Hemlock Bay

15

Quantico

Dr. Hicks said quietly, “Marilyn, tell me, how did Tammy look when she came back to the motel?”

“She had on a coat and she just ripped it apart and showed me her nurse’s uniform. It was soaked with blood.”

“Did she seem pleased?”

“Oh yes. She was crazy happy that she got away. She just kept laughing and rubbing her bloody hands against herself. She loves the feel of fresh blood on her hands.”

“How d-id she get back to the motel? You said her hands were all bloody. Wouldn’t somebody have noticed?”

“I don’t know.” Marilyn looked worried, shaking her head just a bit.

“No, no, that’s okay. It’s not important. Now, you said she was wearing a coat. Do you know where she got the coat?”

“I don’t know. When she came to get me, she was wearing it. It was too big for her, but it covered her arm where she didn’t have one, you know?”

“Yes, I know. Mr. Savich would like to ask you some questions now. Is that all right, Marilyn?”

“Yes. He was nice to me. He’s sexy. I’m kinda sorry that Tammy’s gonna kill him.”

Dr. Hicks raised a thick brow at Savich, no look of shock on his face since he’d heard it all. He just shook his head as Savich eased his chair nearer to Marilyn’s.

“She’s well under, Savich. You know what to do.”

Savich nodded, said, “Marilyn, how are you feeling about Tammy right now?”

She was silent, her forehead creased in a frown, then she shook her head and said slowly, “I think I love her; I’m supposed to since she’s my cousin, but she scares me. I never know what she’s going to do. I think she’d kill me, laugh while she rubbed my blood all over her hands, if she was in the mood, you know?”

“Yes, I know.”

“She’s going to kill you.”

“Yes, she might try, you told me. How do you think she contacts the Ghouls?” Savich ignored Dr. Hicks, who didn’t have a clue who or what the Ghouls were. He just shook his head and repeated the question. “Marilyn?”

“I’ve thought about that, Mr. Savich. I know they were there when she killed that little boy. Maybe, from what she said, she just thinks about them and they come. Or maybe they follow her around and she just says that to prove how powerful she is. Do you know what the Ghouls are?”

“No, I don’t have any idea, Marilyn. You don’t either, do you?”

She shook her head. She was sitting in a comfortable chair, her head leaning back against the cushion, her eyes closed. She’d been staying in a room at the Jefferson dormitory at the FBI complex, watched over by female agents. She’d washed her hair, and they’d given her a clean skirt and sweater. Even hypnotized, she looked pale and frightened, her fingers continually twitching and jerking. He wondered what would happen to her. She had no other family, no education to speak of, and there was Tammy, in the Caribbean, who’d scared her all of her life. He hoped the FBI would find her soon and Marilyn wouldn’t have to be scared of her anymore.

He said, “Has Tammy been to the Caribbean before?”

“Yeah. She and Tommy visited the Bahamas a couple years ago. In the spring, I think.”

“Did they take the Ghouls with them?”

Marilyn frowned and shook her head.

“You don’t know if they killed anyone while they were there?”

“I asked Tommy, and he just laughed and laughed. That was right before he got me pregnant.”

Savich made a note to check to see if there’d been any particularly vicious, unsolved killings during their stay.

“Has Tammy ever talked about the Caribbean, other than the Bahamas? Any islands that she’d like to visit?”

She shook her head.

“Think, Marilyn. That’s right, just relax, lean your head back, and think about that. Remember back over the times you’ve seen her.”

There was a long silence, and then Marilyn said, “She said once-it was Halloween and she was dressed like a vampire-that she wanted to go to Barbados and scare the crap out of the kids there. Then she laughed. I never liked that laugh, Mr. Savich. It was the same kind of laugh that Tommy had after the Bahamas.”

“Did she ever talk about what the Ghouls did to those kids?”

“Once, when she was being Timmy, she said they just gobbled them right up.”

“But the Ghouls don’t just gobble them up, do they? They maybe take an arm, a leg?”

“Oh, Mr. Savich, they just do that when they’re full and aren’t interested in anything but a taste. But I can’t be sure because both Tommy and Tammy never really told me.”

Savich felt sick. Jesus, did she really mean what he thought she meant? That there were young boys who’d simply disappeared and would never be found because the Tuttles had eaten them? Were they cannibals? He unconsciously rubbed his arms at a sudden chill he felt.

