Restless Dead

by Cave, Hugh

  "We have tried to hold a weekly service, but sometimes two weeks pass before we can go there."

  Jeff turned to Everett. "Evidently, after Miss Mason was trapped Watson was the next to go in, and he found her. What happened then, Mr. Everol?"

  But the patriarch of the Everol clan had something else on his mind. In a voice full of despair he said, "So it was you, Lelio. You. And all the time I thought—"

  "All the time you thought it was one of us," Susan snapped indignantly. "And instead of calling a family meeting and asking us, you stupidly paid that horrid man to keep quiet. It was he who found the body, wasn't it?"

  Alone at his end of the divan, Everett let his head droop and talked to the patch of carpet between his feet. "He told me that when he dived for the Shelby girl's body, he discovered an entrance to the cave near the bottom of the sinkhole. Being the kind of man he is, he kept the knowledge to himself but went back. That's when he found the entrance on the knoll. Then he discovered Miss Mason's body at the boulder one day, as Lelio has suggested, and assumed one of us must have shut her up in there to put a stop to her snooping. So be began to blackmail me.

  And I, too, thought one of us must be guilty. How could I have known that Lelio and Lucille were using the cave? So I—well, I've been paying him to be quiet."

  Still gazing at the floor, the old man wagged his head and exhaled another long sigh. "He showed me where he'd hidden her. I mean, he couldn't expect me to pay for him to be silent without proving to me there actually was a body, could he? She—" Lifting his head, he glanced at Verna Clark, then quickly looked down again. "He had her wrapped in canvas, and it's always cold in there. I suppose the constant temperature. . . I'm sorry. I don't know about such things. Anyway, I agreed to pay him and he promised to keep quiet."

  Jeff said, "And that is why you changed your mind about me, isn't it? After giving me permission to come, you suddenly found yourself with this secret to protect. So you did everything you could to persuade me to leave."

  "Yes," Everett mumbled.

  "You knew who I was but thought if I didn't know, I'd hurry out of here to look for medical attention."

  "I was afraid you would find out what was going on."

  Verna Clark said in a controlled voice, "Is my sister still in the cave, Mr. Everol?"

  "Unless he has moved her."

  "Will you take me there—Jeff and me—and show us where she is, please? Now?"

  "Oh, Lord," the old man groaned. "I'm so tired, so sick. I almost didn't make it to the bank."

  Jeff reached for Verna's hand. "She's been dead for weeks, love. A day or two more…

  With her eyes shut and tears on her face, Verna nodded.

  Little Susan said sharply, "Everett, that man is coming here this evening for more money, isn't he?"

  "Yes."

  "And blackmail is a crime, isn't it?"

  "Of course."

  "Then I think I should telephone the police, don't you? So they can have someone here to arrest him?"

  "I suppose."

  "Is this family conference over? Can I use the phone now?"

  "Wait," Jeff said, fixing his gaze on the Haitians. Startled, Susan said with a frown, "What, Jeffrey?"

  "I want to ask these two about something. Give me a few minutes more before we break this up, will you?"

  The room was silent. A look of fear widened Lelio Savain's eyes and changed the shape of his face. Reaching out to the woman beside him, he clasped her hand.

  Jeff continued to stare at him. "Lelio, there are some loa in your voodoo who are not very nice, and some of them, when summoned, are able to take strange forms. That's so, isn't it?"

  Lelio's look of fear intensified. "Y-yes, m'sieu," he whispered.

  "I found the stumps of black candles in the room you first used for a hounfor. Did you use those in a ceremony?"

  "Y-yes."

  "Which loa did you send for?" Blessed with a near photographic memory, Jeff had only to close his eyes to see a certain page in his notebook. "Was it by any chance Ogoun Dan Petro, who eats people?"

  "He—he was one of them."

  "I think I'm beginning to understand. Because, Lelio, I once attended a service to Ogoun Dan Petro in Petit-Goave, and he took the form of a large black dog that killed a man. Black candles were used at that ceremony, too. Now tell us, please, why you sent for such a loa."

  Lelio wet his heavy lips. "It was not just Dan Petro I sent for. I made vèvés for other Petro mystères who are known to help in righting wrongs."

