Night Songs (19 page)

    And only a few stopped to listen, with a nervous snap of their fingers.

    

    

    The wind dropped to a breeze, and Lilla didn't know the difference.

    She sat alone, cross-legged on the ground in front of the shack, and didn't bother to count the minutes until the sea turned black. The waves flared white, between the clouds there were stars, and once in a while at the horizon she could see the multi-colored eyes of a slow-passing liner. She was still in her black dress, and loose around her shoulders was a faded blue woolen shawl; she drew it snugly over her chest and nuzzled her chin into the worn tufts that had never been trimmed. She thought of nothing.

    She rocked on her buttocks and didn't feel the sand. Her tangled hair stirred and she didn't feel the cool. She rocked, and she hummed, and when the night had gone full dark she wiped a bubble of saliva from the corner of her mouth.

    She thought nothing, and that was fine.

    The fog was with her, comforting and warm and sparkling like diamonds snared in a spider's web especially for her. It dazzled and it lulled, and though she could not reach out to touch it, it felt very strong. It protected her. It hid her. It trembled when there was danger and it floated when Gran was back.

    As it floated now when she heard the shack's door rasping open behind her. It closed, and the web shuddered. Her nostrils flared at the acrid scent of spilled blood.

    Blood; the web vibrated. Blood; the web parted. Blood and Warren Harcourt, and suddenly the fog was gone, the web torn, and she was running. Down to the beach where she stood at the brink of the climbing tide's foam and dared herself to walk in, walk in and keep on walking until she would either force herself to swim or choose to join her parents.

    You told me they'd come back, Gran. You told me. You did.

    A wave fanned in, pulled back, covering her feet with dark sand.

    But Gran was angry now and wouldn't talk to her, not even in the fog. Not since that first time, after the funeral, after she'd found him and brought him back and sung him the words that had brought her the blood.

    He was supposed to have been grateful, and he was supposed to have been smiling. But she knew now he had lied to her, lied to his Lilla. He had lied, he was angry, and he wouldn't let her go.

    She was frightened. She had spent the remainder of the night hiding in a cave just below the top of the cliffs, a cave not even Gran knew was her place to escape all the demons and ghosts. All day she had stayed there, until she thought she was safe. Then she had run to find someone to tell them Gran had come back.

    She really hadn't wanted to scare the little boy but she knew him (forgot his name), and she knew he was Gran's favorite because he could do things with his hands, and she knew he was close to Colin, and she needed to talk to Colin now more than anything in the world. And when he hadn't come, the fog had come instead, and Colin (and the little boy with no name) was forgotten because the fog and the web and the diamonds were so pretty, and so warm, and the way it used to be when Gran loved her and held her and wouldn't let anyone do her harm.

    She glanced furtively at the shack as if he'd somehow overheard her, and she was running again, veering sharply off the beach and scrambling over the dunes toward the houses. The big houses. The rich houses. Past their warm yellow lights and their warming shining cars and their warm pretty gardens bedded down for the winter. Past them and soon onto Neptune, past the darkened boarding house where her nostrils flared and she thought she smelled the blood.

    It was easy, she told herself. If Colin wouldn't come to her, she would find him at home.

    Because of all the people on the island, only he would understand when she told him about Gran.

    Only he would understand why Gran had her singing.

    She was halfway to the cottage when she felt Gran slipping back to spin the web, ride the fog. Tugging, coaxing, urging her back. No, she thought,
no, I won't let you!
And she was startled when the tugging stopped and she was left alone to keep running. She knew then his strength wasn't as great as she'd believed. Despite the sacrifice of Warren Harcourt's blood-the only time Gran walked, so he could drink the blood himself-it would take him a long time to be what he wanted. Meanwhile she had a chance. She had a chance to warn Colin, who would warn Garve and the others.

    Warn them. Warn them. Like someone she knew from history who warned all the people that the enemy was coming.

