Murder on the Thirteenth (17 page)

“Where'd you get that?”

“Always keep one in the cart.” He hefted the five iron with one big hand and smacked the blade into the other palm. “The old equalizer. Where's yours?”

“I don't have one,” Jake said.

“Where's your revolver?” Tretheway asked.

“You never said…”

“Damn! Do I have to tell you everything?”

“Where's yours?”

“Listen,” Garth said.

The trio stopped. They heard the drone of an aircraft high above the weather. A car engine laboured, the fog horn persisted, a lake freighter answered, but all sounds were distant. Then they heard what Garth heard.

“There” he said.

“What's that?”

“A voice.”

“Man or woman?”

“Don't know.”

“Singing?”

“More like a chant.” They bent over double and scampered to the top of the hill. Flopping full-length on the wet grass, the adventurous three slowly, ever so slowly, raised their heads above the rim of the hill. They peered down through the long wild grass that bordered the natural amphitheatre of the eighteenth fairway. A scene that evoked a perfectly cast-and-staged outdoor Shakespearean production played itself out before them. The mood lighting was flawless, the scenery impossible to improve and the costumes in perfect character. But this was real; no play acting.

The optical centre of the tableau was light. In a bowl-bronze, Tretheway thought- fire crackled, adding sparks and fumes to an already saturated atmosphere. The flames were reflected dully in the pond behind. Two figures danced and cavorted haphazardly around the blaze, sometimes
brilliantly lit, sometimes thrust into silhouette. The larger figure looked like a Hallowe'en witch: long, ample cloak, pointed hat, now bent, with a floppy brim, all black, with white spiky hair atop a blood-red scowling mask.

“W,” Tretheway whispered. “At last, we meet W.”

The smaller one bounced ungracefully around the circle in similar garb, but there was no hat on its black frizzly hair.

“Addie's ugly garden gnome.” Jake grabbed Tretheway's arm. “That's who I saw in the car.”

“Keep it down,” Tretheway said.

“Let's get ‘em” Garth waved his five iron.

“Hold on,” Tretheway said. “Where's Beezul?”

The chanting started again, low to begin with, then becoming louder as the two continued their mad dance around the burning bowl. W leaned dangerously close to the fire more than once, as though inhaling the fumes, once lifting the gnome so he too could enjoy its vapours. Loud cackling laughter mingled with the incantations.

“They're high as kites,” Garth said.

“What do you suppose is in the fire?” Jake asked.

“Henbane, I'll wager,” Tretheway said.

Odd words and disjointed phrases whirled through the fog in frightful voices neither Tretheway, Jake or Garth recognized.

“Emperor Lucifer…beyond the river Styx…Master of rebellious spirits…1 deny my baptism…deny the creator of Heaven and earth…”

W and the gnome reversed their direction around the fire. Their tempo intensified.

“Welcome all bogarts…goblins, foul-smelling apes…blood-sucking imps…servants of Satan…when bitches howl…warm blood is spilled…”

They shouted now, almost in unison. The three observers heard every word.

“I cleave to thee, Prince of Darkness. In thee I believe.”

“Gawd.” Jake's skin crawled.

“When do we charge?” Garth asked.

“When we're told.” Tretheway said.

Activity at the fire stopped abruptly. An eerie silence followed. It seemed interminable. Tretheway could hear Jake and Garth breathing. For a wild moment he thought they had been discovered. Even the fog horn was silent. Then W broke the silence.

“Time to seek retribution.” W ran to the side. “For the evil that was done to my family.” The gnome gambolled after. They picked up something large and light-colored and carried it back to the fire, holding it so its head came close to the fumes. In the light, Tretheway could make out arms and legs.

“Christ! It's Beezul.”

“He's buck naked,” Garth said.

“Why's he all doubled up?” Jake said.

“Fill your head with hog's bean,” W shouted. “Inhale the baleful flowerspray. Ingest the heady roasting seeds till limbs lose their certainty. Then enter the witches' cauldron of madness.” They passed Beezul's head through the smoke several times. “Enough!” W shrieked.

W and the gnome carried their bundle down the slight incline toward the pond. At the water's edge, they swung Beezul back and forth between them.

