Bloodstone (23 page)

He did not want to go in there.

Jesus, make up your fucking mind, will you?
Over the past few days he had had all sorts of wild notions, crazy ideas that would never have crossed his mind a year, even a month ago.
Bones getting up and walking out by themselves. Visions
in the middle of the night. Jesus Christ
.

Angry again, he gathered his loose shirt around himself and stepped into the dark front hall, an odd sense of finality settling across his shoulders, as if he had walked into a jail cell, and the door had rattled shut and locked behind him.

He saw her immediately. She had come to rest draped over the bottom riser of the stairs, just out of the light from the open door, her head bent sharply up to the right and backward, her hips turned at an unnatural angle. Even from here he could see her open, glassy stare. He went to her quickly, a moan dying in the back of his throat, and touched
the side of her neck, feeling for the jugular. No pulse. The back of her head was pushed in, thin white hair matted and bloody. He looked up past her body to the red-streaked mark on the wall, and his dream came crashing back to him like a wave; tumbling, her head hitting the plaster with a sickening crunch, a splash of blood, her hip snapping like dry kindling. Just the way her husband had died, ten years before.

He raised his gaze to the top of the steps and his eyes locked with sudden shock on the thing that had been Jeboriah Taylor.

Glittering, feverish eyes set deep in hollow sockets, behind heavy brows, searching him out, pinning him with their fury; yellow skin, a wound for a nose, pale, lipless mouth spread in a lunatic’s grin. He heard the deep, rasping breaths in the silence of the house, and then the stink hit him in the face like an open-handed slap. A smell like a rotting sewer.

Oh my sweet Jesus
. He backed away, mindless now, the fear like bile in his throat. He could not take his eyes from the creature at the top of the stairs.

The thing chuckled, a deep, bone-jarring sound. A long, slow line of spittle dripped from the corner of its mouth and spun itself to the floor. It grinned at him.

This was not Jeb. It could not be, and yet, the slump of his shoulders, the way he stood, hip cocked, head forward on a thin neck. Harry thought of the frightened little boy so many years ago who had acted like a dog that had been kicked too many times. He felt himself gasping for air, his chest heaving, hands out, as if in supplication.
You cannot
be Jeb Taylor
.

His back touched the edge of the open front door. It hadn’t closed on him after all. He was free.

Harry Stowe turned and ran, shirt flapping, out into the cheery bright spring morning.

On Wednesday morning Billy Smith dressed in silence and walked the short distance down the road to the clinic. Angel had not stirred when he got up. He was starting to worry about her. She slept so soundly and so long he wondered if it could be good for her, and he began to think that perhaps she was having more problems than he thought. When she was awake she complained of nausea and exhaustion, and lightheadedness; he thought she might be running a fever, but couldn’t be sure. The extreme temperature shifts couldn’t be doing anyone any good. Maybe she had caught a cold, or the flu.

All those thoughts disappeared, however, when he opened the door to the clinic and his gaze fell upon Harry Stowe.

Harry was sitting on the yellow couch in the front room. His clothes (long casual shirt over what looked like a pajama top, faded slacks), were rumpled, his eyes bloodshot. His normally combed-back hair tumbled across his brow in a disorganized wave. When he heard the door open, Harry’s eyes came up slowly, but his gaze showed little change.

“Jesus, Harry. What happened?”

“Ruth Taylor is dead,” Stowe said quietly. “I think Jeb killed her.” His voice was like the rest of him, wavering, uncertain.
Gone was the old confidence Smith had come to recognize. Harry looked like a soldier who had seen enemy fire for the first time, and watched his brother go down.

Smith sat beside him, aware of an underlying sense of destiny, of something coming to an end. “Tell me.”

Stowe did, in halting, broken sentences, often seeming to lose the thread of speech before picking it up again. When he told of finding Ruth’s body, and then tried to describe the thing he had seen on the stairs, his speech became even more difficult. He had seen Jeb, he said, but it wasn’t Jeb; he didn’t know how else to explain it. Some kind of apparition…“I don’t expect you to believe me,” he said, when he had finished. “Hell, I don’t know if I believe it myself.”

“I believe you.” When Harry looked up with blank surprise, he said, “You’re not the type to get hysterical, are you?”

Stowe blinked at him, then nodded. “I called Sheriff Pepper. Did that much at least. But I couldn’t go back to that house, not after…”

“What did the sheriff say?”

“Called me back a half-hour later. Said he’d found Ruth’s body, all right, but Jeb had been asleep upstairs, never heard a thing. Seemed pretty shook up when he heard the news, the sheriff said. I asked him if Jeb…looked all right. He said, sure. A little hung over, and upset, that was all. Hell, I don’t know.” He shrugged, looking miserable. “Maybe I’m going crazy.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Or maybe I just haven’t been getting enough sleep. I’ve been having these…dreams.” Stowe waved an arm in front of his face, as if trying to wipe something away. “No. That’s why I went there in the first place. I’d
dreamed
it, Billy. I watched her die. And Jeb did it. He pushed her, or at least he made it happen. But there’s no evidence, no reason to suspect it. I just can’t go accusing him of things like that
without proof. What am I supposed to say? I saw it in a dream?”

