Ashes to Ashes (15 page)

Accepting the existence of either human or supernatural malefactors in her life was a dizzying leap of perception. Rebecca wondered how long she could postpone brain meltdown. “All the more reason to get on with those jobs,” she replied staunchly. “Right?”

“Right,” he said, equally stalwart, and they shook on it.

The silence was shattered by the slam of the front door. Michael’s and Rebecca’s handshake turned into a convulsive clutch. As one they raced to the stairs. When Michael shouted “Hello?” the word echoed into the depths of the house as though down a well.

“Hey,” called Steve Pruitt’s nasal voice. “Anybody home?”

Rebecca and Michael met him on the landing between the Hall and the study. Today he was wearing a shabby black vinyl jacket. His lock of hair hung lank as a piece of seaweed over his face, and instead of a gold stud in his ear he wore a dangling silver skull. “Didn’t get finished yesterday,” he said to Rebecca’s feet. “Came back.”

You mean your father sent you back, Rebecca said silently.

“Fine,” said Michael. “Can you find everything you need?”

“Mm,” Steve replied, and shuffled back down the stairs. This time it was his back pocket that was distended by the massive key.

“We should tell Steve to knock, not let himself in,” Rebecca said.

“Next time he comes he’ll no be able to let himself in, remember? In fact,” Michael added with a grimace, “there’s no point to startin’ anything, Adler’ll be here any minute.”

“I’ll mull some cider.” Rebecca went down the stairs thinking, Poor Steve. His persona, instead of being tough, was that of a pathetic little boy. Well, what future did he have? That was one thing Rebecca had to say for her father— he’d insisted each of her brothers attend junior college and learn a skill, auto mechanics, food processing, electronic repair. “History?” Joe Reid had demanded when Rebecca told him of her academic ambitions. “Can you get a teaching job with that, to tide you over until you find someone to marry?” His assumptions had been so different from hers she hadn’t bothered to say more than “Yes, Daddy. Don’t worry about me.”

Her family had thought Ray was a good catch— they’d be shocked she’d broken up with him. They’d think Eric was an even better one, except that marriage was hardly what Rebecca wanted from Eric. Proof of her independence, mostly. Except she hadn’t written to Ray yet… .

The front door was standing open. Someone was in the cab of the pick-up outside, a girl with hair like a dust mop and hula hoops in her ears. She was gazing apathetically at Steve as he pecked at the marigold bed with his hoe, her eyes so heavily outlined in black they seemed to be holes torn in the pallid skin of her face. Rebecca paused, her hand on the huge doorknob. That might be the girl who’d run in front of Eric’s car last night, looking like a hapless mouse or vole caught in the spotlights of a PBS nature special.

If Slash was here he’d run into the woods. Rebecca knocked at the window of the pickup. “Hi! I’m Rebecca.”

The girl started violently, recovered, and whispered, “I’m Heather.”

She couldn’t be more than sixteen. “Would you like to wait inside? It’s awfully cold out here.”

“No,” said Heather. “Thanks.” She huddled into her shapeless black clothing, her tights-clad legs knotted together. Steve watched them expressionlessly. Blackbirds exploded like shrapnel from the trees, whirled overhead, and disappeared toward the roof. There was Slash, emerging from behind the mausoleum. On the whole, Rebecca would rather have Heather than Slash hanging around. She hurried back inside.

The drizzle had become a thick Scotch mist. Michael must feel right at home. So, she thought, shutting the door and eyeing the marble tomb, must Mary. Except for the insistent peal of the telephone in the kitchen. Dutifully she ran to answer it.

“Miss Reid, this is Phil Pruitt. Is my son Steve out there?”

“Why, yes. He’s finishing up the flower beds.”

The line hummed expectantly. “Oh. I see. Well, thank you.”

Rebecca hung up and found a large saucepan for the cider. So Phil hadn’t sent Steve; the boy had come on his own. She’d had students who went through these spasms of responsibility. She found a can of cinnamon, sprinkled some into the cider, set out a row of cups.

The front door snicked and her ears perked like the cat’s. She heard a patter of feet on the staircase. No one was in the entry. If I stay here until January first, she thought, and then corrected herself: by the time I stay here until January first, I’ll have a nervous system so sensitive I could sell it to the CIA.

