Haunted (49 page)

"What were you doing down there, Billy?" Mom asked as she got in the car.

"Looking for shells," he said, climbing in the back seat. If he told them about the creepy man, his dad would have to go look and Billy didn't want that- he was way too scary, even for Dad.

"Did you find any?"

"A couple. I put 'em in a bag."

"Well, don't get the seat dirty."

"I won't."

As they drove, his parents started talking to each other about other parties and other costumes. Meanwhile, Billy carefully unzipped the plastic bag and was disappointed to find that it contained nothing but a stupid old broken doll. A guy doll, which was weird, because it sure as heck wasn't a G.I. Joe. Well, he thought, maybe Janise Radsum would like it. She loved dolls--just to collect, because, at ten, she said she was too old to actually play with them. She also once told him that she liked really old stuff, too. Antiques.

She'd be at the party tonight, dressed as a princess, and he thought that if he gave her the doll, maybe she’d give him a kiss again, like she had in the coat closet at school. Then, maybe, he'd have enough nerve to ask her to dance with him.

Red Cay Moose Lodge: 6:59 P.M.

David stood with Keith Shayrock and Craig Swenson in a secluded corner of the Moose Lodge. The huge room, festooned with balloons and crepe paper streamers, gave him the nostalgic feeling that he'd gone back in time to a high school dance. As he sipped watery, slightly alcoholic punch from his paper cup, he watched the small-town spectacle taking place all around them. He thought that the decorations, the costumed people, and the odd snatches of conversation he overheard, all belonged in a book.

"It can't happen," Shayrock said suddenly. Like David, Craig, and--from the looks of things--most of the town, the doctor had eschewed the advisories of the crystal-packers' channeling service, choosing instead to dress as his own grandfather, assuming, he had explained with a twinkle in his eye, that Louis Shayrock had been Jack the Ripper. A bloody plastic cleaver stuck not-so-subtly out of his ancient black medical bag, and if you looked closely, the fingers of a severed hand poked from the pocket of his English greatcoat. He looked every inch the mad doctor, right up to his incurably stubborn shock of carroty hair, which was already escaping from beneath his otherwise distinguished derby.

"It did happen," David said, scratching his wrist where the wool coat was irritating it. Shayrock had been saying "It can't happen" ever since they'd told him about the blood-filled dolls.

"Yeah," Swenson agreed. He wore an old-fashioned policeman's uniform that looked equally itchy and nearly as old as David's seaman's suit. He gave his ancient nightstick a quick twirl. "It happened."

"Something else happened," the doctor insisted. "What you two are describing is impossible. It doesn't work that way. If  a doll was filled with fresh blood long ago and it was sealed tightly--and I mean airtight--and you broke it eighty years later, the blood could still be liquid. But it wouldn't be hot, like you described, Masters, unless the doll had been heated, and it wouldn't turn to powder in an hour. Blood clots." He paused thoughtfully. "However, if you broke open a doll that wasn't airtight, after eighty years, you'd probably have the powder, just like we found at the Willards'. I'd like to see the doll."

"That's impossible," Swenson said sourly.

"Why? Don't you have it? If I could examine it, I might be able to tell you something solid."

Sheepishly, the chief glanced at David. "It's gone," he said normally.

"Gone where?"

"Into the ocean."

"What?" Shayrock demanded.

Swenson was looking more and more embarrassed. "Tell him, Masters," he grunted.

"Minnie Willard stole the doll from my house. She took it home and somehow she broke it, thus releasing the spirit of Peter Castle, the man the doll represents. Castle killed the Willards--somehow."

"Voodoo?" Shayrock asked dryly.

"Shit," Swenson commented.

"He was Christabel's lover, so who knows?" David cleared his throat. "The chief took the doll."

"And I felt like I was being watched the whole time I had it," Swenson said. "So f took it to Masters here and we decided that the only way to get rid of Peter Castle was to get rid of the doll. So I threw it off Widow's Peak."

"And I thought you didn't have a superstitious bone in your body, Swenson," the doctor chided.

"Hell," Swenson grunted.

"Let's get back to the blood," Shayrock said. "Masters, are you sure it was warm?"

"Yes."

"Was the doll in the sun?"

"Hardly, my daughter was in the laundry room. She found it in a cupboard."

"Water pipes?"

"None in sight," David told him. "Amber said it was hot and it sprayed her, you know, like a vessel bursting. She said it got in her mouth and that it tasted like blood."

Shayrock shook his head, a tell-me-another-one look on his face. "So you didn't actually see any of this?"

"It had just happened. I walked in and found Amber screaming and covered with blood. Fresh blood." David suppressed an involuntary cringe. "She said it tasted like blood," he repeated.

"You're sure she's not pulling your leg?"

"I saw the results, material and emotional," David said grimly. "My daughter is not the hysterical sort."

"I'll vouch for that," Swenson added.

Something in the tone of their voices seemed to convince Shayrock that both the writer and the cop were deadly serious. He looked from one to the other, then shrugged helplessly. "Then I have no way of explaining it medically."

That was exactly what David had expected to hear, but the chief wasn't ready to accept David's voodooesque theories without a fight. "Could somebody have intentionally powdered the blood in the Willard residence?" the chief asked.

Shayrock took the derby off and scratched his head. Immediately, his hair sprang up like he'd stuck his finger in a light socket. "Someone could powder dried blood if they wanted."

"Hey Uncle Craig!" Eric Swenson, all cowboy from his Stetson to his boots, strolled up, an attractive blond woman in gingham and a bonnet on his arm. "Hey, Doc. David, this is my mom, Holly."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." David doffed his sailing cap.

