Shades of Evil

by Cave, Hugh

  Will said uneasily, "Karl, tell me something. Do you believe my wife drowned herself?"

  "Should I?"

  "Answer me, please."

  Jurzak gazed into space, then shrugged. "She was acting strangely when you returned from Jamaica, you said. You awoke in the morning and found her gone. You thought she had left you. But if she had planned merely to leave you, why did she not take her car? It isn't easy to get from here to an airport. Not easy at all in the middle of the night. And if she meant to remove herself from your presence and live apart from you, why didn't she withdraw a sizeable sum of money from her account at the bank? She didn't, you know. After your return from Jamaica all she withdrew was a little pocket money, a hundred dollars. I've checked."

  "So?"

  "So in answer to your question I would have to say yes, she deliberately drowned herself. Then the 'gator found her body." Jurzak paused. "Now about the ring. You say you believe it has powers."

  "I believe it's responsible—partly, at least—for what has been happening here. I don't mean the 'gator. I mean the thing Haydn Clay got the pictures of when Helpin was killed."

  "Our ghost."

  "That's as good a word as any, since we don't know what it is. In Haiti, Karl, my wife became much too friendly with a man named Margal, one of the most feared bocors—sorcerers, if you prefer—in a country where sorcery is a fine art. In Jamaica she was taking lessons from an obeah woman. Do you know about bocorism and obeah?"

  "Only from reading about them."

  "Vicky was deeply interested in occult studies of that sort. Attuned, you might say. She went to see this obeah woman daily in spite of my objections. One day the woman asked her about this ring, and when Vicky told her its history and what the Indian woman had said about it, she asked if she might wear it for a time. I happen to think, Karl—smile if you want to—that the ring absorbed something from her, and Vicky came into possession of that something on taking it back and wearing it again."

  Jurzak reached for the ring and gazed at it in silence. "A smothered mass of hidden fire," he said at last.

  "What?"

  "Some writer said that once about black opals. I forget who. A famous stone called the Flame Queen, from Australia, is black with a flame-red center."

  He looked up at Will with such an innocent stare that he might have been a small boy enthralled by what they were discussing. "It seems they sometimes arouse passions, these strange stones. Did you know that Antony once wanted one that was owned by a Roman senator—wanted it for Cleopatra, one supposes—and when the man refused to part with it, Antony became furious and sent him into exile? This is a black opal, of course," the investigator went on calmly. "Strange that you found it in Mexico. I thought the best from there were fire opals. But, of course, it may not have originated there. Perhaps it's old, even very old. Three hundred dollars, you say? Why do I have a hunch that the old woman who sold it to you may have been desperately in need of money?"

  He dropped the ring into his shirt pocket.

  "Are you going to keep it, Karl?"

  "I believe I'd better, Mr. Platt. At least for the time being. It's the only evidence we have, isn't it, that your wife may be dead? And even so, it's pretty flimsy proof wouldn't you say?"

  35

  The Cocomacaque Again

  The three from Jamaica arrived in mid-afternoon, tired and hot after the long ride from Miami. Will was waiting in Lynne Kimball's apartment, where the Haitian woman would be staying. Clasping Ima's long-fingered hands, he said fervently, "Bless you for coming."

  She looked the same as when he had last seen her: tall, handsome, proud. Seeing America for the first time had obviously not fazed her, though like most of the Jamaican farm workers who came to toil in Florida's sugarcane fields, she probably thought all America was flat and therefore not nearly so attractive as her adopted little Caribbean island with its verdant mountains.

  "Did you stop for lunch?" he asked them.

  Lynne said they hadn't. "We didn't want to take the time."

  "I thought you wouldn't. Sit down. Everything's ready and waiting."

  He produced a meal of chicken and vegetables he had prepared between the time of Karl Jurzak's departure and their arrival, and was delighted when Ima Williams, who so often had served him, accepted both the food and the service with complete composure.

  Will told them of the footprints in both his apartment and this one. Of his sleeping, if it could be called sleeping, in the apartment the manager had let him use last night. Of the killing of the 'gator, and Jurzak's visit with the ring.

  "We don't have much time, do we?" Sam said. "Not if that thing is watching both apartments."

  "I'm sure we don't."

  "We'd better do some fast thinking, then. Plan something before dark. What do you say to that, Ima?"

  Her fine face fixed in a frown of deep thought, the Haitian woman slowly nodded. Then she said, "What is this ring you speak of, Mr. Will? The same one your wife wore in Jamaica?"

  "Yes. Sister Merle asked if she might wear it, and my wife lent it to her. It was on Merle's finger when she was dying and caught hold of Vicky's hands. I took it from her after she died and gave it back to Vicky."

  Ima said, "I wish I could see it. If it has powers—"

  "I'm afraid that's impossible."

  "The ring could be very important to us if something of Sister Merle passed through it into your wife," Ima persisted. "Some knowledge or power, I mean. Certain objects are used in that way, you know. In voodoo the cocomacaque conveys power. Through this ring your wife. . ." Shaking her head, she was silent.

  "Well," Will said reluctantly, "I suppose I could phone Jurzak and ask him. I'll have to tell him what you want it for, though. How will you use it?"

  Ima looked across the table at Lynne. "I can look around, please?" When Lynne nodded, she rose, though her meal was but half finished, and walked through the apartment.

  The familiarization tour took several minutes, during which time those left at the table waited in silence. Returning, the hounsi seated herself and said, "It comes from the lake?"

  "Yes." Will nodded. "It comes from the lake."

  "And will come here?"

  "Or to my place, directly above this one. Wherever we are. Wherever we have lights on."

  "We should all be in one place, then, I think," Ima said. "Miss Lynne, do you have candles? White ones?"

  "How many?"

  "Perhaps ten, twelve? The more the better."

  "I don't have that many, I'm sure. But we can get some. Can't we, Will?"

  He nodded. "Just a trip to a store. Am I right in thinking you'll try a gros arrêt, Ima?"

  "Yes, Mr. Will. I brought some things with me. Mostly it is not things we need, though, but to believe. To have faith in the candles and the gros arrêt and—well, I wish we had a cocomacaque. And, of course, the ring Sister Merle wore when she was dying and held onto your wife's hands."

  Will got up and went into his study. His cocomacaque leaned in a corner of a closet there. Taking it out he looked at it, recalling the day he had found it growing near the top of Haiti's highest mountain.

  He had earned a good deal of respect in Haiti by carrying this with him on some of his forays. Here in Florida he occasionally used it as a walking stick, simply because he liked the feel of it. It weighed only a few ounces —ten and a half, to be exact—but was tough as steel. More than once, on handing it to friends for their examination, he had said lightly, "Break it if you can. Put your knee to it."

  No one had snapped it yet.

  Carrying it back to the dining table, he offered it to Ima Williams. Her eyes nearly doubled in size as she accepted it and held it horizontally against her breast, grasping it so tightly he could see her knuckles change color.

  Her eyes closed. Her lips moved but made no sound; the words they formed were for herself alone. The others watched her in silence.

  She opened her eyes. "Where did you get this?" she whispered.
>
  "On Morne La Selle."

  "You found it? Yourself?"

  He nodded. "There was a Haitian friend with me, but we were not together at the time."

  "You yourself cut it?"

  "With a jackknife." They were not really difficult to cut. The steely hardness came later, when they dried.

  "Wonderful," she said. "But I would like to bless it, too, before we use it, the way we do the drums. You would permit that?"

  "Ima, you're to do whatever you think best. No one here is qualified to instruct you."

  Solemnly she said, "It has power now. I can feel it. But there can be no harm in asking the loa to help us." Still holding the cocomacaque in both hands, she looked up at him. "And will you get the ring for me, Mr. Will?"

  "Finish your dinner while I make a phone call."

  Karl Jurzak had long ago written his number on a bit of paper and left it on the telephone table. Will dialed it and found himself talking to a woman in the county sheriff's office.

