d conned him, Jay pulled into the drive of the huge old home and cut the engine. He was suddenly tired. They’d spent the night in St. Louis, and it was only about eighty miles on to Victory, so it wasn’t the drive that had tired him. He didn’t know what it was.
“Anita probably got her butt whacked from Burt, too.”
“Burt and Esther are very progressive parents. They don’t believe in spanking their children. You should take a lesson from them.”
“Oh, I’ll do that, Kelly. Right after you graduate from high school.”
“How utterly primitive.”
They got out of the car, stepping onto a well-kept and neat lawn. Ellis had said he’d turned on the central air the day before, so the house would be cool. Summers in Central Missouri can be brutally hot.
“Sure is quiet,” Kelly said.
“Old neighborhood, baby. The elite of Victory. It’s where the old and moneyed families live.”
“Well, kiss my grits!” Kelly said, grinning.
Jay gritted his teeth. He wished she would stop saying that.
Jay felt eyes on him. He looked around. His eyes caught the movement of curtains or drapes being pulled shut on the second floor of the house to his left as he stood facing the Clute house. Looking to his right, he saw an old man sitting in a rocker on the front porch. That would be – good God! Old Man Milton. He didn’t appear to have aged any in twenty years. He’d been older than God when Jay had left Victory. Or so it had seemed to Jay.
Jay waved at the man.
“Boy,” Milton called, in a form of greeting. “You come back home, did you?”
“Yes, sir.” What the hell does it look like? I’m plucking chickens in Springfield?
“Gonna stay around here for a time, are you?”
“Yes, sir. Probably the summer.”
“Is that right?” He rose from his rocker and turned toward the front door of his house. “Well, you never did have no goddamned sense. Welcome home, you asshole!” He walked into his house and closed the door.
Kelly giggled and Jay blinked. Thanks, he thought. Hell of a welcome back.
Then he glanced down at Kelly. The girl was struggling to keep from shrieking with laughter. They both gave in to the mirth and went laughing up to the wide porch. Jay unlocked the door, using the key Ellis had given him, and stepped inside the air-conditioned coolness of the old home.
Kelly suddenly sobered and held up a hand. “Listen,” she said.
They listened. A faint scurrying sound came from deep in the big house. The sound was not repeated.
“Maybe a big rat, but probably a mouse,” Jay said. “I’ll call the pest control people.”
* * *
They’re here!
Too soon. Rhonda is not back yet.
I heard her running with the French soldier. They won’t be caught by them.
Better by them than some others.
Quiet, another voice was added. We don’t know yet what side they’re on.
* * *
Jay shook his head. “I must be tired, Kelly. I thought I just heard some voices.”
“I know I heard them.” She pointed. “Behind that door.”
Jay hesitated. Should he call the police? It might be a thief.
“This is gonna be a fun summer, Dad. This house really is haunted.”
“Who told you it was haunted?”
“Jenny.”
He started to tell her the house was not haunted, but decided against it. Hell, when he was her age he just knew the place was full of spooks.
Before Jay could stop her, Kelly ran to the closed door and threw it open.
“Kelly! Don’t do that. There might have been someone in there.”
“Wow!” the girl said. “Look at all the dolls. There must be hundreds of them.”
Jay walked to her side and stood looking into the room that had always been called the doll room. For obvious reasons.
Hundreds of dolls, many of them quite valuable, lined the shelves of the large room. Jay did not recall that there were so many, although he was aware that one’s perception of things changes through passage of time. Upon returning, the town seemed smaller, the streets shorter. Nothing is quite the same as one remembers it from childhood.
Father’s and daughter’s eyes found the empty spot on the shelf. “There’s one gone,” she said.
“That’s odd. There might have been a thief in here.”
She moved closer to him.
He put a hand on her shoulder and together they walked into the next room, only an archway separating the two rooms.
Aunt Cary’s clown and toy soldier room. Hundreds of various-sized toy soldiers, ranging in size from a couple of inches tall to a foot or more, lined the shelves on two sides. The clowns were on the other side. As they had done in the other room, father and daughter stood and gazed at the collection.
And as they had noticed in the other room, an empty spot stood out. A toy soldier was missing. Now he was sure that someone had broken in and stolen them.
No, he rejected that. They would not have taken just the two.
