The Witch's Grave (21 page)

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Authors: Phillip Depoy

BOOK: The Witch's Grave
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Skid said something to Able; then the deputy got out of his car; Andrews and I followed suit.
“You've got a gun,” Skid said plainly.
“Had trouble last night,” Rud answered, “after Dr. Devilin left. I believe it was the Deveroe brothers.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Able twist around, searching the perimeter for any sign of his tormentors.
“We're here on official business,” Skid continued. “There was a
murder last Thursday night up by Dr. Devilin's house. It appears to have involved Able Carter, who is in the back of my vehicle.”
Rud nodded without looking at the car.
“He's a suspect. We believe the other person involved is Truevine Deveroe.” Skid's plodding diction seemed more out of bad television than his own mind. “I have reason to believe she's here on this property. I'd like to find her and take her in for questioning.” Skid looked at the ground for a moment. “I don't have a warrant. It's just questioning.”
Rud shifted his weight onto one leg. “Did you write that down and rehearse it?”
“No,” Skid grinned, his face relieved, “but I've been studying on it all the way up here. How'd I do?”
“Very official.” Rud's stone face showed no hint of humor. “I'll try to get it just like that if Uncle Jackson asks me about it.”
“
When
is the word,” Skid assured him. “Not
if.
”
“Okay,” Rud said impatiently. “Can we go now?”
“Sure.” Skid looked back at the car. “Able, you ready?”
“Ask him did he chase off the Deveroes.”
“I've never seen them here in the daylight,” Rud answered. “Never once.” He held up his firearm. “I've got a gun.”
“Gun?” Able squirmed in the seat, his voice barely audible through the unopened car window. “You seen them boys recently? You better take a cannon.”
“Able,” Skid said, opening the door, “I understand being nervous about them after what happened—”
“You don't understand
dick,
” he interrupted. “I was hanging by my neck from a tree!”
I kept my eye on Rud. He didn't show the least surprise at Able's statement. Despite Rud's ability to mask his inner self, I got the impression that the incident was not news to him. As it happened so close to his kingdom, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd seen it.
“I didn't mean that,” Skid said, holding the door. “I meant that I see why you'd be nervous under the circumstances. I'm telling you I won't let anything happen.”
I heard the promise in Skidmore's voice. I believed it.
Able heaved a sigh, pulled himself out into the misty rain.
“If I get killed up here,” he said to Skid, “my sister's going to be very upset with you.”
“She'd get over it,” Skid said softly, hand on Able's shoulder. “She don't care for you that much.”
Able smiled for the first time, I was guessing, since Thursday night.
“We'll start at her parents' grave,” Rud said, launching himself off the porch.
Without a further word, he set off down the path in the direction of Davy and Eloise.
Somehow the rain encouraged the landscape in the graveyard to be more serene, almost comfortable. Little blue drops caressed the stones; the high cloud cover was nearly white. Sunlight found its way, however nimbus-filtered and feeble, onto everything.
The Deveroe parents' grave was not attended.
“She could be anywhere,” Rud said.
“I know you-all saw her,” Able said to me. “But are you sure of what you saw?” He was shivering a little.
“We talked to her,” Andrews said impatiently.
“You know what I mean.” Able continued to lock eyes with me.
“‘It is not only the souls of the departed,'” I quoted as best I could remember, “‘who hover unseen on the day when autumn to winter resigns the pale year. Witches then speed on their errands of mischief.'”
“
Not
Shakespeare,” Andrews said wearily.
“No,” I assured him. “Frazer's
Golden Bough
again. It's been on my mind lately.”
“You don't know what you're dealing with,” Able said, rasping.
“‘Those departed, gone before,'” Rud began very softly, “‘sleep in peace, return no more. Some poor souls that peace ignore. The witch's grave is an open door.'”
“Jesus.” Even Andrews heard the bizarre menace in the caretaker's words.
“A witch is not permitted to die like the rest of us,” I explained to
Andrews. “Death is not, to her, a closed portal. Entrance between this world and the next is left open. In some cases dying only makes the witch more powerful. She works unhindered by a material body.”
“That's what Tru believes,” Able said to Andrews, imploring him to understand. “That's why she'll be hard to talk to. She really thinks she's wandering between life and death.”
“The hell she does,” Andrews answered flatly. “Who would believe that crap? A girl who understands geothermal pockets and manages those three brothers is not the sort who loses herself in rubbish.” He cast his eye over the landscape. “She's hiding because she's scared. She was witness to a murder. Or worse. And that's why we've got to find her—show her she didn't kill you.” He tossed a glance Able's way. “Keep her from harming herself. It's why we're here, your spooky fun aside.” He pulled the coat more tightly around himself. “Now. I'm getting wet; I'd like to round her up before it's dark. So let's get on with it.”
“I reckon that says it,” Skid agreed, a slight glint in his eye.
“After you,” I told Rud.
He assented with a single lift of his chin and trudged past me into the trees.
 