He looked over at Dr. Hicks. His face was red, and he looked ready to be ill himself.

Savich lightly touched her forearm and said, “Thank you, Marilyn, you’ve been a big help. If you could choose, right now, what would you like to do with your life?”

She didn’t hesitate for a second. “I want to be a carpenter. We lived for about five years in this one place and the neighbor was a carpenter. He built desks and tables and chairs, all sorts of stuff. He spent lots of time with me, taught me everything. ’Course I paid him just like he wanted, and he liked that a lot. In high school they told me I was a girl and girls couldn’t do that, and then Tommy got me pregnant and killed the baby.”

“Just one more question. Was Tammy planning to contact you from the Caribbean?” He’d asked her this before. He wanted to see if she added anything under hypnosis because now he had a plan.

“Yeah. She didn’t say when, just that she would, sometime.”

“How would she find you?”

“She would call my boyfriend, Tony, up in Bar Harbor. I don’t think he likes me anymore. He said if the cops were after me, then he was out of there.”

Savich hoped that Tony wouldn’t take off too soon. He was still there, working as a mechanic at Ed’s European Motors. He’d check in again with the agents in Bar Harbor, keep an eye on him, maybe some wiretaps. Now they had something solid. A call from Tammy.

“Thank you, Marilyn.” Savich rose and went to stand by the door. He watched as Dr. Hicks brought her gently back. He listened as he spoke quietly to her, reassuring her, until he nodded to Savich and led her from the room, holding her shoulder.

Savich said, “It’s time for lunch, Marilyn. We’ll eat in the Boardroom, not the big cafeteria. It’s just down the hall on this floor.”

“I’d really like a pizza, Mr. Savich, with lots of pepperoni.”

“You’ve got it. The Boardroom is known for its pizza.”

Eureka, California

Simon was pissed. He’d sent Lily back to Washington. She’d been as pissed as he was now, but she’d finally given up, seen reason, and slid her butt into the taxi he’d called for her. Only she hadn’t gone back to Washington. She’d simply taken the same plane he had to San Francisco, keeping out of sight in the back, then managed to make an earlier connection from San Francisco to Arcata-Eureka Airport. She’d waltzed right up to him at the damned baggage carousel and said in a chirpy voice, “I never thought I’d be traveling back to Hemlock Bay only two weeks after I finally managed to escape it.”

And now they were sitting side by side in a rental car, and Simon was still pissed.

“You shouldn’t have pulled that little sneaking act, Lily. Some bad stuff could happen. We’re in their neck of the woods again, and I-”

“We’re in this together, Russo, don’t forget it,” she said. She gave him a long look, then glanced out the back window of their rental car to study the three cars behind them. None appeared to be following them. She said, “You’re acting like I’ve cut off your ego. This isn’t your show, Russo. They’re my paintings. Back off.”

“I promised your brother I wouldn’t let you get hurt.”

“Fine. Okay, keep your promise. Where are we going? I was thinking it would be to Abe Turkle. You said maybe you could get something out of him, not about the collector he was working for, but maybe about the Frasiers. Since he’s here, that pretty well proves he’s involved with them, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“You said Abraham Turkle is staying in a beach house just up the coast from Hemlock Bay. Do we know who owns it? Don’t tell me it’s my soon-to-be-ex-husband.”

Simon gave it up. He turned to her as he said, “No, it’s not Tennyson Frasier. It’s close, but no, the cottage is in Daddy Frasier’s name.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner? That really nails it, doesn’t it? Isn’t that enough proof?”

“Not yet. Just be patient. Everything will come together. Highway 211 is a very gnarly road, just like you told me. Are we going to be passing the place where you lost your brakes and plowed into that redwood?”

“Yes, just ahead.” But Lily didn’t look at the tree as they passed it. The events of that night were growing more faint, the terror fading a bit, but it was still too close to her.

Simon said, “Turns out that Abraham Turkle has no bank account, no visible means of support. So the Frasiers must be paying him in cash.”

“I still can’t get over their going to all this trouble,” Lily said.

“After we verify that Mr. Olaf Jorgenson of Sweden now has three in his possession-no, we want him to have all four of the paintings, it’d keep things simple-we may be able to find out how much he’s paid for them. I’m thinking in the neighborhood of two to three million per painting. Maybe higher. Depends on how obsessed he is. From what I hear, he’s single-minded when he wants a certain painting.”

