Restless Dead

by Cave, Hugh

"Never mind that now. It's a long story."

  "Are they after you?"

  "I suppose so. We'll cross that bridge if they come here. You can see for yourself there's nothing wrong with me anymore. I was just away for a time."

  "Away where?" Everett demanded, gazing up at her owlishly.

  "Well, I don't know exactly. But it was a learning place, I know that. I learned things there, anyhow. And now I'm back. I can help you after you're rested, most likely. First you have to rest. Anyone can see you're just worn out from all the frightening things that've been going on here." Ethel reached out to pat Everett's hand. "You rest now, you hear? I'll come back later."

  Despite the near loss of his voice, Everett managed a few last growly words. "Is that a cat on your shoulder?" he demanded.

  "It is."

  "You know how I feel about cats. Get it out of here. Out of the house, I mean."

  "Why?"

  "Because I say so."

  "You know," Ethel said, "you're really something. Just because you took Daddy's place when he died and have been looking after us all these years doesn't give you the right to play Hitler about every little thing, you know. Now be quiet," she added quickly and wagged a finger at him as Everett opened his mouth to argue. "Be quiet and look at me."

  Scowling, he did that.

  For a moment the two of them gazed at each other in silence, while the wife of the man on the bed watched them both with an expression of bewilderment on her face. Then Everett's mouth began to tremble and his bony, long-figured hands clenched on the old patchwork quilt that covered him. Finally he said in a voice that barely escaped his lips, "Well, all right, if that's how you feel. Just let me rest."

  Ethel left the room smiling but waited in the hall for Blanche to catch up with her. Blanche said, "How in the world did you do that, I'd like to know?"

  "Never mind. What room is Amanda in?"

  "Her own now. We had the wall fixed after the thing smashed through it."

  "Let me talk to her alone, please." Ethel went down the hall and opened Amanda's door. The woman on the bed had her eyes open but seemed unaware that the door had been opened. Ethel went to the bed and stood there looking down at her.

  "Hello, Amanda. Remember me?"

  The open eyes focused on her hovering face, and Amanda reached out to clasp her hand. "Ethel." It was only a whisper. "You've come back!"

  "And now that I have, you're going to be all right again."

  "I wish I thought so." The voice was full of sadness. "I keep thinking of it, Ethel. The way it burst through the wall over there."

  Ethel turned to look and saw that a patch had been applied over what must have been a really big hole. A wolf, had Susan said? No wolf could ever be that. . . but the vultures had been bigger than life, too, hadn't they? Seating herself on the edge of the bed, she took one of Amanda's hands in both of her own. "We're going to help you, Sis." Turning her head to the kitten on her shoulder, she added, "Aren't we, Blackie?"

  "Mrreow," Blackie said.

  "Is that a kitty?" Amanda said.

  "It is, indeed. A very special one."

  "Everett will be furious. Can I hold it?"

  Ethel took the kitten from her shoulder and laid it gently on her sister's breast, where Blackie looked into Amanda's face and began to purr.

  "He likes you," Ethel said with a smile.

  "He really does!"

  "Amanda, look at me."

  While stroking the kitten, Amanda did so. Blackie went on purring. After a while Amanda said. "I'm glad you came back, Ethel. Oh, I'm so very glad! I'm going to be all right now. I just know it."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Susan had to wait a long time for the door to open after she knocked at the caretaker's cottage. The Haitians were at home, no doubt of that. She could hear them moving about inside. Had she caught them doing something they didn't want her to know about? Something they had to clear away before letting her in?

  The door opened at last and Lelio, standing there with a look of unease on his face, said, "Please excuse us for making you wait, Miss Susan. The room was such a mess, we would have been ashamed for you to see it."

  The table was bare, Susan noticed as she entered. Well, maybe it had been littered with the remnants of a meal. And maybe not.

  "I'd like you to come to the house," she said. "Ethel is home and we need to fix up her room."

  Standing by the bare table, Lucille opened her eyes wide and said, "Ethel? You mean from the—"

  "From the place where she's been for the past few weeks. Yes."

