secret_history | Beyond the Pale -Part 33

Here is the other promised episode.

For those of you who, by some fluke, are just joining the party now, you may find all the episodes of Beyond the Pale in the memories section in my userinfo. I've made an effort to keep them up to date for your convenience.

Anyway, onward! This one turned out about five or six hundred words longer than my usual instalments, but I couldn't find a better place to end it earlier, so you get a bonus this time around.

She showed them in past a narrow staircase that led upstairs and into a richly furnished sitting-room with books lining an entire wall. The rain pattered loudly against the window panes, and Victoria suddenly felt very self-conscious as she dripped water onto what was visibly a very expensive carpet. She removed her duster and folded it carefully over one arm, then perched on the chair Yelena indicated to her while Monroe made his way directly up the stairs. Yelena pursed her lips in obvious disapproval, but said nothing. Instead she turned to Victoria with a forced smile.

“You were caught in the rain. It would be a shame if you were to catch a chill. I shall go fetch some mulled wine. Excuse me, please.”

She swept from the room before Victoria could even so much as open her mouth to refuse politely. Nonplussed, Vicky left her duster over the arm of a chair and began to peruse the bookshelves, wondering if they reflected Mayor Quarrie’s taste in literature, or his very eccentric cousins’. The vast majority of books turned out to be histories, and a very few novels, together with a number of reference books and biographies, all but a few in English, which led her to conclude that they were more likely the Mayor’s books. As she walked around slowly, she heard the murmur of voices in a nearby room, although she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She wished Monroe would hurry up with whatever it was he was asking the Mayor. The longer they stayed in this house, the uneasier she got.

Yelena returned a few moments later with a steaming cup that she handed to her guest. Vicky accepted it with a nod of thanks, and decided that she may as well try to find out as much as she could about these mysterious people now, while Monroe was still busy upstairs.

“We don’t see much of you in town,” she ventured, sipping at the dark red liquid, and feeling the warmth begin to seep back into her bones.

The woman appeared startled that Victoria had spoken at all. “What? Oh, no. I prefer to stay here and look after Robert. My husband, Radu, he is the one who goes into town when we are in need of anything. His English is far better than mine.”

“Your English seems fine enough to me,” Vicky remarked.

“You flatter me. I have been practising, though. Soon I hope to speak as fluently as anyone born in this country. It will make it easier to blend in.”

“Uh, yes. Of course. I’m pretty sure I saw your husband in town this morning. He seemed to be in a hell of a hurry. Nearly knocked me over in that carriage of yours,” she tried a deprecating smile. “I meant to have a talk with him the next time I saw him about reckless endangerment. It’s one thing to whip your horses to breakneck speed when you’re out here in the countryside, but once you’re in town, you have to remember that there are other people about, too.”

Yelena clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “Oh, I am terribly sorry if he caused you any inconvenience. I shall be sure to tell him when I see him. He spent the night in town yesterday, and I believe he may have had... to much to drink, yes? I shall tell him to be more careful.”

“Too much to drink, right,” Vicky nodded as though it made perfect sense. It was a good reason, too, except that something about the way her hostess had said it rang false to her ears. She’d had a fair bit of practice in figuring out when people were lying to her, and she’d stake her life this woman was lying to her. The question was, why? “Is your husband home? I could have a talk with him now, spare you some unpleasantness.”

The woman’s eyes flicked toward the door and back. “Oh, I am afraid he is not at home at present. But do not worry, I shall pass along the message when he returns. He would not like to cause any real trouble, I am sure.”

Before Vicky could think of anything to reply, both women were startled by the sound of shouting coming from the front entrance. Vicky sprang to her feet in alarm, but Yelena managed somehow to reach the doorway first and ran to see what the cause of the commotion was, with the deputy close behind her. Victoria could hear the shouting grow louder, in a guttural tongue she didn’t understand, followed by another, high-pitched voice stammering an apology. She didn’t know the first voice, but the second was unmistakable.

“Squeaky, what in hell do you think you’re playing at?”

Poor Squeaky, she found, was dangling about half a foot off the ground, held aloft by a very irate Radu, red-faced and bellowing invectives in his native tongue, whatever it was. It didn’t take a translator to figure out that, whatever he was saying, it wasn’t particularly flattering to Squeaky. Yelena began talking rapidly and urgently to Radu in their language, and Vicky could only watch, bemused, as Radu, still holding Squeaky aloft by his shirt front with one hand, gestured angrily with the other while he replied.

“What’s going on?” Vicky demanded, annoyed at being ignored while Squeaky kicked and struggled, to no avail.

Radu dumped the unfortunate inventor in an ungainly heap on the floor and snarled incoherently, his eyes flashing, while Yelena turned an apologetic yet exasperated expression toward Victoria.

“Radu says he caught him listening at the door. I am sorry for the disturbance, but we are private people, and we don’t like being spied upon.”

