Goat Mother and Others: The Collected Mythos Fiction of Pierre Comtois (63 page)

Bowditch realized that he had been screaming only after Zarnak had slapped his face, jolting him to full wakefulness. Abruptly, insanely, he seemed to find himself back in Pondwaithe’s cottage. Outside the window dawn had begun to break and, from somewhere in the distance, there was the lonesome call of a mourning dove.

“Calm down, Sam,” Zarnak was saying. “It was only a dream…a nightmare.”

“A…dream?” Had it all been a dream? Dearly, Bowditch hoped it was and gradually, as he became more grounded in the normalcy of his surroundings, a great relief came over him and sighing, he flopped back down on the cot. “Anton, I’ve never had nightmares before…”

“Just relax a moment,” soothed Zarnak. “Get a proper hold on yourself before trying to remember what it was that you dreamed.”

“I don’t know if I
want
to remember it.”

“Tell me about it, but only if you want to,” said Zarnak sitting on the edge of the cot.

“It involved Pondwaithe,” began Bowditch slowly. “He was…in the woods someplace…”

Gradually, in fits and starts, Bowditch managed to describe the dream to Zarnak, including most painfully, the final denouement that had sent him spinning into wakefulness.

“I can’t remember ever having a dream like that,” said Bowditch, still exhausted from his ordeal.

“No doubt it was your sub-conscious trying to work through the facts of Pondwaithe’s disappearance,” said Zarnak with comforting certainty.

“But what triggered it? I’ve never had a nightmare before…not even very memorable dreams…”

Zarnak looked about the small room and noted the picture of Pondwaithe on the dresser.

“Often impressions we receive just before retiring are the last our subconscious retains before the brain settles into sleep,” explained Zarnak. “In this room, the last images your mind would have retained would no doubt have been this picture of Pondwaithe or the items of his clothing hanging on the pegs there…clothing can be a very powerful talisman of the person who has worn them. And, of course, you had just spent all of yesterday dealing with many aspects of the professor’s life and work.”

“Yes, I guess I can see how things like that would predispose my subconscious to dwell on Pondwaithe in some way,” agreed Bowditch. “But…never would I have guessed in such a powerful and realistic manner!”

“That said, I find it interesting that the setting of your dream seems to have been the mound mentioned by the Wampanoag shaman Misquamacus,” mused Zarnak.

“That hadn’t occurred to me,” said Bowditch. “But if there is such a place, I hope nothing of what I dreamed ever took place there!”

“Hmmm,” said Zarnak noncommittally. “Well, for now, why don’t you pull yourself together and come out to the kitchen. I’ve found some instant pancake mix and coffee in the cupboards and was about to call you for breakfast when you…woke up.”

“Lord knows, I can use a cup of coffee!” said Bowditch swinging his legs to the floor.

Some minutes later, he was just finishing up his pancakes when he took up his mug of coffee and stepped outside to the rear of the cottage. There, he joined Zarnak who stood looking out across the pond. A morning fog had lifted and the sun was just shredding through its last wisps as Zarnak inclined his chin to something across the water.

“We couldn’t see it last night but there appears to be some buildings across the way,” Zarnak said.

Looking, Bowditch did see some structures.

“They look like cabins.”

“Yes. Of the sort that are rented to vacationers. I think they might bear some investigation.”

“You think so? They look deserted to me.”

“You’ll recall what Chief DiFriggio said; that the police had found a number of unidentifiable fingerprints in the cottage. Fingerprints that definitely did not belong to Pondwaithe.”

“Yes, and that was when you asked him about foreigners.”

“Exactly. He said that there had been no reports of any in the Dean’s Corners neighborhood. But I wonder, was Dunwich included?”

“He didn’t seem to have much love for the town,” said Bowditch. “But tell me, why are you so interested in foreigners?”

