Mrs. Carol Whiting was not at home when they tried the front door of the tiny redbrick house in Santa Monica. Or maybe she was and her brother-in-law had warned her that he had given out her address. Alison asked Eric what story he had fed the brother-in-law, but Eric was evasive. He just said he had his “ways.”
There was nothing to do but hang out near there until the woman came home. Eric took her to a restaurant, but she couldn’t even eat her salad. They tried the house again, found no one there, and then Eric took her to a sci-fi film about a future society of humans who wanted to be robots. Alison fell asleep in the movie. She hadn’t slept the previous night after hearing about Kipp’s death. She did sleep now through two showings of the movie. When Eric woke her it was ten o’clock at night. He asked if she’d been having nightmares. Apparently she had often kicked and clawed at the air while unconscious. But she’d had no dreams that she could recall. All she knew was that her long nap had done little to refresh her.
They went to the woman’s house once more.
She was at home and opened the door for them.
“Yes?” she said. “Can I help you?”
She was a short, plump woman with smooth dark features and a nervous twitch in her right eye. She couldn’t have been thirty, but she had a streak of gray that split her short hair in two. She looked tired.
“Hi,” Eric began. “My name’s Tom and this is Amy and we’re here to—”
“Talk to you about your missing husband,” Alison interrupted.
Eric stared at her in shock. He had told her ahead of time to leave everything to him. But she was tired of deception. The woman had backed up a step.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“We know what happened to your husband,” Alison said. “We’d like to tell you the whole story. May we come in?”
“You knew Jim?” the woman asked, uncertain.
“No,” Alison said. “But I was one of the people who helped bury him.”
The woman shuddered. “Who are you?” she asked.
Alison reached out and touched the woman’s hand. At first the woman flinched, but as she looked into Alison’s eyes, she seemed to relax. Maybe she could see that Alison, too, had been to hell and had yet to come back.
“Please,” Alison said. “We mean you no harm.”
She studied them for a moment longer before opening the door wider. “Come in,” she said.
The woman insisted that they call her Carol. Her brother-in-law had not warned her that they were coming over. Just the same, her children were not at home. They were at a sister’s house, which was probably a good thing. Alison figured they wouldn’t have got inside with the kids around. Carol was making herself coffee and asked if they would like a cup. They said sure. Carol fussed over them. She was obviously dying to hear what they had to say, but at the same time she was doing everything to postpone it.
There was a picture of the man on the piano. Jim.
When the three of them were seated comfortably in the living room, with Eric positioned with his good ear toward Carol, Alison described what had happened the summer before in the desert after the concert. She kept her story focused on that night alone. She didn’t go into the chain letters or Neil’s madness. Sitting across from her, Eric began to relax. As she approached the part where they buried the man, she began to cry softly. It was no act. She couldn’t get over the fact that she was talking to the man’s wife. Carol cried with her as she tried to explain why they hadn’t gone to the police.
“We thought of you,” Alison said. “I mean, we didn’t know if you even existed. But we knew the man must have family somewhere. We thought we could send an anonymous letter to the police explaining what had happened. But we were afraid it would be traced back to us.” Alison wiped at her face. She had shed a lot of tears lately. One of these days they were going to dry up. But today was not that day. Another flood burst out as she thought of covering the man with dirt. “We didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident. We were driving with our lights out and then we hit him and that was that. I’m so sorry, Carol. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. All this time you must have wondered what happened to him.”
Carol surprised her by reaching out and hugging her, comforting her. This crazy teenager who had destroyed her husband’s life. It made no sense to Alison until Carol spoke.
“I have always wondered what happened to Jim’s body,” Carol said gently. “I would lie awake at night wondering where he lay. But I knew he was dead. I have always known who killed him. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Alison. Jim was dead when you and your friends ran over his body.”
Alison stared at her in disbelief. “Are you sure?”
Carol sat back in her seat. “Maybe I should tell you my story. It’ll put your mind at ease.” She put her hand to her forehead. “But those are days I don’t care to remember.”
“Tell us what you feel comfortable with,” Alison said.
