Witch, page 20
“All right,” Penny said briskly. “Keep in mind, Mom, that I can prove everything I’m going to say. Will you accept my first point, for the moment?”
“Yes,” Ellen said weakly. Penny’s manner brought back evenings in front of the fire in the old house in Bethesda—evenings of laughter and furious debate, with Penny taking on all three boys, and Jack supporting first one side and then the other, as the spirit moved him.
“Okay. Next point—and I can prove this, too. Tim hasn’t seen a doctor, neurologist, psychiatrist, or counselor. He has never been a patient of Dr. Abrahamson’s.”
“But Norman said—” The expressions on the two young faces stopped her. “How do you know?”
“I guess you won’t take Tim’s word,” Penny conceded. “How about Dr. Bishop’s?”
“Penny, you didn’t…. How did you do it?”
“I told him a lot of lies,” Penny said coolly. “About you. He likes you a lot, Mom. He fought me quite a bit, but he finally agreed to check. Tim has never been a patient of any psychiatrist Dr. Bishop knows in D.C. He was definite about Abrahamson.”
Ellen was shaken. The information about Tim’s inheritance was relatively unimportant. Norman had always given her the impression that the money was his; but vanity was a minor vice. On this point, however, Norman had lied, deliberately and unequivocally, and she could not think of any innocuous reason for the lie.
While she sat silent, thinking it over, Penny did something that shook her even more. The girl dropped on her knees in front of Ellen and took both her mother’s hands.
“This is the clincher,” she said. “This is what you won’t believe. But it’s true, Mom. It’s true and you’ve got to believe it. Tim never hurt an animal in his life. He had a dog when his parents died. Two weeks afterward he found it on his bed. It was dead. Poisoned. On his bed, Mom!”
Ellen shook her head dumbly. She ached for Penny; the girl’s eyes were dark with horror. Penny believed the story. But she had gotten it from Tim, and Tim…. Ellen looked at the boy. He returned her gaze with a somber stare. Penny clutched her hands tighter and went on, the words pouring out.
“Norman got him a puppy. He didn’t want one. You don’t, Mom, not right away. You know. But he got it anyway and Tim loved it. Norman got the big dogs at the same time. They were pups too, but big and strong even then. They killed Tim’s puppy. It got shut in with them by mistake, he said, and he hadn’t fed them that day, because he was training them to be watchdogs.”
Ellen was half convinced by the sheer horror of the story. Surely no boy of ten—or even of seventeen—could invent an idea so coldly diabolical.
“This is Tim’s version,” she said.
“I know how it sounds,” Tim said.
“I’m not through yet,” Penny announced. “I’m only beginning. Mom, would you like a drink or something? You look kind of funny. And this is going to get worse.”
“I think maybe I would,” Ellen said. “Penny, Tim—I’m trying very hard. It isn’t easy for me, but I’ll try.”
“Thanks,” Tim said.
It was not an eloquent speech, but his look added another pebble to the slowly mounting weight in Ellen’s mind.
She accepted a glass of sherry from Penny, and took a sip.
“Go on,” she said.
“When Norman offered to get him a kitten, Tim said no,” Penny took up the tale. “Norman got it anyhow. Tim tried to lose it, in the woods, but it came back; it was so little. The dogs—”
“Please,” Ellen said. “That’s enough. I get the picture.”
It was a literal picture, a visual image so distinct it sickened her.
“It happened twice more,” Penny said. Her voice shook. “Tim finally ended it the only way he could. He pretended he didn’t care. When he found the—the dead animals, he would just laugh and shrug. Then he’d run out in the woods and throw up.”
“I said, I get the picture. It’s horrible, Penny, but you’re forgetting one incident. I actually saw Tim—”
“I was killing it,” Tim said. “My God, I had to kill it quick. You heard it screaming, but you didn’t see how bad it was hurt.”
