Dark Waters, page 14
Helena touched Rachel’s arm and said quietly, “You’re sure spacing out today. Are you getting sick?”
“No, I’m just a little out of sorts.”
“Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down? I can handle this until the lunch crowd starts. I’ll call in one of the other girls. Hell, Patty can help out, after all the free coffee we’ve given her.”
“No, don’t be silly. It’ll pass.”
When she returned to the dining room, Patty waved her over. “I really need to talk to you,” the girl said eagerly.
“What about?”
Patty looked around, then leaned close. She whispered, “It happened again.”
“What did?”
Still whispering, she said, “Remember that boy Dewey Raintree? Well, I don’t think he was … I mean, I know he was real, but I don’t think he was … human.”
“I don’t understand,” Rachel said.
“I think your lake spirits sent him.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because of the way he smelled. I know how it sounds, but he smelled like lake water. Not like he’d been swimming in it, but like … he was made of it.”
Rachel put all her energy into focusing on this. “Okay, but … you said it happened again. Did he come back?”
“Not him,” she said with a blushing giggle. “Someone else. Someone else so perfect, he just has to be from them.”
Rachel felt a chill at what this could mean. The old woman had said Rachel’s “spirit sister” was also in danger; had Stillwater also come to Patty? And if so … “Who was it?” Rachel asked.
Before Patty could answer, the bell over the door rang. A tall woman with unruly jet-black hair entered, looked around, and took a seat at the counter. Her dark hair and eyes made her look like a Gypsy. She had a theatrical quality that drew every eye.
Patty stood, bouncing with excitement. “I have to go. We’ll talk about it later, okay?” Before Rachel could protest, the girl was out the door, almost dancing away down the sidewalk.
On her way out of the kitchen with a tray full of orders, Helena said, “Can you get that woman that just came in? I’ve got my hands full right now.”
“Sure,” Rachel said, still gazing after Patty. She would have to pursue this, but for now, she had a customer. Rachel took silverware and a glass of water to her and said, “Hi. Welcome to Rachel’s. You’ve got about five minutes left on breakfast, or you can go ahead and order from the lunch menu.”
The woman looked at her closely, with a kind of scrutiny that made Rachel nervous. The woman wasn’t trying to place her but seemed to be looking for something in her face.
“Just coffee for the moment,” she said at last. Her voice was deep and throaty. She rested her hands flat on the counter. The nails were bare and ragged, and what looked like pinpoints of paint stained her dark skin. “You’re Rachel, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“I’m Betty McNally,” she said, and offered her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
They shook. Betty’s hand was long-fingered, heavy-veined, and warm. When their skin touched, Rachel felt a strange, almost erotic, tingle. She pulled away as quickly as possible.
“Is there something I can help you with, besides coffee?” Rachel asked.
“I think you and I may have something in common.”
“Really? What’s that?”
She put a business card facedown on the counter. “It’s something we should discuss in private. Can you come by my place this evening?”
“I don’t know, I’m awfully busy tonight,” Rachel demurred. She had to talk to Patty, and Betty was giving her the creeps.
Betty leaned over the counter and said quietly, “It has to do with the lakes.”
Rachel’s mouth went dry. As casually as she could manage, she said, “What about them?”
“What lives in them,” Betty said. Then, so quiet even Rachel could barely hear, she added, “What they do to you.”
Helena appeared beside Rachel with a cup on a saucer. “I heard you say you’d like some coffee,” she said brightly. “Would you like cream with that?”
“No, thank you,” Betty said to Helena, although she continued to look at Rachel.
Helena said nothing but waited to get Rachel’s attention. The two women seemed to be locked in a staring contest, and when another customer called, Helena sighed in exasperation and left.
Betty said, “Like I said, we have something in common, and I have information you need to know.”
It took Rachel three tries to pick up the card with her trembling fingers. It advertised Art Waves, a gallery and tarot salon. It was no stretch to imagine Betty laying out cards and peering into a crystal ball. “I’ll try,” Rachel said.
