The Devil's Cradle

by Sylvia Nobel

  As quickly as it had come, the volley of ice vanished and was replaced by huge drops that splattered against the glass with such force I thought it might shatter. The wind rose to an eerie wail and lashed nearby trees into a wild frenzy.

  I hugged my robe tighter and watched Mother Nature’s dazzling fireworks display illuminate the rain-soaked landscape in garish blue flashes. One spectacular bolt exploded with such force against the ground, it knocked me back on my heels, leaving me temporarily stunned as the thunderous aftermath shook the old house to its foundations.

  It was only when the deep rumbling began to subside that I heard the scream. It was ear shattering, horror-filled and sent an icy river of fear skimming down my spine. “Audrey?” I shouted. Seconds passed. There was no answer. I scrambled to my feet and fumbled for the table lamp. Snap. Snap. Nothing. Damn. My flashlight was in the car downtown at Toomey’s place.

  “No!” came another scream. “Get away.” A loud crash from upstairs galvanized me into action. Dry-mouthed, I stumbled towards the doorway and groped my way across the shadowy living room amid strobe-like bursts of ferocious lightning.

  “Audrey,” I hollered again over the rolling thunder, “What’s wrong?”

  The absence of a response had my mind inventing all manners of unspeakable horrors. Faster! Faster! I’m sure I was running, but it seemed more like slow motion. Precious seconds passed until I finally reached the stairway but my mushy legs refused to perform. Come on. You can do it. Right foot up. Now left. Now right. Good. Halfway up, my toe caught on my robe and sent me sprawling forward. My chin smashed into a wooden step and pain exploded in my head. Dizzy and disoriented, I forced myself to crawl the rest of the way to the landing, where I struggled to my feet and then froze when a brilliant flicker of light revealed ugly shards of broken glass that would have sliced my feet to ribbons.

  “Audrey, where are you?” Dread twisted my insides and I gripped the banister tighter when I heard footsteps pounding towards me from the blackness beyond. “Is that you?” At first I saw nothing, but then, amid the sporadic electrical bursts, I saw her race from the shadows, arms outstretched, eyes huge with terror. “Don’t let her get you,” she screamed. “Run!”

  “Watch out for the glass,” I warned, watching in stunned disbelief as she barreled unheeding towards the staircase. What was wrong with her? “Audrey, stop!” I grabbed for her, missed, grabbed again, and then she swerved and lunged at me, shoving hard. Panic tore through me and I desperately clawed the air for a handhold before catching the sleeve of her nightgown. Screaming, we both pitched headlong into the darkness.

  Chapter 21

  We landed at the bottom of the stairs in a tangled heap of arms and legs. For some time, I lay in numbed confusion trying to remember exactly what had happened.

  My chin ached and my head felt like it was filled with cobwebs. Piece by piece, I reconstructed the scene. Was I mistaken, or had Audrey deliberately knocked me down the stairs? The memory evoked sudden anger and the adrenaline charge helped revive me. But when I tried to rise, a blinding pain pierced my left shoulder. Oh no. Rotating it slowly convinced me that it wasn’t broken but I feared it might be dislocated.

  With care, I disengaged myself from Audrey’s limp frame and rolled to my knees, fearing the worst when she made no sound. “Are you all right?” Met with stony silence, I fought down a surge of panic and laid my ear against her chest, gratified to hear steady beating. Thank heavens. Probably knocked cold, but how badly was she injured?

  Something soft bumped against my ankle and I stiffened in horror. It was only when another blaze of lightning reflected the glow of iridescent-gold eyes that my galloping pulse tapered off. “Sorry, girl,” I said in a shaky voice, gathering Princess tightly against me. “Did I scare you?” Her rumbling purr joined the grumble of thunder as the diminishing storm blew away leaving the room submerged in shadows.

  My number one priority was getting help for Audrey so I pushed to my feet, set the cat aside and started to feel my way towards the parlor, fervently praying that the phone lines weren’t out again. I’d only moved a few feet when I heard Audrey stir and moan softly. Retracing my steps, I knelt beside her. “Thank God! Tell me where you’re hurt.” “My head…and my right foot stings.”

