Bloodstone (14 page)
Authors: Nate Kenyon
But she did not want to think about that now, not yet. There would be plenty of time to worry about what that night meant. Now she wanted to think about last night, the way Billy had made her feel, his hands on her in the darkness of the room.
She walked with the hot sun beating down on her bare neck, feeling the air settling about her shoulders and the sweat beading on her upper lip, trying to force out the thoughts that kept creeping into her head. But they refused to leave in spite of everything she did. She kept trying to recall the way Billy’s shoulders looked above her body, and kept seeing that clearing instead, the way it looked in the moonlight. The surface of the pond stretching out in the darkness like a pool of used motor oil, the ruined building canted to one side like a drunken partygoer. That woman, what had her last moments been like?
He beat her to death with a broom handle, babe, carved
her up like a Christmas turkey. Guess he wanted her to get
an abortion
.
The voice in her head sounded so much like Rick Davenport she almost gasped aloud.
That’s what happens when you don’t do what your man
tells you to do. Shoulda stuck with me, you coulda been
somebody
.
Yeah,
she thought,
I could have been your whore. And
then I could have been dead
. Davenport did not reply, and she suddenly wondered how he actually would have felt, hearing the story of Ronnie Taylor, the petty thefts, Ronnie’s own father’s suspicious death, and finally, his wife’s murder. Would Rick say what she had just imagined he would say, or would he be shocked, as she had been; disgusted, horrified? It was hard to believe anyone could shrug off a story like that.
Even a snake like Rick would have to
feel some kind of disgust for a man like Ronnie Taylor.
Maybe he would even be afraid of him, if they ran into each
other on some lonely street corner at night
.
But that was stupid, of course. Ronnie Taylor was dead, he would never be running into anyone again, and Rick had never been afraid of anything in his life, as far as she knew.
Still, it held a certain morbid fascination for her, this idea of the two of them, side by side. Running a mental hand over each like a farmer checking a team of horses, considering the teeth, the muscles of the thigh, the temperament. On the one hand, Richard Davenport was one of the most frightening and ruthless men she had ever met. His good looks, his self-confidence and arrogance made him even more dangerous, because they were deceptive. Morality was a matter of convenience.
But he never took a broom handle and beat someone to
death
, she thought,
never took a knife to a pregnant woman’s
stomach. At least as far as I know
. Ronnie Taylor had done that to his wife, and right in front of his young son. Dear God, what could make someone do such a thing?
And that, of course, was one of the reasons she was on her way to the historical society right now. To try to find out.
The historical society (also the swap shop, recycling center, and private residence of Miss Susan Hall) was located past the grammar school, along the gentle upsweep of Route 17 as it led out of town and up into the north hills. It was a rust-colored ranch with a circular driveway and a wooden sign out front. Near a small wooden shed behind the house were tables heaped high with all kinds of junk, littering the small open space beside several large metal bins. Behind the shed rose the edges of the north woods, a dense tangle that stretched unbroken for almost fifteen miles.
Angel walked across the gravel drive and climbed the front steps slowly in the heat. She hesitated a moment, not really knowing why, only that she had been walking now for twenty minutes and though the sweat dampened her shirt and the sun made her squint, she did not feel all that bad. The sun felt good, actually, and the walk had given her more
of a workout than she would have thought, considering the distance.
And maybe there was a part of her that insisted she really didn’t want to know anything more about Ronnie Taylor after all.
She reached out and rang the doorbell. There were two narrow sidelights on either side of the white door, but the curtains were drawn and it was impossible to see if anyone was home. A small hand-painted sign read
Welcome
. She waited, rang the doorbell again, waited some more, rapped on the door with her knuckles. Nothing.
Just as she was about to give up, a chunky middle-aged woman in a pair of corduroys and a sleeveless blouse came around the corner of the house. She wore large glasses in rose-colored frames, and her straw-colored hair was pulled back and fastened with a barrette. She carried a hardcover book under one arm, and wore a pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves.
“Just now heard the bell,” the woman explained, a little out of breath. “Was going through the boxes.”
“Boxes?”
“The swap shop? Miss Simpson left quite a load this morning, most of which ought to go to the dump. You’re welcome to have a look, though—never know what you’ll find. One person’s trash is another’s treasure.” She raised a hand to shield her eyes, noticed the gloves and hastily pulled them off, as if she had been caught in some kind of indecency. “Come on around back if you’d like a look.”
“Actually, I wanted to see the records. For the town? I was doing some research on town history, and the young man at the library said I might find something here, that I ought to ask for Miss Hall…”
“Oh, silly me. I…haven’t been feeling myself.” The woman stepped forward, shifted the book to her other arm, and introduced herself as the one and only Sue Hall. “We don’t get many people here for the historical society,” she
explained, shaking Angel’s hand in a grip that was soft and moist. “Most people just come by to drop off their junk, or their bottles and cans for recycling. We’re one of the most advanced recycling towns in Maine, you know.”
“That’s very impressive.”
“We do our best.” Sue Hall blinked behind large round lenses. “It’s Angel, isn’t it? I don’t mean to pry, but aren’t you the one who’s staying at Bob’s place, the Old Mill? With that young man, what is his name…”
“Billy Smith.”
“Of course, Mr. Smith. You’re married, then.”
Angel nodded, beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable about that little untruth. She remembered that Sue Hall was some sort of relation to the reverend, and wondered if she should offer her condolences.