She walked upstairs. Michael was in the study, eyeing the copy of the Declaration of Arbroath. A floorboard creaked in the hallway above. Maybe it was Elspeth. Maybe it was the Ghost of Christmas Past. But this time Rebecca was pretty sure just who it was. As Michael turned and registered her presence she held her finger to her lips and beckoned. Getting into the spirit of things, he tiptoed to the door. Together they started up the staircase.

Car doors slammed outside. Eric. Maybe the sheriff. Even the locksmith. Great, the more the merrier.

Heather stood at Rebecca’s dresser, inspecting a tube of lipstick. Michael chuckled under his breath. Rebecca exhaled— right, for once.

Downstairs the door crashed open. Heather spun around and saw the two people watching her. Her face went even paler, the whites of her eyes glinting below the black rims. She slapped the lipstick onto the dresser and sprinted between Michael and Rebecca from the room and down the stairs. The rapid fire of her steps against the stone mingled with shouts of surprise and warning not only in Eric’s voice but in two unfamiliar ones.

Rebecca collided with Eric on the landing outside the Hall. “What’s going on? What was she doing?” he demanded, clutching her shoulders.

“She was just poking around. We frightened her; that’s why she ran.”

A stocky middle-aged man in a brown uniform and a jacket whose insignia read “Harding County” stood in the entry, Heather dangling like a kitten from his massive hand. “You’re sure, ma’am? She wasn’t taking anything?”

Michael skidded to a halt beside Eric and Rebecca. “She’d only been upstairs for a minute, lookin’ at Rebecca’s pretty things.”

“Please let her go,” Rebecca asked.

“She almost fell,” the sheriff explained, releasing the girl. Heather fled out the door.

“Pathetic kid,” said Eric. “Wait here.” He freed Rebecca and strode back down the steps and out through the front door. She flexed her shoulders experimentally; no, Eric’s fierce grip had not left bruises.

“Warren Lansdale,” said the sheriff. He took off his broad-brimmed hat and nodded affably. Probably he smiled, but it was hard to tell what was happening beneath his broom-sized and -colored moustache. “I hear you’ve had some mysterious goings-on out here. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Rebecca and Michael exchanged a knowing look— not the first time?— and introduced themselves.

Eric’s voice wafted in the door past the cadaverous little man who squatted on the stone flags amid an array of tools and metal pieces. In the parking area the pickup was boxed in by the Volvo, by Lansdale’s squad car, and by a van labeled “Kwik-Fix Hardware”. Steve and Heather stood like identical bookends, hunched, arms crossed, faces sullen, while Eric’s admonitory forefinger counted out the riot act, his tone compelling attention even though the words were unintelligible from inside. Slash loped up and nudged Eric in the side. Absently he fondled the dog’s ears.

Michael leaned negligently against the sarcophagus. Lansdale commented, “I figure Eric will take off for New York or someplace now.” Yes, thought Rebecca, a goldfish like Eric might find even a city like Columbus too small a bowl. And his work here was almost done.

Eric opened his hand, palm up. Steve laid the door key in it. Eric gestured. With inspiring briskness Steve picked up his hoe, Slash gamboled away, Heather scrambled into the truck and crouched so far down only the spikes of her hair showed over the dashboard.

Eric came in the door and stopped dead, realizing four pairs of eyes were fixed on him. The locksmith quickly picked up his tools. Eric grinned at the other three. “Did the cavalry arrive just in time?”

Rebecca eyed him appreciatively. The fine rain had silvered his dark hair and sheened the burgundy leather of his jacket. His idea of casual clothes was an open-necked knit shirt and loosely cut canvas slacks. If lawyering hadn’t paid off, he could have been a model. With his smoldering Heathcliffian looks he didn’t need to smile and reveal the awkward teeth.

Michael spoke and her bubble of admiration popped. “Do you think they were the ones who mucked us about?”

“We saw them in front of that pizza place on our way into town,” Rebecca answered. “I suppose they could’ve had time to get out here and get into the house with Phil’s key. Seems awfully well timed, though, for kids that scatterbrained. And why?”

“A lot of them get real perturbed,” offered Lansdale, “when they find out the world doesn’t owe them a living.”

“Even if they didn’t have the key,” Eric said, putting the item in question into his own pocket, “they might have been able to pick the lock. Dorothy and I told James over and over he needed a newer lock on that door, but he hated for anything to change.” He looked suddenly down at his feet.

