"We chopped through the night and we chopped through the dawn. When he died I was hopin' it wasn't contagious, but I made up my mind that I had to go on." Because sometimes you just have to go on alone.

Ch. Four: Seven Little Indians, Chopping Up Sticks

Rogers lay flopped across his bed, eyes shut. The image of Scooby's crumpled body wouldn't leave his mind. It reminded him so much of when that car had hit Riley. It had been raining that day, too, and he had carried his dog home crying, terrified that Mom and Dad would want to cremate him. They cremated everything that died – just one of the side effects of having pyromaniac parents. He had stood in front of the door, just hugging the dog's soaked, stiff and bloody body to himself, for what had seemed an eternity. At last his father had opened the door, seen him there with face wet from rain and tears, and had looked at the thirteen-year-old boy in sympathy. Mom and Dad had burned Riley's body after he went to bed.

A soft, timid knock interrupted his thoughts. He turned off his music. "Come in?"

The door opened slowly and Velma came in. He sat up and motioned for her to sit beside him. She hesitated, then came over and sat down. "Dinner's ready. Pickett made it." She pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed. "Did you really believe it? What you said, I mean. About me not being Owen."

"I did," he told her, not taking his gaze off her eyes. "And I still do. You're too sweet to want to kill nine other people for no apparent reason. Besides, I like you too much for that to be true." He grinned teasingly.

She ducked her head, reddening a little. "Who do you think it is, then? If not…the crazy girl who murdered her parents."

"Evil parents who very well might have, like, killed her first," he corrected, gently cuffing her. "I would put my money on Sylvester. He's a strong guy, ruthless, and the first to start throwing suspicion around. This whole thing is being done in the name of justice supposedly, right? He seems like the judge type. It makes sense."

She thought about this. "He does have the right psychological makeup that would appear to fit Owen." With a sigh her chin dropped into her hands. "I wish I'd stayed with Scooby."

"I'm kinda glad you didn't!" he retorted, moving closer and tipping her head up. "If I'd had to see Scooby dead…and you too…" He couldn't finish. He sat back, shaking his head. "You know the next part of the rhyme? Chopped in halves!" He didn't even want to imagine her killed like that.

"But he might have left us both alone if he saw there were two," she protested. "Shaggy, what if it's my fault he's dead? I could have brought him back with me at the very least." She looked so guilt-ridden and pitiable that he couldn't help himself. He pulled her into his arms and began rocking back and forth with her. Her head tucked under by instinct, though he felt her tense as if a little bit afraid of him.

"He wouldn't have come, Vel. 'One said he'd stay there.' Scooby wouldn't have come. Owen wouldn't have let him. It isn't your fault."

"Another Indian is missing from the table." Her voice was muffled by his shirt. "Pickett volunteered to lock the dining room tonight."

"I doubt a lock will keep out Owen." He exhaled. "What we need is a face for the unknown killer."

"Dinnertime!" They jumped apart at the sharp voice and twisted around to see a very displeased Jennifer Morley in the doorway, frowning deeper than usual. "Hardly appropriate behavior, Rogers. Please realize that this is neither the time nor the place for philandering." She spun on her heel and briskly clicked away.

"I'm sorry," he began, but Velma shook her head.

"I shouldn't be…in here. It's my fault." She slid off his bed and hurried to the hallway, head down.

Rogers closed his eyes and fell back onto the bed. Why now for him to start feeling like this, now with impending death? Why her, as she put it, "the crazy girl who murdered her parents"? He didn't know. He didn't know anything except that every time she smiled at him with those shy brown eyes his heart sped up, aching inside him. He stood to get ready for dinner and began humming the song he had turned off. "I went down and I fell, I fell so fast/Dropping like the grains in an hourglass/Never say forever 'cause nothing lasts/Dancing with the bones of my buried past…"

oOo

Pickett watched from the kitchen doorway while the other six ate the meal he had prepared. He had painstakingly followed every scrap of advice he could remember from Dorothy. Ah, his Dorothy. It was probably for the better she wasn't here to see all the pain and heartache being caused. Marianne and Sylvester were talking in low voices at one end of the table. Daphne and Jennifer sat in the middle, one on either side and Daphne purposefully one seat to the left of being directly across from the older woman, silent as if they were sworn enemies. At the other end of the table Rogers was quietly discussing something with Velma.

