by Kate Wilhelm
Dinner had been extraordinarily good, Charlie thought with contentment. From the kitchen there now came the soft chugging of the dishwasher; closer, the clink of cup on saucer, a pop from the fireplace, or a hiss; even closer, the nearly inaudible purr of Ashcan on his lap.
The orange cat, Candy, was stalking the cream on the coffee table. Her forequarters were low, her rear up high, and the white tip of her tail twitched.
“Candy! “Constance said, not raising her voice. The cat discovered that her right hind leg was filthy and started to wash it.
Gretchen laughed. “Heavens, country life could be addictive.”
“We’re only two hours away from New York,” Constance pointed out. “Now we’ve wined you and dined you, and it’s your turn. You said there was an urgent problem you had to discuss. Give.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Dutch asked suddenly. He was a tall, heavy man with little patience and no evident sense of humor. An engineering consultant, he was leaving for Europe the following day and had asked for, demanded, this visit tonight. “It started last summer,’’ he said. “At her cousin Wanda’s house, in Connecticut. Vernon and Wanda Garrity. But Vernon’s dead now, and Wanda insists that he’s haunting her.”
“Wasn’t he the inventor?” Charlie asked.
“That’s the one. He showed us some cats he was working on last summer.” He shook his head. “Here’s a guy who invents million-dollar gadgets, and in his spare time he plays with toy cats.”
“What happened last summer?”
“That night at dinner he says, ‘Do you believe in ghosts,’ and I said something that squelched the topic. The next day Wanda went home with us, and that evening he was killed. Now, six months later, she says she’s getting messages from him.”
“How was he killed?” Charlie asked.
“Hit on the head on the beach at their place, robbed. No one was arrested.”
“Didn’t I meet Wanda years ago?” Constance asked.
Gretchen nodded. “Probably at a slumber party at my house when we were in school. She was there a lot.”
Gretchen and Constance had been in college together, had been friends, had parted and lost track of each other until Gretchen’s call that morning.
“Don’t forget Brother Amos,” Gretchen said, “and Sister Angel.”
“Fat chance. Brother Amos calls himself an evangelist. He claims that Vernon is in touch with him, and he tells Wanda what Vernon says. Angel is his daughter. He calls her Sister Angel.”
“Nasty can of worms,” Charlie said, shaking his head.
“I say she should see a shrink.”
“Well, she won’t,” Gretchen snapped.
“So you want Constance to go talk to her.” Charlie glanced at Constance with what was almost an evil grin. She understood the message: It was her turn to explain that she was retired, not taking private cases, busy writing a book and being a country housewife.
“Aunt Louise,” Gretchen said, “asked me to get in touch with you both. She wants someone-a detective-to investigate Amos. And she wants a psychologist-Constance-to talk sense into Wanda.”
“Aunt Louise,” Dutch added dryly, “is Wanda’s mother. She lives in Bridgeport. For the first time in her life, there’s money in the family, and she wants to keep it there.”
* * * *
The Garrity house was immense. There was a wide, covered portico outside a spacious foyer two stories high. A balcony bathed in light from windows on the north and south, overlooked the foyer. The living room was down several steps; its southern exposure was glass, opening to a red-tiled terrace, lawn, and beyond it all, a lake. The rooms were large, brightly lighted with wide, tall windows, furbished in warm colors, and accented with American Indian’ artwork, wall hangings, rugs.
Wanda was an interior decorator; her own house was proof that she was a very good one.
Slender, dark haired, she looked as if she had been ill. She was chain-smoking.
“Please call me Wanda,” she had said almost instantly. “I’m sorry Gretchen is out. She’s told me so much about you and Charlie, I feel as if I almost remember you. And it will make it that much easier to explain to Brother Amos.”
“You have to explain us to him?”
“Not really, but… one does, you know.” A flush colored her cheeks and left again. With a swift motion she stubbed out the cigarette and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know what to say. Do you want to ask questions?”
“Not yet,” Constance said. “Let’s get acquainted. How does anyone manage to gather all these artifacts?”
Wanda stood up. “It took me nearly a year to gather the stuff. Come, I’ll show you the rest of the house.” She looked inquiringly at Charlie; he shook his head.
When they were out of sight, he opened the sliding glass door and walked outside, down to the narrow strip of beach. The lake was about three miles long and two miles wide. Straight across it there was a bluff, and on that, a trailer court where Brother Amos and his daughter lived. He turned to look back at the house, even more imposing here than from the front, because from here he could see the mammoth living room, the terrace, and sun glinting off the upper-floor windows, turning them all gold. From across the lake it must look like a gold mine, he thought.
Inside the house Wanda pointed to him on the beach. She and Constance were on the upper balcony.
“You’re day and night,” Wanda said. “He’s so dark and mysterious, and you’re like a Nordic queen-tall, fair, splendid.”
Constance smiled. Day and night was how she had always thought of herself and Charlie. “Tell me a little something about Vernon.”
“Charlie reminds me of him,” Wanda said slowly. “Not the way he looks, but the way he listens, the way he accepts what he hears, maybe. Vernon was like that. Quiet, steady, so loyal that when his first wife left him, he waited for more than a year, really believing she’d come back. We were married five years. We were happy together.”
