Good Lord, Deliver Us (6 page)

OK, then. He'd be Pastor Goodfellow,
recently arrived in Liberty to establish a ministry at his newly
hallucinated, Church of the Living Word.

Concentrating, Z believed the I.D.
card showing him to be the redoubtable Goodfellow was the third
from the front of his billfold. (It would never do to identify
himself one way while showing a card proclaiming him to be someone
else.)

He'd have to decide on the spur of the
moment what approach would produce the most information: a pitch
soliciting members for his new church or one begging for a
contribution to save the starving children of Beverly
Hills.

Improvisations like this provided one
of the few light moments in the detective business.

His mind made up, slow-shuffling his
way to the small stoop, Z crippled himself up its two steps to the
gray-painted door.

To knock. Three ... well-spaced ...
dignified ... raps.

Followed by the instantaneous opening
of the door, a tiny, gray-haired, grandmotherly, old lady in a
bright print dress pushing open a sagging screen door to stick out
her head.

In a voice as worn as her sweet face
was wrinkled, she said, "Get your ass off my property or I'll blow
your balls off with my 12-gauge." Spoken in the endearingly frank
way of old folks everywhere.

Hmmm.

Forget Pastor Goodfellow.
.....

Enter K.C. Power and Light, the
authority of the government generally getting people to talk to
you.

"Ma'am. I'm David Inman,
K.C. Power and Light," Z said, pulling out his billfold, thumbing
out the
second
I.D. card for the woman to see.

"What do you want?"

"I was sent out to check your
neighbor's box." Z waved at the other house as he put away his
billfold.

"Dr. Isaacs's dead."

"Dr. ....?"

"Emeritus. Retired from the college.
Just like my husband and me."

"And what would
your
name be,
Ma'am?"

"None of your business." The old
woman's faded blue eyes said she knew her rights.

"But I have to know. With the
neighborhood being torn down, I need to know the names of the folks
who still live here so I can be sure the power's left on." It was a
fib and a long one at that, a lie Z paid for with an aching throat.
If he used his vocal cords too much, they were apt to desert
entirely, his doctor said. Meaning, no chance of a career in opera
-- classical or "Grand 'ol ...."

"You can help
me
by not calling me
Ma'am," the lady grumbled

"Yes, Ma'am.

Tough old bird. Shrunken to a
whip-thin, five-feet two.

At her age she might
as
well
speak her
mind.

"Come in," the lady said to Z's
surprise, the old woman drawing back inside the blackness of the
house.

Recovering, Z followed her, the screen
door flapping shut behind him.

"Sit."

Z sat -- in an old, brown-cloth,
weak-sprung, overstuffed chair, Z sinking almost to the
floor.

His eyes adjusting from the brightness
of outdoors, Z saw he was in a comfortable living room. Aged
furniture. But everything clean. Straightened up.

Ol' timey pictures hung on the walls:
a wolf howling at a winter moon, a tired Indian slumped on his
pony, a Dutch windmill.

By this time, the woman had
slow-stepped across the space in front of Z to perch on a
lace-doily draped divan, back held "at attention" straight,
thick-stockinged, bird-thin legs precisely together, sensible black
shoes side by side on the worn rug.

"What's your
real
reason for being
here?"

"I'll be honest with you," Z said,
knowing that pretending to be honest was always the best policy,
"K.C. Power got a report of a light next door. I was sent to check.
Nobody there. Out back, the electricity's been turned
off."

"I saw you going around the house,"
the woman said, nodding, her wispy white hair highlighted by a
golden light filtered through pulled-down yellow blinds. "Heard
about the light, did you?" She smiled almost shyly, circling the
fingers of one hand over the hooked nylon cover of the seat beside
her. "I was the one who saw it."

"And how was that, Ma'am ... I mean
Missus."

"My name's Devaux.
Gwendolyn.
Dr
.
Gwendolyn Devaux." Back even straighter, she paused to let her
title hammer in the name. "You've got to understand about the
houses along here. At least the houses that used to be along
here."

Z settled back. The woman was going to
tell him what she knew.

"These houses all belong
to the college. Been buying them up for years. Well before that
damned religious outfit took over the school!" Even considering her
initial threat, Z could still be surprised by the force of the old
lady's personality. "Bateman's been renting these houses out to
faculty who retired. None of us ever got much of a salary teaching
at Bateman or much of a pension when you retired, either. My
husband and I both taught at Bateman, though. I taught American
History. My husband taught Math. So we did all right while we were
still on the faculty. We'd planned on having a nice retirement.
Even do some traveling. Then, my husband got senile. He's in the
back bedroom now. Has gotten so bad he just sits and stares most of
the time." Her glare told Z she was not
about
to lose her composure.
"Anyway, we'd saved our money which was a good thing because I
can't take care of him anymore. We move at the end of next month.
Into a retirement home here in Liberty. Out on the edge of town."
She was looking through Z, now, into an unpleasant future. "We
won't do as well as we had thought, interest rates on our C.D.s
falling so low, but if we spend the principle slowly, I think we
have enough to last the time we've got left." She stopped. Seemed
to realize she'd been wandering off the subject. "Anyway, Dr. Netty
-- that's what those who knew her called Dr. Isaacs. ... Dr. Netty
died. Been more than a year, now." The old woman leaned forward.
Lowered her voice. "She was insane, you know. But harmless. The
neighbors who knew her called her Dr. Netty. Those who didn't,
called her the Cat Lady. Because she had so many cats." Dr. Devaux
eased back a little. "And that's another funny thing. Right after
she died, all the cats just vanished. Seemed to know she was dead."
She sat up straight again to resume her story.

