“Vaguely remember that from somewhere way back.”
“But the fix was only temporary,” Kris pointed out.
“Temporary?”
“The king never gave up his free will. He could still let the spirit come back—and he did! One day, under its evil influence, the king took a spear and tried to pin David to the wall.”
Josee shivered, recalling her boyfriend’s stale breath on her lips. “Scooter,” she whispered. The storm outside matched her mood.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I know that you care for Scooter. He’s a charmer. Be careful though. He has something hanging on, something hooked into him that he can’t quite shake. That poison’s still moving through him. Forget the pushy and greedy religious institutions you’ve seen. God’s a gentleman—persistent, but a gentleman. Although he won’t force himself on people, demonic forces will. No manners at all. You give them a foothold, and they’ll try storming the walls.”
“Speak English. Straight up, what’re you telling me here?”
“I’m telling you that Scooter’s mind is a castle under siege.”
As the video cameras rolled, Turney watched Beau’s posture change. Erect and proud, a product of the entertainment generation, he stared into the soulless lens, ready to perform for Mother. America’s “surrogate mother.” Wasn’t that Josee’s line?
Beau straightened on the stool. “This’ll air tonight, right?”
“Up to the folks at the station,” Turney said. “It’s their newscast.”
“Tonight. No ifs, ands, or buts. That’s the way it’s gotta be, or Mrs. Addison won’t be comin’ back. Not ever.”
“Eleven o’clock news, kid. We’ll do our best to run a clip.”
Beau’s earlier confession to abduction would be broadcast along with the news of Kara Addison’s disappearance. But this? Nosiree, no suspect was gonna jerk them around. With a little digital manipulation, they’d loop a segment into the newscast and feed it through the holding cell’s television. Beau would be none the wiser.
The Record light gave a wink of encouragement. From that moment until the moment it blinked off in satisfaction, Beau Connors’s eyes stayed glued to Mother’s. His syntax and diction changed, as though some erudite entity had inhabited his body. He decried the government’s abuse of power, the evils of globalization, and the “war on our rights to freely express ourselves.” He insisted that the public was not ready to make a stand for freedom and, by default, was making a stand for complacency. Having thus sided with the oppressors, the inhabitants of Oregon would reap the consequences.
Turney stiffened. The rants had turned to threats.
“That’s right,” Beau mocked. “Allhallows Eve.”
Then his shoulders began to sag. He collapsed forward, spent, nothing more than a truant teenager in need of attention. Like a startled flock of birds, his pedantic ramblings left him, and he coughed out a last warning. “You wanna know what sorta trouble I’m talkin’ about? Go find the van I ditched in Philomath. Yeah, buddy, you’ll be dirtyin’ your diapers on the spot. Trick or treat.”
Turney was on his radio before the cameras stopped taping.
Cuffed, Beau stepped down from the heat of the stage lights. Turney led him through doors to the cruiser that would return the suspect to his cell. He wanted to shake sense into this ruffian, demand answers, throw a blow if need be.
Yet something in the kid’s manner begged for sympathy. What was the word?
He’s malleable, that’s it. Just one more soul lookin’ for love by means of hate.
From the backseat, Beau said, “You think I did all right? My speech?”
“Think ya just dug yourself a deep hole. That’s what I think. If I were you, I’d spit out Kara’s location before this comes down hard on you.”
“Uh-uh. I say one thing, and he’s gonna come after me.”
“Who’s he?”
“Say what?”
“Think ya just goofed, kid. Somethin’ you wanna tell me?”
Beau drew inward. “Can’t make me talk, Sarge. Got rights, you know.”
Back in his office, Turney mulled the evidence and starting making phone calls.
Karl Stahlherz could hear the Pacific’s pounding. Out there, cutting the waves, a vessel loaded with military munitions had followed this coastline to safe harbor in Florence. On a November night in 1945, the Professor had found passage to America.
Now, decades later, the culmination of her plans was upon them.
