“What does he do for a living?”
Evan came in now with a platter of quesadillas. He lingered, refilling his father’s scotch and Jamie’s wineglass.
“He sells things,” Red answered. “Menswear, cars, yachts…”
“And himself,” Bud added bitterly. “Above all, Niles Seymour sells himself.”
At the mention of the name Evan abruptly slammed the wine bottle down and went fleeing back to the kitchen.
“Evan doesn’t like to talk about him,” Jamie explained to Mitch quietly. “He murdered Bobo, you see. We loved Bobo. She was our baby. Most traumatic experience of Evan’s life, watching that poor little dachsund writhe in pain in his arms, unable to do a thing to help her. The vet did an autopsy-said someone had fed her ground meat laced with arsenic. We could never prove it was Niles, but we have no doubt. He’s the one who was always complaining about her barking.” Jamie’s face tightened at the memory. “He used to call us the Queers. Was always leaving us nasty little notes that began: ‘Dear Queers.’ If we left a trash can out. If we had people in for drinks… I think he believed we were having gay orgies. He’s a truly horrible person.”
“None of us were particularly sorry to see him go, Mitch,” Red said. “It was almost as if he went out of his way to antagonize every single person on this island. Kept pushing me to build luxury condos out here. He wanted to bulldoze the woods, have plans drawn up. Condos
…” Coming out of Red’s mouth it sounded like the single dirtiest word in the English language. “Can you imagine?”
“He put the moves on Mandy repeatedly,” Bud spoke up angrily. “She was not the least bit interested. But he wouldn’t leave her alone. I finally confronted him about it. Do you know what that bastard said to me? He said, ‘Don’t blame me if your wife is a common slut.’ I popped him one right in the nose. First time I’d hit someone in thirty-five years.”
“Niles used to smack Dolly around,” Red recalled. “I saw the bruises. So did Tuck Weems, who threatened to strangle him. That put a solid scare into Niles-Tuck not being the stablest individual around. Niles reported Tuck to Tal Bliss.”
“Did Bliss arrest him?” Mitch asked.
“No, that’s not Tal’s style,” Bud answered. “He just told Tuck that it would be best if he didn’t work here on Big Sister anymore. Now that Niles is gone, he’s back. Dolly insisted. She’s always been fond of Tuck.”
Red stared morosely into his empty glass. “I must confess there’s one thing that greatly concerns me…”
“What’s that, Red?” Bud asked.
“What’ll happen when Niles comes back. Because he will be back-just as soon as the money runs out.”
“Never,” Bud snapped. “That’s totally unthinkable.”
Jamie said, “I agree with Red. The bastard will come crawling back. What’s more, Dolly will take him back.”
“After what he did to her?” Mitch said. “How could she?”
“Oldest reason of all,” Red replied. “She still loves him.”
They fell into grim silence. Outside, ominous clouds were rolling in over the Sound. The sky was growing dark.
“Understand you got yourself locked in your crawl space yesterday, Mitch,” Bud said offhandedly.
“Yes, I did. Someone closed the trap door on me.”
“Damned foolish thing to do,” muttered Red.
“Who did it?” asked Jamie.
“No idea,” said Mitch. “All I know is I heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps.”
“I see…” Bud glanced uneasily over at Red, who seemed a bit uncomfortable himself. “May I ask-how did Dolly react to your little misadventure?”
“Rather strangely, now that you mention it. She maintained I hadn’t heard any footsteps. She was quite insistent about it, actually.”
“Well, she would be,” Red said heavily.
“What do you mean by that?” Mitch asked.
Red gazed out the window at the approaching darkness. “Not that it’s anything you should be concerned about-because, well, we are talking about someone who was clinically deranged-but Tuck’s father, old Roy Weems…”
The madman who had shot his wife and himself in Mitch’s bedroom. Mitch leaned forward in his seat. “Yes…? What about him?”
“In the weeks leading up to the incident,” Red Peck said, “Roy kept claiming he heard footsteps.”
Now was when Mitch had his second nightmare.
This one was a doozy. This time Mitch was back in Dolly’s study with those three men. Only now their eyes were red and their teeth very sharp, like the vampires in those garish Hammer Films horror flicks with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. And Maisie was in this one. In fact, she was one of them. She was trying to kill him. To get away from her he fled back down into the crawl space-only they followed him. They all did. Their eyes glowed at him in the darkness. And they had him surrounded. And they were edging closer and closer and…
He awoke screaming. His heart was racing. His T-shirt was drenched with sweat. And his little house was shaking. A wicked storm had blown in. The wind was howling. Lightning crackled in the sky. Thunder rumbled. And the Sound had come to life, pounding angrily against the rocks.
As Mitch lay there in the darkness, listening to this, he heard footsteps again. At first, he felt he might be letting his imagination get the best of him. But he wasn’t. These footsteps were real. And they were in the house. Downstairs. Now they were on the stairs. He could hear the stairs creak. Each creak was a footstep, each one louder than the last. Someone was moving steadily, stealthily toward him in the darkness. Growing closer. And closer…
“Who’s there?” Mitch demanded to know.
Silence. Only silence.
He fumbled for matches. Lit his hurricane lamp, bathing the upstairs loft in a golden light.
Dolly Seymour stood there at the top of the stairs.
She wore a long white nightgown and an utterly blank expression. She was barefoot. She was shivering. She stood with her hands clasped behind her, rather like a child posing for a class picture. Except she was no child. She was a mature, lovely woman. And her nightgown was very nearly sheer. Mitch could make out the fullness of her breasts, the rosy hue of her nipples, the darkness of her pubic hair.
“What is it, Dolly?” he asked her huskily. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer him. Just stared at him, her gaze eerily unfocused. She seemed to be in a kind of trance. Was she sleepwalking? Drugged? He couldn’t tell. Her lips were moving, a low murmur coming out of her mouth. But no words. At least, none he could comprehend.
He raised his voice. “Dolly, can you hear me?!”
“The mother,” she said in a soft little sing-song voice. Saliva bubbled from her lips.
“What about the mother?”
“The mother is hurt.” Now she started across the loft toward Mitch, unclasping her hands, raising one of them over her head.
She held a carving knife in her hand. A long carving knife. And she was coming right at him with it.
Mitch clambered from the bed and grappled with her, wrestling the knife from her hand. Dolly relinquished it with little resistance. Their brief struggle seemed to rouse her from her trance. She blinked her eyes several times now. And she looked around at the loft, wide-eyed. Then she let out a gasp of utter horror and fainted dead away in Mitch’s arms. He stood there holding her for a moment. He thought about putting her right to bed here in his bed. But then he thought better of it. He carried her sideways down the narrow stairs, hugging her to his chest, feeling the aliveness, the animal warmth of her in his arms and his hands. He carried her out his open front door into the darkness, the wind howling, the trees rustling. Fat raindrops were beginning to patter down. Soon it would pour. He started down the gravel path with her toward her place. It was a long way to carry someone but she was as light as a feather. He made it through the laundry room door with her and managed to flick on the kitchen light. Several drawers were open, the contents strewn on the floor as if the place had been burgled. He carried her up to her bedroom and set her down gently on her bed. He turned on the nightstand light. Dolly was stirring now, her eyes flickering. Her tiny hands and feet were frozen. He began rubbing them for her.