  "What wrong did you want justice for?"

  The old man shut his eyes. "They drowned our people, m'sieu. The two men on the boat that brought us from the Bahamas—when the boat's engine failed, they were afraid of being caught and forced us into the sea. Seven of us. One was but a baby. Only Lucille and I reached the shore alive."

  After a little gasp from Susan, the silence returned. But now the sound of breathing was heavier. All in the room gazed at Lelio, including the yellow-eyed black kitten on Ethel's lap.

  "So... when our hounfor in the cave was ready, I called on the loa for vengeance," Lelio said. "Vengeance against those two evil men. And for the humiliations and sufferings Lucille and I were made to endure on our way here to the Panhandle, where I hoped we could survive because I worked here once before."

  "Sufferings on your way here?" Jeff said.

  "It was no easy journey for an old man like me and a woman who does not speak the language. It was January when those two evil men tried to drown us. The weather was cold. We had little money. Most of the time we were hungry. And while we had papers that those men had sold us, we were afraid to ask for help because people might question us."

  He paused. The others waited in silence for him to stop trembling, but Jeff said gently, "Go on, please, compère."

  "We were questioned anyway by suspicious policemen wanting to know why we were walking along your roads that way," Lelio continued. "Only the papers we had paid such a high price for saved us from being taken to prison, I am certain. For weeks we just walked and rested, walked and rested, always cold and sick and frightened, always hungry. We even ate food from restaurant garbage cans. And then when we reached here, I could not find work after all. No one would even talk to me about work. But Le Bon Dieu led us to the empty cottage here and persuaded M'sieu Everol to let us stay. If that had not happened, we might have died."

  "And then," Jeff said, "you fixed up a hounfor in the cave and asked the loa for revenge."

  "Yes."

  "Petro loa, you say."

  Lelio nodded. "The Ogoun Dan Petro you mentioned, who eats people. Marinette Pieds Cheches. The Ge-rouge loa with the red eyes. Some others. But, m'sieu"—a shudder seized the old man and he closed his eyes—"it was not those who answered."

  "Who did answer?"

  "I don't know. We should not have held the service in the cave, I think. . . all those bones in there, of animals and birds from some ancient time. The loa who came in response to our summons must have been from that time, too—nameless ones that I have heard about but never dealt with before. I think the cave must be some kind of doorway to that world. And because we were calling upon wicked loa to avenge our people, the ones who came were evil also, able to take the shape of the most terrible creatures who lived here then. Yes, that is surely what happened. Seeking simple justice for the wrongs done to us, we let loose an even greater evil."

  "And then, after Jacob was killed and Ethel so badly frightened, you tried to send them back, didn't you?" Jeff said. "In that second voodoo room I found white candles, not black ones."

  "Yes. We called upon Papa Legba and Maitresse Erzulie to close the gate we had opened. And they did so, I think. But whoever destroyed our first hounfor found the second one as well and destroyed that, defiling the vèvés and everything else the loa hold sacred. And the gate opened again. That happened the day you arrived here, m'sieu."

  Susan broke the silence that followed. "And, of course, we kno
w who did it, don't we? It was that awful Mr. Watson, afraid his ugly secret might be discovered and he would no longer be able to blackmail Everett."

  "So what are we to do about all this?" Everett said. "Now, I mean." His gaze shifted from the two Haitians to Verna and Jeff.

  "I would like to find my sister," Verna said.

  Jeff touched her hand and shook his head. "With Lelio's ancient ones on the prowl, the cave is too dangerous, love. Twice I've met some kind of saber-toothed cat in there. We should try to make it safer first." He frowned at the houngan. "Would it help, Lelio, to call on Legba and Erzulie again?"

  "I wonder, m'sieu."

  "What do you mean?"

  "So many of those things have crossed over now. Only a few were on this side when Legba and Erzulie closed the gate for me before."

  "I say it's worth a try. Can you set up a hounfor here in the house?"

  "Yes. . . but it will take time."

  "How much time?"

  "The rest of the day, at least."

  "Even if we help you?"

