“What happened on Sanctuary was so much worse than a single murder. Like you say, it tainted this island, marked it forever. Then a bunch of rapists took a woman here a long time after, and they disappeared. Flash forward to George Sherrin, and he winds up under the roots of a tree. I was there when they dug him up, and I saw what the roots had done to him.”
Amerling leaned forward, grasping the teacup in both hands.
“He was an evil son of a bitch. There were stories about him, after he died. He tormented and abused his own children and they say he might have hurt children on the mainland.”
“I heard that too,” said Dupree. “My father believed it was so.”
“Well, if your daddy believed it, then it was true. I got no doubt in my mind now. The island, or whatever dwells here, wouldn’t tolerate him, and it got rid of him. There’s no better way of putting it than that.”
“But where does that leave the Lauter girl, and Wayne Cady? You’re saying they deserved what happened to them?”
“No, I don’t think the island played any part in that. They died because they’d been drinking and decided to boost a car. But I think something was drawn to that place as they died, because there’s an awareness now. This tension that we’ve all felt, it’s there for a purpose. I think when the crash happened, the nature of the tragedy-sudden, frightening-drew something. It came to see what was happening.”
“Something? Something like what?”
“I don’t know. Have you been out to the Site lately?”
“Not for a while.”
“It’s almost impossible to get to. The path’s become overgrown. There are fallen trees, briers. Even the marshes seem to be getting bigger.”
“You said ‘almost impossible.’ Does that mean you’ve been out there?”
Amerling paused. “Yesterday. Jack went with me. We didn’t stay too long.”
“Why?”
“It’s stronger out there. It’s like getting too close to the bars of the lion’s cage. You can feel the threat.”
“And there are no birds,” said Jack.
“Not out there, not anywhere,” said Amerling. “Haven’t you noticed?”
To tell the truth, Dupree hadn’t, but now that he thought about it, there was a silence to the island that he had never experienced before. The only bird that he had seen was the dying gull on Marianne’s lawn.
“That’s where your daddy and I differed about the island. He believed it was something unconscious, like a force of nature. A tree doesn’t think about repairing breaches in its bark, it just does it. He thought the island operated on that level.”
“But you don’t?”
“No, and the Lauter girl’s last words just confirm what I believe. Whatever is out there is conscious. It thinks, and reasons. It’s curious. And it’s getting stronger.”
Jesus, thought Dupree, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. If anyone from the department heard me, they’d have me jacketed and locked up in a padded room. But the brass don’t come out here, so they don’t know what it’s like. They don’t understand it. Most of them don’t understand much about any of the islands, but this one in particular is beyond them. All I can do is hope that nothing happens that would force me to try to explain it to them.
Well, Chief, I guess you could say that the island is haunted, and I think some dead people came to take a look at Sylvie Lauter. Oh, they had lights, did I mention that? They must go through a hell of a lot of batteries, so that’s our main lead. We’re scouring the island for batteries…
“So, why now? Why should it be so strong now?”
“A convergence of circumstances, maybe. A new factor on the island that we don’t recognize, or haven’t noticed.”
“You’re thinking it’s dangerous?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you think it’s-” Dupree paused, uncertain that he wanted to use the word that came to mind, then relented.
“Do you think it’s evil?”
“Evil, that’s a moral concept, a human concept,” said Amerling. “It could be that whatever is on this island has got no concept of morality and no need for it. It just wants what it wants.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know that. If I knew it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I’m not sure I even want to be having this conversation as it is.”
The postmaster grinned.
“Anyone else apart from us three was here, they’d say we were two foolish old men and a giant driven simple by what was ailing him.” Larry Amerling was never one to sugarcoat his words, but Dupree felt as if the older man had been reading his thoughts.
Jack interrupted.
“I heard from her father that there was some question about the Lauter girl’s death,” he said.
“Yeah, I heard that too,” said Amerling, “although I heard it from you.” He cocked an eyebrow at the painter.
“I just thought you might like to know,” said Jack. “Hell, you know just about everything else. I figure a gap in your knowledge would bug you more than most folks.”
Dupree didn’t answer immediately. He wasn’t sure that he should, but then both men already seemed to know as much as he did, or more.
“They found insect matter in her mouth, and beneath her fingernails,” he said. “It came from a moth, a tomato hornworm. They’re big and ugly and they’re all dead by September, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever even seen one on this island until recently.”
“I saw one on a tree in the cemetery, when they were laying Sylvie Lauter down,” said Jack. “I took it home, looked it up in a book, then pinned it to a board. Thought I might paint it sometime.”
“Paint it badly,” said Amerling. “You’d have to stick a note on it so folks would know what it was.”
“I’m not that bad,” said Jack.
“Yes, you are.”
“You came to my exhibition at the Lions Club.”
“There was free food.”
“I hope it poisoned you.”
“Nope, it was pretty good, unlike what was on the walls.”
Dupree interrupted them.
“Gentlemen! You’re like two old dogs fighting. It’s embarrassing.”
He picked up his cap and flicked at some dust.
“I was out at Doug Newton’s place. There was a moth there too, same type. I saw it on the curtains in his mother’s bedroom.”
But he wasn’t talking to the two older men as much as to himself. He ran his hands through his hair, then placed his cap carefully on his head. Moths. Why moths? Moths were attracted to flames, to light. Was that what it was, some form of attraction toward Sylvie Lauter and the old Newton woman? What did they have in common?
The answer came to him immediately.
Dying, that was what they had in common.
“How long have we got?” asked Dupree.
“Not long,” said Amerling. “I go outside, it’s like I can hear the island humming. The birds were the last sign. It’s bad news when even the birds fear to fly.”
“So what do we do?” asked Dupree.
“We wait, I guess. We lock our doors. We don’t go wandering near the Site at night. It’s coming soon, whatever it is. Then we’ll know. For good or bad, then we’ll know for sure.”
Chapter Seven
Moloch allowed them to rest for the remainder of the day, choosing to travel north under cover of darkness. Later that morning, Powell and Shepherd headed down to Marie’s Home Cooking and bought enough takeout for the day. On the way back to Perry Avenue, they stopped off at Big Gary’s Liquor Store and picked up two bottles of Wild Turkey to keep out the cold. Dexter and Braun took an opportunity to rest, once they had finished conversing softly with Shepherd in Karen Meyer’s kitchen.