Authors: Thomas Cater
We drove the rest of the way back to town in
comparative silence. George asked to be dropped off at the hotel. He had to
prepare for a six o’clock service. I bailed out at the corner.
“The bones!” Virgil shouted. “What about the bones?”
“I’ll pick them up later,” I replied.
Drivers behind him were growing impatient. It didn’t
seem fair to call it a traffic jam. I waved, but he ignored the gesture and
sped through the intersection.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I felt tired, hungry and disappointed with my failed
attempts to resolve the deepening dilemma at the Ryder house. I was in over my
head and my patience was wearing thin. I felt this way on previous occasions in
Southeast Asia when I was hours away from finding a hostel and the sun was
going down much too rapidly.
I had to know what happened to the occupants of the
Ryder house seventy odd years ago. Unless I came up with some inspired insight,
I was not about to accomplish anything but a magnificent waste of time. Things
were escalating beyond my ken of understanding. With any degree of certainty,
fouling up was the only thing left to do.
Why were the Ryders burying strange mammals in their
back yard? Why were gnomes living in a hospital basement? Moreover, why did an
indestructible wall, built by the same man who may have built Adolph Hitler’s
bunker in Berlin, surround a coal baron’s house? I wanted to know before the
whole thing drove me to the edge, back to Washington and into the clutches of
Myra, my rhyming mantis.
I spent the rest of the day in the van trying to
create order out of disordered facts.
Elinore was a lone figure who lived alone most of her
adult life and died in relative obscurity. The others came out of a dark past
and died or disappeared before anyone could make note of their activities. Sometime
between 1920s and 1930s, Elinore lost touch with reality and had a nervous
breakdown. How long mental illness afflicted her would be anyone’s guess. She
may have had some kind of operation in or around the 20s and 30s. There were still
questions that needed to be answered, but answers were as rare as they were
elusive.
It was a foregone conclusion that Dr. Ezekiel Grier,
the same man who was currently sharing cemetery space with Elinore and other
members of the Ryder family, and one highly suspect skeleton, may have lobotomized
her. According to the badly worn dates on Grier’s stone, he was born in 1870s
and died in
the late 30s
. That would have made him about
60
years old at
the time of Elinore’s hospitalization. He would have died well within the
lifetime of Samuel Ryder. Since he was head of psychiatry and surgery, or
‘skull-duggery.’ it was conceivable that Samuel may have hired him. There
should be records on file somewhere in that mausoleum of a hospital to show
where he came from and where he received his education. I underlined my notes.
What about the strange disease that kept the Alberichs
from growing old, or perhaps slowed the aging process down. Were there similar cases
compiled in other medical journals? What about that damned indestructible wall?
Was that a fact? Could it actually be indestructible? I’d taken a nine-pound
hammer to it and didn’t damage it a bit. Did I hold back? No, I gave it
everything I had, and that wall did not give an inch. If it is possible to
create an indestructible wall simply by adding the blood and bones of a dead
man to mortar, why are building contractors not doing it everywhere?
It would seem that some of the stonework is not identical,
though I cannot figure how one cut stone could make much different from another.
If that is the case, then there must be some way to subvert or abort the
process, some way to destroy the indestructible.
Hitler’s Berlin bunker, they claim, was razed from
the earth. In fact, a few years ago, it was re-discovered intact. I dare not consider
the skeletal hands and teeth gnawing and tearing human flesh imprisoned by a hungry
wall.
The problems were beginning to overwhelm me. I had not
touched on the strange incidents occurring inside the house, the effectiveness
of a ‘murdered-man suit’ or the theory of delinquent spirits.
Something is haunting the main house. All my instincts
believe it is Elinore as a young woman, not the elderly woman who died or the
lobotomized victim. She is the Elinore left behind before madness took her mind
and the good doctor cut it loose from her senses. The question is why is she
still hanging around? What does she want? “Please Hurry!” The note implores.
“He’s coming!” It is a silent cry echoing through the corridor of time. How is a
dead ‘impaired’ child supposed to know what is occurring?
“Elinore,” I said aloud, “if you are here, I know you
will provide me with the answers.” I felt a chill, up and down my back and arms,
and across my shoulders.
The great Houdini spent his life debunking the tricks
of mediums. More than likely, they were all impostors. But then again, it is not
what unbelievers believe that gives purpose to spirits, but what believers
believe. Conversations with the dead are not so rare; it is getting them to
reply, which is difficult.
Then there is George Thacker. He talks to spirits all
the time. True, it was just one, the Great Spirit, but it is conversation. Then
there is that more subtle communication with the spirit that dwell within, the
putting on of animistic, archetypal masks and getting in touch with the unconscious,
where all spirits hold unspoken and easy congress. The problem is could George
be convinced into conversing with Elinore, and in her house! He nearly fell
into a hysterical fit when he saw Virgil assume the identity of a coal miner.
Could he convince his followers to sit around a table with a group of mentally
impaired men and women and try to get a rise out of Elinore? I don’t think so,
but George was determined to wrest the county from the grip of Satan, and if
that isn’t conviction, what is?
*
I went in search of George’s room at the Phoenix
Hotel, a small residential inn operated by two sagging octogenarians, incredibly
clean and orderly.
The hotel’s woodwork glistened from repeated buffing.
The carpet, though worn nearly threadbare, was lint free and assiduously maintained.
It was a residential hotel the elderly and infirm occupied, until time or fate
took away their keys.
Mrs. Abacas was polishing a brass antique cash
register behind the desk. Mr. Abacas was sitting in front of the color TV in
the lobby. His hands and chin rested on an ebony cane propped beneath his jaw.
