The woman's shadow shortened slightly.
"I will impress upon you again the need to keep hold," she said, her voice lifting toward a shout. "I don't know how many times I have to do this, you should know it by now."
"Damnit, woman, I do!" Murdoch bellowed.
"Then damnit, why do you insist on making mistakes? My god, you've almost got it, right there in the palm of your hand you've almost got it." She quieted. ". . . time left, Donald . . . insist on care . . . will happen to Andrea, huh? What will happen to Andrea?"
Josh stepped away from the wall, gaping at the window.
And sneezed.
Chapter 16
Josh felt the sneeze coming and clamped his hands over his nose, spun around in a crouch just as the explosion surfaced. Once done, he wasted no time waiting to see if he had been discovered. As silently as he could he hurried around the corner to the front door, pulled the iron ring away from the sculpted lion's head and released it. Inside, a series of chimes sounded melodiously, and within seconds he heard the rattle of the knob.
"Josh, my god it's good to see you!"
Don took hold of his arm and guided him swiftly over the threshold.
"I am honest to god sorry we didn't connect in New York. If I'd known you were there we could have gotten together for a drink." Into the living room, cramped as always with furniture Spanish, bulky, and completely out of place in the century-old building. "But that's Andrea for you, isn't it. She's worse than a mother sometimes, I swear to Christ. Sometimes I think she wants me to wear diapers because she doesn't think I can even go to the john myself." Into a couch and drink pressed into his hand. "Jesus, man, it's after eight already. What are you doing out here this late? Hey. Hey, don't tell me you're going to pop the question to my little girl." A pose by the fireplace: elbow on the mantelpiece, tall glass in his free hand. He was as rumpled as Josh had seen him through the window, but all trace of his fear, and of his sullen rebellion, were gone. Only the eyes betrayed a nervousness Josh was in no way inclined to pacify. "I was only kidding about the proposal, Josh, you don't have to be so dumbstruck. I know about you bachelors, you know. You like the free life. No strings. Few responsibilities. Get a little when you feel like it, live like a goddamned monk when you don't. Well, for god's sake, drink up, drink up. You'll make me feel like a lush."
Josh listened patiently while, at the same time, he let his gaze rove from the doorway into the kitchen to the dark shadows of the entry hall and the first three steps he could see through the banister. He wasn't sure if he'd been lucky enough to have gone unheard out on the porch, had decided as soon as he entered the house that he would say nothing about the old woman. If Don was going to lie to him—or at least present him with the absence of truth—it would serve his case better . . . though he was still uncertain exactly what his case was. After all, despite the degrees of intimacy he'd had with both father and daughter, he still did not know very much about them. Don was always too busy posturing to let the past escape, and Andrea . . . just never brought it up, and he had never asked.
He sipped the scotch and smiled, hoped that new contract and the implication of greater monies would bring a better brand into the house.
"Well," Don said, shifting a brass andiron with his foot, "you still haven't told me why you're here. You want Andrea?" Without waiting for an answer he called his daughter's name twice. "She said she was going to take a shower. What the hell. So?"
"So," Josh said, "my car had a flat, the spare's flat, and I need to call for a tow."
"I'll be damned."
He shrugged. "Lousy luck, that's all."
Murdoch took a long drink, the ice cubes clicking against his teeth. When he'd swallowed, and choked, he wiped his eyes with the back of a hand. "You were out there, then."
"Yep. Looking for that plow."
"You didn't find it."
"Andy didn't tell you?"
Murdoch shook his head, but not before he glanced toward the staircase.
"Didn't find a thing." Josh waited, but there was no reaction.
"Right, not a thing, and don't get up."
Andrea stood on the bottom step, dressed as he had seen her in the woods. She was pulling a brush through glistening damp hair, wincing at a snag as she stepped to the floor and entered the room. Josh stared at her impassively, saw Murdoch turn away. And immediately he did, Andrea shook her head quickly and mouthed superstitious, breaking into a grin when her father turned back.
