The Summer We Lost Alice (32 page)

"Everybody needs God," she said. She clamped her lips tight and drove.

MATT'S ELATION at getting a dog vanished as soon as he beheld Boo.

"That's him!" he yelled. "That's the dog that stole my car! I hate him!"

Matt ran upstairs to sulk in his room.

"This is going to be awkward," Cat said.

"The boy'll come around," Flo said.

The family thought that getting Boo into the bathtub would be the hard part until they had to keep him there. Cat and Ethan ended up crawling inside the tub to hold Boo's head and rear end, respectively.

"Figures I'd get the end with the teeth," Cat said.

"And I'd get the end with the
dingleberries," Ethan said.

"What's a
dingleberry?" Brittany asked.

"Pass the shampoo," Flo said.
"Less talk and more scrubbing."

They were using the upstairs bathroom because the shower nozzle could be detached from the hook on the wall and used to hose the dog down. The ensuing hubbub soon drew Matt from his room. He took a position in the doorway, playing the role of a disinterested bystander.

"Best close that door in case he makes a break for it," Flo said.

Matt closed the door with himself on the inside. He contented himself with watching from the corner by the toilet and trying hard to maintain a hateful glare.

Flo squirted Boo with shampoo. She and Brittany lathered him up. Even at four-to-one the family felt outnumbered. There was no debating the need to get the shelter smell off him, though, not to mention whatever it was he'd rolled in.

Flo took note of Matt's expression. He was dying to join the fray but his pride wouldn't let him volunteer.

"Matt, squeeze in here," she said. "Reach over to the other side where your sister can't get. Here—add some more soap."

In moments, Matt was scrubbing and laughing with the rest of the crew. Flo gave Cat a satisfied smirk as if to say, "See? Your mother still knows a trick or two."

When fully lathered, Boo shook, spraying soap with the efficiency of an explosion. When rinsed, he shook again. By the time they released him from the tub, most of the bathroom was dripping with soapy water.

"That's one way to get the bathroom clean," Flo said, wiping down the walls.

The kids went to work on the dog with towels. Ethan brushed him down and showed the kids the spot on Boo's belly you could scratch to make his leg kick. They snapped the leash from the shelter on his collar and Boo took the family for a walk. With his nose down and his big legs pumping and Brittany squealing, it was a canine version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

That evening they popped corn, most of which went down Boo's gullet one kernel at a time. It was late by the time
the kids were settled down and in bed. Because Matt and Brittany couldn't agree whose bed the dog would sleep on (the plan to house him in the garage had long ago been abandoned), Cat led Boo downstairs. He followed her to the kitchen where Flo and Ethan were waiting with pie from Mina's.

"Okay, Mom, why the fascination with this dog?"

"We have two issues on our hands," Ethan said. "One, is this dog Boo, and two, is Heather the reincarnation of Alice? You have to accept those assumptions or we've got zip. Heather's accusation about Sam Sr. burying a body—presumably Martin Dale—doesn't mean anything if she isn't speaking for Alice. And if Boo isn't Boo, Aunt Flo's just adopted another big, dumb mutt."

"Which doesn't answer my question," Cat said.
"Even if Boo is Boo, so what?"

"He's the nexus," Flo said.

"The what?"

"The nexus, dear.
The hub, where everything comes together."

"Why isn't Heather the nexus? If she's really Alice—"

"Don't be otherwise. If Alice is Alice—"

"You mean, if Heather is Alice," Ethan said.

"What did I say?"

"You said 'If Alice is Alice.' Freudian slip, meaning that you do believe Heather is Alice."

"If Heather is Alice," Flo said patiently, "that's one thing. But if Boo is Boo, he came back from the dead to be here."

"So did
I," Heather said. "I died on the operating table. I came back when Alice entered my body."

"That's right," Flo said. "I'd forgotten. Maybe you
are
the nexus."

"What does it matter who's the nexus,
whatever
that is?" Cat said. "And, reincarnated or resurrected or whatever Boo is, so what?"

"It's the timing," Flo said. "Heather, you died at the same time as Alice. Her soul entered your body. Boo came back
after being
wherever
for twenty-five years. Why? What brought him back from the other side?"

All eyes turned to Ethan. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that everyone was looking to him for an answer.

"I don't even
believe
in the other side!" he said.

"Yes, you do," Heather said. "You're in denial. But you believe.
Deep down."

Ethan sighed. "Okay, no. But I'm willing to make the assumptions, both of them. About Heather, about Boo. I'll give you those, for one
reason. As I said, if we don't make those assumptions, we've got nothing. So what do we do now?"

"Have you heard from Sammy?" Flo asked of Cat.

