The Unwanted (24 page)

It was broken by the sound of soft laughter, and as Harold Simms sank slowly into unconsciousness, he thought he recognized the laughing voice.

It sounded like Cassie Winslow’s voice, mocking him.

Half an hour later the door opened once more, and Jake Palmer, who had been the janitor at False Harbor’s high school for forty years, stepped inside. He set his mop and bucket down, then glanced around the room.

“Holy Jesus,” he whispered softly to himself. “What the hell they been doing in here today?” Everywhere he looked, the walls were stained with red smears, and the floor looked as if a wild animal, mortally wounded, had spent its last moments thrashing around in a violent search for some unseen enemy. As Jake’s mind tried to accept what his eyes were seeing, he heard a low moaning sound from a few feet away. Slowly, carefully, he made his way around to the other side of the room, then bent over to look under the desk.

Staring back at him, Jack saw the pale visage of Harold Simms, his skin torn away, his flesh oozing blood.

“It was her,” he heard Simms moan. “It was that crazy girl. She … she tried to kill me.” Then Simms’s eyes closed as he slid into unconsciousness for a second time.

In the cabin Cassie’s eyes blinked open and she saw Eric watching her intently. “What—what happened?” she asked.

Eric shook his head. “Nothing. You were just sitting there, and your lips were moving, and then—well, then you started laughing.”

Cassie cocked her head thoughtfully. She’d been thinking about Mr. Simms, and then she had drifted off, as if in a dream. But what had happened in the dream?

She couldn’t remember.

Frowning, she looked around.

Something was different. Then she realized what it was.

The cat was gone.

Her eyes flicked back to Eric. “What happened to Sumi?” she asked.

Eric was silent for a moment, then shrugged. “Who
knows?” he said. “He was on my lap, and then he just sort of took off.”

Then he grinned. “Maybe he went after Simms,” he suggested. “Maybe you sicked him on him.”

Gene Templeton left Memorial High by the side door, fishing in his pocket for his car keys. Only the day after the funeral, and already it had started. Templeton was pretty sure he was on a wild-goose chase, for the story he’d heard at the school made no sense at all. But still, he had to check it out, he thought, as the squad car cruised slowly through the village toward the Winslows’ house.

He got out of the car and approached the house, sighing as he pressed the doorbell. A moment later the door opened. Rosemary Winslow stared at him apprehensively.

“What is it?” she asked. “It’s not something else about Miranda, is it? I thought we were all through with that.”

Templeton held up his hands in a reassuring gesture. “Nothing to do with Miranda at all, Rosemary. It’s … well, uh, it’s something else. I wonder if I might come inside?”

Relief apparent in her eyes, Rosemary stepped back and held the door open. As Templeton stepped into the foyer, Jennifer Winslow came crashing down the stairs.

“Hi, Mr. Templeton!” she said, grinning up at him with her hand held out expectantly. Grinning back at her, Templeton fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out one of the jawbreakers he habitually carried there, insisting to anyone who asked that they were only for bribing children, that he never ate them himself. It was a lie, but everyone knew it, so it didn’t matter.

“Hi, yourself,” Templeton replied, holding the jawbreaker
just out of Jennifer’s reach. “You being a good girl? Haven’t tried to rob the bank this week?”

“No,” Jennifer shrieked. “Can I have it? Please?”

Templeton glanced at Rosemary, who nodded, then gave the candy to Jennifer, who immediately stuffed it into her mouth, her right cheek bulging grotesquely. “Now run along,” he said. “I have to talk to your mom about something.”

“Can’t I listen?” Jen begged, her words garbled by the mass in her mouth.

“No, you can’t,” Rosemary told her.

Faced with the unanimous decision of two adults, Jennifer retreated back up the stairs. When she was gone, Rosemary led Templeton toward the kitchen.

“I have a little pie, but I’m afraid that’s all,” she apologized. She poured them each a cup of coffee and pulled the last slice of last night’s apple pie out of the refrigerator before sitting down to face Templeton, her eyes still worried. “Now, what’s going on?”

Templeton’s expression turned serious, and he shook his head. “I’m not really sure. But I’m hoping maybe I can nip this one in the bud real quick. Do you happen to know where Cassie’s been this afternoon?”

