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

by Charles L. Grant

"Gone," he said as he turned into the living room. "Goddamnit, I knew I should have come out here today. You didn't see her, the way she was last week. She was really frightened of today, Lloyd, really scared out of her wits. Jesus, I should have . . . Lloyd?"

  He turned in a tight circle. Stanworth was gone.

  "Lloyd? Damnit, Lloyd!"

  Into the dining room, where he moved to the front windows and pulled aside the curtains.

  The driveway was deserted; the Jaguar and Stanworth had left him alone.

  He wasted no time chasing shadows to the pike. Instead, he picked up the telephone and dialed the police. Within seconds he had snapped to Fred Borg and received a puzzled promise he would have company in a few minutes. Then he walked through the house again, slowly this time, not stopping until he found himself in the library, in front of a rolltop desk, obviously Melissa's. He had just started to leaf through a packet of correspondence placed neatly in the center of a leather-rimmed folder when he heard the patrol car pull up outside. He was at the door before Borg had climbed the porch steps, trailed after him talking, explaining the call he had received and his haste to get out here before anything happened. When he'd arrived, however, the old woman was gone, and no, there was no sign of a break-in.

  "The front door was unlocked, that's all."

  Borg nodded, took Josh's tour of the house and the building in the yard, then returned inside where he sat in the living room, somewhat discomforted. "You say the door was unlocked?"

  "Opened, actually," Josh said, pacing on the hearth. "Just a little. But now that I think about it, she didn't lock it anyway."

  Borg glanced around at the quietly elegant, understatedly expensive furnishings and grunted disbelief.

  "No, really," Josh told him. "The only things she really valued around here were the portraits." He followed the policeman's gaze. "I don't know who did them, but you can see it'd take a damned truck to get them out. Those frames alone must weigh a hundred pounds apiece. The rest . . ." He shrugged. "She always said she had enough money to refurnish the house a hundred times over. And as far as I know, all her jewelry, what there is of it, is still there."

  "No kidding."

  Josh felt uncomfortable. "I looked around. I couldn't sit still."

  Borg snapped his notebook shut and stuffed it into his breast pocket. Crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his arms over his chest. "To tell you the truth, Josh, I don't know what we got here. No sign of forced entry, no . . . no body, no blood, nothing like that. All we got is a call to your house, a bunch of static, and you come charging out here like you were the cavalry or something." He jerked his head to keep Josh silent. "It ever occur to you she didn't even call from here?"

  "No," he said flatly. "It was her birthday. She has no family left. Where would she go? Especially in the morning?"

  "Beats me. Just asking, is all." Borg hesitated. "What about your friend?"

  "Lloyd?" Josh shook his head; not a denial of the man's guilt, but a confession of bewilderment.

  "Maybe he went out looking."

  "Yeah. Maybe."

  Borg hauled himself out of the chair and walked to the door. "I'll look around, Josh, send out the word. She drive?"

  "A Lincoln. Grey. About ten years old."

  "Christ, a goddamned battleship. That won't be hard to find. Unless you already looked in the garage."

  "No, I didn't think of it."

  Borg smiled without malice. "I'll take a gander myself, then."

  They walked around the side of the house to the converted stables that housed Mrs. Thames' car. The upward swinging door was closed; one look through the window in its center and Josh felt the first stirrings of doubt.

  "She could be halfway to Hartford by now," Borg said, heading back to the patrol car. "Well, I'll put out the word anyway. You know, you shouldn't stay here, Josh. I mean, I can't order you away since we don't know if we got a crime, but . . . don't stay too long."

  "Fred . . ."

  Borg turned as he slid in behind the wheel. "Josh, I can't tell you anything right now because I don't know anything. You seen for yourself all we got is an open door that don't prove anything. And look, Mrs. Thames wasn't one of your average little old ladies, either. If she was in trouble, she wouldn't have gone out without a fight. Tough old bird, that one is. I think maybe this is all pretty innocent, but I'll scout around anyway. What the hell. The car's got air conditioning. The ones at the station all broke down." He shook his head and started the engine, waiting to see if Josh had something to add. When there was no reply, no comment, he nodded and drove away, and Josh walked slowly back into the house, closing the door softly behind him.

