The Purveyor, page 10
part #2 of Ivers & Wilson Series
The man said, “Hold on. I’ll get the air conditioning running.” Only it wasn’t really him. It was his voice coming through a disc in the wall. There was a window between us. I could not touch him, although I could see the back of his head.
“She can’t breathe!” I hit the window.
The man said, “I’ve got the fucking air on. Just wait.”
A thin stream of clean air, trickled out of a hole in the wall, like spring water in a dirty pond.
Prudence coughed and coughed, and her coughing jerked our body and wracked my chest, and I thought, maybe she is dying.
I could hear her prayers. Lord, I abase myself before your judgment. I have sinned and strayed from the True Path. Return me to my home, oh Lord. She was so fervent. She was so good. Even as her breath slowed and she drew her air from my air, she loved God.
I could feel my heart—which is her heart—pounding, and I knew I would rip it from our chest before I returned to Oquat. I would go back into that burning building before I would go back home.
aaAA
The car stopped after many hours. I could tell it was night by the stillness on the street, although the windows of the car were so dark they made even daylight turn black. Prudence thought it was a sign. The man spoke to us through the disc in the wall of the car and told us to remain silent. Then he came to the door of the car and opened it and threw a cloth bag over our heads and shoulders. “Keep your head inside the bag,” he whispered. “If anyone sees you, you’re dead.”
I missed the sad women with the pale eyes. She was of the wicked world, but there was no wickedness in her. I had asked Father Apostle about that once. What happens to the babies who are born without the True Reckoning? How will they avoid the fires of hell, if there is no one to teach them? Father Apostle told me that a woman’s questions were the root of sin, and then he said they would burn. “We are not punished for what we have done,” he said. “We are punished for what we are.” I understood that then. I understand it now. I felt a tear slide down my cheek. Prudence wiped it away.
Pray with me, Prudence whispered in my mind.
She prayed as the man opened his car door and slammed it shut. She prayed as he stomped around the car to our window. She prayed as the man pulled us out of the car. I did not. I only stared at the ground at our feet, then at a flat wooden door like the door of a tomb. Inside there was a staircase. At the foot of the staircase, beneath the ground there was a place with many pipes running along the floor which was sometimes dirt, like a root cellar, and sometimes a hard floor, like the butchering patio where Mother used to take the chickens.
I did not pray, although I tried to comfort Prudence in my mind. I made a mind-picture of our false friend, with his blond hair which had been combed to silk like the hair of a vain woman. His jacket shines like his hair, I spoke to her mind. This man cannot war against God’s creations.
Prudence kept praying. God kept silent.
I heard the man unlock a door. He pushed us. Then he pulled the bag off our heads. “Don’t make a sound.”
The room was very dark. A little bit of blue light came through a high window with thick, opaque glass, but that was all. As my eyes adjusted, I could see a bed and a toilet. The man watched us.
In my mind, I whispered, see, he has provided for our requirements. He cannot mean us any harm.
Prudence turned away from me because she believed I had given false witness. I had taken her away from the mountains, from Mother and Daddy, from our brothers, from Blue, from the Apostles and the little white chapel, from the ground that held Dorothia’s body.
“Is it not arrogance,” I quoted Father Apostle, “to claim to know the purpose of God’s plan?” I spoke out loud. I wanted to see the false friend’s face as I spoke the words of the True Reckoning, but he did not recoil from the word of God.
He watched us, fiddling with a small, dark object, like an idol or a talisman. I did not know what he would do next. Father Apostle never put words to the wickedness of the world, lest the tempted converts return to their old ways.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen girls,” the man said.
Prudence coughed, deep inside where her air and her blood mixed.
“We need a doctor,” I said, but I was not thinking about the time the doctor visited Dorothia and, for a few months, she was cured.
The man continued to lay his eyes on us. Prudence hid her face.
“Listen, you’re gonna make a call,” the man said. “If you do exactly what I say, I won’t hurt you. Nobody’s gonna touch you. Mr. Galloway’s made that clear.”
Prudence coughed again.
In the dimness of that wicked room, I heard Prudence’s thoughts in her very breath, in my breath.
Sister, why do you not love me?
I touched the tears on her cheek and thought of Father Apostle.
It is not what you have done; it is what you are.
Chapter Thirteen
Helen set out two glasses and a bottle of merlot. Then she poured herself a shot of vodka. She felt sick. Everything in the Pittock House, the college president’s historical residence, reminded her of Adair. When Adair was first courting her, Adair had acquired the key to Helen’s residence. In an overblown gesture of affection, she had redecorated the mansion. Removing the Turkish rugs and horse hair sofas, she had installed a white velvet sofa, white velvet arm chairs, and a white marble coffee table. In place of Jedidiah Pittock’s portrait she had hung an oceanscape painting of such gorgeous subtlety it still took Helen’s breath away.
