Nebulon Horror (10 page)

"Just that. It's so intricate. So . . . sophisticated."

"May I ask where you discovered it?"

"I'd rather not say."

Elizabeth seemed annoyed by the rebuff. "I suppose it was done in school, and you're wondering about the child who drew it. I can't help you, I'm afraid. I have
no knowledge of such things. But"—still another shrug—"I would call it just an exercise in doodling by someone quite artistically inclined." Excusing herself, she returned to her desk.

Lois went home. Soon after she arrived there, Keith Wilding came to plant the hibiscus he had not been able to plant the day before. She had discussed the project with Willard and was able this time to tell him where to put them. An hour or so later, when she opened her handbag to pay him, she found she still had the drawing of the school-yard diagram and dropped it into a wastebasket.

That evening Willard Ellstrom wanted a scrap of paper on which to do some figuring, and looked in the nearest basket. It was a habit of his. His wife was an inveterate paper waster—many school teachers were, weren't they?—and any basket in the house was likely at any time to yield only partly used pieces of perfectly good paper.

He found the drawing and looked at it with interest. "Did you do this, Lois?"

"Yes."

"What in the world is it?"

She told him.

"I see." He dropped the paper back into the basket. But later, when he happened to remember the photograph he had taken of Elizabeth Peckham's house—the one with the lineup of children on the veranda—he quietly fished the paper out again and tucked it away in his pocket.

The remainder of that week in Nebulon was as
strange as its beginning.

At the Hostetter residence the mayor and his wife
questioned their son, seeking to learn where he had
gone and what he had done after running away from
school. They learned little. "I just walked around," the
boy insisted.

"You walked around where?"

"I don't know."

"You must know where you went. This is a small
town. You're familiar with every part of it."

No answer.

"Where did you go?"

"I don't know, Daddy. I just walked."

His mother said, "Why did you behave that way in
the school yard?"

A shrug.

"It was a wrong thing to do. Don't you know it was
a wrong thing to do?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"Why did you do it?"

"I don't know."

"Were you angry with those children for something
they did? Or something they said to you?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you talk to Mrs. Ellstrom the way you did?"

"What way, Mommy?"

"You know what you said to her!"

"I forget."

"You used words that you certainly never learned in this house. Where did you ever learn them?"

"What words?"

"I'm not going to repeat them. You know what I'm talking about. Why did you talk to Mrs. Ellstrom that way? Why did you call her a cripple?"

"I don't know."

They gave up.

The police, too, questioned Raymond. Nebulon's chief, Lorin Lighthill, came to the Hostetter home with the policeman who had been in the park when the boy made his accusation.

Chief Lighthill was a gray-haired man in his fifties. He weighed 290 pounds. He had been chief of police much longer than Duane Hostetter had been mayor, and had a mind of his own.

He told Mr. and Mrs. Hostetter that Ruby Fortuna, the mother of the drowned child, had collapsed and was in the hospital. She swore Raymond was lying. In the presence of the Hostetters he asked Raymond to describe again how the woman had put her baby in the lake.

"She just took it out of the carriage and went to the edge of the lake and threw it in," Raymond said.

"You actually saw this? With your own eyes?"

Raymond nodded.

"Where were you?"

"On the path, going home."

"Why didn't you yell or something, to stop her from doing it?"

"I didn't know what she was going to do until she threw the baby in."

"Why didn't you yell then?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't you know the baby would drown?"

No answer.

"I don't suppose he realized," Mrs. Hostetter said. "He's a good swimmer, himself. Living so close to the lake, we made sure he learned how when he was small."

The chief frowned and said, "That baby's mother says she did not put her child in the lake. She even asked us to give her a lie test. Raymond, are you dead sure you didn't see some other person take that baby out of the carriage?"

Raymond shook his head
_s
"It was her."

"You want us to believe Mrs. Fortuna threw that baby in the lake and then went charging in after it?"

"That's what she did."

The chief exhaled heavily. He looked at Mayor Hostetter. He said, "Okay, but I find it hard to swallow."

"Why should my son be lying?" Hostetter demanded.

"You tell me."

"I don't understand your attitude."

"Mister Mayor," Lighthill said, "that girl has lost her baby, and if she isn't heartbroken I've never seen anyone who is. If this boy sticks to his story, she may be charged with homicide as well. You tell me why he did what he did at school. You tell me where he was from the time he left school until he turned up in the park. Then I'll know better what to think about all this."

The chief and his man departed, and Mayor Hostetter looked at his son. Angered by the chief's words, he spoke harshly. "Are you lying about that baby?"

"No, Daddy," Raymond said calmly.