“It’s too coincidental,” Ellen argued, only fleetingly aware of the incongruity of debating such a crime with its perpetrator. “That I happened to come along at that precise moment—”
“It was no coincidence. Look, Mrs. March, he arranged that appointment with you, right? He knew when you’d be coming. To get me on the spot, all he had to do was tell me there was an injured squirrel on the path. I’d have gone to help it anyway, but knowing you were coming, I ran out there as soon as he told me. I didn’t want you to see anything ugly.”
“It was a pretty farfetched scheme. What if his timing had been off? If you had been late, or I had been early….”
“It was worth taking the chance,” Tim said. “What’s a squirrel? No big deal to him.”
Ellen would never get used to the way his voice changed on the pronoun.
“All right,” she said. “It’s possible. I’ll go that far. What next?”
“I haven’t finished about the animals yet,” said Penny. “Tim is crazy about them, like his mother. They spent a lot of time in the woods together, before she died. Tim knows the woods and the wildlife like a naturalist. He watches animals, but he never dares tame them or bring them home. Right now there’s a poor old stray cat he feeds; but he can’t get too friendly with it for fear it would follow him home.”
“It’s a white cat,” said Tim. He gave Ellen a shy smile. “I guess maybe you’ve seen it.”
“I guess I have. Well, it’s a relief to know I didn’t imagine the cat. A small relief, in the middle of this madness…. But with Norman so afraid of cats, how could he bear to have kittens around when you were small?”
“They didn’t stay around long,” said Tim, in a voice that made Ellen wince. “He isn’t too scared to kill them.”
“I thought you might say the phobia was a pretense.”
“No, why should he put on about a thing like that? I could have used it,” Tim said. “You know—toss cats on his bed and like that. But it would have been kind of hard on the cats…. It’s a funny phobia, you know? What really bugs him is the idea of touching a cat, or having it touch him. He can carry them in baskets and boxes. That’s how he got Ishtar that day.”
“Are you trying to tell me he took Ishtar out of the shed?”
“He has a trap he uses,” Tim said, with horrible calm. “He baits it with fish or liver or something. I saw him bring Ishtar home that day. He couldn’t give her to the dogs while they were chained up, in the daytime. You wouldn’t believe she was that dumb, to walk right up to them. I guess he was going to wait till dark and then let them loose. I sneaked her away before he could do it. But he let the dogs loose anyhow.”
“Wait a minute,” Ellen said, pressing her hands to her head. “You’re making him sound like a monster. I don’t see—or do I? I suppose you have checked Norman’s financial status?”
She spoke sarcastically, and was taken aback when Penny nodded.
“Jack did.”
“But, Penny, you could get Jack in serious trouble that way! He has no business telling you—or using his sources for personal reasons—”
“He’d do anything for you,” Penny said. “You’ve got a lot of admirers, Mom. ’Course I had to lie to him a little bit too—”
“I suppose you told him Norman wanted to marry me for my money?” Ellen was amused, exasperated, and oddly pleased.
“Jack is down on anybody who wants to marry you for any reason whatsoever. Gol, Mom, you really are dim.”
“It’s gotten pretty dark,” Tim said quietly. “There’s a wind rising.”
It wailed around the house like a lost soul. Ellen glanced uneasily at the windows.
“Norman’s finances,” she reminded Penny.
“They are a mess,” Penny said. “Jack thinks he’s been embezzling Tim’s estate.”
“Jack said that?”
“Oh, well, not exactly. He said he’d had some funny hints from people, and for me to keep you from doing anything silly till he could look around some more. He knows a lot more about what’s been going on than you think,” Penny said coolly. “And he said he didn’t like it one damn bit.”
“I don’t either.” Ellen shivered. “Listen to that wind.”
“It isn’t the wind now.” Tim went to the window. “It’s the dogs.”
“They’re loose!” Ellen started to get up.
Penny gripped her hands more tightly.
“They were bound to be,” she said obscurely. “Mom, listen. We don’t have much time, and you’re not convinced yet. I can see you aren’t. I’m not through with my case yet.”
“There’s more?”
“You’ve only heard half of it. Do you think this witchcraft business has been coincidence too?”
“What are you trying to say?”