    Warn them, she had to warn them-and she stumbled.
About what?

    A frown loosened sand caked to her forehead and her lips tasted salt when her tongue flicked out.

    I have to warn…

    
About what, Lil? About what?

    Concentration quivered her lips.
Warn them about Gran, about the singing, about the… rest.

    She slowed and shook her head to rid it of the fog. She slowed and looked up, and saw the stars between the clouds. They were pretty. They always used to be pretty, but now they were prettier than she'd ever seen them before. Winking at her like lovers she had stored in her dreams, not cold as in all the poems, but whitely warm and… pretty.

    She slowed to a walk.

    Pretty stars, lovers' stars, and her eyes darted from side to side because she knew she was going to the cottage where Colin lived and did his work, and if she took her time and thought hard she might remember why.

    

    

    The reception room at Doc Montgomery's used to be the garage. Now it was paneled in pine, carpeted in soft gold, furnished with Audubon prints and up-to-date-magazines, two beaten leather sofas and a handful of upholstered chairs. It smelled of lemon polish and recent cleaning. The five narrow windows had just that morning been washed.

    Colin stood by the entrance, one hand on the door frame. He was frowning. The odd wind had battered through only five minutes before, and already he was wondering if it had been his imagination. A howling, and a whistling, and leaves slapped against the panes, and Peg, sitting on a sofa beside Garve, had nearly jumped into his arms. Now it was quiet. Dark, quiet, the radio on the end table switched off when they arrived.

    Doc was in the examination room with Warren, Annalee assisting. Eliot was on his way to Flocks with a clear plastic bag containing Harcourt's wallet which Garve had found at his side.

    Colin shivered against a cold that wouldn't leave his system, turned away from the window and leaned against the wall. Peg had driven back for the chief when Colin insisted on remaining behind, had returned in less than five minutes, but five minutes too long. He'd had a chance to look at Warren, at all that goddamned blood on his clothes and on the ground, and he'd had a chance to wonder who would want to kill a harmless alcoholic. Garve had asked the same question while he examined the corpse without touching it, wondering aloud about Cameron's friends, wondering aloud about Jim Fletcher and the enemies he had made. It was all speculation. No weapon was found, no footprints, no clues. Then Eliot had arrived with the patrol car, and Montgomery.

    All the doc had said was, "It's too dark to do anything out here. Let's bring him back to my office."

    A green plastic sack was zipped closed around him, and he was placed in the trunk and driven back.

    While Montgomery played coroner, Garve asked the questions.

    That was fifteen minutes ago, and now he was silent.

    "I don't get it," Colin said at last, not liking the quiet. "I just don't get it."

    Peg murmured helplessly, her hands winding and twisting in the folds of her lap. A strand of damp hair was slanted across her forehead.

    Garve shoved himself to his feet and paced the width of the room, stared out at the night, closed the curtains and turned around. "Here," he said and he patted his stomach, "I know it was Theo Vincent. But…"

    "But what?" Colin said impatiently.

    "But where's the murder weapon, the proof, the evidence? Why would someone want to cut that poor dope's throat?"

    "He knew something he shouldn't have," Peg suggested.

    "Oh sure," he said sourly. "Sure."

    "Well, hell, Garve," Colin said, "he walked all over the place all the time when he wasn't drinking. He could have heard things, known things-jeez, he even knew about Peg and me, I know I didn't tell him." He pushed away from the wall and sat next to Peg. "He might have heard them talking about… something, I don't know what."

    "That's just it," Tabor said. "You don't know, and I don't know."

    "So are you just going to forget it?"

    The look was one of tolerant disgust. "Of course not. I'll go over and have a word with them, as soon as Doc's finished. But I'll tell you this, m'boy, I won't get what I want. They'll be surprised, y'see, and shocked, and they'll alibi each other until the tide turns and then some."

    "It sounds to me like you're already giving up."

    "No, just being realistic."