“No,” Billy said. “I suppose not.”

“It’s only a matter of time before Pepper starts asking questions. Why the hell would I go there at seven in the morning? Why didn’t I hang around when I found the body, try to do something for her? Things like that. Before long people are going to hear about it. They’ll be looking at me like I’m nuts, avoiding me, or even worse, thinking I had something to do with it.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was, don’t you see? I should have helped her. Anyway, there’s more.”

“What else?”

“Pat Friedman killed his wife last night. Pepper told me about it on the phone. That’s why he’s not here yet, he had to clean up that mess. I guess he came home from work and caught her fucking Bob Rosenberg on their living room couch, took a shotgun, let loose with both barrels. Bob got out, he’s pretty shaken up, says that Pat was just out of his mind. Couldn’t talk any sense into him.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.” Stowe wiped his hand across his stubbled face. “What’s happening to this town? It’s like everyone’s suddenly going crazy all at once.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“I know one thing. I can’t keep seeing patients in my state of mind. I’ll go crazy then too, if I’m not already.”

“I don’t think it will come to that.”

“What do you mean?”

They looked at each other. “Maybe it’s time I do a little talking of my own,” Smith said.

He told everything; the dreams, his first violent encounter with Angel on the beach, their visit to the old Taylor property, Annie’s advice, his discussion with Dr. Rutherford. He
showed Harry the articles about the break-in and the amulet, which were still in his pocket from the day before.

When he had finished, well over an hour had passed. Harry Stowe was shaking his head. “If I hadn’t seen…I mean…”

“I know. That’s why I waited to tell you everything.”

“I keep thinking I hallucinated it,” Stowe said, a little distantly. “But Goddammit, I know the difference. It was real. And his laugh…that wasn’t Jeb Taylor.”

“No,” Smith said. “You’re right on that one.”

“So you’ve been having these nightmares for how long?”

“The really bad ones, for six months, maybe a year. But now I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t always know about this place, somehow.”

“So that’s your secret,” Stowe said. Listening to Billy’s story had seemed to clear his own head, and now he smiled tiredly. “All this time I thought you were a jewel thief on the run from the feds.”

“Don’t I wish. Then I wouldn’t have to work in a dump like this.”

They both laughed a little. “We both belong in the nut-house,” Stowe said finally. He ran a hand through his rats’ nest of hair. “Jesus, I mean, demons and possession and witches? I went to medical school, for Chrissake. I’m supposed to diagnose delusional thinking, not contribute to it.”

“So does that mean you don’t believe me?”

“No,” he said. His voice held a hint of sadness now, but it had regained some of its strength. “To tell you the truth, I’ve often felt something in this town wasn’t right. But that didn’t keep me from coming back here. It…drew me back, I think. I’ve always felt it was like that.”

They were both silent a moment. “So, assuming I do believe all of this,” Stowe said, “and I guess I don’t have a choice, unless I decide we’re both crazy—what do we do next?”

“Keep a close eye on Jeb Taylor, for one. We have to find out more about what’s happening to him.”

Stowe was shaking his head again. “I guess we have nothing to lose by checking things out. Demons. Jesus Christ.” But his eyes had regained that haunted look, and now they held the sober glint of fear.

A few minutes later, Sheriff Pepper pulled up outside the clinic and began asking questions. The first were directed at Harry Stowe. What were you doing up at the Taylor place at seven in the morning? Did someone call you? Hear a noise, somebody screaming? What did it look like happened to her? Stowe handled these without much trouble, saying nothing about his suspicions of murder. Then the questions became more difficult.
Why didn’t you stay there with the
body? Wake up Jeb? Call the police from there?
Stowe did not answer these with as much confidence, and Smith saw the sheriff keep glancing at him, annoyed. Finally he asked what Billy had to do with the whole thing. Smith told him he was just coming into work for the day and ran into Harry, that was all.

Then the deputy had come into the clinic with Julie Friedman’s body, and that had ended their discussion abruptly. Harry took his medical bag and wheeled the body into the other room, and Smith busied himself with some paperwork that needed to be done, trying to keep his mind off of what had occurred.

An hour later Harry returned, looking gray-faced, his shirt spotted with blood. “Lord,” he said, collapsing into a chair. “She was shot point-blank in the chest. I’ve never seen such a mess.” He rubbed at his stubbled face. “You don’t want to see what a shotgun does to a body. Excuse me.” He disappeared into the bathroom, and there was silence, then the sounds of retching. He came back a few minutes later, his face pale and wet. Dark circles ringed his eyes. “Sorry. Guess I’m having a bad day.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“No. Julie Friedman had a pretty shitty day too, didn’t
she?” He shook his head. “My God, I mean, Pat? He’s a damn good lawyer. He’s the First Selectman.”