“Three million? That’s a whole lot of money. But to go to all this trouble-”

“I can tell you stories you don’t want to hear about how far some collectors will go. There was one German guy who collected rare stamps. He found out that his mother had one that he’d wanted for years, only she wanted to keep it for herself. He hit her over the head with a large bag of coins, killed her. Does that give you an idea of how completely obsessed some of these folk are?”

Lily could only stare at him. “It’s just hard to believe. This Olaf Jorgenson-you told me he’s very old and nearly blind in the bargain.”

“It is amazing that he can’t control his obsession, not even for something as incidental as, say, going blind. I guess it won’t stop until he’s dead.”

“Do you think his son Ian has the real Night Watch aboard his yacht?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

“Are you going to tell the people at the Rijksmuseum?”

“Yeah, but trust me on this, they won’t want to hear it. They’ll have a couple of experts examine the painting on the sly. If the experts agree that it’s a forgery, they’ll try to get it back, but will they announce it? Doubtful.

“We’ve been checking out Mr. Monk, the curator of the Eureka Art Museum. He does have a Ph.D. from George Washington, and a pedigree as long as your arm. If something’s off there, Savich hasn’t found it yet. We’re going deeper on that, got some feelers out to a couple of museums where he worked. You keep looking back there. Is anyone following us?”

Lily shifted in her seat to face his profile. “No, no one’s back there. I can’t help it. To me, this is enemy territory.”

“You’re entitled. You had a very bad experience here. You met Mr. Monk, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes.”

“Tell me about him.”

Lily said slowly, “When I first met Mr. Monk, I thought he had the most intense black eyes, quite beautiful really, ‘bedroom eyes’ I guess you could call them. But he looked hungry. Isn’t that odd?”

Simon said, “He has beautiful eyes? Bedroom eyes? You women think and say the strangest things.”

“Like men don’t? If it were Mrs. Monk, you’d probably go on about her cleavage.”

“Well, yeah, maybe. And your point would be?”

“You’d probably never even get to her face. You men are all one-celled.”

“You think? Really?”

She laughed, she just couldn’t help it. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose, and she saw that he was grinning at her. He said with a good deal of satisfaction, “You’re feeling better. You’ve got a nice laugh, Lily. I like hearing it. Mind you, I’m still mad because you followed me out here, but I will admit that this is the first time I’ve seen you that you don’t look like you want to curl up and take a long nap.”

“Get over it, Simon. We must be nearly to Abraham Turkle’s cottage. Just up ahead, Highway 211 turns left to go to Hemlock Bay. To the right there’s this asphalt one-lane track that goes the mile out to the ocean. That’s where the cottage is?”

“Yes, those were my directions. You’ve never been out to the ocean on that road?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Okay now, listen up. Abe has a bad reputation. He’s got a real mean side, so we want to be careful with him.”

They came to the fork. Simon turned right, onto the narrow asphalt road. “This is it,” Simon said. “There’s no sign and there’s no other road. Let’s try it.”

The ocean came into view almost immediately, when they were just atop a slight rise. Blue and calm as far as you could see, white clouds dotting the sky, a perfect day.

“Look at this view,” Lily said. “I always get a catch in my throat when I see the ocean.”

They reached the end of the road very quickly. Abe Turkle’s cottage was a small gray clapboard, weathered, perched right at the end of a promontory towering out over the ocean. There were two hemlock trees, one on either side of the cottage, just a bit protected from the fierce ocean storms. They were so gnarly and bent, though, that you wondered why they even bothered to continue standing.

There was no road, just a dirt driveway that forked off the narrow asphalt. In front of the cottage was a black Kawasaki 650 motorcycle.

Simon switched off the ignition and turned to Lily. She held up both hands. “No, don’t say it. I’m coming with you. I can’t wait to meet Abe Turkle.”

Simon said as he came around to open her car door, “Abe only eats snails and he grows them himself.”

“I’m still coming in with you.”

She carefully removed the seat belt, laid the small pillow on the backseat, and took his hand. “Stop looking like I’m going to fall over. I’m better every day. It’s just that getting out of a car is still a little rough.” He watched her swing her legs over and straighten, slowly.

Simon said, “I want you to follow my lead. No reason to let him know who we are just yet.”

When he reached the single door, so weathered it had nearly lost all its gray paint, he listened for a moment. “I don’t hear any movement inside.”

He knocked.

There was no answer at first, and then a furious yell. “Who the hell is that and what the hell do you want?”