“At first it was merely a line of questioning that I thought needed to be pursued if only in the course of a thorough investigation,” Zarnak said. “But after reading the professor’s email last night, I can’t help feeling that the interest shown in the mask by his Japanese correspondent was too keen. It’s just possible that Pondwaithe may have unknowingly contributed to the theft of the mask and in the process, his own kidnap.”

“You suspect some Japanese fanatic to be involved?” It was a turn of thought that had never occurred to Bowditch. He had simply bought into the simplest explanation, that his colleague had absconded with his discovery.

“Such a situation is not unheard of,” said Zarnak matter-of-factly. “And if such a thing had happened, staying at someplace like those cabins, within sight of this cottage, would be a very convenient location for a group of plotters.”

“Anton,” said Bowditch very slowly. “You don’t suppose that the fingerprints found in the cottage could belong to a group that may have kidnapped the professor do you?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“And what about my dream,” continued Bowditch. “Do you think there was more to it than symbology being worked out by my subconscious?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know…God! I hope not!”

“Sam, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my career, it’s not to turn my back on possible leads no matter how uncomfortable the facts to which they point may be,” said Zarnak. “If it appears that the events in your dream might be more substantial than one would expect in normal circumstances, then we should follow them up to the best of our ability.”

Bowditch nodded in agreement, still hoping that his dreams would turn out to be only the insubstantial musings of a restless mind. Suddenly feeling the need to steel himself, he looked over to the buildings across the pond.

“Want to drive over then?” asked Bowditch of his companion.

“Yes,” replied Zarnak heading for the car.

A few minutes later, after driving back along the private driveway leading out to the main road, Bowditch was relieved to feel pavement again under the car’s tires. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. No sooner had they passed a sign marking the town line dividing Dean’s Corners and Dunwich than the pavement ended and they were once more making their way along a dirt road.

“I knew there were differences between Dunwich and adjoining communities, but didn’t think they’d be so abrupt,” said Bowditch between gritted teeth.

“I’m sure there are paved roads in town,” said Zarnak. “We are in a pretty remote area after all.”

With the cabins located directly across the pond from the cottage, the two men had expected another road to open on the right in fairly short order and as predicted, one did appear. In a cloud of dust, Bowditch made the turn and the car was immediately plunged into the shadowy maze of drooping vines and tangled undergrowth.

“Sure doesn’t look like the place would be open for business,” he said.

Zarnak said nothing.

Presently, the path through the woods opened up into a clearing and, breathing a sigh of relief, Bowditch drew the car up a graveled drive to a modest tract home that sat on some high ground overlooking the pond. Out front a weathered sign read:
Wampanoag Vista
,
Private Cabins for Rent
. Beyond the house and chain of cabins that meandered down-slope toward what used to be the shore, the dirt road continued on into the forest. Where it ultimately led, Bowditch had no idea and for the moment, could care less.

Slamming the car door, Bowditch came around to join Zarnak beneath the shade of a spreading willow.

“Not much to look at, is it?” observed Bowditch, noting the dozen or so cabins in desperate need of whitewashing, the weed-choked boat launches, and the rusty Coke machine at the side of the house. Surprisingly, a car was parked outside one of the cabins indicating that some business was still being conducted at the otherwise deserted looking place.

“At least they’re open for business,” noted Zarnak looking at a “vacancy” sign leaning against the inside of a window pane.

Shrugging, Bowditch followed Zarnak up the crumbling cinder block steps to the front door, where the psychologist rapped sharply against the frame of an aluminum storm door. For several seconds there was silence, then the dull sounds of footsteps approaching from somewhere deep in the house.

Bowditch was not sure what he expected, but the man who finally opened the door did not seem too out of the ordinary to him. Clad in a pair chinos and matching shirt, the man seemed to be freshly shaven and even smelled of deodorant.

“Hello,” he said through the screen of the storm door. “What can I do for you folks?”

“Good morning, sir,” began Zarnak. “I am Dr. Anton Zarnak and this is Prof. Samuel Bowditch. We’re investigating the disappearance of Prof. George Pondwaithe, late of Miskatonic University and the owner of the cottage directly across the pond from you.”

