The Grave - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels)

by Charles L. Grant

  Midway through his stay, after wheedling his way into a suite at the Plaza and grinning at Felicity's screams over the expense, he decided to try to bring Andrea down with him. He had had plenty of time to relax, he thought, and plenty of time to rid himself of his confusions. And he concluded that it might not be a bad idea to see her outside Oxrun, in a place considered neutral while they worked at . . . while they worked at their new loving.

  When she didn't answer his first call, however, he headed across the street to Central Park, wandered the paths until it grew dark. And by the time he returned he was almost running.

  Again no answer.

  He took a long shower and wrapped himself in his robe, hoping perhaps it would bring him good luck.

  By the fourth time he'd dialed he was feeling his anger growing, in spite of his warning that they were neither married nor engaged, and besides she wasn't expecting this call tonight and she wasn't a nun so what the hell was his problem?

  The fifth attempt was successful, and it almost killed him when she refused the invitation, pleading a mound of work for an unrelenting father.

  "Well, hell," he said. Thought, then snapped his fingers. "Hey, I have a brilliant idea."

  She said nothing.

  "Look, as long as I'm here, and since I really don't feel like going through any of those manuscripts again, what's the chance of my meeting Don for a drink someplace? If he's still in town, that is. It'll be good to see him, maybe shoot the—"

  "No," she told him abruptly. Told him again softly. "Josh, I don't think that's a good idea at all."

  He frowned at his knees. "Why not? Your father likes me, doesn't he? And he still wants to know some gossip, right? This would be as good a time as any to start, I would think. No one in town would know we were seeing each other. All very clandestine and hush-hush." He waited, but from the silence he gathered she wasn't amused. "Andy?"

  "I'm here, Josh."

  "Well?"

  "No," she said again, firmly. "He's there, yes. I talked with him this afternoon. But he's busy, really busy."

  "You know that for a fact. He told you that."

  "Of course he did." Her voice tightened. "Josh, you don't know him very well, not as well as I do. You'll have to take my word that not even I can get through to him when he's working on something. I don't know what he's up to yet, but he made sure he didn't tell me where he was staying. He's like that."

  "Ah," he said. "Perhaps it's a woman."

  "Maybe. That's his business."

  He shook a cigarette from its pack and lighted it, blew the smoke to the ceiling. "Andy, I agree that's his business, but have you ever thought about something happening? What if you need him?"

  "Nothing will, and I don't, and it's never happened before so why worry about it."

  He wanted to argue further, swallowed the temptation and said his goodbyes. If Don Murdoch had turned into a temporary recluse, or had decided to play the part of the temperamental artist, he wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. On the other hand, he was sure that Andrea had let herself in for a goodly amount of household friction once Don knew he had tried to get in touch with him and had been foiled.

  He felt himself grinning at the idea, broader when he realized he also felt no guilt at all over it. Andrea in trouble, while not the most pleasant of images, was something he decided was perhaps her due. As much as he was drawn to her, was mesmerized by her boldness, it was that very same boldness he believed required a certain amount of judicious tempering, a degree of self-restraint that only situations like this could give her, and teach her. At the same time he wished he had a little of that bullishness himself; if nothing else, it would mean a different kind of trouble than he was used to getting into.

  He laughed aloud and tugged at his hair, pulling at an earlobe. One of these days, he told himself as he rose from the bed, you're going to understand yourself perfectly, and brother, are you going to be one hell of a bore.

  Another spate of laughter, a resurgence of energy, and the following week passed too quickly to be remembered. A trail was unearthed. A foray into the stacks of the library on Fifth Avenue, another into the morgues of the Daily News and the Times, and he was led at last to a small theatrical museum in lower Manhattan where he discovered exactly what he was looking for in an abandoned display at the back of a basement room seldom visited, never cleaned.

  When he shouted his triumph he was nearly thrown out.

