Pool Party

by Linda Cargill

  She had put that doll away after the last incident.

  Her mother burst into the room, flicked on the light switch, and squinted her bleary, tired-looking eyes in the bright light that now flooded the room. “Sharon, what’s wrong?”

  “That doll! Who put her there?” Sharon pointed toward the chair.

  Now her mother looked angry. “Really, Sharon, what does it matter? I don’t know what’s wrong with you lately, young lady. Now turn off the light and go back to sleep.”

  “Take the doll,” said Sharon.

  Her mother plucked up the doll with a sigh of disgust and slammed the door behind her.

  Sharon lay in the dark. Someone must be terrorizing her on purpose. That doll had not been sitting in the chair when she’d gone to sleep.

  The next morning Sharon’s mother was standing at the registration desk manning the silent phones. She put down her pen and looked at her daughter. “But why do you want to cancel the party? Everybody’s already invited. They’ve said they’re coming. Phil has planned lots of special activities. Frankly, Ocean House needs the publicity. People need to feel that it’s a safe place.” Her tone was almost pleading.

  “It doesn’t seem safe to me,” Sharon replied.

  “Hi, everybody!” Phil gave Sharon a bear hug and kissed her on the forehead. “How’s my party girl today?”

  “All right, I guess,” she said sullenly.

  “Look, Sharon, relax. Cut yourself some slack. Besides, the guys are already here.” Phil’s pals were helping the band set up beside the pool. Phil gave her a pat on the back and was off to help them.

  Memories of the first pool party—the laughter, the splashing water, the smells of suntan lotion—assaulted her with such overwhelming force that her head reeled. Sharon clutched the front desk for support. No! No! No! she thought.

  Sharon dashed for her bedroom and picked up the phone. Before she knew it she had Dan on the other line.

  “Dan, listen. Nobody else will. You’ve got to contact the police and—”

  “I’m not exactly their favorite person lately.”

  “I know, but there isn’t anybody else left. Phil and my mother won’t believe me. They think I’m nuts.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Somebody sneaked into my room last night dressed up like a ghost or something. She looks something like that antique doll that came with the house. They’re trying to scare me, trying to make me believe it’s a sobbing ghost. I’ve heard it cry before, but I thought it was only a dream or I was imagining things. Now I know it’s a setup.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  She took a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder to see if anybody was spying on her. “Last night when I thought I was dreaming, this person screamed and kept on saying somebody was going to kill her. Then I heard a loud splash. That’s what finally woke me up.”

  “I get it. Like somebody threw something in the pool or jumped in.”

  “Yeah, only they really did. I checked. The pool area was wet this morning, and dreams don’t make waves.”

  “You think this show-off’s tauntin’ you and sorta threatening that something bad’s gonna happen at your new pool party?”

  “I tried to call it off. But this convention of psychics is convinced it’s a real ghost and is dying to see what’s gonna happen. They’re all gawkin’ out the windows right now. Mom thinks the party’s good publicity. Phil’s already got the caterers here as well as the band.”

  “Whoa!” Dan said. “I see your problem! The creep could walk right in. Just like I thought.”

  If she doesn’t already live here first, Sharon thought.

  Irene had already come downstairs in a brightly colored Hawaiian dress and was helping the caterers set up. As usual she was perfectly dressed for the occasion and as cool as ice.

  “I just know something’s gonna happen. I feel it in my bones. Tell the police anything. Just get them here.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. She could almost hear Dan thinking. “I’ll do what I can. Try to hang on. And Sharon…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t go in the pool. Make up any excuse. Just don’t.”

  Chapter 10

  Sharon couldn’t delay any longer. She had to make an appearance at her own party.

  She put on her bathing suit. Her mother had insisted she buy a new one for the occasion. It was a pink bikini with a bow in the front. Phil had said it did wonders for her. What he didn’t say was it made her look less skinny.