They started down the wide stairs that led to the foyer. Indian masks lined the wall here. “This is for the peyote ceremony,” she said, pointing to a grotesquely contorted, brilliantly painted ceramic mask. “And that one was used for the buffalo hunt. He was going to leave me. He had fallen in love with someone else. I just had to get away by myself to think for a while. That’s why I left with Gretchen.”
Constance could feel the presence of staring eyes from the empty holes of the masks, could feel the presence of the ancient shamans. “Did he tell you that?”
“He said he was haunted by her, obsessed by her; he couldn’t stop thinking of her.” Wanda’s face was so white that it could have been one of the masks.
“You hadn’t suspected?”
She shook her head. “I knew there was something preying on him, but not that. I don’t know when it could have happened. We were never apart. I don’t even know who she is.” Her voice was faint, unbelieving. “I never told anyone, not Gretchen, not my mother, no one! And that’s one of the things Brother Amos told me. There’s no way he could have found out, no way. No one suspected.” She started to walk again, this time holding the balustrade tightly.
“Wanda, why did you agree to have Charlie and me come? What do you want?”
“I read your book. You have an open mind, don’t automatically reject things. I agreed more than a week ago. Since then, every day there’s been something new, something that only Vernon could be saying to me. I just don’t know what to think any longer, what to do. Every time I see him I find out more.”
“You mean from Amos?”
She shook her head. “From Vernon. Through Brother Amos.”
* * * *
Brother Amos was tall and blond, broad shouldered, trim. He could have been a car salesman, an insurance agent, a government undersecretary. He shook hands heartily. When he took Wanda’s hand, he used both of his and pressed hers between them as he gazed into her eyes and murmured something inaudible.
His daughter Angel was very thin, still gangly, with long pale hair that was baby fine, and beautiful eyes a deep-violet color.
“It was good of you, Gretchen, to bring company to help enliven the atmosphere in this house. Wanda needs companions, conversation. Too much grieving is bad for anyone. Life is to be lived fully if we are to rob death of its fears.”
“I’m acting bartender,” Charlie said father briskly. “Martini mixings, scotch, let’s see-” He found the shaker and started to mix martinis. “And for the young lady, we have Coke, Pepsi, juice-”
He glanced at her as he continued to shake the gin and ice, and he was struck by the loveliness of her eyes.
“Coke,” she said in a low voice.
“And juice for me,” Amos said. “I don’t condemn moderate alcohol, you understand, but I prefer to be abstemious. The training of a lifetime is hard to put aside.”
“Where do you preach?” Constance asked.
“Nowhere at the moment. My calling came late, too late for divinity school. My church is the world, wherever there are human souls yearning for the Word, the Truth, for Guidance.”
Constance knew he capitalized the words in his head. Mildly she said, “A tent revivalist? Really?”
“My dear lady, the Word of God is valid wherever it it uttered, be it in an alleyway, or a tent, or the finest cathedral.”
“Here you go,” Charlie said cheerfully as he handed out the drinks. “Do you heal at your meetings, Brother Amos? The laying on of hands, all that?”
“Enough about me,” Amos protested. “What is your trade, Mr. Meiklejohn?”
“Retired. Out to pasture. Used to be a building inspector of sorts.”
Constance looked at him admiringly, wondering if he had rehearsed that answer. In the arson squad for years, he had indeed inspected many buildings for the New York City police department. Amos turned to her.
“And Mrs. Meiklejohn? Do you have a profession?”
“I’m thinking of writing a book as soon as I have enough time.”
“A writer! How exciting.” He dismissed them both and turned his attention to Wanda. “And you, my dear, are you feeling better today?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. She looked at her martini, tasted it, put it down, and picked up her cigarette instead.
Charlie poured more martinis, refilled Angel’s glass with Coke, and then knocked Amos’s glass off the table when he started to refill it. He put it aside, brought out a fresh glass, and filled that one. When he looked up, he found Angel’s gaze fixed on him, her violet eyes unblinking, an unfathomable expression on her face. The kind of look children sometimes assume. “Do you go to school here?”
She shook her head.
“I tutor her at home,” Amos said. “I don’t approve of the moral values the school systems teach.”
Dinner was interminable. Everyone waited for Brother Amos to lead the conversation, and this he did willingly at first, then with more and more reluctance. His store of small talk was poverty-stricken.
When he began to discuss the weather, even Wanda looked desperate. He tried baseball. With dessert he moved on to television, and he was still carrying it alone.
Charlie could see a glaze forming over Constance’s eyes, and he suppressed a grin. As soon as there was a pause in the monologue, he asked, “Wanda, any chance of seeing those mechanical cats Gretchen told us about?”
She nearly jumped up in relief. Without even making certain all of them were through with the mousse, she went to the door. “Why don’t you go into the living room for coffee. I’ll bring one of them in.”
The others left at a more leisurely pace and had not yet seated themselves when she reappeared, holding a furry white cat.
At first glance it appeared to be a live cat, its tail full and limp, swinging; its forepaws dangling. Wanda put it down in the center of the room, and they formed a circle around it.
“This one’s set to respond to my voice. They’re all voice-activated. They’re covered with mink, or vicuna, or even silk. They’re heat-seeking, but they’re so dumb that they can’t distinguish one heat source from another. They’ll approach the fireplace, stop at a certain temperature, and curl up and purr. Or maybe go over to a light bulb or a toaster, anything that’s the right temperature.”
