Forty-two
The afternoon of the following day, the phone rang.
Unsuspecting, Lori snatched the living room extension from its cradle on
the second ring.
"Mom!"
Wendy's desperate cry sounded just short of
hysteria. Lori's grip tightened on the handset. "Where are you?"
"I'm at Mr. Adler's grocery store. Mom, he tricked
me! He said Ronnie needed me!"
"Wendy, get out of there this instant!"
"He won't let me!"
The girl shrieked.
A gruff voice sounded. "Mrs. Malcolm, this is Carl
Adler speaking."
Carl's cold-blooded audacity turned her panic to
blind rage. "Damn you, I'm calling the sheriff this very instant!"
"Do so, by all means. I will release your daughter
into Sheriff Danielson's custody the moment he arrives."
His calm tone of voice damped her anger like a deluge
of ice water. Carl Adler was dangling Wendy before her like a baited
hook. "What do you want?" she said from the depth of helpless fear and
confusion.
"I wish to speak with you, Mrs. Malcolm."
"About what?"
"Indulge me. I mean neither you nor your daughter
harm. If you distrust me, call Sheriff Danielson and we'll conduct our
little discussion in his presence. Otherwise, please come fetch your
daughter at my store. She is most anxious to return home."
The phone went dead in her hand. Lori managed to put
it back in place on her third attempt.
Leslie approached, staring up at her with big round
eyes. "What's the matter, Mom?"
"Run over to Amy's."
"Let me go with you."
"Please do as I say." Her words were polite, but
Leslie knew better than to join battle with the storm of emotion she was
trying to hold back. He turned and hurried off.
When the front door slammed behind him, Lori's focus
of thought narrowed to a pin-point. If she called Sheriff Danielson, he
would question Wendy, and then Carol and Amy and all of their summer's
secrets would come pouring out like tissues plucked from a box, one
pulling the next into the light of day. Trent's reputation would never
survive the fiasco, they would all be sitting ducks for an unknown killer,
and her terrible conspiracy with Ruben would come to light.
Without bothering with a jacket, she jogged the five
blocks to Main Street nonstop and pushed open the front door to Carl's
Grocery and Meat Market, slamming it against the counter inside with
enough force to attract the attention of anyone inside.
Carl was working in the rear of the story, and he
ignored her. The flash of chrome raised into the air and the dull
thumping of the meat cleaver biting into a side of beef had been a
familiar and innocent sight for years, but no more.
"Where's my daughter, you bastard?"
Only his cold eyes rose to meet hers. Wendy shot to
her feet from a chair set back in the shadows. She hauled Ronnie to his
feet, held tight to his arm, and forced a strained smile. "I'm okay,
Mom. Honest."
"Wendy, leave this instant. Take Ronnie and go to
Amy's and wait."
The youngsters slipped through the darkness at the
rear of the store. Carl made no effort to stop them. The rear door
opened and banged shut, and Lori took a cautious step back onto the
sidewalk.
"Please explain to me why you deemed it necessary to
break and enter my property," Carl Adler said in a tone of voice seemingly
devoid of stress.
"We've had problems with peeping toms," Lori said.
"I thought transients may have been using the house as a shelter."
"Had you hurt yourself on my property, I would have been
held legally responsible for your injuries. Without an occupant, the
house has no insurance."
Despite the meat cleaver clutched in Carl's right
hand, Lori relaxed by slow degrees. Carl's concerns sounded mundane
enough.
"The house has a bad history, Mrs. Malcolm. I've
warned the children to keep their distance."
"So I've heard."
"I found out recently about Ronnie's naughty
drawings. They didn’t all burn as thoroughly as he intended. I thought
perhaps you feared that I have been their source. I would like to see
an intact one
for myself. He tells me he's provided you with several."
"Busts. He did busts of Wendy and Gloria. I still
have one or two of those I can show you."
"Nothing more than busts?"
"No, nothing more."
It didn't bother her at all to lie to the man. "I haven't seen any
of the ones you're talking about."
The indignation and bite in her tone of voice went
over well. Carl nodded satisfaction. "So be it. As I have said, the
house has an unpleasant history. It is best left buried with those
responsible. There is no way to correct the errors of the past. There is
no way to punish those already in their graves."
He buried a tip of his meat cleaver into the wood
table with a vicious blow, then hoisted what remained of a slab of beef
onto his shoulder. With a curt nod of dismissal, he turned and vanished
into the swirling white mist of the freezer.
Lori's knees felt rubbery on
the long walk home. She scanned the side streets as she passed, half
expecting to see a sheriff's patrol car creep around a corner. She
phoned Amy at the house, soothed her worry, and asked that Wendy and
Leslie be sent home.