He had always hated tension. He was half-tempted to scare them all and shout, "It's me! I'm Owen!" What a ruckus that would cause. He disappeared into the kitchen to eat his own dinner. He was good at disappearing. At least eating might relieve the tension that stretched the air taut.

Pickett sank into the chair, resting his forehead on his palm. He wished he hadn't pulled Dorothy into this. He hadn't intended her to find out in the first place. But she had found out. She never wanted to kill the Colonel, but he had said she must. Oh, what a horrid dolt he was! He wouldn't let her confess at the inquest, either, and so they had gotten off scot-free.

Thunder startled him from his self-mourning, bringing him back to reality. "They'll be finished presently," he muttered aloud. "Must clean up, mustn't we, Dorothy? Yes, yes, must clean up after the guests."

In the dining room Sylvester was inspecting the Indian centerpiece. Now that there were seven left everyone was wondering where they were going, but none of the company would admit to taking them. "Ah, Pickett! my good man, do you have a handwritten note from Owen? I was hoping to compare it with all of us assembled here, and perhaps we can end this uncanny business with no further deaths."

"I do," Pickett replied quietly. "Mr. Owen said not to show his instructions to any of his guests, however."

"Well, like, I think we have a right, since he's trying to kill us and all," Rogers said, looking to the others. "I wouldn't mind writing something to prove my innocence."

Pickett bowed his head submissively and went to the servant's quarters to retrieve the note in question. As he took it from the night-table, his pale grey eyes fell upon the still body of his wife and sadness flitted over him. Oh, Dorothy.

At Pickett's return, Sylvester took out a pen. "See here," Daphne said suddenly, "don't you think we're leaning a little much on supposition? Not all of us agreed."

"It doesn't matter, Daph," Velma said tiredly, resting her cheek in one hand and taking out a pencil with the other. "We'll do it anyway. Only the guilty party would refuse to give the analyst a sample."

"Does anything matter anymore?" Marianne murmured, drawing a pen from her pocket. "Nothing would, it seems."

And so each complied. Pickett too contributed a sample of his sloping, spidery script. Sylvester passed the original around the table, but no one could tell anything about it until it reached Velma. The girl furrowed her brow and adjusted her glasses, studying the neat handwriting. "It looks right-handed to me. A very organized and compartmentalized mind, I would think?"

"What makes you say that?" Jennifer snatched the note and stared at it. "I can't tell a left-handed person from a right-handed one, much less stereotype their brain from writing."

"It's evenly spaced and perfectly upright," explained Velma patiently, "as well as small and careful, very clean and legible. The hand dominance can be told by the smudges of ink. There aren't any as a left-handed person would leave, you see?" She held her own pencil to the paper and pantomimed writing to demonstrate. She herself was right-handed, Pickett saw. He had to admit, when she took her medication she was smart.

"Then let's compare now," Sylvester said. He arranged the samples in a circle around the original. "This one looks to be a match." With barely any time to consider he tapped a sample – with neat, even, upright and unsmudged handwriting.

"Forgive me, sir," Pickett began in his soft voice, "but it looks too small. And the top of the 'e's are more pointed in the sample than in Owen's."

"It is the closest though," Marianne agreed.

Jennifer hesitated to offer her opinion for once. "It does appear to match more closely than the other six," she said, "but Pickett is most inarguably correct."

Daphne and Rogers agreed. Velma dropped her head onto her arms, looking terrified and resigned. "It isn't me, I promise," came the muffled plea.

Pickett knit his brow. "What do you mean to say?"

"The sample is hers," Jennifer said calmly, picking up her unidentifiable knitting project once more. "But I don't believe she is Owen for a moment." The hazel eyes slid slyly over to Pickett. "After all, it's always the butler, isn't it?"

"Why, I - !" He squeezed his mouth shut into a thin line. "I beg your pardon, Miss Morley, but haven't we set all stereotypes aside by now? The spinster is, if you want stereotypes, quite typically the most devious-minded, is she not?"

Jaw set, Jennifer's fingers deftly began another row. "And typically the war veteran has an attack and goes on a killing spree."

Sylvester's nostrils flared. "If we are going to go by insanity, why don't we take another look at the evidence, shall we?"

Velma stiffened. "I wouldn't - !" She shook her head in defeat, most likely remembering her parents, and pushed her chair back from the table, leaving the room with a stony silence.

