“He, who?” Jim asked.
“Satan,” Father Pat replied. “I’ve got to hand it to the evil bastard. It was a dandy plan.”
“Yes.” Eric nodded his head. “What a way to spread his dark word around the country.” He looked at Deva. “Could you bring us up to date on the man Bruno Dixon?”
“Why . . . ” She paused. “Let me think. I was in my ... sophomore year in college when he came to town. He opened a very small toy factory. Rumor had it that Cary backed him. Then he left the factory and opened that huge wholesale toy store.”
Robert was seated next to a window. He glanced out and said, “Uh-oh.”
“What’s wrong, son?” Jim asked.
“A patrol car just went by. Eric Zucker was driving it.”
“Was he in uniform?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I hate to hear that,” the trooper said. “Ike is pure punk. Sneaky little creep.”
“So is his dad.” Deva spoke with more than a touch of scorn in her voice.
“You’ve had trouble with Ike?” Jay asked her.
“Let’s just say, while the kids are present, that during my marital troubles, Ike made more than one offer to console me in my time of need.”
Jay fixed his gaze on the priest. He was uncomfortably aware that the priest knew he was looking at him. “Father, would you go into more detail about the toys?”
“Later.” The priest stood up. “Come, Eric. Drive me back to the church. I must gather a few things and pray.”
“Getting close, Pat?”
“What’s going on?” Piper looked confused.
“Nothing now.” Father Pat looked at her through eyes that could see more than many sighted people. “Tonight.”
The priest and his big friend left the house.
“Now, what was all that about?” Jay tossed the question to anyone.
But no one knew what the priest had meant by the “tonight” remark. Or if they did, they weren’t talking.
“I believe you said this General Douglas was going to meet us at the newspaper office?” Jim stood up.
“Yes.” She eyeballed the kids. “We’ll probably be gone most of the day. There’s plenty to eat. Don’t leave the grounds. Do all of you understand?”
The kids nodded solemnly.
As they were leaving, Jay said, “And if you believe that those kids are going to stay in the house, I got some seafront land in Kansas I’d like to sell you.”
“All those kids, with maybe the exception of Kelly, know more than they’re telling us, Jay.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better about them being alone?”
“Father Pat said nothing was going to happen for at least forty-eight hours. I believe him.”
As the group was pulling out in their cars, Jay noticed the kids heading out the side door, moving toward their bikes.
He stopped the car and started to get out.
Piper’s hand stopped him. “No. They’ve got to do what they must do, and we what we must do.”
“Now, how do you know that?”
“Kelly told me.”
“You haven’t been alone with her since we got back!”
“That’s true.”
“Then? ... ”
“You have to believe, Jay. That’s all there is to it.”
With a sign of resignation and utter confusion, Jay put the car in gear and moved out.
Piper smiled. Everything would be all right. She just knew that.
2
“I sure would like to see that old Clute house out in the country,” Kelly said, as the gang pedaled down the street.
“Well probably get away with riding around in town with no more than a scolding,” Jenny told her. “But our folks would skin us alive if they learned we rode ’way out there. Maybe tomorrow we can all go out there.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Just ridin’ around. I want to see if everybody in this town is actin’ goofy.”
But as they rode, it soon became apparent that nothing was out of the ordinary. The stores were open, selling everything from gasoline to panty hose. People were tending their yards, hanging out clothes, buying groceries – all the little mundane day-to-day facets of living.
And it seemed to Kelly that that was making Jenny angry.
“What’s wrong with these people?” Jenny mumbled. “What’s wrong with them?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Kelly asked. “What should they be doing?”
“Mind your own business!” Jenny snapped at her, her dark eyes flashing. “I know what they should be doing.” She pedaled on ahead, ranging in front of the others.
“What’s the matter with her?” Kelly asked Carla.
“She gets this way sometimes. Don’t cross her, Kelly. You’re tough, but Jenny’s pure mean when she gets mad. You never seen anything like it.”
And Kelly tucked that remark away for safekeeping.
“Look over there!” Robert called. “It’s the fat man, Bruno Dixon.”
The man was waddling down the alley behind the toy store.
“He’s gross!” Andy said.
“Come on,” Carla said. “Let’s mess with him.”
“Just be careful he don’t get his hands on you,” Ange warned. “He’s real strong under all that lard.”
“How do you know all that?” Kelly asked, angling her bike into the alley.
Carla’s face tightened and her eyes narrowed. “Let’s just say I know.” She answered for her friend.
“Toy-maker, soul-stealer!” the boys and girls chanted as they pedaled around the man.
“Get away from me, you filthy brats!” the fat man yelled, his voice very high-pitched. He spotted Carla. “You! You liked it so much you came back for some more of it, hey?”
Carla biked close and kicked the man in the seat of his pants.
Bruno screamed and grabbed for her, his big hands just missing her arm.
The kids circled like a pack of Indians around a covered wagon – and Bruno was about as big as a small Conestoga.
He spun around and around as the kids circled him, taunting him. “Soul-stealer, soul-stealer, fat, evil man. You’ll never get us in your dirty nasty hands.”
