No one would have noticed a little boy and a tall man in a costume moving quickly away from the crowd. I plunged into the throng nevertheless, turning every male elbow I came to toward me, apologizing and moving on. Yes, the killer’s masquerade may have gotten him through the throng, but I’d seen his costume, and how many panther men could there be? It was my one, small wedge of luck.
But ten minutes of threading and stumbling through the tumultuous crowd over truculent sand, and my wedge of luck began to feel like a minuscule slice of hopelessness. It didn’t help that more and more guests began giving me a disapproving eye; not only was I not in costume, my clothes (unless they counted as those of a man from the future), my haircut, even the fact that I was taller than almost any man there, didn’t help. All I needed was for the suspicion to grow, to get out of hand, for someone to inform the cops. I kept hearing the same dubious voice repeating over and over in my head: “Sir, may I see your invitation, please?”
In truth I was only guessing that the panther man had even come this way to lose himself and Nathaniel in the crowd rather than risk the streets in panther garb; it’s what I would have done.
Or had he hidden somewhere in the hotel itself?
Had he already done away with Nathaniel?
Had he even brought Nathaniel along—or had the boy somehow escaped him?
That last thought seemed improbable; I’d seen the cat man move.
No, he’d get rid of Nathaniel all right, at the first opportunity; Nathaniel had been a witness, a smart-looking one despite his tender years, whereas Theodore was clearly shell-shocked, maybe for good. Nathaniel was with the Panther Man all right, I could feel it in my gut. The only question was: was he still breathing…?
I came out of the crowd at last onto firm, water-soaked sand.
A comet sped over my head and exploded shrilly, lighting the breakwater a moment, turning the surf phosphorescent.
I turned and craned back over the milling heads, the myriad masks, the flickering tops of the red hotel turrets. It might as well have been Grand Central Station.
I sighed heavily, searching cats and owls, jesters and queens, vagabonds and clowns until my eyes burned.
Think! Byron and Donna are counting on you!
Thanks! I don’t need to be reminded of that!
Come on! Use your brilliant professor’s intellect! Where would a killer take a three-year-old boy on a narrow island? What would Katie do in this situation?
Katie. I wished like hell she was here now.
How would a killer in a cat costume dispose of a little boy?
He wouldn’t take his car because there weren’t any cars in common use.
He might have dragged the child aboard a horse-drawn carriage. Nah, too obvious. What about the streetcar line? No, even more suspicious eyes to worry about.
I felt the heat of frustration on my cheeks even in the chill ocean wind.
I found myself turning around, facing the wind…the sea…
Of course.
There was only one expedient way under the circumstances: make it look like an accidental drowning, then melt back into the crowd for your alibi.
I’d no sooner finished the thought than I heard the sound behind me.
I turned to find Nathaniel facing me, standing in a thin patina of black water that stretched out behind him thirty feet to pounding breakers. “Pugh!”
“Nathaniel!” I took a stride toward him.
Nathaniel took an uncertain step backward, tiny tennies hardly making an imprint on the shore.
“Nathaniel, it’s Elliot!” Did he not recognize me in the relative dark? Flares and rockets thudded above, coloring the sheen of water with their reflections but only in quick flashes, quickly fading.
I took two more strides toward the clearly-traumatized boy. Nathaniel took two more awkward steps back.
“It’s okay! It’s daddy’s friend, Elliot Bledsoe! You don’t have to be afraid now!”
But he kept backing up, more quickly now, stumbled on a half- submerged shard of shell, going down on his bottom, scrambling up fearfully, backing away.
I held up cautioning hands, stopping in the sand. If he kept retreating like that he’d hit the breakwater, lose his footing again amid inward rushing surf and be dragged outward with its return. “Nathaniel! Honey, don’t move!”
A shadow stretched long under my legs, fell across me from behind. I should have paid more attention to the scrub-topped dune to my left…
The blow struck the base of my skull just as I was turning. I had time to think fool! before I tasted sandy granules, salt. The line of combers—Nathaniel’s terrified form—winked dark red, but I shook them back into focus before they went out. This is the end of one of you! And I thought, yes, maybe more than one.
I came up crouching as I turned and saw the tall, lithe form, the black feline face above me, a red-streaked chunk of beach rock already raised high above his head. The surf slithered in under our shoes and spoiled the panther man’s aim, throwing me off-balance at the same moment; his chest crashed into my shoulder and we were both down. Even before I was on my feet again I managed a quick scream back to the boy. “Nathaniel!”
The next breaker exploded behind him, swirled to his knees, nearly tossing him before the cold water, but it got him running. He flashed past us in drenched shorts. “Nathaniel, run to the hotel--go get your ball!”
The oncoming surf plowed me into the killer as he was attempting to rise. The water rose to our calves, then dragging him toward me; I was braced for the outward pull, legs straining as he tried to grab me but the sea was stronger. I caught him flatfooted with a beautiful right cross dead on the chin. Both feet went out from under him as if he were riding glass, and he came down flat—neck and back--on hard ground. I thought, amid hissing bubbles, I heard a popping sound, like a twig snapping inside a wet towel. My right arm flailed out for him as the suction drew him past me, but I only grazed his temple.
