Nebulon Horror (5 page)

"Your Miss Skipworth was there too," the lady said, somehow making the word
your
sound like an accusation. "Is it also what she thinks?"

"Yes, it is."

"And the child? Does she now say she was dreaming, after the terrible things she screamed in the park?"

Keith's anger was lava rising in a volcano, close to the top now and about to erupt. He stoppered the volcano by drawing in a slow, deep breath but knew nothing would keep it capped much longer with such pressure building up. "Mrs. Vetel," he said, "she doesn't remember the incident." Incident was a good word, properly casual. "The truth is, she must have been pretty tired, staying up so late. She fell asleep again on the way home. Then when she woke up and saw Vin, she actually asked who had scratched him. She's crazy about him, you know."

The stony scowl on Mrs. Vetel's face did not dissolve. "Well, I hope you're right," she said, obviously hoping nothing of the sort. "Because if there is one thing this town won't stand for, Mister Wilding, it's a molester of children. Do you remember Louis Neibert?"

"Who?"

"Perhaps you don't. You were away at college at the time, I believe. But you must have heard about him.

He had a shoe repair shop, and one day little Caroline Burney, who was just eight years old, accused him of taking her into his back room and fondling her when she went there alone to pick up some shoes. Then two other little girls found the courage to reveal he had done the same to them. Now do you remember?"

"Well—vaguely," Keith reluctantly admitted, realizing there was no way to escape without losing a customer. And not just one customer: probably others on his books who attended this one's church.

"And do you remember the reaction, Mister Wilding?" the lady went on relentlessly. "This town was up in arms. Groups of angry men met all over the place, trying to decide what to do about Mister Neibert. In the end it was determined he should be told to sell his business and leave town, and a group of the community's leading citizens went out to his house to tell him."

Keith nodded. "And found he'd already cleared out, I seem to recall."

"Yes. Exactly. And no one in Nebulon ever laid eyes on that man again, Mister Wilding. I hope you understand. That wasn't so very long ago, and this is still the same town. It hasn't changed its mind about such things."

"I'm sure it hasn't."

Mrs. Vetel seemed satisfied then, or at least willing to let the matter rest until she could learn more. But there were others. During the afternoon more customers implied they were not pleased at finding Vin Otto still working at the nursery. The worst of these did more than imply; he bluntly stated.

"What the hell's the matter with you, Wilding, keeping that son of a bitch on after what he did to that little girl? Don't you care?"

Keith's control had been worn thin by this time. Moreover, Leonard Quigley was a man who unfailingly found fault with anything sold to him and used his faultfinding as an excuse for not paying. He was a burly motorcycle cop for whom even his fellow policemen had no affection. "How do you know what Vin Otto did to the girl?" Keith challenged. "Were you there?"

"I heard about it."

"You heard about it. That's good enough? Why don't you ask the girl, and find out what really happened?"

"What the hell are
you
sore about?"

"I've been listening to cracks like yours all day long. I'm tired. I didn't realize this was such an uptight town."

"To hell with you, Wilding," the cop said darkly. "Anything goes with you college radicals. I just wish that girl would press charges against the bastard; that's what I wish."

Keith drew a deep breath to cap the volcano again, and said coldly, "What do you want here?"

"A tangelo tree, like you got advertised. Sell me one and don't expect to see me around here again as long as that SOB is working here."

"The tree will be six dollars."

"Put it on my tab."

"You already owe me more than forty."

"Shove it, then," Quigley snarled, and made thunder with his Harley-Davidson as he rode off.

A
t four the citrus grafting was nearly finished and Keith gathered up half a dozen small tree hibiscus—
Montezuma speciosissima
they were tagged—for delivery to a customer. He put them in his truck, a jonquil yellow pickup with the words WILDING'S NURSERY lettered in green and gray on its sides. "You better go when you're through," he said to Vin. "I have a hunch Mrs. Ellstrom may want me to plant these."

Vin looked tired. The day must have been long for him with his face hurting. "Should I stop there on my way home and lend you a hand?"

"No. Go on home."

Mrs. Lois Ellstrom was principal of the school Teresa Crosser and Jerri Jansen attended. A fine woman, respected and liked. Her husband, Willard, was a photographer with a studio in the town's business section. In Nebulon if you needed a portrait of yourself, a batch of passport photos, an album of wedding pictures, or anything else that could be recorded on film, you went to Willard Ellstrom. He too was respected and liked.

They lived in the older residential part of Nebulon where at least a third of an acre of well-planted grounds surrounded every house, and the houses had high ceilings and spacious rooms. Keith always enjoyed working in that neighborhood. Today it seemed especially restful. He hoped Mrs. Ellstrom would want the hibiscus planted. He would like to be away from the nursery awhile in case any more Leonard Quigleys dropped in.

But the moment the lady answered her door he sensed something wrong and was both concerned and disturbed.

Mrs. Ellstrom was in her early forties, a handsome woman, plump but not fat, with prematurely gray hair. She had had polio as a child and still limped very slightly—a thing she was unduly sensitive about. She wore glasses. Through their lenses she peered at Keith as though puzzled by his presence.

"Yes, Mister Wilding?"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Ellstrom. I've brought the hibiscus you ordered."

"Hibiscus?"

