Gerald was disappointed after he got into bed with the woman. Despite her show of aggressiveness and energy, she was now acting the way Irene did after Arthur’s death. There was no reaction, not even any resistance. He fondled and stroked her body. He brought his lips to her shoulders and neck, but she just lay there staring up into the darkness. Her eyes were unmoving. Even after he raised himself over her and straddled her, looking right into her face, her eyes did not blink.
As far as he was concerned, she was actually worse than Irene. At least Irene made little puppylike sounds; at least he knew she felt something, even though she didn’t share in the erotic pleasure. Making love to this woman was like making love to a warm corpse. It checked his excitement, and the rush of lust and desire that had come over him began to retreat.
This angered him. He realized that through her passivity, she would steal away the excitement and spoil the moment. It had been her resistance that had stirred him so. He couldn’t let this happen. He tried kissing and stroking her harder, hoping the increased activity would bring her around. It didn’t.
Nevertheless, he drove himself at her, not making love to her so much as he was making love to a fantasy. He pulled and turned her, molding her like clay. Her body was softer, fuller, and firmer than Irene’s was now. He used it to bring back the pitch of excitement he had felt before. She was no longer just a vulnerable woman entirely dependent on his mercy; she was truly his playmate, as malleable as one of Shirley’s dolls and conscripted doll-like friends.
Gerald sought much more from his sexual release than simple bodily pleasure. All the anger, all the depression, all the frustrations had built themselves to such heights in him that he was close to an explosion. He hoped it would pour out of him and leave his body uninfected by the poisons.
He thought he heard the woman groan. Her eyes were closed now and she was so limp in his hands he was sure she had passed completely into unconsciousness. Nevertheless, he was determined to drive her back into awareness. He imagined her waking with little cries of pleasure.
She never did as he drove on. Finally, after some time, he heard the sound of something crash to the floor in the basement. He couldn’t imagine what it was. He knew that everyone was upstairs; he listened keenly. The silence that followed was suspicious.
He pulled himself together, slipped from the bed, and went to the doorway to listen. There was nothing coming from Irene’s room. The children and she were still in bed. The woman was lying naked in the position he left her, the covers pooled around her ankles. He moved down the hallway and listened again at the top of the stairs. Still not satisfied, he lumbered down the stairs, turned on the light below, and went to the basement door.
At the bottom of the staircase, he squinted and studied the playroom, an uncomfortable feeling washing over him. He saw and heard nothing, but he was a man who had come to trust his instincts as much if not more than he trusted his five senses. Sometimes, in the fields or in the woods, his sixth sense would stir to life and he’d know that some wild animal roamed there, an animal that hid itself from his eyes and ears. Usually, if he studied the landscape long enough, he would spot a bobcat staring at him from behind some tree.
He felt the same way now. He turned about slowly and studied every corner, every cranny of the basement. Nothing moved; nothing looked touched or out of place. Yet there was something…something. He snapped off the playroom light and walked to the Bad Box.
For a few moments he stood there thinking about the way he had wrapped Arthur’s coffin in his blanket and lowered him into the earth. He couldn’t forget how holy, how cleansed he felt to rebury his son, near Irene, near the family. Away from the old man. So different from the way Marlene and Donna had been dispatched. He’d used the well in their cases, dumping a layer of dirt over each to hide their bodies. The well used to be fifty feet deep. Now it was about half that. The man there now would require another five feet of earth or so. A morbid thought swept over him. As things were going, the entire well would eventually be filled in. A glint of humor appeared in his eyes.
Gerald pressed the palms of his hands against his cheekbones and pushed so hard his arms began to ache. He couldn’t stand the images; he had to get them out of his mind. Finally he started slowly back upstairs. He paused to listen again and then put the light out and closed the basement door. When he went back up to the bedrooms, he found Irene standing in their doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“I thought I heard a noise downstairs.”
“I thought you had put her in the Bad Box.”
He would have laughed, but that idea had passed through his mind when he had first found her trying to escape. Then her violent resistance excited him and he thought more about chaining her to the bed and making use of her greater helplessness.
“I just checked something. Go back to sleep.”