The next breaker was huge. I think he might have tried to rise at the last moment as its shadow fell over him, then the lee of the wave caught him and he disappeared.
The next wave was smaller but hard on the heels of the last. I braced my legs again, squinted into churning foam for a patch of material, a shock of black mask, but saw nothing more of the Panther Man.
I stumbled from the next drag and scoured the distant crowd shoreward: I saw no sign of Nathaniel but I was almost certain he’d escaped the pounding waves. Maybe—frightened or not—he really had run back to the hotel as told.
And picked up his ball.
…and disappeared to the future with it…
“No!”
I began sprinting for the lights, already exhausted legs shot with lancing pain as I hit the softer sand.
“Nathaniel!”
I ran as if in a dream, to the sound of exploding shells, curious animal faces turning my way, making a hurried path for me, for the crazy, dripping man from the sea.
“Did—you see a—little boy?” but I couldn’t even hear myself amid the explosions and cheers.
Don’t pick up the carpet ball, Nathaniel! my mind cried.
He can’t, I kept answering myself, it was up high on the mantle out of reach of his little hands!
Not so little they can’t shove a nearby chair to the stone fireplace!
I hit the cement walk, gasping, then tore up the short flight of outdoor steps and into the back door of the Embassy Room without slowing. I raced past the Windsor Room, chest pumping like a bellows, and into the south door of the Ballroom. “Nathan—wait! Wait for me!”
He was just climbing up on the seat of hardback chair he’d somehow pushed under the mantle as I puffed up. “Nathan! No!”
He craned a frown at me. “My ball!”
Maybe he thought I was the Panther Man—one of his ‘Animal People’; maybe he thought it was me. Probably he didn’t think at all.
He gained his feet atop the chair and stretched high for the carpet bal
l.
I wasn’t going to make it.
“Nathan!” my throat was raw, my voice hoarse and probably scary. In the last few yards I flung myself at him. The boy’s little hand wrapped around the ball—and faded quickly with it.
I dove through the air--surprised at my own strangled cry—and saw my arms close around and through a wispy-pale ghost, then I began my descent to the floor. Just before I hit on outstretched hands, I felt my knees clip the chair seat and pull it over. It crashed behind me.
Nathaniel reappeared an instant later, pin-wheeling through the air beside me, hands empty, the heavy carpet ball wrenched from his fingers, already thudding loudly across the Ballroom floor.
I grabbed Nathaniel around the waist before we both stopped rolling, held him high for protection as I went with the inertia, held him higher still as the dark wall stopped us abruptly, and weathered what I thought was his sharp scream in my ear but what actually turned out to be delighted laughter. Let’s do it again! his grinning face said.
But I held him against me instead, held him tight, partly so his knees and elbows couldn’t squirm out of my grasp, partly because I was ashamed of my tears. He finally settled contentedly against my chest, salt-smelling arms looping my neck, little heart bumping mine.
In our own good time—hand in hand--nobody around to boss us or even notice us, we went to retrieve the ball…
EPILOGUE
Timing is everything.
I can’t remember who said that, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Albert Einstein.
There can, however, during certain perhaps mystical (you should excuse the expression,) times, be a cohesiveness to that particular dimension, or at the very least something approaching a kind of cosmic order. Anyway, that’s what crossed my mind the day everyone left the Sandersons’ big Victorian at the same hour, almost the same minute.
Byron’s realtor had sold his house; for probably about half of its real worth, but the Sandersons were glad to take it. They paid her a little extra to stay around and keep an open eye while the movers loaded the few pieces of furniture Donna couldn’t live without, then they bundled their little family together, piled into the Lexus and drove straight north via the slower but more visually spectacular old Route 101, a miniature sightseeing vacation before Byron began his new job. It seems Donna’s father had an opening in the starter ranks of his oil business in Sacramento, one which demanded some real architectural experience. It didn’t pay what Byron was used to making, of course, but Mr. Morton was confident his daughter’s husband would quickly climb the ranks; in the meantime they had a roof over their heads while they looked for a new home.
Liz left just behind them, after helping Donna pack a few things in the backseat, kissing Byron and Nathaniel good-bye and giving Donna a lingering hug that seemed to go on for hours and was not bereft of some blubbering from both parties. Then she came over to say good-bye to Katie. She didn’t kiss her, didn’t even hug her, really, just stood for a moment holding both her hands and looking silently into her eyes; it spoke volumes. Then she bent close and whispered something in Katie’s ear, words I would never hear repeated, and turned to me.
Me she hugged once quickly, but held onto one hand as I turned away. “Hey…”
I turned back. “You know, don’t you, Elliot?”
I did know, for the first time maybe at just that second, but I said nothing.
“How very proud I am of you.”
And I thought: it could all stop right now, the whole spinning planet and everything on it—stop and just blow away into space—and it would be enough. Then I had to turn away again quickly to spare her my own tears. I can, to this day, still feel the pressure of her parting fingertips.
I joined Katie in the driveway and turned back as Liz climbed into Adam’s clunky truck. The engine coughed into life and promptly died. Adam ground the transmission.
