With an Extreme Burning (28 page)

That was what it sounded like. Her pronunciation was indistinct, as if the words were sticky in her mouth. He leaned closer. “I don't understand, honey. Say it again.”

“Tell Cecca.”

“I'll tell her. Pellagrin day. What does it mean?”

“God, my mouth is die … dry. Water?”

“On the table. I'll pour some for you.”

“Big glass. Thirsty. Don't know why … so damn thirsty.”

She seemed to like having company, despite the fact that she wasn't tracking very well. The hospital sounds and smells and the cloying scent of her get-well flowers had begun to dredge up memories of his mother's lingering death, but he would have forced himself to stay with her a while longer if Helen Garstein and Beth Birnam hadn't walked in. He tried then to make a quick exit, but they followed him out into the hall and pestered him to explain about Louise Kanvitz. It was just as well; give them what they wanted and maybe they would leave Cecca and him alone. He repeated the story he'd told Jerry earlier, fended off questions, and finally made his escape. He couldn't tell whether or not they were satisfied. He didn't care either way.

Pellagrin day, he thought as he rode the elevator down to the main floor. Didn't make any sense. A pellagrin was a person who was afflicted with pellagra, a protein-deficiency disease that attacked the central nervous system. He didn't know anybody who suffered from pellagra. Another word instead … pelican? Pelican day. That didn't make sense either. How about Pelagian? he thought wryly. A Pelagian was one of the heretical followers of the British monk Pelagius, who denied the doctrine of original sin and held that man has perfect freedom to do right or wrong.

Babble phrase, he decided. Meaningless non sequitur. What could “pellagrin day” possibly have to do with Katy's “accident”?

*     *     *

On the way back from Santa Rosa Cecca detoured by Los Alegres Valley Hospital. And for the second time today she was refused visiting privileges. Bad timing: Eileen had had several callers and Dr. Mulford had decided not to allow any more. She'd been given a sedative.

Uptown Cecca stopped at Hallam's Bookshop to see if Amy was all right. Amy was fine. Uncommunicative but fine.

As she drove to Shady Court, she agonized again over the wisdom of letting Amy stay with her folks. Suppose the tormentor went after her there, did something to all three of them, blew up the house as he'd blown up the Harrells' cabin? The thought was chilling, and no more unlikely than anything else that had happened. But Amy wasn't safe in her own home, and there was nowhere out of town to send her—or Ma and Pop—that was safe either. No safe place for any of them.

The house was as she'd left it that morning. She called Better Lands to check her voice-mail. Nothing from the Hagopians yet; it was too early. Two messages from Elliot Messner, wanting an appointment “to take another squint” at the Andersen farm—that was all. She played back the first four messages on her own machine, none of which she cared to return. The fifth message was from the tormentor. As soon as she heard his voice saying her name, she shut off the machine and then rewound the tape.

In her bedroom she packed a small overnight case. Then she locked the house and got back into the car and went the only place she had left to go—the only place, really, she wanted to be. Up to the Ridge. To Dix's house. To Dix.

He sat up in bed, listening.

The dark in the room was heavy, clotted. Cecca was asleep beside him; he could hear the steady rhythm of her breathing. He glanced at the bedside clock. The red digital numerals read 3:04.

The last foggy remnants of sleep dissipated; he was fully alert now. He didn't know what it was that had brought him up out of a deep sleep. A sound? A psychic awareness of danger? Whatever it was, it had accelerated his pulse rate, put a clutch of tension across his shoulder blades.

A wallboard cracked somewhere; otherwise the house was still. Something outside? He swung his legs out of bed, stood up. An early-morning chill had penetrated the bedroom and he was conscious of it on his naked body; he'd meant to put on pajamas after he and Cecca made love, but a warm lassitude had kept him burrowed under the covers and eventually carried him off to sleep. Shivering a little, he peered through the window in the front wall. The sky was black, coated with a high overcast that blocked out moonshine and starlight. There was a wind, thin, gusty, rustling and flexing the branches of the heritage oak. Through the branches he had a view of streetlights and night-lights winking on the flat part of town below. Beneath the angle of the roof, the near corner of the garage was visible; its back door was shut, as was the gate nearby that led to the front yard.

