The Lighthouse: A Novel of Terror

by Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller

  Alix

  She lifted her sopping laundry from the washing machine and dropped it into the wire cart, then pushed it toward the dryer and began unloading. The Hilliard Launderette was completely deserted. Two of the other dryers were in operation, wisking a bright assortment of clothing round and round, but the owner of that laundry was mercifully absent. Alix was grateful for the solitude, glad there were no villagers to cast curious glances at her, the stranger from California.

  She set the dryer in motion and sat down with the paperback novel she’d brought along. It was one of those thick imperiled-children sagas that were so much in vogue, and had begun to bore her after the first chapter. Now she set it aside and merely sat, watching the clothes whirl hypnotically, still feeling warmed by her visit with Cassie Lang.

  The visit had brought a sense of normalcy into her day; it was much the same sort of thing she would have done at home. There she often met with other free-lancers for morning coffee; at noon there were luncheons with clients; and in late afternoon it was not uncommon for someone to stop by for a glass of wine. Perhaps a friendship with Cassie would provide a needed balance to her life here in Hilliard. . . .

  The door opened, letting in a gust of cold air, and Alix glanced up. Della Barnett came in and walked to one of the still-turning machines. The woman wore the same soiled quilted coat she’d had on in the store the week before, and her hair, if possible, looked even more greasy and stringy. An auburn-haired teenaged girl in a bold-figured blue-and-white poncho and jeans followed behind her, Alix recognized her as the one she’d seen smoking grass on the road to the lighthouse that first morning they’d driven into Hilliard. Della’s daughter? The girl was attractive; when she shed the last of her baby fat, she might even be pretty. Hard to believe Della and Hod Barnett could have produced her.

  The girl saw Alix and her blue eyes registered recognition. She glanced at Della, then looked back at Alix. Fear molded her expression briefly; then it modulated into a look of defiance and challenge that seemed to say, “I don’t care if you know I was smoking dope that day. Go ahead and tell my mother if you want to. I’ll just call you a liar.”

  Della had opened the dryer door, she felt the laundry inside, then shut the door again and went to sit on one of the chairs at the end of the row. The girl wandered around the room, being very casual and aloof and humming a rock tune under her breath. Every now and then she would glance slyly at Alix. Della sat staring straight ahead, puffing on a filter-tipped cigarette; Alix might not have been there, as far as she was concerned.

  After a minute or so Della said in an irritated Southern twang, “Mandy, for heaven’s sake sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  The girl sighed elaborately but went to sit beside her mother. “Isn’t it time for that stuff to be dry?”

  “Soon.”

  “Why does the damn dryer always have to take so long?”

  “Don’t swear. You know I don’t like that.”

  “Oh, all right.” Mandy sat fidgeting for half a minute; then she was on her feet again. “I’m going to the store for a Coke.”

  “No you’re not,” Della said. “We can’t afford for you to be buying Cokes all the time.”

  “Oh, Mom . . . ”

  “No Coke.”

  Mandy stamped her foot in a little-girl gesture. Her Indian headband had a cluster of bead-tipped leather thongs at the back and they clicked together with the movement. When her mother merely looked at her, unperturbed by her little tantrum, she glared back and then began pacing as before. And casting the same sly looks at Alix as before.

  Alix managed to absorb herself in part of a chapter. Then she realized Mandy had come over near where she was sitting; she looked up, saw the girl watching her.

  “You’re the lady from the lighthouse,” Mandy said.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You going to live out there long?”

  “For the next year.”

  “That long? I sure don’t envy you.”

  “No? Why not?”

  Della had got up and was at her dryer again. “Mandy,” she said, “stop bothering the lady and get over here and help me. Laundry’s dry now.”

  The girl went reluctantly, began stuffing clothing into pillow cases her mother held open. When they were finished, Della started away with the two heavy cases; Mandy stopped her and relieved her of both, saying, “No, Mom, let me take them. You’ll hurt your back again.”

