The Love Talker Part 19

"Forget it," Laurie said disgustedly.

Doug went out anyway. Laurie returned to her room and changed into a bathrobe. She came back to the kitchen to find Jeff making coffee. She got a pan of hot water and sat down to bathe her damaged legs.

"I'd offer to do that," Jeff said, "but I don't want Doug to come at me with a club."

"Curse Doug anyway," Laurie said. "I don't know what ails the man."

"Don't you?"

"He's crazy. Ow . .. that stings. We're all crazy," Laurie went on. "The whole family. I should have told Herrrrman that. It would have been the truth."

Doug returned in time to hear the last part of this speech. He nodded in sour agreement.

"There must be a strain of insanity somewhere in this family."

"Any luck?" Laurie asked.

"Ne wallet, no gla.s.ses, no nothing." Doug watched her for a moment. "You missed a section," he told her. "Want me to do that?"

"No."

"I'll get the iodine."

"I don't want iodine. It hurts."

Doug got the iodine. Ignoring Laurie's protests, he swabbed the scratches. Laurie held her robe modestly at knee level and let out yelping cries as Doug worked.

"A Spartan you are not," he remarked.

"I don't believe in-ow!-repressing my feelings."

"No, but seriously," Doug said, "aren't you beginning to wonder just a little bit about this family? Did you ever do any genealogical research?"

"Ow! Ouch!"

"Stop yelling, you coward. I'm not touching any of your scratches."

Laurie opened her eyes. Doug had painted faces on her knees-circles with dots for eyes and sweeping semicircles for smiling mouths.

"You're weird," she said.

"I think it's rather a neat effect." Doug replaced the stopper. "No, but seriously-"

"No, I never did any genealogical research. Why the h.e.l.l should I?"

"We might find out that Great-great-grandfather Angus was a werewolf," Doug said.

"I'm going to bed," Jeff said.

"Not just yet." Still on his knees, Doug turned a critical eye toward the other man. "How come you were up and dressed when this happened?"

"I heard the music, of course," Jeff said. "Went out to have a look around."

"Find anything?"

Jeff shook his head. "It could have been a bird," he said stubbornly.

"A buzzard," Doug suggested. "It was driving the car."

"I'm going to bed," Jeff repeated. "Good night."

The painted faces on Laurie's knees grinned at her with imbecilic optimism.

"Why don't you get some sleep too?" she asked Doug. "I'll sit up for the rest of the night."

"There isn't much left of the night," Doug said. "Uncle Ned will be up in another hour."

"So sleep in."

"Maybe I will." Doug reached for his book. Laurie, who was closer, got there first.

The cover depicted a scantily clad female crouching at the feet of a man attired in tropical garb. Muscles bulged all over him in an unlikely fashion, and above his head he brandished a sword as tall as he was. His opponent had six arms. Two of them groped lasciviously at the prostrate girl, and the other four waved weapons at the hero with the sword.

"Adult bookstore?" Laurie raised an eyebrow. "The cover may be X-rated, but it looks like comic-book stuff to me."

"Science fiction," Doug said.

"Oh, yeah? There's nothing scientific about that woman's anatomy."

"All right, it's not science fiction, it's fantasy. A lot of intelligent people read this sort of thing. It's a sign of an active imagination and-"

Laurie opened the book.

"'. . . his mighty thews bulged as he raised the sword. Whop! A head flew in one direction, and a trunk in the other. A great fountain of blood spurted up. The girl shrieked as a slimy tentacle encircled her writhing, naked body. She-' "

"Give me that!"

"Wait a minute. This is getting good. He just cut off two more of the monster's arms and she-"

Doug s.n.a.t.c.hed the book from Laurie.

"It's a fairy tale," she jeered. "A grown-up fairy tale, with monsters and brave heroes and endangered maidens. Really, Doug."

Doug retreated with great dignity, his nose in the air and his despised book under his arm.

