Demon Child (18 page)

    Fortunately, this evening when he had been ready to leave the house to follow Richard to the limestone caves, her natural reticence had broken down and she had hugged him. She had been afraid that he was not going to return, and that fear had forced her feelings into the open. Thank God for that much! If she had not hugged him, she would not have felt that pistol in his pocket, and she would never have realized that something unpleasant was going to happen before the night ended.

    They broke out of the trees in the next moment and felt the renewed lash of the rain which had been momentarily softened by the branches of the elms. Ahead was the nightmarish landscape of the sinkholes. Only a few scrub brush and locust trees managed to root and survive in the forbidding terrain. Even they were unhealthy looking, scraggly, their twisted limbs like grasping claws, undecorated by any form of blossom and with a low leaf yield. Masses of smooth, round limestone thrust up in pillars and domes. At other places, the land fell abruptly away into black caverns. There was little grass, and what there was of it was gray-green and wiry.

    A good fifty yards to her left, a stallion was tethered to the low limb of an elm tree which edged the barren land. She did not know whether it was the horse that Richard had ridden or whether Walt had already arrived. But, seeing no other horse about, she preferred to think that she had somehow still managed to arrive before the doctor, though that seemed impossible after the long delay when Tulip had thrown her.

    She dismounted and tied Tulip's reins to the trunk of a young tree nearby, then walked forward into the foreboding limestone miasma ahead. She had gone only a hundred feet when Richard appeared around the bulk of a gray stone pedestal some ten feet wide and eight high.

    “Jenny?” he asked, stopping to look at her more closely.

    Her heart beat faster. She could not see a rifle, but she knew he might have disposed of it if he had already used it.

    “Where's Walter?” she asked.

    “Haven't seen him.”

    “You're sure?”

    “I assure you,” he said, “I'd remember if I saw him or not.” His tone was sarcastic. Then he took command of the situation away from her. “Just what are you doing out there?” he asked.

    For a moment, she did not answer. She could not answer, for her fear was great enough to interfere with the quickness of her wits.

    In a moment, he closed the space between them and stood before her, the rain running from his pale face, droplets of water beaded on the dark lashes above his dark eyes.

    “You shouldn't be out on a night like this. Did anyone come with you?”

    “No,” she said. “Why are you here?”

    Perhaps it was the gloomy atmosphere of the storm or the positively hellish landscape in which they stood.

    Perhaps it was his eyes, seeming to glint from within, boring at her, demanding. Perhaps the accident with Tulip had affected her more than she had realized, had undermined her self-control. Whatever she felt, it drove her to say things to him which she had dared not say earlier, even in the warmth and relative safety of the mansion.

    “I don't trust you,” she said.

    “What?”

    “I don't think anyone should trust you. I think you or someone you hired is behind these things. I think it was you or someone you hired who killed Lee Symington.” There! The worst was out. If he was going to try to protect himself now, she would have to try to run.

    “You're crazy!” he said. “I had a solid alibi. You heard the police say so themselves!”

    “An alibi can be built beforehand,” she said. “Who were you talking to on the telephone that day I overheard you? Who was the killer you were talking about? The person on the other end of that line-or you yourself, Richard?”

    “So this is why you've been acting so strangely!”

    She backed a step. “I think I have reason to act strangely, if that's what you want to call caution. I don't think it's the least bit strange to be wary of you, Richard.”

    He laughed. He actually broke out laughing!

    It was worse, in a way, to see his face crinkle in mirth than to see rage and hatred there. She had been expecting the former, counting on it, in fact. This was completely unexpected. But, then, Richard exemplified the unexpected, the abrupt and the unknown. Could he possibly be mad? Why else would he react to such accusations with laughter?

    “Stop it!” she said.

    He continued to laugh, though he was not laughing as hard now. He wiped tears off his cheeks. Some of his color had returned to the deathly pallor of his cheeks.

    “Please, Richard,” she said.

