Deadly Kiss Page 27

  Six or seven miles along the lake road, Molly’s small white house appeared, on the shore below the road. Her dock light was on, and he saw her boat tied up. She had taken him out on the water numerous times when he visited her, and small craft’s controls were easy and familiar. He hoped she wouldn’t mind when he borrowed it.

  He pulled the rental car as far to the side as the narrow road allowed. Molly was going to be surprised to see him.

  “We’re here, daddy,” he said. “We made it.”

  There was no answer from the back seat of the car. The doctor waited a moment and then shrugged. A long package wrapped in cloth sat on the passenger floorboard and rested against the seat beside him. He collected it and got out of the car.

  ***

  “You see things,” Kate said. “I almost never do. I get impressions, and sometimes I hear things. Almost like a blind person can tell that someone else is in the room with them, and even give an uncanny description of them.”

  “Example?” I asked.

  “Well, a blind person might tell you that a person is a man wearing a heavy winter coat, because they smell a slight trace of pipe tobacco and wet wool. Sort of like that.”

  “Gotcha. And sometimes their observations might be more informed than someone who just sees them.”

  “And I hear voices, sometimes,” she said. “But what they say doesn’t always make sense.”

  We sat in my kitchen. I was going to put her up for the night, so that she didn’t try to navigate either water or roads in the dark. The candles were lit in the wrought-iron chandelier over my kitchen table. The cabin was otherwise dark.

  “You’re getting used to seeing Eli?’ she asked.

  “Yes, I saw him at the church where he’s buried, and several times here. Might sound strange, but I like him. He seems like a good kid. He has a killer smile.”

  “If you see him tonight, don’t say anything. Don’t muddy the water, so to speak. Just see if I pick up on him, and what my impressions are.”

  “Tea?” I asked.

  She nodded, and I busied myself at the counter.

  “If, on the other hand,” she said, “you see something that is not Elijah Tull, I want you to tell me. I am not here to engage with anything else on this island, are we clear?”

  “Clear, Kate. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  “It’s fine. I don’t think it’s a crazy idea, really. I’ve never deliberately tried to do it, and this island is the last place I would have picked. If it’s where Elijah is getting through, we’re stuck with it, if you want to talk to him. If he shows up, I have a feeling he’ll let you see him, so don’t tell me he’s here.”

  “Anyone else, I’ll warn you off,” I said. “You can shut it down, what you’re picking up?”

  “Somewhat. About the same as you can ignore the sound of a radio playing if you don’t want to listen to it.”

  I brought tea to the table. It was a warm night, and the screen door was open, but the cabin felt cold to me. Kate must have felt it, too, because she warmed her hands on her cup.

  “Last year, we talked about why there seems to be so much activity here,” she said. “We know it was a group of doctors from New York that built this cabin in 1901, and they were Spiritualists. It seemed likely they started something here, with whatever they may have been doing. I don’t know if you remember me wondering why they came here at all to build a holiday getaway. It’s brutally hard to get here, and they would have passed hundreds of equally lovely spots on the way.”

  “I remember,” I said. “You wondered if the island called to them, if it was already a spiritual hot spot before they ever got here.”

  “Exactly. I’ve found some things since we talked. Done some research. It’s spotty, but interesting.”

  The candles flickered. I listened to Kate, but I was looking for Eli.

  “The earliest maps I’ve found call this Squaw Island,” she said.

  “Really? I thought this was Echo Island since forever.”

  “At least a hundred years, yes,” she nodded. “I’m talking about a lot older than that. I needed some help with this. It’s taken some digging to find out why it was called that. I had an old academic contact in Ottawa do some archive diving for me, and he came back with a hell of a story, if you want to hear it.”

  I nodded. I knew some of the story already, but I wanted to hear it in detail.

