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

by Charles L. Grant

  He thought of the wind when he could think of nothing else. But there, too, he was blocked. The wind and Melissa, the wind and Agatha West, and he finally admitted to himself that the wind that had killed the bird on his car had risen about the same time as the accident on Cross Valley. Fierce and of short duration; he didn't think it worth checking the Herald for mention of earlier bursts. Fierce and of short duration; if he let himself go, if he let his mind tip over the edge of extremes, he would have himself believing the storms were deliberate, were used for covering up the kidnapping of victims. That was too much. The birthdays he could understand, though the significance still escaped him, but there was no question but that the wind had to be an unnerving coincidence.

  "You really should tell Fred, you know," he muttered to the hearth. "If you uncover something, he'll have you paying tickets from now until doomsday for not informing him sooner." Fred was a nice guy, but he tended to hold grudges. "On the other hand, he did tell you, pal, that you weren't part of the fraternity. He really did." And if that was a warning not to work on his own in a field not his profession, he knew (with a slight grin he was glad no one saw) he was just obstinate enough to go ahead anyway. To prove . . . something or other. Or to alleviate the guilt he felt for not keeping his promise to Melissa about the clinic.

  Which led him to Lloyd Stanworth.

  There was an ornate, French telephone on an ebony cocktail table just behind him. Groaning aloud to give himself some noise, he reached around the wing of the chair and snagged it with two fingers, lifted it, dropped it into his lap, and examined the dial as if it held all the answers in its white-framed numerals. Then he called Lloyd's office and Lloyd's home, barely holding the receiver to his ear because he knew there'd be no answer; a call to King's Garage on Chancellor Avenue, being hypocritically magnanimous at an apology for not having the car ready and asking the owner to bring it out to the Thames'; a call to Information that told him there were six private nursing clinics in West Hartford—and calls to all six that told him what Melissa had already offered: no one by the name of Stanworth had entered a patient by the name of Saporral at any time, ever, but thank you for calling.

  "Jesus Christ, Lloyd." Wearily, fearfully, pressing the receiver to his forehead and closing his eyes. "Jesus Christ, what in hell are you doing?"

  He remembered his father telling him, just before he entered the Air Force, to always cover his ass when trying something new. Or even something old. Give yourself more outs than you can use, a dozen or so excuses, and a way to fix the blame so widely that you'll never get caught when it all goes up in smoke.

  He called Fred Borg and told him what he knew.

  "Well . . ." A hand scraped over the receiver at the other end and he could hear mumbling, sense shrugging. "Josh, you there? Listen, I appreciate your telling me this. But we ain't got any other complaints on these people, you see. Sounds weird, but what do you want me to do about it?"

  "You might try looking for them."

  "You say some have been missing for six months or so?"

  "Give or take. There might be more. You could check, you know, in your Missing Person files, see if anyone else has turned up gone in the Station. On their birthday that is."

  "Josh, you got to give us some credit, you know. I . . . we all go through those folders once a week, just to keep our minds fresh on them, if you know what I mean. None of us here ever seen anything like that. And when you consider how many people take a walk during the year . . . hell, during any six-month period, it ain't surprising some of them got to go on their birthdays. You think about that, Josh. And if you come up with anything else, something we can really use, you let us know."

  "Fred, I called because I don't think it's going to end. And don't ask me how I know, because I don't. It's a feeling, that's all. A hunch. You do know what a hunch is, don't you?"

  "Don't be a wiseass, Josh."

  He stuck his tongue out at the voice. "No, sir, I wouldn't think of it. But don't forget what I told you, Fred. Maybe mention it to Abe when you see him."

  "He's on vacation. I'm in charge for the next two weeks."

  "I feel real safe."

  He wasn't hurt, neither was he angered when Borg hung up on him. He had thrown a sop to his conscience by alerting the authorities to whatever it was he had gotten himself into. They had noted it. They had told him what he'd been telling himself since he'd first taken hold—that signs of foul play were distressingly absent, and all they could do was thank him for his interest.

