Night Songs

by Charles L. Grant

  Peg gaped at him, and felt cold for the first time. "No," she said with a shake of her head. "No."

  "Mrs. Fletcher," Lombard said quietly, soothingly, with a side glance to Cameron, "you know that and we know that, but he might not. And there's a good chance he'll try to contact you, perhaps try to lever you into revealing what he wants to know."

  "But I don't know anything!" she said helplessly.

  "Yes, yes," Cameron said, laying a hand on her shoulder and massaging it gently. She looked at him desperately, and he brought her to a chair. "I know, Peg, I know. It doesn't make any sense to ordinary people like you and me, but these gentlemen make their living at this. They know, Peg. They know how the criminal mind works."

  She put her hands to her face and thought of Matt playing at the marina, Colin fumbling behind the counter, all the cartons of Jim's papers she had burned in the fireplace-thought of the not always peaceful years since the car had been reduced to black metal and black ash. And immediately the image of the automobile's destruction came to mind, she thought of Bob Cameron.

  "Mrs. Fletcher, are you all right?" Solicitous, unctuous.

  "Peg, can I get you anything?" Cameron, concerned.

  Cameron. Would a man involved in her husband's violent death wait six full years before trying to discover if she were still hoarding incriminating evidence? Six years?

  "Bob," she said, hands still covering her eyes, "I told you long ago I'd burned all Jim's things, what the police hadn't taken away. You know that." Her hands lowered and her eyes narrowed. She stared at Lombard and his companion. "Did he tell you that? Did he tell you I burned it all?"

  "No," Lombard said after a long, annoyed silence.

  Her gaze shifted to the second man, whose oversized hands were clasped as if in prayer. He shook his head.

  "Who are you?" she asked softly. And without waiting for an answer she rose from her chair and backed to the sink. A glare to the doorway. "Bob, I don't want to talk to these gentlemen anymore. I'd appreciate your leaving."

  Cameron didn't move for an interminable second. Then he heaved himself to his feet, the chair skidding away as he waited for the others to join him. "Peg, you're making a mistake here, believe me. A very big mistake. I… I don't want anything to happen that you'll regret later."

  Her eyes widened in disbelief and her hands slapped on the table. "My God, are you threatening me, Robert Cameron, or just trying to scare me?"

  He held up a fast palm. "Lord, no. I just want you to understand-"

  "I understand nothing, and I've already asked you once to go. Now do it, please. I have a business to run and I've been away too long already."

  Lombard shook his head once when Cameron, his face flushed, leaned forward to argue. Then he rose and nodded to her, reset the chair in its place and led the way out of the kitchen to the front door. After a brief hesitation he opened it, ushered Cameron through to the porch and turned to wait for his companion. Peg stayed in the hallway, watching, holding her breath, nearly bolting when the second man turned abruptly to face her.

  "My name is Vincent," he said, looming above her and smiling so broadly she could see that his teeth were all black. "Theodore Vincent. You will remember it, please."

  She couldn't help it-she nodded.

  The door closed without a sound.

  She stood a moment shivering in the hallway, trying to keep her legs from failing and her teeth from chattering, then she turned the bolt and peered through the glass pane in the-door. The car was gone; the street was empty. Her tongue pushed into her cheek, and she made a soft growling sound before heading for the study.

  In one of the cabinets under the bookshelves was a small bottle of brandy her mother had given her for Christmas two years ago. It had been tapped only once, when Colin had come over for Matt's last birthday. She held the fat bottle in her hand now, a glass on the desk, and she took a deep inhalation of the sharp aroma before pouring herself a drink. A sip, then, and she waited until the fear had been replaced by a slow-burning rage.

  Her house. Her womb. Her… she scowled and looked for another word. Then she emptied the glass in a swallow, brushed back the tears that flooded her eyes, and went for the phone. Matt; she had to check on Matt. Damn Mrs. Wooster for being in Philadelphia! What the hell's a housekeeper for if not to be here when she's needed. Three times she fumbled with Alex Fox's number, and when no one answered at the first ring she fell into her armchair and bit down on her lower lip.