In the night sky the winds were scraping away the last remnants of clouds, and a cratered disk appeared over the treetops. The moonlight turned Rosie’s powdered cheeks ashen as she fondled the canister with a quaint giggle.
“This is the one?” said Stahlherz. “The one you lost?”
“Yes.” Her eyes glowed. “This canister was my constant companion. On the succession of boats from the Fatherland, I kept it close by my side. I knew that eventually it would be taken from me, along with the other canisters, but I determined to channel my, uh … shall we say, my energies into this particular one.”
“How do you know this is it?”
Rosie turned her attention to the canister’s scarred surface. With a linen handkerchief, she buffed the metal to highlight the skull-and-crossbones symbol and the black letters underneath. “Recognize this word?” she tested him.
“Says ‘Gift,’ if I’m not mistaken.”
“Which in German means …”
“Means ‘poison,’ doesn’t it?”
“That’s correct. High marks for you,” said the Professor. “It was the only canister so inscribed. Unfortunately, it felt the need to escape—for lack of a better word. While coastguardsmen were unloading the munitions at the lighthouse, one of the men tripped over a silly watchdog, and the canister fell from his hands. Ended up going over the cliff. At the time I felt that I was directing the beasts within to make their escape. I watched at the window, fully intending to fetch it later.”
“But it had vanished.”
“Allow me to tell the story, would you, Son? The trouble was that men died that night. As the canister rolled along the lawn, it left a trail of poison. A captain died. And that watchdog, who deserved it for his impudence. Two others. Remarkably, the lightkeeper and son survived. I suppose the brisk breeze had cleared the air by the time they arrived on the cliff top.”
“Did you make any attempt to find the canister?”
Lost in the memory, she polished the metal with her hands. A wisp of green clung to her skin. “Under the cover of nightfall, yes, I made my way down to the beach. My young legs fared well. Already, though, men had combed the shore for their fallen captain, and I feared they had recovered my canister as well. No sight of the thing. I was convinced it would respond to my bidding, yet it refused to recognize my authority. A rascally beast then … and now.”
As though conjured by an Indian snake charmer, a neon vapor spiraled from the canister’s base and rose before the Professor. The vapor split in two, then split again exponentially until the settee was buried beneath sinuous shadows.
Stahlherz watched with an emotion akin to admiration. But he was shaking.
“I thought I was in control,” Rosie said, “for I simply did not understand. I now know we are powerless always until the moment we give them control.”
“Them?”
She nodded. “The scene’s so clear in my mind. The search party had retired, and standing in the gloom on the lip of the sea, I relinquished myself. In seconds, the canister propelled itself forward on the crest of a wave and slid up onto the sand at my feet. I had been chosen. I knew this deep in my bones. I’ve known it since the day Herr Hitler took my hand in his and prophesied great things.”
Over Rosie’s head, the glowing tendrils settled into a wreath of green that emitted a sickly sweet odor: cinnamon sticks, an apple burning over an open flame. A pair of fangs protruded thornlike from the nebulous mass.
“P
rofessor. Mother!”
“Don’t stop them, Stahli. There’s no need to fear. Only as you stop fighting does the pain dissipate.” Her words slithered away as the fangs found purchase in pearl-white skin. Her thin hair threaded throughout the wreath, becoming one with it, and her eyes narrowed into moist slits. A look of subservient revelry.
Stahlherz felt his stomach lurch.
“All a question of surrender,” she purred. “Of giving up control.”
Kaww-kontroll! Stahlherz bit his lip and tried to ignore the screeching in his ears. Who do you think you are, you putrid beast? Heave-ho … Back in your hole.
“These creatures always aim to rule,” said Rosie. “From that moment in my father’s laboratory when I locked him in with the boomslangs, from the moment I gave in to the rage and tempted the gods to parcel out justice, I allowed these fiends access. Willingly so. I craved their power. I longed for the chance to bring glory to the Third Reich by bringing down our enemies. Long live der Führer!”