  "Marvelous," he told Andrea that night, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring out at the new green clouding over Central Park. "Just marvelous. They wouldn't sell me what they had, of course, but a little lady with the most godawful purple hair gave me the name of a guy who reputedly parts with nostalgia at the drop of an open wallet. I called him just a few minutes ago and I'll be seeing him in the morning. With any kind of luck I should be home before dark. Sometime tomorrow, anyway, for sure."

  "You're not quite as dumb as you look, Miller," she said.

  He scowled. "You've been talking to Felicity."

  "Sure, why not? I got through with what I was doing for Dad and decided to drop in on her this morning, to let her know what I was going to do with you. The plow, remember? She's a nice girl, Josh. I think she loves you."

  "She thinks she loves me." He paused, grimacing at the irritation that had stirred acid in his stomach. He would have much rather told Felicity about Andrea himself; this way, now, there was a chance the girl would get her back up and make his life miserable until he either fired her or she quit. It wasn't fair, he thought sourly, and with a dollop of self-mockery, that people insisted on doing things on their own, without his permission, without his knowledge. He had no opportunity to say anything, however; a sharp burst of static made him wince and pull away.

  "Josh?"

  "Here," he said, rubbing at his ear. "Sounds like you have a hell of a storm going out there."

  "You should see it. It looks like something right out of Hitchcock." Another sizzling interruption, and what he sensed was an apprehensive pause. "Josh . . . you're not going to like what I did this afternoon, either."

  He nodded resignation. "You went to see Mrs. Thames, too." The next hesitation told him all he needed to know. Curiously, however, there was no reaction. It was, he thought, only something that made perfect sense—seeing the old lady about the plow was something that would have had to have been done sooner or later; it was Felicity he still worried over . . . and astonished himself at the affection he discovered: big brother, little sister, hurt that kid and I'll push your face in.

  ". . . most incredible house I've ever seen. And that woman! God, Josh, she's beautiful! A character, a regular character, like in those old movies. We had a good afternoon, and I explained to her what you were doing in New York and why you needed the break, and she understood perfectly. I mean, perfectly! She wanted to take off right away and go into the woods with me. I almost had to sit on her to make her wait for you to come back." She laughed, high and clear and overriding the static. "No wonder you like her so much, Josh. She showed me all the things you'd gotten for her, even told me what she had to pay to get them. You're a thief, you know that? I didn't realize, I mean really realize what a thing you have going. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."

  "So are you," he said when she finally took a breath.

  "What? Huh? Did you say something, Josh?"

  He wound the cord around his hand, snaked it off, and cleared his throat. "Nothing," he said. "Listen, Andy, I'm going down to get something to eat, then hit the sack. I'll call you when I get in, all right?"

  "If you don't, you're a dead man."

  He rang off and decided that everything would be all right. Andrea could take care of herself; Felicity would have to get used to her being around; and since Mrs. Thames hadn't tossed her out on her ear it was certain he was not going to have to spread calming oil over the maid's precious damned cottage. So thinking (and wondering, and not caring, if he were making all that much sense), he treated h
imself to a long, intoxicating meal at Trader Vic's, had a nightcap in his room and a full nine hours of dreamless sleep that had him striding cheerfully and purposefully to his promised morning appointment.

  There was a clean, freshly washed blue in the sky and a young look to the brownstone facades of the timeworn city. It took him less than fifteen minutes to come to an agreement with the old man (who got the better of the deal, though he did not seemed pleased), tuck the sheet music safely into his attaché case, and grab a cab back to the hotel for his bags.

  He whistled as he packed; the look on Dale's face would be well worth the effort; the look on Felicity's face when he brought home the manuscripts would take care of the bank balance; and the look on Andrea's face when he stepped into the house would be all the commission he needed for a job that started out as two days and lasted nearly a month.

  By one-thirty he was pushing cheerfully through the caverns of Grand Central Station, even buying a carnation from a white-robed young girl who wished him peace and healing karma.