The man nodded as though familiar with the cottage.

“Read something about the case in the newspapers,” he said.

“Then you probably know that he was thought to have had some visitors shortly before he was last seen,” continued Zarnak. “If so, we figured that there was a good chance that they stayed somewhere nearby and your cabins are the most convenient.”

“Makes sense,” said the man, still from behind the screen.

“It would certainly make things easier for us, Mr…?”

“Oh! My name’s ‘Lijah, ‘Lijah Cummin’s.”

“Well, Mr. Cummings, it struck us that if you kept a register of your guests, we might be able to recognize from their names or any other identification if any of them had a relationship with Prof. Pondwaithe.”

“Sounds like a long shot to me but you’re welcome to have a look,” said Cummings pushing open the storm door in way of invitation.

Together, the two men stepped into what had once been intended by the builder of the house to have been the living room, but which long ago was converted into an office. Looking around, Bowditch saw a door behind the counter that led into a small sitting room. An old fashioned TV set sat in one corner complete with “rabbit ears”, and a floor lamp sent a cone of light onto a well-worn recliner. Another doorway opened onto a kitchen.

“Here’s the register,” said Cummings, stepping around the counter that divided the office roughly in half.

Zarnak reached for the big ledger which, by the appearance of its well-worn cloth covering, had been in service for many years. Careful not to disturb displays holding out-of-date brochures of attractions to be found in the area, he turned the book around and thumbed the pages until he came to the final entries.

Following Zarnak’s finger as it traced its way upward on the page past a few later entries, Bowditch saw it stop at a name that was clearly Japanese in origin. In the column reserved for the signer’s address, a city or town in Japan was written in. Glancing at the columns reserved for arrival and departure, Bowditch confirmed that the dates the person had registered with Cummings matched the time that Pondwaithe was supposed to have vanished.

“I think we’ve found something,” muttered Bowditch.

“Indeed we have,” agreed Zarnak looking up at Cummings. “Can you tell anything about this guest…Mr. Iki Taneka?”

Cummings frowned in thought. “No. There was nothing unusual about him. He said he was touring the country on vacation, him and a bunch of other fellers from Japan. But that’s not unusual, we used to get a lot of groups from Japan a few years ago.”

“So he wasn’t traveling alone?”

“No. These Japanese tourists, they like to travel in groups ya know…and this feller had a few friends with him. Come to think of it, there was something about them that I thought weird at the time: even though there were half-a-dozen of ‘em, they insisted on sharing only one cabin. It must’ve been pretty crowded for ‘em, but who knows about these foreigners?”

“It says here that they stayed only a few days?”

“Right. Didn’t see much of ‘em while they was here. They were real quiet. No trouble at all. Didn’t even bother me about rentin’ boats or what to see around here.”

“Did they express any interest at all about Prof. Pondwaithe?”

“None. Otherwise, I would’ve told the police about it.”

“I see by the register that you had a couple other guests staying here at the same time as the Japanese,” noted Zarnak. “Did they have anything to say about them?”

Looking at the register, Cummings said “Oh, yeah. That was Eb Newcomb and Bobby Darden. They rent on weekends sometimes during huntin’ season. Now that I think of it, Eb did say that some singin’ or chantin’ comin’ from the cabin with the Japanese was gonna spook the game, but the Japanese warn’t here long enough for it to become a nuisance.”

“Do you mind if we take a look inside the cabin that they rented?” asked Zarnak. “That is, if isn’t currently taken?”

“No problem,” said Cummings taking a key ring from a peg board by the counter. “C’mon.”

Moments later, they were out in the warm autumn sunshine again, as Cummings led the way down a path toward the pond. All around, trees were at the height of their seasonal colors and leaves were already gathering quickly on the ground. Over in the pond, stands of cat-tails were bursting into seed and marsh grasses browned in the sun. A cool breeze made Bowditch glad that he had decided to put on his jacket before leaving the cottage.