The worry cleared from Rosemary’s face. “That’s easy,” she said. “She’s with Eric. They’re right here, upstairs in Cassie’s room.”

Templeton’s brows rose a fraction of an inch. “Cassie’s room?” he repeated, and Rosemary chuckled.

“Times have changed, Gene. All the kids have their friends in their rooms now, boys and girls both. It’s not like when you were young. Or me, either, for that matter.”

“Thanks for that, at least,” Templeton grumped. “So, how long have they been there?”

Rosemary shrugged. “All afternoon, as far as I know.”

The relief Templeton had been momentarily feeling vanished. “As far as you know?”

“Well, I’ve only been home half an hour. I did a little shopping after I closed the store, but they were here when I got home. Now, would you mind telling me what this is all about?”

Sparing her as many of the details as he could, Templeton described the scene he’d found in the high school gym office
an hour before. “And what’s happened,” he finished, “is that just before Simms passed out, he told Jake Palmer that ‘the crazy girl did it.’ ”

Rosemary gasped, and her face paled. “He … what?”

“It’s not quite as bad as it sounds,” Templeton added. “And Jake said he didn’t actually name Cassie. But, well …” He floundered for a moment, then fell into an embarrassed silence.

“There’s only one girl in town that they’re calling crazy,” Rosemary finished for him, her voice cold. “Is that it, Gene?”

Templeton nodded. “Rosemary, I’m sorry. I know how all this sounds, but I still have to do my job. And anyway, it might not be so bad—he didn’t actually name her, and nobody saw Cassie around the school at all. In fact a couple of the kids saw her leave, and saw Eric catching up with her. After that, no one saw either one of them at the school again. So if I can place Cassie somewhere else, we can put an end to this right now.”

“Then let’s do it,” Rosemary said. “The last thing we need right now are more rumors flying around.” She went out into the hall and called up the stairs. A minute later Eric and Cassie appeared at the kitchen door. Recognizing Templeton, both their expressions turned worried.

“What’s wrong?” Cassie asked.

Rosemary started to speak, but Gene Templeton held up a hand to stop her. “You kids mind telling me where you’ve been all afternoon?” he asked.

Eric and Cassie glanced at each other, then Eric shrugged helplessly. “We’ve been here for about an hour, I guess,” he said.

“An hour,” Templeton repeated. Whatever had happened to Simms, it had happened more than an hour ago. “What about before that?” Eric’s eyes suddenly took on a wary cast, and he said nothing. Instead he glanced at Cassie, and Templeton’s stomach knotted as he realized that maybe, after all, there was some truth to Simms’s disjointed words. When Cassie finally spoke, the nervousness in her voice only tightened the knot.

“We—we were out in the marsh,” she said. “I was showing Eric Miranda’s house.”

Templeton glanced at Rosemary, who seemed to be as
surprised at the words as he was. “All right,” he said carefully. “Do you mind telling me why you went out there?”

Cassie’s eyes darkened. “I already told you,” she said. “I was showing Miranda’s house to Eric. Why shouldn’t I? Miranda was my friend. I can go there if I want to.”

“Whoa,” Templeton protested, holding up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of defense. “Slow down. I didn’t say you had no right to go there. I just wondered if there was any special reason why you went.”

Cassie was silent for a moment, then nodded. “We were mad,” she said. “Mr. Simms kicked Eric off the baseball team this afternoon.”

Rosemary gasped, but Templeton managed not to react to the words at all. Suddenly everything made even less sense than it had before, for Cassie had just blandly confessed to a motive. “Mind telling me about that?” he asked Eric, watching the boy carefully. But as Eric told him the story, Templeton could see nothing in his manner that seemed anything other than completely spontaneous.

“Simms is weird sometimes,” Eric finished. “But I’ll go talk to Mrs. Ambler tomorrow, and she’ll straighten it out. But what’s happening, anyway?”

His eyes still fixed on the two teenagers, Templeton told them what had happened at the school that afternoon. “Simms is in the hospital. And I’m here because he said something that might have meant he thought Cassie attacked him. From what I saw, it looked like whoever did it must have used a knife.” He saw Cassie and Eric glance at each other, and there was something in that exchange of looks that bothered him. It was more than surprise—there was something else there, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. But what? “And you two say you were down in the marsh and then here all afternoon, right?”

