The Love Talker Part 13

"No," Laurie said.

"No what?"

"No, that isn't all we have." Laurie ticked the points off on her fingers. "One, the lights I saw in the woods. Two, the music. Three, the photographs. When you talk about senility you're talking about subjective hallucinations. Those are three separate, objective phenomena-witnessed by an outside observer. ..." She broke off with a gasp as an outrageous idea occurred to her. Doug was staring intently at the dregs of his beer and refused to meet her eyes. "By me," Laurie said, controlling her voice with an effort. "Is that what you think? I'm the only one who has seen those things-"

"Hey-hey, take it easy, will you? I never suggested-"

"It was implicit in what you said."

Doug's eyebrows soared till they all but vanished amid the tumbled hair on his forehead.

"I guess it was at that," he said, mildly surprised. "But I didn't mean it that way-honest. d.a.m.n it, this is the most peculiar situation I've ever been involved in. There's nothing solid. Every time I try to grab hold of a fact it turns to smoke and melts away."

"I know what you mean. Any outsider would react just as you did. On the face of it, it's just a case of a crazy old lady and an impressionable female who doesn't want her auntie put away. Look, I'd be willing to discount the lights and the music, either or both. I can invent logical explanations for them, if I must. But those snapshots were something else."

"Then who took them?"

"Rachel," Laurie said.

She expected Doug to look outraged or skeptical. Instead he nodded thoughtfully. "I agree, we can't take her denial literally. But you've overlooked a suspect."

"Who?"

"Mary Ella."

"Mary Ella! Why, she didn't even . . ." Laurie considered the idea. "How old do you suppose she is? Thirteen, fourteen? Yes, I guess she could be a dark horse. She doesn't react, but that doesn't mean she isn't feeling emotion."

"Let's have another beer," Doug said.

"Don' min' iffah dew," came a sepulchral echo from the far end of the room.

"Good Lord," Laurie exclaimed, peering around the edge of the high part.i.tion that formed the back of the seat. All she could see was an arm waving high in the air. Thanks to her current overdose of fantasy, she was reminded of Arthurian legend- though this arm was clad in faded denim instead of white samite, and it brandished a beer stein in lieu of a magic sword. King Arthur a la Monty Python.

"Never mind him," Doug said. "He's programmed to respond to only one word. Where's Vi? I want-"

"Don't say it. And don't call her, not yet. There are one or two other points I want to make, while we've got some privacy. First, I-well, I don't blame you for being somewhat skeptical about my evidence. You haven't seen me for years. You don't really know me. I might be one of those emotional types who imagine things."

His arms folded on the table, Doug listened intently.

"You might be," he said, when she paused.

Laurie had expected him to deny the charge, if only out of politeness. Oddly enough, his candor pleased her.

"Let me point out, however, that my room is directly over Lizzie's, on the same side of the house; and that you are a heavy sleeper. If the lights and the music are aimed at Lizzie, I'm the only other person in the house who is in a physical position to see and hear them."

Doug nodded. "Good point. Go on."

"The pivotal evidence is the photos," Laurie said. "I knew when I was describing them to you that I wasn't conveying the shock they gave me. All I can say is that they were not photographs of any natural phenomenon, and that they were clear and unmistakable. They prove that something other than Lizzie's admittedly wild imagination is responsible for her belief in pixies."

"I read that book of Doyle's you gave me," Doug said.

It took Laurie a few seconds to understand the pertinence of this comment. Then the meaning, with all its permutations, flooded into her mind, and in spite of her resolution to remain calm she felt her cheeks burn.

"Doug, the pictures were nothing like those! I mean, I am not a complete moron. Do you think I'd be taken in by-"

"I don't know. As you just said, I don't know you very well."

"All right." Laurie applied herself to her beer stein; unlike Doug's, it was still half full. The interval gave her time to compose herself. "Look," she said, "part of our problem is that we haven't had time to talk. I wanted to discuss that book with you because it seemed to me there are certain parallels in the two cases. But Doyle's photographs are obvious frauds."

"Why couldn't he see that? The man who wrote Sherlock Holmes and The White Company wasn't stupid."

Laurie shrugged. "Brighter men than Doyle have fallen for obvious psychic tricks. I guess most people have a-well, a weak spot or two in their mental fabric. They can be perfectly logical about most things, but they throw logic out the window when you hit them where it counts."

"True, O pearl of wisdom. Hey," Doug said awkwardly. "I didn't mean-"

"I know. Let's not go on apologizing. What I'm trying to say is that Aunt Lizzie's pictures are as different from the ones in that book as a dime-store plastic rose is from the real article, In the first place, hers are in color. In the second place, her elves are three-dimensional; not flat, cardboard silhouettes. The gra.s.s was flattened by their feet. They were moving. And finally-the little ladies in Doyle's photos are dated. I mean, the hair styles and figures and so on are the sort of thing a child of the nineteen twenties would draw. Like a paper doll. Lizzie's fairies are far out-alien. If I met one of them in a dark alley I'd scream and run."

