The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror

by Charles L. Grant

  It never changed, and he didn’t care.

  There were towners in their cliques, a few travelers trying and failing to fit in, and in the high-backed, red leather booth by the door two men he knew instinctively were not here just to pass the time. They were dressed casually, but not in jeans; they were watching the steady flow of patrons without seeing a thing. A couple of times he thought one of them was watching him as well, but he had dismissed it as a lingering of his dark mood not yet quite banished.

  Now he wasn’t so sure.

  The man was dark-skinned, dark-haired, his dark blue shirt opened halfway down his chest to free a thatch of black hair that climbed almost to his neck. He wasn’t wearing dark glasses, but he gave that impression, and Doug looked away just as he reached across the table to touch his companion’s arm.

  “Friends of yours?” Judith asked, sweeping past him carrying a tray stacked with empty glasses.

  Someone turned on the projection TV at the far end and a crowd gathered to watch the Mets play baseball.

  he’s dead you killed him

  “No,” he said when she swept past again. She stopped, and looked at him curiously.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  She looked over her shoulder. “They look like Mafia types.”

  “Hey, there’s no such thing as the Mafia, don’t you know that?”

  “Boy, you have lived in the Hollow too long,” she said, poking a thumb in his waist. “You ought to read a paper now and then, get in touch with the world.” She looked again. “Maybe it’s the guys buying Winterrest. Yeah, how about that? Jesus, I’d like to spike a drink or three of theirs.”

  He smiled, but didn’t look at her. The second man had finally leaned forward, and looked around the booth’s scalloped edge.

  “Oh . . . Christ,” he whispered, half under his breath.

  Suddenly, someone shouted angrily, and his attention was diverted to the television corner, where he saw lumbering Bernie Hallman from the Mogas station squaring off against Judy’s brother. Casey was not much taller than his sister but weighed well over two hundred pounds, most of it, it seemed, solidly planted in his chest and shoulders. His black hair was straggly, his puffed cheeks flaring red, and as he circled the garage owner, he spat disgustedly on the floor.

  Judith screamed at him, even as the baseball crowd made way and started betting.

  Doug looked to Gil, who only shrugged and filled an order. Hell, he thought, took off his apron, and started around the bar. He had no intention of getting into the fight, but he wanted to be close by in case someone needed help.

  But the fight moved too fast for him to get near or follow clearly. Casey was swinging and Bernie was ducking, a few punches landed, and they grappled their way across the floor toward the entrance. The door opened. He saw a flash of metal and realized Casey had drawn a knife.

  Everyone froze.

  Judith, who was fuming behind the bar, shouted, “Goddamn you, Casey Lockhart, put that thing away!”

  Then the two men in the end booth sidled out and slipped past the combatants through the open door, but not before Doug saw their faces clearly and sagged in relief. They weren’t anyone he knew, no one from Seattle. Strangers only, given false places in his nightmare.

  Then Bernie raced outside, Casey followed with a bellow, and Doug didn’t move again until he heard a woman scream.

  5

  By six dinner was finished, all plates and glasses in the dishwasher, and Heather admitted that she had neglected to give her mother a telephone message.

  “Honestly, girl,” Liz said. “There are times when I wonder what’s in that brain of yours.”

  “Mush,” said Keith. “Girl mush.”

  Heather glared at him, changed expressions to contrition, and pointed to the wall phone by the hallway. “It was Mr. Parrish. He wants you to call him back.”

  “Ugh,” Keith said, grimacing and shaking his hands. “That guy’s a creep.”

  “Keith,” Liz scolded absently, and looked at the clock.

  “He said to call anytime.”

  “He wants to take you out, Mom,” Keith told her as she crossed the room to the phone and dialed. “He wants to marry you and give you all his money.”

  “That isn’t funny,” Heather said quietly, and Keith shrugged as he left for the front room.

  Parrish answered on the first ring.

  Liz toed off her shoes and sighed silently as the amenities were cleared away, then straightened just as she was about to slip the belt from her waist.

  “Say that again, Mr. Parrish?”

  “Mrs. Egan, the reason I wish to speak to you is that I have a client, a rather good client, who wishes to purchase your home if you are willing to sell.”

  “Mr. Parrish, I . . . there’s never been any intention of selling this house. Never.”

  Heather looked startled, almost panicked, and Liz shook her head sharply to calm her.

  “I see.”

  “Uh, would you mind telling me who this person is?”

  “I’m afraid that would be impossible, Mrs. Egan. At least, for the moment. But I can assure you the offer is quite legitimate. And very generous.”

  “I can’t argue with that at all, Mr. Parrish. It’s three times what Ron and I paid for it, and frankly, three times what it’s worth.”

  “Well, in my position I have learned there is no accounting for some people’s interests.”

  She made a noise that might have been agreement, or a cough from the meal that was trying to make her belch.

  “In any case, Mrs. Egan, thank you for returning my call. And do think about it, if you will. As a favor to me. And should you change your mind . . .”

  “Thank you,” she said, “but I don’t think I will.”