Two hours later we still hadn't found the girl. Our eastern side of the mountain would begin to lose light by four-thirty or five. The rain had not increased, but steady mist had soaked us all to the bone. Everyone was shivering.
“I've
got
to dry out and have something warm,” Andrews announced, glancing at his watch. “I suppose it's too much to hope that you'd have tea in your cabin.”
Rud refused to look at Andrews. “Darjeeling, green tea, Earl Grey, valerian, and something called
Calm
that I think has tarragon in it.”
“I could murder a pot of Earl Grey.” Andrews didn't bother to keep his enthusiasm low.
“And some scones,” Rud went on, his tone grown arch. “Maybe a cucumber sandwich.”
“Oh.” Andrews looked away, realizing Rud's derision. His shoulders sagged; a short blast of air escaped his nostrils.
“Let's put on a pot of coffee,” Skid said, starting back toward the caretaker's cabin.
We slogged silently through the mud and weeds. I dared look once at Andrews; anger ground his jaw tight.
Everyone's mood shifted, however, when we entered Rud's cabin. It was immaculate. I don't know what I'd been expecting, but I found the place freakishly clean. It was comprised of one large room with an exposed sleep loft upstairs. The downstairs was divided into four perfectly distinct areas. To our right was the kitchen, very modern, all chrome. To the left of the entrance was the dining area. An ancient French farm table, oak, sturdy as a boulder, nearly filled that quarter of the room. Close to the far wall sat a leather chair and matching ottoman, both luxuriously well worn, the color of coffee with a little cream. They faced a window the way chairs in more modern homes might have aligned with a television set. The back corner comprised an office, furnished only with a rolltop desk, standing Tiffany floor lamp, 1920s desk chair. On the tidy desktop I noticed an open ledger, one small book, a single well-sharpened pencil, and an expensive thin laptop computer.
Rud's face showed no change, but his voice was noticeably lighter. “Let's see,” he began, and moved instantly to the cupboard above the sink. “Earl Grey, you said.”
“You mean you
do
have it?” Andrews stammered.
“And scones.” Rud turned. His face was strangely lit from within, and he was smiling, an expression that appeared to use muscles generally dormant.
“I thought,” Andrews started but seemed to lose his concentration.
Rud pulled a sheet of homemade scones from beneath a towel on the counter by the oven.
“I make them with rolled oats and fresh cream.” He turned on the oven and slid the sheet in to warm them. “They achieve a significant texture that way. Now: butter.” He moved to the tall chrome refrigerator.
“If you pull a cucumber sandwich out of there, I'm moving from Dr. Devilin's house in here with you.”
“Alas,” Rud said, still smiling, “
that
was mocking.”
“Still.” Andrews held his eyes on the oven, waiting for the scones. Their scent began to perfume the warm air of the cabin. “My grandmother made them this way, with rolled oats. She was from Aberdeen.”
Rud produced gleaming tea globes from a drawer. “Earl Grey all around?”
I nodded, mute. Able stared blankly.
Skid, at a loss, managed, “I'd take a cup of coffee, if it's not too much trouble.”
“Of course.” Rud took out the Earl Grey, turned on the kettle. “I'm afraid the only place for us to sit is around the dining table, if that isn't too much of an imposition.”
The more I stared at Rudyard Pinhurst in his element, the more my heart broke, realizing what he had given up in life. All that was left of enormous family wealth and position, a sumptuous elegance, was to be found on his face, entertaining in the afternoon, offering scones he'd baked on the lonely off-chance we'd come back to his home and taste them.
Once we were settled at the table, our refreshment arrived in due time. We sat in silence awhile, warming, gathering thoughts.
“Where the hell is she hiding?” Skid said at last, taking his cup of coffee with both hands, warming his fingers.
“I don't mean this to be a sore spot,” Andrews mused, failing in his attempt to sound casual, “but it was mentioned that she shied away from you, Rud. Could that be the reason we're having difficulty?”
The scones were gone; they'd been perfect, not too dense; buttery; filling. Light was beginning to fail in the east as the opposite horizon grew red. Night birds took up their song. Evening was settling in.
“Could be,” Rud sighed heavily. “I suppose.”
He stood, switched on the light above the table, which only made it seem darker outside.
“You'uns think I'm crazy,” Able said, “but I'm half-scared to find her.”
“Don't start this again,” Andrews objected, setting down his teacup.
“No,” Able answered, “I've been studying on this. She thinks she killed me; that's what put her in her current mind.”
“But Dev's idea—” Skid began.
“I know,” Able interrupted. “He thinks to shock her back to us, but that ain't what I'm studying on.” He looked around the table. “She didn't kill me; she killed Harding.”
“I was wondering if you'd realize that,” I said.
Able turned to Skidmore. “That's why you want to find her. You want to bring her in.”
Skid avoided his eyes.
“She won't do in jail.” Able's eyes implored me. “She couldn't take it.”
“It was an accident,” I offered. “Everyone will see that.”
“Maybe.” He nodded. “But she's a person who can't sit in that lockup, bars and concrete. She'll die.” He turned to Skid. “You got to keep her at home with you, or something at least, Skid.”
“The law don't make that kind of exception,” Skidmore answered uncomfortably.
“You'd do it if you weren't running for office,” Able spat back bitterly.
“Gentlemen,” Rud intervened, his voice the soul of calm, “I'd prefer not to disturb the peace of my table. We haven't found her yet, and we may never at this rate.” His lips thinned. “Reluctant as I am to agree with Dr. Andrews,
I
may be the problem. Allow me to suggest that you get back out there, unaccompanied, before it gets completely dark.” He gazed out the window, his voice turning from frost to glacier. “I recommend the far corner, where the Newcomb graves are. We haven't been to that section yet.”
Skid stood. “Right.”
I finished my tea; Andrews skated his finger over the plate in front of him, gathering up the last crumbs of scone.

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