  Not a bad kid underneath it all, Alix thought. At least she looks out for her mother.

  Della went out. Mandy followed, but paused in the open doorway and said over her shoulder to Alix, “I don’t envy you for a lot of reasons. I wouldn’t want to be married to a dog murderer.”

  “A what?”

  “A dog murderer. After last night, you people aren’t going to be—”

  “Mandy!” Della called from outside.

  The girl shrugged and was gone without another word.

  Alix sat openmouthed. By the time she had recovered from her surprise and hurried outside, they were pulling away in an old Nash Rambler, Della at the wheel. Neither mother nor daughter looked back.

  Feeling a little stunned, Alix went back inside the launderette. Dog murderer. What did that mean? It hadn’t sounded like a joke or some sly teenager’s game; Mandy had been serious. Something must have happened last night, something involving Jan and a dog . . . Mitch Novotny’s dog?

  Oh God, she thought.

  She caught up her pea jacket from where it lay on one of the chairs, shrugged into it, grabbed her purse. Ignoring her laundry, she hurried out again into the wind-chilled street. The Hilliard General Store was opposite the launderette on a slight diagonal; according to Cassie, if anyone would know exactly what had happened last night, it would be Lillian Hilliard.

  Alix barely noticed the rush of warm air and homey smells that greeted her when she stepped inside. Mrs. Hilliard was in her accustomed place behind the grocery counter; opposite her stood a tall, thin man in a brown overcoat and a short, wiry man in workclothes. They had been talking, but they all stopped when they saw her. Both men gave her their full attention—more attention than anyone in the village except Cassie Lang and Mandy had displayed thus far.

  Alix stopped a few feet away, near the post-office cubicle. For a time none of them moved; the silence that followed the tinkling of the entrance bell struck her as heavy and a little tense. The short man was the first to move and speak; he swung around to face Lillian Hilliard again and said, “So what should I do about the shelves?”

  “Well, Adam, if you can’t fit six in, I’ll have to settle for five.”

  Adam was holding a hammer in his right hand; now he began to slap it against the opposite palm, shifting his weight as he did so from his left foot to his right, his right foot to his left. He had longish blond hair and a wispy mustache, and was wearing a toolbelt around his waist. “I didn’t say I couldn’t fit six. I just meant I’ll have to do ’em closer together.”

  “Won’t do. They have to hold tall packages.”

  “Okay, then. Five it is.” He started toward the back of the store in a peculiar hopping gait. When he reached the end of the canned-food aisle he turned, gave Alix another long speculative look.

  The tall man pulled a knitted cap from the pocket of his overcoat and put it on over his pale thinning hair. Still peering at Alix through his wire-rimmed glasses, he said, “You must be Mrs. Ryerson, our new neighbor out at the light.”

  Such a direct overture from anyone in the village was surprising. “Yes, I am.”

  The man extended a slender, well-manicured hand. “I’m Harvey Olsen, minister of the Community Church. Welcome to Hilliard.”

  “Thank you, Reverend . . . it is Reverend?”

  “Yes. The ministry is Methodist, but we like to think of ourselves as nondenominational. So we can better serve the community, we encourage parishioners of all faiths to participate. But please call me Harvey—everyone does.”
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  “Well, thank you . . . Harvey.”

  He continued to peer at her; behind his glasses, his eyes were as pale as his hair. “I hope we’ll be seeing you and your husband at services soon,” he said.

  This was absurd. She had come in here to find out if there was any truth to Mandy’s claim that Jan was a dog murderer, and here she was being urged to attend Sunday church services. For a moment she was at a loss for words. Neither she nor Jan was particularly religious, although she had been raised Episcopalian, he Lutheran. Still, she didn’t want to offend the one person aside from Cassie Lang who had tried to make her feel welcome in Hilliard.

  She finally managed to say, “I hope so too.”