  He wished, then, he had told Fred about Lloyd Stanworth's lies.

  Once upon a time, he told himself while he walked through the house without really looking at what his gaze touched, there was a young man who had an occasional feeling that someone, somewhere, was keeping an eye on him. During this time he was the victim of two break-ins, one at his office and one at his house, though nothing at all was found to be missing in either place and the insurance more than adequately covered what little damage there was. The young man, whom we will call Joshua just for the sake of convenience, was also in the process of acquiring himself a partner (one Felicity Lancaster, she of the violet eyes and violently touchy temper) and a lover, who eventually came to admit that she loved him too, but neither of them did anything more than that in regard to taking out mundane things like marriage certificates. This was because (he explained as he walked into the library and picked up the photograph in the delicate silver frame) she had this father, see, who was an author who had just been negotiating for what was apparently a very large contract, and the idea of all that money apparently knocked him a little off balance since he then began to make funny noises about Joshua not wanting to marry his daughter even though the two men got along just fine, in spite of the fact that the author served godawful cheap scotch, and no bourbon at all. Not to mention (because no one else did, in spite of the opportunities Joshua gave them) a very strange old woman who was in the Murdoch (that's Andrea and Donald Murdoch—she of the incredible sexual technique, and he the writer aforementioned) house on the night that the two lovers managed to break their intentions to the father. There's also all these old women who keep upping and vanishing under circumstances that might be curious if one (like Joshua) tended to look at them that way instead of taking them for what they most likely were, and that was . . . perfectly innocent disappearances. An obvious contradiction, if not in terms then in intent.

  Let us also not forget the wind. And the scream. And the telephone call from Melissa. And the missing body of the young tourist who left his arm behind. And the doctor who lied. And the lover who may have lied. And the father/author who damned well did lie. And the partner with the beautiful violet eyes and the Burmese cat who thinks her partner is crazy but sticks with him anyway because she's either stupid or in love with him or doesn't know any better . . .

  "And whose birthday is on the first of July."

  He dropped into the Queen Anne and picked the telephone off the floor. Dialed Felicity's number, and swore without apology at the blind faces of the portraits. Then he called the office, and rolled his eyes upward when Felicity answered on the fifth insistent ring.

  "How did you know I was here?" she asked. She sounded tired. The heat weighted her words like a damp cloth over her lips.

  "Lucky guess. Fel, I have to talk to you."

  "So talk. By the way, I have something to tell you, too."

  "I'd rather do it to your face, Fel."

  "So come over then." She was puzzled, clearly, but would not ask.

  "I can't. I'm at Mrs. Thames' place and I'm waiting for my car. It'll take too long to explain. Just do me a favor and stay there. Don't go away, all right? Wait until I get there."

  "Miller . . . what's going on?"

  "If I knew that, my dear, I'd be talking to the police. Or jumping out a window."

  "Miller—"

  "Don't," he said sharply. "I definitely do not need you asking me if I'm all right. Not again. Because I am not all right
and I don't know why and if I found out I may not want to know. Just stay there and do whatever it is you're doing and I'll be there as soon as I can."

  He broke the connection without giving her a chance to reply, replaced the phone on the cocktail table, and walked to the front door. The urgency was back. He did not understand what had rekindled it, but he sensed more than logically accepted that all the incidents and emotions and infuriating sidetracking he had dredged up in his fairy tale were connected. Tenuously, powerfully . . . he didn't know. But he was beginning to feel as if he had come into the middle of a film without knowing anything about it—not the title, nor the stars, nor the scriptwriter's intent. Time had been what was needed, and a galvanizing disappearance. His worry, once scattered among a dozen or more matters, had concentrated, and in concentrating had begun to brush aside the inconsequential, leaving the clear impression of a plot, a story line, a common denominator that was, finally, beginning to bring together all the diverse elements he had been watching into something cohesive.