“Hard to believe he’s gone,” Lansdale said. “I used to mow the lawns for him when I was just a kid back in the forties. For years we played chess every week. Fine old gentleman. A little strange, but we all have our quirks.” He looked up the stairs as though he expected the old man to come hobbling around the corner. “It was a real shocker when Phil called to say James was dead. He hadn’t been out of bed alone for months. The Good Lord only knows what he was up to, trying to get around at night. Dorothy certainly earned the little legacy he left her, nursing him for so long.”

Rebecca asked quietly, “Who else did he leave money to?”

“Phil,” Eric replied, still distracted and somber. “A few local tradesmen. The mail carrier. Me.”

“Even me,” said Lansdale. “He said we were his family. But we’re not talking large amounts. I took the missus out to a fancy place in Columbus and we went to the opera; that pretty well blew it all.” He cleared his throat. “What we’re concerned with now is who broke in and stole the— the thing.”

Michael patted Mary’s cheek and stood up. “I’m no so sure that whoever messed Rebecca’s room stole the mazer.”

“Your room was vandalized?” exclaimed Eric, focusing abruptly.

“Everything was thrown around but nothing was destroyed.” Except the glass on Ray’s picture, but she wasn’t going to complain about that, especially to Eric.

“I suppose you’ve already picked everything up,” he chided gently.

“Yes, we did… ” Oh. But she couldn’t see the Putnam forensics lab dusting her underwear for fingerprints.

“They didn’t leave any clues lying about,” Michael said.

“Let’s let Warren decide about that,” retorted Eric.

The sheriff made soothing noises in his moustache.

“But,” Rebecca said, “it may not even have been… ” Michael quirked the outer end of an eyebrow as though watching a trapeze artist do a death-defying trick. “… human beings,” she finished. And added to Michael, “You brought it up, remember?”

He grimaced reluctant assent. “Oh aye, there’s something none too couthy about the place.”

Lansdale, surprisingly, nodded. “James wasn’t the only one convinced there were— what do you call ‘em, poltergeists— out here. But they don’t send around Wanted posters of ghosts. I’m not sure how to deal with one.”

“Me either,” said Rebecca.

Eric looked annoyed and uncomfortable, as if he had a rock in his shoe.

Michael shoved his hands into his pockets and shuffled his feet. “Come up to the Hall. I’ll show you the drawin’ of the mazer in the inventory.”

“I’ll bring something to drink.” Rebecca found a tray in the pantry and poured out the fragrantly steaming cider. When she returned to the entry she found Eric lingering at the foot of the staircase. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I’m not only worried about the house but about you. I don’t like the thought of people breaking in.”

“No more people are going to break in,” said Rebecca. She diverted to the front door long enough to offer a cup to the locksmith. “Why thank you, ma’am,” he said.

In the Hall Michael was walking Lansdale through the inventories. The sheriff watched him with the fixed stare of the linguistically bewildered. Michael, taking pity on him, had lapsed almost into his BBC accent, except for the burred r’s that clung to his words like thistles to a sheepdog.

“Do you think there’d be a market for that, that mazer?” Lansdale asked. “It’s sure not something you could fence easily.”

“Collectors,” said Eric, pulling up a chair. “If you were familiar with the museum and antiques trade, it might not be too difficult to find a buyer. Under the table, of course.” He sipped from his cup and did not look at Michael. He hadn’t heard Michael say the mazer was “worth a packet in the right places,” but he might as well have.

Michael eyed the lawyer as though he were a worm in a half-eaten apple. Rebecca handed Lansdale a cup and set one down before Michael. He included her in his aggrieved glare. “The thief needn’t have a market in mind,” she said hurriedly. “It looked like something expensive, so he took it.”

“If the thieves had simply wanted valuables,” said Lansdale, “they would’ve taken the silver cutlery, too, wouldn’t they?” He drank, managing not to trail his moustache in the cup. His skull glistened through sparse strands of sandy hair— the moustache was probably compensation.

“You said that this wasn’t the first time there’d been mysterious doin’s out here,” Michael said to the sheriff.

“Over and beyond James’s talk about ghosts, and his idea that the papers and things wanted to go back home… ” Lansdale glanced at Eric and Eric gestured encouragement. “… he was convinced things had been stolen— old letters, bits of jewelry, artwork— his stories were never the same twice.”

“What happened,” Eric said, “was that he resented having to sell a few items to help keep up the estate. And he forgot about the things he sold years ago. That’s why you’ll probably find things listed in the inventories that aren’t here— he refused to mark them off.”