Bruno kicked out, his shoe striking the rear fender of Ange’s bike, sending bike and rider toppling to the gravel of the alley. Bruno moved very quickly for a man of his bulk. He snatched the girl up and held her against him.
“You turn her loose!” Jenny squalled. “You fat shit. You turn her loose!”
Bruno laughed and lumbered toward the rear of his toy factory. His hands were roaming over the girl’s body, squeezing and fondling.
Andy picked a rock and let it fly. The rock hit the fat man in the back of the head, knocking him to his knees, loosening his grip on Ange. She jumped free.
Blood leaked from the back of Bruno’s head, and the man was slow getting to his feet.
Squad cars ripped up the alley, coming from and blocking both ends. They slid to a halt, trapping the kids.
A half a dozen men, all of them grinning, circled the kids, blocking any escape. Not all of the men were cops.
“Hi, Mr. Harper,” Ange said, smiling nervously.
“Yeah,” Parnell said, grinning at the frightened girl. “You’ll do just fine. Take the rest of them to Chief Craig.”
* * *
General Douglas had left a note, saying he was going to get a pound of coffee. Be back. Stay put.
Jay turned and looked at Jim. The trooper met his gaze. “Something wrong, Jay?”
“You do have some type of I.D. proving you’re a member of the highway patrol, don’t you?”
Jim grinned. “Finally got around to asking, huh. You people are entirely too trusting.” He produced badge and I.D. “You are all aware that we were followed coming down here, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t notice,” Amy said. “All I saw was my dad, standing in front of his office, glaring at me.
”
“They got a pretty good blanket over us,” the trooper told them. “When we move, let’s move in groups.”
Jay picked up the phone and tried the St. Louis number he’d used to reach Piper. No outside lines were available.
Jim grunted. “Like I said, they’ve got a pretty good blanket over us.”
But he said it with one good eye on Amy; or more specifically, a certain part of her anatomy.
“Exactly what are we looking for in the papers?” Amy asked.
“Ah, mysterious happenings in this area,” Jim said. “Reports of psychic phenomena. Violence around the old Clute home. Disappearances. Anything you think might be of interest, call my attention to it.”
Jay, Deva, Piper, and Amy took the newspapers from 1900 forward, leaving the microfilm for Jim; there was only one scanner for the film.
“I wonder where General Douglas went to get that coffee,” Jim muttered. “Vietnam?”
“That is one tough old soldier,” Deva said with a laugh.
“He sure is,” Jim agreed. “Tough as a boot. Infantry all the way. World War Two, Korea, Vietnam. Won every medal the U.S. has got to offer. I really like that old boy.”
“Douglas sounds familiar,” Jay said. “How long was he in the army?”
“Forty years, I think,” Deva told him, not looking up from an old newspaper she was carefully reading. “He’s from this area. Told me he was born not too far from the old Clute place in the country.”
Jim looked up. “I didn’t know that.”
Deva looked up at Jim, an odd light in her eyes. “Are you going to level with him; tell him everything?”
“Yes. Why not? The old boy is still as sharp as any of us here, and he was in nearly every super-secret organization the government ever had, including working as a spy for the OSS in France during World War Two. Being from this part of the country, he might be able to shed some more light on what’s going on and save us a lot of time.”
“I’m anxious to meet him,” Jay said.
Deva smiled; the odd light in her eyes had vanished as quickly as it came. “He’s quite a character.”
* * *
“Relax now,” Chief Craig told the boys and girls. “We’re not going to hurt you.” He sat down on the edge of a desk and looked at the group. “You’re all in serious trouble, you know that, don’t you?”
“How come?” Jenny asked.
“Mr. Dixon had to be taken to the hospital to get his head stitched up. Now who threw that rock?”
The kids sat in sullen and defiant silence.
“Well, we’ll find out,” the chief told them. “Just take a little longer, that’s all.”
“Where’s Ange?” Robert demanded.
The chiefs smile was not pleasant. “I had her taken home. She’s with her parents.”
“I don’t believe that,” Andy blurted.
The chief left the desk and slapped the boy across the face, knocking him out of the chair. “You watch your damn smart mouth, boy!”
“You leave him alone!” Kelly yelled. “And I want to call a lawyer.”
The other cops in the room had a good laugh at that.
Eric Zucker looked at the girl and licked his thick lips.
Kelly saw the tongue movement and backed up against the concrete block wall.
“Well, we’ll separate them and question them. Eric, you take the Clute kid. Jenny, you come with me. Waymore, you and the others grab a kid and get some answers.”
The kids tried to run for it, but the cops blocked their way.
“We’re in trouble,” Ken whispered.
“More than you can realize,” Jenny acknowledged.
* * *
“Crazy goddamned town!” General Douglas said, entering the newspaper office. He tossed a sack to Deva. “Make some coffee, girl.”
Grinning and shaking her head, Deva complied.
Douglas glared at Piper. “Well now, you’re another looker. Who might you be?”
Jim introduced them all.
Douglas cut his eyes to Jay. “Ex-wife? Boy, you let a good one slip through your fingers, now, didn’t you?”
Jay smiled.
