“Then at seventy Grandfather McCulloch disappeared?” said Heath.
“A storm was coming up,” said Mary. “The last he was seen he was standing in front of the tower, watching some excited crows that were flying above a clump of distant cedars. The storm came as a cloudburst. I remember it took only a few minutes for the creek to overflow its banks.”
AS SHE lapsed into silence he didn't ask any questions. He knew the story of David McCulloch's strange disappearance. His knowledge of the circumstances surrounding that event had prompted him to ask his boss, the county prosecutor, for time off so he could accompany Mary on her visit home.
An anonymous letter recently received by Heath—Mary had received one the same day—had suggested a new angle on a nineteen-year-old unsolved kidnapping and murder. Heath had been doing research along lines suggested in the letter. But when the county prosecutor understood the circumstances that Heath thought made the trip with Mary important, he'd been anxious for the detective to go.
“Probably just another crank letter,” the prosecutor had said. “Never knew of a thing of its kind leading anywhere. But Roland Marcot and his wife have never been satisfied the dead baby was theirs. Besides the crooks got away with thirty thousand dollars or more. The business has been one big black eye to the county department for nineteen years. So if you think this lead is worthwhile, why, follow it. Take all the time you want.”
Bothered by the anxiety in Mary's eyes, Heath said, “Maybe it's only because I'm a detective that you've asked me along. Maybe you think—”
He was teasing her, and she knew it; but she didn't take what he said lightly enough. “Sully,” she interrupted jerkily, “if anything should harm you because of—”
He leaned, quickly kissed her to silence. A minute later she parked the coupe in front of the little antique shop on Tydings Street.
The old antique dealer glared up at Heath, eyes swimming in red behind rheumy, vein- bulged lids. “Look, Mister,” he said, his voice a sharp lisp. “I'm not a man to quibble about a deal. Anything I got I'd just as soon keep as sell. I say two hundred, and two hundred it is.”
Mary squeezed Heath's arm. “He's angry, Sully. I told you—”
Heath grinned good-naturedly; “Okay, old-timer. You win. But it's a holdup. The thing isn't worth more than six-bits.”
The dealer grinned, satisfied, yellow fangs gleaming as his pale lips whipped back. “It ain't worth more than two-bits, looking at it one way,” he said. “But looking at it another way it's worth any price a man might ask. Any price. The man that made it was a strange man, Mister. A strange man, indeed. David McCulloch made it, whittled and tapped and tinkered it into shape while he sat high in his rock roost out there at McCulloch's Rest watching for bloody murder to come traipsing up the turnpike. You ever hear of David McCulloch?”
Mary's face paled. Heath said, “Wrap it and we'll take it along.” As the dealer's whistling voice continued, Heath counted two hundred dollars from his wallet.
“Forty miles north as the crow flies from here is the spot where David McCulloch made this here thing. McCulloch's Rest 'tis called, and an accursed place it is—where dogs won't stay, where bats and owls abide.”
The old man suddenly bent forward and gave a short, harsh cackle. “Murder makes a hard bargain, Mister.” He nodded swiftly, his eyes lost behind red film. “Yes, so it does. And what I say is true, a man might ask any price for a thing like this, two hundred or two thousand or more. . . .”
HEATH passed him the money. He shuffled the bills, folded them and slipped them into a pants pocket, then turned and picked up a huge piece of wrapping paper. Smoothing it on the counter with gnarled hands, he looked up at them, his fiery eyes unwinking.
“John McCulloch lives at the Rest now,” he said. “Keeps on out there, he does, with his three hired men, trying to get a living off that accursed land. But I didn't get this antique from him. Ah, no! He threw it away, he did. Trash to him, it was. Trash, mind you!”
He gave with another cackle as he turned his back and began wrapping the package.
Heath said, glancing at Mary, ''Well, how about getting along? Ready, darling?”
She nodded. The old man followed them to the door. “Maybe you're buying it for that stranger—that yellow- faced stranger that was here awhile ago trying to buy it for one hundred dollars? Maybe you're buying it for him?”
“We're buying it for ourselves,” said Heath stiffly, irritated by the dealer's prying manner, his uncouthness.
“Well, you got a fine antique piece there,” the dealer said, his voice a lisping throb as they stepped out on the sidewalk. “There ain't another music box like it in the whole world. David McCulloch made it without pattern or design. But don't try to figure out the conundrum under the lid. It won't do you any good. Carved by a fool it was; by a fraidy- headed old fool.”
He let go with a short, shrill cackle, then after a moment of complete silence, his voice a slow, hoarse croak, said, “When the water runs low look at the feet of the weeping one.” His laugh rose and fell like the quick screech of a rusty hinge. “Under the weeping one, mind you! If such as that ain't a fool's folderol then I'm a catbird's uncle.”
Mary slumped onto the seat, shuddered, whispered, “You drive, Sully.” Heath took the wheel, cursing the old man for an idiot. “Don't let it get you, baby,” he said. “That old buzzard would make the sea hag a good husband.”
She shuddered again. “The letter said he was eccentric, but—ugh!” She slipped a hand under Heath's arm, gripped it hard.
It was dark now, starless dark. There would be a moon later, but now it was so dark the line dividing the headlights' swath from the darkness seemed scalloped. Heath had just brought the convertible onto the highway beyond Coverlee when the car turned in behind them. They both noticed the car because it didn't try to pass, though they were doing less than thirty-five.
For five miles it hung behind them, maybe three hundred feet back. Other cars came up, passed on, but still it stayed there. Ten miles out its presence began making Mary nervous and Heath curious. Once when she was speculating as to probable reasons why anyone might want to follow them, he said:
