by Thomas Cater
“I don’t know, but it’s heavy. It must weigh at least a tenth of a pound.”
“Big, too, too big for me,” Virgil said
“Let me try it,” I said, snatching it from the tip of his finger. “Fits well: almost as if it were made for me. I like it. Maybe there is something to that story about hidden stocks and bonds, maybe even gold and silver.”
George and Virgil stared at the ring for a moment in silence.
“Wait a minute; we’re losing perspective,” Virgil said. “What’s this thing doing with a ring on its finger? Apes or any other kinds of animals do not wear jewelry. Remember?”
“Maybe it isn’t an ape,” George suggested. “Maybe it really is Miss Bishop. Maybe she wasn’t the best looking woman, but I’ll bet she could swing with style and grace through the tops of the trees.”
George’s words came from the heart and never wavered. I wondered if all lawyers thought that way, or was his brain still reeling from damage caused by previous alcohol abuse.
“I think we’ve strayed beyond our field of reference,” I said. “I don’t know what that thing is, and I think we should try to find out before we proceed any further.”
“How are we going to do that?” George asked in a voice that seemed to have simply abandoned all approaches to logic.
“There must be an anthropologist at the university in Morgantown,” I said, directing my words to Virgil. “Let’s load these bones in your wagon and take them there for an evaluation.”
Reluctant thoughts transformed Virgil’s smile into a scowl. “I can’t help you, not today. I have too much work to do; maybe tomorrow, or the day after.”
I took the initiative. “You’ve been a great help. I can’t expect you to spend more time on this than you already have. I’ll take care of it. Give me a hand with these bones and help me get them back to my van.”
We each grabbed a section of leg or arm bone. I supported the pelvis and rib cage, while the skull and the shoulders fell to George. We walked the skeleton back to the car slowly so as not to jar the parts loose. We loaded the bones in the back of Virgil’s wagon.
I saw no reason to return to the cemetery, since we had accomplished what we’d set out to do, which was too deepen the graves, but not for animals. If this was a sample of what we might find in the Ryder cemetery, I saw no point in continuing until we put a name to what we found.
“Familiars,” I said, as we drove away.
George turned pale. “What?” he replied?
“Familiars,” I repeated. “Witches and warlocks have familiars. You know, cats, goats, dogs, owls, special emissaries that do their bidding, act as messengers, watch dogs, or rather, watch animals.”
“You think that ape was someone’s familiar?” George asked.
“I like to mention things as they occur to me.”
“Ever hear of an ape being a witch’s familiar before?” Virgil asked.
I shook my head. “It would have been a first.”
We drove the rest of the way back to town in comparative silence. George asked to be dropped off at the hotel. He had to prepare for a six o’clock service. I bailed out at the corner.
“The bones!” Virgil shouted. “What about the bones?”
“I’ll pick them up later,” I replied.
Drivers behind him were growing impatient. It didn’t seem fair to call it a traffic jam. I waved, but he ignored the gesture and sped through the intersection.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I felt tired, hungry and disappointed with my failed attempts to resolve the deepening dilemma at the Ryder house. I was in over my head and my patience was wearing thin. I felt this way on previous occasions in Southeast Asia when I was hours away from finding a hostel and the sun was going down much too rapidly.
I had to know what happened to the occupants of the Ryder house seventy odd years ago. Unless I came up with some inspired insight, I was not about to accomplish anything but a magnificent waste of time. Things were escalating beyond my ken of understanding. With any degree of certainty, fouling up was the only thing left to do.
Why were the Ryders burying strange mammals in their back yard? Why were gnomes living in a hospital basement? Moreover, why did an indestructible wall, built by the same man who may have built Adolph Hitler’s bunker in Berlin, surround a coal baron’s house? I wanted to know before the whole thing drove me to the edge, back to Washington and into the clutches of Myra, my rhyming mantis.
I spent the rest of the day in the van trying to create order out of disordered facts.
Elinore was a lone figure who lived alone most of her adult life and died in relative obscurity. The others came out of a dark past and died or disappeared before anyone could make note of their activities. Sometime between 1920s and 1930s, Elinore lost touch with reality and had a nervous breakdown. How long mental illness afflicted her would be anyone’s guess. She may have had some kind of operation in or around the 20s and 30s. There were still questions that needed to be answered, but answers were as rare as they were elusive.
It was a foregone conclusion that Dr. Ezekiel Grier, the same man who was currently sharing cemetery space with Elinore and other members of the Ryder family, and one highly suspect skeleton, may have lobotomized her. According to the badly worn dates on Grier’s stone, he was born in 1870s and died in the late 30s. That would have made him about 60 years old at the time of Elinore’s hospitalization. He would have died well within the lifetime of Samuel Ryder. Since he was head of psychiatry and surgery, or ‘skull-duggery.’ it was conceivable that Samuel may have hired him. There should be records on file somewhere in that mausoleum of a hospital to show where he came from and where he received his education. I underlined my notes.
What about the strange disease that kept the Alberichs from growing old, or perhaps slowed the aging process down. Were there similar cases compiled in other medical journals? What about that damned indestructible wall? Was that a fact? Could it actually be indestructible? I’d taken a nine-pound hammer to it and didn’t damage it a bit. Did I hold back? No, I gave it everything I had, and that wall did not give an inch. If it is possible to create an indestructible wall simply by adding the blood and bones of a dead man to mortar, why are building contractors not doing it everywhere?
It would seem that some of the stonework is not identical, though I cannot figure how one cut stone could make much different from another. If that is the case, then there must be some way to subvert or abort the process, some way to destroy the indestructible.
Hitler’s Berlin bunker, they claim, was razed from the earth. In fact, a few years ago, it was re-discovered intact. I dare not consider the skeletal hands and teeth gnawing and tearing human flesh imprisoned by a hungry wall.
The problems were beginning to overwhelm me. I had not touched on the strange incidents occurring inside the house, the effectiveness of a ‘murdered-man suit’ or the theory of delinquent spirits.
Something is haunting the main house. All my instincts believe it is Elinore as a young woman, not the elderly woman who died or the lobotomized victim. She is the Elinore left behind before madness took her mind and the good doctor cut it loose from her senses. The question is why is she still hanging around? What does she want? “Please Hurry!” The note implores. “He’s coming!” It is a silent cry echoing through the corridor of time. How is a dead ‘impaired’ child supposed to know what is occurring?
“Elinore,” I said aloud, “if you are here, I know you will provide me with the answers.” I felt a chill, up and down my back and arms, and across my shoulders.
The great Houdini spent his life debunking the tricks of mediums. More than likely, they were all impostors. But then again, it is not what unbelievers believe that gives purpose to spirits, but what believers believe. Conversations with the dead are not so rare; it is getting them to reply, which is difficult.
Then there is George Thacker. He talks to spirits all the time. True, it was just one, the Great Spirit, but
it is conversation. Then there is that more subtle communication with the spirit that dwell within, the putting on of animistic, archetypal masks and getting in touch with the unconscious, where all spirits hold unspoken and easy congress. The problem is could George be convinced into conversing with Elinore, and in her house! He nearly fell into a hysterical fit when he saw Virgil assume the identity of a coal miner. Could he convince his followers to sit around a table with a group of mentally impaired men and women and try to get a rise out of Elinore? I don’t think so, but George was determined to wrest the county from the grip of Satan, and if that isn’t conviction, what is?
*
I went in search of George’s room at the Phoenix Hotel, a small residential inn operated by two sagging octogenarians, incredibly clean and orderly.
The hotel’s woodwork glistened from repeated buffing. The carpet, though worn nearly threadbare, was lint free and assiduously maintained. It was a residential hotel the elderly and infirm occupied, until time or fate took away their keys.
Mrs. Abacas was polishing a brass antique cash register behind the desk. Mr. Abacas was sitting in front of the color TV in the lobby. His hands and chin rested on an ebony cane propped beneath his jaw. The skin on their faces had regained that delicate softness found on new babies and well-fed senior citizens. Despite their age, it did not appear to interfere in any way with the efficient management of their establishment.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mr. Thacker’s room number, please?”
Mrs. Abacas leaned across the desk, a dreamy smile floated from her colorless lips.
“You must be Mr. Chase.”
“Case, Ma’am, Charles Case.”
“George has told us so much about you, Mr. Chase. Welcome to the Phoenix Hotel.”
I thanked her effusively for the warm reception.
“I thought this was the Abacas Hotel?”
“We are the Abacas’, and we have always owned the Phoenix Hotel,” her failing eyes were drifting to keep me in focus.
“There is no sign, inside or out, anywhere in site,” I said.
“It blew away sixty years ago,” she said, “never to return.”
“That explains it,” I said. “Do you know if Mr. Thacker is in his room?”
“Why, yes, of course. What time is it? It’s almost time for benediction, isn’t it. Are you here for the service, too? Clarence, do you know, it’s almost time? Look who’s going to join us this evening, George’s friend, Mr. Chase.”
Clarence nodded his head, but he could not take his eyes off the TV, a re-run of Hogan’s Heroes held him enthralled.
“That damned Kaiser!” I heard him shout. “None of this would have happened if not for the Habsburg family and their bloody lips, or was it a dewlap?”
Wrong war, I thought. Mrs. Abacas smiled sweetly.
“Don’t mind him. He is getting a little senile, but even that has its advantages. Sometimes his memories are so clear it is like opening a photo album. He can tell you everything that happened … seventy years ago and in perfect detail, but he can’t remember anything that happened yesterday.”
I too had a few moments I was forced to endure, but would have preferred to forget. Why is it that when they occur, they are so hard to ignore? Embarrassing moments are always concentrated for greater humiliation.
It was a strange matter to be reflecting upon, especially now. I wondered if the mind continued to reflect even after the body died. Could it be possible that the quantity we called mind had an afterlife, a longer, stronger life, and it remembered the best and the worst. If the worst were terrible, perhaps it would not allow itself to rest until someone taught it to forgive. Could it be possible that I was dealing with Elinore’s or, God forbid, Samuel’s memories of guilt? It would be a calamity for men if unpleasant memories became harmful to anyone but the source remembering them.
Mrs. Abacas waddled out from behind the desk, stopped to rest after a few waddles and then proceeded toward the TV. She changed channels three times by accident before she finally turned off the set.
“Jesus Christ, woman, you turned it off right in the middle of a Pepsi commercial!”
“It’s time, Clarence,” she said. “Time we all went to Mr. Thacker’s room. He is going to tell us some more about his work with Mr. Chase and all the wicked things going on in this town. I do love it so when he goes on and on about all the wickedness,”
“I know what’s going on in this town,” Clarence said. “For Christ’s sake, I made this town! I know everything there is to know about this God forsaken place!”
Bingo! Ask and ye shall receive. ‘God forsaken?’ That may have been putting it a little strongly, but I wondered if he meant it the way he said it. I thought it was time I tried to give the old girl a hand with the county’s self-proclaimed mentor.
“I beg your pardon, but did I hear you say you know all there is to know about this town?”
He turned around far enough to face me.
“Eh? Did you say something?” He asked, while fine-tuning a hearing aid.
“Did you say you know all there is to know about this town?”
He stared at his wife as if he were seeing her for the first time, and then back at me.
“Have we met?” He asked her.
“This is Mr. Chase, Clarence; I’ve been trying to tell you.”
He gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Clarence.”
“Case, sir,” I said. “I’m glad to meet you.”
In the process of excavating himself from the chair, he appeared to forget about me.