“But, Professor—”
“Heil Hitler! Aha!”
“I don’t understand. Hitler is … no longer with us.”
“Das ist wahr. True, he was a man, a mere mortal. He refused to trust in these very forces that had led him to success. As a corporal in the First World War, he suffered a mustard-gas attack that blinded him temporarily, and thereafter he feared the use of such weapons. He began listening to the counsel of fools, spineless generals who turned from the unseen powers and trusted instead in the wisdom of men. Men!” The collection of fangs pulsed, deepening their hold in the Professor’s thoughts. “But I … oh, yes, I saw the true potential. And as a woman, I was less susceptible to the inhibiting logic of the male species. I know men. I know where they attempt to store their strength. They are weak. Their meager thrusts are nothing compared to the creative power of a woman.”
“In cauda venenum!” Stahlherz’s salute produced a smile of contentment on the Professor’s powdered face. “I’m still confused though. How did Josee and her friend stumble across the canister? What was it doing out in the woods?”
“Been there for ages, I can only assume. After Chance Addison discovered the danger of this gift, he returned it to me and begged that I leave him and his wife alone. In exchange, he offered me an opportunity to spread the poison much farther. This part you already know. It’s why we tried to steal Josee when she was only minutes old. She alone has access to my father’s stolen venom vials. She is the key. And yet, without Chance’s journal, none of us knows where this bank-deposit box lies.”
“Marsh will find the journal. He’ll bring it in exchange for his dear wifey.”
“And you are sure he’ll comply?”
“I’ve studied him at the chessboard. He’s predictable. He likes symmetry and order.”
“Chance was much the same,” Rosie said. “Like father, like son.”
The beak pecked and tore at his skull. Stahlherz grimaced, then focused on the strategy before them. “You, too, have noted his predictability. You’re the one who’s provided all the information I could need—mother’s maiden name, Social Security number. If necessary, you could no doubt tell me his brand of briefs and the way he likes them folded. With one toll-free call, I can follow his movements by means of his latest American Express transactions. If he eats out, purchases gas, goes to a ball game, we’ll know where he’s been.”
“A fine plan, Son.”
“I hoped you would think so.”
“But all this … this silliness could’ve been avoided years ago if you had squelched your rage. Instead, you—”
“My rage? You blame me for—”
“Son, do not interrupt.” Rosie slid a hand through her vaporous wreath. “There in Good Samaritan your task was to unleash the canister—nothing more, nothing less. Instead, you allowed your desire for vengeance to supersede your commitment to my plan. You resorted to violence, attacking Marsh and his fiancée there in the hospital stairwell. A gunshot. In close quarters. And yet you managed only to strike Kara in the hip? You might’ve put the bullet to better use and done yourself in, for all the good you accomplished. Our strategies were waylaid by your reckless emotion.”
“And you punish me still for my mistakes. How long, Mother? Don’t you value my productivity in the years since? ICV is my brainchild. My gift of reconciliation.”
“Think as you will.” Rosie smiled from behind the curled tail of a viper.
Stahlherz blinked.
“You’ve been a good son, don’t misunderstand. But your impetuousness polluted the canister. Why do you think it failed to capture newborn Josee that night? You think the bumbling of some nine-year-old child gave Kara and Josee time to make an escape? That fool, Sergeant Turney! He could no more protect them than he could say no to a chocolate eclair! A worthless boy who got in the way, nothing more.”
“So you blame me for the canister’s disappearance.”
“It vanished from the carnage at the hospital. Yes, Stahli, I believe it took on a mind of its own and went into hiding. Storing up wrath. Waiting.”
“Until Josee stumbled across it a few days ago.”
“A lovely scenario.” The rear-fanged jaws gave another spasm. “When the hospital administrator called with news of Scooter’s unusual symptoms, news which you then passed on to me, I knew I was being beckoned for a final time. The administrator provided the location from the ambulance log, and I hurried to the spot.”
“Where you reacquired the canister.”