Carol shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to start at the beginning. Jim and I were married eight years before he met Charlene. We had a happy life. He had the record store and business was good. We both had the children to play with and love. I was finishing my master’s in education at UCLA. I remember the first night Jim mentioned Charlene to me. We were sitting in bed at night reading. He just tossed out her name. He said she was a pretty girl who regularly came into the store and was always asking him to order CDs of bands he’d never heard of. Groups like Dried Blood and Black Sex—real sicko groups. I remember Jim saying that Charlene seemed like such a nice girl to be into crap like that. I just grunted. Jim had lots of odd customers. And that was the last I heard of Charlene for a long time.
“Several months went by and Jim began to change in small ways. He became more impatient with the children and snapped at me frequently. I’m not saying Jim was a saint before this change occurred, but he had always been a nice guy. He really was, and I’m not just saying that because I was his wife. He didn’t wish anybody any harm. But his mood had turned sour, and I didn’t know how to shake him out of it. He began to suffer from insomnia and took to spending longer hours at the store. It got so that he almost never came home, even when the store was closed. You must think I was pretty stupid, huh? I couldn’t see that he was having an affair. But at the time I was worried that he was sick. He’d always been a bit chubby, but now he was definitely on the slim side. I’d put a home-cooked meal in front of him and he’d just pick.
“Then I caught him snorting cocaine in our bathroom one day. I had come home early from school. I was shocked. The music business is full of drugs, but Jim wasn’t that kind of guy. He never put anything harmful in his body. Finally, I thought I understood the changes that were happening in him. He told me that he was barely into the stuff, that it was just a weekend habit. But he was obviously an addict. I checked our bank account. I always let Jim handle the business side of our lives. I was sick when I learned that we were broke. Jim had blown all our savings on drugs. When I confronted him with what I’d found, he promised that he’d get help. I went with him to several clinics, and he seemed to be ready to enter one when I made another shocking discovery.
“I was digging in my garden when I smelled something peculiar. I dug a little deeper and found a green trash bag filled with the remains of desecrated animals. There were dogs and cats and even a skunk. And all of them had been beheaded and their fur shaved with strange symbols. Not for a second did I think they had anything to do with Jim, but when I told him about what I had found, it was all there on his face. He had done those things to those animals! I couldn’t believe it. Was this the man I had married? He was behaving like a psycho. I took the children and left for my sister’s.
“But Jim called me every night and begged me to come back. He told me be had gotten involved with bad people but that he was getting away from them. He mentioned Charlene’s name as one of them. I didn’t know who she was until he reminded me. But the way he said her name made me suspicious. I asked him if he was having an affair with her, and when he didn’t answer right away, I knew where I stood. That was one thing I wouldn’t put up with—unfaithfulness. I swore I’d never see him again and hung up on him. But two minutes later I was missing him worse than I ever had in my life. I drove over to our house and got there just as Charlene was arriving.
“She was pretty. I could see that from where I was sitting in my car up the block. They didn’t see me. I watched as she dragged Jim out of the house and into her car. She was laughing all the time like a teenager. They drove away and I followed. They got off the freeway in a section of town where the gangs are very active. I knew I was risking my life just to go there. They parked outside a shabby warehouse, and the girl dragged Jim inside. I keep using the word dragged. It was obvious Jim didn’t want to go. I’m not saying that to protect him, either. I assumed Charlene was into drugs and that she was taking my husband to meet her connection.
“I sat outside that old warehouse for hours, well into the night. But they never reappeared, and the characters walking by on the street really scared me. Finally I had to go back to my sister’s. But I noted exactly where the warehouse was, and the next day I returned there with the police.”
“The police let you go inside the warehouse with them?” Eric broke in, surprised.
“Not at first. Two of them checked out the warehouse while I waited in the patrol car. When they came back outside, their faces were white. One of them had to run into the alley and vomit against the wall. They told me there was nobody inside, and that I didn’t want to see what was in there. But, of course, I did want to see. My husband was involved here. I jumped out of the car and ran inside before they could stop me.”
“It was a meeting place for a satanic cult?” Eric said.
Carol raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
“It fits the pattern,” Eric said. “Please go on.”
Carol’s face showed extreme revulsion. “It stank in there beyond belief. There was dried blood everywhere, and blood that was not so dry. Animal entrails and skins lay everywhere. The walls and floor were covered with bizarre symbols. Many had been painted in blood. There were half-burnt black candles on the floor, as if someone had been celebrating a black mass. I could only stay in there a few seconds before I became hysterical. When I got outside, the officers tried to comfort me. They thought what I had seen had upset me, and it had. But it was more the thought of what Jim had gotten himself into that tore me apart. These weren’t bad people he was seeing. They were evil. And I knew they must want something from him, but I didn’t know what.” Carol looked over at Eric. “Do you know what it was?”
