Dead Voices (46 page)

“And does Graydon honestly think he can do this?” she whispered aloud, as she closed the black book and stared blankly at its cover. It was obvious that this book was more than a history of magic; it was a practical manual. And just as obviously, Graydon believed he could use it ... either that, or else he was dangerously deluded.

But if Graydon is deluded, how could he know what the name
Button
meant to her? Was
that
just another coincidence, or was it tenuous proof that he was in touch with some kind of occult power? Although he had denied having ever spoken with Doug, maybe he had. He might be lying simply to manipulate her.

But why manipulate her ... to what purpose?

Elizabeth granted that Graydon had a commanding presence, an attractive charisma ... no, something deeper, something darker than that. Was it possible that Graydon was a black magician of some sort, someone who exercised power by gaining hypnotic control over a person? If he could be connected with what had happened out at Uncle Jonathan’s grave or — as horrible as it was — the murder of Barney Fraser, shouldn’t she get in touch with the police and tell them her suspicions? If she didn’t want to talk to Frank about it, she knew she could go directly to Detective Harris.

Oh, yeah — sure, that would sound just
great
! Call up the town cops and tell them her therapist, Dr. Roland Graydon, of South Portland, practices black magic and is using the severed hand of a suicide — her Uncle Jonathan! — to raise her daughter Caroline from the dead. That would no doubt earn her a first-class ticket to a rubber room in the state mental institution in Augusta.

But what about the nightmares she had been having?

— What was she to make of the recurring dream about all those doorways that led into the exact same room where the old crone, who Graydon suggested was nothing more than a guilt-projection of herself, waited to show her what she had in her shopping bag. Would Elizabeth see Caroline’s head — or her own — centered in a roaring ring of fire?

— What about the nightmare she’d had of using the Ouija board to spell out messages that, in light of more recent events, all seemed to be connected with what had been happening ‘around town lately? Was she crazy, or did it all truly make a paranoia inducing kind of sense?

— And what was she to make of her blatantly sexual dream where Graydon, kneeling in front of her, had chewed out her stomach and intestines with a wolfish, ravaging hunger? Was this, too, simply some kind of projection on her part, or was she in imminent danger from him?

— And most important, perhaps, how could
anyone
explain away, either as coincidence or delusion, the voice she had undeniably heard on Eldon Cody’s tape recorder? Even if it
wasn’t
Caroline’s voice,
someone
had said those words! What were the odds that she would actually
hear
that same message she had received before?

“
Help! ... Mommy! ... Help! ... “

If Eldon Cody hadn’t known enough to set her up — and how could he? — then how could she write it off as simple coincidence? Something like that would defy the hugest possible odds. It made winning Tri-State Mega-Bucks look like a sure thing.

Or maybe she was responsible. Maybe she had some bizarre psychic power she wasn’t even aware of and was able to project her thoughts-her fear and guilt-into reality, enough so she would actually be able to hear them in Claire DeBlaise’s “sitting” room and on Eldon Cody’s tape recorder.

There was most definitely something ... something
weird
going on. It certainly wasn’t natural or normal!

Elizabeth had no doubt that Graydon had been involved in the disinterment of Uncle Jonathan. He — or someone working with him — had cut off her uncle’s hand and was using it for magical purposes. Frank had told her about that other occurrence out in the cemetery. If she was right about her therapist, it meant Graydon was responsible for Barney Fraser’s murder and, possibly, the fire that had killed Henry Bishop. The right thing to do, the sensible thing to do, was to turn Graydon in or, at the very least, make an anonymous phone call to the authorities.

But what it all came down to, finally, was — what if Graydon was right? What if he really could do what he said he could do?

Maybe ail along he had been doing these things to prepare her, mentally and emotionally, to accept his power, his control over her. It was obvious how miserable she was over the death of her daughter; perhaps he was
seducing
her, in the deepest sense of the word, into trusting him so she would accept his offer of help ... to allow her to speak with Caroline one last time! Maybe he saw that that was what she needed to be finally and completely free of the guilt she had from that night a year and a half ago.