    “I can explain all those things,” he told her. “I can explain them easily. You told me before that you overheard me on the telephone and saw me sneaking to the stables. But I never once thought you'd jump to the conclusion that I was the villain in all of this!”

    “What other conclusion was there?” she asked. She felt foolish now, though still wary. What on earth did he mean?

    “And I made stupid assumptions too,” he said, no longer laughing, but smiling at her as he had that first day when he had picked her up at the terminal. “I thought you were mixed up with whoever's behind all this. I thought you were part of it. What other reason would you have for eavesdropping on my phone conversation-or for watching me from your window when I was trying to sneak to the stable?”

    “That was accidental.”

    “But listening to me on the phone wasn't.”

    “By then I thought you were mixed up in something,” she said, trying to justify herself, though she couldn't see why she should have to. He still had to explain
himself!

    “The only thing I'm mixed up in is an effort to preserve this land and the house which has been in my family for more than one and a quarter centuries. I don't want it all leveled to serve as a complex of restaurants and motels and gas stations for some lousy super-highway interchange!”

    She said nothing. She felt as if the earth had heaved up beneath her. The old feeling of instability returned, as bad as it had been before she had ever met Walter Hobarth and gained solace from the sweet reason of his carefully applied logic.

    “Do you want me to explain away all these things you saw and heard?” Richard asked. His gentle, concerned manner was there again. He was the Richard she had not seen in more than two weeks.

    “Yes,” she said quietly.

    Behind them, the horses whinnied.

    Richard looked stunned.

    Jenny turned to see what he was staring at.

    Walter Hobarth stood at the edge of the trees, seventy feet away. He held a pistol in his right hand, and he appeared ready to use it. Slung carelessly under his other arm was the rifle he had taken from the stables. Yet, it was neither of these formidable weapons which electrified Jenny, nailed her down with terror. It was, instead, the huge wolf that sat docilely by Walt's side which filled her with dread.

    Its eyes were yellow-red and gleamed brightly. It watched Richard and her with morbid fascination, gauging the strength of its potential victims.

    Walter Hobarth patted the wolfs head with his gun hand, then stood erect again and laughed. It was a much nastier laugh than Richard's…

    

    Fool, fool, fool! she cried silently. She had been such a fool, directing her affection toward the wrong person, turning with suspicion on the only one who was innocent of any wrongdoing. And what made it all worse was that Hobarth had used her, had played on her sympathies with a calculated ruthlessness. Fool, fool! She was so angry she wanted nothing more than to scream and kick and bite and tear at things with her hands.

    Yet, despite this inwardly directed fury, despite the certainty of her blindness and of Walter's guilt, she did not want to believe that she had been so misled. Surely Walter couldn't be responsible for all this. Surely he could not cold-bloodedly murder a man, as he had Lee Symington. He was gentle and sweet and so very, very reasonable!

    “You,” Richard said. He was unable to believe it himself, as dumbfounded as Jenny was.

    “Looks that way,” Hobarth said. “But I thought you were beginning to suspect me, Richard. I'm disappointed that you were so completely fooled. Of course, that says a lot for my acting abilities. And I thank you for the indirect compliment.”

    “It's your wolf?”

    “Not a wolf,” Hobarth said. He was pointing the pistol at them now, though the beast at his feet was enough to keep them from fleeing.

    “But it is the killer,” Richard said.

    “Oh, yes, of course it is. But it's only part wolf, a very small part-and mostly German shepherd. It makes a fine combination that submits well to the proper training.”

    “Training to kill?” Richard asked. He had pulled Jenny to his side where he could thrust her behind him if necessary. She had come meekly, still confused by this abrupt alteration in circumstances.

    “What else would the United States Army want with such an animal?” Hobarth asked.

    “Army?”