  "There is not much you can do, m'sieu. I alone must do most of it."

  "Then I suggest we break up this meeting and let you get started," Jeff looked around. "Is everyone agreed?"

  There were murmurs of assent.

  But Lelio shook his head. "M'sieu, at the cottage I have most of what we will need, but there remains a big problem. When I called for help before, I had my cocomacaque to use for a poteau-mitan. It has special powers. You know what a poteau-mitan is, no?"

  Jeff nodded. "The link through which you communicate with the loa. And I have your cocomacaque, compère."

  "You, m'sieu?"

  "It saved my life against that cat I mentioned. Then against Watson. It's out in my car. I'll get it for you."

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "I am ready, m'sieu. Shall we begin?"

  For hours Lelio had worked to make the Everol living room as much like a voodoo hounfor as he could. He and Jeff had carried the big table from the dining room and placed it against a wall to serve as an altar. It was covered now with a clean white sheet. On the sheet stood two earthenware jars—govis—freshly painted with the colors and designs of Legba and Erzulie. And an asson, newly made to replace the one defiled by Earl Watson. And a dish of cornmeal, a pié loa, certain other items of less importance. Lelio had changed into a long-sleeved green shirt—green in honor of Legba—and was barefooted.

  The living room itself was to be the peristyle. "Such as it is," Lelio said with a look on his face that said he was not hopeful. "If we had a true poteau-mitan ... but again, we have only the cocomacaque."

  "The cocomacaque worked before, you said," Jeff reminded him.

  "Yes. But it has been handled by you since then, m'sieu. It is no longer wholly mine."

  The stick that had twice saved Jeff's life now stood upright, as before, in a govi newly painted with the vèvé of Papa Legba, the loa who at every service opened the gate through which the mystères would make contact. By careful measurement it was in the exact center of the room, where it belonged.

  All else in the room—divan, overstuffed chairs, chairside tables, everything—had been removed. Smaller chairs had been brought in from the dining room and placed against two of the walls for those who would witness the ceremony.

  The preparations had taken hours. Now by Jeff's watch the time was 9:15. Three white candles flickering on the altar provided the room's only light. A hard, steady rain beat against windowpanes still marked with the pentagrams. Outside, the night was unbroken blackness.

  "We begin," Lelio said. "We lack many things, but we begin. May Le Bon Dieu be with us, for what we do here tonight is almost too dangerous to think about."

  Beckoning Lucille to join him, he began a slow yanvabou, less a dance than a procession, around the govi in which the cocomacaque was set upright. With his knees bent and his hands on them, he circled the improvised poteau-mitan counterclockwise, all the while voicing a low, almost inaudible chant. Lucille followed him in silence but imitated his every movement. All the others—Jeff, Verna, the members of the Everol clan—sat on the chairs against the walls and watched.

  The kitten on Ethel's lap, Jeff noticed, was equally attentive. Its gaze followed Lelio's every move.

  Now Jeff caught some of the words Lelio was whispering. "Papa Legba, ouvri bayé! Papa Legba, Attibon Legba, ouvri bayé pon nou passé!" Over and over the same words, rising in volume as they were repeated. Then the dance and the chanting came to an end, and silence took over.

  Motioning Lucille to be seated, Lelio went to the altar. From it he took up his asson and a glass of water. As though walking in his sleep, he paced about the room, dipping a finger into the glass and flicking drops of water onto the floor, then shaking the gourd rattle over them. In the center of the room he circled the makeshift poteau-mitan three times, performing the same ritual. A salute to the loa, Jeff thought. Especially to the two he would call upon: Legba to close the gate on the evil ones and Erzulie to protect this home as she protected all homes.

  Lelio had fallen to his knees. He leaned forward to touch his lips to the cocomacque. His chanting was now in langage, the old African tongue that no one could translate anymore, not even the houngans and mambos who used it. But the gods knew its meaning. They would respond.

  The old man rose, visibly tired and trembling. He motioned to Lucille again and she got up from her chair and went to the altar. Taking up a dish of cornmeal, she carried it to him.

  Rain pounded the windows. A gust of wind rattled one of the pentagram-marked panes of glass.