  Lately it had been hard to find anything in her dresser drawers. They were usually neat, but it looked as if somebody had been messing around inside them moving things. Sometimes she really wondered whether she was losing her mind.

  The guests had already started to arrive. The girls were giggling and comparing figures in their new bathing suits. Others had just gotten off from work early on Saturday and still had their shorts on. They hurried into the cabanas to change.

  There was a rush to get out to the pool area, grab the best lounge chairs, and steal the best spots under the umbrellas.

  The band was playing old Beach Boys songs like “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations.” Some kids had already begun to dance. Others lounged around sprawled on their beach towels. A few guys had already jumped into the pool and were horsing around, dunking each other, and challenging each other to races.

  Sharon found Ruth on a beach towel surrounded by Irene, Sue, Angel, and Vicki. They had their heads bent together and were all acting very chummy. She felt left out.

  “Look, Sharon, isn’t it simply gorgeous!” Irene held Ruth’s wrist up. Ruth was wearing a golden bracelet that coiled around her lower arm like a snake and clasped where two snake heads met. Their ruby fangs interlocked.

  Sharon wasn’t in the mood for jewelry. The bracelet reminded her of the ring Phil had given her yesterday. She hoped Phil hadn’t noticed she wasn’t wearing it.

  “Where did you get it?” Sharon asked Ruth.

  “Dave’s Treasure Trove.”

  Sharon’s heart stopped. That had been the shop where Donna, Elaine, and Marge had gotten their jewelry. That’s where Phil had bought her ring, too.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Sharon!” Ruth said. “The police have caught Dan. We don’t have to worry. That’s why we’re havin’ the party anyway. To celebrate. Right?”

  “Of course!” Irene patted Ruth’s arm. Sharon didn’t say a word. “We’re all here to let off steam. I’ll have to buy myself a few of those bracelets. Here, let me try it on.”

  Irene slipped the golden snake with the double heads onto her own svelte wrist. She looked like a million bucks.

  But Sharon drifted away from all the merrymaking and stood in a corner of the glass-enclosed pool area by herself. Phil and his buddies gave the band suggestions about songs. Phil helped direct the caterers. Sharon kept her eye on Irene, who was acting like the life of the party, drifting from group to group.

  Sharon wiped the sweat from her forehead. Waves of heat drifted over everyone on this steamy, humid early October day.

  She glanced up. Big black clouds were gathering.

  She felt like a ghost watching everyone else have fun. Especially after they set up the volleyball net in the middle of the pool, she felt totally out of it. Everyone else was squealing with glee. Even her mother, who kept checking on the action from time to time, looked relaxed. Instead Sharon kept glancing anxiously over her shoulder toward the street wondering what had happened to Dan.

  A few classmates ran by and clapped her on the back. “Great party, Shar!”

  Ruth ran by with her gold bracelet. “You gotta be on the cheerleading squad. You’ve got the spirit. I mean, anybody who could plan a party like this…”

  There was a cameraman from the local television station standing in another corner of the pool area. A reporter was reassuring his viewers live on the air that all was well with Ocean House once again.
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br />   Sharon was becoming a great social success without even trying. But none of it seemed very real. Underneath all this gaiety was something far more sinister. The only reality was the thudding of her heart and the ticking of her wristwatch as the dusk began to fall.

  “Say, why are you moping here all by yourself?” Someone grabbed her from behind.

  Phil. He’d sneaked up in his wet bathing suit. He was dripping water as he pulled her against his chest and kissed her. “Your suit’s perfectly dry! Haven’t you been in the pool?”

  “Oh, I’ve gotta help my mom.” She mumbled the only excuse that came quickly to mind.

  “That’s no excuse!” Phil motioned to his buddies.

  Rick grabbed one arm. Phil grabbed another. Pete and Jim each took hold of one of her legs. They carried her over to the deep end of the pool and swung her back and forth, crying, “One! Two! Three!” as they heaved her into the pool. She landed with a resounding splash.