“Clute, huh?” Douglas said. “Well, I knew some Clutes ... grew up with them. I was born 1911. Three quarters of a century ago. I’ve been around the world and over the hill and across the river. Yeah, I probably knew your kin; good and bad. Every family has their share of both. I damn sure knew Cary. That had to be the oldest woman in America when she passed. Surprised the hell out of me when I came back to this place and found that old bat still kicking. And didn’t look a day over sixty-five. Amazing.”
Amy had to hide her smile. Deva fought to keep a straight face. Piper stared at the general. Deva had warned them all that General Douglas could be quite a character.
His behavior didn’t bother Jay; he was too interested in what else the general had said. “Why were you surprised to find her alive, sir?”
“Why, hellfire, boy! She was damn near a hundred years old when I went off to the Point, back in ’28.”
Jay did some quick mental math. “That would make her . . . That’s impossible, general.”
“That’s right, son. But you add it all up. Your Aunt Cary went to school with my grandfather. And I can prove it.
His grandfather! No way. The general was confused as to dates. “How can you do that, sir?”
“Easy. After my good wife passed a few years back, I went through and tossed out a whole lot of junk we’d collected during almost fifty years of marriage. But I did find this tattered, yellowed piece of paper. It was the announcement of the eighth grade graduation of Victory, Missouri. Eighteen sixty-one, son. And there was her name. Cary Clute.”
“Another Cary Clute,” Jay said.
The general shook his head. “No. I thought of that. But in that same little box, I found an old diary that belonged to my granddad. He wrote of a tall, very pretty young lady named Cary Clute. He wrote about a birthmark on the side of her neck. And there was a tintype of her.” He reached into his shirt pocket and handed Jay the tintype. “And there it is. Your Aunt Cary.”
Jay took the tintype and looked at it. He felt sick to his stomach and weak in the knees. He sat down in a chair. No mistaking the tintype; it was a picture of Aunt Cary.
It was all impossible.
But Jay knew it was true.
His Aunt Cary had lived to be over a hundred and thirty years old. The last time Jay had seen her, she was about a hundred and ten. Come to think of it, Jay could not remember the woman ever changing. She always looked to be a well-preserved sixty. Tall and erect.
He felt eyes on him and looked up. The general was staring at him, his eyes as sharp and intelligent as any Jay had ever looked into.
“I knew your grandfather, too, son. He was a very fine and good man.”
“I never knew him,” Jay managed to mumble. He cleared his throat.
“Hell, how could you have known him? He disappeared forty years before you were born. He and his wife. Together, so the story goes. Just vanished one night.”
Jay felt a coldness wash over him. “But I thought . . . I mean . . . I never knew that.” Then he recalled his father’s words, returning over time and distance to reach him.
My mother and father died, Jay. I don’t know much about the why of it. I don’t even remember them. Your Aunt Cary raised me.
Jay did learn that his grandfather had been thirty-eight years old when he died – disap – peared, now.
Thirty-eight.
“Deva, would you find the story of my family’s disappearance and tell me how old dad was, if you can?”
“Sure.” She stood up and headed for the newspaper’s morgue. “You think it’s important?”
“I’m thinking it very well might be.”
Deva returned with an old newspaper in her hand and an odd look on her face. “He was thirty-eight, Jay.”
Jay’s sigh was audible. “I would have been willing to bet
on it. My grandfather was thirty-, eight when he vanished.”
“Does that number hold any significance, Jay?” Jim asked.
“I can’t think of any.” He looked at the general. “How about you, sir?”
“I’m afraid not, son.”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the number means nothing.” He chuckled grimly.
“What’s wrong, Jay?” Amy asked.
“I think I can answer that,” Piper spoke up. “Jay’s birthday. It’s next month . . .”
“And he’ll be thirty-eight.” Deva finished the sentence.
3
Kelly thought she heard someone cry out in pain several times. But the room was very solid, and she couldn’t be sure. Eric Zucker had threatened her with all sorts of things. But Kelly kept saying that he’d better not hurt her. She had shown so little fear, it had make the young cop nervous. He finally left the room and had not returned.
Kelly almost wet her pants when the door was abruptly jerked open. Chief Craig stood in the door, glowering at her.
“I just got the word, kid,” he told her. “You lucked out. Now carry your butt home.”
“That’s the same thing he told me,” Carla said.
The kids had retrieved their bikes and had pedaled to the town’s park.
All the kids had been told the same thing.
“Anybody get hurt?” Jenny asked.
No one except Andy, and the side of his face was puffy.
“Let’s ride over to Ange’s house,” Ken suggested. “Just make sure she’s really there.”
“Y’all gonna tell your folks about this?” Carla asked Kelly and Jenny.
The girls looked at each other. Jenny said, “We’ll ask Father Pat.”
* * *
“What do you kids want?” Ange’s mother asked, peering out at them from behind a screen door.
“To see Ange,” Jenny said.
“Well, you can’t see her. She’s being punished for being a bad girl. And I don’t want any of you ever to come over here again. Now get out of here and stay out!”
She slammed the door.
Robert pounded on the door frame. “Ange! Are you in there, Ange?”
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