  “One of the indigenous tribes in the area...Algonquin, I think, I have it written down at home...anyway, they sequestered their women and children here when they went off to battle. It was a safe place for them to camp, in case the men lost and their village was raided. If they didn’t make it home, the women could hide here until it was safe to go and join a friendly tribe, or whatever they did in a case like that.”

  “This was strictly a temporary camp, then,” I said.

  “A hiding place, yes. No one could live here for long. There’s no game, and it’s too small for crops. It was home for short periods during battle. Anyway, they seem to have been betrayed. Someone told the Iroquois war party where the Algonquin put their families. They came here. The men of the tribe were off looking for the enemy, and the enemy was right here, raping and killing. They slaughtered everyone on this island.”

  “Nice story for late at night, Kate,” I chided. “I have to live here. I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

  “Really?’ she asked.

  I thought about it. “No,” I said. “I’d rather know. So you think it’s the women and children that were brutalized here that made it into some kind of doorway?”

  “Not quite. I get a sense of something else. I think it was the men.”

  “The men?” I asked, confused. “How so?”

  “It’s just a feeling I get. I think the warriors came back from the battle that never happened, and found out they’d been tricked. I think they found the brutalized bodies of everyone they loved here, everyone they were supposed to protect. None of those men would have been spared. The hiding place was literally a death trap, and they had been off running in circles while it happened. Their grief would have been utterly unspeakable.”

  “And their rage,” I murmured. “Think of the rage.”

  “I think they must have cursed this place, Michael. Cursed the very ground.”

  Just then, Eli appeared in the room, standing behind Kate’s chair. His skin shone in the candle light, but his eyes reflected no light. Kate stopped talking and looked puzzled.

  “He’s here, I think,” she said. “Someone is, anyway.”

  She looked frightened. I could see no advantage in that, so I nodded. “Yes, he’s here.”

  She swallowed visibly, and her voice was strained when she went on. “It’s a big day. I think it’s his birthday.”

  He smiled at me, a lovely impish smile, as if we were in together on a colossal prank.

  “Of course it’s a big deal,” I said. “Happy Birthday, Eli.” I smiled back at him.

  “Where is he, Michael?” Kate asked, alarmed.

  “He’s behind your chair,” I answered. “Don’t be afraid of him.”

  “I’m not afraid of him. There’s a darkness...something near him. He has dark news.”

  She leaned over the table and rubbed her temples. Her eyes were closed. “He’s worried for you. Someone’s coming. He says you have to watch out for...a man. It’s a man...hurting people, Elijah? A man? Who is the man?”

  Eli looked at me, his expression very serious. Blue had been in the corner, watching us. He went to the screen and began to bark. I shushed him, but he paid no attention.

  Suddenly, he bolted against the door, which flew open. He was gone, and I could hear him barking outside. It sounded as though he was headed for the dock.

  “He says you have to watch out for the man, Mike.” Her voice was rising. “He says be careful of the man. The man thinks he’s with his father. Their father. He thinks it’s their father with him, but Eli says their father isn’t wit
h him, he’s gone, he’s dead...”

  Behind her, Eli had changed. He was covered in mud, and his features were bloated and unrecognizable. He was excited. He jumped up and down and seemed to be yelling. In unconscious parody, Kate’s face twisted and her voice rose to a shout.

  “I don’t understand...the man is coming here now. He’s coming in a boat. The man is angry...the man says it’s all your fault. You hung his daddy, all you people hung his daddy and his daddy didn’t do anything, you all hung his daddy, Eli says, ‘Watch out, he’s coming here!’”

  Suddenly, she stood up, grasping the table. Her face was white. She was choking. “Oh, my God. Molly--he says Molly--”

  I was out the door, running in the dark, running for the boat, with Kate behind me. Even before I reached the dock, I could see red and blue lights flashing and pulsing on the opposite shore. I had the engine on my boat started and was untying the lines when Kate hurried onto the dock. Blue had jumped onboard with his usual clumsiness. He fell and yelped. I didn’t have time to see if he was hurt. I jammed the lever into reverse, got us away from the dock and spun the wheel hard over.

