Mystery Stories Page 6
She came fully awake much later, with hard hands shaking her and a face close to hers.
“Rob,” she croaked, but it wasn’t Rob; the face was that of a man she had never seen before—brown and weather-wrinkled, with parallel scarlike lines framing his thin-lipped mouth.
“This one’s all right,” he said. His voice sounded angry. “What about the other one?”
If there was an answer, Mary didn’t hear it. Feeling dizzy and slightly sick to her stomach, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the man was gone. She raised herself on one elbow and looked around.
She was lying in the long, wet grass in front of the house. Her clothes were soaked, and she was shivering in a sharp breeze—a dawn breeze. The sky was streaked with light beyond the chimneys of the house. The house was burning.
There was a horrifying beauty about the way it burned. Long veils of fire rose like creatures trying to break free of earth. Rosy flame spouted from the empty windows and wreathed crimson blossoms around the chimneys. Then the roof fell in with a giant gush of flame and sparks, and her dazed senses came fully to life.
“Angie.” She gasped and staggered to her feet.
Before she had time to panic, she saw her sister, flat on the grass a few feet away. A man was bending over her. As Mary stumbled toward them, the man looked up. He was not the man she had seen before; he was older. A stubble of white beard frosted his jaws, and when he spoke, she saw that his teeth were brown, with gaps in their rows.
“Friend o’ yours?”
“My sister.”
“She’ll do,” the old man said cheerfully. “Swallowed some smoke, but I reckon she’ll be all right.”
Then Mary remembered.
“Rob. Rob! Where—”
She spun around. The old man straightened, one hand clutching the small of his back.
“Was there somebody else with you, girl?”
“Yes. Rob. Didn’t you find him? Oh, please …”
The old man’s silence was answer enough.
Mary ran toward the incandescent bed of coals that had once been a house. The daylight had strengthened; against the dawn, the blackened chimney stood up like a gaunt sentinel. She heard the old man shout but did not stop running till someone grabbed her. She had forgotten the other man. When she tried to struggle, he slapped her hard. The older man came up, panting.
“Don’t hit her, Frank.”
“Too bad her folks didn’t tan her hide a long time ago,” Frank said angrily. “Damned spoiled brats. Wouldn’t a been no fire if they hadn’t set it. Lucky they didn’t kill themselves.”
“Frank, she says there was another youngster with them. A boy.”
The hands that held Mary did not relax their grip, but when Frank spoke again, his voice had lost its hard edge.
“Didn’t find anybody else. If he was in there …”
The three stared silently at the fiery grave of the house. Then the old man said gently, “Maybe he got out, child. Maybe he drug you out. Frank saw the smoke when he went to feed the stock, but we didn’t get here till the place was blazing. Found you gals outside on the grass. Reckon your friend ran and hid when he saw us. Sure, that’s what must of happened.”
The words should have consoled Mary, because they made sense. She knew she hadn’t dragged Angie out of the house; she couldn’t even remember walking out herself. Strangely, she felt no emotion, neither horror nor loss of hope. She looked at the old man through the lank locks of hair that hung over her face, and his eyes shifted away.
“Better take ’em home, Frank. You wanna go fetch the car?”
“Why can’t they walk?” Frank demanded.
“Other one’s still snoring,” the old man said with a faint grin. “You kin carry her if you want; she’s too fat for me to hoist.”
“All right,” Frank said grudgingly. “Damned spoiled runaway brats, burning down a house. …”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” the old man said. The eyes of the two men met in a long, meaningful glance. Then Frank shrugged and set off across the lawn. When Mary looked in that direction, she saw chimneys beyond the trees. They had been close to shelter and human help. … Not that they would have sought it out.
The old man bent stiffly over Angie’s recumbent form.
“She’s all right,” he said. “Sleeping it off.”
“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “About the house. It was raining so hard, I never thought it could catch fire.”
“Don’t suppose you thought at all,” the old man said sarcastically. “Inside of the place was bone-dry and rotten.”
“Why did you say that—about it being just as well the house was burned?”
The old man shrugged and looked away.
“Been falling for years. No good to anybody.”
“Why wasn’t it any good to anybody? Why did the people who owned it let it fall apart? Who lived there? What—what happened to them?”
“Full of questions, ain’t you?” The old man grinned, but the glance he gave her from under his shaggy white brows was oblique and sly. Suddenly, though she could not have explained why, she had to know the answers to the questions she had asked.
“Why?” she demanded, her voice loud and shrill. “What was wrong with the house?”
The old man licked his lips. He glanced over his shoulder at the blackened ruins.