  She rang off and stared at the grey-tiled hall that ran toward the screened front door until Heather reminded her that Clark Davermain would be here soon and was he really going to be their new father? She smiled and patted the girl’s shoulder. “I really don’t know, love. I do think he’ll ask me to marry him, though.”

  Heather’s eyes widened. “What are you gonna say?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “He’s fat.”

  Liz’s expression turned diplomatically blank. “He is not.”

  “He pulls my pigtails.”

  “I’m sure you’ll survive,” she muttered as she opened the refrigerator. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. What do you think about a salad for dinner? I don’t think I’m going to feel much like cooking.”

  “It’s all right with me, Mom, but Keith’s gonna croak.”

  Ten minutes later the weekend sally began.

  “Mom c’mon!”

  “Keith,” she said wearily from the top of the stairs, “I hate to keep reminding you of this, but you are only eleven years old. And it gets rather dark out here in the country, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  Keith dropped gloomily onto the bottom step, faced the front door, and slammed his elbow onto his knees, his cheeks heavily into his palms. “Aw, Mom, the Gang’s gonna fall apart if I’m not there. I promised them.”

  “The Gang,” she said, not without sympathy, “will just have to muddle through alone this one time, okay? If they can’t come here, you can’t go there. You are not to leave the neighborhood, and that’s final.”

  “But Heather—”

  “—is only going to Mary Grum’s, two very short blocks away. She’ll be back when it’s dark, and you two can watch TV until your eyes fall out.”

  “But there’s nothing on, they’re all reruns!”

  “Then read a book.”

  “Jeez, what a pain.”

  “If you want to leave the house alive, young man,” she said sternly, her arms folded across her chest, “you will explain that remark.”

  He looked up quickly and pointed to his right knee. “A pain,” he said, wincing proof of his agony. “I hit it with my elbow.”


  “Nice,” she said. “Good work, you get to live.”

  She stood anxiously at the bathroom mirror, hunting for the lines beneath the makeup, hoping the sun wasn’t drying her out. Her nerves forced a faint tic by her right eye, and she pressed the heel of one hand against it, to kill it.

  “Mom, do I have to?”

  Heather stood in the doorway, downcast, already defeated and making the most of her martyrdom.

  “Dark is dark, my dear. You know the rules when I’m gone.”

  “But I’m thirteen years old! I’ll be fourteen soon!”

  “And I’m already past thirty and I’ll be home by midnight. It isn’t my fault I can’t get a sitter on such short notice.”

  “A sitter? Mother, you’ve got to be kidding. I would just die if Mary ever found out. God, Mother, please promise you won’t tell her you were thinking about a sitter.”

  “If you don’t want a sitter, you’ll be home before dark, and you’ll look out for your brother.”

  “Great. That’s just great.”

  She turned and saw with a start the girl she used to be, and not for the first time felt a little ill at ease. Despite her slender, not quite sexless figure, Heather could have been her at every age since birth.

  The girl smiled suddenly, all teeth and dimples, and ran into the room to hug her mother snugly. “I know, Mom. It’s just that it’s summer, y’know?”

  “I do know,” she said gently. “Believe it or not, the mother really does know.”

  Then she kissed her daughter’s forehead and shooed her out while she finished dressing—short-sleeve print blouse, cotton slacks, and sandals on her bare feet. And as she examined and criticized her mimicking reflection, she tried to reach some conclusions about her relationship with Clark.

  He was certainly handsome enough, and through all his occupational bombast he occasionally let slip more than a thin slice of wit. He had money, position, and was thinking of making a run for the State Senate next year, a run he would very likely complete successfully. But what else was there? He was generous, and tried very hard to make friends with the kids; yet there was a reserve in his manner, a puzzling distance she’d not been able to bridge. She had never discovered what really made him tick. When it came right down to it, she really didn’t know Clark Davermain well at all.

  He certainly, most definitely, wasn’t Douglas Muir.

  “Lizzy,” she told her reflection as a brush passed fast and hard through her hair, “it’s about time you either fish or cut bait.” She leaned closer to the mirror. “If you don’t love the man, don’t do it. The kids are doing fine, and Doug won’t be a monk forever.”

  She jumped then when someone slammed the front door on the way out and grimaced at the mess she’d made of her lipstick. A tissue for correction, and she stood back and sighed.

  For slightly more than a year after Ron’s death she had locked herself away in this split-level, thin-walled mausoleum and watched her world fall apart by splinters and chips until she could no longer stand the sight of herself in the morning. Then Keith wet his bed once too often, and when she had raised an hysterical hand to administer a spanking she saw Heather in the doorway, thumb in her mouth. Seven years old, in second grade, with her thumb in her mouth.

  Ron was dead. He wasn’t coming back. She was trained to be a lawyer, and there was no looking back.

  But it wasn’t until a year later that she had whipped up her courage and had gone out on her first date. She felt like a fool. All she had talked about was her late husband, and all he talked about was his job. It was another six months, on her birthday, before she went out again. She had a quiet party with the kids, got a sitter, and went down to the Depot for a drink with Judith Lockhart and her brother.

  It was the first time she met Doug, and the first time she realized that while she wasn’t actively hunting for a man, she wouldn’t have minded a bit if he had taken her back to the Hollow, stripped off her clothes, and ravaged her in the yard. The feeling had been so strong, she’d excused herself and ran all the way home and found herself in a cold shower, laughing hysterically, and crying.