  I slid my hand down her leg and it came away wet and sticky. “You must have stepped on some broken glass. You’d better not move until I can get hold of the doctor.”

  “No wait. I think I’m okay.” I gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulder and helped her to a sitting position. She leaned back against the wall, muttering, “What happened?”

  “I was about to ask you the same question. Why did you push me down the stairs?”

  The faint remains of lightning disclosed her look of total shock. “I didn’t push you. I was trying to save you.”

  Her answer was so preposterous I could hear Tugg’s words of doubt about her echoing in my mind again. “Save me? From what?”

  “You won’t believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “I saw the ghost.”

  “Come on, Audrey. Get real.”

  “She was there on the stairs, right behind you.”

  She sounded so earnest, for a split second I was inclined to believe her before common sense prevailed. “There are no such things, Audrey.”

  “Something was there.”

  “Maybe you mistook those lace curtains at the window. They were whipping around me in the wind and that’s probably what knocked the bowl and pitcher off that little table.”

  “I knew it,” she said with an indignant catch in her voice. “You think I’m crazy, just like my father and sister.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “I know you think I’m hallucinating. And it’s all because of your stupid epilepsy book.”

  “You know it’s one of the possible side effects of your medicine. And maybe with the addition of the champagne...”

  “No! I saw her long, white dress and her face was real spooky—all chalky looking like a dead person and her eyes were all rimmed in black.”

  My stomach jumped. “A white dress? That was no ghost. It’s got to be the same woman who was harassing your father. That’s it,” I announced, pushing to my feet again. “No fooling around this time. I’m calling the sheriff right now.”

  She gripped my leg. “Please don’t go. I know this is going to sound totally off the wall, but I don’t see how it could have been a real person.”

  My patience was dwindling. “Why not?”

  “Because she was in my room, and by the time I ran down the hall and got to the landing, like...like magic, she was already behind you on the stairs. How could anyone move that fast?”

  It certainly didn’t seem humanly possible, but if what she said was true, it reinforced my suspicions that there were at least two people involved in this latest bit of chicanery. The only other explanation had to be that in her state of hysteria, she’d mistaken my white terry-cloth bathrobe and the blowing lace curtains for the mysterious specter.

  Still pondering her words, it slowly dawned on me that dim light was spreading throughout the room. I turned to the window, surprised to realize it was daybreak, and within minutes there was enough light to make out a dark pool of blood on the floor beneath the cut on Audrey’s foot. The disquieting knowledge that she’d injured herself in a vain attempt to save me from who-knows-what, sent me on another guilt trip.

  I stripped the belt from my robe and she cried out when I wrapped it tightly around her foot. “Sorry,” I said, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my shoulder. “Don’t move. I’m going to find out if Dr. Orcutt can come here.”

  “He’s gonna be mad if you wake him this early,” she stated, matter-of-factly, pulling Princess onto her lap.

  “I don’t care if he is. You need medical attention right now and anyway, being a country doctor, he’s probably used to emergency calls at all hours.” I hurried to the parlor phone and almost sc
reamed with frustration to find it as dead as I’d feared. Damn. So much for that and alerting the sheriff. I returned to Audrey’s side. “The lines are out again so I’m taking you to his house. Sit tight while I get Marta.”

  “I don’t want to stay here alone.”

  “Look, I don’t think you should put any weight on that foot and I’m going to need help getting you to the car.”

  “But what if the woman comes back?”

  “I sincerely doubt she’s going to take a chance on us seeing her in the light of day, but if you hear or see anything unusual, anything at all, scream your head off. I’ll be back in two minutes flat.”