  “Hang on!” I screamed back to Kate and shoved the throttle forward.

  The bow pointed up and the stern tried to bury itself in the water as the boat struggled to come up on plane. I knew that we were flying across the surface, but the pulsing lights on shore didn’t seem to get any closer. It only took a minute or two to cross the reach. At about the halfway point we passed another boat. It was a white blur to my left. I realized in some vague way that we were lucky not to have collided, as we were both running on the black water without lights.

  There was a popping flash of light. I realized it was in my own head, like the retinal image from a migraine. I saw the bare skeleton of a dead tree against a violet sky, and I knew who was in the other boat.

  My cell phone vibrated almost constantly in my pocket. I ignored it.

  A cop was waiting for us under Molly’s dock light. I recognized John Park. We were friendly. On the rise by her house, at least three police cruisers and an ambulance sat with whirling colored lights. The forest on the other side of the road looked like it was burning with red and blue flames. I got out of the boat while John was tying it off and ran for the house. He leapt for me, and latched on to my arm as I passed him. I dragged him like an anchor. He was shouting at me, but I couldn’t hear the words. After a moment, he gave up and let me go.

  At Molly’s back door, I saw her in the kitchen. She was on the floor, lying on her back. Only her bare legs were visible under the long T-shirt she wore to sleep in. My view of the rest of her was blocked by the backs of the paramedics working on her. There were bloody towels on the floor beside her. I threw the outer door open and was suddenly grabbed by multiple hands, all of them belonging to strong policemen. Gradually, as I struggled, I became aware of the shouting in my ear.

  “She’s okay--stop--she’s okay--take it easy, she’s going to be fine--stop it--” John Park’s voice was in my ear. “Don’t make her more upset than she is, Mike. She got cut by flying glass. They haven’t found a bullet wound. She’s going to be okay, they’re gonna deal with the bleeding.”

  “What the hell happened?” I shouted.

  Molly’s soft voice cut through the hubbub in the room. “Mike, come here.”

  I went to my knees. The paramedics let me shoulder in, though they stayed busy. I had never seen so much blood. Her face was mostly covered in towels. Kate slid in on the other side and stroked her matted hair.

  “It looks worse than it is,” one of the ambulance people murmured in my ear. “We’re just trying to clear out glass so we can get some pressure on before we move her.”

  The eyes that looked at me were only Molly’s. She ignored what was being done to her and seemed to will me to her. I brought my face as close as I could. She grabbed my hand. Hers was sticky with blood.

  “He’s looking for you now, Michael,” she said softly. “You have to let him find you. I think he’s on the island. If these people confront him, they’ll kill him. It has to be you.”

  “Who is it, Molly?”

  “It’s Roy.” She sighed. “It’s Roy. I came in the kitchen for water. When I turned on the light, he shot through the glass. He can’t help it. He thought he could make things right. He thought he could bring his father back. He was so sad, so sorry. He says everything that happened is all his fault.”

  “Why, Molly? Why?”

  “He came in and called the ambulance. He’s talking about sin. He said he did something bad to Eli, and he’s being punished. He has to get rid of the sins of all the fathers. He said a lot of people got Eli killed, and...I don’t know...he has to kill them to get rid of the sin.”

  “I don’t understand. What did he do to Eli?”

  “He isn’t responsible, Mike. I don’t know. He says he killed Eli. He says that ever since your dad came to see him, he thinks everyone will know what he did. Everyone will know his secret.”

  She was getting tired and drifting. A gurney had been brought in, and they prepared to move her onto it. I started to get out of their way, and Molly’s grip tightened.

  “‘I know what you did. I know what you did.’ His mother knew what he did, the secret he was keeping. The poor little boy. The poor, poor boy, Mike.”