“It needs a new spark plug!” I called.
Adam poked Liz in the shoulder and winked at me through the driver’s window. “Already got one, son!” And they rumbled off to Adams Avenue, waving at the air.
Byron opened the door of the Lexus and held out his hand. I think his chin was trembling just the slightest. “What can I say?” He shook his head. “Thank-you’ is hardly enough.”
I gripped his hand tightly. “Love means never having to say thank-you.”
He looked at me. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know, it from some damn movie or something.”
“You’re a very strange man, Elliot Bledsoe.”
I nodded. “Hell of a ghost buster, though!”
Byron snorted a laugh. “Oh, yeah.”
He climbed in and I turned to the back window to say good-bye to Nathaniel in his baby seat; I knew it was going to be the hardest good-bye of all, which is why I saved it for last, waving a leaden hand. The little boy turned and looked up at me through the open window. “S’long, Nathan! See each other real soon, huh?”
Even at his tender age I think he knew we likely wouldn’t. He didn’t wave back.
“Take care of Mommy and baby Natalie, okay!”
He stared up at me expressionlessly with his father’s blue eyes. “Pugh!”
“Yeah,” I nodded, “’pugh’!”
Then he made a wincing face as he lifted something heavy to the sill. I felt my throat thicken and took it from his hands.
“Your ball!” he grinned.
Byron pulled from the drive and Katie came to stand beside me now before the big, empty Victorian as I hung onto the carpet ball and watched them go.
“Some cases you just don’t want to end, huh?”
She slid her arm through mine, knowing I still needed a thick moment to respond.
We looked down at the carpet ball in my hands, looked up at each other at the same time.
Nodded together. “Bridge.”
* * *
As we approached the bridge, Katie behind the wheel, she leaned her head toward me. “So. How much did you tell them?”
“The Sandersons? Not much. They didn’t ask much, really, when the group of you found us in the Ballroom, they were just so grateful to see Nathaniel alive, I think. I told them he was hiding under the piano.”
“Hadn’t we already checked the piano?”
“Yes. I didn’t say they believed me. But I wasn’t about to embroider…they sure as hell wouldn’t have believed the truth, I’m not even sure I do.”
“But Nathaniel’s clothes were damp--smelled of saltwater.”
“Like I said—‘just so glad.’”
She pulled the rental over to the guardrail, set the brake and held out her hands.
I pulled the onyx ball away from her. “Watch this…”
I am letting you know here and now by placing this indelibly in print that I made it to the bridge railing, lobbed the ball over the side into the drink, made it back and climbed into the car again with nary a hesitant step.
Katie regarded me with wonderment from behind the wheel. “Wow! That was really impressive!”
“Thank you.”
“All alone, too!”
“Thank you,” I grimaced impatiently.
“Well, that’s one phobia you can scratch off the ole list!”
“Thank you.”
“Really, Elliot, I didn’t think you had it in you!”
“Thank you, Katie. Can we please go now?”
“Why the rush?”
“Because I’m not sure it is in me anymore…I think it might be running down my leg!”
She put the car quickly in gear.
Fifteen minutes and a gas station stop later, she made a left turn on the I-5.
I looked at her. “Uh…isn’t this east? I think the airport is north.”
“One more stop before we brave the friendly skies…”
* * *
It was a small, discreet hospice, not ten minutes from downtown San Diego, the grounds unkempt, the stucco walls in need of a little paint
.
Knowing Katie knew how much I like surprises, I kept quiet up the weedy walk to the double doors and down the antiseptic-smelling corridor past the nurse’s station.
Katie led me to Room 207.
The ancient patient was seated in a wheelchair facing a sunny window with a decent view of the not-terribly-attractive grounds. From his expression, as we approached, it was hard to tell if he was actually aware of them, much less of the bland paste the uniformed nurse was trying to wedge between his even pastier thin lips. She was plump and pretty bland herself, but offered us a forced, cheery smile as she spooned away. “Look here now, honey—got yourself some company!”
The old man remained unresponsive as we came past the brass framed bed and joined him on either side of the wheelchair. He stared outward into thin air.
The plump cheeked nurse gave us an apple wink. “Y’all don’t mind him, now! Ain’t said a word to me in the three years I been here!” She sighed, dropped the spoon in the paste dish and patted one frail, bib-swathed shoulder. “Not too bad for 97 though, huh!” Swiped once at the dribble on his chin. “Yessir…he’s my little darling.’”
Katie watched with silent contempt until the nurse caught on and cleared her throat.
“Well…I’ll just let you nice folks visit a spell...”
When she was gone, Katie pushed the wheelchair back gently to give us some room and bent down to the hollow face. “Hello, Theodore…”
The milky eyes looked through her.
“My name is Katie. How are you doing today?”
Nothing. Not even a blink.
Katie cleared her throat. “Uh, this is my friend, Elliot. We do paranormal investigations. Do you know what that is? No? Well, never mind…we just dropped by because we were researching a case and your name came up. You’re still in the phone book, did you know that? Still available over the phone!”
She glanced disappointment at me. “…which you obviously don’t use much.”
NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 27