“Folks said it was haunted,” he mumbled. “I seen lights there myself. Mighta been tramps, but …”
“Haunted,” Mary repeated. She shivered. The early-morning air was cold, and she was wet to the bone.
As if the word had been a plug in his mind that held back speech, the old man became garrulous. After all, it was a good story and she was a fresh audience.
“There was a murder there one time. Years ago, it was. The widow moved away afterward, took the other kids with her. Place changed hands a couple of times; but nobody could live in that house for long. State took it over for taxes finally. Couldn’t even rent it, people knew the story—”
He broke off, eyeing her uneasily. Mary had stopped listening. Now she repeated the phrase that had twisted into her mind like a knife.
“Other kids,” she said in a strangled voice. “She took the other… Who was it who was killed?”
“The father,” the old man said reluctantly. “Stepfather, he was, really. Say, you look kind of peaked. Maybe I better not—”
“Who killed him?”
“Here’s Frank with the car,” the old man said, looking relieved. “Come on.”
The car had stopped by the tumbledown fence. Frank got out, holding a blanket.
“Mother says bring ’em right to the house,” he said, looking at Angie. “Think you can take her feet, Granddad, if I—”
“Who was it?” Mary begged. “Who killed him?”
Frank gave the old man a disapproving look.
“You been telling her that story? Shame on you, Granddad. That’s what’s wrong with kids today, they hear too many stories about killing and stuff.” He turned on Mary. “Just you forget all that. You oughta be thinking about this gal here—and your folks, bet they’re worried sick about you. Get in the car.”
Angie was coming out of her stupor, but she was always a good sleeper. Once in the car, she snuggled into the blanket, muttered something, and closed her eyes.
The two men stood staring at the remains of the house.
“So it’s gone,” the old man said. “Yep. Just as well. They say fire’s a cleaning thing. If ever a place needed cleaning, that one did. And if ever a man deserved killing …”
“You never even knew him,” Frank said.
“I heard Pop talk about him. Drunken brute he was, used to beat that poor woman to a pulp, and the kids … Nowadays they’d say the boy wasn’t in his right mind. Not responsible.”
“That’s the trouble with nowadays. Nobody’s ever responsible.”
“Maybe so. But when you keep beating on a kid, stands to reason his brain isn’t gon
na be right. And seeing his ma knocked around… Pop said it was a cruel thing, the way she turned on the boy. Wouldn’t see him or say anything in his defense; even at the trial. And the way he died … Suicide, it was supposed to be, but the guard at the county jail was one of the Weavers, and the Weavers has always had a mean streaky. …”
Frank shook himself like a dog coming out of the water.
“What’re we standing around talking for?” he demanded grumpily. “It’s over and done with, years ago, and I’m late with the chores, thanks to these fool girls. Get in the car, Granddad.”
The old man obeyed, giving Mary a strange sidelong look. She had a feeling that he had remembered the name of the boy who had died in prison so many years before. He wouldn’t say anything, though. He knew, as she did, how the reasonable, everyday world would react to such a story.
A story decades old, older than Granddad himself. How many years had it been since a certain man returned from a war—not Vietnam, she should have realized the dates were wrong. Maybe the horrors of that war had turned him into a drunkard and a sadist. She would never know. All she knew was that Rob had been a victim, not a killer. Just once, after years of abuse and misery, he had struck back. He hadn’t meant to kill, only to defend himself and the others. She knew that as certainly as if she had been present when it happened.
As the car started forward, Mary pressed her face against the window for a last look. The sun was up and the damp grass glowed like a field of emeralds. From the dying embers trails of pale smoke rose and broke in the breeze.
When the ashes were cold, weeds and wildflowers would rise to cover the ruins. Animals would burrow and raise their young. But Rob would not come again. He had gone back, as she was going, but to a much more distant place. In her mind a voice said softly, “Maybe later. You and I …”
About the Author
Elizabeth Peters (1927–2013) was one of the pseudonyms of American writer Barbara Louise Mertz, whose New York Times–bestselling Amelia Peabody mysteries are often set against historical backdrops. In 1952, Peters earned a PhD in Egyptology at the University of Chicago. She was named grand master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986 and by the Mystery Writers of America in 1998. In 2003, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Malice Domestic Convention.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by the Estate of Elizabeth Peters
“Liz Peters, PI” first published in Christmas Stalkings, edited by Charlotte MacLeod, 1991; “The Locked Tomb Mystery” first published in Sisters in Crime, edited by Marilyn Wallace, 1989; “The Runaway” (as Barbara Michaels) first published in Sisters in Crime, edited by Marilyn Wallace, 1989.
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5550-5
Published in 2018 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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ELIZABETH PETERS
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