Cassie nodded. “We were.”

“By yourselves,” Templeton pointed out.

Cassie hesitated, then shook her head. “Jennifer saw us in the marsh,” she said. “Ask her.”

Rosemary hesitated, then went to the bottom of the stairs and called Jennifer. A moment later the little girl came running down the stairs and followed her mother into the kitchen.

“But how do you know they were in Miranda’s house all the time?” Gene Templeton asked five minutes later, after Jennifer had confirmed what Cassie and Eric had told him.

Jennifer blushed, and stared shamefaced at the floor. “I was watching,” she finally admitted, her voice tiny. “All the time they were in there, I was playing on the swing in the park, and I kept watching to see if anything was going to happen. But nothing did. They just went in, and after a while they came out.” Her eyes went fearfully to Cassie. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I wasn’t really spying on you. I just wanted to see what you were doing.”

“It’s okay, Jen,” Cassie told her, a little smile playing around her lips. “And it’s okay for you to tell them what we were doing too.”

Jennifer’s eyes shifted to appeal to her mother. “They weren’t doing anything,” she said. “They just came over here and went up to Cassie’s room and started listening to the radio.”

The tension drained out of Rosemary, and she turned to the police chief. “Well, at least we know that whatever happened to Harold Simms, Cassie and Eric weren’t involved.”

Gene Templeton nodded absently, but his eyes were still watching Cassie and Eric. He was certain there was something they were holding back. “Miranda’s house,” he said finally. “What were you doing in there?”

Once again that strange look passed between the two teenagers, and for a moment Templeton thought Eric was going to speak. But before he could utter the first word, Cassie rushed in.

“We were talking about Mr. Simms,” she said, her eyes meeting Templeton’s. And though her eyes were clear—as if she had nothing to hide—there was a challenge in them. “We were talking about what a creep he is, and wishing something would happen to him. That’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, that while we were wishing it, something really did happen to him?”

“Cassie!” Rosemary exclaimed.

“Well, why should I lie about it?” Cassie asked. “It’s not like we did anything to him. And I’m not sorry about what happened to Mr. Simms either. He was awful to me, and
what he did to Eric wasn’t fair at all. If someone beat him up, I’m not going to claim I’m sorry!”

Before anyone could say anything else, she turned and fled from the kitchen. Rosemary glanced at Templeton and started to go after her, when the policeman shook his head. “Let her go,” he said gently. “She must be sick of me asking her questions all the time, and I think it’s pretty obvious she didn’t have anything to do with Simms.” He unfolded himself from the chair and closed his notebook. “You have anything else to say, Eric?” he asked.

Eric shook his head.

“Okay.” He let himself out the back door and was just about to start down the driveway when a sudden movement caught his eye. Turning, he saw a gray cat slip through the fence between the Winslows’ yard and the cemetery next to the church. It dashed across the lawn and slithered up into a large oak tree. When it reached the lowest branch, it paused, then turned to glare balefully at Templeton. Its mouth yawned open and a menacing hiss boiled out of its throat. Then, in a flash, it leaped up through the branches of the tree and disappeared through an open window on the second floor.

“Sumi?” he heard Cassie’s voice asking anxiously. “Did you really do it? Did you do what I wanted you to?”

His brow creased in thought, Templeton continued down the driveway.

“Upstairs,” Ed Cavanaugh growled. He’d watched Eric come out of the Winslows’ house a few minutes after the police chief had left, and by the time the boy had crossed the common driveway and come through the back door, Ed had worked himself into a fury. It hadn’t taken him long to get the whole story out of his son. As he listened, his rage had grown. Now his eyes fixed malevolently on Eric. “Move!” he snapped when Eric failed to react to his command.

“Ed, don’t,” Laura protested. Ed said nothing, but his hand flashed out, striking Laura’s face with enough force to knock her back into her chair.
“Now!”
he bellowed, then reached out and grabbed Eric by his shirt collar, dragging him out of the kitchen. As Laura sat trembling in the chair, she heard her husband manhandling their son up the stairs.
Why?
she thought bitterly.
Why did he ever think he wanted a son in the first place?

Eric started to go into his own room, but Ed grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm up behind his back, and shoved him into the little room that would have been a guest room had anyone ever come to visit the Cavanaughs.