Allhallow's Eve: (Richard Laymon Horror Classic) (16 page)

‘I don’t know.’

‘What did he do, then?’

‘Nothing.’ Her throat felt tight and achy. She tried to swallow, and almost gagged.

‘Where were his hands?’

‘Just … just holding me. I wanted to get up, but he wouldn’t let me.’

‘Where were his hands?’

‘Behind me, I guess.’

‘You guess?’

She nodded.

Mr Doons’s eyes dropped briefly to her breasts, then returned to her face. His thumb and forefinger rubbed the flesh above his lip. ‘Did Houlder touch you anyplace intimate?’

She shook her head.

‘Your breasts?’

‘
No
.’

‘Your genital area or buttocks?’

‘No,’ she said, her voice husky and quiet.

‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘He
didn’t
!’ Tears came to her eyes. She wiped them off with her sleeve.

‘I don’t like liars, Miss Green.’

‘He didn’t touch me there!’

‘I was told by a witness that he put a hand in your panties.’

‘That’s a lie!’

His face reddened. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘Not you. The witness. Whoever told you that.’

‘It came from a reliable source. Why do you feel that you have to protect Houlder?’

‘I’m not!’

‘Is he your boyfriend?’

‘No!’

‘Then why did you let him put a hand inside your pants?’

‘I didn’t.
He
didn’t.’

Doons sighed.

‘He
didn’t
!’

‘Perhaps you just didn’t notice. All right, Elizabeth. That’ll be all. Have Mrs Houston give you a re-admit slip.’

After lunch, Sam drove out on Oakhurst Road. He slowed down, passing the Horner house. Only its chimney and half a wall remained standing. The rest of the house had fallen to a charred pile of debris.

Next door, the Sherwood house seemed almost cheerful.

Wouldn’t be such a bad place, Sam thought, if somebody’d move in and fix it up.

Driving past the house of Clara Hayes, he saw the morning newspaper on her front lawn. He wondered why she hadn’t picked it up yet.

Across the road, he saw a group of brightly-clad golfers on the green of the third hole. One of the men waved at him. Though he only glimpsed the man, he tapped his horn twice in greeting.

Then he tried to remember what he’d been thinking about before the golfer waved.

Something about the Sherwood house?

Wouldn’t make a bad fixer-upper.

Maybe Morley could sell it to the Horners, if they ever showed up again. Assuming Hank isn’t the one who killed Dexter.

Though Sam knew little about Hank Horner, he saw
no reason to believe the man was involved. The burning house and disappearance of the family were certainly not proof.

Strange, though, that it happened the day after Dex got killed. Maybe a connection, but not the one Berney was hoping for. Maybe both men had the same enemy. Maybe whoever chopped up Dex …

Sam moaned as he again saw himself lift the toilet seat and look down at Dexter’s floating head. He took a deep breath.

‘Whoever killed Dex killed the Horners,’ he said aloud. The sound of his voice drove the memories away. ‘Burnt the house to destroy any physical evidence he – she – they left behind. So where are the bodies? If they’re not in the house …’ He clucked his tongue as he thought. ‘If they’re not in the house …?’ he repeated. ‘Buried out back?’

He remembered what was ‘out back’ of the Horner house.

Oakhurst Cemetery.

Dendron could wait. If he didn’t see Thelma this afternoon, he’d find her tonight.

Slowing, he swung the car into a U-turn and sped back toward the cemetery.

The wrought-iron gates of Oakhurst Cemetery stood open. Sam drove through, and followed the narrow road to the parking lot. Except for a black Coup de Ville and a pick-up truck, the lot was deserted. He parked, and climbed out. Walking into the wind, he watched dry leaves tumble and skitter toward him.

The grass on the rolling fields looked bright green in
the sunlight and he thought, with a pang of nostalgia, what a great day this would be for touch football.

A great day, but not a great place.

The door of the cemetery office opened, and a tall gray-haired man stepped out, his suit jacket flapping in the wind. When he saw Sam, his head tipped back and he smiled. He changed course, slightly, and approached.

‘Wyatt.’

‘Brandner,’ Sam said, shaking hands with his old friend.

‘What’s a nice fellow like you doing in a place like this?’

‘I was about to ask you the same thing,’ Sam told him.

‘Too windy for tennis. Perfect weather for a Bloody Mary, though. How about joining me?’

‘Believe me, I’d like to.’

‘Busy detecting, I presume.’

‘Right.’

The smile left Brandner’s lean face. ‘Rotten about Dexter. I hear you’re the one who found him.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He was a good man. I guess you’ll be here Sunday for the interment.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Christ, it gets to me when a guy I know … Well, business is business, I guess. One of these fine days, I’m gonna chuck all this and buy me a bar.’

‘Hope you do it soon.’

‘How about a partnership?’

‘Just tell me when.’

‘I guess you must have plenty socked away, from all your graft.’

‘A bundle. Right now, though, I’ve got some snooping to do.’

‘Snoop away.’

‘I know you wouldn’t be caught dead here at night …’

‘
Touché!
’

‘But do you know if anything unusual happened here last night?’

Brandner rubbed his chin, and shook his head. ‘You don’t mean the fire, I take it.’

‘The Horners’ bodies weren’t found.’

‘You’re thinking they segued into my bone orchard?’

‘I’d like to find out. If they were murdered, the killer probably didn’t move them far.’

‘Why move them at all?’

‘Don’t ask me. If they weren’t in the house, though, where are they?’

‘Visiting Aunt Mary?’

‘Do you want to come along?’ Sam asked.

‘Where?’

