Lasher (31 page)

“Yes, Dad, but I want to know about Mother’s clothes.”

“What in God’s name has this to do with Gifford!” Ryan demanded. “God, have you all lost your minds.”

“Just want to know,” said Pierce. “You know…you know Mom was scared to come here on Mardi Gras, she was…”

“No, don’t go on. Don’t do it,” said Ryan. “Let’s stick to what we have here. What we know. We’ll do whatever anybody wants us to do for any reason! And Michael, tomorrow I’ll make available to you everything we have on Rowan. Hell, I’ll make it available now. I’ll send you the records of the entire investigation.”

Once again, he picked up the phone and punched in the office numbers at the speed of light. He did not bother to say his name. He told the person on the other end, “Messenger over a copy of all the papers pertaining to Rowan. Yes, all that. The detectives, the Xeroxes of the checks, every scrap of paper we have on her. Her husband wants it. He has a right to see it. He’s her husband. He has…a right.”

Silence. He was listening.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

His face went blank and then it began to color, to redden, and as he hung up the phone, he turned his gaze on Aaron. “Your investigators picked up my wife’s clothes? They took them from the Walton County coroner’s office and from the funeral parlor? Who told you you could do such a thing?”

Aaron didn’t answer. But Michael could read the surprise and the confusion in his face. Aaron hadn’t known. He was shocked as well as humiliated. He seemed to be thinking it all over, and then he gave a little careful shrug.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said at last. “I did not authorize anyone to do this. I apologize to you. I’ll see that everything is returned, immediately.”

Now Michael understood why Aaron was not himself. Something was happening within the ranks, something between Aaron and the Order. He had sensed it earlier but he hadn’t known how to interpret it.

“You damn well better!” said Ryan. “I’ve had enough of scholars and secrets and people spying on one another.” He stood up. Pierce stood also.

“Come on, Dad,” Pierce said, once again taking charge.
“Let’s go home. I’ll go back to the office this afternoon. Let’s go.”

Aaron did not rise to his feet. He did not look up at Ryan. He was gazing off, and then he seemed to drift away from them, into his own thoughts. He was disgruntled, but it was worse than that.

Michael rose and took Ryan’s hand. He shook hands also, as he always did, with Pierce. “Thank you both.”

“It’s the least you could expect,” said Ryan disgustedly. “We’ll meet tomorrow, you and I, and Lauren and Randall. We’ll find Rowan if Rowan…”

“…can be found,” said Mona.

“I told you to shut up,” said Ryan. “I want you to go home,” Ryan said. “Ancient Evelyn is there alone.”

“Oh, yeah, somebody’s always there alone and they need me, don’t they?” Mona said. She brought her leg round and stood up, straightening the girlish cotton dress. The two loops of her white ribbon poked up behind her head. “I’ll go on home. Don’t worry.”

Ryan stood staring at her as if he could not endure any of this a moment longer. And then he moved towards her and took her in his arms and crushed her to his chest. There was an awful silence and then the more awful sound of his crying—the deep, choked, repressed sob of a man, full of shame as well as misery, a sound a woman seldom made, almost unnatural.

Pierce put his arm around his father’s shoulder. Ryan pulled Mona back, gave her a fierce kiss on the cheek, and then, squeezing her shoulder, let her go. She had gone all soft towards him, and squeezed him, and kissed his cheek, too.

He followed Pierce out of the library.

As the door opened and closed, Michael heard a chorus of voices from the hall—the hushed voice of Beatrice, and the deeper voice of Randall, and others he could not distinguish in the hubbub that followed.

He realized he was alone with Aaron and with Mona. And Aaron had not moved. Aaron had about him that listless look. Aaron seemed gravely disabled as Michael himself had been only days ago.

Mona had slunk into the corner, glowing like a little candle with her flaming hair, arms folded, not about to leave, obviously.

“Tell me your thoughts,” said Michael to Aaron. “This is
the first time I’ve really asked you since…it happened. What do you think? Talk to me.”

“You mean you want my scholarly opinion,” said Aaron, with that same touch of sourness, his eyes veering off.

“I want your unbiased opinion,” said Michael. “Ryan’s refusal to believe in this whole thing is almost a religious stance. What is there you’ve been keeping from me?”