But what if there was something beyond all of this? What if it was the exact opposite of what Graydon was telling her? What if he had no power at all but — somehow —
Caroline
had an important message and was trying to contact
her
! Was that possible? Could spirits “on the higher planes,” as Claire would put it, come back to talk to the living?

It made a twisted kind of sense that, if she accepted it was even remotely possible to speak with the dead, she should just as easily accept that the dead could speak to her. lust as there were numerous historical instances of necromancy, as Graydon’s book proved, there were even more instances of divination through a variety of methods ranging from the Ouija board and seances and “channeling” in darkened rooms to dream visions of the dead contacting and advising the living. On the rare occasions she had thought about it until now, Elizabeth had always assumed such things were either delusions or simple parlor games. Maybe her acceptance of such things now came from an accumulation of pressure, lack of sleep, overwrought nerves, anxiety, and Graydon’s wearing down of her resistance. Regardless — it was there! It was being offered to her, and it sure as hell
seemed
possible!

If her daughter had some message to get to her, Elizabeth wondered what it would be. What reasons did the dead have to come back?

She knew the most obvious superstitious reasons: ghosts return either to haunt the place where they met their sudden and unexpected death, or else they came back to complete some unfinished earthly business before “passing on” to the next spiritual level.

Warning or revenge? ... warning or revenge? ...

Which was it?

Elizabeth considered the ambiguity of the message she had received —
Help! ... Mommy
! Was Caroline calling to her for help? ... or was she saying she was trying to break through so she could help her mother?

A numbing chill gripped Elizabeth when she recalled the night she had gone back to the accident site and had seen-thought so, anyway — a skeletal hand —
possibly Caroline’s?
— reaching up over the edge of the roadside. She couldn’t deny that she had felt directed to go out there that night ... as though she was being forced to go, pushed out there against her will by a power she didn’t understand.

Did Caroline lure me out there that night? Was she trying to reach back from beyond the grave and contact me?

Why?

Such confusing thoughts filled Elizabeth’s mind like black, icy, unseen hands, reaching for her from the surrounding darkness. The kitchen, where she sat, seemed as cold and as narrow as a coffin. The sound of her own labored breathing rasped loudly in her ears. Outside, the night smothered the house, filled with horrible potential.

Does Caroline know something? Does she have a warning to give me of some unseen danger? ...

Or does she have some unfinished business? Is there something more sinister? ...

Does she want to get back at me for letting her die? ...

“
Help ... Mommy ... “

“Help mommy do
what
?” Elizabeth whispered, as she gazed inwardly at the dark curtains folding over her mind. Help mommy get rid of her guilt by killing herself? Is
that
what Caroline wants?

“No ... “ Elizabeth whispered. Her breath hitched in her chest as tears poured from her eyes. “I can’t believe it! Not Caroline! She loved me, and I loved her!”

But if Caroline wasn’t trying to return for revenge, then she had to be trying to tell her something. She might know something only someone on the “other side” could know — and she was trying to get through to her mother, trying desperately to
help
her
mommy
... before it was too late!

SIXTEEN

Further Investigations

1.

Detective Harris was hunched over his typewriter, carefully plugging away at the keys. A cigarette dangled from his lower lip, and thin blue rafts of smoke hung in several layers in the room. Sunlight was pouring in the window behind him, shadowing his face. Frank thought he looked more like an earnest newspaper reporter than a detective.

“Hunt and peck, huh?” Frank said, poking his head into the room. He entered without an invitation and sat down in the chair beside the desk, waiting for Harris to acknowledge him.

“Yeah,” Hams finally muttered, barely looking up, “and it’s a Goddamned
long
hunt. “Twin streams of blue smoke shot from his nostrils. “What the fuck can 1 do for you?”

Frank scratched the back of his head and took a deep breath, “I’ve got a few questions for you, if you have the time.”

Scowling, Harris snapped, “I
never
have the fuckin’ time. What’d you want to know?”

“What do you think the chances are for the Red Sox this year?”