Angel moved in front of the toy, bending slightly to peer at its face.
“Kitty, kitty,” Wanda said.
The cat moved, slowly rose from the sleeping position to stand on four feet. Its tail went straight up in a realistic way, and it turned its head from side to side and started to walk, a bit stiffly but catlike.
Constance was watching the cat with amusement when she felt a wave of revulsion and fear, then another even stronger, and then something else. Angel screamed.
The next several seconds were confused. Angel was screaming, backing away from the cat. Wanda had thrown her hands over her face and was swaying, moaning. Charlie caught Angel and half-carried her out of the path of the advancing cat. He held her against his chest as she screamed again and again and finally started to sob. Amos grabbed the cat and held it at arm’s length. Constance backed Wanda into a chair and forced her down. The revulsion, the horror, the terror had faded, leaving her spent and weak.
She saw that Gretchen had gone white also, and she left Wanda, took Gretchen by the arm, and sat her down, too.
“For heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed, and took the cat from Amos, who was staring at it as if entranced. She started toward the workroom with it.
The spell was broken. Amos shook himself and ran over to Angel. “Baby, baby, it’s just a toy! It’s all right, sweetheart.”
Angel clung to Charlie, burying her face against him, no longer crying. Amos tried to loosen her grasp, but she shook her head and held on.
“Come on, honey. I’ll take you home. It’s all right now.” Amos pried her loose and held her, stroked her fine hair, all the while making soothing noises.
“I need a drink,” Constance said, rejoining them.
“Amen,” Charlie said, already at the long table where the bottles were lined up. He filled a glass with brandy and downed it.
Wanda stared fixedly at Brother Amos. “He was here, wasn’t he? What did he want?”
He nodded. “Yes. Tomorrow we’ll talk. I have to take my girl home now. She’s had a shock. She’s very sensitive to this kind of thing, very sensitive.”
“In the morning? At ten?”
“After lunch. I’ll come at two.”
Charlie handed Angel a glass of water. Her face was swollen, flushed. He patted her lightly on the shoulder, then took brandy to Wanda.
Amos took the glass from his daughter, put it down, and left with her, his arm around her shoulders.
Wanda stood up shakily. ”If you’ll excuse me,” she said in a low voice.
Gretchen went with her.
Constance drank her brandy almost as fast as Charlie had done earlier. “Another.”
They both had another. They sat in facing chairs, not talking yet. Finally he said, “You were swell.”
“And you had your hands full. What happened, Charlie?”
“Damned if I know. Did you feel-?”
She nodded. “Like I was at one of those awful horror movies, and I was the victim.”
“Yeah. Maybe another brandy. And I’ve got to retrieve that glass.” He went behind the table, then cursed briefly. It was gone.
Constance pointed to the water glass. “He handled that.”
He picked up the glass carefully, holding it at the bottom, and dumped the remaining water back into the pitcher. He started to leave with the glass, then hesitated, a curious look on his face.
“Will you be all right alone for a couple of minutes?”
“Fine,” she said, glad that he had asked, startled that he had asked.
Gretchen joined them while they were having coffee. Wanda had taken a sleeping pill and was sleeping already, lucky Wanda.
“I don’t dare close my eyes,” Gretchen said. Then darkly she added. “I sure wish Dutch had been here, the ape, laughing at ghosts.”
“That’s the last kind of thing you should say now,” Constance said severely. “All Wanda needs is any sort of confirmation and she’ll be over the edge so deep we may not be able to pull her out again.”
“What else do you think it could have been? It was Vernon, mad as hell at us for playing with his toys! She knows that!”
* * * *
That night Charlie dreamed: He was dancing with a woman. His eyes were closed, his cheek against her hair, his hands moving down her soft, silky body, warm and yielding to his touch, so responsive that her body and his were not really separate but moved together as if joined at a common nerve center. Her hands were like warm kisses on his skin; where they touched he came alive. Now, he whispered into her hair. Now! They sank into cloudlike softness.
He came wide awake and sat upright, wet with sweat, shivering. He got out of bed, pulled on his robe, and stumbled from the bedroom. Behind him Constance made a slight noise, and he turned and saw her, an old woman with graying hair, lines at her eyes, old, old.
Moments later she sat up, certain he had said something. She reached out to touch him and found his bed empty.
Slowly she got up and put on her robe and slippers, troubled, wanting to find him. Going down the stairs she felt again the presence of the masks, the staring eye holes, and she drew her robe tighter about her. He was standing at the broad expanse of glass in the living room, outlined against the pale dawn light.
“Charlie! What’s wrong?”
He stiffened. When he turned to her, he again saw an aging woman with tousled hair, sleep-heavy features. The image faded, and he saw Constance.
“I thought I heard something.” Deliberately he faced the lake that was like a silver skin over an abyss.
She went to stand at his side but did not touch him. He seemed hard, unknowable. “Char-”
“Go back to bed. I have to think, and I have to be alone for a while.” His eyes were like obsidian discs.
Why didn’t it fade? he thought almost savagely after she left. Dreams always fade on awakening; the most frightening dream loses its power after you’re fully awake. The edges begin to crumble, and details sink back to the pit. He was still waiting for the dream reality to fade an hour later, when rain fractured the surface of the lake.