But Sue Hall was already opening the front door and inviting her in. She swept down the hall that ran from front to back of the house, showing Angel into the first large room on their left, a room with fake wood paneling, a dark carpet worn thin in spots, and prints of fishing boats on the walls. The wall directly opposite the door was occupied by a gigantic map of the town, hand-drawn and accurate right down to the streetlights along the square. A line of glass display cases were situated below it, and at the end crouched an old copy machine with a handwritten sign over it that read
TEN CENTS A COPY, ON YOUR HONOR PLEASE
.
In the other corner sat a microfiche machine with a printer, and above it ran several long shelves with various bound books and pamphlets. There were zoning maps, lists of historical sights, some of the original documents from the 1700s (these were kept in a separate room, and could be viewed upon request), and minutes from every town meeting since the turn of the century. They had every issue of the White Falls
Gazette
on film, dating from 1950 when the paper began, Sue Hall explained. Before that there had been a
one-page flyer announcing the town news, and that was on film too, back to 1860. She had done all of that herself, she said, and indexed some of it by subject as well, to make finding things a little easier. Her own little contribution to the town. “It’s a shame we don’t get more of the kids interested in history these days, but they just want to go to their rock and roll concerts and drive their cars up to Augusta, looking for trouble.”
She showed Angel how to work the microfiche machine and asked her if she were looking for anything in particular. Angel shrugged noncommittally, and said she was simply a history buff and interested in the town, hoping that would satisfy Sue Hall. The woman brightened, smiling as if she had finally found a kindred soul. “I’ll just be out back with the boxes. You yell if you need anything.”
Taking a guess at the exact date of the Taylor tragedy from what Billy had told her, Angel got down the volume of the
Gazette
marked July 1980–June 1985, settled into the chair in front of the machine and started going through the entries. She scanned through pages filled with engagement notices, wedding invitations, old letters to the editor, articles about the high school sports teams, town meetings, local celebrities, obituaries. She watched five years of life in White Falls flash before her eyes, and got an idea of how the past forty years had been, or a hundred and forty for that matter; slow to change, people playing the same games over and over as children were born, grew up, got married, had children of their own. The black and white newspaper photos of smiling young people and middle-aged housewives and old men all blended together into one face, the face of a history that probably was not much different fromthe one told in the records of her own home town. An article about the White Falls basketball team winning the state class-D championship in 1982, with a picture of the team; a clipping announcing the engagement of Miss Anita
Simpson to Mr. Jody Falcino; a notice about the 1983 White Falls Festival. Then she found the article about the break-in, dated January 16, 1984.
The home of Mr. Henry Thomas, noted poet, collector,
and descendent of one of the original settlers of
White Falls, was burglarized yesterday. Several hundred
dollars worth of damage was caused to the
home, and valuables were taken. The break-in took
place while Mr. Thomas was away on vacation, and
no suspects have been identified. The local police have
refused to comment at this point, saying only that they
are “investigating the incident” and will be following
up several leads
.
Among the items taken were a jewelry box containing
an estimated several thousand dollars worth of
precious stones; four oil paintings, of undetermined
value; silver that Mr. Thomas describes as having
“been in the family for generations”; and several historic
artifacts, at least one of which has been traced
back hundreds of years and may have come over on
the Mayflower (see related article, pg. A12). Mr.
Thomas has promised to keep the name of the thief a
secret and pay whatever sum is demanded for the safe
return of the artifacts, which he describes as being
“extremely delicate and of great personal
value
.”
That was Ronnie Taylor’s handiwork, of course. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did.
Call it intuition
.
Except it was more than that, wasn’t it? She was on the right track, and something was pushing her forward, wanting her to keep going, to see.
She hit the print button, waited impatiently for the paper to curl out of the machine, and then scanned down to the related article.
PRICELESS AMULET A KEY TO OUR PAST
One of the artifacts stolen from the private collection
of Mr. Henry Thomas on Wednesday is not only a
priceless work of art, it is also the stuff of legend.
This exquisitely crafted piece, in the form of an
amulet worn about the neck, can be traced back to
Mr. Frederick Thomas, a relation of Henry Thomas
and one of the original settlers of White Falls, and beyond.
Attempts have been made to date it, according
to Mr. Thomas, but were “ineffective in determining
the exact age of [the amulet]…we know that it is
genuine, and that it is one of the oldest artifacts ever
found in this area
.”
The amulet was discovered in 1957 in a secret hiding
place in the basement of the Thomas family home,
along with a few other valuables, and Mr. Thomas
added it to his already extensive private collection.
Anthropologists have discovered historic writings
about the piece from as far away as Paris, France.
“One like it was apparently owned by Louis XIV during
the Age of Kings,” says Dr. David Rutherford, a
former Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University
who now resides in Brunswick, Maine. “Evidently,
the Sun King was quite attached to the piece
though no records have survived to document how he
acquired it
.”
The amulet was supposed to have brought the
wearer great power and wealth, Dr. Rutherford says.
“But according to the church it was also very dangerous…
there are several records of its being destroyed,
both after Louis XIV’s death, and later…it
kept turning up again in England
.”
Mr. Thomas has described the loss of the piece as
“tragic…like losing a bit of history.” He has issued a
substantial reward for its safe return
.
Angel hit “print” again, scanned through the last few pages on the machine and found nothing of interest, and continued through three more issues, looking for suspicious deaths. Finally, in the February 1985 edition of the
Gazette
, she found the death notice of Mr. Norman Taylor, sixty-one years of age. She read it quickly, feeling her heartbeat speed up again. The article stated that Mr. Taylor died in his home; the death was described as an unfortunate accident.
A few issues later the murder of Sharon Taylor was plastered across the front page. The article did not discuss the gory details but the point was clear. The woman had been beaten to death by a blunt instrument in her home while her child watched.