“It would be in your best interest to talk to me.”
The haze cleared for a moment. “Is that a threat?” Rachel asked.
Betty smiled. “No, honey. It’s a warning.” She kissed the tips of her first two fingers and touched them to Rachel’s lips. “I hope to see you soon.”
She stood, put a five-dollar bill down beside the untouched coffee, then left. Rachel stared after her until Helena said, “Who was that?”
Rachel handed the card to Helena. “She owns an art gallery, apparently.”
Helena looked at it. “Never heard of it. Or her.”
Rachel tucked the card into her jeans pocket, went back to work, and tried unsuccessfully to put the woman out of her mind.
ETHAN WEARILY CLOSED the door to his inner office. Ambika was busily shutting down her computer and filing things in appropriate cabinets. He reached the office door, stopped, and leaned forward until his head rested against the wood. “Damn,” he muttered.
Ambika looked around. “Forget something?”
“No.” He tossed his briefcase contemptuously onto the guest couch. “I’m just disgusted with life at the moment.”
She crossed her arms, displaying her immaculate white nails. “How so?”
“I just want to build things, you know? Houses, apartment buildings, whatever anyone wants. I don’t need to be rich, and I’m not using this as a stepping-stone to politics. So why do I feel like everyone I talk to is trying to put something over on me?”
“Because most of them are.”
“I know. I just wish it didn’t have to be so complicated.” He sighed as he retrieved his briefcase. “Wouldn’t it be a great world if people just said what they meant?”
Ambika smiled wryly. “That world doesn’t exist. People are so invested in their own realities that they’ll protect them at any expense. The truth, to them, is a threat.”
He laughed. “Are you a philosopher too?”
“Goodness, no. I’m simply amused by what I see around me.”
“Is it different in India?”
“The details are different. The underlying motivations are the same.”
He smiled, patted her arm, and left the office. On his way down the stairs, the urge to call Rachel was so overwhelming it was like physical hunger.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ART WAVES OCCUPIED a building not unlike the one that housed Rachel’s diner. It was a freestanding two-story brick structure with the business on the ground floor and what looked like living quarters above. Nestled among the tiny houses along Atwood Avenue, it looked more like a spooky fortune-teller’s grotto than anything. The windows were heavily curtained, and shelves between the fabric and the glass displayed odd, vaguely unsettling objets d’art.
Rachel stood indecisively on the sidewalk, debating whether or not to go through with this. The street was completely deserted; it wasn’t yet dark, but none of the houses—mostly old ones divided into student apartments—showed any signs of life. She’d brought an umbrella, since the weatherman predicted the occasional thunderstorm, but the sky was clear at the moment. The sunset cast a red glow over everything.
There was a Closed sign tucked in one corner of the front window. But she was expected, so she took a deep breath and tried the door. It opened.
Cool air hit her, and a little chime sounded somewhere in the back. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Finally she began to make out shelves and tables of elaborate pieces, as well as huge canvases covering the walls.
She yelped as light flooded the room. Track lighting carefully illuminated each painting, and the first thing that registered was an enormous oil canvas directly in front of her. Its colors were primarily blue, green, and black, with hints of yellow for texture. This limited palette made it hard to decipher, but she picked out a human form emerging from what appeared to be a whirlpool. The figure was clearly male. Uncomfortably male, Rachel noticed, and tried not to blush.
A voice behind her said, “Charismatic, isn’t he?”
Rachel again jumped in surprise. Betty McNally chuckled and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be dramatic.”
This almost made Rachel laugh. Betty wore a strapless sundress with little, if anything, beneath it. Around her neck was a choker with a drop in a shape that was familiar but that Rachel couldn’t quite place.
Betty stood with her hands on her hips. The pose was provocative yet at the same time defensive. She added, “That’s a self-portrait. If I were a man.”
Rachel’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”
Betty gestured to herself. “I’m quite voluptuous as a woman. If I were a man, how would the same level of masculinity manifest?”