The whole project had been the result of Helen’s offhand comment that she wanted her house decorated in white. Helen had just been making small talk, sifting through her memory for a blueprint of everyday conversation. What did normal women say? What would she say if she had not spent her whole life caring for her sister Eliza? If she had ever had friends? If she had not opened the kitchen door into a pool of her sister’s blood? If she did not see her sister’s specter in the shimmer of birch leaves? If she had not felt, even then, that the young professor with the alien blue eyes was somehow her savior?
She poured another shot of vodka and knocked it back. She saw Adair’s face in her mind’s eye. Beautiful Adair, her face darkened by smoke and her eyes as wild as a winter storm. Helen knew what she should do and what was forbidden by all the rules of professional decorum. The doorbell rang. She moved toward the door as if in a trance.
“You wanted to see me, Helen?” Bruno Duffy carried a stack of folders under his arm, probably records of faculty who had ordered more than their allotted number of dry erase pens. Behind him the campus was dark.
Helen knew he had had a late meeting. She knew it would run long. She had seen the agenda on his calendar. Now it was after eleven “Come in,” she said.
The Pittock House was surrounded by bushes. She could feel Eliza shivering up their stems.
Helen took the folders from Duffy and placed them on an end table by the door, touching his hand in the process. He smelled like damp paper, sweat, and old linoleum. “Let me take your jacket.” She slid his blazer off his shoulders, running her fingers down his back.
He turned, surprised.
She smiled. It was so easy. “Let’s have a glass of wine.”
“I…well…” he stammered.
He had a wife, a prudish, saintly, ash-blond woman who wore gingham dresses and ruled over their brood of five children with a saccharine fist. Helen had seen her at campus picnics smiling at Duffy’s colleagues and pinching her children when she thought no one was looking.
Helen led Duffy to the kitchen and poured two glasses of merlot. She motioned for Duffy to take one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
“That was quite some fire today,” he said.
Reluctantly, she placed her hands on his shoulders and massaged. He groaned under his breath.
“You’re tense. Relax,” Helen said. Her own body felt like it was squeezed in the jaws of a vice. She massaged his shoulders for several more minutes, then ran her fingers through his thick, gray hair. Tiny flecks of grease caught under her nails.
“Helen, you surprise me,” he said.
She reached around him and picked up her wine. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll really be surprised.” She tried to keep rage out of her voice. She wanted to wrap her hands around his neck, to press her thumbs into his arteries. She wondered if that was how Marshal Drummond felt. Was it this easy?
She pulled her fingers from Duffy’s hair, resisting the urge to wipe her hands on her slacks. She took a seat across from him. This conversation had to be conducted eye to eye. “You said I should pay attention to what was right in front of me,” she said. “I think I know what you want.”
“Mmmm.” He closed his eyes as if he were still savoring her fingers in his hair.
Helen stretched her leg so it rested against Duffy’s.
“And you know what I want,” she added.
His eyes opened.
“Don’t be obtuse.” She leaned forward, holding his gaze. “It’s very simple. The answer is yes.” She dropped her voice to a husky whisper. “And the price is Wilson.”
“I can’t just…”
Helen touched his lips with the tip of her finger. “Yes you can. You don’t give a shit about Andrew Slater, and his contract is up at the end of the semester. Reinstate Wilson.”
“I would have to run that by the other arts faculty.”
Helen slipped her foot out of its shoe and slid it up Duffy’s leg. “They love her.” She stood and held out her hand. When Duffy stood, she reached for the sag in his pants and squeezed gently. He sighed. She felt him stiffen.
“Do we have a deal?” Helen asked.
“I…”
She released him for a second. Reading his face, she guessed his wife had lain down only five times, once for each of their blond children. She tried again.
This time he groaned loudly. “Yes.”
“Yes? Yes, you will reinstate Adair Wilson? Yes, you will tell her that you have renewed her contract? Yes, you will do everything you can to encourage her to come back?”
Duffy reached for the back of a chair as Helen continued her ministrations.
“Yes,” Duffy said, his voice strained.
“And do you understand that if you don’t, I will tell everyone about our little arrangement?”
His eyes bulged open, his face torn between pleasure and distress. “You wouldn’t!”
Helen released his zipper. “I won’t have to.”
For a fraction of a second, Eliza’s face appeared in the window behind Duffy’s head, one eye staring, the other socket gaping black. Then she was gone, a subliminal frame spliced into the film.
“It would be very bad for your career,” Duffy said. “Anything you did to me would come down on you tenfold.”
She slid her hand into his boxers. He trembled. She moved her hand up and down, all the while watching the window for Eliza’s face. But Eliza had disappeared. When Helen felt Duffy’s legs tremble and his belly tighten, she squeezed just below the head to abort the orgasm. She withdrew her hand. She wanted his full attention. “You see Bruno, the difference is that I don’t care what happens to me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cecelia had wanted to take Adair back to the Wilson Estate, but Adair had refused, instead calling one of the family’s secretaries and asking her to book a hotel room near Pittock. The Motel 6 had been the only option, and Cecelia had complained, “Now you’re just being stubborn.” Adair simply shrugged and ordered the driver to take her to the small, squat hotel at the edge of town.