“ I commit thee, evil progeny of Horatio Beezul, to Satan's deep!” W shrieked rhythmically in time to the swings. On the word “deep”, they released Beezul. He flew into the pond.

“Now!” Tretheway shouted.

He led the charge down the slope. Garth ran close behind shaking his five iron in the air. Jake followed. All, on the verge of losing control, were screaming. W and the gnome froze in their tracks and gaped at the onrushing
trio. Halfway down, Tretheway's feet slid out from under him. He tobogganed, spinning on his rubber slicker the rest of the way. Missing the burning tripod by inches, he wiped out most of the circles and pentacles scratched earlier by W in the sand trap and picked off the gnome as neatly as a bowling ball drops the solitary pin in a successful spare. They both skipped into the pond like flat stones.

When Jake got there, Tretheway and the gnome were wildly thrashing in the centre of the pond, but there was no sign of Beezul.

“The rope!” Tretheway splashed. “Pull the rope!”

Jake looked around frantically. He made out a thick, taut rope emerging from the water. It was attached to a nearby tree trunk. He started pulling.

Garth grabbed the witch, but quickly realized that W was too far out of it to go anywhere. He ran to help Jake. The two pulled Beezul, coughing and sputtering, out of the cold pond.

When Tretheway reached the shore, he hurled the gnome onto the grass. Luke had lost his mask and cloak in pond. He rose from a squatting position to his regular height and scampered over to W where he groped to take her hand. Tretheway went to help Beezul.

Jake was trying to untie the main rope around Beezul's waist. Garth fumbled with the smaller knots of twine. Beezul's arms were crossed, his thumbs tied to the opposite toes.

“Classic,” Tretheway observed.

“He's coming around,” Jake said.

They stood him up and pummelled some life back into his shivering body. Garth stripped his own heavy sweater off and pulled it over Beezul's shoulders. It barely covered his privates.

“You okay?” Holding Beezul's head steady between his
huge hands, Tretheway stared into pupils much larger than normal.

“Must've fallen overboard, Skipper.” Beezul tried to hitch his pants up.

“What's his trouble?” Garth asked.

“He'll be all right.” He angled his head towards the flames in the bronze bowl. “Too much henbane.”

They approached the fire. Luke was clutching W's hand and arm, with his face buried in the deep folds of the witch's cloak. A muffled chant came from W. Tretheway slowly reached out and removed W's hat. Gently he lifted the mask from W's face.

“I break away from earth. Soar across the midnight sky. Above the lights. Above the trees. Across the yellow moon. I buss the clouds. In my nighttime steed. My besom. My distaff.”

Without a mask W's words were dreamy but clear. The heavy black makeup that ringed her wide black eyes ran with moisture. Her beet-red lip colouring mixed greasily into the thick witch's pomade which was smeared unevenly over her face and into her dishevelled hair.

“Zoë,” Tretheway said quietly.

“Anywhere. Anytime. In the twinkling of a bat's eye. A flick of a hare's tail.”

“Zoë,” Tretheway repeated.

“Boss.” Jake put his hand on Tretheway's arm. “She can't hear you.”

“She's on funny street,” Garth said.

Then Zoë Plunkitt began to laugh: a low witch's laugh, a private, disturbing, primeval cackle.

Tretheway walked away and threw W's mask and hat into the darkness. He turned and eyed the fire. It still burned brightly. He took a few quick, calculated steps toward it. Swinging his overweight but muscular leg, Tretheway caught the blazing bowl squarely on its bottom,
sending it in a graceful arc over the heads of his startled friends: spewing sparks and evil, flaming seeds into the fog, it splashed into the pond. It hissed noisily before it sank. There were no other sounds.

“Let's find the cars,” Tretheway said. “And get the hell out of here.”

I
n early November, Allied troops captured San Salvo on their way to Rome; the Americans landed in the Solomons; Russians took the City of Kiev and an RCN destroyer was badly damaged off the coast of Spain.

On the home front, old-age pensions were raised from twenty-three to twenty-eight dollars a month. With this extra money, the seniors of Fort York could buy leather windbreakers for $11.95, a full-length ladies' muskrat coat for $244 or used cars—overhauled and refinished —for as little as $75.