‘I want to check the area in back of their house.’

‘I suppose my Bloody Marys can wait.’

They walked, side by side, to the far end of the parking lot, then up a grassy slope, passing between well-tended grave sites.

‘To think I used to play here as a wee child,’ Brandner said. ‘My cousin cured me of that. We were playing tag, one day, blithely scampering among the graves – did I ever tell you this?’

Sam had heard the story a couple of times before, over drinks, but he shook his head.

‘She – my cousin – tripped in a gopher hole. She looked down the hole, and kept looking and looking. I
said, “Hey, what’re you doing?” The little bitch said, “There’s somebody down there winking at me.”’

‘Did you take a look?’

‘Are you kidding? I ran like hell, and wouldn’t come near this place for a year. Christ, I still get the creeps whenever I see a gopher hole around here. And there’re plenty. I often suspect the little buggers are carnivorous.’

‘You’d better buy that bar soon.’

‘Don’t I know it. This business is not for the squeamish. Should’ve sold out when my father died.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘A sense of family obligation, I suppose. Obligation gets to you every time.’

Ahead, through the trees and monuments, Sam saw the wrought-iron fence of the cemetery boundary. The dark chimney of the Horner house stood not far beyond it.

Brandner frowned. ‘You think someone chucked their bodies over my fence?’

‘Maybe buried them over here.’

‘A logical place, I suppose.’

‘Any recent graves over here?’

‘Open ones? No. And I think Willie would’ve noticed if someone had been digging. He’s a sot, but he’s not deaf and blind.’

‘It’s a big cemetery.’

‘He makes regular rounds. He’s
supposed
to, anyhow.’

They reached the fence. Sam looked through at the rubble. The wind carried a pungent odor of burnt wood.

With his back to the fence, he looked down its length. The gravestones, monuments, and clusters of trees and
bushes offered plenty of places to conceal bodies or crouch, out of sight, to dig a hole.

‘I hope you’re wrong about this,’ Brandner said.

‘It’s worth a look.’

They began walking alongside the fence, occasionally separating while one inspected the ground behind a tree or gravestone.

‘If these Horners
were
murdered,’ Brandner said, ‘you would have to suspect they were done in by the one who killed Dexter.’

‘I’ve thought of that.’

‘Thought you might’ve. Has it also occurred to you that we’re now directly behind the Sherwood house?’

‘What about it?’

‘Seems a bit funny, to me, that two families, right next door to each other, should get slaughtered.’

‘Fifteen years apart.’

‘How many mass murders have we had in Ashburg? Two. Fifteen years apart, but side by side. Seems funny to me. I think, if I were looking for the Horners’ bodies – which I apparently am, thanks to you – I’d take a look in the Sherwood house.’

‘I may do that.’

‘Fine. Let’s forget all this and … well well well.’

As Brandner crouched behind a tombstone, Sam rushed to his side. ‘There were bodies here, all right,’ his friend said.

On the grass by the tombstone lay a collapsed tube of pink latex.

‘Live ones,’ Sam added.

‘In my experience,’ said Brandner, ‘corpses rarely use rubbers.’

Glendon Morley got up from his desk as a young couple entered his real estate office. At first, their appearance put him off.

The woman, though somewhat pretty, wore no makeup. Her thick brown hair was drawn back in a pony tail, and she wore a loose, faded dress that looked home-made. She seemed clean, though. Glendon guessed that she wasn’t a poverty-stricken gal from the hill country, after all – just an artsy-fart who wanted to look like one.

The man beside her was a giant, well over six feet tall with unruly black hair and eyes so intense that they made Glendon nervous. He wore a tan, corduroy jacket that badly needed to be pressed. Beneath it was a T-shirt decorated by a hideous, troll-like character. Printed below its leering face were the words, ‘Trust Me’. He wore blue jeans, and a pair of Adidas running shoes.

‘Mr Morley?’ the giant asked, offering a hand.

‘Yes
sir
,’ Glendon said. He shook the man’s powerful hand, and smiled at the woman.

‘I’m Harold Krug. This is my wife, Seana.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Glendon said. ‘House hunting?’

Harold grinned. It was a one-sided, play-evil grin one might use to tease a child. ‘I think we found what we want.’

‘Excellent. Have a seat, won’t you? Could I get you some coffee?’

‘Yeah. Black for me.’

‘How about you, Seana?’

“I’d prefer tea, if you have some.’

‘Sure thing. Tea it is.’ Leaving them at his desk, he stepped to the card table in the rear. As he poured the drinks, he tried to size up Harold and Seana. They were from out of town, he was sure of that. They dressed weird – kind of like college kids he’d seen at some of the JC football games. They didn’t seem poor or stupid, but Harold obviously didn’t earn his keep as a legitimate business man. Teachers? That had to be it.

‘Where you from?’ he asked, approaching with the tea and two cups of coffee.

‘Maine,’ Harold said.

‘Whew. Long way from the home ground.’

Harold smiled and nodded. He was slouched in the chair beside Glendon’s desk, a foot propped over his knee.

‘And you’re planning to settle down here in Ashburg?’

‘For a while.’

Glendon handed the styrene cup of tea to Seana, the coffee to Harold. ‘Couldn’t pick a nicer little town. I’ve lived here all my life, myself, and I don’t mind telling you wild horses couldn’t drag me away from here. What do you do?’ he asked Harold.

‘I write books.’

‘Oh?’ He tried to keep his smile as he saw the chances of a sale sink away. ‘What sort of books do you write?’

‘Occult thrillers.’

‘Oh? Like
The Exorcist
?’