"Humph. Obviously," Doug said, "I've got to sneak a peek at those pictures."

"She's got some sort of hidey-hole in her room. Believe me, I'd burgle it if I could. I've reached that point. Why don't you work your wiles on her?"

"I'll try," said Doug unenthusiastically. "But you were always her pet. Listen, I really do want another beer, and it's getting late, and-"

"Okay, okay, call your girl friend, but don't-"

The warning came too late. Doug's shout of "Hey, Vi, how about a refill?" aroused not only Vi but the drunk in the far booth.

"Thanks, pal, don' min' iffah dew."

"Go back to sleep, Sam," Vi yelled. "You've had enough already. You want another one, Laurie?"

"No, thanks. Too fattening."

Vi put Doug's drink on the table and gave Laurie a critical glance. "You don't have to worry, honey."

Laurie discounted the compliment. Next to Vi's ample inches she looked like a sylph.

"Turned into a right pretty girl, you have," Vi went on. "You were all skin and bones and big eyes when you used to come to town." She turned her attention to Doug. "Now you, you were always skinny and homely.. Can't say you've changed none."

"Ha ha," Doug said. "Thanks, Vi."

"Don't know where you get your looks. Sure ain't no Morton in you. Look at Laurie, she's got the high cheekbones, and her eyes are set wide, like her aunts'. But you-"

"Changeling," Laurie said. "The fairies stole the real baby and left him."

Doug's sense of humor did not seem broad enough to encompa.s.s this badinage. He scowled impartially at Laurie and Vi.

"What's this I hear about Miss Lizzie seeing fairies?" Vi asked.

The question hit her audience like a bomb. Both stared.

"Where did you hear that?" Doug demanded.

Vi shrugged. The gesture set off a chain reaction of fleshy ripples that ran clear down to her feet.

"Oh, you know; people talk. Miss Lizzie is sure a queer one. Good soul, but queer. Always has been."

Laurie decided that since the subject had already become neighborhood gossip, there was no reason to be reticent-or strictly truthful.

"She got the idea from the little Wilson girl," she said. "Who are the Wilsons, Vi?"

"Oh . . . them." Vi pulled a cloth from her pocket and began wiping the table. "They rent that farm from your folks. Been there . . . oh, I guess it must be ten, fifteen years."

"And they're still renting?" Doug, surprisingly attuned to the nuances of rural life, pounced on this. "How come Mr. Wilson hasn't bought a place of his own?"

"He's a contractor, not a farmer. Runs a few cows and chickens back in there, that's all. Hard worker, too. Problem is, he t.i.thes."

Doug looked blankly at Laurie.

"That means he gives part of his income to his church," she explained smugly. "Ten percent-"

"Not him," Vi snorted. "Twenty-five percent."

"What church does he belong to?" Laurie asked.

"One of them strange sects-not a regular Methodist or Presbyterian. He's an elder."

"He would be," Doug said.

"Comes in here every Sat.u.r.day," Vi said. "Reads the Bible and lectures my patrons."

"You're kidding," Laurie exclaimed.

"No." Vi chuckled tolerantly. "Well, maybe not every Sat.u.r.day; he goes other places too. But this is the closest. Makes a good show; my customers kind of enjoy it."

"We met his daughters today," Laurie said.

"Them poor kids! My niece goes to school with one of'em. Bright as can be, all three, and hardworking; the old buzzard has the two oldest out earning already, cleaning and babysitting and the like. They sure lead dogs' lives. Only place they go is to school and to church."

"I guess they aren't old enough to date," Laurie said, aware of Doug's interest.

"He won't let anything in pants come near those girls," Vi said dourly. "Wouldn't surprise me if he contracted 'em in marriage, the way they used to do in the old days. And they say the oldest, what's her name?-Rachel-is a real beauty. He run one boy off the place with a pitchfork, if you can believe it, just for walking the girl home from the school bus."

"So that's why-" Doug began.

"Why he was so nasty to you," Laurie agreed. She explained to Vi, "We stopped by the house today, and he treated Doug like Jack the Ripper."

"I'm not surprised," Vi said. "Watch yourself, Doug; no fooling around there."

"She's just a child," Doug said stiffly.

"Uh-huh. All the more reason to leave her be. Want another beer?"

"No, thanks. We'd better be going. Want any help with the old sot down there before I leave?"

"Oh, he's no problem. Comes in here every day when I open, gets soused, and falls asleep. His boys pick him up when they get through with work. Come by again, you two. And leave Rachel alone, you devil, you."

Laughing uproariously she waddled off.

The rain had slowed to drizzle when they left, and darkness had crept in, trailing a cloak of fog.