    “I was in Vietnam,” Hobarth said. “Eighteen months.” He reached down and patted the dog's head. He was not finished speaking yet. He clearly enjoyed telling them everything they wanted to know. And that could only mean that he never expected them to be able to pass on the information to anyone else. Their only chance was that his egotism, his need to inform them about how clever he had been, would give them time to trip him up somehow.

    But how?

    Hobarth looked back at them. “I wasn't out in the field, of course. I was a psychiatrist in a second-line hospital. I treated shell-shock, paranoia, all the mental hazards of war. One day, a soldier brought Brutus, here, into the hospital. The dog had taken shrapnel in its shoulder and flank on the left side. The soldier was attached to it and wanted us to save the dog. But it came in when forty-eight wounded men did, and the doctors preferred to let it die and treat the men instead. Since I couldn't touch the men, I had time on my hands, and I used my medical knowledge to patch Brutus up.”

    Brutus growled, as if in approval of the story.

    “I kept him in my own quarters. Ordinarily, that would be dangerous with such an animal, trained to obey one master. But he was so weak from his wound and from loss of blood that he couldn't have harmed a mouse. I had to feed him with a baby bottle for the first three days before he could even lap up meat pap on his own. It was two weeks before he was limping around regularly and two weeks after that before he would have been up to sinking teeth in anyone. Fortunately, as it turns out now, his master, the soldier who brought him in, was killed two days after the dog was wounded. Brutus never saw him again and, perhaps, thought his master abandoned him. But I was handy, easing his pain and feeding him, and he began to look to me as his only friend. By the time he was healthy enough to return to battle, he wouldn't leave me. He had been trained to obey one master, and when his allegiances had to be changed, he switched them to a single man, me. I brought him home with me after I untangled the red tape. He makes a fine watchdog. And, as of late, he has made a fine business asset.”

    Hobarth smiled.

    It was that same, unpleasant smile.

    “But why?” Richard asked. “For God's sake, man-”

    Hobarth interrupted. “Several reasons why. First, Dr. Malmont knew that Cora was an occultist, reading all those books about the supernatural and reincarnation-that whole bit. He-”

    “Wait,” Richard said, shocked again. “Malmont is in this with you?” Before Hobarth could reply, he answered his own question. “But of course he is! He recommended you!”

    “Please allow me to finish,” Hobarth said.

    “Go on.”

    “Malmont told me that there was a family curse and that the quickest way to reach Cora would be through that. Brutus, here, would work out nicely as the mysterious, deadly wolf roaming the estate grounds. Malmont was certain Cora would eventually gladly sell the land at the slightest suggestion that it would solve her problems. And but for you, that prediction would have held true.”

    “But how did you use the dog to kill Symington?” Richard asked, curious but also stalling for time. “You were not in the stables.”

    “True enough. But when I learned Symington was here, I knew you had found something interesting about the horse's corpse. I went up to the cave where I was keeping Brutus and brought him around to the main gate where Malmont was waiting as instructed. I had called him, told him Symington was coming here. He had gone to Symington's house on some pretense and managed to come away with the man's hat. I let Brutus take the scent and spent some time instructing him so that he would know he was to kill the owner. Then I left him with Malmont. He wouldn't obey the doctor, but he knows him too well to attack him or openly disobey him. After that, I returned to the house and established an alibi. Malmont waited until Symington had been in the stables some fifteen minutes, then popped in to visit. He found that Symington had found dog hairs while combing Hollycross' stall and that he might be able to build the species from laboratory analysis. He went outside and let Brutus out of his car. Brutus did the rest and came back to the car. Later, I collected him from the good doctor.”

    “Very neat.”

    “Thank you.”

    Jenny felt as if she were losing her mind. Things like this did not happen in a sane world. People were not put into such horrible positions by people as devious and cunning as Walter Hobarth. She must be imagining all of it. At the same time, she knew that she wasn't imagining a second of it, that-unfortunately -such things did happen to people and happened to them all the time. Wasn't Leona Brighton dead? Weren't her parents dead as well? Wasn't that enough proof of the world's brutality?