“You’re a Goddamned laugh-riot, you know that?” Harris said, eyeing Frank narrowly. “What the fuck—you think I’ve got all day to waste bullshitting with you?”

“Hey! Lighten up, for Christ’s sake,” Frank said, waving the smoke away from his face. “I was just trying to make conversation. “

“Listen up, asshole; I’ve got an unsolved murder, an extremely suspicious case of arson, a disinterred corpse, and half-a-fuckin’-million other things to do, so if you don’t mind . . . ”

“ Actually. that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Frank said. “I wanted to know how the Fraser investigation was going.”

Harris’s scowl deepened as he flicked the ash off his cigarette and shrugged. “I just fuckin’ told you. Zip! Zero! Zilch!”

“No leads? Nothing at all?”

Groaning. Harris shifted forward in his chair, grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil from his desk, and said, “Here—lemme write that down for you.” Sticking his tongue out between his teeth, he started forming letters with all the earnest effort of a preschooler. saying in a sing-song voice: “That’s Z-E-R-O.” Tearing off the sheet of paper, he stuffed it into Frank’s shirt pocket. “I assume you can read. If not, take it home and have your mommy read it to you.”

Frank snickered as he took the paper and glanced at it. “Hey you’re the guy who told me what assume makes,” he said, before crumpling it into a tight ball and, with a quick hook shot, popping it into the wastebasket by the wall.

“Two points. Glad to see you’re good at
something
,” Harris snarled. “Look, if you don’t have anything more urgent than a bleeding rectum, I’d just as soon get some fuckin’ work done.”

“Okay, okay—I just had a quick question for you. Has the name Roland Graydon come up in any of your leads?”

Harris looked at the ceiling for a moment, took a drag off his cigarette, then with a loud whoosh blew the smoke out the comer of his mouth. “Nope. Should it?”

Frank shrugged. ‘‘I’m not sure.”

“What the fuck is this all about, Melrose. I mean, if you don’t mind telling me . . . ” He waved one hand at Frank in an encouraging, “come-on-’n’-tell-me” motion.

“It’s just . . . I’m not sure,” Frank said, scratching behind his ear.

“You’ve been hanging around Willis too much,” Harris said.

“Looks to me like you got his cooties. Look, if you think I should know something about this guy Graydon, I wouldn’t mind you telling me why. You got something you’re not telling me?”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t think so, it’s just that a . . . a friend of mine has been seeing this guy. He’s a therapist of some kind, and I—”

“Lookee here, flatfoot,” Harris said, taking up the pad of paper again and hastily printing a single word. Smoke rose into his face, making him squint as he held it up to Frank. “See anything funny about this?” he asked.

In block letters was the single word: THERAPIST.

Frank shook his head and watched, perplexed, as Harris wrote something else on the paper below the word.

“See it now?” he asked. Using the same word, Harris had simply added a space between two of the letters. When Frank looked at the paper again, he read the words: THE RAPIST.

“That’s cute—real cute,” Frank said coldly. He found little humor in Harris’s word game because it related so directly to the threat to Elizabeth. “Why don’t you tell me something useful.”

“You want something useful?” Harris asked, arching his eyebrows. “Here’s a little tip for you. They always go back to the scene of the crime . .
always
”!

“Christ, you’re full of wisdom today.”

“Well, Melrose, if you’ve got anything I
need
to know about this Graydon character or about why
anyone
might be messing around out there in the cemetery, now’s the time to spill your guts. Otherwise”—he made a causally dismissive gesture with his hand— ”be careful the doorknob doesn’t bump your ass on your way out.”

Frank pushed back the chair and stood up.

“Thanks for the entertainment,” he mumbled, as the steady
click-click
of Harris’s typewriter resumed. Once he was out into the hallway, though, what Harris had said about criminals returning to the scene of the crime struck him as possibly profound. Maybe that’s exactly what he should delve into—every possible reason someone might have for doing anything to Caroline’s grave. It might go all the way back to the night of the accident. The place to start would be at the Portland Public Library, where he could check out the newspaper accounts of what had happened that night.