He should ask Mona to go, he should escort her out, turn her over to Bea, take care of her. But he didn’t do these things. He simply looked at Aaron.

Aaron’s face had tightened, then relaxed again. “I haven’t been deliberately keeping back anything,” he said, but the voice was not typical of him. “I’m embarrassed,” he said, looking Michael in the eye. “I was heading this investigation until Rowan left. I thought I was heading it even afterwards. But there are strong indications now that the Elders themselves are in charge, that the investigation has broadened without my knowledge. I don’t know who took Gifford’s clothing. That’s not the Talamasca style. You know it’s not. After Rowan’s disappearance, we asked Ryan’s permission to come to this house, to take specimens from the bloodstained rug, the wallpaper. We would have asked you, but you were not…”

“I know, I know…”

“That’s our manner. To go in the wake of disaster, to proceed with care, to observe, not to conclude.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations. We’re friends, you and me. You know that. But I think I can tell what’s happened. This must be a momentous investigation to your Elders. We don’t have a ghost now; we have a mutant being.” Michael laughed bitterly. “And the being is holding my wife prisoner.”

“I could have told you that,” said Mona.

Aaron’s utter lack of response was startling. Aaron was staring off, and deeply distressed and unable to confide about it because it was the business of the Order. Finally he looked again at Michael.

“You’re all right, you’re very well indeed. Dr. Rhodes calls you his miracle. You’re going to be all right. We’ll meet tomorrow. You and I, even if I am not admitted to the meeting with Ryan.”

“This file they’re sending over,” Michael said.

“I’ve seen it,” Aaron said. “We were cooperating with each other. My reports are in the file. You’ll see. I don’t know what’s happened now. But Beatrice and Vivian are waiting for
me. Beatrice is greatly concerned about you, Mona. And then there is Dr. Larkin. He wants to talk to you, Michael. I’ve asked him to wait until tomorrow. He’s waiting for me now.”

“Yes, OK. I want to read the report. Don’t let Larkin get away, however.”

“Oh, he’s happy. He’s hitting every good restaurant in town and has been partying all night with some young female surgeon from Tulane. He’s not going to slip through our fingers.”

Mona volunteered nothing. She merely watched as Michael followed Aaron into the hallway. She remained in the door, and he was painfully conscious of her presence suddenly, of her perfume, of her red hair glowing in the shadows, of the rumpled white satin ribbon, of all of her and everything that had happened, and that people were leaving the house, and he might soon again be alone with her.

Ryan and Pierce were just getting out the front door. Mayfair farewells took so long. Beatrice was crying again, and assuring Ryan that everything would be all right. Randall sat in the living room, beside the first fireplace, looking like a great dark gray toad in the chair, his face baffled and pondering.

“Darlings, how are you both?” Bea asked, rushing to take Michael’s hand and Mona’s hand as well. She kissed Mona’s cheek.

Aaron slipped past her.

“I’m OK now,” said Mona. “What about Mom?”

“She’s sedated. They’re feeding her intravenously. She’ll sleep the night. Don’t you worry about her another moment. Your father is all right. He’s keeping company with Ancient Evelyn. I believe Cecilia is there now. Anne Marie is with your mother.”

“That’s what I figured,” said Mona disgustedly.

“What do you want to do, my darling? Shall I take you home? Will you come and stay with me for a while? What can I do? You can bunk in with me for the night, or sleep in the room with the rose wallpaper.”

Mona shook her head. “I’m fine.” She gave a careless disrespectful shrug. “I’m really just fine. I’ll walk up home in a little while.”

“And you!” Bea said to Michael. “Just look at you. There’s color in your cheeks! You’re a new man.”

“Yeah, seems so. Listen. I gotta think about things. They’re sending over the file on Rowan.”

“Oh, don’t read all those reports. It’s too depressing.” She
turned to search out Aaron, who stood far away against the wall. “Aaron, don’t let him.”

“He should read them, my dear,” Aaron said. “And now I must go back to the hotel. Dr. Larkin is waiting for me.”

“Oh, you and that doctor.” She took Aaron’s arm and kissed him on the cheek as they proceeded to the door. “I’ll wait for you.”