Dix moved to the windows overlooking the side garden. Compressed shadows and vague shapes, all of them motionless except for the stir of the wind. The hillside with its tall, dry grass, rising beyond the boundary fence, seemed to harbor the same empty shadows. False alarm, he thought. He couldn't remember dreaming, but maybe he had been; maybe the feeling of menace had come out of a gathering nightmare—

Movement on the far side of the garage, where a low cement retaining wall separated it from the hillside.

A faint carrying sound—brittle, as of something breaking.

There was a clenching sensation in his groin; he leaned closer to the glass. The movement wasn't repeated and he couldn't penetrate the darkness. An animal? The Ridge was crawling with raccoons, possums, skunks, deer. No reason for a man to be prowling over there. Nothing on that side of the garage except bags of rotting leaves he'd intended to use as mulch in the vegetable garden, some discarded pieces of lumber, a stack of dried-out prunings from the oak tree that he'd meant to haul to the dump—

Sudden flare of light, down low to the ground.

And behind it, for just an instant, the silhouette of a man crouched or kneeling.

Almost immediately there was another flare, and this time it didn't wink out. It wavered, steadied—and began to blossom.

Oh Jesus!

He'd been frozen; now he whirled to the nightstand, bumped the drawer open, dragged out the little Beretta he'd brought in from the car on Wednesday night. The sounds he made woke Cecca. She sat up as he fumbled feet into slippers.

“Dix, what's the matter?”

“The son of a bitch is outside setting a fire.”

“
Fire
? The house—?”

“Garage.” He ran around the foot of the bed, yanked his robe off the door hook. “Quick, get down to the yard … garden hose beside the door. I'm going after him.”

Dix rushed downstairs in the dark, pulling the robe around him with one hand. Unlocked the side door and ran outside. The wind had caught the fire in the prunings and decaying leaves, was fanning it out low along the garage wall. If it got into the tinder-dry grass on the hillside …

He pounded up the cutout steps to the flagstone terrace built around the oak's massive truck. The fireglow lit up a small portion of the hill behind the garage: empty as far as he could tell. He pushed through a nest of ferns, climbed over the grapestake fence onto the slope, and ran parallel to the fence until he could see the front section of his property. The asphalt parking area, the driveway, were empty; so was the lower sweep of Rosemont Lane. He swung his head to peer up the hillside. Nothing moved up there except the wind-ruffled grass.

Which way? He stood shivering, aware but uncaring that his robe hung open and the breeze blew frigid against his bare skin. The rage in him was murderous, the gun cold and clammy in his fingers. Which way, goddammit?

He went ahead a few more yards. Trampled grass appeared on his left, an irregular trail of it leading at an angle uphill past the darkened bulk of the Bradford house, his nearest neighbors a hundred and fifty yards to the north. He started to run upward along the swath. Too late, too late—he knew that even before he heard the car engine throb into life in the distance. The tormentor had driven his car to the top of the dead-end street that ran up the west side of the hill, parked it just below the crest. From there it had been an easy walk over and down this side.

In frustration Dix slapped the flat surface of the Beretta against his leg. Part of him wanted to keep going, all the way to the top, even though the sound of the car was already diminishing. Reason and the crackle and smoke smell of the fire kept him from doing it. He turned back toward the garage.

The wind was blowing down from the west, pressing the fire in against the garage wall. Flames licked along the base of the wall, but they hadn't taken hold on it. Like the walls of the house, it was made of heavy cedar sheets treated with a fire-retardant chemical. The roof, too, was fire-resistant—a lightweight composition material that resembled shakes. There was enough time to get the blaze under control before it did serious damage to the garage. The only real danger, particularly if the wind shifted, lay in sparks jumping the retaining wall and setting off the dry grass.