“The children fell asleep again.”
“Good.”
“You’re going to sleep in their bed, aren’t you?” she asked. Had she heard him before? he wondered.
“Of course.” She didn’t move so he started for Shirley’s bedroom. “Go to sleep,” he commanded. She nodded and went back to bed. He looked at the other bedroom and thought about the woman. The moment had been broken; his climb toward a much needed breath of fresher air had been interrupted just as he’d been soaring.
There’s always tomorrow, he thought. And tomorrow and tomorrow. The sense of power and control encouraged him. He went to Shirley’s bed and slipped under the covers. For a few minutes, he lay there listening.
The house was too quiet. It was as though it were holding its breath. His blood and this house pulsed in unison. Built by his great-grandfather, the structure had been modified by subsequent generations. All the repairs, all the maintenance had been conducted by him, making the house as much a part of who and what he was as any child or wife could be. Indeed, he had always thought of it as a living thing. The ghosts of his family lived within its walls. Every creak at night was the moan of some ancestor’s spirit. He had come to believe that nothing bad could happen to him if he never strayed too far. The house itself wouldn’t permit it.
Something wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was confident he eventually would. That confidence permitted him to close his eyes and seek sleep. After all, Irene and the children were secure in his bedroom. The woman could not attempt another escape, and the intruder was at the bottom of the well.
In the morning he would clean up the loose ends and, for a while at least, they would be safe and happy. He pictured Irene in bed with the two children beside her, her arms wrapped around both of them and both of them turned into her, seeking warmth and protection from her.
Poor Arthur, he thought. Toward the end he didn’t know where Irene was; he couldn’t even turn to her. He was so alone beside his darkening shadow. He must have known, Gerald thought; he didn’t offer any resistance, not even spontaneously, not even instinctively.
Arthur was grateful. Grateful Gerald had put an end to his life, gently, using nothing more than a pillow. It was like pinching out a weak flame. He doesn’t hate me, he assured himself. He listened to the more familiar sounds that seeped from the walls of the old house. Now they served as a lullaby, the sounds accompanying him as he cascaded back, falling through the bedlam of his conscious thoughts and seeking the quiet of a deep sleep.
Almost as soon as the rays of the morning sunlight slipped in between the curtains of the bedroom and splashed across his face, Chicky Ross pried open his eyes. He didn’t want to wake this early, but it was as if an alarm had gone off in his head. He pressed his eyelids together to force the return of sleep, but he failed. He wasn’t ready to admit it to himself, but he knew why.
Whenever he was on an unsolved case, the facts and the circumstances loitered around the corners of his mind, teasing him with their presence and refusing to let him rest. In the middle of a conversation with Maggie, his eyes would go glassy, taking on that faraway look. She usually knew just when she had lost him, but sometimes she would ignore it and talk on as though he was paying strict attention.
At the end of what had become her monologue, she would stop and ask, “Where are you now, Chicky?”
He’d swear he was listening. She knew he wasn’t, but she was too merciful to grill him about what she had just finished saying. That was his way; that was who he was, she thought. Toleration, she concluded, was the foundation for a successful marriage.
Chicky’s first conscious thoughts in the morning centered on the Oberman affair. Despite the early hour, he had to know if the young man had returned to his hotel. He stepped as quietly and as softly as he could, sliding out from under the blanket and tiptoeing out of the bedroom.
“Let me know if he’s there,” Maggie said just as he reached the doorway.
“Shit.”
She turned over in the bed. He shook his head and went to the phone in the kitchen. After dialing the hotel and getting the switchboard, he waited for the phone to ring in David Oberman’s room. It rang nearly ten times before he decided to hang up.
The evening had gone by and the man hadn’t returned. Chicky weighed the possibilities. David could have returned to his home to wait there. Or perhaps he had done away with his wife and then skipped town. Chicky stalked back to the bedroom and ran through his pants pockets until he found the slip of paper on which Oberman’s home number was scrawled. Then he strode back to the kitchen and dialed. He let the phone ring close to ten times again before hanging up.