Penny glanced over her shoulder. Tim, at the window, nodded.
“I’ll make it fast,” she said, turning back to her mother. “This town has a weird, sick religion, and Mrs. Grapow doesn’t like you much. Start with that. Then remember the day you talked about a coming storm—and the storm came. Now that was a coincidence. It would have been laughed at and forgotten, if somebody hadn’t made a point of it, all over town. Then you were dumb enough—I’m sorry, Mom, you couldn’t possibly anticipate what would happen—you got carried away and told the kids’ fortunes. That was when the fun began. Those fulfilled predictions weren’t coincidence. They were too accurate. Take them one by one.”
Penny glanced again at Tim. He did not speak, but she seemed alarmed by what she saw; her words tumbled out.
“You made your predictions vague, naturally. That left the joker—let’s call him Norman, shall we, instead of X?—plenty of latitude. When you warned Klaus about a car, you meant he should drive more carefully. But when he was almost hit by a car, that could fit the prophecy too. Anybody can rent a car. And Norman was out of town that day.”
Ellen started to speak, but Penny hurried on.
“It would be impossible to trace the necklace Sue Ann got. It was expensive, but not unique; there must be a dozen jewelry stores in nearby towns that carry those things, and the buyer would be smart enough to pay cash. But somebody sent that necklace to fit in with your promise of ‘presents.’ It didn’t come from the spirit world.
“Joyce and Steve was a good guess. He didn’t have to do anything about that—except harp on it. The cruelest thing he did was send that letter to Chuck, the one that was supposed to be from Harvard. I saw that letter. It had a regular printed letterhead. But a person can order something from a printer as easily as he can rent a car. Norman probably had that done in Washington, so it would be hard to trace. But we could try.”
Ellen was dazed, not only by the intelligence and persistence with which the girl had acquired her data, but by its cumulative effect. The prophecies had always bothered her; it would be comforting to believe they had been engineered by a material agent.
“But that trick would certainly be discovered,” she objected. “If Chuck doesn’t hear something more soon, he’ll write Harvard and find out—”
“By then,” Penny said, “it won’t matter. It will be too late.”
“Nobody would trace it to him, anyhow,” Tim put in. “The kids would just think somebody played a mean joke.”
“What do you mean, it will be too late?” Ellen demanded.
“Don’t you see the point of the whole thing? Norman has been planning this for years, Mom. I think at first he just tormented Tim out of spite. Remember that night when you told me you thought he was in love with Tim’s mother? I think his feelings were a lot more complicated than that. When he had her son under his thumb…. Anyhow, it wasn’t long, before he realized he could end up with a tidy fortune. He loves money. All those expensive ornaments, and that ostentatious car…. There was no hurry because he was both guardian and administrator. He could nibble away at Tim’s estate and nobody would ask questions till Tim came of age. So Norman worked up a little scheme. Somebody would ask questions if Tim died under suspicious circumstances, with all that money involved. Norman decided he would get someone else to do his dirty work. And I bet he enjoyed every minute of it. Slowly, year by year, he has made Tim look like a monster. Oh, Tim is no angel….”
She gave Tim a look that belied her words. Tim blushed.
“I did beat up a lot of guys,” he admitted. “I was a mean kid for a few years.”
“But the rest of it—the really dirty things—Norman did,” Penny went on. “He and Tim look a lot alike. In Tim’s old clothes, in the dark—”
“My God,” Ellen interrupted in horror. “Are you telling me it was Norman last night—with Prudence—”
“Just look at the probabilities, Mom. Look at Tim! Do you think that flabby female would have escaped with a few cuts and bruises if Tim had really wanted—”
She glanced at Tim, who was beet-red, and took pity on him.
“He has better taste,” she concluded. “And, believe me, Mom—he wasn’t that hard up.”
Ellen decided not to pursue the suggestion.
“But Norman—”
“He sent her a note, supposedly from Tim,” Penny said. “She’s got a thing about Tim.”
“Of course,” Ellen whispered. “How could I be so stupid?”
