The Love Talker Part 16

Sometimes she would bring cookies and lemonade and other things to eat. Betsy was really too little to pick berries, so she got in the habit of sitting with Miss Lizzie while the others worked, and Miss Lizzie would tell her stories. Then Betsy started talking about actually seeing fairies. They laughed at her and scolded her, but she went right on doing it. Even after school began they continued to meet Miss Lizzie, and Miss Lizzie went on telling Betsy fairy tales, even when they asked her not to. She didn't understand that they were lies, and against the word of Jesus. At last the inevitable happened. "Poppa" overheard little Betsy babbling about the elves, and Poppa got very angry.

"Does he beat you often?" Doug asked abruptly.

Rachel bowed her head so that the shimmering veil of hair hid her face.

"Doug," Laurie said.

"Okay, I'm sorry. It's none of my business."

It wasn't their business. Rachel could not be considered a battered child, there wasn't a mark on any of the visible portions of her body-though admittedly very little was visible. All the same, Laurie knew what would happen if she and Doug went to the authorities with accusations of child abuse against Wilson. "Abuse? Ma'am, a man's got a right to spank his kids if they misbehave. Did you see any marks on the girl? Has she complained?"

Not that Laurie had any intention of taking such action. She hoped Doug would control his crusading instincts. Any attempt at interference would only make him look like a fool and would make matters worse for the girls. Doug's indignation, visible in his tight lips and rigid grip on the wheel, was all for Rachel. He hadn't expressed any concern for Mary Ella. But Mary Ella was eminently forgettable. Laurie realized, with something of a shock, that she had never heard the girl speak.

She turned, her arm over the back of the seat, and examined the younger child. She had to make a conscious effort to do so; Rachel dazzled like the sun, drawing all eyes, and Mary Ella hid behind her radiance. She was a pathetically unattractive child, with all the flaws to which adolescence is p.r.o.ne- bad skin, baby fat, protruding teeth. Her hair was stringy and l.u.s.terless, her eyes small and deep-set. Caught off guard by Laurie's sudden move, she met the latter's gaze for a moment, and then her pupils slid off to one side. They were her father's eyes-flat, muddy-brown, expressionless.

"Mary Ella," Laurie said, "do you own a camera?"

Mary Ella shook her head. Laurie became all the more determined to force her to speak.

"What were you doing while Miss Lizzie and Betsy were together?"

The girl's thick lips parted. As Laurie had suspected from the shape of her mouth, her teeth were in terrible shape-crooked, protruding. Naturally Wilson wouldn't favor orthodontic treatments. If G.o.d had wanted Mary Ella's teeth straight, he would have made them straight.

Mary Ella spoke. Her voice was surprisingly deep for a child of her age; and after a moment Laurie understood why she spoke so seldom.

"I was picking b-b-b-berries."

It took her forever to get the last word out. Laurie's hands clenched in sympathy. Good G.o.d, she thought; I wonder how the poor kid gets through a school day. Well, it's no wonder she stutters.

"I see," she said gently, when Mary Ella had finally expelled the word; then out of sheer decency she turned her attention back to Rachel.

"You say you didn't take any pictures, Rachel? Did you ever see any-photographs of the fairies, I mean?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did Betsy see them, or talk about them?"

"No, ma'am." This time the response was slightly less emphatic. Rachel raised melting blue eyes and added, "At least I don't think so. She's just a baby, ma'am. You can't trust what she says."

"That's true," Doug said.

Laurie knew that it was, but Doug's ready acquiescence irritated her. With wry amus.e.m.e.nt she realized that she and her brother were inadvertently following a well-known interrogation technique; he was the nice cop and she was the mean cop. Unfortunately he wasn't taking advantage of his role to ask meaningful questions. She tried a new tack.

"Did you ever meet anyone in the woods during that period?" she asked. "I don't mean neighbors, people hiking or picking berries-I mean some particular person whom you encountered often, who might have joined Miss Lizzie and Betsy while they talked."

"No, ma'am."

"Betsy never mentioned anyone like that?"

"No, ma'am."

Laurie could have shaken the girl, even though she knew it was partly her own fault that Rachel was not forthcoming with her. She had not really expected that this line of questioning would produce any useful information, but it was a possibility that had to be investigated.