"And you," she said, shaking his hand. "Eric speaks very highly of you."

"I speak highly of him."

Eric turned red. "David, you were worried about not having any fun because people'd be asking you for your autograph all night. But they're not. How come?"

"Eric," Holly began.

"It's all right," David said swiftly. "Eric doesn't mince words--that's one of the things I like about him." He paused.

"Jerry Romero happened, Eric. He's here interviewing folks about their past lives."

"Are you angry?" the young man asked.

"No, I'm relieved. I get to talk to friends like your uncle and Dr. Shayrock--we won't mention the topics covered, however--and that's a lot more fun than answering that age-old question about where I find my ideas."

Though he was tired of public recognition, now that Romero and his minicam had stolen his thunder, not to mention his date--small loss--David found that, despite his words, he was also slightly miffed at being ignored. He knew he should enjoy it, savor it in fact, but as the saying went, the grass was always greener.

"Isn't it awful about the Willards?" Holly Swenson asked, in a tone of voice that showed a distinct lack of sorrow. "Eric, would you like to dance with your old mother?" she asked as the enthusiastically mediocre Moose band struck up "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."

As the pair wandered off, Craig Swenson squinted in the direction of the punch table. "You said you wanted to talk to the twins, Masters. There they are."

"Twins?" David asked, confused.

"The Cox boys."

David, his book complete and his enchantment with Body House rapidly dying, had little desire any more to chat up Ferd and Andy, but he followed Craig's gaze, smiling as he studied the matched set of hawk-faced, dour-looking old men. They stood side by side, both dressed in buckskins and coon-skin hats, their arms folded identically across their chests.

"They don't look happy."

"They aren't." Craig chuckled. "Every year, both of them dress up as Davy Crockett, and then they fight over which one of them really was the king of the wild frontier."

"You're kidding." David paused. "Right?"

"Seems they went to the High Hooey Center and got themselves past life readings. Well, I guess that entity of Theo's got mixed up, what with the old boys looking so much alike, and thought they were the same person. They were both told they were Davy Crockett."

A large woman, unfortunately dressed as some sort of Egyptian royalty--maybe not Cleopatra, but something similar--joined the twins. A cigarette waggled in her mouth as she looked, from one to the other then, obviously unable to tell which was which, pushed between them and took both their arms.

Shayrock cleared his throat. "That's Bea Broadside."

"The woman who saw Peter Castle?" David asked quickly.

"The very one." Craig shook his head. "She won't talk, though. Took back every last word about the ghost walking through her." He raised his eyebrows. "Guess she's saner than you or me."

They people-watched a while longer. "I wonder where Amber could be," David said finally.

"I don't see much of the high school crowd in here yet," the chief said. "They all hang around outside, pretending we force them to come."

David nodded, chuckling. "They love the dance, but it's not cool to admit it."

"Right. They'll be in by nine--that's when they hold the costume contest," Swenson said as a couple dressed as Donald and Daisy Duck strolled by.

"Wonder if they got advice on their past lives from Spiros?" Shayrock commented dryly.

David shook his head. "Christly crystal-packers."

"You pissed at Theo?" Swenson asked, giving David a sidelong glance.

"Why do you ask?"

"She's your date, isn't she?" Swenson said. “That’s what she was bragging about all over town."

David watched Theo as she clung to Romero's arm and whispered God-knew-what in his ear. "She's my date, but in name only. She called Romero and told him everything I asked her to keep to herself." He grimaced. "As a result, we're having a séance tonight. Jerry and the channelers."

"In Body House?" Shayrock asked.

"Yep."

"Theo's always been a social-climbing bitch," the doctor commented. "Excuse the language, but the word is precisely chosen."

David suspected the doctor had also been climbed and tossed at one time or another.

"You worried about letting them do it?" Swenson asked.

"The séance, I mean?"

"A little. I don't really think anything will happen with a camera rolling. That goes against your basic haunted house rules."

"That house breaks a lot of rules, Masters. You want me to come out tonight? I have a few things to do first, but I could make it out there by half past midnight or so."

"Chief, I'd appreciate it greatly. You, too, Doc, if you want."

"No thanks. I get nervous when my night light burns out." Shayrock set his empty cup down on the table. "Excuse me." He wandered into the crowd and a moment later David spotted him dancing the Tennessee Waltz with Holly Swenson.

Eric stood at the edge of the dance floor and watched them, a smile on his face. A moment later, a young woman whom David had seen working in Greenaway's twirled the handsome young man onto the dance floor.

"I think I might be getting a new brother-in-law," Swenson said. "Doc's been stuck on Holly forever, but he's too damn shy to do anything about it until lately." He chuckled. "Guess he'd be a brother-in-law-in-law." Swenson tapped David's arm and nodded toward the entry doors. "That's Billy Galiano and his parents."

"The boy who survived the accident last May? I'd like to talk to him."

"Not a good idea. His parents have become very protective of him and I understand he's in therapy. I wouldn't say anything if I were you."

Reluctantly, David nodded. The boy, dressed as a pirate with an eye patch, tri-cornered hat, and fake mustaches, was carrying something under his arm, and he made a bee-line across the room to a little pink fairy princess. Solemnly, he handed her a dark object. She accepted it with equal solemnity, then both children looked around. Finally, they walked over to the folding chairs lining the opposite wall, and she set his gift and her little rose-colored purse down on a vacant chair. A moment later, the kids were out on the dance floor, the boy looking as if he'd died and gone to heaven. His lady love looked equally happy. Better lay off the punch, David told himself, realizing there were tears of sappiness in his eyes, or you'll have to give up horror and write romances instead.