  Harvey Olsen nodded, smiled, and then picked up a sack of groceries and a copy of the Portland Oregonian that was lying on the counter. To Lillian Hilliard he said, “You’ll be chairing the ladies’ organizing committee for the fall bazaar tonight?”

  “I will. Someone’s got to keep those hens in line so it doesn’t turn into one big coffee klatch.”

  The minister smiled again, vaguely this time, lifted a hand to Alix, and went out.

  Now that she was alone with Alix, Mrs. Hilliard assumed an odd, guarded expression. “Help you with something?”

  “Yes.” But she didn’t know where to start.

  The storekeeper plucked a wilted celery leaf off the counter, then reached underneath for a rag and began wiping the worn wooden surface. From the back of the store came the staccato sound of hammering.

  “Well?”

  “Mrs. Hilliard . . . did something happen in the village last night? Something involving my husband and a dog?”

  “Mean you don’t know about that?”

  “No. I wouldn’t ask you if I knew, would I? All I know is what Mandy Barnett said at the launderette.”

  “What was that?”

  She didn’t want to repeat it. “Mrs. Hilliard, will you please tell me—”

  “Lord knows I didn’t like that dog,” the storekeeper said. “Mitch was always bringing him in here and he was always upsetting something. But Mitch was fond of Red, treated him like one of his kids—better, some might say.”

  “It’s dead? Mitch Novotny’s dog?”

  “Run down in the road right out front of the Novotny house. Run down on purpose, according to what Mitch says.”

  Alix suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

  “Didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down,” Lillian Hilliard said. “Pretty cold-hearted, you ask me.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, Mitch wouldn’t lie. I’ll say that for him.”

  “Then he must have made a mistake. How could he be sure it was my husband?”

  “Wasn’t any mistake. That big new car of yours is the only one like it around here. And Mitch says he saw it happen.”

  Alix stood still, her hands clenched, fingernails biting into her palms. It just wasn’t possible. Jan was a gentle man, he had often spoken out against blood sports and other cruelties to animals. . . .

  Mrs. Hilliard said, “Seems to me if it was just an accident, he’d have stopped afterward. And told you about it after he got home. Now wouldn’t you say?”

  She didn’t know what to say. She just shook her head. Not a word to her last night; and this morning, he’d gotten up before she had and locked himself in his study and started working as if nothing had happened. Working hard: she’d heard the steady beat of the typewriter keys and hadn’t wanted to disturb him; had left him a note saying she was going into the village to do the laundry.

  The storekeeper bunched up her rag and tossed it back under the counter. “Maybe you better go back to the lighthouse and ask him about it,” she said almost gently. Her expression now was one of pity. “Maybe he’s got an explanation that’ll satisfy everybody.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure he does.”

  Numbly, she turned her back on the other woman’s pity and left the store. The station wagon was parked nose-in to one side of the launderette; she crossed the street and walked around to the front of the car. She hadn’t looked at it up close this morning, hadn’t had any reason to. Now she did.

  The bumper was dented, scratched. And there was a thin smear of something on it that might have been blood.

  Alix.

  Jan was at his worktable, aligning the stack of manuscript pages next to his typewriter, when she came into the study. His fingers moved quickly—tap, tap, tap—bringing the papers into neat order. When he heard her he looked around. His color wasn’t good, his face pale and pinched, but he seemed in reasonably good spirits.

  “There you are,” he said. “I’ve just finished the introductory chapter on lighthouse history and I want you to—”

  “Jan, we have to talk. Right now.”

  He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  On the drive back to the lighthouse she had decided on an indirect approach, one that wouldn’t be too accusing or threatening. Give Jan the opportunity to tell her what had happened. “Last night,” she said, “you told me you were going out for tobacco.”

  “Yes?”

  “But you’re not out of tobacco. There’s a half-full pouch on your desk. Why did you lie to me?”

