Page 45 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
Perliett shook her head, still trying to recover from the whiplash-worthy exchange she’d just shared with the doctor.
Maribeth turned the paper so they could see the front page. “They’ve given him a name!”
“Who a name?” Perliett was perplexed.
“Eunice’s killer! They’re calling him the ‘Cornfield Ripper,’ after that English killer who brutalized his victims in the streets of London years back.”
“Nighttime Chuckler is far more creative,” Perliett muttered.
“What?” George scowled at her.
She realized she’d not expounded on her terrifying walk home the night previously. That George was right about the entire situation left her bereft of any argument. She felt it better if she held that minor part back or any arguments and debates she held would lose all credibility.
“‘The Cornfield Ripper,’” Maribeth read, snapping the paper open so as to read it more clearly, “‘guilty of the disfiguring and therefore the death of Miss Eunice Withers, has sought to contact theKilbourn Chronicleby which he offers the police investigating her murder this message: “I found killing her to be part of me.” The instructions provided to us here at theKilbourn Chronicleare that we were to publish this at risk of another subsequent killing. We have therefore acted accordingly, and the public will see the Cornfield Ripper’s message along with the local police simultaneously.’”
“He blackmailed the newspaper?” Perliett stared at the paper in her mother’s hands.
“Not surprising,” George said. “A man willing to take a life as violently as was done to Miss Withers will glory in lording the power of fear over this community. My guess is, Mrs.Withers’s public spectacle on Sunday awakened in him the notion of this manipulative gesture. Implant fear and one can be entertained long after the thrill of killing has subsided.”
Perliett looked sideways at him. “You seem to know a great deal about the mind of a killer.”
“If one studies humankind, one can conclude this rather swiftly.”
“Well, now the police are being manipulated by him!” Maribeth folded the newspaper in half to obliterate the pompous words printed on the front page. “All the more reason weshouldengage Eunice in resolving this. She has much to say. Her spirit is restless and aggrieved.”
Perliett nodded in agreement.
Dr. George Wasziak, on the other hand, remained stoic. He didn’t say a word, though he seemed to contemplate many of them by the way his lips pressed together.
Maribeth was oblivious to the tension. She caressed the paper as if it were a portal to another world. “If only Eunice could speak to us...” Her eyes strayed in the direction of the study window that was boarded up now because of its being shattered the last time she’d attempted to contact Eunice. “Such distress...” Maribeth choked back emotion, blinking to usher away her tears. “You do not know, do you, Dr. Wasziak, what it means to be bound and gagged by death and unable to convey your desperation? You stand there, and I can sense your disapproval. I know Detective Poll disapproves too. But do I intend to bring harm? Is there personal gain from my endeavors?”
“Youdocharge your sitters, or so I’ve heard.” George apparently found it impossible to remain silent any longer.
Maribeth held the newspaper to her chest, her eyes sparking. “And you profit from the illnesses of others.Imake a pittance, Dr. Wasziak. I do notneedto make myself wealthy from others’ grief. My husband left Perliett and me in good financial stead. Accusations that I do this simply to profitfrom the grief of the ones who have lost connection with their loved ones are abhorrent.”
“And yet you offer thin hope, Mrs. Van Hilton.” George avoided Perliett’s gaze. He also disregarded her rather sharp heel kick against his shin as he still stood half behind her.
“I offer more hope than you, Doctor,” Maribeth shot back. “When your services are rendered useless as death claims a life, mine become next in line. We both have good intentions. Yours to heal the body, and mine to heal the rift between death and life.”
“So, you are God then?” George’s blunt inquiry caused Maribeth to pale.
Perliett turned full toward him, wondering if she glared hard enough, if the man would dissolve right there on the porch.
“I would never claim such arrogance.” Maribeth’s voice was thin with irritation. “As neither would you, I assume, and yet you still attempt to heal. What is the difference, then? Heal and raise a spirit from the dead? Both are miraculous in a way.”
Her challenge was met with a moment of silence.
George shifted his feet and then cleared his throat. This time, his voice was gentler. It stirred something in Perliett she had not expected. His words stunned her, aggravated her, and startled her all at once.
“What need do we have of God if we can build our own bridges to eternity?”
While Perliett knew there were many more defenses her mother could raise in response to that question, her silence was the stronger indication that for Mrs. Maribeth Van Hilton, the conversation was over.
15
A summer night breeze wafted through her open bedroom window, lifting the gauzy curtain as if it were a ghost floating in the room. Perliett watched it from her place in bed, thankful she was not traversing the road tonight as she had the night before. The day had been rife with tension. Her mother had spent most of the day in her father’s study, sniffling and coughing as she nursed her cold. Perliett could hear her mother in the room. She smelled the incense. She sensed the heaviness in the air that came with the visitation of the dead. But she dared not interrupt Maribeth.
All Perliett could do was consider George’s accusation that her mother was toying with abilities that belonged to God alone. Yes, she recognized that while some mediums did indeed employ trickery to turn a profit, here her mother was at the moment beseeching Eunice Withers to come. And for no reason other than to bring reconciliation with her death and to help Eunice rest in peace.