"Hell of a quick shower."
"Not much hot water left," she said, dropping onto the couch beside Josh and taking his hand.
"You take so damned many of them you're going to turn into a goddamned prune."
"Dad, please . . ."
"Josh, here," Murdoch said—and paused to empty his glass—"Josh had a flat out on the road. Two flats," he added, and Josh nodded confirmation. "He needs a tow."
Andrea was on her feet immediately. "I'll call," she said, and was into the kitchen before either of them could object.
Josh shrugged and grinned; Murdoch moved away from the hearth and stood in the middle of the room, absently booting aside a low stack of magazines.
"Josh, how good are you at keeping secrets?"
Suddenly wary, he waited a moment before nod-ding. "Good as most, I suppose. No." He smiled. "Better. In my business you have to be, or you lose customers, not to mention friends."
"I imagine." Murdoch walked quickly to the kitchen doorway and listened, nodded to himself, and returned to the hearth. This time he abandoned his posing to lean against the brick that covered most of the wall. "It's about Andrea."
Josh kept his mind a blank.
"Her birthday," Murdoch said. "You know it's next month?"
"She never said anything to me."
"Well, it is. On the dumbest day of the year."
Josh frowned. "Jesus . . . the Fourth of July?"
Murdoch pointed at him. "You got it, Josh. An Independence baby is what she's been called all her life. I guess that's what makes her so bloody independent." He laughed shortly, pushed a hand through his hair, hard over his face. "I don't know what to get her."
"That's a secret?"
"No." He reached behind him and switched on the lights, and the glow from the kitchen fell back over its threshold. His face was pale, made sickly by the contrasting black of his hair and straggly growth of beard. "The secret . . . you want to marry Andrea, don't you."
Josh lowered his glass to the coffee table and clasped his hands over his knees. "It's crossed my mind, Don, I have to admit it. But I've not made it up completely, if that's what you want to know."
"I never thought it," Murdoch said softly.
He felt a rush of warmth at his cheeks. "It was your idea, if you remember. You're the one who came into my office and practically begged me to take her out."
"I know, I know." He lifted his glass and saw it was empty, scowled, and reached to the sideboard for the bottle he left there. He didn't bother to measure; he poured until the scotch reached the rim and sloshed over. "I like you, Josh, you know."
"Thanks, Don. I think."
"No, no, I mean it. That's why I don't want you to marry her."
Josh felt as if someone had stirred a gel into the air, thickened it, made it more difficult to breathe. And to think he had once accused Felicity of living in a soap opera. "Obviously, I don't get it," he said, his voice neutral.
"Why not? Does she have some sort of strange disease?"
He had meant it as a joke; he did not expect Murdoch to stumble, though he hadn't even moved, his hands out to catch the spilling glass before it shattered on the hearth. "Don?"
"She's very much like her mother, you know. The two of them—like peas in a pod."
"You told me her mother was dead."
The man looked at him as if he didn't comprehend; then he nodded, slowly. "I did, didn't I." He turned and walked to the kitchen. "Andy, you dead in there?"
"Fixing some snacks," she cal
led back. "Just don't get him drunk before I get back."
His laugh was strained, but he seemed inordinately relieved. "I did say that, didn't I."
"Well, either she is or she isn't." He waited a moment. "I take it she isn't."
Murdoch looked pointedly at the side window. Josh knew what he was indicating and, after a moment's thought—in for a penny, in for a pound—he nodded.
"Hell."
Josh did not need to ask if that was the secret. Whether it was or not was now beside the point, apparently. He had stumbled onto something he would have learned sooner or later, and he could not decide how outraged, how righteously furious, how hurt he should feel. Curiously, he felt nothing at all. Not now. Not even pity for the life the man had been leading, or sympathy for his plight, or protection toward Andrea for the bizarre situation she was in. He felt nothing. He only waited. He needed more facts before he could get up and walk out.