“No, of course not,” Victoria winced. “I’ll deal with this, don’t worry. Get up, Squeaky.” She bent over and hauled the breathless Squeaky to his feet. “You’re going to come back with me and the Marshal, and we’ll straighten this out. What the hell were you thinking, anyway?”

Squeaky was still too out of breath to answer, and was spared further indignity by the appearance of Marshal Monroe at the top of the stairs.

“We ought to go now, Marshal,” Vicky said quietly. “I think we’ve taken up enough of these folks’ time, and we’ll have to take care of Squeaky’s little trespassing problem, too. How’s Mayor Quarrie?”

Monroe frowned. “All right, let’s go,” he said, apparently coming to a decision quickly in his mind, which was unusual for him: he usually liked to have all his facts straight before acting. Still, in this case it appeared discretion was the better part of valour for the moment. “I’ll fill you in on what I discussed with the Mayor on the way back.” He turned a disbelieving look on the dishevelled scientist. “What the hell were you playing at, you young fool?”

“That’s what I want to know, too,” Vicky said, retrieving her duster and propelling the young man out the front door and into the pouring rain. She turned back to Yelena. “I can’t apologise for Squeaky, here, since I had no idea what he was up to, but I am sorry you were inconvenienced. I’d like to come by at some point soon and finish our discussion, if that’s all the same to you.”

“Of course, deputy.” It didn’t look as though it was all the same to the foreign woman, but there was really no polite way to refuse the request of a representative of the law.

The rain began to abate as they neared the town, and the three of them rode in silence, each plunged in their own thoughts. Squeaky looked as though he was doing his very best to disappear inside the overly large rain coat he was wearing, probably wondering what kind of punishment was meted out to trespassers. He wasn’t the kind to get in trouble with the law, didn’t even drink as far as Vicky knew, and not for the first time she wondered what had possessed him to go snooping around the Mayor’s property. When they got back to town, she dragged him unceremoniously into the Marshal’s office and sat him down in a chair. Pulling up a chair for herself, she straddled it, facing him, and folded her arms across her chest while Monroe leaned his back against the door, trying to hide the amused expresssion on his face.

“Okay, Squeaky. I’m listening, so this better be good.”

The young scientist shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, I... I was trying to find out about the people living with the Mayor.”

“You were caught like a Peeping Toom, Squeaky. Tell me something I don’t know. What were you trying to find out, and how in hell did it seem like a good idea to go snooping around a stranger’s property?”

“The Mayor isn’t a stranger,” Squeaky started to protest feebly, but a look from Victoria quelled the phrase before it was even finished. “I overheard you talking to Otto, and I got curious. Otto’s really afraid of those people, and that doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t know them, so what could he have to fear? We haven’t seen the Mayor in a long time, too, and I thought they might be holding him against his will, or something...” he finished weakly.

“You followed us?” Vicky was incredulous. Neither she nor Monroe had seen anything, which either meant that there was far more to this unassuming squirt than met the eye, or else that she and her employer needed to find new work for themselves.

“Uh, sort of. I waited about fifteen minutes before following. It’s a straight road, so I knew I wouldn’t get lost.”

“Right,” Vicky was relieved that at least she hadn’t been completely blind to an inexperienced tinhorn following in their footsteps. “You thought they were keeping Quarrie hostage?” She asked, picking up on what he’d said earlier.

“It wouldn’t have surprised me,” Monroe broke in, and Vicky turned to look at him, her expression questioning. “He seemed groggy when I spoke with him, not at all himself. He kept insisting that he was fine, that everything was fine, but there was something weird about the whole situation.”

“He was awake, then?”

“If you can call it that. He looks worse than he did a few weeks ago, and he can barely sit up on his own anymore. And he couldn’t —or wouldn’t— focus on anything I was saying, didn’t answer any of my questions.”

“Why the hell can’t anything in this town make sense?” Vicky complained. “First we get an unexplained murder, then an unexplained assault, and now more unexplained... well, I don’t know what to call it.” She turned and glared at Squeaky, who flinched imperceptibly. “Well, you at least I can deal with. I’m going to fine you for trespassing, and the next time you’re caught being somewhere you’re not supposed to be without official permission, then you’ll be facing a few nights in a cell. Got it?”

Squeaky nodded, his face ashen, and Victoria felt a pang of guilt at taking her anger out on him. Well, maybe this would teach him not to indulge that morbid fascination of his with anything that wasn’t his business, she decided, hardening her heart.

“All right, get out of here,” she gestured toward the door, her tone a shade softer than it had been a minute before. “Just don’t let us catch you at that again, hear?”

As Squeaky scuttled out into the evening air, she pulled her chair back to the desk, intent on burying herself in paperwork until she could think straight. With an undecipherable look in her direction, Monroe picked up his rifle and headed out the door, closing it softly behind him. She lost track of time after that, filling out reports and putting the ledgers back in order, a task she still hadn’t managed to finish completely since they’d taken over Heywood Landry’s very creative accounts. When she looked up, she realized that night had fallen, and that the candle she’d lit what seemed like only a few minutes before was almost melted away.

That’s when the screaming started.

*****