“Initially, no. When my search of the brush and fallen logs proved fruitless, I feared the police might’ve taken possession of it. Of course”—her thin lips turned up in amusement as her eyelids drooped—“it’s more probable it would’ve taken possession of them. But, yes, once again I surrendered myself, and once again the canister showed itself. Imagine. All these years it’s been up the road, dormant, awaiting this moment of destiny. As I opened myself up, it appeared and took control.”
Stahlherz opened his mouth to reply, but a pointed shape clogged his throat.
“Son, why are you moaning? You don’t sound well.”
“Ka-kawwff.”
“You sound hoarse and muffled. Are you fighting something?”
He shook his head. Side to side, side to side. “Kaa-aaawf!”
“Stahli,” she said, “you really should take something for that cough.”
In the pink lampshade’s glow, Josee leaned against the headboard and let the sounds of U2 wash through the room. The fears of the day and the worries of tomorrow played through her head, giving way to ethereal guitar tones and soulful vocals. She felt peace settle over her, and her eyelids grew heavy. Tonight she would even take Kris up on her offer and wrap herself within the luxurious blankets.
Josee turned on her side with her back to the lamp. Yep, she was ready to sleep, but there was no way that light was going off.
Twenty-five minutes later her eyes shot open as the room went black.
28
Noose of Pearls
Marsh shook his head and draped his towel over his shoulder. “Been a long day, Casey. I’m in no mood for company at the moment. Listen, the vine-yard’ll lose money if my name gets smeared, and having you here dressed like that won’t help. I’m under police suspicion, if not actual investigation, and my wife is missing. I love her.”
“You don’t know where she is? You’ve considered all the options?”
“Racked my brain, believe me.”
Casey seated herself on the edge of the bed. “There’s a possibility you and I’ve not discussed. Pardonnez-moi, but do you have any reason to believe Kara might’ve run out on you?”
“No! None whatsoever.”
“A secret lover perhaps? You’re a busy man with a lot on your plate. Maybe she’s needed more attention, a little more romance in her life.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Marsh said without conviction.
“Has anything happened in the past? Either one of you ever bee
n unfaithful?”
“Hey, what are you, my attorney or my psychiatrist? Back off.”
But, he added, yes, there had been indiscretions. As he stared across the hotel room, things long buried came rushing to the surface, and he found himself delivering a monologue that started with his knowledge of Kara’s pregnancy in early 1981.
Soon after New Year’s, classes had recommenced on the OSU campus, and Marsh Addison and Katherine “Kara” Davies had discovered the news: A baby was on the way. Considering the nuisance of contraceptives, and religious upbringings that had prohibited such methods, the pregnancy was no surprise. They shoved aside the idea that they had been involved in moral failure and planned an August wedding.
It was the doctor’s grim prognosis that changed everything.
Kara turned inward. Helpless, Marsh watched it happen. Her effervescence faded, and her grades suffered. She drank less, partied less, talked less. His fiancée was a flower folding in on itself.
“I should’ve told you,” she confessed that evening on the sofa. Her tummy had a slight swell, barely noticeable. Marsh had his arm around her, but his eyes were following Quincy, M.E. on the television. “It’s my fault, I think. A punishment.”
“Your fault for what?” He grinned in an attempt to lighten her mood. “Have you been a bad girl? You need a spanking?” He realized later that she had been about to divulge her darkest secret, and he was cracking jokes.
“I was drinking. I shouldn’t have drunk that much.”
“When?” he asked.
“At that party a few months back. The one Jerry invited us to.”
“At Phi Beta Upsilon?”
“Why didn’t I just quit and walk away? Now our baby’s being punished for it.” Kara dissolved into tears, and as he stroked her hair that was fresh with the scent of strawberry shampoo, the words locked within her burst forth in confession. “I knew I was getting bombed, and I asked for another one. Another one! What was I thinking? I could hardly talk, much less stay on my feet. It’s my fault. I should’ve known this would happen. I’m the one to blame.”