Doug drew to a stop beside the Wilson's mailbox. Mary Ella was out of the car the moment the wheels stopped turning. She plodded off down the road without so much as a thank-you. Laurie watched the squat, shabby figure retreat, carrying with it an almost palpable dark cloud of despair. The child was supposed to be intelligent, but what kind of future did she have, barricaded from communication with a broader world by her emotional handicaps?

Rachel had gotten out on the driver's side. Laurie turned in time to receive the fringe radiation from the blinding smile the girl directed at Doug.

"Thank you, sir. We surely did enjoy the ride."

Then she was off, running to catch up with her sister.

Laurie jabbed her brother sharply in the ribs.

"Let's move on before Poppa comes along."

"What? Oh, sure."

Laurie sat back, folded her arms, and waited for her brother to get his wits back. They had gone some distance before he said, "I'd like to kill that cruddy Wilson."

"Then the family could go on welfare," Laurie said. "That would be a big help."

"It might be better than what that child endures now."

"Just like a man," Laurie said in disgust. "It's always the beautiful blondes that get the sympathy. Mary Ella's the one I feel sorry for. Rachel will escape eventually. She'll have Sir Galahads tripping over each other panting to rescue her. But Mary Ella-"

"Hey, cool it. I pity both the kids."

"How nice of you." Laurie was surprised at her own vehemence. "Oh, forget it. We can't do anything for either one of them. It wasn't a very productive interview, was it?"

"I wouldn't say that."

"Oh?" Laurie glanced out the window. "I see we're heading for good old Vi's, so I presume you are going to enlighten me."

"It's obvious, isn't it? Those kids haven't the sophistication to plan anything complicated. Somebody-some outsider-picked up a harmless little game and turned it into a plot."

"Who?"

"One name leaps to mind," Doug said.

"You mean Jeff, I suppose," Laurie said calmly. "Since I am not a complete fool, naturally I thought of him. He could have taken the snapshots-and he could have stolen them, he's in and out of the house all the time. But it can't be Jeff."

"Why not?"

"The caller was female," Laurie said.

"A confederate. Jeff's the kind of guy-"

"Who could talk a girl into doing anything he asked her to," Laurie agreed, so enthusiastically that Doug gave her a dirty look, "But why should he? He has no motive. He seems to like his job, and I'm sure he's fond of the old people."

"Like, schmike," Doug muttered. "So maybe he's a psycho. Gets his kicks out of tormenting old ladies."

"Nonsense. I just wish I could think of another suspect. No one seems to fit."

Doug was silent, and the quality of his silence made Laurie uneasy.

"Well?" she demanded.

Doug's shoulders lifted and subsided, so sharply that the car swerved. "We have to consider every possibility."

"What are you driving at? I can a.s.sure you I have an alibi. I can bring a dozen witnesses to prove I was-"

"Cut it out, will you? This is serious. I'm talking about Ned and Ida. Now wait," he said, as Laurie drew a sharp breath, preparatory to objecting, "think about it. They're getting old. h.e.l.l, they aren't getting there, they are old. One little screw in the brain gets loose and bingo, all the years of pent-up hostility start oozing out. You know how petty annoyances can grate until finally they pile up and become unendurable. I can see how Lizzie would be hard to live with. Ida has no patience with her fantasies, and Ned thinks she's ga-ga. h.e.l.l's bells, Laurie, I hate the idea as much as you do; but you must admit it's possible."

Laurie was conscious of a sick, sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach. She was remembering the expression on Ida's face the night before, when Lizzie had asked why anyone would want to hurt her.

Vi greeted them with the warmth reserved for old friends, and Sam, semirec.u.mbent in his favorite booth, raised his head high enough to remark, "Thanks, don' mind iffah dew."

Vi lingered after she had served them, exchanging heavy witticisms with Doug. Laurie suspected she had something on her mind and before long Vi, not the subtlest of women, came to the point.

"How are the folks?"

"Fine," Doug said.

"I heard Miss Lizzie was failing:"

"Who told you that?" Doug demanded.

One of Vi's ma.s.sive shrugs rippled down her body.

"I've known 'em for years," she said, with apparent irrelevance. "They're quality, the Mortons are. Shouldn't be alone out there, old as they are."