Eric shifted, uncomfortable. “I can guess.”
“Go ahead,” Carol said. “It’s already happened. It’s done with.”
“The girl Charlene needed your husband to be her victim in a ritual murder,” Eric said.
“That can’t be true,” Alison blurted out. “Things like that don’t happen now.”
Carol shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid your friend is right. Charlene was an apprentice. She wanted to be a full-fledged witch. To be one she had to murder an innocent. Someone who loved her.” Carol lowered her head, and a bitter tear trickled over her cheek. “That girl murdered my husband. She did it so that she could live forever.”
“But how do you know that for sure?” Alison protested. “Did you talk to her? Did you see your husband again?”
Carol chewed on her lower lip, and her eyes were focused far away. “I didn’t see him again, but I spoke to him once more on the phone. He called me at our house a couple of days later in the middle of the night. I had gone back to living there, by myself. The children stayed at my sister’s. I hoped he’d come back. He sounded scared as he told me he was going to try to come home soon, but that he had some business to finish up first. He apologized for getting involved with Charlene. I asked him if he was in love with her, and he was silent for a long time and never did answer the question. Someone came into the room where he was, so he hung up. That was the last I heard from him.”
“And did you ever speak to Charlene?” Alison repeated.
“No,” Carol said. “But I spoke to her parents.”
“Where?” Eric asked. “When?”
“At the morgue, when they came to identify Charlene’s body.”
Carol nodded grimly. “I hate to say it but I’m glad. But let me back up and tell you what happened in the order it happened. The police set up a stakeout on the warehouse. But the cult must have got wind of it because they never went back there. I told the police about Charlene, but that’s all I had—a first name and an incomplete description.”
“Excuse me,” Alison interrupted. “What color was Charlene’s hair?”
“Blond,” Carol said.
“Oh,” Alison said thoughtfully.
“What is it?” Eric asked.
“Nothing,” Alison said. “Please continue, Carol.”
“The police couldn’t find a missing young lady named Charlene. By that I mean there was no missing-person report on such a person. I went ahead and filed a missing-person report on Jim. I had the paper put in a small article about him. That was a waste. Then I had to sit and wait because nothing happened. Two weeks went by. I figured Jim was dead. Then one night I got a call from the police. They wanted me to drive to a hospital out in the San Bernardino Valley. They believed my description of Charlene matched a body that had been brought in.”
“That’s where I live,” Alison said.
Carol nodded. “At the hospital was the body of Charlene—I recognized her. Her parents were there, too. Her real name was Jane and she had committed suicide by falling onto a propped-up knife in her own bedroom in the middle of the night, with black candles burning and pentagons painted in her own blood drawn all over her naked body. Her parents found her only a few minutes after she’d died. I can’t tell you how distraught they were. And they didn’t have good news for me.”
“Jane had admitted to killing Jim before she did herself in?” Eric said.
“I should let you tell the story,” Carol said.
“I’m sorry I keep interrupting,” Eric said.
“I didn’t mean that sarcastically,” Carol replied. “You obviously have knowledge about these matters. I wish I’d had more—maybe my husband would be alive now. Anyway, you’re right. Before her parents went to bed that night, Jane told them that she had killed her lover that night and dumped his body in the desert. She said it so matter-of-factly that they thought she was high on something. They told her to go to bed and sleep it off, whatever it was. Jane’s parents had absolutely no idea their darling daughter was involved with Satanism, even though they knew she did drugs.”
“What was the date you went to the hospital?” Eric asked.
“July twenty-eighth,” Carol said.
Eric looked at Alison. “Was that the night of the concert?”
She thought a moment. “I think it was, yes.”
“It must have been,” Carol said. Her shoulders sagged with the weight of the memory. “Jane was the girl Jim had been with. I could see that with my own eyes, even as she lay on the cold slab in the morgue, naked, with a big bloody hole in her chest. And if Jane had just killed her lover, it had to mean Jim was dead. It was a relief in a way. I didn’t have to worry anymore.” Carol began to cry again. “I don’t have to worry now.”