"Nothing. Which is strange. Three days is like a break-up for us. I mean, if we were dating. And we're not."

"You don't know if he's told his father about Heather's accusation?"

"Nope. We haven't spoken. About anything."

"Some detectives we are," Ethan said. "Two assumptions, no clues, and one suspect who couldn't possibly have been responsible for at least one of the disappearances—the latest one—because he was in the hospital at the time."

Boo lifted his head and
woofed
, ears twitching. He took off running for the front door, nails clattering on the kitchen floor, sounding a deep-throated call to arms. As he vanished into the hallway, the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be, so late?" Flo said.

"It's Sammy," Cat said. "Has to be. I'll get it."

Cat scolded Boo as she walked to the front door. The dog was on his hind legs, scratching at the door.

"Down!" she said. "Down!" She grabbed Boo by the collar and held him back as she flipped on the porch light. She opened the front door to reveal Miss Lilian Nichols.

"Hello, Catherine," Miss
Lilian said.

Boo leaped at the door. It took all of Cat's strength to restrain him. He released a series of barks that came from deep within his chest. Cat pulled at Boo's collar and forced him down on all fours.

"Miss Lilian. I'm sorry. Just let me put the dog out—"

"Oh, no, please. Actually, he's the reason I'm here."

Miss Lilian knelt and peered at Boo through the screen door. Boo plastered his big nose against the screen, breathed in her scent. He whined, confused.

"So, it worked," Miss
Lilian said. "He's back."

* * *

"I apologize for calling so late," Miss Lilian said. "I wanted to wait until the children were in bed. Much of what I have to say isn't fit for innocent ears."

They sat in the living room. Cat had put up the sofa sleeper and apologized for the mess, made Miss
Lilian a cup of tea, and they gathered like a tribe around a campfire. Ethan, Heather, and Flo occupied the sofa. Cat and Miss Lilian sat in chairs facing them. Miss Lilian was the center of attention, the "nexus" as Flo would have said.

"Ethan," Miss
Lilian said, "I owe you an apology. Everything I told you in the hospital was true, but I left much out. Quite a large amount, actually." She cast her gaze around the group. "I'm here to make a clean breast of the matter. I withheld so much to protect him. Now he's lying in the hospital, dying, and there are lives at stake, young lives. It's time to let him go."

"Sam Morse Sr., you mean," Ethan said.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I've rehearsed this speech many times, but now, being here, facing all of you—the words are a jumble in my mind. Yes, I'm talking about Sam Morse Sr. My Sam. My poor, bedeviled Sam."

"So he is involved in the disappearances."

"Not as you think."

"Miss
Lilian, tell me just one thing," Flo said. Cat noticed the trembling in her mother's body. She was barely keeping it together. "Did Sam—did he kill my daughter?"

Miss
Lilian shook her head.

"No.
And yes, indirectly. It's complicated. I ... I need to gather my thoughts. I wonder—" She held out her cup to Cat. "Please, dear, may I have another cup of tea? This is going to be difficult."

"MUCH OF WHAT I know, I learned from my mother. Once she learned about the cancer and we saw how quickly it was devouring her, she took me into her confidence. She told me that I would probably never need to know all that she was about to tell me. I knew she was lying. She knew the story wasn't over. She knew I would face this moment, these choices, this ... horror.

"My mother was a witch. Not like you think. No naked dancing with Satan or any of that nonsense. Much of what she did would be considered herbal medicine these days.
Natural remedies, homeopathic cures. The sort of thing that could get you burned at the stake not so long ago.

"
Which is not to deny an element of the supernatural.

"She believed in spirits and the hereafter. She believed strongly that there is a world beyond this world, and a world
inside
this world, and a world
outside
it, enveloping it, connecting its elements, giving it ... well, if not meaning, then
order
. Everything spiritual is an awareness of these other worlds, wrapped in superstition, yes, interpreted, misinterpreted, mythologized, often misused and abused and swaddled in hokum.

"Central to these beliefs is a certainty that, when we die, we endure. In what form, in what
... milieu ... she didn't claim to comprehend. One thing she told me: 'If anyone tells you he knows what the other side is like, hold your purse close and walk away.' She did not suffer frauds, and she refused to delude herself into believing she understood it all. 'Everything you learn,' she said, 'only reveals more that you don't know. Don't trust anybody who claims to know it all.'

"Now and again, she learned something that frightened her.

"Now and again, she regretted her explorations into the unknown.

"Now and again, she touched forces that could only be described as—evil.
Pure in its unholiness. Eternal and immutable. 'Black as the Devil's toenails,' she said.

"She encountered such an evil within my Sam.