  Lelio and Lucille looked at each other but neither spoke.

  "So, can you come?"

  "Of course!" Lelio said. "Right away!"

  Susan returned to the house and, true to their word, the Haitians arrived a few minutes later. She led them upstairs to Ethel's room and told them what she wanted done. Leaving them there, she went back down. Ethel, she noticed, was asleep on the divan in the living room, with the little black kitten curled up close to her face. Going into the kitchen, Susan sat at the table to think about what everyone might have for lunch.

  She was still sitting there when the front doorbell rang not once but three times, as if whoever was ringing it was both ill-mannered and impatient.

  Getting there as fast as she could, she jerked open the door and found herself face-to-face with a lean, husky-looking man with dirty, uncombed hair and a face that appeared to be made of old leather. "Who are you?" she demanded.

  "Name's Watson. Earl Watson." The words were thick and slurred, and she could smell the liquor that made them that way. "Want to see Mr. Everol."

  "I'm sorry, but Mr. Everol can't see you. He's not well."

  "He has to see me." The voice was a threat now.

  "I tell you—"

  "Lady, you listen to me." Earl pushed her aside as he lurched in. "Mr. Everol and me got business to do and I aim to see we do it. You tell him I'm here or by God I'll tell him myself!"

  Frightened, Susan said in a low voice, "Wait here, please. I'll go up and talk to him." She looked again at the matted hair and leathery face. "What did you say your name was?"

  "Watson. You tell him Earl Watson is here. And make it quick, lady. I ain't got all day."

  She hurried upstairs and found Everett asleep. Waking him, she said, "Everett, I'm sorry, but there's a man downstairs who says he has to see you. He's drunk and I'm afraid of him. He says his name is Earl Watson."

  Everett's face took on a look of sheer fright as he struggled to sit up. Twice he fell back, gasping, but on the third try, with Susan's help, he managed to brace his back against the headboard. "Oh, my God," he said.

  "What shall I tell him, Everett?"

  "Tell him to go away! I'll see him as soon as I'm better!"

  "Everett, he's not going away. I've just told you, he's drunk and nasty. I knew it even before I opened the door to him—the way he rang the bell so hard."

  "Then—then bring him up here," Everett said.

  His voice was a moan now. "Bring him here and leave the two of us alone. Oh, my God, I knew I shouldn't have turned back yesterday."

  "You were going to see him, you mean? 'What about?"

  "Never mind, never mind. Just go bring him here before he starts tearing the house apart. I've seen him drunk before."

  Susan hurried back downstairs and found Earl Watson leaning against the wall in the hall. The front door was still open. Fearfully, she stepped past him and closed it, then said, "All right, Mr. Watson. Come with me, please."

  With him thumping up the stairs behind her, all she could think of was a movie she had seen once of that scary novel by Mary Shelley. That story in which Dr. Frankenstein created a monstrous human being out of parts of bodies, and the creature was so big and clumsy he made the floor shake with every step he took. This Earl Watson wasn't that big, but he certainly made the stairs shake. She thought they'd collapse.

  He followed her along the upstairs hall the same way, and w
hen she stepped aside at Everett's door he stomped past her without even a thank you. Everett was still sitting up in bed, braced against the headboard.

  "All right, Susan," Everett managed in spite of his laryngitis. "Shut the door and leave us alone now."

  Susan shut the door and walked briskly back down the hall, making sure to do some stomping herself so they would hear her. Then she turned and tiptoed back, hoping Everett would trust her enough not to suspect anything. Earl Watson, being so drunk, would not even think of it.

  "All right," Mr. Watson was snarling, "where the hell's the money? I told you last time if you kept me waitin' again I'd quit foolin' with you and go to the cops."

  "I was sick," Everett said. "My God, can't you see I'm sick?"

  "I don't take no excuses!"

  "But I'm only one day late. One day!"

  "One day is one day too damn many. How am I supposed to know you ain't plannin' on goin' to the cops yourself?"

  "Planning on—what?"