  "Karl Jurzak, please. This is Will Platt at Lakeside Manor."

  "Just a minute, Mr. Platt. I don't think he is in right now." She checked, and the homicide investigator was not. "Would you want him to call you when he returns?"

  "It's urgent. Can you tell me where he is?"

  He had to wait while she tried to find out. Then she said, "I can't be sure, but I believe he has gone home. He told someone he wasn't feeling well."

  "Oh Lord. Have you his home address and phone number?"

  She provided the needed information, and he dialed Jurzak's home. There was no answer. "Damn," he said aloud with a helpless look toward the three at the table, who were watching him. Then he thought: terminal cancer. Not feeling well. He could be there but not answering his phone.

  He glanced at his watch. There was plenty of time. Give the man half an hour, then call again.

  The others finished their lunch and Ima said, "I will do the dishes," but Lynne would not let her.

  "You have to get ready for tonight," Lynne said. "Let me show you your room. Then you can be alone to do as you wish."

  Ima took the monkey-palm stick with her, and when shown her room, stayed in it. The kitchen chores finished, the others sat in the living room and talked.

  Lynne and Sam told how they had found Ima in Jamaica by first finding the taxi man, Ken Daniels, and asking him where she was working. At the embassy in Kingston they had run into unexpected delays when the man they sought was absent and they had to deal with an officious substitute. Then they had just barely beaten a threatened airline strike in getting off the island this morning.

  With frequent glances at his watch, Will told them of his talk with Pearl Gautier in the motel restaurant. Then he tried again to reach Karl Jurzak by phone, and again got no answer.

  Was the man at home? Or could he have gone to a doctor, perhaps?

  He called the sheriff's office and talked with the woman again. Had she heard from Karl? No. "Tell me, please—do you think it possible he may have gone to his doctor?"

  She thought it possible. She gave him the name and phone number of Jurzak's physician. He called. The man had not been there.

  On hanging up, he became aware of sounds from Ima's bedroom and looked at the others. She had closed her door; the sounds were muffled. Still, they were clearly audible, and he caught himself thinking that this was surely the first time any such chanting had been heard in Lakeside Manor.

  He recognized a voodoo chant to Legba, guardian of the gate between the world of the loa and that of mortals. "Papa Legba, ouvri bayé! Papa Legba, ouvri bayé pou mwê!" Until the keeper of the gate complied, she could summon no other deity to help her.

  The chanting continued. In the hounfor it would have been accompanied by drumming. To the rhythmic throbbing of the three ritual drums, servitors dressed in white would be moving unhurriedly through the sinuous, shoulder-swaying steps of a yanvalou. There would be a pouring of water on the ground by other participants in the just-beginning ceremony, and repeated cries of "Abobo!"—amen, or so be it—as the service continued. Here in a Florida condominium at five in the afternoon, the chanting was profound in itself.

  It went on and on, changing at times into non-musical prayers intoned in the Creole of the Haitian peasant, when gently lilting into melody again. He heard prayers to Agoué, Damballa Ouédo and Simbi, and was not surprised. Though the three had different functions, all dwelt in water. He heard songs or chants to obscure loa whose functions he simply did not know.

  Tiring of it after a while, he looked at his watch again and realized he must do something about Karl Jurzak. The afternoon was nearly over. In a few hours darkness would come down on the lake, and the thing in its waters would be on the prowl again.

  Besides, he had promised Ima to obtain some white candles. Those in Sister Merle's house had been black he recalled.

  He dialed the fatman's number again. No answer. Once more he called the sheriff's office. Jurzak had not returned. To Sam and Lynne he said, "He may be just too sick to answer his phone. I'd better go to his place and find out."

  "How far is it?" Lynne asked.

  "Twenty miles. Don't worry. I'll be back long before dark."

  Sam offered to accompany him but he refused, not liking the idea of leaving the two women alone in the apartment. Once out on the main highway, he turned north and ignored the speed limit. But on reaching the town in which Jurzak lived, and looking at his watch again, he stopped at a store and bought the candles before going on.