  The problem was, he also had the feeling the film was almost over, barely enough time to sort out heroes and villains before the climax thundered from the speakers and made the audience gasp.

  Better yet, he thought as he walked down the drive to meet his car on the pike, it was like waiting for condensation on a bathroom mirror to clear after a hot shower. Impressions first, then clarity; but again . . . if there was someone standing behind him with a knife, the recognition of the murderer might come too late to save the flesh of his back, the back of his heart, the blood of his living.

  Morbid. Too damned morbid. Calm yourself, boy, before you see ghosts in the trees and monsters in the gutters.

  The Buick almost ran him down at the gateposts. He thanked the attendant, drove him back to the garage, and gave him ten dollars more than the bill. Less than five minutes later he was seated at his office desk and waiting for Felicity to pour him lemonade she had made to keep the heat from wilting her. It was laced with Southern Comfort, was virtually too sweet to abide without puckering and spitting.

  When she was done, artfully adjusting a blouse tied at her midriff and exposing a tanned stomach, she flopped into her chair and cupped her hands behind her head. Grinning when she saw him staring at her breasts, shaking her head slowly as if he were an incorrigible adolescent. "So?"

  "You first," he said. He knew, then, he was stalling, but he needed to hear her, to listen to sanity before he tried to tell her what he had told himself before.

  "All right." She glanced at a note-covered pad by her phone. "I called around instead of walking, if you don't mind. This heat would kill a camel. Anyway, I found out that neither the Episcopal church on the pike nor St. Mary's knows anything about a graveyard out in the valley. Since they're the oldest churches going around here, I figured those people would know. They don't. I also figured you wouldn't get around to talking to Professor Williams, so I tracked him down in New Haven—some conference or other at Yale, the snob—and he says no such place exists. If it did, he would know it. And I believe him. That means you're crazy."

  He grunted and nodded for her to continue.

  "A few contacts at Town Hall brings us exactly zilch. Nada. Empty-handed. Matthew Grueger, who lives over on Kind Street, is one hundred and one years old and a dirty old man." She grinned softly at a memory. "My father used to take me over there to listen to the old guy talk. What Professor Williams doesn't know, Grueger does. And Grueger says the same as Williams." She spread her hands and shrugged. "Miller, it's a bust."

  "Impossible," he insisted. "The headstones I saw were at least a century old."

  "How close did you look at them?"

  He held back a wince, remembering the afternoon. "Not very," he admitted. "But I've seen enough of them to know at least that much, Fel."

  "Oh, hey, I'm not doubting you saw what you saw. But . . ." She squinted at something on the wall behind his head. "Did it ever occur to you that those things aren't native to the place you found? Maybe they came from somewhere else."

  He opened his mouth to protest, changed his mind, and lapsed into a silence Felicity knew better than to disturb. Five minutes later, quietly and giving her clear evidence of his doubts, he began to tell her what had happened to him that morning. She stirred but said nothing; she sat up when he mentioned the collection of birthdays; she grabbed a pencil and began scribbling when he mentioned the dead tourist; but she was unable to help him when he asked for the thread that would bind them together.

  "Something . . ." she said, her gaze darting about the office.

  "Yeah, I know. A title on the tip of my tongue, so to speak."

  "A clear head," she told him, then. She rose and headed for the door. "I'll go over to the luncheonette and get us something to eat. We'll talk about baseball or something and just let it come."

  But nothing did but mutual headaches that had them both laughing because there was little else they could do. And when they parted he kissed her quickly in thanks for her work, and she kissed him back before he could pull away.

  Damn, he thought as she hurried away, this is getting too complicated by half.

  But Andrea would set it all right. He would drive out to the farm and talk with her, sit on the porch and let the warm night close its black around them and they would talk. She might be able to see what he and Fel could not, or convince him that he was making too much of events that were not connected at all. She might. He half hoped she would, since he was certain he wouldn't be able to sleep until he knew.