The skin on their faces had regained that delicate softness found on new babies
and well-fed senior citizens. Despite their age, it did not appear to interfere
in any way with the efficient management of their establishment.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mr. Thacker’s room number, please?”
Mrs. Abacas leaned across the desk, a dreamy smile
floated from her colorless lips.
“You must be Mr. Chase.”
“Case, Ma’am, Charles Case.”
“George has told us so much about you, Mr. Chase.
Welcome to the Phoenix Hotel.”
I thanked her effusively for the warm reception.
“I thought this was the Abacas Hotel?”
“We are the Abacas’, and we have always owned the
Phoenix Hotel,” her failing eyes were drifting to keep me in focus.
“There is no sign, inside or out, anywhere in site,” I
said.
“It blew away sixty years ago,” she said, “never to
return.”
“That explains it,” I said. “Do you know if Mr.
Thacker is in his room?”
“Why, yes, of course. What time is it? It’s almost time
for benediction, isn’t it. Are you here for the service, too? Clarence, do you
know, it’s almost time? Look who’s going to join us this evening, George’s
friend, Mr. Chase.”
Clarence nodded his head, but he could not take his
eyes off the TV, a re-run of Hogan’s Heroes held him enthralled.
“That damned Kaiser!” I heard him shout. “None of this
would have happened if not for the Habsburg family and their bloody lips, or
was it a dewlap?”
Wrong war, I thought. Mrs. Abacas smiled sweetly.
“Don’t mind him. He is getting a little senile, but
even that has its advantages. Sometimes his memories are so clear it is like
opening a photo album. He can tell you everything that happened … seventy years
ago and in perfect detail, but he can’t remember anything that happened
yesterday.”
I too had a few moments I was forced to endure, but
would have preferred to forget. Why is it that when they occur, they are so
hard to ignore? Embarrassing moments are always concentrated for greater
humiliation.
It was a strange matter to be reflecting upon,
especially now. I wondered if the mind continued to reflect even after the body
died. Could it be possible that the quantity we called mind had an afterlife, a
longer, stronger life, and it remembered the best and the worst. If the worst were
terrible, perhaps it would not allow itself to rest until someone taught it to
forgive. Could it be possible that I was dealing with Elinore’s or, God forbid,
Samuel’s memories of guilt? It would be a calamity for men if unpleasant
memories became harmful to anyone but the source remembering them.
Mrs. Abacas waddled out from behind the desk, stopped
to rest after a few waddles and then proceeded toward the TV. She changed
channels three times by accident before she finally turned off the set.
“Jesus Christ, woman, you turned it off right in the
middle of a Pepsi commercial!”
“It’s time, Clarence,” she said. “Time we all went to
Mr. Thacker’s room. He is going to tell us some more about his work with Mr.
Chase and all the wicked things going on in this town. I do love it so when he
goes on and on about all the wickedness,”
“I know what’s going on in this town,” Clarence said.
“For Christ’s sake, I made this town! I know everything there is to know about
this God forsaken place!”
Bingo! Ask and ye shall receive. ‘God forsaken?’ That
may have been putting it a little strongly, but I wondered if he meant it the
way he said it. I thought it was time I tried to give the old girl a hand with
the county’s self-proclaimed mentor.
“I beg your pardon, but did I hear you say you know
all there is to know about this town?”
He turned around far enough to face me.
“Eh? Did you say something?” He asked, while fine-tuning
a hearing aid.
“Did you say you know all there is to know about this
town?”
He stared at his wife as if he were seeing her for the
first time, and then back at me.
“Have we met?” He asked her.
“This is Mr. Chase, Clarence; I’ve been trying to tell
you.”
He gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Clarence.”
“Case, sir,” I said. “I’m glad to meet you.”
In the process of excavating himself from the chair,
he appeared to forget about me.
“Yes, I know all there is to know about this town, up
to a certain point.”
“Which point is that, sir?” I asked.
“Up to the point I can’t remember anymore,” he said.
“What point you interested in?” He asked and narrowed his eyes, squinting
suspiciously.
“I’m interested in the Ryder family,” I said. “Elinore
and her father, and anything you might know about them and care to divulge.”
“The Ryders?” he asked with a curious expression on
his face, as if he had never heard the name before. “Those freaks, why would
you want to know about them?”
“You said it, sir; because they were unusual.” I said
in a way that sounded as if it were more a question than a statement. I did not
know if they were any more conflicted than my own family.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said. “Things don’t
happen the way you want them to when you’re my age. You have to give nature
time to take its course, and when it happens, you have to be ready for it. What
did you say your name was?”
“Case, sir, Charles Case.”
“You’re not from around here?” he said, guessing, but
trying to make it sound like a statement of fact.
“No sir,” I replied.
“I know all the families around here and there aren’t
any Cases, where you from?”
“Oh, too many other places.” I confided. “So many I
can’t remember. Originally, sir, I think I came from Ohio, along the river, but
I’ve been living in Washington most of my life, when I’m not traveling.”
“Washington,” he repeated. I nodded. “D.C.?” I nodded
again. He shook his head sadly. “I knew Senator Byrd before he learned to play
the fiddle. I put him in office, him and Randolph, Roosevelt and Hoover, and
Coolidge. Byrd should have stuck with the fiddle.”
“What about Samuel Ryder?” I asked.
“Ryder? What did he run for?”
“He ran for governor in …” I didn’t know, so I thought
I’d take a guess. “In the 20s or 30s, or thereabouts,” I threw in for good measure.