When he left the room, she struggled in frenzy against the ropes. He would hurt her again tonight—she could tell. The tears stung her cheeks, and she could feel a fresh trickle on her wrists. He would hurt her—he had that look. She gritted her teeth, knowing she couldn’t afford to lose control. She had to get him talking, calm him down. At moments like this, her thoughts grew so dispassionately logical they shocked her, but such moments never lasted. Seconds later, the savage panic slashed her. Her numbed fingers still couldn’t find the knots, and she felt her arms begin to shake. “Oh God,” she whispered. She pressed her eyelids shut and rocked back and forth as much as the ropes permitted. “I don’t want to die like this.”
“You say something? Here we go.” He set the portable television on the kitchen table, raveling the cord to the counter. Pulling plugs out of tangled extension cords, he rearranged them experimentally, stringing the hotplate off to the side. “Got to be careful with this.” The electric heater buzzed loudly. “We don’t want to blow a fuse again.” The squat refrigerator cycled with a lumbering grunt. “I wish I could think of a way to get some more oil. Shame it takes so long to heat up water for the tub. I’m starting to smell. Next time we move, I got to find us a place with oil still in the tank. Maybe next winter…” His voice faded as he turned to the window.
“Please,” she murmured. “Please, God.”
“What did you say, Stell?”
She fought, dragging herself back from the fog of despair that lay always ready to envelop her. No one would help. If she were ever to get away from him, she’d have to do it herself. She had to keep him talking, buy time, wait for a chance. It was all she could do for now. She searched his face. The pale mask stared back at her, a face so young, so unreadably soft as to be almost blank. She could detect no human feeling in that unformed countenance. She could no more reason with him than with the ropes that bound her. Again, terror stirred like a small animal within her chest; in seconds, it had her writhing against the chair.
Averting his eyes, he got out a frying pan and started heating the oil, while the television set flickered noiselessly. “Always takes a few minutes for the sound to come on,” he muttered. “You like yours burned a little, right?” He rattled things in the kitchen drawer. “See, I remember. I even got the cheese.”
She mustn’t cry anymore. The rancid odor of frying meat wafted around her, causing a ripple of nausea deep in her gut. She had to get him talking. Sound drifted from the television. She drew a deep breath. “You’ve grown another inch. Those jeans are too short.” She paused, then forced herself to continue. “And you’re so skinny. They’re practically hanging off you.”
Bemused, he fingered the fraying belt loops, then used the heel of his hand to shove the bangs off his forehead.
“You need a haircut too. I could trim it for you. Are there scissors?”
“I’ll do it myself.” He shuffled his weight from foot to foot, his hip jutting sharply as he turned away. But her gasp fixed his attention on the newscast.
“…dismembered body has been positively identified as…”
He dropped the fork and slowly, as though it required immense effort, he stepped closer to the blaring television. A photograph of a young woman flashed on the screen: a mass of curls and a pretty face caught with just a trace of a grin. Then a man in a suit answered questions while lights flashed.
He turned down the sound. “While this is frying, I’ll bandage your wrists for you.” The channel dial clicked rapidly. “Maybe I can find some cartoons or something. I wish you’d stop doing that to yourself, Stell. No reason to hurt yourself.”
He had killed her, that woman on the screen. She knew it. Terror paralyzed her brain. All thoughts of resistance faded, all plans for escape, however inchoate, melting. Tears blurred her vision so that for a moment he resembled a small, leering gargoyle, reaching for her with one clawed hand.
VIII
Along the edge of the salt marsh, night winds howled like angry ghosts. The fat man’s footsteps grated, a mushy whisper, solemn as death, and the reek of the bay nearly choked him. Just ahead, partially hidden behind a bank of withered reeds, a mound of sand seemed to phosphoresce slightly as he approached it.
After studying it a moment, he nodded slightly to himself. He’d been sure he would find this if he just kept looking.