  "Goin' to the cops about me keepin' quiet about that girl's body when I found it, 'stead of reportin' it like I should've. You know what I'm talkin' about, Goddamn it. Don't play stupid with me."

  "Earl, for God's sake, you know I wouldn't do that. Listen, I'll give you a check."

  "I don't want no check. Where the hell would I cash a check that big without bein' asked questions? I want cash, like always."

  "But I can't get to the bank, Earl." Everett's voice was full of pleading now.

  "Send one of your women, then. You don't have to tell 'em what it's for. Just get the cash here so I can come for it."

  "I—I'll go myself, Earl. I'll manage somehow."

  "You don't know which one of 'em to trust, is that it? You still ain't figured out which one of 'em shut that girl up in the cave. By God, I'd have found out long ago if I was you. I'd have stood the lot of 'em up against a wall till the guilty one broke down and admitted what she done. But even if you knew, you'd still be payin' me to keep my mouth shut. Don't you forget that. 'Less you want the guilty one charged with murder."

  "Earl," Everett moaned, "I'll go to the bank right now. You can come for the cash this evening. Now go, please go, so I can get my thoughts together and plan how to handle this."

  "For Christ's sake, they're only women, ain't they?" Earl said. "Just say you're feelin' better and go."

  "You don't under—"

  "All right, all right. I'll be back this evenin'. You better believe it."

  At the door, Susan was off and running. Down the hall she sped, and on down the stairs. Before Earl Watson reached the top of the stairs and began to blunder his way down them, she was in the kitchen with one hand hovering over the telephone.

  When the front door slammed shut behind him, she snatched up the phone and dialed the Four Pines Motel.

  A moment later she was talking in whispers to Jeff Gordon.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Earl Watson had left the Everol house about noon. Ninety minutes later Jeff Gordon and Verna Clark arrived. Susan opened the door to them.

  "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come," the bird woman said accusingly. "What on earth took you so long?"

  Jeff said quietly, "We had some talking to do first, Susan. Miss Clark is really Linda Mason."

  "Linda—what?"

  "Mason. She is the younger sister of the woman who is missing." Jeff put his arm around Verna's shoulders. "Now you know why she has been 'prowling around here,' as you people have been calling it, since Kimberly disappeared."

  "Oh." Susan shifted her gaze to the face of Verna Clark. It was expressionless now, or at least under tight control, but there were unmistakable signs of recent tears. "I'm so sorry, Miss Clark." She reached out to touch Verna's hand. "I really am."

  "May we see Everett?" Jeff asked.

  "He went out right after Mr. Watson was here, but he should be back soon. I'm sure he only went to the bank for the money that terrible man demanded." She shuddered. "Please come into the living room. Amanda and Ethel are there, and the Savains. We've been talking about what I overheard and trying to decide what really happened."

  Jeff and Verna followed her. In the living room, the two Haitians sat together on the divan, the woman looking frightened. Amanda and Blanche sat in two of the old easy chairs. Ethel occupied a third, with the black kitten on her lap.

  "Please sit down," Susan said. "I'm sure Everett won't be—"

  "He's coming now," Ethel said.

  Jeff looked at her. He had heard nothing before she spoke, but the cat was peering alertly toward the hall. Now—yes—he heard a car in the drive. It stopped, and he heard its door thud shut. The front door of the house opened. Looking exhausted, Everett walked slowly into the living room and stopped.

  His gaze took in the Haitians and the Everol women before it finally settled on Jeff and Verna.

  "What's going on here?" he asked in his sandpaper voice.

  Susan said, "Sit down, please, Everett. We want to talk to you."

  "Talk about what? I'm sick. Can't you see I'm sick?"

  She stood before him with her hands on her hips. "You've been putting some of it on, Everett, and we know why. You didn't want to pay that man again and were hoping—"

  "What are you talking about?" Everett's voice made the windows rattle.

  "I listened outside the door while he was talking to you. And you're wrong, Everett. You've been wrong from the start. None of us shut that woman up in the cave."

