Chapter 6

When Elaine returned to the Matherly house, she looked in on Jacob and found the old man asleep, resting comfortably by the look of him, taking a late-afternoon nap to prepare him for the rigors of suppertime and the long evening ahead. In sleep, the stroke-affected half of his countenance was far less imposing and ugly than it appeared when he was awake. She did not interrupt his sleep, but closed the door quietly and walked down the hall to her own bedroom.

She locked her door.

She undressed and showered, letting the hot water pour over her for long, long, exquisite minutes. She did not know which of the two things she was trying to wash from herself: the Bradshaws' envy and the hatred of the Matherly household which they so clearly, even fanatically, evidenced-or the gruesome account of the Christmas Eve murder of the Matherly twins. She felt numbed, terribly old and maybe paralyzed as Jacob was. She neglected the soap, neglected everything as the steaming water cascaded over her and drove out some of the evil that seemed to have seeped into her.

She slipped into her pajamas and flopped upon the bed, drew the sheets up to her chin. She found that the ordeal of the afternoon had thoroughly exhausted her. She had done little but go for a walk and listen to the story of Amelia Matherly's madness. It was not the walk which had exhausted her, but the listening. She wanted only to sleep, sleep until she could wake up and find a world as simple and uncomplicated as she desired.

She did not dream, so deep was her rest.

Paul Honneker came to the supper table ten minutes late, while the others were beginning the main course. His hair was tousled, his eyes quite bloodshot. His face had lost nearly all its color, except for a bruised and ugly bluish cast beneath his eyes. He stopped in the dining room archway and stared at each of the diners, one at a time, moving around the table, and he seemed somewhat incredulous to have found them here. He wiped at his face with a large hand and made his way round the table to his chair. He did not sit down, but fell into it, hunching forward over his plate as if he might not be able to retain consciousness.

Elaine looked down at her plate and tried not to see. But with the absolute silence from the others, she could not help but look again.

Paul was sitting straight now, though he had made no effort to spoon food onto his plate from the serving dishes. It was almost as if he did not want any supper but could not bring himself to break the ritual by not showing up at all.

“You've been drinking again,” Lee Matherly said. His face was hard, stern lines tracing across the unhealthy pallor he had had ever since Celia's scream.

“What if I have?” Paul asked. It was meant to be a belligerent response, but there was no anger in the man, only defeat.

“You know what it leads to.”

“I can hold my liquor,” Paul said, suddenly defensive. He did not seem any older than fourteen, his mouth drawn up in a pout, his face sullen and unresponsive.

“You can't,” Lee said.

“What makes you think you-”

Lee said, “Did you break your mirror yet?” When Paul didn't reply, he said, “You can't hold your liquor, Paul. You break mirrors and windows and dishes, anything that might cast a reflection.”

Paul sulked.

Lee watched him for a moment, undecided, then allowed his face to soften. “Paul,” he said in an utterly different tone of voice, an almost fatherly voice, “please do me a favor; please do not start drinking heavily now, not now, not at a time like this.”

Paul looked at his plate, as if something were written in the white china, something important.

He said, “This is the best time to drink. I can't think of a better time, in fact.”

“It can't help Celia,” Lee said. “And it certainly doesn't do the rest of us any good, worrying about you.”

Paul gained fire from some unseen source. He raised his head and stiffened his backbone. His words were still heavy with drink, but they came with more power and assurance now. “Do you know what they're saying in town?”

“Who cares?” Lee asked.

“I do.”

“People will always talk, Paul. We've all grown used to that, we've all learned to cope.”

“I haven't,” Paul said. “They're connecting Celia's stabbing to-to the other-to Amelia.” His dead sister's name required effort; it lay before him, spoken but leaden and still.

Lee winced, as if someone had struck him. “We'll be above that sort of silliness and-”

Paul interrupted and said, “Everyone stares at me. People I thought were friends of mine-they weren't. Lee, they think maybe I stabbed Celia!”

“Nonsense.”

“You haven't heard the talk. They're saying the Honneker blood is tainted, that Celia's attacker lives here, in this house.”

“Ignore them.”

“I hate suburbs and small towns,” Paul said. “I hate living where everyone knows everybody else's business and the women go around looking for topics of gossip.”

“Still and all,” Lee said, “drink won't help.”

“It helps me!”

Everyone was silent for a long moment. Only the clink of silverware against the plates was audible.

“Aren't you eating?” Lee asked Paul Honneker.

“I can't eat.”

“Paul, the doctor thinks her chances are fifty-fifty. The longer she holds on, the better it looks.”

Paul said nothing.

“I talked to Captain Rand just a while ago,” Lee said. He had shoved his own food aside, as if he too had lost what little appetite he had brought with him to the table.

“Oh?” Paul looked so mournfully hopeful that Elaine had to look away from him. She realized, suddenly, that Paul Honneker half believed the rumors he had heard in town, half wondered if he hadn't been the one to take a knife to Celia. The mad often encompassed periods of amnesia, after all, in which anything could be done and later go unremembered…

“Rand says that they had several reports about a hitchhiker on the highway, just down from here, shortly after the murder. Three people have come forward since the newspaper story broke, and two of them collaborate well. A large man, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six, dressed in jeans and work-shirt, carrying one suitcase."'

“But they can't be sure,” Paul said.

“Not until they find him.”

Paul said, “If they ever do.”

Elaine wanted out of there, but she did not know how to graciously depart. She did not want to hurt anyone's feelings, but she could not take this self-recrimination of Paul Honneker's much longer. Could not take it, chiefly, because she did not know whether or not to believe it was based in truth.

“If you can't eat, Paul, you don't have to remain,” Lee said. He spoke gently, calmly, soothingly, as if he had had a great deal of experience with the other man's moods.

“Come on, Uncle Paul,” Dennis said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and shoving back from the table. “I'll show you the painting I just finished. It's my best so far, I think.”

Paul Honneker accepted the invitation with the first expression of pleasure he had shown since he had arrived at the table. He seemed to like the older Matherly son. Elaine supposed that the irresponsible people of this world attracted one another.

When she had checked Jacob Matherly's blood pressure, temperature, and heartbeat for the evening and had duly recorded her findings in the note folder which the doctor had provided, the old man said, “So someone has told you about Christmas Eve.”

She said, “Have they?”

“It shows in your face.”

Unconsciously, she raised a hand to her cheek, as if she might feel the change.

“You're still quite pretty,” Jacob said. “But there's a weariness there, a coldness. It happens to anyone when they have to face a story like that one.”

He did not seem to be excited over the memory any longer. The events of the last several hours had forced him to dredge it up and examine it from every angle, and it no longer frightened him.

She said, “The Bradshaws told me.”

“Those vampires!”

Despite herself, she laughed. “Aren't they just?”

“Money will never do them any good, because they'll never be satisfied that they have enough of it to be happy.”

She agreed.

He said, “Sit down, Elaine. I want you to hear it from me.”

“Christmas Eve?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Do you feel you should talk about it?”

“The memory hurt me for a while,” Jacob admitted. “But that was only because I'd tried to force it out of my mind. I hadn't fully succeeded, of course, but over the years I had managed to dull the memory. Now, it is back, sharp and clear, and I've learned to accept it again. It'll help if I tell you; it'll unburden me a bit. Besides, I want to be sure that you hear it the way it was, not embroidered by the Bradshaws.”