The Walker in Shadows (20 page)

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry. I tried to be quiet."

"Quiet! What-how-why, Mark?"

"It's our wall." Mark's eyes were steady. He mopped his perspiring brow with his forearm. "Dad put it up; I guess we can take it down if we want."

"Yes, but-"

Mark dismissed her objection with a wave of his hand. Hand and forearm were streaked with bloody scratches, and his shirt-one of his best new shirts, Pat saw- had a jagged tear across the right sleeve.

"They're home," he said, and she didn't need to ask whom he meant. "I saw the car pull in ten minutes ago. I guess they'll be over pretty soon. Sit down."

Pat looked at the seat he indicated-a heap of scrap studded with splinters and rusty nails.

"I certainly will not. Get down from there, Mark, before you sit on a nail or something. You'd better get a tetanus shot this afternoon."

"I had one a couple of years ago."

"Yes, but-" Pat stopped herself. She recognized Mark's technique; he excelled at it, having had years of practice. Get the old lady off on some trivial point and let her rave.

"Come in the house," she ordered.

"Nope. That would look like I was scared, or ashamed. I'll wait for him here. You can go in if you want."

Swearing under her breath, Pat retreated, but only long enough to take the screaming teakettle from the stove and make herself a cup of coffee. She was just in time. As she crossed the yard, carrying her cup, she saw the Friedrichs family emerge from their back door and advance on Mark.

Kathy looked like a brand-new china doll, her sweep of shining hair tied back by a blue ribbon, her complexion perfect as plastic. She wore a blue-and-white-checked dress with a wide ruffle around the bottom of the skirt, and white sandals. Her father was dressed as impeccably, his brown slacks creased to knife sharpness, his dark hair brushed back from his high forehead. They looked like a family paying a polite social call on friendly neighbors.

Mark, still squatting, his scarred hands dangling, appeared much cooler than Pat felt. Josef's dark eyes met hers. His face was quite impassive, but his lower lip was definitely out of kilter.

He came to a stop a few feet from Mark and looked up at the tottering pyramid of wood and the boy atop it.

" 'Something there is,' " he asked, " 'that doesn't love a wall?' "

His tone was neutral. That was better than Pat had ex-pected, and she relaxed a little.

"I thought," Mark answered, "that it was time for walls to come down."

He meant every word of it, but he had enough ham in his soul to let the statement stand, in its theatrical glory, for the admiration of the hearers. Then he went on, more prosaically, but quite as intensely: "Mr. Friedrichs, if I said I was sorry about last night, that would be the understatement of the year. If you want to slug me, go ahead. You've got it coming."

Friedrichs' lip twitched.

"No, thank you. But I'll take a rain check. There may- no, there undoubtedly will-be occasions in the near future when I will feel like hitting you. Why don't you get down off that heap of trash and clean up? I'm taking your mother to lunch. You can come along if you wash."

Mark obeyed, sliding down the stack amid a clatter of collapsing scraps. Pat suspected the boy's movement had not been planned. She had seen his breath go out in a vehement whoosh of relief when Josef accepted his apology; his relaxation had probably destroyed his balance.

"I'll cook lunch," he offered, grinning from ear to ear. "We can talk better here."

"We can talk anywhere," Josef said. "I refuse to eat any more of your cooking, thanks just the same. Get moving."

Mark ran off, one hand clapped to the seat of his pants-to hide a rip or soothe a puncture, Pat wasn't sure which. After a half-defiant glance at her father, Kathy followed.

"What made you change your mind?" Pat asked. It was a beautiful day. A warm breeze brushed her cheek, the sun shone… and Josef was smiling. The expression was not as symmetrical as it had once been, but it was still pleasant.

"The wall, in part," he answered, glancing at the heaps of debris. "One can't help admiring the idea, and the energy. But there were other things Kathy told me about last night. I can't thank you-"

"If she told you I flung myself into the breach to defend her she's not entirely accurate," Pat admitted. "My impulse was to crawl under the bed with Jud. I don't know what made me move, but it certainly wasn't heroism."