  Since then she hadn’t exactly been a nun; on the other hand, she had never had more than a handful of dinners at the Shade Tree with him, and not once had he ever asked her to join him for a nightcap. The only consolation was the fact—carefully gleaned by roundabout interrogation—that Judith was similarly left out in the cold.

  Heather rapped a knuckle on the door frame, and stood there, her hands primly at her waist. “Mother, Mr. Davermain is waiting for you downstairs. Shall I tell him you’ll be down in a moment?”

  Liz inhaled loudly.

  “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “Good lord, girl, what have you been watching?” she asked as she pushed past her daughter and hurried into the bedroom. Heather followed, giggling while she told her it was from something she had seen on PBS. Liz turned as she reached for her jewelry box on the dresser. “PBS? You watch PBS behind my back?”

  “It’s very educational, Mother,” the girl said righteously, then giggled and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “He’s still fat, Mom. You can see his stomach through his shirt.”

  “Heather Egan, aren’t you supposed to be watching your brother?”

  “Not until dark. He’s out on his bike with those stupid Mohawks somewhere. I’m supposed to be at Mary’s.”

  “Child, go away before I sentence you to a dust mop.”

  She was gone with a laugh, and Liz felt a slight burning in her eyes, her love for them both sometimes uncontrollably overwhelming.

  “And he is not fat!” she yelled, looked into the hallway, and realized Heather was gone. Christ, she thought, I hope Clark didn’t hear me.

  Heather was right, she noted with a sinking feeling; Clark’s stomach did poke through his shirt. It must be his suits, artfully tailored to cover the defects and accentuate what he obviously believed were his strong points: the mass of brown hair so carefully brushed back from a widow’s peak to give him a vaguely satanic look, the large brown eyes, the patrician nose, the square-block jaw that seemed always outthrust. He was deeply tanned, and his white shirt and slacks ably and deliberately served to heighten the effect.

  The trouble was, his stomach forced the lower buttons of his shirt to separate, and made visible a swatch of skin that had her wondering how many sunlamps he owned.

  As they turned right into Deerford, he grinned and jerked his head toward Sitter McMahon. “What is he, local color?”

  “He likes the fresh air, I guess,” she said, almost defensively. She would have turned to wave, but she was afraid to move. White inside and out, the Mercedes made her feel as if she were covered with mud, that a single move might splatter the dashboard, or Clark’s shirt.

  “So this is Deerford. I’ve heard of it, you know.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve never been here, living all this time in the county.”

  “No need,” he said. “I’m too busy elsewhere.”

  “Oh.” And when he reached for and found her hand, she tensed and held her breath; then she told herself to relax. He had not given her any indication he was going to pop it; if the night was miserable it was only because she’d done it to herself.

  “Hey, that restaurant, the Pear Tree?”

  “Shade Tree.”

  “Yes, right. Some of the guys have taken their wives there on weekends. Sounds like a nice place.”

  “It is, very.”

  He looked at her, his left hand draped lazily at the wrist over the steering wheel. “Liz, forgive me, but you don’t sound right. Is something wrong?”

  The concern in his voice made her give him her best smile and make some excuse about worrying about the children.

  “Don’t worry, it’s okay. I promise to have you back before you turn into a pumpkin.” He smiled. “And I’m really glad to see you, Liz. It’s been two weeks. I’ve missed you.”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak.

&
nbsp; “You know,” he said admiringly as they reached the first homes and he saw the care with which the buildings were kept, “it sure does look nice.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. A little too isolated for my taste, I think.”

  She would have said something then, but had to direct him into the Depot’s parking lot, to an open place near the front door. He turned off the engine and stretched his right arm along the back of the seat, his fingers kneading the back of her neck.

  “Liz, look,” he said solemnly, “there’s something I have to tell you before we go in there tonight.”

  Oh great, she thought, here it comes.

  “I’m here under semi-false circumstances.”

  She looked at him sideways, puzzled but still wary. “Oh?”

  “Yes. You know . . . well, you know how I feel about you, I think.” He paused. “Right?”

  She had no choice; she nodded, and gave him a tiny smile.

  “And you know that I have never once since we’ve been seeing each other mixed business with pleasure. I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

  She covered his hand with hers and said, “You haven’t, Clark, believe me. I—”

  He shook his head and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. “This is dumb.”

  “What?”

  “I said, this is dumb.”

  “Well, it is if you don’t tell me.”

  “Yes, true.” He considered a moment, then cleared his throat. “I had a call today, a man who said he worked for a client who wanted my services. Something to do with an estate somewhere out here.”

  “Oh, sure, Winterrest,” she said immediately. “It’s the only place like that within twenty miles. And the man was Eban Parrish?”

  “Right! How did you know?”

  “What did you tell him?” she asked.

  “I told him he had a perfectly good lawyer right out here.”

  She watched him carefully, touched by the mild distress on his face. “Thank you,” she said finally, quietly.

  “Yeah, but he didn’t want a woman lawyer. He said he didn’t trust them.”