"She wouldn't." Pickett wondered if this was ordinary confidence Rogers exhibited in her or if he had another reason for being so certain. No! Mustn't let Owen mess with the mind like that. Rogers looked at Marianne, one eyebrow raised. "Weren't the first two deaths, like, poison? Doctors and nurses know a lot about poison. And Mrs. Pickett was on whatever drugs you gave her, right?" Pickett cringed at the mention of Dorothy.

Marianne's mouth fell open. "How dare you! I am under oath to protect life, not take it!"

"Tell that to your boyfriend," Daphne said under her breath, keeping her eyes on her lap.

The blonde woman's bright eyes blinked rapidly. "If I recall correctly it was always the pretty one."

"So it was," the redhead said coolly, "but who began this 'blame game'?" She turned her eyes accusingly to Jennifer. "I'm sure you were a handsome woman in your time, which qualifies you as both 'the spinster' and 'the pretty one,' so according to this ridiculous pigeonholing you would be Owen. Of course, we all know typecasting is overrated and Owen is enjoying the hostility and accusations, don't we? Which is why we are stopping." She sat back and crossed her arms in satisfaction.

Well, Pickett thought, it would seem we have another level head among us in an unlikely disguise.

oOo

Velma stared out the glass doors without really seeing. Her head swam with all of the past two days' events – Owen, murder, Miss Morley, her parents, Shaggy. Why did nothing make sense? It was like the painting downstairs: bizarre and mystifying, yet queerly entrancing. It reminded her of working puzzles when she was younger. The pieces she needed were always right there, but she could never fit them together until she looked at the puzzle from another angle. The problem was, was there another angle to look at this from?

Owen. Murder. Miss Morley. Her parents. Shaggy… Her thoughts orbited, revolved, wheeled, whirled. Owen. Murder. Miss Morley. Paul and Martha shouting, slurring, throwing bottles as a wide-eyed little girl stared down from crouched behind the balustrade, scared to death they would remember her upstairs. Shaggy holding her, promising it would be okay until Miss Morley appeared in his doorway and brought all that guilt and shame that came with realizing one had been sitting on a boy's bed in his room.

Phoenix. Willow. Fire. Shadow climbing Jacob's ladder when there was no end. A man bleeding and sweating but not able to cry. The heavens with the stars ripped out. Bloody handprints on a twisted burnt tree.

A particularly violent wave crashed against the island, making her jump. She stood and walked to the door, slipped out onto the balcony and leaned over the rail. What would it be like to drown? That was in the rhyme. Maybe she would get to find out. Who would die next, she wondered? Chopped in halves. Vertical halves or horizontal halves? Vertical was more visually appealing, being symmetrical, but horizontal would take less time. She shook her head, blowing out. "Stop it," she whispered aloud. Death wasn't ever beautiful, enjoyable or something to be toyed with. It was last resort, it was extinguishing an existence, it was a hungering fire that scoffed souls daily. So why, if it was so bad, did people enjoy it? Why did some ghouls love it, imagine it, relish it, doodle it, write it, sing it, watch it, even make it happen?

Death was a terrible thing. She knew this. She also knew that deep inside, because she had caused it, this made her terrible too. She could have laughed then. Owen had a sense of humour after all – subjecting terrible people who had done terrible things to a terrible end with a terrible plot to top it all off. It was just…wonderful.

Velma pulled herself from her thoughts and went back inside her room. She really should go back downstairs, but what if they caught her sneaking out? They'd lynch her as Owen for sure. Well, that was one risk she wasn't afraid to take. It'd save Owen the job. A twinge of uncertainty pricked her heart. Shaggy's words echoed in her mind: "If I'd had to see Scooby dead…and you too…Chopped in halves!" No, she wouldn't get caught. She could be quiet, go unnoticed. It had worked in school, hadn't it?

Downstairs the others had once again gone their separate ways. "Velma!" She whipped around to see Daphne reaching for a jacket. "You shouldn't go out alone. It's not safe."

"On the contrary. As long as I'm alone I'm perfectly safe," Velma pointed out, and she slipped away before the other girl could respond. She hurried down the path toward the fishing village Miss Morley had told them about. Maybe there would be something useful there. Sylvester had mentioned a parachute, she remembered, and if she timed it right a leap off Schooner Rock could – could being the operative word – take her back to the mainland. Of course, the wind would have to be strong and in just the right direction, but she was light enough that it wouldn't have to be unbearably hard.

