Edward Lee - The Black Train

“Then she was dumped in the field, like the maid?”

“No. He left her body to rot in the bed. Ironic that she should die by such means in the very room whose purpose she kept hidden from Mr. Gast. No doubt those four previous pregnancies by men other than her husband germinated in that room as well, and I suspect much else.”

“You keep mentioning this room —I wonder which room it is exactly…”

“It’s on the main stair hall. Mrs. Butler doesn’t even rent that one out. Room two.” Sute looked at him. “Which room are you in, Mr. Collier?”

Collier winced at a twinge. “Room three.”

“You’re in an interesting spot, then. To your left is the room where both Jessa and Penelope Gast were murdered. And to your right, the original commode closet and bathing room.”

“What…happened there?”

“He drowned one of his foremen there, a track inspector named Taylor Cutton. Cutton had the bad luck of being one of Mrs. Gast’s secret suitors. Somehow Gast discovered this and drowned Cutton in the hip bath, among other things.”

Eew, Collier thought. I hope it wasn’t the same hip bath I saw Mrs. Butler washing herself in last night…

The topic was at last getting the best of him. When the food arrived, it smelled delicious but he only picked at it. Several more pints of Cusher’s Civil War Lager took some of the edge off the nefarious story that he’d essentially forced Sute to relate. But he did ask, “And this manuscript you wrote, the one too harsh for publishers—do you still have it?”

Sute’s face was pinkening a bit, from a third martini. “Oh, yes. It’s gathering dust on my shelf.”

“And that’s the entire story of Harwood Gast—the entire legend of the man?”

Sute nodded. “And I think a lot of it’s probably quite accurate. Most of the sources are very authentic. Whether you believe the supernatural angle or not, Mr. Collier, you can believe this: Harwood Gast was purely and simply an evil man.”

“Mrs. Butler said the same thing.”

“And she’s well advised. Some of her ancestors lived in this town when all these things were happening, and mine, too. I appreciate your interest, though. It’s quite flattering, I must say. Here’s my card.” He slipped one across the table. “If you’d like to borrow the manuscript, or browse through it, don’t hesitate to ask. But—please—call first.”

“Thanks,” Collier said. “I might take you up on that.”

“I can also show you some of the original daguerreotypes that I didn’t elect to put in any of my published books. There are a few nudes of Mrs. Gast, if you’re…interested in seeing that sort of thing.”

Collier’s brows jiggled, but then he thought, Nudes? “Oh, come on, don’t tell me she did pornography, too. They must not have even had it back then.”

“No, nothing like that, but just as aristocrats of earlier eras would have their wives painted in the nude, the same went when photography was invented. Daguerreotypes and other early forms of photography were very expensive, and reserved only for the very rich. Well, Harwood Gast may have been the richest private citizen in Tennessee back then. He had several nudes taken of his wife, for his own viewing. She’s quite a comely woman.”

Collier continued to be astounded by his interest in this. And now… Nude pix of Penelope Gast. I’ve GOT to see those.

It took another moment for the next question to click in his head. “Mr. Sute…Was anyone murdered in my room?”

“I’m quite happy to say…no, Mr. Collier.”

Collier—even though he wasn’t sure he believed any of this—was relieved.

“And there you have it, the short version anyway.” Sute’s distraction continued. He seemed to keep peering over Collier’s shoulder, out the restaurant’s plate-glass window. “I won’t bore you with certain other testimony—things said to have been witnessed in the house.”

“Finally. Ghosts.”

“Yes, Mr. Collier. Ghosts, apparitions, and every conceivable bump in the night. Footsteps, voices, dogs barking—”

“What?” Collier snapped.

Sute smiled. “Yes, as well as regressive nightmares, hallucinations—”

“What do you mean, regressive nightmares?” Collier snapped.

“—and even demons,” Sute finished.

Collier plowed his next beer. He didn’t like to be taken for a fool. Was this bizarre fat man a master storyteller? Or…

He hadn’t heard any dogs barking exactly, but he had seen one, or so he’d thought. He’d found his own sexual responses exploding…something Sute claimed to have happened to others. And the nightmare he’d had? It had regressed him back in time, all right, to a mindboggling atrocity that involved a railroad during the Civil War.

And he’d heard voices, too, hadn’t he? Children, a woman, a man.

Now this.

“Demons?” Collier asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Let me take a stab at it,” Collier tried to mock. “Harwood Gast was really a demon, I’ll bet. To do the devil’s bidding on earth.”

Sute chuckled at the attempt. “No, Mr. Collier. It’s actually something even more contrived than that.”

“Really?”

“There’s long been the suggestion that Gast sold his proverbial soul…to a demon.”

Collier rubbed his eyebrows, if anything, laughing at himself now. That other stuff? It was just human nature, plus too much beer. He was seeing what the fabulist in him wanted to see. People make any excuse to think they’ve seen a ghost. More human nature, primal human nature. He was the Cro-Magnon listening to the scary story in the cave, and just knowing that that sound he’d heard in the woods was a Wendigo or a lost soul.

And now Sute was professing demons.

“I’m glad you said that, Mr. Sute. Because now, your story isn’t really that disturbing anymore.”

“I’m glad. You don’t believe in ghosts then?”

“No, not at all.”

“Nor in demons?”

“Nope. I was raised in a Christian family—” Collier felt an inner gag. Peeping on a sixty-five-year-old woman taking a bath, coitus interruptus with Lottie, getting drunk to the gills, plus a burning, unabated, unrepentant LUST… Jesus, what am I trying to say? “What I mean is, I’m not what you’d call a practicing Christian, but—”

Sute nodded, with a cryptic smile. “You were influenced by the faith. They say that more than half of the Americans who even call themselves Christians never even go to church.”

That would be me, Collier realized.

“But I think what you’re trying to say is that some of your upbringing, in the midst of Christian values, has remained with you.”

“Right. And I don’t believe in demons.”

“How about Christian thesis in general? Do you believe that? ”

“Well, yeah, sure. The Ten Commandments, the New Testament, and all that. Blessed are the pure of heart. I mean, I guess I even believe in Jesus.”

“Then you believe in basic Christian ideology,” Sute observed more than asked.

His hypocrisy raged. I’m profane, I’m lustful, I’m gluttonous, I’m a pretty serious sinner, but, sure, I believe it. “Sure,” he said.

Sute rose, and pointed at him. “In that case, Mr. Collier, then you do believe in demons. Because Christ acknowledged their reality. ‘I am Legion, for we are many.’ And on that note, I must excuse myself momentarily.”

Collier watched him depart for the restroom.

The conversation’s shadow hovered over him. In truth, he didn’t know how to define his beliefs at all. When he turned, his vision was cut off by a pair of ample breasts in a tight white T-shirt, and a silver cross between them.