  . . . Josh . . . no . . .

  It could have been a misunderstanding. The connection they'd had was certainly poor enough, certainly broken up enough. In the state he was in with the wasp and the dream it was a wonder he didn't imagine the old woman shrieking about murder and rape. Nevertheless, he could not shrug off the feeling that he was right this time, that something had happened here not only to Melissa, but also to start a series of switches working in his mind, switches that would soon begin to form connections.

  Without thinking about it, he found himself back in the library and sitting at the desk. The letters he handled carefully, shoving each off the pile with the tip of a finger against its edge. Bills, circulars, correspondence from as far away as Liverpool; all of them were as yet unopened, none of them carried any names he recognized. He felt no guilt at all, then, when he pulled open a drawer and poked through it, did the same to another, finally gave in to the temptation and made his way methodically through them all, and through the warren of cubbyholes that pocked the desk's back.

  An hour later he pushed the chair back and swiveled to face the rest of the room. Scowling without knowing it. Gnawing on his lower lip, the inside of his cheek, one foot tapping on the thick carpet to a rhythm he did not feel.

  Here, he thought; if it isn't in here, it isn't anywhere.

  He allowed his gaze to drift aimlessly, focusing, blurring, taking in but not seeing the books in their shelves, the hunting lithographs, the freestanding globe slightly yellowed with age, framed photographs on the various end tables flanking armchairs and a loveseat. He rose and walked around, touching and brushing, wishing he had his pipe to chew on when his left hand tapped his hip pocket and came up empty.

  Where are you, he asked a picture of her in summer whites, a tennis court behind her, a sprawling mansion behind that.

  Come on, Melissa, he goaded a picture of Melissa and her late husband, seated at a round, white table under a striped umbrella with a pool behind them and an ocean behind that.

  Melissa, damnit—to a group picture in front of the Tudor, ten women, all smiling broadly, not a shadow of self-consciousness among them as they stretched their arms around each other's shoulders and looked directly at the camera.

  He moved on and decided to check the maid's cottage again. Maybe there was something out there he had missed the first time. After all, he had been in a hell of a panic earlier, and she might have dropped something behind a chair or a table he had overlooked, something innocuous and . . .

  He stopped at the threshold and turned slowly, as if not daring to believe the corner his mind had just turned. A full minute he stood there, waiting for something to tell him he was wrong. Then he returned to the picture of Melissa's gossip society. Names had been scratched on the negative, were sprawled white beneath the shoes of each woman. He picked it up, holding it gingerly by the silver frame, looking for and hoping he wouldn't find Thelma Saporral's name.

  But it was there. In the center. Right beside Melissa.

  I recalled it was her birthday—seventy if she was a day . . .

  On the other side was Agatha West; certainly gave herself a hell of a birthday, I'll say that for the old bat.

  Esther Braum on the far left end; Mabel Cushing on the far right.

  Melissa was in the center, a full head above the o
thers. She was wearing a loose, ruffled blouse and loose-fitting tartan slacks that made it seem as if her hips were much larger than they were. She was grinning. She was happy.

  It's my birthday next week. And I'm being watched. I know it.

  When he felt himself swaying he realized he'd been standing in place too long. He closed his eyes tightly, opened them, and walked over to the desk, the picture still in his hand. The frame trembled in his grip, and a ball of remorse settled in his stomach like a pellet of hot lead—he had promised her to check, and he had forgotten. If he had done as he'd said, if he had kept his word he might have noticed the connection before; as it was, too much had been happening, too many divergent circumstances had roiled his thoughts until it was all he could do to keep Andrea in mind-He looked at the picture.

  He dialed Stanworth's home number, thinking that if Lloyd had not returned there, at least Randy would be home. But there was no answer. When he called the Murdoch farm, however, the phone was picked up on the second ring.

  "Andrea, it's Josh."

  "Josh?"

  He laid the picture flat on the blotter. "Josh Miller, or have you forgotten already. I tried to call earlier but the line was busy."

