The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (10 page)

“Not until dark. He’s out on his bike with those stupid Mohawks somewhere. I’m supposed to be at Mary’s.”

“Child, go away before I sentence you to a dust mop.”

She was gone with a laugh, and Liz felt a slight burning in her eyes, her love for them both sometimes uncontrollably overwhelming.

“And he is not fat!” she yelled, looked into the hallway, and realized Heather was gone.
Christ,
she thought,
I hope Clark didn’t hear me.

Heather was right, she noted with a sinking feeling; Clark’s stomach did poke through his shirt. It must be his suits, artfully tailored to cover the defects and accentuate what he obviously believed were his strong points: the mass of brown hair so carefully brushed back from a widow’s peak to give him a vaguely satanic look, the large brown eyes, the patrician nose, the square-block jaw that seemed always outthrust. He was deeply tanned, and his white shirt and slacks ably and deliberately served to heighten the effect.

The trouble was, his stomach forced the lower buttons of his shirt to separate, and made visible a swatch of skin that had her wondering how many sunlamps he owned.

As they turned right into Deerford, he grinned and jerked his head toward Sitter McMahon. “What is he, local color?”

“He likes the fresh air, I guess,” she said, almost defensively. She would have turned to wave, but she was afraid to move. White inside and out, the Mercedes made her feel as if she were covered with mud, that a single move might splatter the dashboard, or Clark’s shirt.

“So this is Deerford. I’ve heard of it, you know.”

“I’m surprised you’ve never been here, living all this time in the county.”

“No need,” he said. “I’m too busy elsewhere.”

“Oh.” And when he reached for and found her hand, she tensed and held her breath; then she told herself to relax. He had not given her any indication he was going to pop it; if the night was miserable it was only because she’d done it to herself.

“Hey, that restaurant, the Pear Tree?”

“Shade Tree.”

“Yes, right. Some of the guys have taken their wives there on weekends. Sounds like a nice place.”

“It is, very.”

He looked at her, his left hand draped lazily at the wrist over the steering wheel. “Liz, forgive me, but you don’t sound right. Is something wrong?”

The concern in his voice made her give him her best smile and make some excuse about worrying about the children.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay. I promise to have you back before you turn into a pumpkin.” He smiled. “And I’m really glad to see you, Liz. It’s been two weeks. I’ve missed you.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“You know,” he said admiringly as they reached the first homes and he saw the care with which the buildings were kept, “it sure does look nice.”

“It’s perfect.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. A little too isolated for my taste, I think.”

She would have said something then, but had to direct him into the Depot’s parking lot, to an open place near the front door. He turned off the engine and stretched his right arm along the back of the seat, his fingers kneading the back of her neck.

“Liz, look,” he said solemnly, “there’s something I have to tell you before we go in there tonight.”

Oh great, she thought, here it comes.

“I’m here under semi-false circumstances.”

She looked at him sideways, puzzled but still wary. “Oh?”

“Yes. You know . . . well, you know how I feel about you, I think.” He paused. “Right?”

She had no choice; she nodded, and gave him a tiny smile.

“And you know that I have never once since we’ve been seeing each other mixed business with pleasure. I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

She covered his hand with hers and said, “You haven’t, Clark, believe me. I—”

He shook his head and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. “This is dumb.”

“What?”

“I said, this is dumb.”

“Well, it is if you don’t tell me.”

“Yes, true.” He considered a moment, then cleared his throat. “I had a call today, a man who said he worked for a client who wanted my services. Something to do with an estate somewhere out here.”

“Oh, sure, Winterrest,” she said immediately. “It’s the only place like that within twenty miles. And the man was Eban Parrish?”

“Right! How did you know?”

“What did you tell him?” she asked.

“I told him he had a perfectly good lawyer right out here.”

She watched him carefully, touched by the mild distress on his face. “Thank you,” she said finally, quietly.

“Yeah, but he didn’t want a woman lawyer. He said he didn’t trust them.”

Her eyes narrowed, and her hands balled into fists. “Why that two-bit country sonofabitch.”

“My sentiments exactly,” he said. “I wanted to tell you, in case this guy walked in and said something.”