  He let out his breath in a tired sigh. “Alix, I’m sorry. I had one of my headaches and I thought a drive would relax me. But I wanted to be alone, and I didn’t feel like explaining. I didn’t want to upset you while you were working.”

  She felt her anger rising; forced it down. She was determined to handle this in a way that would damage them the least. “Jan, why didn’t you tell me about the dog?”

  “What dog?”

  “Mitch Novotny’s dog—Red. Everyone in the village is talking about it.”

  “Still? My God, that was over a week ago.”

  “They’re not talking about last week, they’re talking about what happened last night!”

  For a moment Jan seemed honestly bewildered; then an uneasiness—and something that might have been fear—crawled into his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

  Alix sat heavily on the extra chair, a mate to the lumpy ones in the living room. “Someone ran down and killed Mitch Novotny’s dog last night. He claims it was you. And that you did it deliberately because you didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down.”

  “Oh, God. ”

  Now Jan looked ill. He shook his head, winced, pressed thumb and forefinger against his eye sockets.

  “You did run down that dog, didn’t you?”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “My God, how can you not know? Even if you didn’t see it, you’d have to have felt the impact. Or heard it. The front bumper is dented, there’s blood on it. . . . ”

  He got convulsively to his feet, went to the window, stood staring out. “The headache wasn’t so bad when I left here,” he said in a low, pained voice. “But it’d worsened by the time I got to the village, got so bad I could barely see. I turned around, drove back a ways, and then I couldn’t see at all and I stopped—somewhere out on the cape—and just sat there, a long time, until it eased enough so that I could make it back here. I was afraid of hitting something or somebody, that’s why I stopped. I . . . I didn’t know I’d already hit the dog.”

  Conflicting emotions moved through her: relief, concern, fear, even a small doubt. She stood and went to him, caught one of his arms and turned him gently until he was facing her. The deep pain etched in his face was frightening.

  She said, “Jan, those headaches of yours seem to be getting worse, more intense. They worry me. You’ve got to do something about them. Call Dave Sanderson or something. . . . ”

  “I’ve already called him. He gave me a referral to a doctor in Portland. I’ll be seeing him on Tuesday.”

  “I’ll go to Portland with you—”

  “No, somebody has to stay here and take care of things.”

  “I don’t like the id
ea of you driving all that way alone, not after last night.”

  “I won’t drive if a headache starts.”

  “Promise me that? Never again?”

  “I promise. God, do you think I want to hit anything else with the car? Just the thought of that poor dog . . . ” He shuddered. “Novotny must be pretty upset, must think I’m some kind of criminal. Everyone else in Hilliard, too.”

  “They’ll get over it when they hear the truth.”

  “Will they?”

  “Maybe if you call Novotny and apologize, explain what happened . . . maybe he’ll listen.”

  “It’s worth a try. But I remember when Thud was killed—the driver of the car that hit him apologized and we still suffered for weeks.”

  Alix remembered too—all too well. Thud had been their big, solid yellow cat, named for the noise he made when lesser cats would have jumped off the furniture soundlessly. Years later she still felt his loss, still expected at odd moments to find him lurking in the kitchen next to his food bowl, or to hear him thudding through the house.

  Jan forced a smile that was meant to be reassuring, squeezed her hand; but the fear still crouched in his eyes. She wondered if her own fear showed in her eyes, too, for him to see. His explanation hadn’t quite banished it, and neither had her sense of relief.

  What if his headaches were no longer just the product of tension? What if something was seriously wrong with him?

  Jan

  Sitting morosely in front of the old wood-burner in the living room, he could hear Alix moving around the kitchen. She was making a lot of noise—thumps, bumps, clatters. Working off her anxiety at the same time. That was a trait he had always admired in her. Whenever she was upset or angry, she found some sort of physical labor to engage in; attacked it with a determination that bordered on the obsessive. And when the job was done, or when she had exhausted herself, her emotions were back in sync again. No grudge-holder, she. She could forgive anything in less than twenty-four hours.