"This is so hard," Miss Lilian said.

"Would you like more tea?" Cat asked.

"I'm fine, thank you. I just need a moment."

In the corner, Boo slept. His legs kicked as he chased something in his dreams. Ethan and Heather held hands. Flo fidgeted with the
waddle beneath her chin. Cat longed mightily for a drink but also knew that, whatever came next, she would rather face it stone sober.

Miss
Lilian gathered her strength and continued.

"He and my mother had a relationship. Not sexual. He was too young for her, and married. He loved his wife. She was a practical person.
Very down to earth, here and now. She'd given him a son. She was a good mother. What she lacked was a sense of the infinite. She couldn't see the mathematical beauty in a leaf, the miracle in a seed that becomes a seedling, the absolute wonder that is the earth and the sea and the sky. He would try to talk to her of these things and receive only dismissive comments in reply. He learned from her to keep his mouth shut.

"In my mother he found a kindred spirit. He found someone who appreciated the world as keenly as he did."

Ethan had to interrupt.

"Wait. We're talking about Sam Morse Sr., right? Because frankly, the person you're describing doesn't sound a bit like the man I know."

Miss Lilian smiled.

"You know the man he showed to the world.

"I don't mean to disparage Meddersville. It's a fine community. But it encourages ... continuity. A certain way of thinking and believing that has held it in very good stead for a long time. People like Sam, they learn that to get along, you go along. He learned that lesson very well, at a very young age. Do you think he would have the career he's had if he didn't know when to keep his thoughts to himself?

"After years—decades—of repression, it becomes second nature. Happening upon someone like my mother, well, the age difference melts away. Something develops that's deeper than sex. Call it—finding your
soul mate. I don't know what passed between them on those mornings and afternoons when Sam came around with his toolkit, looking for things to fix. What he truly had to fix, of course, was within himself. That was my mother's role.

"When he became sheriff, things changed, but only superficially. He still made time to come around. His wife, well, I think—my mother thought—that she was a little relieved that Sam had found someone he could 'talk nonsense' with. There was the age difference, more than twenty years, to keep things from getting physical. My mother wasn't a movie star who could steal a younger man from his wife. And she wouldn't want to."

Heather interrupted.

"Miss
Lilian, did Sam and your mother—I don' t know how to say this—engage in ... rituals?"

"Oh, yes.
Spells to make things grow. Healing spells for the clients in the home. That sort of thing. No summoning of demons or anything malicious. My mother wasn't like that."

Miss
Lilian gathered her thoughts. She straightened her dress. Her voice lowered.

"Demons do not reside solely in Hell. They live within us, in all of us to some degree. Sam harbored a demon. Who knows how it came to choose him, what chink it found in his defenses that allowed it to enter. But it was there, and it was powerful.

"One day Sam came to my mother in a state like nothing she had seen before. He was agitated, angry, scared out of his wits. Filled with self-loathing. He was ready to kill himself. He didn't want to talk about what was bothering him, but eventually she pulled the truth from him. He had molested a little girl."

Flo gasped. Cat took her mother's hand. Flo's grip was fierce and desperate. Ethan and Heather scrunched closer on the sofa.

"It was Perla Ingram, the first child to disappear. It was a rash act, a moment of opportunity. He had sat her on his lap and—touched her. She'd been surprised at first, then frightened. She'd squirmed away and he was afraid of being caught. He warned her not to talk, not to tell anyone or she'd be in trouble. She said she wouldn't, and she left.

"The remorse he felt over the episode was incredible. He went to my mother for a poison. He said he wanted to end it all but that was a lie, of course. He could have shot himself in the head. What he truly wanted was help.

"My mother gave it to him."

"She performed an exorcism," Flo said.

"She called it a 'cleansing spell,' but you're right, that's what it was. A ritual to drive out the demon from Sam's soul. Whatever foul being it was that compelled him to touch that little girl, it would be expelled, and he would be cleansed."

"Something went wrong," Ethan said.

"Very wrong. Oh, the demon was expelled, but my mother made one mistake. She didn't contain it. It was free. Yet it was, somehow, still connected to Sam and his unconscious desires.

"The demon knew that
Perla Ingram posed a threat to Sam. She might tell someone what happened, what he'd done. It worried Sam, and in some way that worry was felt by the demon."

"What does this 'demon' look like?" Ethan asked.

"Do you mean, does it have hooves and a tail? No. It has no material form. My mother tried to describe it to me, but words failed her. She said it was more of a void, a blackness, amorphous, like a blind spot in your eye. The sort of thing you see and then it's gone and you wonder if it was ever there at all.

"My mother didn't realize her mistake until—it manifested."

