Two weeks after the incident with Steve Balleza and the cops sniffing around the house and even coming to his basement door, Frank Marsden became even more paranoid. Convinced now that he was going to be discovered along with his harem of women and that the women were plotting against him, he encouraged an informer system so he could stop any escape plans before they got started. He also had to maintain the noise, women, and smell so he was not discovered by the police. The reward for snitching would be exemption from the hole, a little better food, and slightly more freedom. Already the promise of not going into the hole had the most profound effect as those left had watched Rosemary Spiner, Tuyen Luong, and Beverly Dutwin be put in the hole and transformed into huge piles of gelatin, then shoveled back into the hole where they were devoured.
Marsden’s paranoia about escape plans was not totally unjustified. At one time the remaining women worked out a scheme whereby Tabitha Burke was going to hit Marsden over the head with a piece of metal pipe they had dug up and the others would grab whatever was handy and stab him. But before the plan could be completed or even attempted, Maria Pinella—in a moment of extreme weakness—tipped Frank Marsden off.
Marsden also had decided that he could keep them off balance if they didn’t know where he was, whether he was lurking in the dark, or out of the basement altogether. He bound their hands and covered their eyes in an effort to thwart future attempts at escape. When he was in the basement, or “home”, they could usually hear him walking, and when he left they could hear the basement door close and his car drive away. The way to solve that, Frank figured, was to stop them from hearing him. This revelation led to his most cruel torture yet.
One by one he took Maria Pinella, Jennifer Raymond, and Angela Quirino over to the eye hook and cuffed them with one hand above their heads. He also cuffed their feet. Seeing that they were already blindfolded and gagged, he would just secure the gags with duct tape, wrapping it around their heads. Finally, looping an arm around their throats to hold them still, he took a screwdriver and in one quick motion would gouge in their ears, trying to puncture their eardrums.
At first he failed, only managed to scrape and slice the ears, but not the eardrums. He twisted a longer, second attempt, screwdriver and again came away with only torment.
Marsden had forgone doing anything to Tabitha Burke as she had been placed in the hole and was now covered in slime. She no longer mattered to Frank Marsden. In one respect, the others envied Tabitha. She no longer had to put up with Marsden’s sexual desires or torture. In another way, they all pitied her for what was happening to her. And what was surely going to happen to her once she melted away from all that ooze.
However, his little torture experiment did not put a stop to further disruptions. Marsden’s chief antagonist went from Tabitha Burke back to Jennifer Raymond. Raymond fought him in everything he tried to do. One day, in an attempt to frighten her into submission, he unhooked her and dragged her into the darkened area under the stairs. The two were gone only a few minutes, and when they returned, Raymond was uncharacteristically quiet. Pinella, like all the only women, had managed to loosen the gag in her mouth, allowing her to speak in whispers, and was particularly inquisitive.
“What did he do to you?”
At long last, Jennifer Raymond whispered, “He showed me a man’s head in a pot. And he had the guy’s ribs set to roast and a bunch of his other body parts in the freezer. He told me if I didn’t start listening to him, that was going to happen to me too.”
“Who was the guy?” Maria Pinella asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer to her question.
The sight didn’t chastise Raymond for long; within a day or two she was again pushing Marsden as far as she could.
About this time Frank Marsden introduced still another new torture: electric shock.
He had to do something to keep the women quiet and in submission. The lady renting the house would be coming back in a day or two as the place was nearly restored once more. The plan had to continue.
I am hungry. You are neglecting your duties, Frank. Feed me!
These words pounded in his head day and night. He had to get the plan back on track. He could not afford any more delays.
“I’m trying, master,” he would say out loud. The women, still blindfolded and some suffering from badly cut ears, listened to see if someone else was in the basement with them. But they should discover that who or whatever Frank Marsden was talking to was either invisible or in his head.
Marsden slipped off the plug end of an ordinary electrical extension cord, one of those that had been used around the holidays to string up outdoor lights, and stripped the insulation to leave a bare wire. Then he plugged the other end into a socket. With current then flowing through the wire, he touched the bare end to the women’s chains and laughed while they jumped and screamed in agony. For extra effect he would throw buckets of water on them first.
* * * *
Sleet pelted Deena as she raced up the steps to the front door of Arlene’s house, coated her hair and shoulders, melted down her neck in streams.
Willard Swader let her in, helped her strip off the sodden jacket, and held it at arm’s length.
“They’re in the dining room,” Willard said. “I’ll get you a towel.”
Arlene was wearing a nice wool blanket robe, fuzzy slippers, and looking obscenely warm and comfortable as she drank some hot chocolate from a porcelain mug. Maggie Swader was seated across from her, dressed in a nice pants suit looking as if it had been taken from Hillary Clinton’s closet. She also drank a mug of hot chocolate.