Unless the thief was still in the house.
Jay called the police.
* * *
Two cops came. One did all the talking, the other one looked around and didn’t say a word. Jay noted his name tag. Jim Klein.
“Not a thing, Mr. Clute,” the older cop said. “No sign of forced entry, and the house is empty. It’s safe, sir.”
Jay felt like a fool. “I’m sorry to have troubled you men.”
“No bother, sir. That’s why we’re here.”
Just as the cops were leaving, Jenny and her crew showed up. “My sister got married last year and left town,” Carla said. “She left her ten speed. Wanna use it and come riding with us?”
Jay hesitated. Jim Klein called from the squad car. “It’s all right, Mr. Clute. I know all these kids. And this is a very safe town.”
“Okay, Kelly. You be careful.”
They left in a gaggle of voices and giggles.
Jay closed the door and returned to the doll room. He paused, once more hearing the odd rustling sound. Jay shook his head and sighed. The old house was just as weird as ever.
Weird! That’s the world Kelly said Jenny had used.
Well, it sure summed it up.
He had showed the cops where he’d remembered Aunt Cary keeping her keys, on a pegboard in the pantry, and sure enough, they were still there. The cops had searched every room in the house, including basement and attic. Nothing.
“Hell with it,” Jay said.
He was unloading the car when he heard a car drive up and stop. He turned around at the clunking of a door.
Amy Fletcher. She had changed into shorts and T-shirt, and it was obvious that she was not wearing anything except skin under the T-shirt.
She walked to him. “I thought it would be neighborly to drop by and help you get settled in.”
Jay struggled to keep his eyes off the thrusting nipples pushing against the thin fabric of the dark T-shirt. “Well,” he said lamely. “That’s . . . nice of you.”
“Oh, I can be real neighborly. Small-town America. You know?”
“Uh . . . yeah! Sure. Well, I was just, ah, unloading the car.”
“So let’s unload.”
Jay knew he was not unattractive. And he’d been come at hard by ladies before. But he couldn’t recall anything this obvious, so soon.
Careful! The voice thrust into his head.
Jay blinked a couple of times.
“Are you all right, Jay?” Amy asked.
“What? Oh . . . oh, yeah. Just a little tired is all.”
“We’ll get this stuff in the house, and then I’ll give you a rubdown.”
Jay stared at her.
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
He sighed. What in the hell was going on? “Ah, why, yeah. That would be very nice.”
“Neighborly.” She smiled. Her teeth were very white
against the slight early summer tan of her face.
* * *
Jay groaned as she gripped him, opened her mouth, and took him. He was not sure this was all real. He could not really recall how they had gotten out of their clothes and into bed.
He ran his fingers through her hair and pulled her away from his body.
Suddenly he thought he could hear laughter echoing from somewhere in the house. He got the feeling it was not pleasant laughter, but dirty and derisive.
At that moment, Jay was not even certain of his own name.
Amy straddled him and lowered herself down gently, moaning as the two of them seemed to melt into one.
* * *
“I gotta say this,” Kelly said as she pedaled. “This is a weird town.”
“Told you,” Jenny said. “And you, bein’à a newcomer, got to be real careful which group you get with. And that includes your dad, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We can’t say no more,” Ange said. “But lemme tell you this: If you feel like you wanna do something real stupid and crazy, fight the feeling with everything you’ve got.”
“Does that include my dad, too?”
“It sure does. But you can’t tell adults nothing. So don’t even try. They won’t listen to kids.”
Kelly agreed with that. Grown-ups think they know everything. But she felt compelled to defend her father. He was really pretty sharp for an older person.
“My dad listens to me more than most fathers do, I think. Maybe that’s because he and Mother are divorced.”
“You what they call a latchkey kid?” Ange asked.
Kelly smiled. “I guess.”
“You ever see your mother?” Jenny inquired.
“Oh, yeah. She comes around a lot. Sometimes even when she knows I’m not going to be at the apartment. You know what I mean?”
The girls giggled; the boys looked confused.
Jenny motioned toward the boys. “Children,” she said scornfully.
They pedaled for a while longer, and then stopped to rest under the shade of a huge tree. There, Kelly was finally able to put into words what she’d been feeling for the past hour.
“How come so many people stare at us?”
Toy Cemetery Page 2