“Yes, I know all there is to know about this town, up to a certain point.”
“Which point is that, sir?” I asked.
“Up to the point I can’t remember anymore,” he said. “What point you interested in?” He asked and narrowed his eyes, squinting suspiciously.
“I’m interested in the Ryder family,” I said. “Elinore and her father, and anything you might know about them and care to divulge.”
“The Ryders?” he asked with a curious expression on his face, as if he had never heard the name before. “Those freaks, why would you want to know about them?”
“You said it, sir; because they were unusual.” I said in a way that sounded as if it were more a question than a statement. I did not know if they were any more conflicted than my own family.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said. “Things don’t happen the way you want them to when you’re my age. You have to give nature time to take its course, and when it happens, you have to be ready for it. What did you say your name was?”
“Case, sir, Charles Case.”
“You’re not from around here?” he said, guessing, but trying to make it sound like a statement of fact.
“No sir,” I replied.
“I know all the families around here and there aren’t any Cases, where you from?”
“Oh, too many other places.” I confided. “So many I can’t remember. Originally, sir, I think I came from Ohio, along the river, but I’ve been living in Washington most of my life, when I’m not traveling.”
“Washington,” he repeated. I nodded. “D.C.?” I nodded again. He shook his head sadly. “I knew Senator Byrd before he learned to play the fiddle. I put him in office, him and Randolph, Roosevelt and Hoover, and Coolidge. Byrd should have stuck with the fiddle.”
“What about Samuel Ryder?” I asked.
“Ryder? What did he run for?”
“He ran for governor in …” I didn’t know, so I thought I’d take a guess. “In the 20s or 30s, or thereabouts,” I threw in for good measure.
Mrs. Abacas smiled. “Oh, yes. Ryder ran against Gore and then against Conley in 29. He couldn’t get his own party’s nomination. I remember him. What is it you want to know?”
“Was he an honest man?” I asked.
“Like all the rest of them that ‘had it’ and meant to ‘keep it’,” she said. “He
squeezed a nickel so tight you could hear the buffalo bawl.”
“Was he good to his family, his wife and daughter?”
“Killed his wife,” Clarence said. “They say she died of loneliness and a broken heart, while he was traipsing around the world looking for riches. He had strange notions about wealth and power. He believed it came from a greedy god and if he turned against you, he took it all away.”
Not such an extraordinary belief, I thought, still fashionable today among Republicans.
“Were you acquainted with his wife?” I asked.
“Whose wife?” Clarence asked.
“Mr. Ryder’s wife,” I said.
Clarence was silent, but his lips were moving.
“She was just a slip of a child! He should have been ashamed of himself.”
Mrs. Abacas’ face radiated warmth and deep concern. “You’re mistaken Clarence, that was his daughter. It’s hard to believe she was his daughter,” she said, “but knowing her the way I did, it couldn’t be any other way. She was a beautiful woman, but with weak eyes. I think the good Lord intended it to be that way, to spare her from the outrageous sights a life with Samuel Ryder was bound to include. She came to town often with her little colored nanny.”
“I talked to Mrs. Taylor,” I said. “She’s bed-ridden now, but still in good spirits.”
“That’s good. She is a good woman. She used to be a Greene. Her father was Junior Johnson Greene, a local strong man. He used to lift five or six men and women off the ground with his hair and spin them around. I know; I was one of them!”
“Must have been a long time ago,” I said, thoughtlessly.
“Sometimes it seems like yesterday,” she said, “but I think it was in the mid 1900s. It was the same year Chub Decker bought an Orient Buckboard and brought it into town to deliver ice cream. I remember the first time I saw that thing chugging up Locust Street without a horse pulling it. I thought I was losing my mind. We knew about automobiles, but none of us had ever seen one in Vandalia at the time. His was the first. People followed him around for weeks. They couldn’t get enough of that steam-powered vehicle. They nearly overturned it in the street trying to get a ride.”