The man isn’t home and he isn’t back at the hotel. Did he dare chance a call to the station? He might set off an alarm before he had confirmed the possibility that David had fled town. Krammer wouldn’t be there this early, he thought, and others would keep hushed until Chicky signaled trouble. Tina Sandow answered his call. He had forgotten that she was working the early morning shift. He and the forty-five-year-old woman didn’t get along ever since he found her in the back of Tug Cotter’s patrol car. Tug was married with four children, and she was married with two. Chicky never said anything about it, but just the fact that she knew he knew was enough for her to despise him.
“I’m checking in on a case,” he said in the most officious tone he could muster. “Missing person. Oberman. Any calls?”
“Not since I’ve been on duty.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “Thanks.” If she knew the case, or knew how Krammer felt about him working on it, she’d tell the chief immediately. He thanked his lucky stars. He felt some responsibility to protect David until his worst fear was confirmed.
Maggie opened her eyes when he reentered the bedroom.
“Nothing,” he said.
“This is your day off, Chicky.”
“I know.”
“I was hoping we’d go shopping for a new couch.”
“I know.”
“But you’re not going to do that, are you?”
“Well, I do have to have work done on the car.”
“You’re not going to get work done on the car. You weren’t kidding last night. You’re going to cruise Willow Road, wherever the hell that is.”
He didn’t answer. He wrestled on his pants and went to the closet for a shirt. She sat up in bed and ran her fingers through her hair. He avoided looking at her. When he went into the bathroom, she got up, looked at the clock, and cursed. She headed for the kitchen.
“I can grab something on the road,” he called from the other room, but she ignored him and started to put on the coffee. “Listen,” he said, coming out, “I’m just going to make one pass down this road and see what I can find.”
“Naturally, you will see something the state police couldn’t see.”
“You can’t expect them to be as involved in this as I am.”
A crease formed between her usually serene eyes. “Are you the only policeman in New York State who is sufficiently involved with his cases this morning, Chicky?”
“You just don’t know,” he said. “I kept thinking about Debra and Joe. If Debra was missing like this and Joe went off looking for her and disappeared himself…the police would assume double-dealing. I want to give this guy a chance.”
“That’s dirty pool, Charles Sanford Ross.” For a moment they just looked at each other. Then she laughed. “At least you’ll have a good breakfast,” she said, reaching for the refrigerator door to get the eggs.
Afterward, when he started the car to leave, the exhaust pipe rattled so badly he thought it would fall off before he could leave the driveway. Even so, he never considered taking Maggie’s car. He was superstitious about these things. Nothing serious had ever happened to him since he owned this car; he and it had become part of one another. He couldn’t discard the old boy now and drive around in a comfortable, late model automobile. It just didn’t seem right; in a strange way, it also didn’t seem safe.
Feelings, first impressions, hunches always played a major role in his life. He recognized that there was nothing scientific about it, but he believed in a sixth sense just the same. For him there was some mystical value in experience. He had met his share of criminals, degenerates, and liars. Some people were better at hiding the truth, while others gave everything away. Sometimes they did it with an unguarded glint in their eyes; sometimes they did it through a tone in their voices or their choice of words. Even a seemingly inconsequential gesture could flag a well-schooled detective.
Chicky didn’t think of himself in terms of a super sleuth; he wasn’t a Philip Marlowe or even a Columbo, despite his habitual disheveled look. Whenever he pictured himself as others might see him, he imagined a plodder, a mechanic of sorts, someone who followed a standard set of procedures. There was nothing romantic or even that fascinating about his work most of the time. In fact, he was so nonchalant about what he did that he often had difficulty conjuring up any sense of danger from it.
In a routine manner, he had taken down information from a man who reported that his wife and child were missing. He forwarded the information to the proper adjunct agencies and then followed up on the progress, driven first by professional curiosity, and skepticism, and now by a passion. In a way, he identified with David Oberman, and wanted to prove the guy clean. He had a hunch about the man, and that was that the man was honest and sincere. Chicky would like to prove his hunch on target.
