Terrible Tide (10 page)

“Rain could have loosened the soil.”

“We haven’t had rain for upward of two weeks. Now, that’s peculiar. Watch out, don’t step in it.”

Holly moved her foot away from the black puddle. “It’s just another glob of oil. We’ve been seeing dribbles for the past twenty feet or more.”

“Right, we’ve seen dribbles and now a big glob. What do you make of that?”

“Somebody’s car needs fixing. Oh, I see what you mean. To have dropped so much oil in one spot, the car must have sat here awhile. Maybe it was because the rocks were falling and the driver didn’t want to get hit.”

“Then why did he park right under the fall? See how the rocks are lying right in and around the stain? Here’s one with a clean underside and oil all over the top.”

“Sam, that is odd. It looks as if the rock got dripped on while the car was sitting here. Almost as if the driver might have got out and climbed the cliff himself, and made the rocks fall down.”

“This is a strange place to pick,” Sam objected. “Also, I don’t see why he didn’t take the trouble to kick the rocks out of the way before he drove on, rather than risk a skid driving over them.”

“Maybe he didn’t know they were there. Maybe he couldn’t see them because it was dark.”

“Come on, Holly! Who’d be fool enough to drive down here at night and try a climb like that?”

Holly caught her breath. Fan and Roger are such fools. She’d said that herself only minutes ago. And Fan’s decrepit truck did leak oil terribly. And a rock slide could easily be started by lowering a heavy piece of furniture over the cliff to a truck waiting below. And she hoped to goodness Sam Neill wasn’t thinking what she was thinking.

A
FTER THAT, HOLLY HARDLY
said a word. Sam must have thought she was exhausted. He took her arm again and, without forcing the pace, kept moving her steadily along. This ledge could become a death trap for anybody who failed to realize the incredible speed and height of Fundy’s incoming tide.

So this was why Annie didn’t hear those eerie footsteps every night. The thieves couldn’t operate unless the tide was right. Even so, what an appalling risk to take! What if the truck stalled, as Fan’s had done two mornings ago in front of the library? Holly must have turned white because Sam clamped an arm around her waist and lifted her bodily up the last steep pitch to the road.

“You stay here and rest. I’ll bring the wagon around.”

“I’m all right,” Holly insisted. “I’m just sorry I have to be such a slowpoke. You go on ahead if you’re anxious about getting Bert home.”

“Don’t fret yourself about that old coot He’s either still asleep or bending Annie’s ear about what a superman he was fifty years ago. I’m in no hurry, if you’re sure you feel up to walking the rest of the way. I suppose it feels good to be out in the air after being cooped up in that place all day.”

“You don’t know the half of it. It’s so gloomy I get these wild urges to sling a few buckets of yellow paint around. Wouldn’t Earl Stoodley have a fit?”

He chuckled. “You seem to have Stoodley on the brain.”

“That’s because I have him underfoot so much. He was here all morning, pestering Geoffrey Cawne.”

“Oh, the great professor showed up, did he? I trust he got lots of lovely pictures for his profound and erudite book.”

Sam’s imitation of Geoffrey was too funny not to laugh at, but Holly was annoyed with herself for doing it. “I hope so. We worked hard enough.”

“Who’s we?”

“I told you Geoffrey’d asked me to help. I know a lot more about photography than he does.”

“That I can believe.”

“You don’t like him much, do you?”

“I hardly know the guy.” Sam took a few more steps, then asked, “How long did he stay?”

“Who?” Holly teased. “Earl or the professor?”

“Both of them.”

“Till about one o’clock, then they went to eat. Annie wouldn’t feed them.”

“Good for Annie. I wouldn’t, either.”

“Sweet kid, aren’t you? Anyway, Geoffrey came back an hour or so later, but your friend Stoodley didn’t. He’d found out photography isn’t all fun and games, I expect.”

Neill stopped in his tracks and stared. “Are you telling me Earl Stoodley let this guy Cawne roam around Cliff House all afternoon without a bodyguard?”

“I think I was supposed to be the bodyguard.”

“Oh yeah? What was he taking pictures of?”

“Various objects of historical interest,” she replied primly.

“Such as what? Annie in her bathing suit?”

“That remark was neither amusing nor in good taste.”

“Then what are you grinning for? Come on, tell me.”