  He drove slowly, all the windows down, the temperature under the interlocked foliage over the pike considerably below that of his office and that on the streets in the center of town. A number of automobiles passed him in the opposite direction, and a few of the drivers waved or honked their greetings. Saturday night in Oxrun Station: a trip to Harley to the movies and a late supper, to the inn or the Cock's Crow to listen to the music or plan assignations, to the park and the protection the shrubbery offered. Quiet walks. Sitting on porches. A play at the college, or a film festival, or a lecture. Not exactly the most exciting place in the world, he thought without rancor, nor a place so firmly locked in the past that it had forgotten when and where it was; but even the young, unlike the young elsewhere, understood the value or nights such as this, though that value might be apparent only in memory.

  He squirmed against the seat cover, brushed a languid hand over the dashboard. He could not imagine what attractions there were in far-off Colorado that would lure his parents away from dreamstates like this.

  The estates drifted behind him. The stretch of woodland was now broken only by a few scattered houses set well back from the road, their lights on even though the sun had not set, made bright by the twilight already growing beneath the trees. He wondered what it was like to live out here, essentially alone though the village was within reach of a brisk walk or a quick drive. It was something to consider, though not to plan on, and as he slowed to take the thump of the tracks he decided that no matter how ill Don was or what mood Andrea was in, tonight he would propose. What the hell, why not. Tonight he would take haven from the winds that dogged him.

  The Buick stalled.

  At first he didn't realize it, so entrenched in his fantasies that he thought himself still moving. Then the stench of gasoline told him he had flooded the carburetor. Marvelous, he thought, and turned off the ignition, switched it on again and listened to the battery working its magic. Working, and not producing. He scowled, sniffed, thumped a palm against the steering wheel, and realized he hadn't even cleared the tracks. Looking to his right he could see through the open window the tunnel of foliage that stretched south toward the station.

  And a light.

  Small, glaring, and unquestionably moving toward him.

  His first reaction was to smile, his second to try the engine again. When it still refused to kick over, he shifted the gears into neutral and pushed at the door. When it didn't open at his try he pushe
d again, harder. Glanced over his shoulder at the light still approaching. He put his hands together, palms flat, fingers stretched, and held them on edge against his lips and closed his eyes. A slow inhalation, and he jammed the ignition over, the battery grinding swiftly, slower, sputtering and dying. He pumped the accelerator and smelled the gasoline, reached over to the passenger door and found it was locked. Nervously, then, he decided to climb through the window and push the Buick clear. There was plenty of time; the light was still tiny, wavering slightly and beginning to flare at the edges.

  He reached for the outside, and his hand stopped, stinging, as if slapped against glass.

  "No."

  Reached over the back seat; the windows were the same.

  "No."

  The ignition again, but the battery was dead. He kicked at the doors, and only numbed his legs. Fumbled in the glove compartment and grabbed out the heavy flashlight. He had no idea what was blocking the open windows, but he tried to shatter the obstruction with blows that grew increasingly desperate, increasingly frantic as he watched the light expanding whitely, touching at the leaves on either side and above. The tracks rumbled beneath the car, the heavy wheels of the train cracking over the gaps in the rails.

  Closer, and he began to whimper. He knew he wasn't asleep, felt as if he were back in the bathtub and the water was boiling him while it turned black and swamped him.

  "No. For god's sake . . ."

  He could do nothing but stare. His arms were too tired to wield the flashlight anymore, and his legs jerked in spasms without touching the doors. He looked, and saw himself gripping the steering wheel, waiting for a miracle to restart the engine and hurtle the Buick away from collision. He licked at his lips and felt his bowels loosening, wrinkled his nostrils at the stench of his own soiling. His left hand touched at the unyielding air at the door, brushed over his face as the compartment grew brighter. Shadows of trees sweeping over his lap. The hood ornament gleaming at one side like the moon. The road ahead black, the road behind the same.