Dix ran on a long slant down to the fence. The yard lights and the kitchen lights were on, he realized then. And Cecca was out in the yard, wearing one of his old robes, dragging the garden hose toward the garage. She'd already turned the water on; as soon as she reached the building she lifted the spray nozzle, squeezed out a jet that made a thin hissing noise when it struck the burning debris. He climbed back over the fence, remembered the gun, and pocketed it before he reached her side.

“Don't aim at the fire,” he told her. “The grass above the retaining wall—soak that first. There's another hose out front for me.”

She nodded and he rushed away from her, around the garage to the far front corner. The second hose lay coiled near the stairs to the vegetable garden. He turned the bib on, took the hose atop the retaining wall. Cecca, he saw, was soaking the grass as he'd instructed her. He directed his stream of water onto the prunings and lumber and bags of leaves, most of which had been deliberately clumped together to form a pyre. The fire was still contained there; it hadn't had enough time or fuel to burn hot. Between them, working with the two hoses, they kept it contained and had it out in less than three minutes.

He was amazed to find, then, that none of the neighbors had been aroused. The Bradfords' house was still dark and nobody had come up from below. It had been a frantic few minutes, but his own heightened senses to the contrary, it had all happened without sufficient noise to raise an alarm. The fire had burned in a place where it couldn't be seen except by someone close by and uphill. And the Bradfords' bedroom faced another direction.

He listened for sirens. No sirens. Then he threw the hose down, went back to shut off the bib, scuffed around among the sodden debris to make sure there were no hot spots, and finally joined Cecca.

“Damn lucky the bastard's not an accomplished arsonist,” he said. “Did you call the fire department?”

“I thought about it, but it seemed more urgent to try to keep the fire from spreading.”

“Glad you didn't. I'm not sure my nerves could stand any more upheaval tonight.”

“Shouldn't we report it? To St. John, at least?”

“In the morning.”

“You didn't get a look at him up there, did you?”

“No, dammit. Not even a glimpse. He had his car parked on High Street, on the back side of the hill.”

She hugged herself. “It's freezing out here. Let's go inside.”

He left his wet and blackened slippers on the mat, padded into the hall to turn on the heat. Upstairs, he donned a pair of slipper socks and a warmer robe. When he came back down, Cecca was making coffee in the kitchen.

“Dix … where did you get the gun?”

The question caught him off guard. “Gun?”

“I saw it in your hand when you climbed over the fence. Where did you get it?”

“I bought it.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why do you think?”

“I hate firearms,” she said. “You know how much I hate firearms.”

“I'm not crazy about them either. But this is different. Like it or or not, we have to have some way to protect ourselves.”

“Is that the only reason you bought the gun, for protection?”

“Of course. What kind of question is that?”

“If you'd caught him on the hill, what would you have done? Would you have shot him?”

“Not unless he attacked me. I'd have brought him back here and held him for St. John.”

“Are you sure you wouldn't have just shot him down in cold blood, after all he's done to us? Absolutely sure?”

“Absolutely sure,” he said.

But he wasn't. He wasn't sure at all.

TWENTY-ONE

The buildings that made up the Andersen farm—sixty-year-old one-story house, barn, chicken coop, pumphouse—looked fine from a distance. And from certain angles closer in, too, as in Owen's photographs. The setting was attractive: wooded hill behind the house and barn, eucalyptus-flanked access drive, fields of alfalfa and corn, a ten-tree apple orchard. It was only when you got up close to the buildings that you realized how much repair work needed to be done. The farmhouse wanted paint, a new roof, a new front porch; the barn had gapped and missing boards in two walls and its doors hung crooked from a sagging lintel. The wire on the coop was badly rusted and would have to be replaced, and the coop itself needed shoring up. The fences around the yard and those that bounded the fields and orchard were tumbledown. The fields hadn't been plowed or cultivated in four years, since old Frank Andersen had been diagnosed with cancer. Weeds and grass grew thigh-high under the apple trees.