  “Okay.” She gathered the cat closer, still looking uncertain. Her ashen complexion worried me, but I had no choice except to leave her there huddled on the floor while I dashed across the breezeway propelled by growing fury. This current scare had been carefully engineered, just like Boneyard Pass and the dead rabbit and the threatening calls. Positive that one of the women on my suspect list had been prowling around the house with the deliberate purpose of terrorizing Audrey had cold fingers of apprehension tracing the back of my neck. Was it Jesse or Bitsy? Or Willow? Marta said she’d been here last night before our arrival. Whoever it was appeared to have unobstructed access to the house whenever she chose, and logic dictated that the woman’s conspirator was most likely D.J. Morrison.

  The intuitive belief that things were swiftly coming to a head induced an overwhelming sense of foreboding. The answer had to be right in front of me. Why couldn’t I see it?

  Marta was already in the kitchen brewing coffee on the gas stove and because she was still on my suspect list I tried to gauge her reaction as I breathlessly relayed our nocturnal adventure. Her expression of surprise appeared real, but why the flicker of skepticism in her eyes?

  She rummaged around in a drawer until she located a first-aid kit and from a second, she removed two flashlights. “These you will keep in your rooms,” she said, pressing them into my hands. Then, as fast as she could move her bulky frame, we hurried back to the old part of the house. Along the way, she sheepishly admitted that she’d taken to wearing earplugs at night and hadn’t even heard the storm.

  Leaving Audrey in her care, I hurried to my room and, using mostly one hand, finally managed to pull on jeans and a T-shirt. Ten minutes later, I had the big Packard parked out front with the motor running. Thank goodness I’d injured my left shoulder or shifting gears would have been agony.

  By the time I returned Marta had Audrey’s foot encased in a mountain of gauze. We helped her to stand and, flanked by the two of us, she hopped toward the waiting car all the while firmly overruling Marta’s generous offer to forego her day off to stay home and play nurse.

  “Okay,” the older woman finally relented, “but I will ask D.J. to bring me back early from Naco.”

  “Thanks, Marta,” I said as we negotiated the last step, “and by the way, where is D.J.?”

  “I think he is probably still with his lady friend,” she grunted, laboring for breath.

  Had he and Bitsy been together all night? How convenient.

  “And I hope she makes him feel much better,” she continued with a wily grin as we assisted Audrey into the passenger seat, “because he’s very unhappy with you when he wakes up yesterday afternoon.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that?”

  “He says he goes to great trouble to prepare for you the red car and then you choose another.”

  “That was my decision,” Audrey spoke up and then winced. “Oh! My foot aches with every heartbeat.”

  Marta hastily waved us on our way and we sped downtown through rain-freshened air into the blinding glare of the rising sun. The sky, now a brilliant cloudless blue, shone in stark contrast to the dark violence of the storm just hours ago. But the evidence was everywhere, from fallen trees and scattered debris to washed out mud-streaked roads. By the time we arrived at the spacious, two-story house, I was hopeful this chance visit would provide an opportunity to pose some pointed questions to the evasive doctor.

  As expected, when we presented ourselves at the front door just shy of five-thirty, Fran Orcutt’s dour expression broadcast her annoyance at being rousted out of bed by us for the second time in a week. But after I’d explained why we couldn’t call, she eyed Audrey’s bandaged foot, ushered us into a small sitting room and instructed us to wait while she awakened her husband.

  Moments later, a disheveled Dr. Orcutt shuffled into the room buttoning his shirt over rumpled trousers. He knelt down, and with swift professional movements, peeled off the wad of bandages and examined Audrey’s foot with practiced hands. “You need stitches,” he announced tersely, rising to his feet. “We’ll have to go to the clinic because I don’t have the proper supplies here at the house.”

  After bundling Audrey into his car, I followed him two short blocks and parked the big Packard beneath a gnarled sycamore tree towering behind the building. Amid the cheerful racket of birds from the overhanging branches, he let us in the back door. While we sat in the shuttered waiting room, he solved the dilemma of no electricity by activating a generator, and then with the overhead lights wavering, he helped me assist Audrey down the hallway into a cubicle and onto one of the examining tables.

  When Dr. Orcutt snapped on latex gloves and began to swab the gash with a strong-smelling, orange disinfectant, Audrey sucked in a sharp breath. “Ouch, that hurts.”