  Her voice broke, and I found myself moved back. The paramedics and one of the cops positioned themselves and lifted her onto the stretcher in one smooth motion. They fussed with straps, and then lifted it up onto its wheels.

  “Just half a second,” I said and moved in close again. Her hand was trapped under a strap. I found it again with mine.

  “What did he do, Molly? What did he do?”

  “It wasn’t Eli who kissed that little girl,” she said. “It was Roy. They were peas in a pod.” She was crying openly now. “Those men took the wrong brother. They took Eli. He died without even knowing why they killed him. Roy said Eli was terrified of white people; he thought monsters were taking him, and he never even knew why.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “They were monsters.” I was crying, too. “All those people died, all those families broken, and he blames himself because he stood and watched them take his little brother and he was too scared to say anything. He was just a baby, just a little kid.”

  “They all were, Mike. Your dad, Eli, Wanda, Roy. When your dad came to Roy and Wanda, to ask for forgiveness, Roy finally fell apart. He says his mother hates him.”

  “He’s sick,” I said. “He’s terribly sick. His mother’s been dead for years.”

  “We saw her, Mike. We both saw her when we were in his house.”

  I remembered the figure standing behind the sheer curtains of his office doors. Molly and I had seen her the first time we were in the beautiful, crooked house. I remembered the tree with bare branches that had appeared in my vision both times.

  “You know it’s true,” Molly said. “She hated him his whole life. Eli was her favorite, and Roy let him die.”

  “Why you, Molly? Why would he hurt you?”

  “Because I told him I was expecting,” she said. “Back when I first knew. I talked to him, Mike. I confided in him. He was my friend the minute I met him. I’m carrying your baby. Another generation.”

  One of the paramedics touched my shoulder. “We need to get her in to hospital now,” he said. “She’s going to be fine, but she’s lost a lot of blood. We can’t risk a blood pressure drop if she’s pregnant.”

  “Can I ride in with her?” I asked.

  “No, Mike,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Kate will come with me. You have to find him. Remember, he called for help after he shot at me. Be careful, but Mike--” She pulled me down so close that her bandages were against my cheek. Her breath was warm in my ear. “I don’t think he’s going to live through the night,” she said. “Find him. I don’t want the police to kill him, and I don’t want him to die alone. No one should die all alone.”

  “I’ll try to find him
. I promise.”

  “Mike...” She was fading, and I could hardly hear her. The paramedic tugged my sleeve, and I shrugged him off. “Mike, Eli was here. The little boy. I saw him...I saw him.” Her breath was warm in my ear. “He was standing in the kitchen when I turned on the light, looking at me. He ran to the door and stood in front of the gun when it went off. He saved me, Mike. Eli saved me. And one more thing...”

  She was almost asleep. I could hardly hear her. “Roy called the police and left,” she whispered. “I was so scared. Eli held my hand and told me about the baby. He said it’s going to be a boy. He told me while we were waiting for the ambulance. Isn’t that sweet?”

  I finally allowed myself to be pulled away from her and watched as they carried her out.

  CHAPTER 34

  Sam and Jenny Latta,

  Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, March 31, 1966:

  “He looks like a Michael, doesn’t he?” Jenny asked. “Not a Mike, or a Mikey. A Michael.”

  “I imagine he might be a Mike by the time he’s in school,” Sam said.

  “Well, he’s just perfect. A perfect boy.”

  The baby lay on the bed between them. The room was warm. Summer was coming in early this year. Sam got up and went over to the electric fan in the corner.

  “Don’t you dare turn that on, Sam Latta,” she said. “I won’t have this baby getting chilled.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Really. You have no idea how delicate these are, so young.”

  Chastened, he came back over to the bed. Looking down at his infant son, he thought that he did have an idea of his fragility. He had never seen a baby so new and had been unprepared for how small he actually was.

  The baby looked up at them. He waved his tiny fists and kicked at nothing for a moment, and then he was still. He looked impossibly solemn.