  She thought she tasted blood.

  The second ring, the third, and Alex finally answered.

  Yes, he told her, Matt was in the yard with his own kids. No, he hadn't seen anyone around all day what with his finishing a paint job in the workshop and securing boats against the storm they'd probably get by morning. And could Matt stay for dinner, he's such a good kid and Amy and Tommy would love it.

  The urge to refuse politely was killed when she heard the distant joyous shrieks of children playing outside. Matt would be all right. If anyone on the island was suspicious of strangers, it was Alex Fox. As young as she, but with an old man's distrust of anyone he hadn't known for at least twenty years. Sadly, sometimes it seemed as if that included his wife.

  The moment she rang off, she was back in her jacket and out the front door. An apprehensive glance at the empty street, and a puzzled one toward Bridge Road where a great deal of traffic seemed to be heading for the ferry, and she hurried back to the store, for the first time in her life not liking the way the houses rose above her, not liking the columns that held them up, not liking the twilight permanently snared between the pilings. She paused only once.

  In the middle of Ocean Street something dark, something flickering, made her look down toward the school. It could have been a dog, a cat, even a low-darting bird. A shadow from the pines. Yet she could not shake the feeling that something or someone had been standing by the school, and when she had stopped it had fled.

  Watching her. It was watching her.

  The Doberman chained by the library started up its barking again, and again she greeted it with a smile and a wave, grateful this time for the distraction it provided. Friendly little beast, she thought sourly as she passed. It belonged to the librarian and usually lay on the grass, panting, watching, nudging the passing children for handouts and a scratching.

  Today, however, it appeared to be reverting to the image of its breed-fierce, unpleasant, almost satanic. Though she tried, she couldn't remember the last time it had so much as even growled. If it didn't stop that noise, Hattie would be in trouble, if for no other reason than Reverend Otter was a stickler when it came to disturbances. He had once tried to have the school caution the students not to shout when they left for the day; his meditations were being disrupted, and God abhorred a poor sermon.

  An image of the gangly minister standing on his porch and railing at the kids made her lips pull at the corners. She hadn't believed the story until she'd come to see Matt's teacher one day about his grades. And she hadn't made things better by laughing aloud.

  Not exactly the reclusive widow, she thought as she reached the store and pushed inside. And if Colin gets his nerve up, a widow no longer.

  He was at the back, leaning casually against the register and reading a magazine. She had to rap her knuckles twice on the counter to get his attention.

  "I want you to assassinate Bob Cameron," she said when he looked up to smile.

  ***

  Matt liked Amy and Tommy Fox. They were in the same grade, and they both hated his teacher as much as he did. Of course, Mrs. Adams wasn't all that bad, except that she limped and her husband was a janitor who always chased them from the playground as soon as school was over. But her breath smelled funny, and no one was surprised last Monday when they all walked in and found a substitute at the desk.

  Amy said she was dying from a rare disease that struck only teachers, and you got it from rotten fish. Tommy said she carried a bottle of whiskey in her purse and drank from it at th
e water fountain in front of Mr. Ross' room.

  But the best thing about them was they didn't make fun of the pictures he drew, and Tommy knew almost as much about James Bond as Matt did.

  They were kneeling now at the end of the marina's last dock, dive-bombing tiny fish with gravel from the drive. Matt liked the way the stones seemed to curve as soon as they hit the water. Once in a while he would turn and pitch a stone lightly toward the half dozen gulls sailing above them waiting for the trawler.

  Amy, whose face was round and heavily freckled, was a carrot-top with green eyes and a stub for a nose. She stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips and stared thoughtfully at the mound of pebbles shimmering under the water. "I think there's a Viking buried under there. He's come all the way across the ocean and he died in a battle with the pirates who used to live here."

  Tommy, his sister's twin save for the lack of flesh on his bones, shook his head. "Nope, that's a place, a hole where they put missiles to kill the Russians."

  "There aren't no missies under the water," she told him with disdain."

  "Are too."