  With the dish of cornmeal in his left hand, the asson in his right, Lelio turned to face each of the room's walls in turn, shaking the rattle each time. Then he laid down the asson beside the urn with the stick in it and stepped back to begin the drawing of the same two vèvés he had drawn in the cave.

  The vèvé to Legba slowly took shape—the cross with mystic sybols. Then the one to Erzulie oddly like an elaborate Valentine heart with wings. It was a long, slow process. For a man of his age, bending from the waist and reaching out in that manner, with his knees held straight, must have been pure torture. But he persisted. The vèvés were completed. He sprinkled drops of water on them and shook the asson over them.

  Then he and Lucille, standing side by side, intoned the usual prayers in Creole. The Hail Marys from Haiti's Catholic Church, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer. And the voodoo prayers, over and over, with Lelio shaking the asson and looking as though he might collapse from exhaustion.

  Silence, at last. He turned to look at Jeff.

  "I know nothing else to do, m'sieu. And they have not come."

  The doorbell rang. Those in the room looked at one another. "Mr. Watson," Blanche said. "You should have let us call the police, Everett."

  Lelio shook his head at her. "No, m'selle. Your Clandon police would never have understood what we are trying to do here. In their ignorance they probably would have arrested me."

  Susan stood up and marched out of the room, saying over her shoulder, "Well, anyway, I suppose he'll be drunk again."

  With the others waiting in silence, she went to the front door and opened it. And, yes, the caller was Earl Watson and the whites of his eyes were red.

  "Where is he? I told him I'd be back this evenin'."

  "Come in, please," Susan said briskly. "Everyone is in the living room."

  Weaving a little, he followed her into the living room and, like Everett before him, stopped in his tracks at the sight of so many people seated there. "What the hell's goin' on?" he demanded. "What is this?"

  Jeff Gordon got to his feet and faced him. "Why don't you sit down, Watson?" he said quietly. "Mr. Everol has something to say to you about the blackmail."

  "Huh?"

  "We know about the money he's been paying you. Now it's time for some talk before we call the police and press charges against you. Sit down."

  His mouth twitching, Watson went to the n
earest empty chair and slumped into it. With an obvious effort he pulled himself together. His gaze traveled slowly from face to face, like that of a man on trial seeking to read the minds of his jury.

  Jeff looked at the aged head of the Everol clan. "Everett?"

  "I'm—so tired, Jeffrey. Can you handle this for me? Please?"

  "Gladly." Hands in his pockets, Jeff confronted Watson again. "What happened, Watson, is that Susan overheard what you said to Everett in his bedroom." He paused, waiting.

  "So what?" Watson growled. "One of these women murdered the college dame. You ain't callin' no cops, mister."

  "I think we are. Because we're not talking about a murder here. It was an accident."

  Watson's face changed again, turning the color of putty. "A what?"

  "An accident. No one meant to shut Miss Mason up in the cave. The person who rolled the stone over the entrance on the knoll didn't know she was in there. And it wasn't one of Everett's people."

  Watson's gaze went the rounds, to settle at last on the face of Lelio Savain. He licked his lips. "You tryin' to tell me—"

  "I am telling you. It was not an Everol who shut Miss Mason up in there; it was Lelio and Lucille. And they didn't know they were doing it. So you see, Watson, there's no secret for you to keep any more. No reason at all why Mr. Everol shouldn't let the truth be known and charge you with blackmail."

  Watson took in a breath that swelled his chest. Half rising from his chair, he let himself fall back again. "There's no way you can prove I blackmailed anyone!" he snarled. "It'd be his word against mine."

  "And mine," said Susan. "Remember, I overheard the two of you talking upstairs."

  "You're his sister. Nobody's gonna believe you."

  "His wife's sister, Mr. Watson. There's a slight difference. Besides, I think when the bank produces proof that Everett drew certain sums of money at regular intervals—"

  "Wait." The interruption came from Ethel. Everyone looked at her.

  Lifting the black kitten to her shoulder, she rose from her chair and walked to stand at Jeff's side, facing the house painter. "May I?" she quietly asked Jeff.