"You picked them out Friday, remember? You said you'd like to have them Monday, which is today. In the afternoon, you said, when you would be home from school." He was talking as though to a child, he realized. But the lost look on her face made him feel he had to.

"Oh?" she said. "Oh yes, of course." But she really didn't remember, he was certain. She was simply accepting his word for it. Her hands trembled. Even the one resting on the doorknob was unsteady. Before she could speak again, she had to wait for her lower lip to stop quivering too. "I—I don't quite know what I ought—" She stopped again in confusion.

"Would you like me to plant them for you, Mrs. Ellstrom? I believe you said Mr. Ellstrom had a lot of work this week and might not be able to find the time."

"Yes. That's right."

"I'll do it now. If you'll just come outside and show me where you want them."

"Just—just let me get my hat," she said, and disappeared into the house.

Keith waited, bewildered by what was happening. She was gone all of five minutes and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat when she reappeared. "My gardening hat," she said, as though telling him where to plant four small hibiscus were an exercise in gardening. "I think this way." But after limping a few yards from the porch she stopped, seemingly confused again. "No, this way perhaps." More limping. The limp was really noticeable today, Keith realized. Another abrupt halt. "Oh, dear, I just don't know," she stammered.

"Mrs. Ellstrom," Keith said with compassion, "don't you feel well?"

She shook her head. "I'm—I'm afraid I'm terribly upset."

"Is there something I can do? Can I call your husband? Or a doctor?"

"No, no. No, please, Mister Wilding. I'll be all right."

"But—"

"Something terrible happened in school today. I must stop thinking about it, that's all. But if you could come back tomorrow . . . ? Would you? Please? Come tomorrow?"

"Of course." Keith put a gentle hand on her arm and turned her toward the house, wishing there were some way he could help her but not knowing how. At his touch she let her breath out in a shuddery sigh, perhaps in relief at not having to continue her struggle for self-control.

He walked her slowly to the door. There he said, "Tomorrow, Mrs. Ellstrom" but waited on the stoop to be sure she would be able to pull the door shut.

She did so at last, trying to smile to show her appreciation.

Returning to his pickup, he took out the four hibiscus and left them in their burlap root-wrappings under a handsome flame-of-the-forest tree in the yard. Then he drove downtown. If he could not plant the trees, he could at least delay his return to the nursery by calling on Melanie Skipworth. If, of course, she was not busy. He had telephoned her earlier in the day, but phoning this girl was a poor substitute for being with her.

He passed the photography studio of Lois Ellstrom's husband and was tempted to stop. But what could he say to the man? "Mister Ellstrom, I've just talked to your wife and she seems deeply disturbed about something that happened at school. Perhaps you ought to go home?" He didn't know Willard Ellstrom that well. He drove on by.

Nor did he, after all, stop at Melanie's. The shop was open, but as he approached it a man and woman unknown to him—tourists, probably—stopped peering at the window display and with obvious enthusiasm went on in. He might have to wait quite a while for a chance to see Mel alone.

As he headed homeward in frustration he wondered again what Mrs. Ellstrom, usually so self-assured, had been so dramatically upset about.

L
ois Ellstrom did not know what to do. She had blundered, she knew she had blundered, and she could lose her job for it. Still wearing the gardening hat she had put on to show Mr. Wilding where to plant the hibiscus, she sat in her kitchen and thought about it while waiting for her husband to come home.

The worst part of the whole thing was that Mrs. Hostetter, the mayor's wife, had not believed her. Mrs. Hostetter had not come right out and said so, of course, but she knew it was a fact.

But then, she herself would never have believed Raymond could be guilty of such behavior had she not seen it with her own eyes. Raymond Hostetter had always been one of the nicest little boys in the whole school. Always polite. Always gentle.

Why had he done it?

She had been standing at a window in her office when it happened. At least, when the first part of it happened, for in evaluating the incident one ought to consider it in its separate phases. At a window, yes. As she often did at recess in order to watch the children at play in the school yard. A good teacher should always watch her children at play when time permitted. One learned so much about them that way.

The popular recess diversion just now was a marbles game, at least for grades two and three, which were the ones in the yard at the time. Almost every child in those grades brought a collection of glass marbles to school. Most were transparent with gay swirls of color in them as if tiny rivers of dye were imprisoned inside. Pretty. As for the game itself, some child with a good eye and a steady hand would take a stick and draw a circle perhaps ten feet in diameter in the playground earth. Another would scoop out a shallow depression in the center. Then any number of youngsters would kneel or squat outside the circle and try to roll the marbles into the hole. There were some childishly complicated rules, of course. Games had to have rules. Lois hadn't the slightest idea how a winner was determined.

From the window she had been watching such a game, a big one involving at least twenty children. Quite exciting, too, if one were to judge by the shouting and jumping up and down that went on. The odd thing was that Raymond Hostetter was not one of the players. He was not even an interested spectator. He sat alone on a bench at the far end of the yard, listlessly making marks in the dirt with a stick. She had noticed him because almost no one ever used that bench; it was too isolated. She had wondered if perhaps he didn't feel well. He was not a robust child.

But she was watching the other children, not Raymond, when it happened. The game had been going on for quite some time and the ground inside the circle was strewn with glass marbles flashing and sparkling in the sunlight. And suddenly there was Raymond, roughly thrusting two kneeling girls aside and striding across the line into the circle.