There she called the police department’s non-emergency number and asked about the twins. The dispatcher said it was too soon to identify all the casualties. Adair explained the twins’ situation, but she knew how pain and fatigue slurred her words. She knew how she sounded. She ended the call and turned on the television. If the twins had escaped, the media would be swarming. A two-headed girl! But there was no mention of them. She had doubled her dose of Texidol and passed out.
aaAA
Now it was dark. She had no idea how long she had been lying unconscious. Something was moving on the table beside her. She jumped. It was her phone, vibrating across the glass surface. “Hello?”
“Hello.”
It was Prudence!
“Where are you?” Adair asked, suddenly awake.
“We’ve decided to go home. I’m sorry for the trouble we caused you. We are going back to Oquat to be with our family. It is the right thing to do. Father Apostle has to come get us, and he is going to take us home.”
“Wait.” There was something familiar in the way Prudence spoke. Adair had heard that tone a thousand times before. It was the voice of a new theater student reciting her lines. Flat. Barely memorized. “Tell me where you are. Don’t hang up.”
There was a scuffle on the other end of the phone.
“Please do not try to find us. We do not want to see you again. We are Apostles of the True Reckoning, and we must go home.”
Adair thought she heard a man’s voice in the background. Then Prudence added in a rush, “Sister Dorothia said to say hello. She said she is looking forward to seeing us. We are going to be with her.”
Then the phone went dead. When Adair called back, she got a message saying the number had been disconnected.
aaAA
Adair slipped into her leather jacket, tucked the Seacamp in the inside pocket, and stepped out into the cool night air.
When she arrived at the Pittock Police Department the dispatcher greeted her. “The chief is on the road.”
“I have to speak to him.” Adair noticed the sign. Surrender all weapons at front counter. She pulled the Seacamp out and put it on the counter. “Call him now,” she said. “Tell him Adair Wilson is here to see him.”
The dispatcher grabbed the gun and put it in a locked drawer. “You can wait there.” She spoke into her radio. “Ten-nineteen station, ten-ninety-six. Copy?”
A few minutes later, Thompson appeared, looking concerned. “You’d better come on back.” He led Adair down a narrow corridor to a small room, bare except for a table, two chairs, and a silvered window that, presumably, allowed people in another room to look in. “What is it?” Thompson searched her face. “Are you all right? Here, sit.” He pulled out a chair for her.
Adair told him about the twins’ phone call. Thompson listened, his long fingers folded on the table before him. He nodded after each sentence, but there was something wary in his expression.
“They said they were going to see their sister, Dorothia, but she’s dead. They were trying to give me a message,” Adair went on. “There was someone else in the room, and then they just hung up. Tyron, you’ve got to trace the phone call. You’ve got to do something.”
When Adair had lived in Pittock, she and Thompson had been casual friends. Before Carrie Brown and Marshal Drummond, they would drink beers at the Craven and tease each other for noticing the pretty college girls who fluttered into the bar. She had met his wife. He had given her her dog, Ulysses, when he rescued the enormous beast from an animal hoarder. It was an easy, simple friendship. It was another life.
Thompson hesitated. “Has something happened Adair?”
“Yes!”
“I mean besides this?”
Adair caught her reflection in the mirrored window. Her hair was matted. Her bottom lip was still swollen where Cecelia’s kiss had become a bite. Her eyes looked wide and flat and gray. She remembered Andrew Slater’s words. “She was some debutant, left her job in the middle of the year for no reason, so they fired her. She’s probably crazy.” Was he wrong? Could her body be this sick and her mind not break a little bit? “I’ve been sick.” She wanted to tell Thompson it was none of his business. The twins were no less gone because she was sick. But it mattered. She had learned that over the past months. Her words weighed less because her body was failing.
“We tried to call the Kimball family,” Thompson said slowly, “after you left your message with dispatch.”
“They don’t have a phone,” Adair balled the cuffs of her jacket in her hands.
“I know,” Thompson said. “So we called one of the police departments down there and asked them to send someone out to talk to the next of kin. It took some doing to find them, but they did.”
“And?”
“There aren’t any twins.”
“That’s wrong.” Adair placed her fists on the table before her.
“We checked.”
“They must have gone to the wrong community. There are probably dozens of people living in those mountains.”
“They found the Kimballs. They actually had some ID on them which was surprising. But they never had twins. We corroborated with other people in the village.” Thompson shook his head as though it pained him to say the next words. “We asked about you. They had no idea who we were talking about.”
Adair thought for a moment. “I’ve been unborn.”
“Pardon?”
“Unborn. They do that when someone shames the community. They write them out of the book of life. They erase them. The whole cult is in on it.”
“Okay.” Thompson sat back in his chair.
“You have to trace the call.” Adair leaned forward, trying to fill the space Thompson had vacated. “Whoever has that phone, has the twins.” She could hear her own voice going shrill.
“Has anyone in Pittock talked to them?” Thompson pronounced each word carefully, as though pleading with her to weigh her answer carefully.
“You have to believe me. It must be a cover-up. Someone wants it to look like the twins were killed.”