“I’m surprised you bother to ask,” Holly stalled, wondering what would be safe to mention. The wig stand would do. Roger hadn’t made one of those, as far as she could recollect.

“The last was a wig stand brought over from England back before the Revolution. We had to dig it out from behind a pile of old hat trimmings and horsefeed bills dated around 1906. Earl claims he’s inventoried every single item in Cliff House, but I honestly don’t see how anybody ever could.”

Sam grunted. “Earl talks a good fight. He probably listed the big pieces and lumped the rest under miscellaneous.”

“That would be some miscellaneous! The Parletts were always packrats, I gather, and Annie says after old Jonathan died, his wife insisted on saving every last thing that belonged to him. Poor Mrs. Parlett. I wonder if she has any inkling of what’s happening. It’s so rude of that man, coming up here and pawing through her things while she’s lying there helpless. Wouldn’t you hate it yourself?”

“I doubt if I’d have much to paw through. I’m a chucker, not a saver. Anyway, I understand Mrs. Parlett’s beyond caring now.”

“Maybe yes and maybe no. Mrs. Parlett hasn’t been seen by a doctor in years. I’ve been prodding Annie to get him out here, but she won’t without Claudine’s permission, and Claudine just moans, ‘What’s the use? He couldn’t do anything.’ I wish you’d remind her there’s been a lot of research done in geriatrics recently.”

“What makes you think Claudine gives a hoot?”

“But of course she does. I can tell. She cares terribly.”

“Why should she? Mrs. Parlett never gave her the time of day.”

“Is that what Claudine tells you?”

“Claudine doesn’t tell me anything. It’s none of my business. What’s eating you, anyway?”

“I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. Here’s Mrs. Parlett lying helpless, and there’s Claudine tearing herself to pieces about it but refusing to call the doctor and refusing to come herself. And here’s me smack in the middle, and the more I see of this situation, the less I like it.”

“I think you’re exaggerating Claudine’s concern.”

“Sam, I’m not. Bert can bear me out. Look, here he comes now. I’ll bet he’s looking for us.”

He was. “Where the hell have you two been?” he was roaring. “Annie’s havin’ kitten fits for fear you’ve eloped an’ stuck ’er with the supper dishes.”

Holly flushed, but Sam laughed.

“We’ve been watching Ellis Parlett set a lobster trap,” he told his uncle.

“Ayuh? What’s he catchin’ this time?”

The question was plainly rhetorical. Bert hustled his nephew into the station wagon without waiting for an answer.

“‘Night, Holly,” Sam called out as he started the motor. “I’ve got to get this old sculpin home to the television before the dancing girls come on. Hope I didn’t wear you out.”

“Not a bit,” she called back. “I’m anxious to see what Ellis hauls up. Hi, Annie, I’m coming.”

She waved the men off, then went in to do the dishes. By the time she’d hung up the tea towels, it was pitch black outside. Holly would have been glad to go to bed, but Annie was all set for another cozy chat.

At least with Annie, a person didn’t have to talk back. Holly sat letting the stream of chatter flow over her, nodding her head now and then, not even trying to keep track of what Annie was saying. She had other things to think about. If only the old housekeeper would talk herself out and go to bed! Then Holly could get on with her last chore of the day, the one she most passionately didn’t want to perform. At last she’d had all she could take.

“Annie, is there a flashlight I can use?”

“What?” Jerked out of the long-ago, Annie had to pull her thoughts together. “Why yes, dearie. I keep one beside my bed, and there’s another in the culch drawer.”

“What’s a culch drawer?”

Annie couldn’t believe Holly had never heard the word before. “It’s where you put the culch, of course. Stuff you don’t want to throw out but can’t think what else to do with.”

“You mean you have a special drawer for junk? In this house?” That was the best laugh Holly’d had since she came to Jugtown.

A bit huffily, Annie went to the drawer and fished out the flashlight. “There you are, dearie. I should have thought to give you this sooner. You never know when the power may go off, and I’m not one for oil lamps or candles. If this house ever once got started, it would go up like a bonfire and us with it. I don’t know but what I’m more scared of fire than I am of—”

She buttoned her lips and unfastened her apron strings. “Mustn’t go wishing trouble on yourself, that’s what my mother always said. Well, dearie, let’s get to bed. The professor will be here tomorrow to take more pictures, I expect. Isn’t he the sweetest man? So famous and distinguished and all, but he acts as natural as us common folks.”