Chicky understood that he didn’t have to do this. It would have been easier to follow Krammer’s orders and bow out, but in his own quiet way, he was tenacious and stubborn. When something gnawed at him, he had to respond. It wasn’t in his nature to ignore a hunch and go on with his private life as though nothing unusual had happened. He knew it would only haunt him wherever he went.
And so he was on the highway, following the route David Oberman must have taken to search for his missing wife and daughter. Despite the faulty exhaust pipe, he made good time. He liked traveling during the morning hours. Traffic was always lighter than at any other time of day, even in the midst of a summer resort season peopled heavily with vacationers.
He traced the route on his map. He wasn’t as familiar with this district as he was with his own, but he knew enough to reach Willow Road without difficulty. He took it slowly, studying the quiet homes and heavily wooded forests, as well as the cleared fields. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, not having seen Oberman’s car; but he had faith in his ability to spot something unusual. Maggie would laugh at him, but he had come to rely more and more on that thing he knew was the policeman’s sixth sense.
Despite that, nothing flagged his attention the entire length of the country road. An air of serene peace hung over this rural neighborhood which he found quite attractive and a nice contrast to his own hectic resort community. He made a turn at the end of Willow and saw a garage, knowing it was the one Captain Stark referred to in his report. A young man finished pumping gas into a dilapidated car as Chicky drove up and introduced himself.
“Christ, this is a regular policeman’s convention,” he said.
“Well, you might very well have been the last person to have contact with this woman…and her husband,” Chicky added.
“Husband? He’s missing too now?”
“It’s beginning to look that way. That’s why I came around.”
The mechanic grunted but walked back to the car he had on the lift. Chicky followed him.
“I told them everything I know.”
“I’m sure you did. I was just hoping that if you thought about it one more time, you might remember something that would help me locate him…and his wife.”
“Shit,” the mechanic said. He turned away from the car. “The woman comes here. I give her Willow Road as a shortcut; her husband comes around, and I tell him the same thing.”
“He had been down Willow, right?”
“Yeah, and he spoke to some of the people. He even talked to Gerald Thompson, for chrissakes.”
“So? Who’s Gerald Thompson?”
“Creepy son of a bitch. He don’t like talking to anyone. Looks like the hulk, only he has better features. Anyway, no one saw anything. I told him she couldn’t get lost on that road. There’s no place to turn off but a couple of cowpaths.”
“Cowpaths?”
“You know, dirt side roads that farmers used.”
“Thompson lives where on Willow?”
“First house on the right if you circle back. That’s it, mister. I really didn’t have much to say. You can come back about three and talk to Verne, if you want.”
“Verne?”
“My brother. He remembered about that other woman and child.”
“What other woman and child?”
“I don’t know much about it. I wasn’t working here then. Seems there was a woman and child missing in this area a couple of years ago. He told me about it.”
He pretended he didn’t know what the mechanic was talking about. “Did he tell the other policemen?”
“Naw. He remembered after they left yesterday. Come back about three if you want.”
“Another woman and child? Missing?”
“That’s all I know, mister.” Chicky didn’t move. “Look, I got this exhaust pipe to replace and—”
“Exhaust pipe! You heard mine when I pulled up?”
“Yeah.”
“I might very well be back,” Chicky said. “For your professional services, as well as to talk to your brother.” The mechanic smiled and shook his head. “Thanks,” Chicky said.
When he got back into his car he just sat there for a few moments. Finally, human memory of that other missing mother and daughter. He shook his head. Maybe Verne could give him details the police department might have overlooked. Skimming surfaces was not his style.
He decided to return to Willow Road. He paused when he reached the farmhouse on the right, but didn’t stop as he sized the place up. He was more interested now in what the mechanic had called cowpaths. He recalled seeing one on his left near the bottom of Willow. Once again, there wasn’t anything scientific about his desire to seek it out. It was just…a hunch.
When he reached it, he stopped his car and got out. Considering the condition of his exhaust pipe, he decided not to chance the uneven, rutted road. He knelt down and studied the tire tracks in the dirt. He was no Daniel Boone; he would never call himself a country boy. He had never gone hunting and he really had never spent much time in what people would call nature, but a person didn’t have to to be an expert tracker to see that these automobile tracks were fresh. And they weren’t left by a farm vehicle, either, he concluded.