  Amanda said, "She's right, Everett. We didn't." Ethel said, "We've been talking about it since you left."

  Everett sank onto the unoccupied end of the divan and again slowly turned his head to scowl at them all. "No one else knew about the cave," he challenged. "We agreed never to mention it outside of this house, so we wouldn't have people coming from all over to investigate the fossils. Are you trying to tell me you broke that agreement and other people do know about it?"

  His wife said, "You know better than that, Everett. Now suppose you tell us what's been going on between you and that Watson man. We all want to know."

  "No." Everett clamped his lips shut after the word was uttered.

  "Everett, we have to decide what to do about him. Because he's coming back tonight for more money, and you're not going to pay him. That's final."

  Everett sat in silence for a moment, looking them over. "Which one of you did it?" he demanded. "Who shut that woman up in there?"

  "None of us," Susan said.

  "I don't believe you. One of you must have!"

  They shook their heads. Ethel said, "I would know if one of us did it, Everett. I have a way of knowing such things now. It's something I learned when I was in the learning place."

  "Huh?"

  "Never mind," Susan said briskly. "It's not important. Everett, can't you see that if one of us had done it, we would certainly own up to it now to save this family from ruin? We could always say it was an accident—that whoever did it just happened to find that boulder rolled away from the entrance one day and rolled it back in place without knowing anyone was in there. You can't charge a person with a crime when it was only an accident."

  "Anyway," Amanda said, leaning forward on her chair, "none of us did that. Found the boulder rolled away and put it back, I mean. We've talked about it and we're positive."

  "So who did lock her up in there?" Everett said. Speaking for the first time, Jeff Gordon frowned at the two Haitians on the divan. "Lelio, do you and Lucille know anything about this? Two of the rooms in that cave have been used for voodoo ceremonies, and you're a houngan."

  Every pair of eyes in the room focused on the Haitians.

  "Well, Lelio?" Everett demanded.

  "It—might have been us," the old Haitian admitted. "But if we did it, we did not know what we were doing."

  "Suppose you tell us about it," Jeff said quietly.

  "Well, I discovered the cave by accident, m'sieu. I was up on the knoll one day, seeking a stone I could use as a pié loa
. You know about the pié loa?"

  Jeff nodded. To the others he said, "It's a special stone, with special powers, that is used in certain ceremonies."

  "And while I was searching for one on the knoll," Lelio said, "I felt a powerful force flowing from behind one of those big rocks. When I went to investigate, I discovered the cave entrance." Silently he begged for understanding with his eyes and outspread hands. "Lucille and I, we had been afraid to serve the loa in our cottage, thinking Mr. Everol would probably send us away and we would be homeless. But thinking no one knew about the cave, we made one of its chambers into a hounfor."

  "When was this?" Jeff asked. "I mean, when did you discover the cave?"

  "In March, soon after we came here." The old Haitian looked at his woman, and she nodded.

  "And when did you hold your first voodoo service there?"

  "In May, m'sieu. There was much to do first, because we had none of the things we needed. Not even an altar."

  "Then did you—well, never mind now. Tell the story your way."

  "Well, m'sieu, we used the cave from that time on. Always we left the stone rolled away from the entrance when we went in because for an old man like me it is very hard to move from the inside." He looked at the others. No one interrupted. "So I suppose this woman you are all talking about—I suppose she could have found the stone rolled away from the entrance one day and gone in. And when we came out, we could have rolled it back without knowing she was inside. I am sorry if that happened, m'sieu. Believe me." He paused, then almost defiantly added, "But an active young woman should have been able to move the stone away and escape from there! Even I would have been able to get out if I had been trapped like that!"

  Jeff looked at Verna. Her face was wet with tears again.

  "My sister broke her wrist in March, in the college gym," she said almost inaudibly. "She could still hardly use it when she was here."

  With a look of bewilderment on his face, Lelio said, "But m'selle, if she had been shut up in there that way, would we not have found her at the entrance when we went again? Would she not have been trying to get out?"

  "How often have you been using the cave?" Jeff asked.