  Showing the woman at the cash register the piece of paper on which he had written Jurzak's address, he asked directions and was given them. It was a street not easy to find, in a part of the town that had gone seedy. The house itself was large but old. Its porch steps looked rotten enough to crumble under him as he climbed them.

  He rang the bell. No one answered. He rang it again, then tried the knob and found the door open.

  Stepping inside into a dark entrance hail that smelled of mildew, he called out, "Karl? Karl Jurzak? Are you home?"

  The silence mocked him.

  "Jurzak! Are you here?"

  Still nothing. So the man was not at home, and had left the front door unlocked through carelessness. Hardly the kind of behavior, though, to be expected from one so efficient.

  The ring. Would it be here or at the sheriff’s office? With a man like Jurzak you couldn't be sure. He had his own way of doing things and probably ignored many a regulation. Will frowned at a staircase in front of him, dim now in the late afternoon gloom. He began climbing. Ima felt the ring was important. If it were just lying here on Jurzak's dresser. . .

  At the top of the stairs he turned toward an open door on his right. It was a bedroom.

  Karl Jurzak lay there on the bed, on his back, fully dressed and snoring.

  Will went to him and looked down at him. There seemed to be nothing wrong; the man was simply asleep. He said "Karl" and put a hand on a shoulder and gave it a shake. Gave it a second shake and then a third, the last one hard enough to rock the old-fashioned double bed on which the man lay.

  Jurzak opened his watery gray eyes and looked up. "Mr. Platt? What's the trouble?"

  "Are you sick, Karl?"

  Using Will's arm to haul on, the fat man struggled to sit up and finally managed it. "One of my bad days," he said. "Sorry. It happens. What can I do for you?"

  "I want to borrow my wife's ring for a few hours."

  "What for?"

  It took a desperately long time to explain the situation, but Will made himself do it. After all, the man had not slammed the door on his request with a blunt no.

  "And you think this Haitian woman can solve the case for us?" Jurzak said.

  "If obeah created this thing," Will said, "perhaps voodoo can destroy it."

  "Which of the two is more powerful?"

  "I don't know, Karl." And in any case, gentle Ima Williams might not be more powerful than a spirit world demon created by that murderous woman from the Cock
pit.

  The fat man squirmed off the bed and stood swaying on his feet. "All right," he said. "I shouldn’t, but I will."

  "Thanks, Karl." So the ring was here in the house and he would not have to waste time going to the sheriff's office for it. Thank God for that.

  "I go with it, though. I want to see this for myself."

  "But you're ill, man!"

  "Do me a favor. Go downstairs to the kitchen and bring me up a drink."

  "What kind of drink?"

  "There's only one kind. Brandy. Bottle's in the ice box—I take it cold. Just pour me half a water glass and bring it here while I'm getting some shoes on."

  Will did as asked, shuddering when he saw the filthy condition of the man's kitchen. There were dead roaches on both the floor and the counters, and dishes in the sink that must have been there for days. Jurzak was a very sick man, obviously. When handed the half glass of brandy, the investigator nodded thanks and drank it down steadily but slowly, with his eyes shut, as though it were a foul-tasting medicine.

  On the way down the stairs Jurzak used one hand on the old, scarred bannister and kept the other pressed to his stomach. His mouth was tight with pain. Downstairs he shuffled to a desk in the living room, with some difficulty opened a drawer, and lifted out a small brown envelope which he thrust into his pants pocket.

  "Okay, let's go."

  On the twenty-mile drive back to Heron Lake he spoke but seldom, obviously being more concerned with what was going on inside his body. When he did talk, it was merely to ask a few basic questions about voodoo, which Will answered as effortlessly as he would have replied to similar questions after a lecture.

  The real question, Will thought, was whether Karl Jurzak ought not to be in a hospital at this moment getting the care he so obviously needed.

  36

  A Ring of Candles

  Perhaps in a way it was a kind of séance. Certainly it was unlike any voodoo service Will had ever attended.