"One more thing," Laurie said, as Doug started the car. "I'm tired of all the secrecy and tact. I move we get this out in the open tonight."

"Okay."

"What's the matter?" Laurie studied his gloomy profile, illuminated in all its lean austerity by the dashboard lights. "Are you dreaming of Rachel?" "Cut it out, will you?"

"I'm not being sarcastic. I can see her appeal, I really can. She's Cinderella, with a wicked father instead of a mean stepmother. I think we ought to try once more to talk to her."

"How? Mrs. Wilson is as bad as the old man, in a different way. Rachel won't say anything in front of her mother."

"I wonder if we could catch her when she leaves school," Laurie suggested. "If you drove her home she'd not be late; that school bus must go a roundabout route. And I'd be with you, as chaperone, in case her mother did find out."

"Not a bad idea." Doug's face brightened.

The short drive home was an uncanny experience.

Every foot of the terrain was familiar to Laurie, yet in the drifting fog it took on the vague dimensions of a strange landscape. The dark shapes looming up beside the road might have been elongated Martian monsters instead of trees; they seemed to lunge out at the car, bony arms waving, as the headlights picked them out of the mist.

Laurie felt as if her mental landscape had undergone a similar transformation. She had been trained to marshal facts, and she had, under pressure, produced a convincing structure of evidence for Doug. Yet she had failed to mention the real reason for her concern, because it was irrational. Doug would have dismissed it with a patronizing smile or a raised eyebrow. But she had been convinced, from the day the whole thing began, on a snowy afternoon in Chicago, that Lizzie's most recent fantasy was different from all the others. The facts she had learned confirmed that feeling, but they had not produced it. Furthermore, in their discussion they had both delicately skirted around the most important question of all. If, as she believed, an active, malicious intelligence had produced the phenomena that fed poor Lizzie's delusion, then the burning question was: why? At that point Laurie's reason and imagination both came to a dead stop. To think that someone would want to harm the innocent, amiable old woman was almost as preposterous as little green elves in the woods.

After the uncanny darkness without, the house was so warm and normal that Laurie's theories seemed even more absurd. Lizzie was bustling around the kitchen as usual, humming loudly to herself and tripping over her long skirt; Uncle Ned was in his chair at the kitchen table, whittling. He never actually made anything, he just whittled till he had chipped the wood away, and the aunts had become so accustomed to this performance that their complaints were stilted and perfunctory. Ida was her normal self too. She gave Laurie a lecture on being out so late, and sent her upstairs to shower and change for dinner.

Instead of going to her own room, Laurie opened Lizzie's door and slipped inside. If I'm caught, she told herself, I'll say I wanted to try on that ridiculous robe she tried to give me. It was hateful, thinking of lies, sneaking and prying; but it had to be done.

She did not antic.i.p.ate any problem in finding Lizzie's secret hiding place, although the wide, random-width floor planks and the extensive use of wood paneling offered only too many possibilities. Yet it had to be fairly accessible or the old lady wouldn't have been able to get to it. Not too high, then-and probably not too low down. Aunt Lizzie didn't bend easily. The sunken, rectangular panels framing the fireplace were likely prospects, as were the strips lining the deep window embrasures. But push and prod and poke as she would, Laurie could not move any of them. She was finally forced to give up the search. Lizzie would have to be bullied into producing the pictures.

Laurie came downstairs to find the rest of the family a.s.sembled in the parlor enjoying their before-dinner wine. She had worked herself up to a pitch of forthright efficiency, determined to proceed with or without Doug's cooperation; and the first sentence of her speech had already formed itself in her mind when she marched into the room. Then she saw Jeff.

She couldn't talk frankly in front of Jeff-not without strenuous opposition from Doug, at any rate. How could she have forgotten he would be there? He was not the sort of person one easily forgot.

He greeted her casually, but his dark eyes met hers with such warmth and pleasure that Laurie came perilously close to blushing like a schoolgirl. She took the sherry he offered her-it was sherry, not Doug's subst.i.tute-and sat down.

Why not talk in front of Jeff? She argued with herself while the others chatted. The Mortons regarded him as one of the family, and he seemed not only fond of them but sensible of his obligations. The responsibility was his, after all. He had been hired to look after the old people while their relatives went their selfish separate ways. She sat up a little straighter and cleared her throat. Then she realized that Doug had been watching her like a scientist examining a particularly disgusting germ. He caught her eye and made a slight but unmistakable sideways motion of his head. Laurie signaled back: why not? Doug's reply was a grimace. Laurie had antic.i.p.ated a negative response, and would have debated longer, but Ida saw Doug's face and demanded to know if something was hurting him.

When they went in to dinner Laurie managed to get a word with her recalcitrant brother.

"I thought we agreed to get this out in the open," she whispered.