"They aren't alone," Laurie said.

"Oh, well. I mean family. What is it you do for a living, Doug?"

Irritation and amus.e.m.e.nt struggled in Doug's face as he a.s.similated this broad hint. Amus.e.m.e.nt won.

"I'm an architect," he said.

Vi's face fell. "Oh."

"Hard to make a living that way," Doug said, with a deep sigh.

"I guess. There's one in Frederick."

"One what?" Laurie asked, highly entertained by this exchange.

"Architect."

"How is he doing?"

"Starving," Vi said. She and Doug both sighed.

After Vi had gone, Laurie allowed herself to laugh.

"Vi doesn't have a good opinion of your profession. Why couldn't you have taken up something sensible, like carpentry or animal husbandry? What is animal husbandry, by the way?"

"I'll explain it to you when you're a little older. All the same," Doug said seriously, "I bet an architect could do all right here. The area is growing, and the old houses are being renovated. There's good money in restoration."

"You aren't thinking seriously of it, are you?"

"Not really. But it might not hurt to let the word get around that I was."

Laurie folded her arms on the table and gazed thoughtfully at her brother. "You're taking this pretty seriously, aren't you? I'm not trying to beat a dead horse or anything, but not long ago you were ready to dismiss the whole thing as a wild-goose chase. What made you change your mind?"

"Your metaphors," Doug said, "are becoming zoological. Must be Uncle Ned's influence. What made me change my mind? The telephone call, of course. You'll forgive me for mentioning this-"

"Oh, don't spare my feelings."

"I never have, have I? Up to the time the unknown lady called to tell us of Anna's apocryphal accident, we had no concrete evidence whatever. You had seen the photos and the lights and heard the pretty music, but you were the only one who had. I had no reason to consider you a reliable witness. Then the photos conveniently disappeared. That made me wonder. But Lizzie could have hidden them, or you. . . . Well, I won't belabor that point. Then came the phone call. I have racked my brains, but I can only come up with one explanation that makes sense. That call was meant to get us away from here."

"It couldn't have kept us away long," Laurie said. "Sooner or later we'd have found out Anna was all right."

"That's what worries me. Sure, we'd have found out, and sooner rather than later. If Anna were a normal, sedentary-type mother, with a fixed address, we would have rushed off, found her healthy and blooming-and then what?"

"We would have realized the call was a hoax," Laurie said. "We'd have come back-"

"In a state of considerable agitation," Doug added. "The situation being what it is. But even if we took the next plane back here we would have been gone for twenty-four hours, give or take a few hours. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours."

His normally affable face was grim. Laurie stared at him.

"No," she said, denying, not the statement itself, but its implications. "No, Doug."

"I don't like it either."

"You're jumping to conclusions. Suppose this character is in a panic? If this thing started as a joke, it's gotten out of hand. Maybe he's scared. Maybe he's trying to-to cancel the joke."

"Maybe. But can we afford to take that chance?"

Laurie jumped to her feet. "Let's go home. Right now."

They emerged from the artificial twilight of the tavern into the glow of a spectacular sunset. Long strips of slate-gray cloud crossed the western sky; as the sun dropped down behind them it rimmed their edges with molten bronze and cast a pale rosy wash over the landscape. More snow had come overnight, and it lay like strawberry frosting on the chocolate-brown furrows of the fields. From the crest of the ridge, mile on mile of rolling farmland spread out, enclosed by the dim purple-red curve of the far-off mountains. Houses and barns and silos, miniaturized by distance, looked like children's toys.

"Look," Laurie said, as Doug slowed for a turn, "that's one of my favorite views. The sweep of that one stretch of dark pines, up and over the hill, and one bright red barn, to the left of center-it's so perfectly designed it looks like a painting."

"Ugh," said her brother.

The sun hid behind the flanks of the hills and all light died. The fields were somber gray, the trees were black, the sky was the color of shadows. Laurie's spirits dropped again, after their momentary resurgence. Is there really someone out there in that pretty, peaceful countryside who wants to injure Aunt Lizzie? she wondered. And why do I find that idea so hard to believe when the sun is shining, and so horribly plausible after dark? I'm as bad as any savage, worshiping a primitive sun G.o.d. I'm afraid of the dark.