  "Oh, Josh, I'm sorry!" Worry, and relief; he watched one finger snake around the coil. "Josh, I hope you don't want to come out now, because I don't think you can."

  "I wasn't going to," he said stiffly. "In fact, I was going to find out if you wouldn't mind seeing me later. I've got things . . . it's Melissa Thames." He explained briefly what had happened, though he made no mention of the convergent birthdays; that, he had decided, he would have to think about further, to be sure he wasn't creating conspiracy of coincidence. "I'm going to stick around for a while, to see if she comes back. If not . . ." and he left the rest dangling.

  "God, Josh, this is one of those days, isn't it. You've got Mrs. Thames and I've got Dad."

  "What's up? Is he all right?" He recalled her concern and felt a prickling along his spine. "He hasn't . . . done anything, has he?"

  Her laugh was forced. "Of course not. It's . . . well, I think we hit him pretty hard last night, love. I couldn't stop him drinking, and now he's ill."

  "Hung over, you mean."

  "No, I mean sick. Really sick. I'm almost ready to call a doctor."

  "You'll want company, then."

  "No," she said, though her gratitude for the offer was wrenchingly clear. "No, Josh, you have your own worries right now. Maybe . . . maybe you could drop by later on. You know, to hold my hand and pray for Dad?"

  "Sure thing," he said. "I'll try to let you know how it goes here. If not, expect me when you see me."

  "Mrs. Thames," she said quickly, before he rang off, "is she . . . I mean, you don't think she's . . ."

  "Dead?" His gaze touched the picture. "I don't know, Andy. I don't know what the hell is going on. But something is. Something Lloyd is involved with somehow."

  "Lloyd?" She said it quietly, so quietly he almost missed it. "What does Lloyd have to do with Mrs. Thames?"

  "That's one thing I have to find out, love. He's gone, too, and if I don't get in touch with him soon I'm . . . shit, I don't know what I'll do yet. I'm just talking. Look, you see to your father, try the hair of the dog or something, and I'll talk to you later. And Andy . . . remember I love you."

  "I do," she told him tenderly. "God, it's the only thing that keeps me from screaming."

  He smiled, disconnected, and tried the hospital. Stanworth had not been in all day and was not expected; nor was there any answer at his home again. He could not think of any place else to call, did not know the name of the private clinic to which Stanworth had sent Mrs. Thames' friend.

  The grins in the photograph slowly grew strained.

  He called the police station and was surprised to discover Fred Borg was already there. "I thought you were going to look around?"

  "Look around," the sergeant said, "not start a manhunt."

  "Yeah."

  "Listen, Josh, I know how you feel, but without evidence there's nothing I can do. I told you that already. It's like your place, your office? I mean, we can't pull nothing out of our hats, right? We work on it, something comes up and we go with it. Hell, you know I can't promise anything more than that."

  "I know, I know. It's just so frustrating."

  He could hear men laughing in the background, the sound of a door slamming. Normal, all perfectly normal.

  And all perfectly in order, except . . . Melissa was gone, on the anniversary of her birth.

  "Fred, listen, remember you told me about that guy, the tourist who was killed out on Cross Valley last April?"

  "Remember? How the hell can I forget, for god's sake."

  "You told me you found out it was his birthday, right?"

  "Jesus." Paper shuffling, a pencil tapping against something hard. Borg inhaling slowly, a muffled whistle. "Yeah, that's right. Christ, you got a memory, Josh."

  "Comes with the territory. Listen, do you have a name for him? Or can you tell me when the body was released to the family?"

  "What? You know I can't tell you anything like that, Josh. You're not one of us, if you know what I mean. Chief Stockton'd skin me alive if he found out."

  "So who's going to tell him, you?"

  He could see the stocky patrolman shaking his head, wanted to reach through the receiver and take hold of his throat. But he knew the man would not change his mind. Favors against a favor for his wife was one thing; circumventing police regulations was another matter entirely.

  "But I can tell you they didn't take the body nowhere, if that's any help."