“I appreciate that,” she said gratefully, though her anger still simmered.

“My pleasure.” He grinned and leaned toward her awkwardly, and she accepted the kiss with half-closed eyes, thinking that perhaps he wouldn’t propose at all, that tonight they would have fun and maybe screw around a little.

When they separated, he kept a hand lightly on her shoulder, searching her face, examining her, breathing as though inhaling her very essence. Then, with a rueful sigh, he shook his head.

“Liz, there’s more.”

“What more?” she said, touching his cheek.

“The man, this Parrish guy, he wanted to know if I would be interested in assisting him in selling this estate.”

She froze, blinked once, and frowned. “You’re mistaken.”

“Nope. That’s exactly what he said.”

A burning started in her cheeks. “The bastard,” she said flatly. “The little bastard.”

Clark held a tenuous smile. “Is that bad, selling this Winterrest?”

“Clark, I could take or leave that ugly heap of stone, believe me, but it’s practically an historical landmark, not only for the area but for the county, maybe even the state. Jesus, Parrish better head for the hills when this gets out.”

“He didn’t seem to care.”

“He didn’t huh? And he doesn’t want a woman lawyer, huh? Well, that overaged land shark is in for a surprise or two. C’mon, Clark,” she said, opening her door. “Let’s have a drink. I believe that’s a custom before you start a war.”

As she straightened and waited for him to hurry around to help her, two men rushed from the tavern and walked quickly toward the far side of the lot. She paid them little attention, only took Clark’s arm and started for the entrance.

A woman’s voice shouted then, and they stopped.

“Oops,” Clark said. “A little excitement, I fear.”

They were at the steps when the door slammed open and two men barreled out, one of them backwards, the other lunging forward with a knife in his hand. Clark grabbed Liz’s waist and started to pull her away, but the man with the knife was too intent on his charge.

He lunged with a grunted curse, but he missed the top step and stumble sideways, off balance.

In a moment slowed by shock, Liz could do little but watch as the blade swung out, flaring gold in the light from the Depot window. She saw the lines of it clearly, and threw up a desperate hand, heard Clark cry a warning, heard her own breath pass her lips in a scream more a hissing.

She and the man collided, and she fell, vision blurred, her side burning where her hand gripped it against the pain.

And the last thing she saw was the deep red of fresh blood flowing over her fingers.

6

“It must have been the dope,” said Bud, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks and slacks. He pointed at the ashtray on the nightstand and nodded once. “It must have been laced with something, y’know? I’ve heard about people doing things like that. They get their kicks out of watching people go bananas.”

Olivia lay behind him, lightly scratching his back, a drowsy smile on her lips while she stared at his shoulders.

“It’s really sick, y’know, doing stuff like that. I mean, it’s really damned sick.” He grunted when she slipped a finger below his waistband, into the split of his buttocks, and he slapped her hand away, lightly. “Sick. We must’ve had a flash, or flashback, whatever it’s called.”

“That’s with LSD,” she said dreamily.

“Yeah, well . . .” He stood, sucked in his stomach and hitched up his pants. Then he looked down at her. The sheet was drawn to her neck, but her unbraided hair lay in a fog over her chest. “I love you,” he said.

“Good. Then tell me what happened.”

He sat again and held her hand. It was cold, just as cold as his in spite of the day’s heat and the heat of their lovemaking. “I don’t know. But it must’ve been the grass, Ollie. It had to be. Maybe we’re doing too much, do you think? Maybe we oughta cut down a little.”

Her cheek floated to his arm. “No, that’s not it. It sounds good, but that’s not it.”

The telephone rang.

“Don’t answer it,” she pleaded when he reached for the receiver. “Let’s pretend we’re in Monte Carlo, we’ve broken the bank, and now we’re gonna ball the rest of the night. C’mon, Bud, leave it. Leave it, okay?”

“Jesus, Ollie,” he said, wondering what the hell had gotten into her. First her lousy mood, then her lousy lovemaking, and now this. He shrugged off her hand, picked up the phone and listened, slammed it down thirty seconds later and lunged for the shirt he’d thrown on the floor. “That was Gil Clay.”