He looked back at his car, regretting his malfunctioning car radio, then started down the dirt road, his heartbeat racing faster as his unscientific and impossible to substantiate police sense switched on. It was as though some kind of homing device had gone off in his head. He walked on.
Tami awoke first. Sunlight had begun to penetrate the thin curtains, and darkness was retreating from the bedroom. When she opened her eyes, it took her a few moments to focus on the strange woman beside her. Irene had fallen asleep on her back with her arms out in crucifix fashion. Both children were just under them and close to her body. In sleep Irene’s thin face looked even more narrow and bony. Her shallow, regular breathing made the skin of her cheeks quiver. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyeballs moved against the thin membrane of the lids to look like two rodents trapped beneath a sheet.
Tami lifted her head tentatively and looked over Irene at Shirley; curled up in a fetal position, her right hand was cupped and pressed against her lips. Even so still and quiet, the big girl looked ominous. Tami didn’t want to wake her; she didn’t want to wake either of them.
Tami sat up as carefully and quietly as she could. She looked toward the doorway. She knew which room her mother was in, and she understood that her mother was unable to leave it. The terror she felt in the presence of Irene, Shirley, and Gerald was intensified by the realization that her mother, who was another adult, was confined and trapped. Most of all, she was incapable of doing anything about it. If her mother couldn’t help herself, it was clear she couldn’t come to Tami’s aid.
Tami gazed at the other two again and waited. The scene reminded her of all the times she awoke in her house and tried to fool her parents. Asleep in their room, they were usually oblivious to her comings and goings at the break of dawn. They didn’t want her up and in the living room watching television, but she found that if she was quiet enough about it, she could sneak in and turn on the set without their realizing it for hours. She had only to keep the volume down.
She slipped from this bed just as stealthily as she would from her own and stood very still. Irene’s breathing became more ragged and her lips moved against each other, but her eyes didn’t open, nor did she turn in the bed. Shirley didn’t move either.
Feeling more secure, Tami started for the bedroom doorway, tiptoeing over the rug. When she reached the door, she paused and looked back. All was still quiet. She entered the hallway and, keeping herself close to the wall, she groped toward her mother’s room. She had her hands cupped against her mouth as though to keep herself from making any sounds. When she reached the doorway, she stopped and peered in slowly.
Despite the light that glowed from the hallway, Tami had trouble making out her mother’s form in the bed. She hesitated to enter until she was sure the mound on the bed was her mother. She was afraid that if she went in, and her mother wasn’t there, she would be trapped in the room. To Tami the room was filled with an evil magic. It was as horrible as the Bad Box. She didn’t trust the shadows and the silence.
Tami also understood that Irene and Gerald did not want her in this room. Still, she was unable to resist her need to be near her mother, to touch her and to hear her voice. The conflict and indecision stung her eyes with tears and she released a small sob. Even though it was the tiniest of sounds, it seemed like an explosion echoing in the room.
Stacey lifted her head from the pillow. The moment she was outlined clearly in the darkness, Tami rushed to her. Without a sound, mother and child embraced. Stacey held Tami to her tightly, almost too tightly, and covered her face with small kisses. Tami worked her head down against her mother’s neck and held onto her firmly.
The realization that this reunion had to be held in complete silence never left either of them. Stacey did not have to warn Tami about making too much noise. The child thoroughly sensed the danger and was even afraid her mother would speak too loudly. When she lifted her face from her mother’s body, she looked immediately toward the doorway, half expecting Irene or Gerald to be there.
“My baby,” Stacey whispered, “my baby, oh, my baby.”
“I wanna go home.”
“I know, honey. I know.”
Stacey sat up farther, watching the doorway. Tami crawled beside her in the bed and locked her arms around her mother’s waist, holding on as if for dear life. Stacey stroked her head, noting the unevenness of her chopped hair, and then brought her lips to her cheek.
Stacey considered the options. Now that she was firmly chained to this bed, there was little she could do herself. After all that had happened, her wild attempts to escape, the attack from the man which she barely remembered except in a haze, she felt totally defeated. Any attempt at escape seemed futile. Her lightly sedated food kept her sluggish; when the effects wore off, and she managed to break through, the man always seemed there, looming over her. Even if she managed an escape again, she felt the very house would betray them.