"I won't argue with you. I'll even admit that your disgusting son is right again. Running away won't solve the problem."

"Come in and have some coffee while I change," Pat said.

"Why change? You look fine."

Pat looked down at her wet, dirty sneakers. Who was she to argue with him?

As they walked side by side, Josef matching his stride to hers, she knew the real reason for his change of heart. He was facing the same unpalatable fact she had already recognized: that physical removal from the scene of earlier attacks might not be enough to save Kathy. If the thing could cross eighty feet of ground, why not eight miles, or eight hundred?

Monday was not a popular day for lunching out. The Inn in Poolesville was almost empty, so they were able to talk without reserve. Not that Mark was bothered by eavesdroppers; his mother had to keep reminding him to lower his voice, and once or twice the waitress, overhearing a fragment of conversation, gave Mark a startled glance.

He came close to another fight with Josef when he insisted that Pat and Kathy recapitulate their experience, in harrowing detail. However, the majority consensus overruled Josef's objections. Mark cross-questioned the women mercilessly.

"You felt it too?" he asked Kathy. "The second ghost?"

"Sssh." Pat indicated the waitress, who had stopped dead in her tracks, balancing two bowls of soup.

Mark subsided until the woman had left, but then he returned to the question.

"Well, Kath?"

"I don't know," Kathy said uncertainly. "I felt something. Like a-a breath of cool air in a hot, closed-up place. I thought it was you." Her wide blue eyes admired Pat, who realized, with somewhat cynical amusement, that Kathy had added her to her list of Robbins heroes.

"It didn't feel like me," Pat admitted. "I was horrified when I realized I was actually walking toward the damned thing."

"Damned is right," Mark said. "Why are you all looking so depressed? Don't you realize this is the most encouraging thing that has happened?"

Pat looked at him in surprise. "I don't see why."

"I'm afraid I do." Josef put down his fork. "Mark is implying that some other entity has come to our aid. Hell," he added, with a flash of irritation, "it worries me, the way I can read your tricky little mind. If I thought my own mental processes resembled yours…"

"Jeez." The idea obviously appalled Mark as much as it did Josef. They gazed at one another in mutual consternation. Pat was tempted to laugh.

"Anyhow, you're right," Mark went on. "I think somebody else was there-somebody hostile to Peter, somebody who wants to help."

"We will now take a poll on the identity of that somebody," Josef said sarcastically. "Pat?"

"How on earth should I know?"

"The brother, maybe," Kathy offered. "Eddie."

"You're just saying that because you think he's kind of cute," Mark said crushingly. "It wasn't Edward."

"You know what makes this whole thing unreal?" Pat demanded. "It isn't the idea of spirits or supernatural attack; it's the way you all bicker and quarrel, like twelve-year-olds."

"You mean we ought to take it with deadly seriousness?" Josef smiled at her. "That isn't the way people behave, Pat. Only Socrates could conduct a dialogue on the subject of his own death. Besides, the whole situation is so unbelievable I find myself relapsing into trivia as a release from intolerable stress. One can't live at the height of tension without some break now and then."

"Hmph," Pat said.

"You're avoiding the question," Mark said. "Who do you think the second-"

Pat waved him to silence in time to spare the sensibilities of the waitress, who was bringing their entrees. When the woman had retreated, rather more hastily than she had come, Pat said,

"You obviously think you know, Mark. Who?"

"Mrs. Bates, of course. Louisa."

They considered the suggestion-if Mark's dogmatic statement could be called that. As was to be expected, Kathy was the first convert.

"Sure, that makes sense," she exclaimed.

"A nice, motherly ghost," Pat murmured. "I suppose one aging mom would attract another's spirit…"

The irony with which she infused this comment was lost on Mark-and on Kathy, who nodded approvingly. Pat realized that they were now taking for granted a point that had appalled them when it first arose-the identification of Kathy with Susan Bates. Apparently Mark had discussed this with the girl, and helped her to accept it without distress.

"It's too facile," Josef complained.