She looked up at the clouded grey sky. Then again, there was always the chance that the wind wouldn't be blowing northeast before Owen decided it was her turn.

In the village the wind seemed louder. Shivering, she pulled her cardigan tighter around her and slowly lowered herself onto the ground beside a mossy stone cross. The gravestone had no inscription, but a small business-sized card lay underneath it. Curiously she picked it up and turned it over to read it aloud to herself. "If you have found this card there may be something in the cellar for you. Tell No One and trust No One, for No One is your friend and Everyone is your enemy. –U.N. Owen." She squinted at it and mused, "U.N. Owen? Or unknown? Mr. Unknown, Mr. Owen, whatever your name may be, who are you?" She tossed the card behind her and exhaled in frustration, dropping her chin into her hands.

The comment about the cellar had piqued her interest though. How she hated herself for wanting to know what Owen had there. For all she knew he could be waiting with a knife to carry out the next of the rhyme! In the end, the blistering gale decided for her. She bit her lip as the stirred up dust stung her eyes, and got to her feet, still holding the cardigan to herself, and began searching for the cellar.

oOo

Sylvester's fingers drummed on the pool table. "Marianne, are you going to make a move today?"

"Hold your horses, Bradley; I'm strategizing." She quirked a smile and shot at the cue ball. The eight, five and twelve went in. She leaned on her cue stick with a self-confidant smirk. "Are you going to make a move today?" she mimicked.

Before he could respond Daphne appeared in the doorway of the games room. "Have either of you seen Pickett?"

Marianne shook her head immediately. Sylvester pondered the question. "I believe he went out to get some wood from the shed. Why?"

"Oh, good. The fire's running low. I'll go see if he's hurrying; he hasn't been in the house for a while." She disappeared again.

Sylvester raised an eyebrow. "Do you think that's safe, Marianne?"

"I think she'll be fine. Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"Well," she said slowly, "Jennifer was right in saying it's always the butler. What if life is following fiction and the butler did it?"

"I'll go after her," Sylvester sighed, setting down his cue stick. "Time-out until I return." Marianne said she'd wait, and the old general set out of the house to the shed.

A choked scream quickened his pace to a panting run. His worn-out brown shoes slapped the muddy path, and he struggled to make out Daphne's form through the pelting rain. At last he spotted her, a still figure frozen in front of the wood pile.

"What is it?" Sylvester came up beside her, breathing hard from exertion. Wordlessly she pointed to one end of the pile, then the other. Sylvester followed her finger with his eyes and swore. "Either the man's grown a good four feet or Owen's struck again," he said with a grim little smile.

"Is it my fault?" Daphne whispered, not taking her eyes from the head of the butler's body. "I asked for some wood from the fire. 'Seven little Indians chopping up sticks,' wasn't it? Well, he's been chopped in halves alright."

"No," he said, "it isn't your fault, unless you're Owen."

"What reason have you to believe I'm not?" she retorted bitterly, clearly still remembering the all the shifting of guilt that had occurred earlier. Then with a sigh, "If we don't get out of here I daresay we'll all end up mad or dead."

"Preferably mad."

"I would rather be dead than mad," she said fiercely. "Because if you're mad, who cares for you? At least if you're dead you have mourners. No one loves a mad person." The unspoken exception hung in the air like so much humidity. Daphne spun on her heel and walked back to the house, straight and tense.

Sylvester was silent, and he studied Pickett's body with a kind of solemn necessity. Marianne would have to see, of course; but perhaps he could spare the others the sight. Pickett lay with his arms flung up beside his head as if in a last pleading for mercy. The head was turned to the side, the paper-thin cheek resting on the soggy grass. His lifeless pale eyes seemed to stare at Sylvester, seeming to say, "Ah, old chap, you aren't so good at protecting people as you would have them believe, are you?" The mouth hung slightly open, and the thin white hair clung to the scalp with a ferocity lended it by the rain, giving the dead man a hollowed, almost childlike appearance. His lower half at the other end of the pile, too, was sprawled. The man's shoes were haphazardly tossed on top of the wood pile, but his stockinged feet were whole.

Sylvester sighed and ran his thick fingers through what little hair he himself had left. "Oh, Owen, you evil puppeteer. Who might you be?"