Annie patted Holly’s hand apologetically. “I don’t mean you’re common, dearie. Bert says you’ve even had your picture in the Sears Roebuck catalog. But here you are washing dishes for a living just like me. Not that I ever did it for the pay and not that Aunt Maude ever gave me any, except maybe a little something for Christmas or my birthday, but what did I ever need money for? I had a good roof over my head and three square meals a day and no place to spend it if I’d had it. Count your blessings is what I always tell myself. Would you like a cup of tea before we turn in?”

“No, thanks.”

As soon as she’d said no, Holly wished she hadn’t. She should have agreed to the tea and contrived somehow to slip a couple of aspirin into Annie’s cup, to make the old woman sleep more soundly. Now she’d just have to listen for snores and take her chances.

She waited an eternity before Annie quit puttering back and forth to Mrs. Parlett’s room, to the bathroom, to Mrs. Parlett’s again, back to the bathroom because she’d heard a faucet dripping, back a third time because Annie was, after all, an old woman. Listening in her own room, Holly dropped into a doze and didn’t wake until long after midnight.

By now Annie ought to be safely bedded down if she was ever going to be. Holly put on her fleece-lined slippers, took the flashlight, and slipped out of her room.

Even in a heavy robe she felt cold as she crept downstairs and through the welter of obstacles in the front hall. She almost fell over the little galleried table. When she realized what it was, she picked it up and carried it with her into the back parlor, where she’d left the Bible box that afternoon.

It took courage to shut herself into that stuffy, overcrowded room. What if there should be such things as ghosts, after all? How would the family specters feel about having a stranger barge in on their nighttime prowls? Holly shoved her thumb down hard on the flashlight button.

Turning on the light made this expedition seem theatrical and silly. She’d been getting herself worked up over nothing. She opened the lid of the Bible box. No, she hadn’t.

The ducklike stain showed a slight reddish-brown cast. Four tiny holes arranged in a perfect rectangle marked where Roger had attached his nameplate to hide the stain. Her brother always made a big deal of screwing on those four-inch strips of engraved brass, as though they were some kind of monument to Roger Howe’s genius instead of bits of nonsense anybody could remove in about two minutes.

Maybe he had only one nameplate. Maybe he kept screwing it on each finished piece for the benefit of whoever happened to be watching and taking it off again when nobody was around. Charming thought. Holly tilted up the galleried table and peered underneath. By raking the flashlight beam at a sharp angle she could see them: four miniature dents, visible only because she’d known what to look for; but definitely, sickeningly, damningly there.

I
N SUDDEN PANIC, HOLLY
snapped off the flashlight. Why hadn’t she drawn the blinds? Out on this lonely spit of land, anybody might come prowling.

“I’ve got to get back upstairs.”

She was talking aloud. The horrible part was that her words evoked a strange, rustling echo as though her mind were answering back. Blundering through the clutter, she groped for the door and grasped the knob like a lifeline. It turned, but the door wouldn’t open.

“I’ve locked myself in.”

For a second she was more annoyed than scared. She’d done silly things like this back in New York. All she had to do was switch on the overhead light and find something to force the catch with. Then she remembered. Old-fashioned locks didn’t snap shut by themselves. They worked by keys, and keys needed hands to turn them. And there was no key on her side of the door.

“Take it easy, Holly. You’re safe enough. Nothing’s going to get at you. Don’t scream for Annie. Either she’s locked in, too, or else she might come downstairs and get hurt. Stay cool and keep your mouth shut. Quit rattling the knob. Quit shoving at the panels. Go over to the sofa and sit down.”

Holly tried to listen to her own good advice. If this was what had been happening to Annie, she was in no danger. Sooner or later the door would be unlocked and she could get out. That didn’t make it any easier to be penned up like this, not knowing who or what was her jailer.

Why not open a window and jump out? Into what? Even though she knew this was a risky thing to do, Holly crept toward the nearest oblong of darkened glass.

It was black as pitch outside. The clouds that had started rolling in while she and Sam Neill were down on the ledge now blotted out every star. There was just one lone dot of phosphorescence out in the bay.

That dot was a puzzler. It moved gently up and down, but never drifted from its position. It couldn’t be a boat’s riding light; it didn’t shine but simply glowed, like the luminous dial on a clock. Holly was grateful for the dot, it helped take her mind off being trapped. What on earth could it be?