“The artist is apparently home,” Simon said, cocking a dark eyebrow at Lily, and opened the door. He kept her behind him and walked into the cottage to see Abraham Turkle, a brush between his teeth, another brush in his right hand, standing behind an easel, glaring over the top toward them.

There was no furniture in the small front room, just painting supplies everywhere, at least twenty canvases stacked against the walls. The place smelled of paint and turpentine and french fries and something else-maybe fried snails. There was a kitchen separated from the living room by a bar, and a small hallway that probably led to a bedroom and a bathroom.

The man, face bearded, was indeed Abe Turkle; Simon had seen many photos of him.

“Hi,” Simon said and stuck out his hand.

Abe Turkle ignored the outstretched hand. “Who the hell are you? Who is she? Why the hell is she standing behind you? She afraid of me or something?”

Lily stepped around Simon and said, extending her hand, “I like snails. I hear you do, too.”

Abraham Turkle smiled, a huge smile that showed off three gold back teeth. He had big shoulders and hands the size of boxing gloves. He didn’t look at all like an artist, Simon thought. Wasn’t an artist supposed to wear paint-encrusted black clothes and have long hair in a ponytail? Instead, Abraham Turkle looked like a lumberjack. He was wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans and big boots that were laced halfway to his knees. There were, however, paint splotches all over him, including his tangled dark beard and grizzled hair.

“So,” Abe said, and he put down the brushes, wiped the back of his hand over his mouth to get off the bit of turpentine, and shook Lily’s hand. “The little gal here likes snails, which means she knows about me, but I don’t know who the hell you are, fella.”

“I’m Sully Jones, and this is my wife, Zelda. We’re on our honeymoon, just meandering up the coast, and we heard in Hemlock Bay that you were an artist and that you liked snails. Zelda loves art and snails, and we thought we’d stop by and see if you had anything to sell.”

Lily said, “We don’t know yet if we like what you paint, Mr. Turkle, but could you show us something? I hope you’re not too expensive.”

Abraham Turkle said, “Yep, I’m real expensive. You guys aren’t rich?”

Simon said, “I’m in used cars. I’m not really rich.”

“Sorry, you won’t want to buy any of my stuff.”

Simon started to push it, then saw that Lily looked on the shaky side. Simon nodded to Abe Turkle and just looked at him.

“Wait here.” Abe Turkle picked up a towel and wiped his hands. Then he walked past them to the far wall, where there were about ten canvases piled together. He went through them, making a rude noise here, sighing there, and then he thrust a painting into Lily’s hand. “Here, it’s a little thing I did just the other day. It’s the Old Town in Eureka. For your honeymoon, little gal.”

Lily held the small canvas up to the light and stared at it. She said finally, “Why, thank you, Mr. Turkle. It’s beautiful. You’re a very fine artist.”

“One of the best in the world actually.”

Simon frowned. “I’m sure sorry we haven’t heard of you.”

“You’re a used-car salesman. Why would you have heard of me?”

“I was an art history major,” Lily said. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t heard of you either. But I can see how talented you are, sir.”

“Well, just maybe I’m more famous with certain people than with the common public.”

“What does that mean?” Simon asked.

Abe’s big chest expanded even bigger. “It means, used-car salesman, that I reproduce great paintings for a living. Only the artists themselves would realize they hadn’t painted them.”

“I don’t understand,” Lily said.

“It ain’t so hard if you think about it. I reproduce paintings for very rich people.”

Simon looked astonished. “You mean you forge famous paintings?”

“Hey, I don’t like that word. What do you know, fella, you’re nothing but a punk who sells heaps of metal; the lady could do a lot better than you.”

“No, you misunderstand me,” Simon said. “To be able to paint like you do, for whatever purpose, I’m really impressed.”

“Just hold it,” Abe said suddenly. “Yeah, just wait a minute. You aren’t a used-car salesman, are you? What’s your deal, man? Come on, what’s going on here?”

“I’m Simon Russo.”

That brought Abe to a stop. “Yeah, I recognize you now. Dammit, you’re that dealer guy… Russo, yeah, you’re him. You’re Simon Russo, you son of a bitch. You’d better not be here to cause me any trouble. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Mr. Turkle, we-”

“Dammit, give me back that painting! You aren’t on any honeymoon now, are you? You lied to me. As for you, Russo, I’m going to have to wring your scrawny neck.”