"Of course, people who expect loyalty
from a cat haven't got the sense to own one." Again, she shook her
head to get herself on track.

This poor lady was lonely,
Z thought. Her husband's mind gone; living out here all alone. She
was bearing up, though, even in the face of an old folk's home.
(Given the nature of
Z's
profession, he'd have to be
unlucky
to live
that
long.)

"It was after Dr. Netty's death that I
first became aware of it," the woman continued.

"The light," Z said, to try to help
her keep her place.

"No. First, it was the sound. Like a
car. Or more like a truck; small truck. Heard it in the night. A
number of times over some months. I wasn't sleeping well because I
was worrying about Paul. Paul's my husband."

"Yes."

"I was up some at night.
Worrying.

"I wanted to go over there but Paul
wouldn't let me. He had more grip on his mind then than he does
now. He didn't want me to leave him. He'd get lost a lot, you see.
Needed me to tell him where he was all the time so he wouldn't get
afraid." That faraway look again. "In some ways it's better for the
both of us these days. Now that his mind is gone a little
more."

She sighed. Waved a blue-veined hand
to ban self-pity. "Then, there was the light. In the house. Late at
night or, rather, after midnight, making it early in the
morning."

"A light ... in the house?"

"Not much of a light."

"Where?"

"You know, I could never tell. As I
said, not much of a light and I never saw it for very long. You've
got to understand that I was in my nightgown with my glasses off.
After I've been asleep for a time, even with my glasses on,
everything's a blur at any distance." Unexpectedly, she smiled.
"Though it's also the truth that my eyesight has begun to come back
a little. Did you know that? Sometimes, the eyesight of old people
actually gets better. It's a function of aging."

"I didn't know that," Z
said.

Another, less fortunate function of
age was outliving your time, this lady once being Dr. Gwendolyn
Devaux, respected history professor.

"The best I could do," she continued,
her voice the stir of wind blown leaves, "was to call the college
and report the light."

"You believe there's a ghost over
there?"

"You think I'm
that
damn
stupid!?"

"I only meant ...." As always, Z was
surprised to hear an educated person swear. (Z's Mom had maintained
that the only people who used swear words were those who lacked a
proper vocabulary.)

"Ghosts and Santa Claus are for
children to believe in," Dr. Devaux interrupted impatiently. "And
God, for that matter. Myths like that are just wishful thinking.
Saccharine, is all that is, the stuff most folks use to sweeten up
their lives. Leaves a bitter aftertaste is all it does."

"Just a light," Z affirmed, trying to
return the conversation to its starting point.

"Well -- after I reported the light to
the college authorities and didn't get any results from them -- I
called a TV station, the one with the investigative reporter? And I
sort of hinted there might be a ghost in the house next door. Had
to, to get action."

"But if you don't believe
...?"

"
Someone
is over there. And that old
house is in poor shape. What if a child is getting in? A child
could get hurt playing in that old house."

"I see," Z said. And he did. No way
Dr. Cecil Ashlock, Vice Chancellor of Incremental Augmentation
Services, was going to pay attention to a light in a house he was
having demolished. What he'd probably been waiting for was for
these people to move out so he could knock down both houses at
once.

So it was Dr. Gwendolyn Devaux who
reported this ghost business to the TV reporter. This was some
formidable, gray-haired lady.

One who'd gone silent, her voice, like
her life, run out at last.

"Thank you," Z said, painfully rocking
himself out of the too-soft, too-low chair. "I believe I've got
everything I need to know."

The lady smiled sweetly. Stood up,
also. (Got up a good bit more spryly, Z couldn't help but notice,
than Z had been able to manage.)

"Sorry I yelled at you, young man,"
she said, extending her fragile hand to shake. "At the door, I
mean."

"That's OK," Z said, carefully taking
her paper-mache hand in his big one.

And it
was
OK. Anyone who called him "young
man" had yelling privileges.

At the door, Z turned. "Goodbye,
Doctor." Got the expected smile at the use of her title. "And good
luck to you and your husband."

"We've just about had our
luck," she muttered to herself. "Good
and
bad."

Rallying, she cocked her head; pulled
it back, then back some more to look Z in the face. "I'd ask you to
come back for a cup of tea but, in a month, I won't be here. Won't
be anywhere much longer." Again, the smile.

A nice old lady. Life-weathered
tough.

And one more thing.

Retreating down the walk,
Z vowed not to shine a light of his
own
in the ghost house tonight. The
last thing any
part
of him needed was for this sweet old lady to show up next
door with a loaded gun!

* * * * *

Z had gotten up speed, then switched
to his parking lights as he cut the engine to coast the last fifty
yards. He'd figured the distance pretty well, needing to tap his
brakes only once to make the Cavalier settle beside the curb just
beyond and across the street from the ghost house.

Z killed the parking lights and
removed the car key, putting the key in his pocket.

Smelled: hot car engine, grass, dust,
tar .....

Heard: a light breeze, insect noises,
and the Cavalier's hot engine ticking down.

Fifteen minutes until ten on a warm,
but not sweaty, evening. So dark, nothing was visible.

Looking out the open side
window, it quickly became apparent why it was such a murky night.
No streetlights. No car lights. No houselights -- not even from the
old couple's home. They'd already gone to bed,
their
house as black as the ghost
house just behind him. Adding to the impenetrable gloom was that
Kansas City's lights didn't reflect from the clouds this far away
from K.C.