"Go ahead, sneer." Mark took a bite of steak. He added, "Who would you expect to come to a girl's rescue? All the men in her family look like cold fish. They're probably too busy flapping their angelic wings in their nice Calvinist heaven."

"I can't stand this tottering tower of illogic," Josef shouted. The waitress turned to stare; Kathy giggled; Josef flushed slightly and went on in a more subdued voice, "You pile one unwarranted assumption on top of another, Mark. You are the only one who's convinced that Peter Turnbull is ghost number one-"

"It had blue eyes," Kathy said.

"No," Pat said vehemently.

"You saw it too, Mrs. Robbins."

"I know, but…" Pat was unable to continue. She was not denying the color, she was denying the suggestion of humanity. The worst part of the entire episode had been those moments at the end, when the alien shape had begun to assume the dimensions of a human body.

The reminder took away what remained of Pat's appetite. Mark was the only one of the group who ate with relish. Watching him demolish a piece of lemon-meringue pie, his mother entertained herself by trying to conceive of a situation in which Mark would be unable to eat. She failed.

Cramming the last bite into his mouth, he announced thickly, "Better get moving. We've got a lot to do."

Josef, who had been lost in some abstruse speculation of his own, gave Mark a suspicious look. "Where are we going now?"

"The historical association, of course. I've got to return that Bates material. It closes at three, so we'll have to hurry."

"It's barely two o'clock," Josef said.

Mark rose to his feet.

"We are going to go through that place with a fine tooth-comb," he announced. "Old newspapers, military records, anything we can find. Time is passing."

And that, Pat thought, was another of Mark's understatements. Less than twelve hours until the next manifestation… And God only knew what form that might take.

Although she had lived in the town for almost ten years, Pat had never visited the old red brick house that sheltered the historical association. She had never even seen it, since it was on a side street, away from the highway and the shops. Almost unconsciously she had absorbed some knowledge of architecture from Jerry, so she was able to date the building to a period at least fifty years older than that of her own house.

It was, in fact, one of the oldest houses in the county. So Jay informed them, after he had greeted them.

"The oldest part was built in 1757, a regular log cabin. The Peabodys made it into a kitchen when they built the central part in-"

"We'll take the tour some other time," Mark interrupted. "Today we-er-I have some work to do in the library. Okay if we go on up?"

"Sure." Jay glanced disparagingly at a family group- father, mother, and two small girls-who were waiting meekly by the door. "Wouldn't you know-I usually don't get more than five, six people a week. I'll join you as soon as I get rid of this lot."

They climbed the graceful curving stairs. Pat felt the handrail shift when she touched it. The house was neat and fairly clean, but it was clear that the association had no money to spare for anything more than basic repairs. The walls needed painting and the shallow stairs were bare of carpeting.

The library occupied the whole of the third floor. No doubt the room had once been a ballroom; it had long windows along one wall and a hardwood floor that was still beautiful despite its scuffed surface. Bookshelves covered the wall opposite the windows; there were rows of filing cabinets on the short walls, and a heaped desk in one corner. Three long library tables took up part of the floor space. One held a card index and a microfilm reader. Pat drew her finger along the nearest shelf and saw a miniature dust pile build before it.

"You don't know what this place looked like before Jay arrived," Mark said, as she made a fastidious face. "He's done a helluva lot."

"There is still a great deal to be done," Pat retorted.

"If people like you would donate some time, and people like our neighbors would donate some money, it might get done. Do you know how much Jay makes a year?"

"Stop arguing with your mother," Josef said. "Weren't you the lad who said we had a lot to do?"

Giving him a sour look, Mark jerked open one of the filing cabinets.

"The local newspaper," he said, taking out a roll of microfilm. "We'll start with 1858. Here, Kath, look for any mention of the Turnbulls or the Bateses, and let me know when you're ready for the next roll."

He turned to Josef.

"Tax records," he said curtly, indicating a nearby shelf. "Census reports, other legal garbage. That's your specialty, Mr. Friedrichs."

"How about me?" Pat asked, as Josef, without comment, began scanning the dusty volumes Mark had pointed out.