The blade bit deeply into the pile, the first stroke jarring something brittle underneath so that, with a dry snap, the whole mound shifted stiffly. Dropping the shovel, he used his hands to brush away the loose soil. Within seconds, he had the first of them uncovered. He whistled through his teeth as he again picked up the shovel: the boy had been busy.
The darker pile grew, sand and harder things, as the shovel blade broke pieces away from what had been hidden. Many had been there a long time, collapsed and pressed together by the earth, and flattened skulls seemed to shriek silently. Grunting, he leaned on the handle. Wind hissed through the barred teeth at his feet, and again he nodded, satisfied with this discovery.
After a moment, he smiled and began to cover them up again.
“You hear it as well? I suspected as much.”
Kit edged closer to the window. “Hear what, Charlotte?” Outside, a high-pitched moan soughed through the rocks, like the whine of a demented dog. “The wind?”
“I can tell you hear it.” Twisted fingers brushed away a strand of gray hair. “It dies away just when you listen hardest…as though it knows somehow.”
“Don’t start with your ghost stories tonight, all right? It gets dark way too early as it is. Besides, we both know what you’re hearing.”
“And what would that be, dear?”
Kit tried to laugh. “The ghost of the town clanking its chains,” she said in her best spooky voice. “Am I right?”
“Ah. This again.”
“For one thing, half the shops on our poor excuse for a boardwalk didn’t even bother to open last summer. You’d know that if you’d only let me take you out of here once in a while.”
“Those days are over. At my age, what need I see beyond this house? Listen. There it is again.”
“Charlotte…”
After a moment, the older woman turned her face from the window. “You’ve had one of your premonitions again, haven’t you, dear? I can always tell.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I suspect you do, Katherine. I suspect you know perfectly well. If you’d only stop suppressing that entire side of your nature this way.”
“Stop, please.”
“But you do hear it. Truly. You know you do. Of course, one becomes accustomed to hearing things in a shore town. Ask yourself—what does the ocean sound like from a block away? Voices, murmuring in the next room. Ask anyone who ever lived by the sea. Voices whispering continually, so that one can’t quite make out the words. It’s worse off-season somehow.” Her voice trailed away. “More personal.”
Kit sighed. “This town is dead.”
“You came back. You stay.”
Kit contemplated her friend’s features. Wrinkles draped the delicate bones, but the intensity in that face had never dimmed. “And every year, storms take more of the beach,” Kit went on. “How much did the government spend trying to replace it? Just two years ago? And you can hardly find a trace of sand now.” She sighed again. “All right, so I came back. Why can’t I ever win an argument with you?”
“Do we argue, my dear? I never noticed.”
“It doesn’t prove anything. That I came back, I mean. Except that I’m crazy. When you grow up in a place…oh, I don’t know. Shit.”
“I wish I could swear like that, dear. I never could. It just doesn’t sound right somehow, coming from me.”
“My memories of Edgeharbor had a…a kind of halo. I thought it would be—must be—some little island of sanity.”
“Peninsula, dear.”
“Whatever. No crackheads. No gangs. I thought I could mean something here,” she almos
t whispered, “make a difference.” With a sudden gesture, she drew the curtains wide and laughed. “You really ought to start charging me for these therapy sessions.”
“I never help you. Sometimes I suspect you only talk to me in order to hear what you’re truly thinking.”
“Charlotte…”
“For my part, I’m simply pleased you have a reason to come. It would be terrible if you received nothing back from our friendship.”
Kit held up a hand to stop her. “I get plenty.”
“Are you going to tell me now?”
“Tell you what?”
“My dear, you should see your face. Do you think I could know you all this time and not be able to tell when something’s troubling you? Has something happened?” Charlotte blinked. “Or have you been dwelling on thoughts of that young man again?”
“Thoughts of…? Oh. No. Not really.” She considered how much to tell her. Her friend didn’t own a television, never listened to the radio, and in a real sense, Kit provided her sole link to the outside world. “There was a killing. But I don’t want you to worry.”
“How terrible. Someone local?”
“No. They…we think maybe the body was just dumped here, but I think it’s a good idea if I come and stay with you for a few days.”