Laurie toyed with the idea of resuming her interrupted slumber. Surely there would be no more danger that night; Uncle Ned would soon be up and about. But she knew she would not be able to sleep. They were making progress, toward a certainty of danger, but they seemed farther and farther away from a solution. Tomorrow they would simply have to interrogate the old people more closely. Reclusive and harmless as the Mortons seemed to be, they must have an unknown enemy. Uncle Ned's outspoken views and, upon occasion, corporal remonstration against poachers and hunters might have aroused ire. Ida's manner was not always friendly; if, for instance, she had caught a clerk trying to cheat her and had insisted that he be fired from his job . . . From such petty causes a sick mind could a.s.sume offense.

And what about the family history? Maybe great-great someone had cheated at cards, or seduced a neighbor's daughter, or embezzled the firm's money. Maybe Uncle Ned, in his youth ...

Laurie grinned and shook her head. No, she couldn't picture that. Ned had always preferred animals to people.

Even as that fond, half-contemptuous appraisal pa.s.sed through her mind, she revised it. She was making the same mistake young people often made about the elderly-not only that they were long past the stronger pa.s.sions and emotions, but that they had never been subject to them. She ought to know better.

Fifty years ago. The nineteen twenties. Flappers, shingled hair, flattened b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and rouged knees. Try as she might, she could not picture Ida doing the Charleston in one of those skimpy, waistless dresses. It was easier to imagine Uncle Ned in plus fours and spats and a straw hat ... or was that the wrong period? He was still a fine-looking man; in his long-gone youth he must have been quite a lady killer. As for Aunt Lizzie-strip off fifty or sixty pounds, turn her hair back to its original brown, remove lines and wrinkles-and voila! She'd have made a wonderful flapper, Laurie thought, smiling affectionately.

Surely somewhere there was a family alb.u.m. She would ask Ida if she might see it. The old lady would be pleased at her interest, and perhaps with the help of actual photographs she could envision not only how they had looked, but how they had felt about life and love and the opposite s.e.x when they were young.

But before that she would have to explain to Aunt Lizzie how her precious robe had gotten ripped to shreds.

She was still sitting at the kitchen table wrapped in gloomy thought when Uncle Ned came downstairs. He looked surprised to see her, but only mildly so. Nothing ever surprised Uncle Ned very much.

" 'Morning," he said. "How about a walk?"

Laurie started to shake her head and then changed her mind.

"I'd like that. But none of your forty-mile hikes, Uncle Ned. I'm not as young as you are."

Her uncle acknowledged this witticism with a vague smile.

"Where's that fool dog?"

"She's in the library." Laurie started up. "I'll let her out on my way upstairs. I'd better put on some jeans."

She braced herself before she opened the library door. d.u.c.h.ess emerged in a brown whirlwind, tongue lolling, eyes gleaming, tail a furry blur. No prisoner, released after a lifetime in the Bastille, could have rejoiced more in his liberation. After sprinkling Laurie liberally with hair, d.u.c.h.ess bounded down the hall toward the kitchen. Laurie went to her room and changed. When she came back down, Ned was ready to go.

The sun was not yet above the horizon, but the eastern sky looked like one of Aunt Lizzie's fancier dresses, pale-azure gauze woven with gold and banded in turquoise and coral. The dog ran and rolled and then suddenly squatted, its brown eyes rapt in profound contemplation. This duty completed, it rushed at Ned for approval, danced heavily on Laurie's feet, and galloped off across the lawn.

The woods were magical in the early-morning light, with no suggestion of eeriness, only a beauty too perfect to be quite real. The shadows were exquisite shades of blue-gray and mauve. Ned didn't speak until they had reached his bird-feeding station. He filled the feeders with seed and distributed nuts and carrots. Then he sat down on the bench beside Laurie.

"Best place in the world," he said. "Can't imagine why anybody would want to leave here."

"It is beautiful. But didn't you ever want to travel, Uncle Ned?"

"Did. France. Not very pretty when I saw it."

"World War One? Weren't you awfully young?"