* * * *
Gretchen and Constance had breakfast in a pleasant room off the kitchen. Charlie had gone into town, and Wanda was not feeling well. As soon as they were through eating, Gretchen left to do some errands.
Outside the rain was splashing on the red tiles, and the lake was churned by a brisk wind. And Charlie did not have a raincoat with him.
Constance knew exactly where it was, in their hall closet at home. Charlie would be soaked. She had not even seen him that morning. She had been in the shower, and when she got out he was gone. The rain began slanting in against the glass.
She prowled the silent house restlessly, finally settling down to look through some scrapbooks. Many of the pictures were of Vernon, a gray-haired, slender man with a straight carriage and squared shoulders. There were also many pictures of children, most of them in braces or in wheelchairs. There were several of Vernon holding one child or another up at a game of chance, a ball toss, or dart board; one of Wanda at a fund-raising booth, with a child eating cotton candy at a counter. There were no more pictures after that series.
Charlie called shortly before noon. “I won’t be back for a couple more hours. Everything quiet?”
“You wouldn’t believe how quiet. What are you doing?”
“Can’t talk now. Okay? Guess who’s chief of police in Bridgeport these days. Tony Francello! We’re having lunch.”
Constance stared at the phone for a long time after replacing it. She shivered with a sudden chill. What in God’s name was wrong with Charlie? He had talked like a stranger. She rubbed her arms briskly, but the chill was deep within her.
Amos and Angel arrived shortly before two. “Hello,” Constance said cheerfully, admitting them.
Amos nodded at her. “I told Sister Angel that she could watch television while I talk to Mrs. Garrity. I’ll hang up your coat, honey.” He hung both coats in the closet, and Angel went down the hallway toward the television room. Constance started to follow her.
“Mrs. Meiklejohn,” Amos said urgently, “your husband is in danger. I see him surrounded by flames, and he is desperately afraid. Take him away from here!”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean?”
“He is in mortal danger! He fears the flames as he fears hellfire! If you want to save his sanity and his life, take him away from here!” Without waiting for a response, he turned and ran lightly up the stairs.
With great effort Constance released the railing she had grasped. Flames! She had known when Charlie began having nightmares about arson. She remembered too vividly the way he had muttered, thrashing about in his sleep. They had talked about it then but not since, never since. He had asked for a transfer, had changed his job, and gradually the nightmares had stopped. Her palms were wet. The masks stared down at her. They saw everything, knew everything. And Amos? How had he found that out?
* * * *
Half an hour later she joined Angel in the television room. “Mind if I watch with you?” she asked. “It sure is quiet in this house today.”
Angel shrugged. She was watching a game show.
“Our daughter is in college,” Constance said. “She wants to be a biologist. What will you major in?”
Angel continued to watch the show. “I don’t know.”
“That’s the best way to enter, I think. Leave it open until you’ve tried out various fields. Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I don’t think it hurts to wait until you’re older to decide. Have you always been afraid of cats?”
“I’m not afraid of cats.” -
“Mechanical ones, I meant.”
Angel pushed a button on the remote control.
“It really isn’t very different from the windup toys that kids play with when they’re young, you know.”
Angel pushed the button again, then again.
“Actually, what you’re doing now with that control is pretty much how the cat works, I think. You give a signal, and it does something that it’s been programmed to do.”
The television stations were flicking by faster and faster.
“It wasn’t aiming at you, you know. You just happened to be closest to it.”
Flick, flick. They were back to the original game show. She turned up the volume.
“Angel, there are people who can help you. These things don’t get better by themselves. You don’t have to be so afraid.”
Suddenly Angel jumped up and glared at Constance.
“Leave me alone! I’m not afraid of a stupid cat!”
She ran from the room.
Gloomily Constance turned off the television set and followed the girl. She reached the foyer just in time to see Charlie leading Angel back into the house, his arm about her protectively.
“Take it easy,” he was saying. “No one’s going to hurt you. Who was chasing you, anyway?”
“She wants to hurt me,” Angel said breathlessly, her face pressed against his side. “She won’t leave me alone.”
“Who. honey? Just tell me who.”
Angel pointed at Constance standing in the hallway entrance.
When Charlie looked at Constance, his face was set in hard lines. This is how they must have felt, she thought distantly. She meant, the ones he interrogated, the ones he suspected, the ones he intended to stop one way or another, the ones he hated.
Before either could say anything, Amos came running down the stairs.
“Time to go home, Sister Angel. Lessons to do. Sister Wanda is resting now. We’ll come back later.”
There was a glint in his eyes that suggested satisfaction or possibly contempt.
In their room a few minutes later, Charlie outlined what he had found out. “His name is Andrew Donovan, half a dozen pinches but never a conviction. Petty stuff. Con games, most of them. The chicken-drop switch, stuff like that. And for the last few years he’s been with a carnival, a magic act. Long, black hair, full black beard. Played in Bridgeport last summer, but no one would recognize him now.
She shook her head. What was happening here went beyond a con game.
“It all fits,” Charlie said brusquely. “He killed Vernon, split, and came back when things quieted down. Now he’s working his way into the house. What more could you ask for?”
She told him about the picture album. Vernon could have met him at the carnival. “But why did he kill Vernon? Petty con men don’t murder as a rule.”