“I know you mean well, dear, and I do appreciate your consideration. Truly. But I’m afraid I can’t accept that offer. Please. Don’t press. I can’t explain just now. It’s simply important I be alone here. More so now than ever. But is there something you’re not telling me? Is there some danger?”
“There’s no reason to think that.”
“Then I’ll be fine. Is this what you wanted to talk about?”
“Of course.” Kit looked away.
“I sometimes suspect that young man’s suicide affected you more than you let yourself realize.”
“You make too much of it, Charlotte. Besides, it was a long time ago.”
“Not so long.”
“And anyway it wasn’t my fault.”
“Of course not.”
“That has nothing to do with anything.” She chuckled. “What do you say we talk about your life? Just for a change, I mean.”
“My life ended long ago. Now don’t argue. And I don’t refer to this wheelchair.” Charlotte’s attention flickered to a small silver frame on the mantel. “It’s all behind me—everything of importance, everything that’s ever going to happen. Except one thing perhaps. At times I suspect senility might be a kind of blessing. Don’t you agree? Though perhaps I won’t think so when it finally comes. If it hasn’t already. What good does mental alacrity do me? My eyes won’t let me read anymore. I simply dream and wait…”
“I only hope when I’m your age—”
“You’re a good girl, Katherine.” Charlotte interrupted her with a smile. “Nurturing. Almost despite yourself.”
“The hell I am. I’m a cop.” A damp draft lapped against her, and she returned her attention to the gently swaying curtains. Wintry shadows seemed to drift around the casement, and naked vines veined the window glass. Outside, beneath a clustering tangle of ivy, gray stone crumbled. In summers past, she’d seen vacationers stop and blink up at this house in disbelief. The Victorian gloom seemed so out of place, so out of time. Little remained of the once impressive cloak of ivy. Now, the scant leaves curled brown, clogging the slumped gutters of the gabled roof, and dirt and grit hailed down to scratch at the windows with every gust of wind. In front of the worn porch, the front garden had gone, leaving only a smear of pocked earth. Kit’s jeep looked so incongruous parked there. Chunks of fallen slate formed a spurious path around it.
“So intractable, even as a child when your parents brought you to visit. Yet you spend all your free time keeping an elderly invalid company?”
Beyond the grounds, mounded shadows on the beach humped toward flashes of gray. “You know,” said Kit, “that’s because you happen to be the only interesting person in town.”
“And now you’ve taken in an injured cat?”
“Which I loathe.” Kit tugged the curtains shut and stepped back into the warmth from the fireplace.
“Whatever you say, my dear. So much resistance. You affect to hate my lovely darkness, and my little folktales, and you try so hard to be flippant. Don’t you ever wonder what sort of life you’d have if ever you stopped denying the romance in your soul?”
“You never give up, do you?” Kit smiled at her. So frail in the antique wheelchair—how was it possible the old woman could radiate such strength? “So how are you fixed for firewood?”
“All my needs are well met.” Charlotte smiled. “As usual. Now, tell me again about this cat. Oh, forgive my manners. Would you care for a glass of sherry?”
Kit shuddered at the suggestion—a habitual joke between them—which always seemed to delight her hostess. “Nothing to tell really.” She shrugged. “It’s probably dead by now, wedged behind the china cabinet most likely.” She paced through a wave of warmth in front of the fireplace, then back into the chill by the corner.
Charlotte clicked her tongue.
“I mean, here I knock myself out rescuing it,” continued Kit, “get blood all over my best jacket, and the whole time it’s like this lump, but the minute I get it home under the kitchen light and try to get a good look at the wounds—what a scene!”
“The poor creature was frightened.”
“Hell, I was frightened. For one thing, the damned cat is huge. I could’ve used a tranquilizer gun. And it’s ugly as sin. You should have seen me chasing it while it’s yowling its head off. Like one of those nature shows. First it’s behind the refrigerator, next it’s under the sink. Did you know that vet on Decatur Road moved away?”
“Everyone moves away.”