  Josh took his hand from the photograph, held it poised over the dial. "I don't understand."

  "You can't give back what you don't find. We ain't magicians, Josh. Fancy uniforms, but we ain't magicians."

  "Hold it." He closed his mind, trying to recall a conversation that had happened too long ago. There were bits and fragments, but he wasn't positive what he actually remembered and what he thought he remembered. "You told me, when you told me about the birthday business, that you found the body about a mile away, back in the woods off the pike."

  "Never said any such thing, Josh. The body wasn't found at all."

  He almost blurted out what he knew about the missing corpse—or thought he knew, if he knew anything at all—and about Melissa and her vanishing coterie of gossipers. But he held his tongue and mumbled his thanks, waited for the dial tone before trying Stanworth again. Waited fifteen minutes and tried one last time before he slammed the receiver onto the cradle and pushed violently away from the desk. Walk. He had to walk. He had to keep moving so he would stop thinking about Lloyd. Lloyd and a missing body, Lloyd and some missing old women, Lloyd and Randy . . . into what? What the hell could the man be doing that would involve him in something as outlandish, as impossible, as . . . god almighty, was he crazy?

  Through the doorway and into the corridor. The kitchen. The living room where he stood in front of Mrs. Thames' portrait and stared at it as if her pose and her blind gaze would furnish him a clue. To what? he asked himself then; a clue to what? The vanished and mangled corpse was one thing; but it was quite another to link it with several old women who had decided at various times over the past year to up and leave. All of them, if Melissa had been any judge, of reasonably sound mind, and certainly of adequate means. What was so wrong about wanting to go away? Just because they were old didn't mean they couldn't emulate a past generation and drop out of sight, for whatever reasons that convinced them it was right.

  But it always happened on a birthday.

  And Melissa was positive she was being watched.

  He turned away from the fireplace. At his foot a crumpled leaf already turning brown at its serrations. He knelt and picked it up, turned it around by its stem, and stared at it.

  "The wind," he whispered, and remembered the scream he had heard at the depot. The scream on the day that Agatha West had vanished.

  Cha
pter 20

  Josh wondered why the chair he sat in, the chair that was Mrs. Thames' favorite, was called a Queen Anne; he wondered why anyone would want to build a Tudor mansion so obviously impossible to heat and to cool; he wondered if Felicity were really going to wait until Monday to do the checking he had asked of her or if she would work true to form and waste a Saturday rushing around the Station so she could once again silently mock him with a superiority neither of them felt; he wondered when the Red Sox were going to play ball for one entire season, when the Whalers were going to learn how to skate, when his parents were going to stop trying to lure him to Colorado; he wondered anything at all to keep from wondering about the wind.

  He crossed his legs and stared at the tips of his shoes, at the cuffs of his jeans worn to a pale white, at the fading knees that reminded him he would soon need a new pair. He listened to the house. He felt the afternoon's heat insinuating itself through the curtained windows, driving back the chill of the shadows and driving the shadows up to the rafters, the beams, the nooks and niches of the crawlspace that passed for an attic. He glanced up at the portraits of Granville and Melissa Thames, at the hunting outfits they wore, and could not imagine Melissa shouting "Tallyho!" He shook his head and took a deep breath, sighing as he exhaled until his lungs emptied and he was ready to think again.

  Then he allowed his mind the freedom of wandering, picking its way through whatever popped up and grinned, studying various images that stayed for a while and drifted. He paid no attention to his watch. His sense of urgency had been sated by his call to Fred Borg; whatever had happened to Melissa was done and there was nothing he could do but attempt to figure out what and try to prevent it from happening to someone else. And it would. He had no clear reason for it, but he was positive of that much. The whys and the wherefores would have to come with the looking —the birthdays, he suspected, being only a small part of a whole—and if six people were missing he feared there would be more. How many, however, eluded him; aside from the birthdays he could find no connection between the one-armed tourist and the five old women. Assuming, of course, that there weren't others he wasn't aware of. And he knew there was no real reason why he should make that assumption at all. He wasn't even sure he could assume they were still alive.