“That’s one way,” Rachel agreed, increasingly questioning her decision to come here.
Betty moved closer, invading Rachel’s personal space. The air between them seemed to quiver. “So you came,” she said firmly. “You want to know what I know about … them.”
“I’m curious as to what you meant, yes.”
Betty smiled. “I’ll be blunt, then. I meant that I know about the spirits that live in the lakes, who fuck you when you swim with them and keep you tied to them with sexual bondage.”
“I’m not tied to anything,” Rachel said, and took a step back.
Betty smiled knowingly. “How many human men have made you come, eh? You don’t have to hide the truth from me.”
Rachel glanced at the door, wondering if she could get to it and escape before Betty did … what? Besides, Rachel was here to find out what Betty knew, and playing dumb would just prolong things. She chewed her lip thoughtfully, then said, “Okay, yeah.”
“I’m right?”
“Yeah. You’re right. They …”
“Own you?”
“I prefer to think we have an arrangement.”
Betty nodded, then went behind the counter and produced a bottle. She poured red wine into two waiting glasses. “Then that makes us sisters.”
“How so?” Rachel said.
Betty laughed and handed her a glass. “I’ve been taken by the spirits too. Do you recognize this?” She held out the necklace that had looked so familiar.
Rachel leaned close, then caught herself staring not at the drop but at the woman’s neck. There was an odd tension between them. It wasn’t sexual, the way women occasionally hit on Rachel when she was out with Helena. But it spoke of skin, and sweat, and things done urgently in the dark. And it gave Rachel a serious case of the creeps. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t recognize it.”
“It’s one of the lakes,” Betty said.
Wingra, Rachel suddenly realized. It was the outline of tiny Lake Wingra, the smallest of the three lakes inside the city limits. A lake that she avoided, that always gave her the willies, and that seemed to carry an evil reputation. “You swam in Lake Wingra, then?”
Betty laughed. “ ‘Swam’? No, honey, I took off my clothes and let the spirits in the lake wring me out, just like you do. I fought and struggled and screamed, and they just wouldn’t stop. Each time I swore I’d never go back, but when it’s the only way you can have an orgasm, ‘never’ doesn’t last too long.”
“It’s different for me,” Rachel said, recalling the gentle caresses, the supple manipulations, and above all, the kindness shown even during the wildest moments.
Betty shrugged. “I’m sure it is. But my spirits haven’t touched me in years. And do you know why?”
Rachel shook her head.
“Because of him. That man who came from the lake that day in the park. He came to me as well, many years ago. He looked exactly the same too. He seduced me, then left me alone. After that, my spirits wouldn’t have me.”
Something nagged at Rachel’s memory. In her vision, the Lo-Stahzi medicine woman had claimed that Kyle Stillwater was possessed by a Wingra spirit. Yet that couldn’t be right if Betty was telling the truth.…
Betty’s voice grew distant as she continued. “I’ve thought about it over the years, and I don’t think it was because I made love to him. I think it was because I wanted him in the first place. The lake spirits are jealous.”
Rachel could barely breathe. “But … what does that have to do with me?”
Betty stepped close, and again there was that weird moment of connection. “He’ll come to you, Rachel. He’ll say what you want to hear, and you’ll respond. But you can’t give in. You can’t want him. The moment you do, your spirits will no longer want you.”
Rachel couldn’t breathe. “That’s crazy.”
Betty shrugged. “So is having lake spirits as your lover. But we both know that happens.”
Rachel licked her lips. “If … If I do … give in to him … how can I fix it?”
Betty looked at her. “You can’t. I’ve already tried everything. I’ve begged, pleaded, made sacrifices, and cast spells. I’ve tried to reclaim my sexuality. Men, women, singles, groups, devices … I tried them all. Each time I got close, the feeling just … stayed. Hovering there, just out of reach. I even spent time in a mental hospital, for God’s sake. They diagnosed me as ‘sexually maladjusted, likely due to childhood trauma.’ They thought I’d been molested and blocked it out—the whole ‘repressed memory’ thing.”