“So Vernon found out something about him. What difference does it make? Even if he didn’t do it, he’s a con artist. And with the background of a magic show, mind reading and all, the rest of it’s easy. This is exactly what Wanda needs to know.”
“She won’t be convinced.”
“I’ve got what they wanted. We’re finished here. You take the car back home this afternoon. I’ll be along in a few days.”
He was at the window. The rain had stopped, and a feeble sun was lighting the clouds that lingered.
“Charlie, what’s wrong with you? What’s happened to you?”
His expression was so miserable that she wanted to go to him, hold him hard. “I don’t know. I have to be alone for a while. I have to think something through.”
“Vernon became obsessed with someone else all at once,” she said slowly. “I think that was the ghost he wanted to talk about that night. Who is it, Charlie?”
He had averted his face, did not answer.
Like Vernon, she thought. Just like Vernon. “You didn’t get any sleep last night,” she said. “Why don’t you take a short nap now before dinner?”
* * * *
Outside their room she looked up and down the hallway and said under her breath, “You can’t have him! Ghost, ghoul, whatever you are, you can’t have him!”
Gretchen met her in the foyer. “Telephone for Charlie. Is he in your room?”
“He’s sleeping. I’ll take it.” She took it in the living room.
“Constance? Hey, how’re you? It’s Tony.”
“Fine, Tony. What a nice surprise to have you here.” Tony chatted a moment or two before he came to the point.
“It’s about that other set of prints on the glass. She’s Angela Schnabel, a runaway from Philadelphia juvenile court. But hell, she’s going to be eighteen in a few months, and she’s clean. No one’s going to haul her back now.”
“Juvenile court? For what?” Eighteen? It seemed impossible.
“Nothing. Abandoned by her mother. She was a ward of the court in a disturbed children’s home and split.”
She paced the living room for several minutes, then sat down and called Philadelphia information and got two numbers, one of a colleague she had worked with and another of a child psychologist she knew by reputation.
Her friend protested that the information she wanted was not available. Constance hung up, called the child psychologist, and talked to her for a long time. Then she called back her friend.
“Dr. Walker will intercede for you,” she said forcefully. “She has influence at the detention center. Just get over there, Vanessa, will you, for crying out loud?”
Vanessa grumbled, but said she would do it and call back as soon as she had anything to tell.
Constance was still waiting when Gretchen and Charlie joined her; Charlie looked as if he had not slept.
Gretchen sprawled on the couch. “She’s giving us all the old heave-ho, I’m afraid. She’ll be down to tell us officially that we’re invited to leave. I guess last night was the last straw.”
“Amos called her Sister Wanda today. I was afraid he had won.” Constance remembered the glint in his eyes.
“Maybe what I have to tell her will change her mind,” Charlie said.
“I doubt it.” Wanda entered the room. “Brother Amos already told me about his past. He went through a conversion last fall as real as the one that changed the life of Saul of Tarsus.”
“You know about his little mind-reading act with the carnival.?”
She nodded. “Everything. And he really does communicate in ways not available to the rest of us. He said Constance knows that now.” She looked inquiringly at Constance who nodded.
“He knows things he shouldn’t.”
“See? I’ve invited him and Sister Angel to stay here but not until my other guests have departed,” she said without a trace of embarrassment. “They will join us tonight for a short while and move in to keep me company tomorrow. Will that be convenient?”
She sank into one of the overstuffed chairs, picked up her cigarettes, and lit one. “He also said that you, Charlie, should leave here tonight. Whatever it was that haunted Vernon has now transferred its attention to you. You’re in danger.”
“Vernon hasn’t told you anything about that ghost yet?” Charlie’s voice held a trace of mockery.
“Not yet,” Wanda admitted. “But he will eventually. Last night was the first time he has shown displeasure. That was because you’re under false pretenses. You’re the one who wanted to play with the cat, and you’re very threatening to Amos.”
Charlie laughed, “You told him about us?”
“No. I’ve told him nothing.” She stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. “There’s no need to tell him anything. He knows.”
Why didn’t Vanessa call back ? Constance looked again at her watch. “When do you expect Amos and Angel tonight?”
“Around nine-thirty.”
At dinner they all poked at their food without interest. The call for Constance came midway through the meal.
When she returned to the dining room Wanda was regarding Charlie. “That’s exactly how Vernon acted,” she said. “That same kind of absent look, pale, taut-”
Charlie stood up, stalked from the room, with Constance right behind him.
She nearly pushed him into the television room and closed the door. It was almost nine-thirty.
“I can’t leave,” Charlie said grimly. “Angel’s scared to death. She needs help.”
“I know she does. Charlie, go along with me for the next hour. Whatever you start to think, please trust me!”
“If you do anything to hurt her-”
“You know I won’t hurt her.”
He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “What are you up to? Who called?”
“I can’t tell you. You’re too open to her.”
“We shouldn’t have come. We can leave now, forget all this. Maybe that’s what we should do-just get the hell out of here.”
“We can’t. You can’t. It’s too late for that.” She looked at her watch. “It’s time. He’ll be upstairs with Wanda. Angel is going to have dessert with us. Let’s go back now. And Charlie, don’t interfere. Promise!”
He shook his head. “I can’t promise that.”
“All right. But you do trust me, you know. You can’t stop trusting me now.”