Randall had risen to go. Two young Mayfairs in the dining room drifted into the hall. The good-byes were protracted, full of heartfelt words, and sudden sobs of grief, and confessions of love for Gifford, poor beautiful Gifford, kind and generous Gifford. Bea turned back, and rushed to embrace Michael and Mona with both arms, kissed them both, and then went down the hall, tearing herself away obviously. There was an intimacy in the way she took Aaron’s arm, in the way he guided her down the steps. Randall went out the gate before them.

Then they were all gone. Mona stood waving in the keyhole door, looking thoroughly incongruous now in the childish dress with its sash, though the white ribbon in her hair seemed an essential part of her.

She turned around, and looked at Michael. She banged the door shut behind her.

“Where’s my Aunt Viv?” Michael asked.

“She can’t save you, big boy,” Mona said. “She’s out in Metairie comforting Gifford’s other kids, with Aunt Bernadette.”

“Where’s Eugenia?”

“Would you believe I poisoned her?” Mona walked past him back down the hall, and into the library.

He followed her, adamant and full of righteous speeches and declarations. “This is not going to happen again,” he began, but she shut the library door as soon as he was inside, and she threw her arms around him.

He began to kiss her, his hands sliding over her breasts, and down suddenly to lift the cotton skirt. “This cannot happen!” he said. “I’m not going to let you. You’re not even giving me a fifty-fifty—”

Her soft sweet young limbs overwhelmed him—the ripe, firm feel of her arms, of her back, of her hips beneath the cotton. She was fiercely aroused, aroused as any grown woman he’d ever made love to. He heard a small sound. She had reached over and snapped the lock of the library door.

“Comfort me, big man,” she said. “My beloved aunt just
died. I’m really a wreck. No kidding.” She stepped back. There was a glimmer of tears in her eyes. She sniffled, and looked as if she might break down.

She undid the buttons of the cotton dress, and then let it slip down around her. She stepped out of the circle of glowing fabric. And he saw her snow-white brassiere with its full cups of expensive lace, and the soft pale skin of midriff above the waistband of her half-slip. The tears spilt down again as they had before, her soundless crying. Then she rushed at him, and locked her arms around his neck, kissing him, and slipping her hand down between his legs.

It was a
fait accompli
, as they say. And then there was her faint whisper as they snuggled together on the carpet.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He was sleepy; he listed; he didn’t fall deep; he couldn’t; there was too much right there before his mind’s eye. He started humming. How could he not worry about everything? He could not close his eyes. He hummed and softly sang.

“Violetta’s waltz,” she said. “Just hold on to me for a little while, will you?”

It seems he slept, or sank into some sort of approximate peaceful state, his fingers on her sweaty adorable little neck, and his lips pressed to her forehead. But then the doorbell sounded, and he heard Eugenia in the hall, taking her time to answer, talking aloud as she always did, “On my way, I’m comin’.”

The report had been delivered. He had to see it. How to get it without revealing the sleeping child on the rug, he didn’t know. But he had to see it. It hadn’t taken a half hour for that file to get here. He thought of Rowan and he felt such dread that he couldn’t form words about it, or make decisions, or even reflect.

He sat up, trying to regain his strength, to shake off the languor of sex, and not see this naked girl on the carpet asleep, head cradled on a nest of her own red hair, her belly as smooth and perfect as her breasts, all of her luscious and inviting to him. Michael, you pig, that you could do this!

There was the dull vibration of the big front door slamming shut. Eugenia passed again, steady tread, silence.

He put on his clothes, and then combed his hair. He was staring at the phonograph. Yes, that was exactly the one he had seen in the living room, the one which had played for him the
ghost waltz. And there sat the black disk on which the ghost waltz had been recorded many decades ago!

He was confounded for a moment. Trying to keep his eyes off the gleaming child, pondering and wondering that for a moment he had gone calm in the midst of all of it. But you did this. You could not stay at top pitch every moment. And so he thought, My wife may be alive; she may be dead; but I have to believe she’s alive! And she’s with that thing. That thing must need her!

Mona turned over. Her back was flawless and white, her hips for all their smallness proportioned like those of a little woman. Nothing boyish about her in her youth; resolutely female.

Tear your eyes off her, man. Eugenia and Henri are both around somewhere. You are pushing your luck. You are asking to be bricked up in the cellar.

There is no cellar
.

I know that. Well, then the attic.