Andrea returned, smiling brightly and chattering, setting down a tray laden with sliced cheese and crackers. Murdoch smiled at her, Josh tried to grin, and realized abruptly he was living a movie: the isolated New England house, the eccentric family, the parries and thrusts of ordinary conversation that the hero or heroine discovers has several layers of meaning. And most importantly—the relative kept locked away in the attic: batty old aunt, murderer brother, mother, sister . . . straight out of Lovecraft by way of the Misses Bronte. One day . . . one night . . . the prisoner escapes and terrorizes the countryside, the peasants band together and burn the house down. The father dies bravely, and the daughter cleaves to the hero and lives happily ever after. No mention of nightmares. No mention of dying.
He held his glass against his cheek to stop his imagination, saw that Murdoch had been watching him and had guessed what he was thinking. He nodded solemnly, with a tilt of his head sadly toward his daughter.
Anything else, Josh thought then; had the man done anything else but that, he might have believed him.
And since that was the case, who was—
"—said he would be out in thirty minutes, Josh."
"Huh?"
Andrea poked his arm playfully. "Where were you? Still hunting for that plow?" With her face away from her father's gaze she winked at him broadly, and he couldn't help but smile. "I said, the truck will be out in . . ." She checked her watch. "About fifteen minutes, now. When I called he said thirty. That was fifteen minutes ago so—"
He took hold of her hand and squeezed it. Then he looked to Murdoch, who was staring at the charred logs. "Look," he said, "it seems like I've come at a bad time."
They protested, but he overrode them. "Come on, I'm not blind. And I'm not deaf. When I came up to the door I could hear your . . . discussion. Now you're both as jumpy as cats, and I'm not helping by sitting here and staring." He rose, though he did not release her hand. "And if that guy's going to be here soon, I'd better start walking so I'll be there to watch him."
Murdoch said nothing, only lifted his glass as Josh pulled Andrea with him onto the porch.
"Josh, what did you hear, for crying out loud?"
"Nothing," he said. "But it was sure loud enough that I knew you weren't telling each other how much you loved each other."
"I see."
And he wondered if she knew the depth of his lying.
"Josh?"
That tone again. He braced himself.
"I told him I wanted to marry you." She flung open the screen door and hurried down the steps. He followed a moment later and caught up with her by her car. Took her shoulders and turned her around. She was crying. "I . . . I didn't want to leave you out there, but I didn't want him to come looking. It was bad enough . . ." She managed a smile he returned earnestly, quickly. "I mean, if he'd found us . . . that way, he would have had the shotgun out in a minute. And in a graveyard, yet. God, Josh, you don't know what it's like, living with a man who tosses salt over his shoulder, won't cross a shadow, hates black cats and dark moons, and counts all the glasses every time he breaks one just to be sure there aren't thirteen left in the cupboard. Crazy. I love him. If he knew there were those things out there he'd pack up and leave and I'd never see you again and god Joshua why the hell is this so damned crazy?"
She collapsed into his arms, sobbing against his chest until there were no tears left to shed. And when she was done, drying her face against his jacket, she looked up again.
"I . . . he knows we were out there, of course. I had to tell him that much. Then I said ". . . well, it took me a long time to get up the nerve and I don't want you to be mad at me, but I said to him that I wanted to marry you and I thought you would probably feel the same way. You do, don't you? Feel that way, I mean? Jesus, I'm so goddamned stupid . . ."
"That's what you were fighting about?"
She hesitated, touched his cheek, and nodded.
Her head rested against his shoulder, his head against her hair. "When you were in the kitchen," he said softly, as though the night were eavesdropping, "he told me your mother was still alive, was still living in the house. He said he didn't want me to marry you because, I gather, he figures that whatever she has, you have. Something like that."
"God, Josh," she said, "do you believe it?"
"Not for a minute."
Headlights bobbed erratically, far down the road. Slowly, the backs of his fingers wiping her cheeks, he pulled away and kissed her. "I'll call you tomorrow morning, first thing. Please don't disappear on me. We have a lot to talk about." He took a deep breath, then, and waited for her to say something, anything that would let him know she wasn't hiding from him. The air came out in a slow whistle when he understood at last she would not help him.