  By two-fifteen he was aboard the train which would, with one changeover at Greenwich, take him home. And he could not help preening at the look the ticket agent had given him when he'd told the man, "Oxrun Station, one way." Amid all the cutbacks throughout the rail system's Eastern corridor, only the Station had been completely unaffected. Not that there were dozens of scheduled stops at the village's depot, but there was the definite lure (and allure) of wealth to be considered. There were people in Oxrun who could not be ignored, and he did not mind at all that the agent had mistaken him for one.

  His fine mood lasted until the train passed a quarry landmark that told him he was only twenty minutes from home.

  At that moment, seemingly instantly, a ponderous flotilla of grey-black thunderheads obliterated the sun and turned the air to a premature twilight. The wind found tendrils that penetrated the green-shaded windows, and the leaves turned rapidly to their pale undersides. The air in the coach staled. May's warmth became humid, became cool, became damply cold. Rain suddenly burst against the panes in exploding starfish patterns, stretched into quivering spiders that crawled fitfully across the glass and blurred the walls of trees that hemmed in the tracks. The train lurched sharply, seemed to stall, then swayed so violently he had to grab for the seat ahead of him to keep from spilling into the aisle.

  When he recovered, he brushed a hand through his hair and over his sport jacket, looked around in mild embarrassment, and realized for the first time he was alone in the car. He frowned as he tried to remember when the last passenger had left. Told himself it didn't matter, there were hardly great crowds riding out to the Station; nevertheless, the frown deepened. In the shifting darklight, against the flails of crackling lightning, the seats that stretched behind him shimmered, rose, rocked from side to side. A loose shade snapped against a pane. Condensation fogged the doors that led to the other cars.

  He looked outside quickly, to reaffirm the world, and the train stopped completely. Slowly. Like a weary old man who'd forgotten he can't run.

  Chapter 10

  Josh cursed and leaned back against the cracked leather seat. He suspected a tree or large branch had fallen across the tracks up ahead, and had no sympathy at all for the man who had to clear it. Now that he was so close to home, so close to Andrea, he was impatient. He did not like sitting alone in the middle of nowhere, forced into inaction by something as mundane as an early summer storm. He had important things to do. He had decisions to make. The glimmer of what star-drunk poets called a new life was taking shape on the horizon, and once he had recognized it he could not wait to approach it. It may well be a mirage, as such things had been in the past, but he knew he would be as much a fool for ignoring it as he would be for taking it entirely on faith.

  He shifted uneasily.

  The conductor usually came through on occasions like this, soothing tempers and promising miracles and stumping through the connecting doors, but there was no sign of him now. Josh rubbed his palms together, rubbed them over his thighs, slapped the seat beside him once, and was about to stand up when the car jerked forward. Waited. Lurched again and began a slow crawl no faster than a man's brisk stride. The rain had eased, and he peered through the streaked window, looking for something to indicate the reason for stopping.

  There was nothing.

  Several branches had been blown down, but none large enough to interfere with the train; a pile of rotted ties seemed undisturbed; two small boys in yellow slickers and floppy hats waved at him as he passed, bright red bobbers from their tangled fishing lines swaying violently in the wind.

  Josh shrugged and sat back with a traveler's weary sigh. Whatever it had been was no longer a problem, and before he had a chance to relax, the train eased into the station amid a glaring fanfare of blue-white flashes that made him shade his eyes as he rose and grabbed for his luggage.

  The thunder came later, like breakers against a cliff.

  The depot was small, but unlike the others along the line it was kept in excellent repair, neglect a sin for one's first view of the Station.