But her daughter clung to her, desperately seeking relief. This was the longest she and Tami had been together since first entering the house. The contact revived hope. Her maternal instincts galvanized her. She lifted Tami’s head and lowered herself to face her.
“Tami, baby, listen, honey. Do you think you can go down the stairs by yourself very, very quietly?”
“I don’t wanna,” she whispered.
“You’ve got to, honey. Mommy can’t get out of this bed. You’ve got to go by yourself, but you’ve got to do it very quietly so they don’t hear you.”
“I’m afraid.”
“I know. The front door is locked. You can’t go out the front door. Did you see another way out?”
Tami thought for a moment, her eyes blinking rapidly. The whole period of her entrapment seemed like a prolonged nightmare, and just as it would be with any dream, she had difficulty recalling it clearly. The chronology was confused, and the layout of the house blurred in her mind. To her the basement was upstairs and the outside darkness was as close as the living room downstairs. She couldn’t even picture the front door.
But thinking about the outside spurred her to recall the short, dark cement stairway that led to a metal door. It was frightening, but it was another way out, even though in her mind it was classified as Shirley’s secret exit to Arthur.
She nodded slowly.
“What? Where?” Stacey cried in hushed, tearful tones.
“Up the stairs.”
“Up the stairs? What stairs, Tami? Where are there stairs that go up?” Tami didn’t answer. “Think, honey. Think. It’s so important. You want to help Mommy, don’t you?” Tami nodded. “Then where?”
“Where we played with the dolls and the clay.”
“Downstairs?” Tami nodded. “Far downstairs? The basement?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then you’ve got to go back down there, quietly, secretly, and you’ve got to go back up those stairs and outside. Do you understand, sweetheart?”
Tami nodded, but she didn’t like it.
“You come, too.”
“I can’t, honey. Look,” Stacey said. As quietly as she could, she lifted her left leg so Tami could see the chain. “There’s one on my other leg, too. I can’t get out of the bed. You’ve got to go out yourself. And when you get out, you’ve got to run to the road and go back the way we came. Do you think you can remember that?” Tami shook her head. “You’ve got to, Tami. It’s the only hope we have. Listen, listen,” she said, taking her hand tightly between hers as the girl’s face squinted in a sob. “It doesn’t matter if you forgot which way we came. Go any way you see a car or a person and make them stop, okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, yes. And then just tell them where I am and what’s wrong with me, okay? Whoever it is will get us help. Please try, honey. Will you try?”
“I wanna go home.”
Stacey’s whispers grew urgent. “This is the way; this is the only way we’ll be able to go home, Tami. You’ve got to be Mommy’s big girl and do it.”
Tami thought for a moment and then wiped the tears from her cheeks. They had spilled from her eyes without her realizing it. She looked back at the doorway.
“You’ve got to be very quiet, Tami. So very quiet. You can’t wake the bad people, okay?”
Tami nodded.
“It’s like a game, only it’s very, very important. Go on, Tami. Do it. Go on.” Stacey pushed her away gently. Tami stood up and rubbed her face. She looked back at her mother in the bed and nearly broke into loud sobs. She swallowed the urge, and even though it was painful to do so, she kept herself from making any sound at all. “Go on,” Stacey repeated, trying to smile through her anguish. Tami turned slowly from her mother’s bed and walked toward the door. She looked back when she reached it. “Go on,” Stacey whispered.
Tami peered into the hallway. It was quiet and empty. She stepped out quickly, her little feet practically gliding over the wood as she crossed to the stairway. She looked back once, fear stamped on her face, and took hold of the banister to grope down the stairs, bouncing lightly on each step. The stairs barely creaked under her light weight.
When she reached the basement door, she found it slightly ajar. It was the way Gerald had left it the night before. She pushed it open only enough for her body to squeeze through and then, without hesitation, she switched on the basement light and descended the stairway, driven by the urgency on her mother’s face and the importance of what she was about to do.