"Are you mad at me, Josh?" A little girl, now, toying with the points of his collar, peering up at him from beneath her eyebrows. "Are you?"
"No," he answered truthfully. "No, I'm not mad."
"Then why so quiet? Oh. That story, what my father told you."
He tried not to hit her, tried not to weep. "Yes."
"The strain," she said, trailing one hand over the MG's fender. "There are times when I don't think he even knows me. He gets so . . . so damned wrapped up in his work I might as well not even be here."
The old woman, he thought, praying she could hear him. For Christ's sake, Andy, who is the old woman?
"Darling, are you all right?"
He couldn't restrain a short, bitter laugh. "A lot of people have been asking me that lately. And the truth is—I don't know. I honest to god don't know. Right now I am so confused I could scream."
"Maybe it's because you've never been raped before."
"Is that what that was?"
"Close enough for a cigar."
She didn't know, he thought suddenly, blinking at the revelation. Damnit, she didn't know the old woman was there.
He looked back at the house, at its size, decided there was no place within where someone could hide all this time without being discovered. And if that was the case, she was from somewhere else, another place along the spur. Andrea had been taking a shower; it was conceivable she hadn't known. God damn, she hadn't known!
He grabbed her again and kissed her hard, released her before his arm took root. "Remember, I'm going to call tomorrow. Please don't go away on me."
She looked at him sideways, puzzled. "I won't."
"Okay." But he didn't want to leave. He felt no premonition of danger, but he did not want to leave her alone with her father. "Andy . . ."
A finger brushed over his lips, tickling, stirring. "Hush, hero. I can't go with you."
"What is this, you can read my mind?"
"Your eyes," she told him. "Lustful. Filthy. Obscene."
"Yes, but will you go anyway?"
"No, love, and you know it. Dad is in trouble, and he needs me. A good night's sleep, and he'll be all right. Now git before the tow trucks leaves you walking."
He wanted to stay and protest, knew she was right and kissed her again. Tasted her. Took the scent of her fr
eshly washed hair and savored it before giving a blind wave to the house and hurrying down the drive. Heedless of the traps the road set for him, he broke into a loping trot as he watched the garage truck illuminate the crippled Buick, heard the gears grinding into a whine as it turned around and backed to the front fender. By the time he reached it, the driver was already slapping the winch into operation, and there was little he could do but stand by and watch helplessly.
He was given a lift back to the house, the Buick promised for first thing in the morning-He waited on the stoop until the truck was gone, dragging the car behind it. Then he closed his eyes and pictured the old woman on the other side of the Murdochs' window. She was there. He had not imagined her; she was definitely there.
And what the hell did Don have that, if he lost it, would harm Andrea? Andrea. Andy. My god, he loved her.
Chapter 17
"No, I am not crazy, Fel. I know what I saw. I was there, wasn't I? Look, just take my word for it. There were eight or nine of them. I don't remember exactly how many. Soon as you get ready tomorrow . . . hell, I forgot it was Saturday. How about as a favor? Never mind. But first thing Monday morning I want you to open up, then go over to St. Mary's, St. Andrew's, all the others and see if they have any records at all of a church back there. I didn't find anything myself when I looked through the records before, but I could have missed something, no cracks please. Then I want you to get some dimes and get to Town Hall. Copy those maps again for me. While you're doing that, I may get over to Hawksted tomorrow and talk to Grange Williams. He's a nut on Oxrun, claims he knows everything there is to know about it. Maybe he can help."
"Josh, do you have any idea in your crooked brain what time it is now?"
"Fel, I said I was sorry for calling so late."
"And before I waste my time, partner, running all over creation trying to track down a stupid graveyard in the middle of the hills . . . what, if anything—god forbid—does this have to do with Mrs. Thames'plow? Or anything else we have going, for that matter."
The Grave - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels) Page 14