* * * *
Almost all day she had been with him, gone briefly now and again, but then back even stronger. Whispering in his ear, sitting on his lap, lying with him, moving with him, caressing him with her warm hands that were touches of electricity. When he paused at the dining-room door, she was seated at the table with cake before her. Her fork halted in midair. She looked directly at him. He saw her across the room and he felt her in his arms, her warm breath on his neck, her laughter in his ear. Her incredible violet eyes, he thought, unable to look away until she lowered her gaze. Then he moved, resumed his seat.
“Good evening, Angel,” Constance said briskly. “It’s time that we all began telling the truth around here, don’t you think? First of all, Charlie is a detective. He used to work for the police in New York, now he’s freelance.”
He started to rise, relaxed again. She didn’t care. In his mind he was holding her-the way he had held her when the-cat moved-hard, tight, with her face pressed against him.
“We were hired,” Constance went on, very businesslike, almost brusque in her speech, “to investigate Amos.”
Charlie closed his eyes, moving in a slow waltz with her. If he looked at Constance he would see an old, rather ugly woman. He kept his eyes closed and felt the lithe body against him.
“You know what I’m telling you is true,” Constance said. “And this is true also. I’m a doctor, a psychologist-”
There was a wave of hatred, loathing, terror. Charlie snapped his eyes open. The emotional wave was gathering momentum, hitting him like surges of power. Gretchen screamed. Charlie tried to yell, tried to call out Constance’s name but could make no sound. Stop it, he tried to whisper Stop it!
Constance had been prepared for something but not this. She was the target; she knew that as she felt nausea and vertigo. She felt as if she were falling from a terrible height, falling faster and faster, and knew that when she hit she would die. She wanted to fling out her hands to catch herself, to stop the fall; if she did that she would be lost. There were words in her head, words she had to say now.
She tried to speak; her throat was paralyzed, her tongue paralyzed. Angel leaned forward, her eyes wide and staring, her face as pale as death. And in her mind Constance cried, No!
“Angela,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “close your eyes. Go to sleep.”
Angel blinked. For a moment Constance was afraid it was not going to work, but the childish face relaxed. Her eyes closed. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
It was over. Charlie’s hand shook when he reached for his water and took a drink. It was all over, he thought. He looked at Constance, who was very pale.
“You were swell,” he said huskily.
She nodded, grateful, but kept her attention on the girl across the table from her. Slowly, softly she said, “Angela, go into your deepest trace. Very relaxed, comfortable, down, down.”
In a few minutes Constance asked, “Angela, does Amos hypnotize you?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t allow him to ever again, Angela. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“When he tries to hypnotize you again, you will remember what I’m telling you now and he won’t be able to control you ever again.” Constance repeated this several times before she was satisfied and then said, “I am not your enemy, Angela. I won’t send you back to the home. You don’t have to hate me. You don’t have to be afraid of me. Do you understand?”
Charlie watched in fascination, but time was running out. He caught Constance’s eye and tapped his watch. She nodded.
“When you wake up, Angela, you will remember what we’ve talked about, all of it. You won’t be afraid or nervous, but very relaxed and peaceful. You’ll know that Charlie is not your father, Angela. You’ll want to stay here with us tonight so we can take care of you. You don’t have to go with Amos.” As before, she repeated each part of her message several times.
At Constance’s command Angel opened her eyes. She blinked rapidly a few times and started to eat her cake.
“Do you remember what happened?” Constance asked.
“Nothing happened.”
Gretchen had not said a word throughout. Now she got up and started for the door. “I want coffee. Maybe I want a drink, too. Charlie? Constance?”
They both nodded and she left.
Charlie looked helplessly from Constance to Angel and back. Had it taken? He couldn’t tell. Constance raised her eyebrow in a let’s-wait-and-see manner, and he dug his fork into his cake.
Angel looked at him and said scornfully, “I knew you were a cop from the beginning. You look like a cop, walk like a cop, smell like a cop.”
Charlie grinned at his cake and started to eat it. “That’s more like it, kid,” he said under his breath. Aloud he asked, “You had that much experience with cops?”
“Yeah.” She looked past him. He turned to see Amos in the doorway.
“Come along, Sister Angel. Time to go study.”
She started to rise from her seat and then sat down again. A puzzled look flickered across her face. She shook her head.
“Sister Angel, it’s late. Time to go home.”
Again she shook her head. “They said I can stay here.”
“We’ll come back tomorrow. You can wait one more day.”
She was pushing crumbs around her plate with her fork, not looking at him. She shook her head.
Now Amos walked around the table and put his hand on her shoulder lightly. “Be a good girl, Sister Angel. You hear me? Get up and come along home.”
Gretchen entered carrying the coffee tray, to which she had added brandy and glasses.
“Hi, Amos. Just in time. Join us?”
He was watching Angel closely, his hand tight on her shoulder now. “Be a good girl, Sister Angel,” he repeated clearly.
She stood up. “Is it okay if I go watch TV awhile?”
“Run along,” Constance said. “We’ll be in here if you want anything.”
Angel nearly ran from the room.
“You can’t keep her,” Amos said harshly.
Charlie shrugged. “She wants to stay.”
Amos looked at him, his eyes narrowed. His face was mean and rigid. “You’ll regret this,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” He marched out, and Charlie followed him through the hallway, watching until he left, the house.