"Because if it turns out that you are, I swear to heaven I—"

"Duane, please!" his wife said. "I'm sure that isn't the way. I'm going to call Doctor Broderick."

Doc Broderick talked to Raymond alone for more than an hour. He examined the boy. Then he talked with the parents. "I can't find anything wrong with him physically," he said. "But I suspect his lapse of memory isn't genuine."

"He's keeping something from us, you mean?" the mayor said.

"There's something queer going on. I can't guess what it is, but several kids in the second grade seem to be involved. They play together sometimes at the old Gustave Nebulon house."

"I don't understand," Reatha Hostetter said. "Raymond doesn't go there."

"He's been there."

"Are you sure, doctor?"

"He's one of six kids on the veranda in a photo I've seen."

"May I call him and ask him?"

"Why not?"

Mrs. Hostetter called her son from his room, where he had been told to wait while his parents talked with Doc. In front of Doc and her husband she held the boy by both hands, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said, "Do you ever go to the old Nebulon house where Miss Peckham lives now?"

He nodded.

"What for?"

"To play."

"Is that all you do? Play?"

"Of course."

Doc said, "What other kids play there, Raymond?"

"Jerri and Debbie and Teresa and . . ." The boy went on to name six.

"They're all in your grade at school?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Doc said to indicate he had no more questions.

"Can I go now?" Raymond asked.

His mother nodded and he departed.

Duane Hostetter said, frowning, "Well, Doc? What now?"

"There's something going on in that house," Doc said with conviction, "something that's affecting the kids who visit the place. You've heard what happened at the band concert Sunday night, I suppose
_!
"

They nodded.

Doc told them about the frog. About to go further and tell them what Jerri Jansen had said about the mysterious door, he changed his mind and decided not to repeat what might be only a childish fantasy. In conclusion he said,
"
Is
there some way the police could get inside that house, Duane?"

"To do what?"

"I haven't the foggiest. Just to look around, I suppose."

The mayor shook his head. "I don't see how. I'll speak to the chief, but I don't believe we'd have a leg to stand on."

"Well then, I can only tell you what I've already told Olive Jansen: If I were you, I'd keep my child away from there. At least until we can investigate these apparent aberrations further. Keep him at home the rest of this week, anyway."

It was true. Doc had advised Olive Jansen not to allow Jerri to go to the old house again. Phoning as he had promised after her visit to his office, he had told her of his feeling that the house might be having some malignant influence on the child. "I have no idea what the hell is going on, Olive, but let's play it safe."

The trouble was that Olive could not be sure—at least, not absolutely sure—that her daughter was obeying. True, she could have ordered the child to go straight to the apartment after school and stay there, and then could have phoned from the restaurant to see whether Jerri would answer the phone. But it would be cruel, wouldn't it, to coop the youngster up like that?

More often Jerri went to play with one of the neighbors' children, and the only way to check on that would be to call the neighbors. She just could not act the policeman in such a way, and so had to trust Jerri to obey her.

At least once she was sure the child had not done so.

It was on Thursday. Vin Otto, making a delivery in the nursery pickup, stopped at the restaurant for a moment to speak to her about a house he had found for rent. Would she go with him that evening to look at it? She would. "I will be going past your place," he said then. "Do you wish me to stop and find out if Jerri is there?" He knew she was anxious.

"Please, Vin."

Jerri was not there. She was not there when he checked again, half an hour later, on his way back to the nursery. He took the time to drive past Elizabeth Peckham's house and saw children in the yard. One resembled Jerri but he could not be sure because they were at the far end of the yard, in the deep shade of trees, sitting on the ground in a circle.

He could have backed the truck up for a second look, but did not want Jerri to think he was spying.

Driving on for half a block, he stopped and walked back. By then the children had disappeared, apparently into the house. From the nursery he phoned Olive to tell her.

When Olive reached home at her usual hour, Jerri was seated on the hall floor, quietly looking at one of her school books. "Well, hi," Olive said with feigned cheerfulness. "How long have you been here? Did you come straight from school?"

"Yes, Mommy."

"You didn't, you know."

"Huh?"

"Vin stopped by. You weren't here. Where were you?"

"I was out back, playing."

"Who with?"

"Myself."

"Jerri?"

"Yes, Mommy?"

"You're not lying to me? You didn't go to Teresa's?"

"Of course not."

But you did
, Olive thought.
You did
.

She called Melanie Skipworth. Monday evening, as planned, Melanie and Keith had come over and the four of them had talked until well after midnight. She of course had told about her visit with Jerri to Doc Broderick, and how Doc had advised her afterward, over the phone, to keep Jerri away from the old house until it could be determined what was going on there. If, of course, anything was.