She punched the mattress. “Damn! There are times, Charles—and this is definitely one of them—when I wish to hell you’d never joined that little club of yours.”

“It isn’t a little club!” he shouted as he raced from the room and flung himself down the stairwell.

And it wasn’t. It was the local Emergency Squad, and he felt he owed it to the community to do something besides providing a tourist or two for the restaurant and bar. Anyway, it made him feel good that he was helping people—he had willingly taken all the courses, from lifesaving to first aid, studied every book on practical medicine he could find, and spent hours at the hospital emergency room watching doctors and paramedics treat patients for shock, for bleeding, for cardiac arrest.

And the first and only time he delivered a baby while the ambulance ran for the hospital, he had cried in awe most of the night.

At the bottom step he paused to tuck in his shirt, and looked at the Retirement Room, completely bewildered. Obviously, it had been a hallucination, and just as obviously it had been triggered by what they had been smoking, no matter what Ollie said. It just had to be. There was no smoke, no damage, and by the time he had stumbled back into the room to see for himself, his clothes were clean, there was no soot on his hands or face, and his lungs didn’t feel as if he’d been dragged down a clogged chimney.

Astonishing, he thought as he ran for the front door, what the human mind can do when it’s doped up, or horny.

He took the steps to the walk at a leap, veered left, and sprinted over the intervening lawns toward the Depot. There were already people spilling out of the doorway, a few more gathered around someone lying on the ground. As he vaulted the low hedge that bordered the blacktop, the red-and-white ambulance van screamed from its place behind the tavern and stopped just beside him as he pushed through the crowd and looked down.

“Oh god,” he whispered, and dropped to his knees.

It was Liz Egan, and blood was rapidly staining her filmy blouse. He could hear a scuffling somewhere ahead of him, between two cars, some shouting, some curses, but he tuned it all out as Clay dropped the black bag beside him and rustled up two men to help him fetch the stretcher.

The blood froze him for a moment, bile rose burning into his throat, but a hard swallow and an oath rid his system of the shock. He worked as gently as he could, cutting away the shards of fabric clinging to the wound, staunching the bleeding with packs of gauze and white tape. Liz was still unconscious, and her skin was clammy and sweating. Pleased that his hands moved without conscious direction, he was smoothing out the last bit of tape when a hand reached suddenly down over his shoulder, brushed over the wound, lingered, and vanished. Perplexed and annoyed, he glanced up and saw Eban Parrish shouldering his way back through the crowd.

Jeez, he thought; I didn’t know he cared.

Gil, still in his bartender’s apron, came up with the wheeled stretcher and, the four of them working perfectly and without a sound, soon had Liz up and in the back. Clay instantly raced around to the driver’s seat; Bud had one foot up and in when an overweight man tapped his shoulder.

“Please,” he said, and pointed to the unconscious woman. “Please. I was with her.”

Bud shrugged. It didn’t make any difference to him if the guy wanted to tag along, as long as he kept out of the way and didn’t ask stupid questions. When he nodded, the man him gave a tremulous smile and climbed in. Bud slammed the doors shut and the van backed out of the lot, hitting the road with lights flashing and the siren wailing high and low.

“How is she?” the man asked.

Bud said nothing. This was the first time he had seen anything this bad, and he wished to hell the town’s doctor wasn’t on his damned vacation. But he knew what to do. First the blanket, then the temperature, then the safeguard IV to be sure she had fluids.

From behind the wheel, Gil looked around and caught his gaze.

“A bitch, ain’t it.”

Bud nodded, and did not sit back until he was sure he had covered everything he could. The rest was up to Gil’s driving and the depth of the wound.

“How’d it happen?” he asked.

“Some asshole stabbed her,” the overweight man said. “He came out of that . . . that
bar
after some other guy, and he just stabbed her.”

“Casey,” Gil explained when Bud looked to him, puzzled.

“You’re kidding.”

“He’s been nuts all week. He’s been under the wagon this time, telling everyone he’s seen lights in Winterrest.”

“No shit.”

“He was drunk, like I said.”

The van swerved onto the highway and headed south toward the hospital, ten miles distant. There was no sound in the back but Liz’s labored breathing, and the overweight man cracking his knuckles.