He returned to the dining room, where Gretchen was drinking brandy as if it were going out of style. “What was that all about?” she demanded of Constance.
“I don’t want her to overhear,” Constance said, and Charlie took his glass and stood by the open door to keep watch.
“She’s a runaway,” Constance said then. “She was in a home for disturbed youngsters in Philadelphia up until two and a half years ago. There was a scandal, the director apparently helped her, gave her money, then she vanished, and he resigned. She was classified schizophrenic. Her father abandoned her and her mother when she was three. When she was six, she landed in a hospital with multiple bruises, abrasions, a concussion, and she had been sexually molested. She had no memory of the incident. Mother said it was an attack by an unknown. Case closed. Two years later it was repeated, but this time Mother was implicated by a neighbor in the beating. Mother came under investigation. A series of live-in boyfriends, child abuse. Mother was ordered into therapy. When Angel was twelve her mother had her committed, called her sexually promiscuous and incorrigible. She authorized a series of shock treatments.”
Gretchen looked pale and sick. Charlie’s face was a mask.
“They started her on hypnoanalysis. And they got the story about her father, about her mother’s boyfriends, who she wished were her father, and about her mother’s reaction each time. And they got a dose of what we’ve had from her, the projections she’s capable of. Easier to call her schizophrenic than try to deal with that. Delusions of grandeur, retardation, nymphomania, schizo. She’s had it all pinned on her. Physically she’s like a thirteen-year-old, but God only knows what’s in her head.”
“They gave you the key words to induce trance?” Charlie asked after the silence had persisted many minutes.
“Yes. First she had to know that I was a doctor. That was the cue they left with her, that she would respond to a doctor using those words.” She glanced at Gretchen and added, “It’s a posthypnotic suggestion to return to trance instantly on cue. Obviously Amos planted one also, but he’s an amateur. He didn’t know enough to protect his power over her.”
“He isn’t even her father,” Gretchen said in disbelief.
And they were in the area last summer, Constance thought, when Vernon became obsessed with a mysterious woman and was killed. She looked at Charlie; he shook his head slightly.
“I’m going to keep her company,” Gretchen said then. “She may be lonesome tonight, and afraid. Poor little kid.”
Charlie nodded. “I wanted to check the security system.”
It wasn’t over, he thought. Not with Amos out there in a rage, not with that strange girl in the house. Constance went upstairs to get her notebook. As she passed the masks on the stairway wall she scolded them. “You knew all the time,” she muttered severely. “Damn enigmatic Indians.”
When she returned to the living room Charlie was closing the drapes.
“You think he’ll try to get in tonight?”
“Not if he’s got half the brains he should have, but I’m spending the night right here on the couch.”
And she would keep him company, she thought, eyeing the chairs, the other couch. The upstairs bedrooms were very far away.
“I saw a chess set earlier,” she said. “Want a game?”
After Gretchen and Angel went upstairs, Charlie made another inspection of the house. From the dark television room he looked out at the yard. It was raining and the wind was blowing fitfully. It would be good to be home, he found himself thinking, and longed to be there in front of the fireplace, the silly cats trying to filch anything edible, Constance in her chair, reading or writing away.
Amos would not be able to give her up, Charlie thought later, studying the game where he was going to be mated in another move or two.
“Vernon must have seemed a real threat,” Constance said, finishing his thought as she so often did.
“Yeah. But why does Angel keep on looking if she’s found someone?”
“The three-year-old in her is still looking, remember? When the father becomes lover, the three-year-old knows something is wrong, and the search is on.”
“And it’ll never end for her.”
“I don’t know. I want her, Charlie. I want to work with her, find out what she’s capable of, help her learn to control it.”
Charlie thought of the images of Constance that Angel had put in his head-old, ugly, fearsome even. He doubted that Angel would let Constance near her. Yet, they couldn’t just turn her loose. And they couldn’t send her back to the institution. She isn’t our problem, he wanted to say, but obviously Constance thought she was.
“I resign,” he said then. “Want to break the tie?”
“Sure.” She started to set up the pieces again, then stopped, when Wanda appeared in the doorway.
“Why are both of you still up?”
“How did you get down here? I didn’t hear you.” Charlie asked.
“The back stairs. It’s after two.”
“Is anything wrong?” Constance asked sharply. Wanda had on a long robe that looked warm, but she was shivering and very pale.
“Please, both of you, please go on to bed. This is terrible. I have to be alone sometime! There’s always someone-” She fled into the darkened hall.
Constance followed her to the kitchen. “What happened?”
Wanda put a tea kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. “I want a cup of tea.”
Constance looked at her helplessly. “Were you dreaming? Is that it?”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Listen to me, Wanda. Angel isn’t his daughter, and she’s the one with telepathic powers. He never knows anything until he gets it out of her. She’s given him information, not Vernon. And it’s information right out of your head, our heads, not from beyond the grave.”
Wearily Wanda said, “I called Amos and turned off the security system so he can get in. There are things moving in the house, unquiet things. I have to see him alone. You and Charlie have to go upstairs. Mind your own business. If Vernon tries to tell me something, Charlie just gets in the way.” She moved toward the hall.