"The demon," Ethan said. Miss Lilian nodded.

"Sam was ecstatic about the spell. He no longer felt the urges—which, he confessed, had been with him since his teenage years. But he was afraid that it came too late, that he would be caught, that
Perla would tell someone."

"He should have confessed," Flo said. "He did it. He was guilty. He should have turned himself in."

"And yet it wasn't him. It was the demon."

"The
devil made him do it," Ethan said. "Seems we've heard that defense before."

"I don't blame you for being skeptical. It does sound like
an excuse. But for Sam and my mother, any doubts they may have had disappeared that night.

"They were at the home, drinking tea. An herbal mix designed for calming. Here is where my mother's account becomes sketchy. She said she felt what I am going to call a 'discontinuity.'
A sense of unreality, as if she wasn't herself. She said it was as if she were an actor on a stage, watching herself from a corner of the room. She became dizzy.

"She looked over to Sam, who had abruptly gone quiet
. He had the strangest look on his face. He was staring at the ceiling. Mother looked up and there it was, like those pictures of flames that race across the ceilings of burning buildings, but circling like a whirlpool, and black, a blackness deeper than black, a profound, churning emptiness that fill her with dread."

"You said they were drinking herbal tea, a special concoction," Ethan said. "Possibly, something mildly hallucinogenic—"

"What happened next was no hallucination. Something dropped from the ceiling, out of the whirlpool. It fell and landed on the table in front of them. It was the body of Perla Ingram. She was dressed in her Girl Scout uniform. She was dead."

* * *

They took a break. The conversation resumed in the kitchen as Cat brewed more tea. While she worked at the kitchen counter, the others drifted toward seats at the table.

"Apparently, the demon was still working Sam's will, if only his subconscious desires," Miss
Lilian said. "He felt threatened by Perla Ingram, so it killed her and delivered her to him. An offering."

"Or a warning," Heather said.
"'See what happens when you try to get rid of me.'"

"Before we get too carried away, can I point out a couple of things?" Ethan said. He began to enumerate without waiting for a response.

"First, we don't know if Miss Lilian is telling the truth. Sorry, no offense intended."

"None taken."

"Second, we don't know if her mother told Miss Lilian the truth or if she was spinning a story. And third, if Sam was so guilty over molesting Perla that he considered suicide, why wouldn't he immediately kill himself over her murder?"

"He wanted to," Miss
Lilian said. "My mother pointed out that doing so would leave the evil completely free. They had to find a way to put it back into Sam where it would be contained. If he wanted to kill himself then—and hope that the evil died with him—that would be his choice."

"But as long as it was free," Heather said, "Sam had to stay alive. In a sense, he was now a captive of the evil."

"Quite so. I think it's important to understand that, once the evil had been released and given material form, he felt divorced from it. As long as it was inside him, it
was
him. Now that it was outside, he looked on it as another entity."

"Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Flo offered.

"He felt responsible for Perla's death because it was precipitated by his own actions. The evil had killed in his name, to protect him. Still, it wasn't as if he'd placed his own hands around her throat."

"Good as," Flo said.

"Yes, I believe Sam felt that exact same way. Feels it to this day. Good as," Miss Lilian said.

"That
sonuvabitch," Ethan said. "He never suspected me of anything. He wanted me gone because he was afraid I'd expose him. If I really could converse with the dead, I'd piece it all together and put the finger on him. As I think back on it, he did seem relieved when I assured him that it was just a trick."

"I can see him," Heather said, "in my memory. I see him sitting somewhere, somewhere dark. He's crying."

"Ohmigod," Ethan said, "the fishing trip. We went fishing, Alice and Uncle Billy and I, the night we heard about Perla's disappearance. Alice and I saw him in the woods, holding his head, sobbing. We didn't know why at the time."

"What about the other children?" Cat asked.
"Martin Dale and Alice?"

Miss
Lilian noticed Cat leaning against the kitchen counter while the rest of them sat at the table.

"Maybe we should go back to the living room," she suggested, "where we can all sit down."

"THE EVIL disappeared as it had arrived, dissipating across the ceiling, leaving behind my mother and Sam and the body of Perla Ingram. I told you how Sam wanted to kill himself right then. He had his gun out and pointed at his chin, but my mother stopped him.

"'If you do it,' she said, 'the evil could be free forever. We have to contain it. We have to put it back.'

"Sam agreed to postpone his suicide until he could take the evil with him. But now they were left with a problem—what to do with Perla's corpse. They agreed to bury it in the hills. They planted her Girl Scout uniform at the truck stop to imply that it was all the work of a transient. Sam would encourage that line of inquiry in his role as sheriff.