  On the west, southbound side of the tracks squatted the station building, of dark red brick with tall arched windows and a five-sided peaked roof of new black slate, topped by a chimney broad and low. Behind it was a parking lot; in front a wooden platform nearly seventy yards long, protected by an extension of the roof that canted gently upward to cover half the train's width and protect the passengers from whatever inclemency there was. On Josh's side, northbound, was a simpler building, little more than a long, three-sided shed whose roof, like the one opposite, reached over the rails. There were high-backed benches, a newspaper rack, and in each of the rear corners, a concrete oval like the bowl of a pipe reaching up to the rafters— through a swinging brown door broken only by windows shaped like St. Andrew's cross was the entrance to a passenger subway that ducked under the tracks and surfaced in the main building.

  With his suitcase in one hand and attaché case in the other, Josh stumbled up the aisle, yanked open the door, and hurried down the steps to the platform. Just as he cleared them the train moved on, and a quick glance around him showed him he was alone.

  Rain cascaded through the gap between the two roofs; the wind had found a shrill, unpleasant voice. He shuddered and made for the left-hand subway entrance, hipped open the door, and started down the steps. His heels were loud on the grooved iron edges, their echoes sliding off the tiled walls. Bulbs in small iron cages made the flooring seem damp and hid the ceiling behind the protection of their glare. The swinging door behind him trembled. He stopped for a moment to shift his fingers on the grip of his suitcase, took a deep breath, and had gone a single stride toward the staircase ahead when he heard the scream.

  He stopped and cocked his head. The wind, he thought.

  The scream came again, long and shrieking, as if whoever it was was also trying to breathe.

  It did not take him long to make up his mind; he ran. Slipping once on a slick pile of leaves, colliding with the slightly curved wall, stunning his elbow. He dropped the suitcase as he yelped, fumbled for it frantically, and shoved it under his right arm. The first step was taken at a leap, his free hand taking hold of the cold metal railing and hauling him upward, two steps at a time. The door at the landing was partially ajar and he took it with his shoulder, exploding into the waiting room, whirling to a halt.

  He was standing in the building's left front corner, the large room before him, silent and empty.

  He dropped his luggage and put his hands on his hips, his mouth open for air, his ears straining, his gaze trying to penetrate the storm's twilight shadows. All the windows, their shades halfway down, were sheeted with rain and softly fogged over. There was no one sitting on any of the pewlike benches that faced the tracks, nor was the stationmaster in his small, glass-and-wood office immediately to Josh's left. A half-dozen lights encased in large ivory globes hung from the surface, weakly glowing, flickering whenever lightning flar
ed nearby.

  Indecisive and frowning, he took a step forward, then hurried to the back and shoved open each of the restroom doors. Calling out. Receiving no answer. He returned to the front and wiped condensation from the double doors that led to the platform, but there was no one outside, no one across the way-He grunted and walked to the southside subway entrance. Pushed open the door and hesitated before taking the first step down. When he reached the bottom he shaded his eyes unnecessarily and peered along the tunnel. Thunder muttered, and the nearest light winked out.

  With one hand absently rubbing his still-numb elbow, he returned upstairs and shrugged at the empty room.

  How many times, he asked himself, have you been in a storm and heard ghosts groaning and people screaming and unmentionable things bellowing in the dark? His mouth twisted into what might have been a smile. Too many times, he answered with a grunt. It's what comes with living in a town that's too quiet.

  Though his unease remained as a faint tingling at the back of his neck, he felt more than a little foolish as he retrieved his luggage and carried it to the phone booth by the side door.

  There was no response at the Murdoch farm, Felicity wasn't home, and there was no one at the office. Great, he thought. Just . . . great. He pinched wearily at the bridge of his nose and decided to call a cab. And with the storm working as it was, he knew it would take at least an hour before he would be able to pry one loose to fetch him.

  Into his hip pocket for his wallet, then, and a worn, creased card with the taxi company's number. He had to hold it close to his eyes to decipher it, dropped it before he was finished, and swore loudly while he doubled over in the confines of the booth to pick it up.

  The first time he dialed it was the wrong number.

  Lightning mocked him, and thunder rumbled so loudly he could feel the vibrations beneath his feet.

  At his second try he was disconnected before he could give his location.