    "What about the wallet?" Peg said. "Eliot's going all the way into-"

    "Because there's a very small chance it just didn't fall out of his coat when he fell. There's a chance someone picked it out, and if they did there'll be fingerprints. Or maybe whoever did it picked it up, dropped it again when he heard someone coming. I don't know," he said in irritation. "Christ, I wish I did."

    The far door opened and Hugh Montgomery came out. He was small, sandy-haired, his over-sized glasses continually slipping down his nose. When he smiled there was a large gap between his two front teeth, a gap made larger by the handlebar mustache waxed and poking below his chin. His white coat was stained faint red, and he was drying his hands on a towel.

    "Razor," he said. "One slice. Sometime this morning, I'd say shortly after midnight. Can't be sure, but I don't think I'm far wrong."

    Tabor reached for his coat. "Anything else?"

    "What else is there?"

    "You're the doctor, you tell me."

    Montgomery scowled, and pushed at his glasses. "There is nothing else."

    "Suicide?" Peg asked in a small, trembling voice.

    "Absolutely not." He gave her a quick smile. "You want the details?"

    "Thank you, Hugh, no."

    "I'll be back," the chief said, and left with a brusque nod.

    The moment he left, Montgomery stripped off his coat and tossed it into the other room, made for the nearest chair and fell into it with a sigh. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Brother," he said quietly. "Brother."

    Colin wanted to leave, but he couldn't help thinking of the way he'd found Warren, and that the lawyer was lying dead on the other side of the wall just behind him. The thought held him, and he barely felt Peg's hand slip into his own and squeeze.

    "They're going to get away with it, aren't they," he said.

    "Who?"

    "Lombard. Vincent."

    Montgomery shook his head. "Now, you don't know that, Colin, any more than Garve does. And if you want my opinion, I'd say you were wrong."

    "Oh really?"

    Hugh nodded. "Really. It serves them no purpose-"

    "-unless Warren knew something he shouldn't."

    "And it isn't their style." Then he looked deliberately at Peg. "I know what you're thinking, dear, but live years ago they were too far away from setting up the casinos, and they might have taken the chance.
If,
of course, these are the same men. But not this time. This time, if you'll excuse me, Colin, they're damned close to winning."

    "I know," Colin said, shifting into the sofa's corner.

    "So why screw up a good thing?"

    "Because if Warren talked… about whatever… they'd lose for sure. And even Cameron's not stupid- if they lose this time it won't come up again."

    Montgomery replaced his glasses, and whistled soundlessly through the gap in his teeth. "Colin, think about what you're saying here. Who would listen to him, really? Warren?
Our
Warren? A nice guy drunk, a self-pitying slob sober. If he walked up to you and said he knew something terrible was going on between Cameron and those men, would you believe him? Quite aside from the fact that it wouldn't surprise any of us, would you believe it if
Warren
told you?"

    Colin wanted to say yes. Instead he waved away the question. Another thought floated briefly, and he looked at Montgomery. "I guess," he said, conceding the point. "But if they didn't do it, Hugh, then who the hell did?"

    "Ask Garve. He's the chief around here."

    "Yeah. Thanks."

    A silence laced with apprehension. "Are you finished?" Montgomery asked. Colin nodded.

    "Then may I suggest the two of you get the hell out of my office so I can chase Annalee around the table?

    Go home, get a drink, I don't care, just go away. Okay?"

    "I… okay," and Colin followed Peg to her feet, yelled a good-bye to Annalee and was outside, in the dark.

    "Colin?"

    "Yes?"

    "You'll… stay?" He nodded.

    She leaned against him and he slipped an arm around her waist, thinking this was going to be a hell of a thing to tell their grandchildren.
On the night I proposed to your grandmother she had just said yes when suddenly we found a bloody corpse. We spent the rest of the night waiting for the island doctor to tell us he was razored, going home and turning on every light in the house because we thought there was a madman on the loose out there. A nut. A psycho.
A hell of a story.