The look on Prue’s face, the day Tim came to the store…the fair-haired dream prince at the wedding…“I’ve got to go to the dance. I’ve got to go with….”
“A lot of the girls think he’s sexy,” Penny continued. “I told you, that blond Heathcliff sulk is very effective.”
She grinned at Tim, who grinned back. For a moment the two young faces were so alight, Ellen’s eyes were dazzled.
“But when did he…oh, Lord. I suppose he ran right out of here last night—”
“After writing that corny message,” Penny said. “If the lightning and wind hadn’t given him his chance, he’d have had a fit or pretended to hear a noise, or something, to create a disturbance and scatter the papers around. He played the whole crowd of us like a violin, Mom. I didn’t realize what was going on till it was too late to stop it. And I was dumb; I figured I would let him go ahead, see what he was up to. Mom!” She stared at Ellen. “You believe me. You believe me, now.”
“It fits together too well,” Ellen said unwillingly. “He wanted me out of here—out of town. He tried to frighten me—the dogs, hints about Tim…. The townspeople think badly of Tim and they don’t like interference. If anything happened to Tim, they wouldn’t make a fuss. But I would. He knew I would.”
“You’re such a sweet, gentle little busybody,” Penny said. “You look harmless, but everything you did confirmed Norman’s assessment of you as a potential danger. Stalking out of church, talking back to Mrs. Grapow, hassling him about getting Tim to a psychiatrist…. Gosh, Mom, you have to admit you asked for it.”
“I guess I did. I babbled a lot about the police, too.”
“That’s why Jack was worried. He said you were such a nosy little devil, if there was trouble brewing you were bound to be in the thick of it.”
“I wish he were here,” Ellen murmured. Then she started up. This time Penny made no attempt to hold her back.
“Look here, you two. I may or may not be convinced of the truth of this admittedly wild story. It’s too much to take in all at once. But I’m willing to go along with you, to the extent of taking precautions. I can’t afford not to. What are we going to do?”
“We can’t stay here,” Penny said.
“Where else can we go? Is there anyone in town, Tim, who would shelter you?”
Tim shook his head.
“Wait a minute,” Ellen exclaimed. “What about Ed Salling? I’ll bet my last dollar he’s all right.”
“He lives on the other side of town,” Penny said. “We’d never make it.”
“Then why go anywhere? The house is sound, well built; Norman wouldn’t dare try overt violence….” Ellen shook her head; no, she couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t see Norman as a killer, stalking them with a gun or knife. But she had promised to believe…. Doggedly she went on.
“We’ll sit up all night and keep watch. As soon as it’s light, I’ll walk out of here and go straight to the highway. Norman wouldn’t attack me….”
Her voice died away as they turned to her with the now familiar look of pitying contempt.
“Mom,” Penny said gently, “you still don’t get the picture. Norman isn’t going to attack anybody. He doesn’t have to. The town will do it for him.”
Ellen sat stunned, her hands clenched in her lap. Naive was not the word for her. Criminally stupid, that’s what she was.
She had to admit it was an ingenious method of murder. The tinder was there, at hand; but without Norman to light the match and fan the flame, it would have smoldered harmlessly for a few more years before dying of itself. Norman’s plan was almost foolproof. The town was not uniquely evil. In any group there were a few—sometimes more than a few—who could be aroused and sent out like hounds on a trail. They enjoyed the hunt and the panic of the prey. Five thousand years of civilization had not eliminated the breed; probably nothing ever would. They were so easily inflamed—by passionate words, by liquor, by the queer quirk in the brain that allows some people to kill for pleasure.
And once the pack was howling down the trail, the job was as good as done. If some drunken Neanderthal in the mob didn’t fire the actual shot, Norman could do it himself, with relative impunity. In the cold light of dawn, when the blood lust had been assuaged and the corn whiskey had worn off, the mob would slink home, silent with a shared guilt. No one would ask questions. No one would answer questions. Tim’s death would be written off as a sad but inevitable accident, and Norman would go home to his lovely white house on the hill and put a black armband around his sleeve. Norman knew what was proper.