Alison got up and went over to sit beside Carol and put an arm around her. She almost asked Carol if she had received any strange mail lately. But she figured Carol would have told them if she had. Alison wanted Carol to think it was over. The woman had suffered enough.
“That’s my story,” Carol said, and she hugged Alison again. “I’m glad you found Jim’s body as soon as you did. You didn’t do me or my children a great injustice. We knew he was gone. I can understand how a group of kids could get scared and make the wrong decision. At least Jim wasn’t left out in the open where animals could have messed with his body. You buried him deep, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Alison said. The grave hadn’t been that deep. They’d had no tools and the ground had been hard. But she’d say anything to comfort the woman now.
Except for one big thing.
“Do you remember where you buried him?” Carol asked, wiping at her tears.
“I’m afraid not,” Eric broke in. “We have no idea. We’ve tried to find the spot a dozen times and failed.”
Carol frowned as she looked at him. “You were there that night, Eric?”
Eric paused. “No, I wasn’t there. But I was made aware of what went on. Alison and I are old friends. I’m sorry we won’t be able to reclaim your husband’s body. But we would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t go to the police with Alison’s story. It could get the whole group in serious trouble, and there would be no point in it, not after all this time.”
Carol nodded. She was a kind-hearted woman. “I understand. I’d like to be able to reclaim my husband’s remains, but if it means hurting innocent people, then it’s not worth it.”
“We weren’t innocent,” Alison muttered shamefully.
“Mrs. Whiting,” Eric began. “Would it be OK if I asked a few blunt questions? Some of them might be painful for you.”
Carol sniffed. “No, go ahead.”
“Did Jane describe to her parents how she killed your husband?”
Carol’s mouth quivered. “Yes. She said she pounded a sharp needle through the top of his skull while he was asleep.”
“Did you see evidence of this on Jim’s body?” Eric asked Alison.
“Not directly,” Alison said. “But there was blood coming out of his mouth.”
Eric considered. “A fine needle would hardly have spilt much blood.” He returned his attention to Carol. “You mentioned that Jane believed that she would live forever once she made her ritual sacrifice. Why did you say that?”
“It was one of the things Jane told her parents before they went to bed,” Carol said. “To them it was all babble. Jane said she was now ready for immortality.”
Eric nodded. “Satan worshipers believe that when they’ve been fully initiated by their master, they will live a tremendously long life. Jane must have been convinced of the fact.”
“But why, then, did she commit suicide?” Alison asked.
“She probably didn’t think she’d die when she fell on the knife,” Eric said. “Or rather, she probably thought she’d be reborn in her own body, with Satan’s help and power. It’s in the literature on cults. Murder and suicide are two of the gates into hell’s power.”
“Maybe there’s something to the literature,” Carol muttered.
“Why do you say that?” Alison asked.
“Because Jane’s body disappeared from the funeral home before they could get it underground. I heard from the police.” Carol forced a miserable laugh. “I’m not suggesting that she got up and walked away. The police believe other members of her cult came for the body to use in their ceremonies.” The woman trembled. “It makes me sick to talk about things like this. She’s dead, God save her soul. If it can be saved.”
“Amen,” Alison said.
They lapsed into silence. Carol was shrewd. She studied them as they sat digesting her gruesome tale. “Have any members of this cult been bothering you two?” she asked.
“We’re not sure,” Eric answered quickly. “It’s possible. That’s why we came here tonight to speak to you. Do you by any chance know how we could get in touch with Jane’s parents?”
“I remember their name and the city they lived in,” Carol said. “But I never asked them for their address. It wasn’t like I wanted to keep in touch with them. They were Mr. and Mrs. Clemens and they lived in Riverside.”
Eric glanced at Alison. “We should probably go and leave Mrs. Whiting alone.”
Alison nodded and stood. “It’s getting late.”
Carol got up anxiously. “If any member of that cult is bothering you, I suggest you go to the police immediately. These people have no consciences. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.”
“What do you think they want?” Alison asked.
Carol looked her straight in the eyes. “People’s souls.” Then the woman grimaced. “I just pray to God they didn’t get my husband’s.”
“Dying is not so bad as being put in the box.”
“I’ll pray with you,” Alison said.