“Anyway, I finally got hold of this vet out by Deadhook, but by then I couldn’t find the damn cat. Spent half the night moving furniture.”
“Perhaps it simply got out again?”
“I don’t see how. I keep leaving food for it, but so far nothing’s been touched. Just what I needed, right? I’ll probably find it when I smell it. Speaking of moved furniture, how…I mean, this stool by the window…?”
Charlotte looked away too quickly. Her fingers went to her lips, then slipped away. “Lately, I’ve been looking out.” At last, she folded her hands in her lap.
“Okay, but it’s freezing by this window. Why…?” Then she noticed her friend’s unfocused expression. Around the room, firelight glimmered from the antique frames that crowded among the volumes of collected folklore on the shelves and end tables. The immediate impression was that several generations of a family had been chronicled, all the men showing a strong clan resemblance, from adolescent to grandfather. One of the old photographs, tinted with unnatural hues, depicted a thin, unsmiling young man who posed proudly but awkwardly in an absurdly old-fashioned sailor suit. Across the room, the largest of the frames showed an older man, unsmiling still, in an officer’s cap. This portrait stood guard beside a thick, leather-bound book, the gold embossed title of which remained just visible in the gloom: Legends of the New Jersey Coast by Charlotte Otis Taylor. “Wasn’t it about this time of year that your husband passed away?”
“Yes, perhaps that’s all it is.” Sudden tension flitted across her face. “The time of year. Forgive me. I know you’re not accustomed to seeing me like this.”
“Charlotte, I’m so sorry.”
“Perhaps I’m only getting even older—though it’s difficult to imagine—entering some final dimming stage.”
“Never.”
“It comes for all of us. No matter how you overestimate me—and you know I adore that you do—sometimes I am just an old woman alone here. Mourning can become a sort of habit, a shield from life. I saw so many women, my contemporaries, retreat into propriety, removed from any real pain, from any passionate sense of loss.” Her voice rose sharply. “I swore I’d never be reduced to such hypocrisy.” With a slow grip, she wheeled her
self forward, then carefully folded back the fire screen and poked at the embers. She did this with reasonable efficiency, despite being barely strong enough to wield the poker. “Forgive me, my dear friend, this wasn’t a good time for you to come—I hate to have you witness my gloom. It’s simply that…” Winded by the slight exertion, she let the poker clatter back into its place. “I’ve seen something. No, I won’t tell you what. Not yet. Not this evening when you must already suspect my mind to be going. No? Then perhaps you should. I sit here some nights, and I listen to the sea. I always told my Nathan that he built this house too close to the water.” She paused. “Perhaps I knew even then that I would wind up like this…alone and listening for voices in the waves, hearing their words much too clearly. Forgive me. I know you hate it when I talk like this.”
“I just…”
“You’re such a mass of contradictions, my dear. It’s one of your most attractive qualities—a dreamer who tries to be a cynic, a skeptic in a landscape of ghosts. Are you familiar with the legend of the widow on the beach? It’s one of my favorites. I always meant to do a book on it. You see, she waits for her husband’s ship.”
“Charlotte, don’t.”
“They say on stormy nights one can still see her, walking by the rocks near the lighthouse, her white tresses blowing behind her like a bridal veil. Can’t you feel how close the dead are to us here?”
“Are you going to be all right tonight?” Kit watched flame spurt blue from the end of a log. “I hate leaving you like this. You won’t change your mind about letting me sleep here?”
“On quiet nights like this…”
“I want to be sure this door is kept locked. Do you understand? And I really don’t like your sitting by that drafty window all night.”
The old woman seemed to surface from a great depth. “What is all this, Katherine?”
“If you call me, I’ll come over right away.”
“Of course. I’ve kept you far too long as it is. You told me you could only stop a moment.” “Well, it’s just that I’m working.” “Old people become such gluttons for attention.” “I’ll come by later, if you want. Is there anything else you need, before I make my rounds? Are you sure? I hate to think of you all alone here at night.”
The Shore Page 8