“The FY Tagger Football Club plays Navy tomorrow”; “Maple Leafs tied Detroit Red Wings yesterday”, and “Irving Berlin's
This is the Army,
starring men of the armed forces, including Lt. Ronald Reagan, flicked across the silver screen”.

All these important and not-so-important items appeared in the
FY Expositor,
Friday, November 5th.

“Guy Fawke's Day, Addie.” Jake was reading the paper.

“Today?” Addie asked. “That's right. ‘Please to remember, the fifth of November'…”

“‘Gunpowder, treason and plot',” Tretheway finished, waking from his light evening doze in the parlour.

“At least we won't have to worry about the thirteenth this month, “Jake said.

“That's right.” Addie lowered her section of the paper.
“I can't get Zoë Plunkitt out of my mind. And why she did, you know, what she did.”

“Revenge,” Tretheway said.

“Addie.” Tretheway straightened up in his easy chair. “Look at the facts. 1692. Salem Village. Horatio Increase Beezul, a direct ancestor of our Geoffrey was appointed Judge. During the witch scare. He sentenced one Phadrea Plunkitt, a direct ancestor of Zoë, to the water test. She drowned. Zoë stumbled across this on one of her many trips to New England.”

“I thought she went to a place called Danvers,” Addie said.

“She did, Addie,” Jake explained. “Salem Village was just outside the city of Salem. After the trials and the great recantation, the elders changed the name of the village to — guess what?”

Addie stared at Jake.

“Danvers,” Jake said. “It's called that today.”

Addie's lips formed a silent oh.

“Remember she took Luke there once,” Tretheway said. “For some sort of meeting.”

“Sabbat,” Jake said.

“Well anyway, with a bunch of witches.”

“Coven, “Jake said.

“You want to tell the story?”

Jake shook his head.

“What'll happen to her now?” Addie interrupted. “And Luke.”

“There's no doubt about their guilt,” Tretheway said. “But I doubt either will hang.”

Addie frowned.

“They'll put Zoë away.” Jake looked at Addie. “Like in a hospital. And probably the same thing for Luke.”

“With bars on the window,” Tretheway said.

“Tell me,” Addie asked, “how did he get Beezul to drive him to the golf club?”

“Threatened him,” Tretheway said. “Must've scared the life out of Beezul popping up in the back seat like that. Remember when his car swerved at Dundurn?”

Jake nodded.

“I'm glad Geoffrey's all right,” Addie said.

“He's remarkably fit after all he went through,” Jake agreed.

“The henbane helped,” Tretheway said.

“That's right,” Jake said. “Doesn't remember much. Said he had a headache for days.”

“But let's go back to Zoë Plunkitt,” Tretheway continued. “After she found out about her wronged ancestor and Judge Horatio Beezul, she started spying on Geoffrey. And how better to do that than work with him? Or sail for him. Then she carefully made her plans. And we all know where that led.”

“But what I still don't understand,” Addie persisted, “is why she went to all that trouble? The Hickory Island thing. The rabbit. The belladonna. The bonfire. Why did she pretend to be a witch?”

No one said anything for about thirty seconds.

“Addie,” Jake said, “wild as it might seem, Zoë believed that she
was
a witch.”

Another short silence punctuated the conversation.

“I'll go you one better,” Tretheway said. “Zoë Plunkitt
is a
witch.”

The fire crackled. Fat Rollo sighed in his dream and blew a small whirlwind of ashes across the hearth. Addie folded up her newspaper and stood up. “Bedtime for me.” She left the parlour.

Tretheway went back to his paper. Jake left his seat to fiddle with the radio. After ten minutes of trying to get the eleven o'clock war news from London and receiving nothing but shrill whistles and static on the short wave band, he gave up and switched it off.

“Bad night” he said. “Guess I'll hit the sack.”

“Good night, Jake,” Tretheway said.

Jake opened the sliding doors and stopped. He looked back at his boss. “This witchcraft business,” he started.

“Hm?” Tretheway put down his paper.

“You don't really believe Zoë Plunkitt's a witch?” Jake paused. Tretheway's expression didn't change. “I mean, everything that they say — about casting spells, brewing up a storm, withering crops, making milk sour, turning into animals, flying across the sky. That's all Wizard of Oz kid stuff. Old wives' tales. B movie scripts. Right?”