Oscar shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe? We could try doing another seance with her now that he won’t interrupt.”
“I don’t think that would be wise,” Montague said. “She murdered Robin. I don’t care what she thinks about anything at this juncture.”
“Agreed,” Lawson said grimly. She was also gazing in Gloria’s direction. “Let’s just see what Robin wanted to show us and get out of here.”
She’d get no arguments from him. Nigel slipped into the small room beside Oscar and together they pulled the sheet off the stack of paintings.
Dust flew into the air when they moved it, and Nigel sneezed violently. The paintings had all been turned so they faced away from the door, so he gripped the frame of the one in front and spun it around.
The painting showed a deer being savaged by wolves. Its mouth was open as though screaming, and splashes of red blood were liberally applied on its throat and flanks.
“No wonder the Vanderwalls put this away,” Nigel said. “They probably didn’t want their kid having nightmares.” He moved the painting aside and reached for the next one.
A theme very quickly developed. Deer hunts, boar hunts, elephant hunts, tiger hunts—it seemed that no mammal was safe from the bloodthirsty men and wolves in the paintings. Some seemed familiar, as though they were reproductions of paintings Nigel might have seen here or there, though he couldn’t recall any of the originals having quite so much blood.
“Well, those are certainly unpleasant.” Nigel wiped his hands on his pants, feeling as if some unwholesome residue clung to his skin from touching the frames. “But we knew from the taxidermied heads that Ullman appreciated the hunt.”
“Do you think this is what Robin wanted us to see?” Oscar asked, sounding as confused as Nigel felt.
“It must be,” Montague said. She’d crowded in behind them, a studied look on her face. “I don’t wish to downplay anything, but such decorations would hardly be out of place in what was essentially a men’s club.”
Nigel couldn’t disagree with that. “True enough.”
“Robin wanted to show us this for a reason,” Lawson argued.
“Maybe she doesn’t know we trapped Ullman?” Oscar suggested. “I assume she’d like us to finish what she started, so if she doesn’t know we’ve already got him, maybe she was trying to help by showing us potential trigger objects to summon him?”
“That seems likely.” Otherwise, Nigel didn’t have the faintest idea what she could have wanted to accomplish by leading them here.
Montague put a hand to her forehead. “This has been very taxing.”
Ethan hurried over to offer her support, but Lawson was already there, slipping an arm around Montague’s shoulders. “Lean on me, if you need to.”
“Thank you.” Montague met her gaze. “Poor Robin. We must help her, Ruthie. And we don’t have much time left.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
They returned to the dining room, and Montague, Lawson, and Ethan retreated to the trailer. Oscar couldn’t truly understand how they must have felt, being so close to Robin again but unacknowledged by her spirit. But he could imagine it: a swirl of old grief and new pain, as well as confusion and guilt.
They needed something to shed light on exactly what it was Robin had been trying to communicate by showing them the paintings. If he’d been right, and she’d hoped to use one of the paintings as a trigger object in her own investigation, she might still be trying to complete the task after all these years. Caught in a sort of loop of her last days.
With no journal entries from her time on the island, they had to rely on forty-year-old memories from Montague and Lawson…
Or maybe there was something on the old VHS tapes that could help.
He dug through the bankers box until he spotted the one labeled Anchorage Investigation 4 - discussion. “Here.” He held it up so the others could see. “Maybe this will shed some insight into what Robin was thinking.”
“Brilliant,” Nigel said, and the praise kindled a warm glow in Oscar’s chest. “Let’s take a look. Coffee?” He held up his own freshly poured mug, as if to demonstrate.
“Not right now, thanks.” While Chris arranged the camera to film the TV screen and their reactions, Oscar powered on the VCR and popped in the tape.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
“This is a discussion between Patricia Montague, Dr. Ruth Lawson, and Robin Sawyer. Location: The Cottage, Devil’s Den Island, North Carolina. Recording starting at 13:45, June 21, 1983.”