  Don’t go in the pool. Make up any excuse. Just don’t. Dan’s warning came back to her.

  The other kids were swarming around her throwing her the ball. She had to catch it and toss it back.

  “Dinnertime!” Irene shouted.

  Everyone scrambled out of the pool as if they’d just heard a whistle. They crowded around the charcoal grill and began lining up at the table. A caterer handed everybody a plate. Then they went through the line and helped themselves to everything from steaks to baked beans to potato salad to dips to tossed salad to rolls.

  Sharon couldn’t eat. She just sat in a chair and watched. Phil and Irene kept on trying to tempt her, but Sharon mumbled some excuse about being on a diet.

  But when the sun went down and the pool lights came on, it was back into the pool for more volleyball. Again Sharon couldn’t escape. Phil pulled her in with him.

  “C’mon, Sharon, you’re gettin’ to be a drag!” Phil said. “Keep your eye on the ball.”

  Sharon was getting more spooked since it had gotten dark. Jagged, white-heat lightning flashed across the night sky. She got hit with the volleyball several times because she couldn’t stop looking up at the sky.

  The evening dragged on. The cheers from the volleyball game grew louder. But nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

  In fact, it was getting so late that she overheard people saying what a great party it had been and how they had to be leaving pretty soon. Was it possible she could have been mistaken? Was nothing going to happen tonight?

  The ball came bounding at Phil. He resoundingly smacked it with his fist. Then he seemed to slip and go under. The water was dark and murky because of the black tiles. Sharon couldn’t even see him. He didn’t surface. She didn’t even see bubbles.

  “Phil!” Sharon called. “Phil!” All of a sudden somebody tugged at her foot and Phil rose to the surface with a big “Boo!”

  It wasn’t funny. But before she even had a chance to think, the lights blinked out just as a flash of heat lightning illuminated the sky.

  “Oh no!” Kids groaned.

  The lights blinked back on again. There lay Ruth on top of the water, facedown. Her arms were spread out on either side of her. Her hair floated limply on the water’s surface. Her gold bracelet caught the light and sparkled.

  A scream rose in Sharon’s throat.

  Ruth leaped up and started laughing. The other kids around her laughed, too. Sharon felt herself go limp with relief.

  Then the lights blinked out again.

  Sharon felt something or somebody move next to her. It was a slight movement, but nevertheless she sensed it. Someone’s foot hit her leg, and then everything was still.

  Sharon started feeling very cold. Then she began to tremble all over. Something in her mind had already started to count and was keeping count as if somehow that was very important—to keep time. She’d gotten to about sixty when the lights came back on again.

  Phil and his pals stood around her just as they had before the lights went out. Sue was on the other side of the net in the deep end beside Irene, Angel, and Vicki. Sharon mentally ticked them off one by one. In fact everybody was standing exactly where they had been before. No one had moved.

  “Let’s play!” Phil picked up the volleyball.

  “Wait a minute. Where’s Ruth?” Sharon asked. Ruth had been standing right next to her.

  She was gone.

  “Everybody freeze!” There stood Dan side by side with several uniformed police officers. Their guns were drawn. They had just handed Sharon’s mother a search warrant.

  Several girls started to weep and clutch each other. The guys whispered. Everybody looked drawn and white, realizing that right under their very noses something too terrible to think about had just happened again.

  “All right,” one of the policemen said. “Everybody out of the pool.”

  Sharon forgot all about Phil. All she saw was Dan standing there by the side of the pool with his hands stuffed into his pockets. He’d promised that he would contact the police. He hadn’t let her down. But he was too late.

  She ran to him. His arms closed around her.

  “Oh, Dan, maybe this’ll at least prove to the police that you didn’t do it the first time. You weren’t here for this pool party.”

  Searchlights poured into the pool enclosure. Kids shrank back against the tropical plants, weeping and shivering. Policemen in scuba-diving gear dropped into the deep end and searched every square foot of the black pool. Other policemen jumped into the shallow end.

  They found nothing. Then they herded the kids, the band, and her mother out of the pool enclosure and sealed off the crime scene with yellow tape.

  The heat lightning that had been flashing overhead turned into jagged bolts that shot across the sky. Thunder shook the earth. For the first time in weeks there was a cloudburst, and a pelting shower came pouring down.

  The kids were directed into the parlor at Ocean House as officers turned on the lights in the gardens. Teams of officers with specially trained dogs were combing every inch of the property searching for a body or for clues despite the sudden rain. Others were going from room to room in Ocean House.

  The police asked Sharon’s mother about the little holes in the lawn that were scattered all over the property. Her mother nervously said that the gardener had complained about the azaleas being uprooted and carelessly replaced. All the plants were dying. She’d fired him and hired another. But the second gardener had noticed the same thing. Someone was digging secretly, perhaps at night. She hadn’t the faintest idea why.

  The police ushered the women from the psychics’ convention downstairs into the parlor as well. It didn’t matter that they were wearing robes and slippers.

  Sharon’s mother sat grim-faced and silent along with the kids. She turned to Irene. “Ocean House is finished now.” Irene put her arm around Mrs. Jones’s shoulders and comforted her.

  Sharon’s father burst into the parlor. He was dressed in his suit and trench coat.

  “What happened this time?” Sharon’s father said to her mother.

  “It’s the same thing all over again! Oh, Jack!” Her mother reached her hand out to him.

  He put his things down and took it. “Sorry, Denise. I know how much Ocean House meant to you. I heard about it on the radio. Maybe you’ve been right all along. It’s not good for me to be away on business so much.”

  Her mother flew into her father’s arms. The two sat hugging each other.

  The police held up their hands for silence. “All right, everybody. We’re going to have to talk to every one of you. It’s going to be a long night. The mayor’s daughter seems to be missing.”

  The police asked kids who were at the pool party, still shivering in wet bathing suits, to get into the same positions they had been standing in when Ruth disappeared. The couch became the volleyball net. Practically everybody had been standing on one side or the other except for the band, the caterers, the TV crew, and Mrs. Jones.

  Sharon had been surrounded
by Phil and his friends, and Ruth. On the other side had been Irene, Angel, Vicki, and Sue. Everyone was accounted for. Apparently no one had been missing from the pool. Everyone had an alibi.

  “It had to be one of you.” The policeman scratched his head. “Someone must have gotten out of the pool in that sixty seconds that Sharon remembers. It must have been someone standing near Sharon because she’s the only one who felt someone kick her leg. Maybe the culprit was working with someone from the outside.”

  “Sir,” Mr. Jones said, still holding his wife in his arms, “what makes you think that anybody did anything? Couldn’t this Ruth be playing a joke?”

  “Mr. Jones, I didn’t have a shred of proof until tonight. But just since we’ve been here I’ve received word from the station that the bodies of the other missing girls have finally been found. They were buried in shallow graves in the woods. The rain uncovered them. They were stabbed to death. Now do you still think Ruth is playing a joke?”

  Mrs. Jones received word in the morning that they’d have to close Ocean House down. There could be no more paying guests until the investigation was over. The psychics’ convention was ordered to disperse. Sharon’s mother was crestfallen. Even Irene was up and about early Sunday morning helping her answer the phone and put signs up on the door.

  CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE BY

  ORDER OF THE POLICE

  When the psychics left late that morning, the one with the bulbous nose told Sharon where to find them if she needed them. She gave Sharon her phone number on a scrap of paper.

  “What for?” asked Sharon.

  “You’ve been chosen as a medium for the ghost. Don’t be afraid. It’s a great honor.”

  “That’s nonsense, and I’m not a medium!”

  “Yes, dear, you are.”

  “Someone’s playing games with me, trying to drive me nuts.”

  “That may be, but there’s a very unhappy ghost who lives in Ocean House, too, and she needs you. We think that she has a purpose for you. You will know it in time.”