  "Nope. There's a Viking down there," and she turned to Matt for collaboration.

  "It's a fortress," he said, dropping another gravel bomb. "A guy's in there and he builds super lasers and things to shoot down planes when they fly over the island." He pointed to the shallows at the dock's other end. "He wants to get a whole lot of them along here, see, so no one can get here unless he says so."

  "That's silly, it's a Viking," she insisted, her face puffed and pouting.

  "Can't be. Vikings are dead."

  "I said he was buried there."

  Tommy jabbed an elbow in her side. "The fish ate him last week."

  "They can't. Vikings are too tough."

  "How do you know that, smarty?" her brother demanded.

  "I saw it on TV. They wear bearskins and metal shirts and horns on their head."

  Matt giggled. Tommy sneered, grabbed a handful of the gravel and threw it in as hard as he could. The splash drove them all back from the edge, Amy scrambling to her feet and nearly pitching off the other side.

  "I'm gonna tell Daddy," she said when her balance recovered.

  "I'm gonna tell Daddy," Tommy echoed. "But if you tell Daddy and he tells Mommy," he shouted after her as she started to march toward shore, "we're not getting any ice cream tonight."

  She hesitated, turned to retort and clamped a hand to her mouth.

  Tommy looked to Matt who was studying the water, then looked up to the trees that grew close to the workshop. "Matt," he whispered suddenly. "Matt, look!"

  Matt looked up, and saw Lilla coming toward them. The gulls began screaming.

  She wore a long black dress splattered with dried mud and sand, with long ragged tears at the hem and across one shoulder. Her feet were bare. Her hair was tangled-like bristles, he thought-and laced with torn blades of grass, grayed by sand as if she'd rolled in it all night. Her eyes were hidden, but he felt her staring at him, saw her lips parted and her tongue running slowly over her teeth. One hand clutched at a stiff fold of the dress, the other lay flat against her stomach as she walked.

  Amy instantly bolted for the house, her brother only a few yards behind her. Lilla ignored them.

  Matt could barely move. He rose slowly, seeing she could easily cut him off before he reached the safety of the lawn. She made no move to intercept his friends, only glided across the lawn until she reached the end of the dock. He swallowed, and his right hand brushed nervously against his pants. One by one, the gravel stones fell from his grip, bounced off the wood and dropped soundlessly into the water.

  The gulls whirled and shrieked.

  One of them swooped down at her, banked, and its wing brushed hard through her hair. She ignored it.

  Matt looked up at the agitated birds, pulling his lips between his teeth and trying not to breathe too loudly. He wished Amy and Tommy would find their father and bring him out here; he wished his mother had told him to come right home after school.

  A second gull dove and managed to jab at her shoulder, parting the black fabric to expose a line of pale flesh and a thinner line of running red.

  She ignored it.

  And they kept screaming.

  Matt swallowed again and managed a weak, "Hello, Lilla."

  He could almost see the shudder that rippled up from her feet to the vague bulge of her chest, the shudder that made her sweep back the hair to show him her eyes. They were dark, and they were pleading, and he found himself moving toward her. He didn't want to go. But if he could wait until he was only a foot or two from her, he could leap from the dock into the shallows and scramble up to the grass. By that time, Mr. Fox would be outside and yelling and Lilla would go away.

  He couldn't make the jump.

  He stopped close enough for her to reach out and touch his head lightly. Her hand was cold, as if she'd just come from winter.

  The gulls swirled.

  The haze deepened to clouds that promised another storm.

  "Little Matt," she said then, and he frowned because in spite of her looks she sounded perfectly normal. He didn't understand. He knew what people who looked like this should sound like-deep voices that had echoes, with thunder all around them and lightning outside the window. But she sounded just like the old Lilla who gave him ice cream and laughed, who put extra cheese in his sandwiches and extra catsup on his hamburgers.

  "Colin," she said, urgently now.

  He could feel the passing wind of a diving gull at his back.

  ***

  She gripped his shoulders tightly and shook him. "Colin!"