  He said, “I’m sorry,” and pulled a syringe from the cupboard and began filling it. “This is going to sting a little, but I have to deaden the area first.”

  Audrey threw me a beseeching look, so I took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. She gritted her teeth and hung on until he’d completed his task, then lay back on the pillow while he checked her blood pressure, determined that she should have a tetanus shot, examined the lump on her forehead, and then inquired about her medication. It was only then that he asked what happened and as he listened intently to what now sounded totally inconceivable with radiant sunlight pouring into the room, his craggy face crumpled into a pensive scowl. “I’d better examine your shoulder, Miss O’Dell.”

  Much to my relief, he declared it to be only a bad sprain but added the caveat that I should not overtax myself for the next few days. “As for you, young lady,” he said, returning his attention to Audrey, “in the future, I would strongly suggest that you avoid mixing alcohol with your seizure medications. That’s probably what caused you to hallucinate.”

  Audrey’s uncertain gaze locked with my skeptical one and she pushed to a sitting position, saying softly, “Kendall doesn’t think I was.”

  “What complete nonsense. More likely it was the thunderstorm combined with the power of suggestion.” He fired a look in my direction. “Remember, it’s to Miss O’Dell’s advantage to have you believe in such fanciful tales because it will help her sell newspapers.”

  The stubborn set of Audrey’s chin told me that his attempt to sow seeds of doubt had failed so I said, “I think the woman she saw is not only quite real, but probably the same one who was scaring the crap out of her father.” Remembering my interview with Jesse induced me to tack on, “I don’t suppose you have any idea who it might be?” He did a masterful job of ignoring my remark and addressed Audrey instead. “Considering your ongoing problems with Dilantin, I’m going to recommend that you experiment with a different drug.” He rifled around in the cabinet and handed her some sample packages. “Depakene is a relatively new anticonvulsant, but be warned that it can produce its own set of side effects.”

  “And while we’re on that subject, Dr. Orcutt,” I ventured smoothly, “did any other member of the Morgan family suffer from epilepsy?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “How about mental illness?”

  He divided a suspicious glance between us. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  I darted a meaningful look at Audrey who caught my silent message and pinned him with an accusatory g
lare. “Why didn’t you tell me I had a sister? Did you think you could you keep something that important a secret forever?”

  It may have been the florescent lighting, but it seemed as if his already sallow complexion turned green. “No. I knew you would hear eventually, but...” He paused for a few seconds and his next words sounded carefully arranged, “your inquiries place me in a difficult position.”

  “Why?”

  “I already explained that I made your mother certain promises...”

  Audrey flung him a look of pure frustration. “Okay. Fine. We’ll just get our answers from Ida Fairfield.”

  His momentary look of surprise was replaced with a deprecating smile. “I wouldn’t put much stock in anything she has to say. The woman is almost ninety years old. Her memory is probably as faulty as her hearing and eyesight.”

  His acid remark seemed surprisingly unprofessional for a physician, not to mention callous, but nevertheless it spawned a tremor of doubt. Whitey had seemed confident we’d get the straight skinny from her, but how much faith could I place in the memory capacity of someone of such advanced age?

  “I don’t understand,” Audrey said. “You’re the one who brought me here in the first place. Why won’t you answer my questions?”

  Dr. Orcutt absorbed the indictment in her eyes with grim silence before snapping off his gloves and throwing them into the sink. “I’ll tell you this much. It’s probably to your benefit that you never knew your sister. She was a very difficult, very troubled girl who suffered from...well, some acute emotional problems.”

  I chimed in, “Such as?”

  “I can’t go into them.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” My persistence earned me a glare of granite-jawed hostility.

  “Both, Miss O’Dell. Dayln Morgan was a patient and I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics of her case. Especially with you.” He turned to Audrey and assumed a placating tone. “Take my advice and send this woman packing right now. It’s obvious she has no genuine concern for your welfare. Her sole purpose is to dig up dirt and splatter your private family business all over the headlines. You must not allow that to happen.”