“Heavens to Betsy, what happened to you?” Arlene asked.
“Have you even looked out the window today?” Deena grumbled.
Willard brought a thick towel, fresh from the dryer, and Maggie poured a cup of hot chocolate for Deena. The cuffs on her jeans flapped icily around her ankles; she was starting to shiver.
“Take your shoes off, warm your feet,” Arlene said.
“According to most folks I’ve ever talked to, they say most colds start off in the feet,” Willard said, his faded brown eyes twinkling.
Deena took a couple of sips of her hot chocolate, felt the shakes ease up, and the certainty that she’d never be warm again faded.
She sank back in the chair and, fighting the sudden draining that succeeded the shakes, she haltingly, with a feeling of abashment, felt all eyes upon her.
“We need to talk, Arlene,” Deena announced.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Arlene responded with a slight smile.
“And that is our cue to leave,” Willard said. “Goodnight, ladies; come on, Maggie.”
With that he pulled his wife out of the room and the two left the house.
Then Arlene and Deena hugged.
* * * *
Dauphin County Sheriff Department Homicide Detective Gary Chapel stood on the icy road that cut across Danbriar Ridge and watched nervously as the rescue workers ascended the face of the cliff, using ropes. It was dark, the wind blowing through the trees, but the snowstorm had given it a rest; no new snow was falling from the darkened skies. At least for now. Chapel was responding to a car that this car may have something to do with his missing women.
Exhausted, starving, his stomach in knots, the cold medicine wearing off, he, along with several uniformed deputies and members of the rescue teams from both the fire and sheriff’s departments, had responded to the scene after the call had come in. The road was blocked, flares lit and signaling orange, adding to the already eerie incandescence of beams from headlights, taillights, cigarette tips, and flashlights, all reflecting against a deathly white panorama of wintry forest.
Far below, crumpled and half buried in snow, were the remains of what had once been a car registered to a Joey Fischer. The rescue teams, with the help of ropes and climbing gear, returned.
“No one inside,” Douglas, a broad-shouldered fireman, said as he approached. He was shaking his head and turned to another fireman, John Cort, a man Chapel had met a couple of times. “Do you smoke?”
Chapel shook his head.
“No signs of anyone climbing out or anything?” Chapel asked as Douglas, thick gloves on his hands, fumbled with a cigarette offered from an unopened pack from one of the uniformed deputies.
“Not that I could see.”
“Well someone had to drive that car over the edge. You telling me that no one has been in the car?”
Douglas silently agreed. And Chapel figured the rest of the crew from the sheriff’s department would be on board with Douglas’ assessment. If Fischer had been abducted or had managed to scramble out of the wreck and was now lost in the surrounding hillside, Chapel did not know.
He all of a sudden felt sick inside. He coughed, and the men stepped away from him. He flapped a hand at them and said, “It’s not the cigarettes. I have a nasty cold.”
They stayed back. Chapel did not blame them. He cleared his throat and gazed out at the frigid landscape. Their only hope was that Joey Fischer could be found very soon.
He spent another half hour on the ridge before calling it a night. There was nothing more he could do. The crime scene gals and guys would go over the vehicle and surrounding area with fine-toothed combs and sophisticated equipment; the car would be towed to the garage where it would be examined again and again.
How were these missing women connected to Joey Fischer?
Now the clock was ticking down, vital seconds in these women’s lives slipping away. Chapel needed to put the pieces together.
He rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to get some feeling back in his fingers. His toes, too, were beginning to tingle and go numb despite warm socks and boots. And the cold medication he’d taken hours before had worn off. His nose was running and his ears were plugged.
Walking to the edge of the cliff, he looked far below to the area where Fischer’s car had landed.
Frustrated, he turned and looked up at the hill rising above the road. The weather began to take a turn for the worse.
In the morning if the weather held off, officers would scour the ridge and hill, searching for any shred of evidence or Joey Fischer. Maybe they would find something, maybe they would not.
He squinted up through the darkness.
The wind kicked up, bitter cold, and some of the firemen were gathering their gear and packing up.
There was nothing more to be done tonight.
A headache had formed at the base of Gary Chapel’s skull, his eyes were scratchy, and his nose was now running like a faucet. He logged out of the scene and headed back to his apartment, determined to get some rest, have a fresh view of the case in the morning. But as he drove along the eerily quiet mountain road, his headlights reflecting brightly off the packed snow and ice, huge trees laden with snow surrounding him, he felt the winter cold seep into his bones. Shivering, he experienced a deep-seated fear that he’d not find any of the missing women alive.