  He cried out softly and struggled, breaking one hand free and looking up to demand she leave him alone. What he saw made him shove at her chest in a sudden startled panic. She released him, and he backed away hastily.

  Her eyes. They were white.

  No color. Just white.

  The back door slammed, and he heard Mr. Fox bellowing Lilla's name. She leaned down to him and said, "Colin!" turned and ran back into the trees.

  Her feet were bare.

  When he stepped off the dock, he could see the grass lightly stained with blood.

  ***

  "Now what," said Garve Tabor, "would you like me to do, huh?"

  The best answer Peg had was a helpless, weak, smiling shrug. Despite her anger, it hadn't been her idea to come here at all; Colin had insisted. As soon as she had finished her description of the meeting and he'd told her of his phone call, his eyes had gone dark. Wolf dark. His hands had become fists that pressed against the counter, and she could hear his heel tapping angrily on the floor. She wouldn't have minded so much if he had shouted or sworn, but he had done neither. He had only glared at his hands and taken several deep breaths as if preparing to scream. His control was unnerving. And when Muriel came in, he'd snatched up his coat and dragged Peg out the door.

  "Well?" Garve said.

  Peg only shrugged again.

  The office was small. Two wooden desks side by side a few feet back from the entrance, a pair of ladder-back chairs she and Colin were using, gray metal file cabinets along the left-hand wall, a bulletin board on the right under which was a low table holding the dispatcher's radio unit. There was a single door in the rear wall leading to the three cells in back. A gun cabinet beside it, its glass front locked, the rifles and shotguns inside gleaming with new polish. Light came from four white-encased fluorescent tubes that ran half the width of the ceiling.

  Tabor was behind his desk, leaning back, his hands clasped on his paunch. His tan shirt was open at the throat, his gun belt lying on the empty desk blotter.

  Colin, who had shoved his chair against the wall by the bulletin board and stared blindly out the large front window, shook his head. Peg, directly in front of the chief, sighed.

  "I don't know, Garve. It's-"

  "Jesus," Colin said, "can't you run them out of town or something? My God, they actually threatened her!"

/>   Tabor brushed at his forelock futilely and shook his head as if he were dealing with children. "I heard what you told me, Col, but if Peg is right, the threat-if there was one-"

  "If..?"

  "-was implied, and I'd be up to my butt in false arrest suits if I did anything now. It's a subjective thing, Col, Peg, and there's really nothing I can do."

  "Talk to Cameron, then," she suggested.

  "About what? His friends?" He waved her silent as he straightened and pushed a closed folder to one side on his blotter. Then he opened a side drawer and pulled out a handful of fountain pens, their caps long since missing. His chair swiveled around and he tossed one at the bulletin board. It stuck in the cork like an ungainly dart.

  "I'll tell you something."

  "Please," Colin said sourly, moving his chair aside when a second pen nearly^pinned his ear to the wall.

  "You were talking to Mike Lombard and Theo Vincent, right? Sweet fellas, both of them. Lombard has oil for a smile, and Vincent looks like he eats nothing but sugar."

  Peg shifted impatiently, but was too fascinated by his errant marksmanship to say anything in protest.

  When the last fountain pen skewered a wanted poster yellowed with age, Garve snorted and faced her.

  "Peg, they're nasty, the both of them. I know it. I talked with them back when Jim was killed. But I can't ride them out of town because in the first place, I'm not Gary Cooper, as I told Colin last night; and in the second, there's no law against visiting someone in her home and passing on information. You chose to make what they said a threat, but Lombard is an expensive lawyer who would have me beachcombing in a week if he wanted to. And I'll tell you the truth, I wouldn't want anything but a smoking gun for evidence before I faced Theo Vincent."

  "Jesus," Colin muttered in disgust.

  Peg, however, saw the man's point and knew he was correct. And perhaps she'd been right all along; perhaps it was the mood the day had gotten itself into. She sighed noncommittally and rose from the chair. Colin muttered under his breath and raised his eyebrows in a shrug.

  "You feel it, too," she said suddenly, without knowing why. He nodded. "Yeah."