Puttees and flat tin hats, tight short jackets, trousers cut like riding breeches. She could see a younger Uncle Ned in that romantic costume. What she couldn't see was Ned carrying a gun.

"Lied about my age," Ned said briefly. "d.a.m.n fool," he added.

"Was that where you learned to ... to ..."

"Hate killing." Ned nodded. Laurie did not reply, but he sensed her sympathy; turning his head, he gave her a shy smile.

"Came back to an office job," he went on. "Didn't do too badly. Made a lot of money. Hated it. So ... one day I quit. Never went back. Didn't have to work; why do something you hate?"

"You should sympathize with the kids today," Laurie said. "They don't believe in working at a job they hate either."

"Have to work unless you've got money," Ned said drily. "I was lucky. Well. I'm going on. You coming?"

"No, I'll sit awhile and go back to the house."

Ned tramped off, his stride long and free. The pom-pom on his red stocking cap bounced up and down.

Laurie made her way back to the house through the newminted sunshine. As always she was aware of the beauty that surrounded her, but a new word and a new idea colored her vision that day. Money. All these acres so well tended, the old house meticulously maintained, the expensive car, Lizzie's splurges in the boutiques. . . . Where did the money come from? She had never thought of the Mortons as wealthy. They rented land to the Wilsons and perhaps to other families, but in these days of rising costs and higher taxes that income would not suffice. They surely weren't living on social security.

Money was a motive for crime. The root of all evil.

When she burst into the kitchen Aunt Ida was at the stove. She moved without her usual briskness, but when she saw Laurie she produced a bleak smile.

"I fear you must tolerate my poor cooking this morning. Lizzie is playing slugabed."

"You sit down. I'll cook." Laurie shed her coat, took her aunt by the shoulders, and propelled her toward a chair. The bones under her hands felt pathetically frail and brittle.

"I'm glad to have a chance to talk to you," she went on, prodding the sausages that were gently sizzling in the frying pan. "Does Aunt Lizzie have any money?"

She expected a dignified remonstrance at the vulgarity of the question. There was no answer at all. She turned to look with surprise at Ida.

"I feared you would ask that eventually," her aunt said with a sigh. "My dear Laura, Elizabeth has all the money."

"All?"

"Ned has his own income, of course. However, he contributes generously to the expenses of maintaining Idlewood, and he is ridiculously extravagant about his hobbies. Thousands each year to the various societies for the protection of animals, and-"

"You're rambling, Aunt Ida," Laurie interrupted. "That isn't like you. I'm surprised. I never thought. . . . You know I'm not asking out of idle curiosity, don't you?"

"Yes, my dear. I know precisely why you are asking."

"Then tell me, please."

"You are aware, of course," her aunt began, "that there were four of us to begin with. Your Uncle Ned, Elizabeth, myself, and Mary, your grandmother. Poor Mary died young, G.o.d rest her-before our father pa.s.sed on. You never knew your great-grandfather. You would not have understood him. He was an autocrat of the old school, with strong views about family and property. Yet in his way he was fair-minded; he made no distinction between his male and female offspring. We four were to share equally in his estate-which was, I might add, extensive. Then . . ." Her thin lips quivered. Laurie hated to see her so distressed, but she hardened her heart; this story might or might not be useful, she could not tell until she had heard it.

Ida regained control of herself and went on in a firm voice.

"As father grew older, he grew-as we all do! -more opinionated and more rigid. Your grandmother Mary's share of the property would ordinarily have pa.s.sed to your mother, but Anna's way of living offended Father. When Anna divorced your father, Papa cut her out of the will."

"My father? Don't you mean Doug's father? Or did he allow her one mistake?"

Like another, more famous autocratic old lady, Aunt Ida was not amused.

"Certainly not. He was violently opposed to divorce. I meant her first husband, of course."

"So her share went back into the estate," Laurie prodded.

"That is correct. Ned lost his share when he retired from the office. Papa had no patience with a man who would not work."

"But how did Uncle Ned get the money to pay his share of the expenses here?"