“Would there be any connection between the Friedmans and Jeb Taylor?”

Harry Stowe looked at him with sudden understanding. “He was their handyman. Jesus, you think he had something to do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I should have never let that boy out of my sight.” Harry shrugged. “Maybe we should talk to him. Just go to the house and let him know what we suspect, and see what happens.”

“Something tells me that’s not a good idea.”

“What else can we do? Tell Pepper?”

“You said yourself the police would never believe you. We have no evidence. At least, nothing that doesn’t sound crazy.”

“We’ve got to do
something
.”

That was how they ended up hunkered down in Billy Smith’s car outside the Taylor home, waiting for Jeb to emerge.

They had pulled off the road at a decent place, with a clear view of the Taylor house, and were using Stowe’s binoculars to keep watch. Smith had started the engine as daylight bled from the sky, and turned on the heater. Ten minutes later Jeb stepped through his front door.

They both sat in silence for a moment, concealed from view by a row of bushes, Stowe watching Jeb’s legs in the dim light as he went around to his car.

“How does he look?”

“Human,” he said dryly. “Better move before he sees us.”

Smith pulled out into the road and turned on the headlights, cruising slowly up the hill and by the driveway. They caught a glimpse of taillights flashing once, twice. Smith went up the road a few hundred feet, turned around, and headed back.

The big Chevy was headed down the hill, into town. Jeb drove slowly past the lighted storefronts, turned left on 27, and then pulled into the parking lot of Johnny’s. Smith drove past, made a U-turn and headed back. When they arrived at the parking lot a second time, Jeb was already inside. They followed him in, saw that he had taken up his customary spot at the end of the bar, and took a booth nearby, thinking they would be there for the night.

But Jeb stayed at the bar only long enough to down two shots of whiskey. Then he left on foot across the square. After a moment’s hesitation, they decided that Billy would follow, while Stowe remained in the parking lot to watch the car.

Smith grabbed the flashlight from his glove compartment and set off, trying to keep a good distance in order to keep from being seen. But Jeb never looked back. By the time they passed the gazebo, the last of the sunset had faded and the evening cold had set in. The streetlamps painted hard yellow circles in fifty-foot intervals along the edge of the square, but the light did not reach its center. A bitter wind ripped through the trees and cut through Smith’s thin cotton shirt. The air burned his lungs and turned his breath to clouds of steam, raised gooseflesh on his arms. He moved forward through the dark, keeping the flashlight off as the leaves rustled above his head. Jeb’s back was an indistinct blob a hundred feet in front of him. A minute later, he realized where they were going.

Jeb Taylor was headed straight for the Thomas mansion.

A thrill ran through him, and he remembered two moments with such complete recall it was as if he were reliving each; the afternoon on the square when he had seen the Thomas mansion for the first time, and later, at the White Falls library, when he had found the painting of the place in winter, leaves off the trees, empty branches reaching into a slate-gray sky. The mansion had seemed to be a living, breathing presence, gazing down upon the town like an angry god, its odd twisting towers and labyrinth of rooms turning stone and wood and brick into flesh.

Now, the house held the same presence. It was a darker shape among shadows, a squatting many-limbed beast.

Jeb paused at the gate, and looked around before quickly scaling the short iron fence and dropping into the long grass on the other side. Smith waited until the boy had blended with the deeper shadows that blanketed the walls of the house, and then darted forward in a half-crouch. He heard the tinkling of glass and a door opening somewhere to the left. Then he was over the gate and running across the long soft grass toward the place where Jeb had disappeared.

About twenty feet from the front door the left wing of the house took a sudden turn inward, forming a brick and stone patio. A window set into a side door had been shattered. No sign of Jeb. But as he crouched against the wall, he could hear someone moving inside. A thud and a muffled crash, as if something had been knocked to the floor. He hesitated. The noises quieted.
Don’t lose him, damn it
. He ran across the open space to the door and slipped inside.

Utter darkness enveloped him with ice-cold hands. A musty smell like rotten cloth hung in the air. He paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Nothing but blackness inches from his face.

He shuffled ahead and heard muffled footsteps deep within the bowels of the house. He stumbled, struck something heavy and hard with his hip and spun away, fighting the panic that rose in the back of his throat. For the first time, he wished he had brought a gun. Any kind of weapon. The old musty smell deepened until the stench filled his nostrils. He banged his foot, turned again, stumbled forward and something caught him at the waist, flipping him onto his face. The cold wood floor hit him like a slap and he lay there absolutely still, breathing in the dust that had settled on the floorboards.

He struggled to calm himself. What had Harry told him about this house? The last Thomas had died almost a decade ago, soon after the amulet had been stolen, and his will had
specified that the house remain untouched. The town had wanted to turn it into a historical landmark, but there was enough money to pay the taxes and the house had remained empty for years now.