Rachel turned away but found herself facing the huge painting of Betty McNally as a man. Her knees wobbled, and she had to lean on the wall.
“I’ve come to believe only one thing can end my torment, and the torment of anyone else unfortunate enough to fall victim to the same thing,” Betty continued.
“What?” Rachel said, eyes closed, trying not to pass out.
“We must summon Kyle Stillwater on our own terms. And make him do our bidding.”
MARTY WALKER HAD parked on the street outside the police building instead of in the garage. He was tired, and his head hurt. He did not relish the arrest he’d have to make tomorrow, but the district attorney insisted the voice mail was an indictable threat. Marty’s instincts told him differently, but those carried no weight with the D.A. He was about to open his car door when a voice said, “Fancy running into you here.”
He turned to confront the speaker and stopped dead. Amy Vannoy, in a tight black dress cut low in front and high on her thigh, stood with a cardboard box under one bare arm. Her black hair was done up formally, and she wore restrained but perfect makeup.
“I’m speechless,” he said honestly.
She held out the box. “I have something here I want to show you. I called ahead and asked the desk sergeant if you were around. Looks like I got here just in time.”
“Did you dress up to come see me?”
She laughed. “No, I was at a faculty dinner when I had a brainstorm. I slipped out between speeches.”
Marty took the box, and they went back into the station. The desk sergeant stared as Amy passed, and she rewarded him with a wink as the elevator doors closed.
At Marty’s desk, Amy opened the box and pulled out a small clay bowl. Clearly of Native American design, it was missing a large section of its lip. “We had this in the museum on campus.”
“What is it?”
“A Karlamik bowl. Probably four hundred years old.”
“Should you be toting it around?”
“I’m being careful. But I want to show you something. Like I said, I was at this faculty function in the museum and saw this on display. It made me think of the fragments from the construction site. I still had them in my Jeep.” She held up a plastic bag. “I suspected from the moment I saw these that they were the same type of pottery. But there’s something more to it.”
She took out an irregular fragment and matched it to the missing part of the pot. The edges fit perfectly.
“It’s not just from the same culture, it’s from the exact same pot. Now that’s either a coincidence or a clue.”
Marty frowned. “I’ll say. What does it mean?”
“I did some checking on this pot’s provenance. Everything that’s tied to a Native American tribe nowadays is scrutinized very carefully, to make sure it wasn’t stolen. This wasn’t; it was donated.”
“By whom?”
“A Mr. James Red Bird of the Karlamik tribe.”
Marty’s eyes widened. “Aha.”
“You know him?”
“His name has come up.”
She carefully returned the pot to the box. “Then I helped?”
“Definitely. Thank you.”
She picked up the box, but he put his hand on it. “I’m afraid this now counts as evidence.”
She looked appalled. “But I can’t leave this here. I’m not even supposed to have it. I could lose my job.”
“And a murderer might go free if I lose this.”
“Oh, come on, detective, seriously. It’s in a locked case at the museum, and only a few people have a key.”
“That’s a few too many.” But when he saw how distraught she was, he smiled. “All right, I’ll tell you what. Is your party still going on?”
She checked her watch. “Probably.”
“Then let’s you and I go back to the museum now, and I’ll pretend to make a brilliant deduction. That way you’re off the hook, I have my evidence, and the bad guys don’t get away.”
She looked so relieved he almost laughed. “Thank you, officer.”
“Please, call me Marty.”
“Thank you, Marty.”
IT WAS FULLY dark by the time Rachel returned home. The wind brought distant rumbles of thunder as a storm approached from the west. She numbly let herself into the closed diner, ascended the stairs to her apartment, and then locked the door behind her. She leaned back against it, and only then did she begin to shake. Her breathing accelerated, and she found herself on the verge of hyperventilating.