In defeat Constance walked with her. They could not order her not to see Amos; They were nearing the end of the hall, the bright living room open before them, when she stopped abruptly. Her fingers dug into Wanda’s arm, pulling her back; her other hand covered Wanda’s mouth. Amos, standing in the living room, was holding a small gun and looking at Charlie.
“Just don’t forget it’s here,” Amos was saying, putting the gun in his raincoat pocket, keeping his hand on it. “When she comes out with her tea, then we’ll talk.”
Wanda pulled hard against Constance, and she tightened her grasp, forcing her back farther into the shadows.
“You don’t think people might talk if you come in and shoot up the company?” Charlie asked pleasantly. His voice was so mild, so easy, he might have been asking about ball-game scores.
“You’re a fire bug. Angel told me. Me and Wanda and Angel are leaving, and we’re going to let you play with fire.” He turned so that he could see the hallway to the kitchen.
“Just sit still until your wife joins us with her tea.”
“Were you afraid Vernon was going to take her away from you?”
Amos moved out of range. Constance let go of Wanda and ran to the living room.
He was standing close to Charlie, speaking in a low, intense voice. “… her fault. She can’t help it. He was going to investigate her, take her away.”
“And you killed him. He just wanted to do something decent for the kid.”
“Decent! You know what she does! She told me about you, how she wanted you. I know what that means.”
“What does it mean?” Wanda asked, holding onto the door frame. “What exactly is it she does?”
For a moment Amos looked too stunned to speak. He recovered quickly. “She’s sick. I’ve known it for a long time, but I thought I could cure her. I thought my love would be enough to make her well. She needs medical treatment, a hospital, help-”
Suddenly Constance felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. She doubled over in pain, unable to breathe, and at the same time a red hatred poured through her, wrenching her, numbing her. Things were flying through the air, the masks were flying. She tried to dodge, but something caught her on the side of the head, and she fell, dazed.
Charlie threw his arm up in front of his face to ward off the masks. One caught on his elbow, and he felt his entire arm go numb. Hatred and fury blinded him. He grunted and fell when something smashed into his midsection.
The chessboard flew from the table, scattering pieces, and hit Amos in the back. He was yelling hoarsely. “Angel! For God’s sake, stop it! Sister Angel, be a good girl. Stop!” He was cut off by a scream; Charlie could not tell whose it was. Wanda crumbled to the floor.
Constance pulled herself to her knees. Angel was on the top step, barefooted, dressed in a man’s pajama shirt that reached down to her mid-thighs. She was crying as a child cries: openmouthed, her eyes tightly closed, screaming.
She had to make the child hear her, had to say the right words to make her hear. Her words were drowned in screams. An end table flew across the room and hit Amos in the leg. She said the words again and could not even hear them. The entire room was alive, moving, crashing. She’ll kill us all, Constance thought distantly.
“I’m coming!” Charlie whispered. “Hold on, baby, I’m coming!” He tried to move but tripped over the chess table. He felt it jerk out from under his body, saw it fly across the room and crash into the wall. He pulled himself on the carpet, clutching it, trying to drag himself to her. I’m coming, he whispered. Honey, don’t scream! Stop screaming! I won’t let him send you back, Angel! I swear it!
Amos was dragging one leg, holding on to the back of a chair, unable to stand upright, yelling to her, calling her name over and over. The chair tilted, and he crashed to the floor. The gun was shaken from his pocket. Angel kept screaming.
Amos flung up his hand to ward off something; he rolled and doubled up in pain, and his hand closed on the gun. He was moaning. “Stop it, Angel! My God, Angel-” He convulsed with pain again, and then he lifted the gun and fired.
“Angel!” he screamed. He dragged himself to the steps, and she fell down on top of him. Her eyes were opened, she stared unblinking at the ceiling, her long white hair swung when he lifted her. “Angel!” he cried out again and pressed her body to him, cradled her like an infant, rocking back and forth, crying out her name over and over.
Constance buried her face in her hands and shook with weeping.
She felt Charlie’s arms around her and leaned against him blindly.
His eyes were closed tight, his face pressed against her neck. He stirred first, and lifted his head.
“I’ll be damned! Constance, look!”
Nothing in the room was disturbed, nothing broken. Constance raised her head, reached up to feel her temple, expecting a lump, a cut, blood. There was nothing. Amos rocked back and forth sobbing, holding Angel in his arms.
* * * *
The police had come and gone, and now the sky was lightening.
Charlie and Constance stood before the wide expanse of glass and looked at the lake unbroken by a ripple; He told the police that Amos had come for his daughter and had shot her when she appeared on the top step. Constance and Wanda had repeated the story.
“That poor kid,” one of the policemen had said over and over. Poor kid, Constance echoed in her mind. She never had a chance. She remembered the toy cat, how it had thrown Angel into a panic, equating herself with it- soulless, will-less, an automaton, taking orders, never free. And with powers that never would be studied, never understood, never used for something other than deception and destruction. Powers that finally killed her after making her life hellish. “She never had a chance,” she whispered.
Charlie tightened his grip on her hand. And Amos, he never had a chance either, he thought. He would have had to kill father figures for an awfully long time.
“I wish we were home,” he murmured, yearning for their comfortable living room, the three raunchy cats, the quiet fire, the silent snow accumulating outside.
She leaned against him and sighed.
They went downstairs then, and when they got to their room they shared one of the twin beds, just to hold each other, just to be close.