Before they arrived, Lori put a
pizza in the oven. Leslie returned to his place in front of the
television with a slice and a glass of soda. Lori fussed about the
kitchen until her nerves calmed and she could be confident of making a
good showing in Wendy's presence.
Wendy retreated fearfully to her room. She sat on
her bed with Calico curled in her lap. Lori closed the door behind her
and sat at her side.
"What did Mr. Adler want, Mom?"
"I got caught snooping in the old farmhouse," Lori
said, knowing by now the futility of deceit with someone as close as her
daughter.
"Are you going to tell the sheriff what Carl Adler
did to us?"
"Which one of us would get arrested, do you think?"
Wendy failed to see the humor in her predicament.
"But what are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet. How did you wind up in Carl's
store, may I ask?"
"He stopped me and Ronnie on the street and told
Ronnie it was time to go home. He said I could visit, and he seemed very
friendly."
"And you got into his car."
Wendy nodded guiltily.
"I don't want you to ever let anyone trick you into
getting into a car ever again. The worst things you ever imagined when
Gloria was missing do happen to girls who are lured into the cars of
certain men. I know you understand that."
Wendy looked embarrassed. "I won't do it again, not
ever. I don't like thinking about the things I was scared of when I
thought Gloria was dead. I was thinking those things in Mr. Adler's car."
The doorbell rang less than an hour later. The last
man on the face of the earth that Lori wanted to see at that moment stood
at her door and smiled down upon her.
"Evening, Lori."
Lori turned to Leslie standing at her heels. "Guess
what?"
"Yeah, I know," Leslie said in defeat. "Go to your
room."
With a sigh of disgust, the boy turned and wandered
off.
Lori offered the best smile she could muster.
"Sheriff Danielson. What brings you out this way?"
"Trent called in an emergency leave of absence this
morning. Have you seen him?"
Lori fought to control a rush of anxiety. "Did he
say what was wrong?"
"No word of explanation. He returned the patrol car
to the garage and rented one of his own in Clayton. If you see him, have
him give me a call. He's entitled to a leave of absence, but as a friend,
I'd like to know if I can help with any problem he may be having."
"I will, I promise."
"I'm not here just because of Trent. I had to speak
with Karen Radcliff again about Virginia Cornell's death. Karen's
emotional stability seems to have deteriorated since the last time I spoke
with her. I don't how to put it more delicately. I may have upset her.
She could use a friend about now."
"She thinks you're accusing her of killing Virginia."
"Karen was the last person to see Virginia alive, but
I've never had any reason to believe her capable of such savagery."
Danielson shook his head to dispel the unsettling notion. "I asked about
Virginia's frame of mind the night she died, and anything she may have
said that could shed new light on what happened. You're right. Karen
took my every question as an accusation."
"I'll have a word with her."
"Please do. I'm going to have to take her in for a
formal deposition sooner or later. It would go better if she remains calm
and objective during the questioning."
Lori watched him retreat to his car hunched against a
cold wind, remembering that she had feared and hated figures of authority
as a teenager. Maturity had showed her how little control any one person
had over the course of events of even their own lives. Most of Sheriff
Danielson's authority was an illusion. Bureaucracy contained him like a
straitjacket. According to Trent, he had never once fired the revolver he
carried at his side.
Lori threw on a jacket and looked in on Wendy. "I've
got to check on Karen. Watch the house."
"Yep.”
In past years, Lori would have entered Karen's house
without knocking. Now, she tapped gingerly, and cringed when the giant of
a woman yanked the door open and looked maniacally about for signs of
trouble. And then she caved in upon herself.
"Sheriff Danielson asked me to stop over," Lori
said. "He was worried about you."
"He thinks I killed Virginia Cornell."
Karen turned away. Lori followed her into the house
and closed the door against the chill in the air.
Despite her hefty physique, Karen managed to look
gaunt. Her face was pale and her eyes rimmed with darkness. "I hear that
you've been talking with Maggie Shire. You must know about Jessica Bates
by now. Did you tell the sheriff?"
"No, but I was wondering if he knew."
"I'd be in jail if he knew. Are you trying to
protect me, or are you still doing your balancing act with that horrible
dream of yours?"
"I'm trying to keep one step ahead of everything
without making myself obvious," Lori said. "I don't know if I'm doing the
right thing. I just don't want everything to get away from me just yet."
Karen sat on her couch. "Do you want to hear my side
of the story?"
Lori sidestepped and sat in a chair, trying not to
appear ill at ease. "I haven't jumped to any conclusions, Karen."
"It's a good thing you didn't, because Jessica and
Nathan Bates were both murdered, and I was not responsible."
"Maggie said Nathan Bates was killed in a tractor
accident."
Karen snorted. "The tractor didn't tip over. It ran
him over, and somebody was behind the wheel for it to have happened the
way it did. It's been so many years, but it's like it happened
yesterday. After he died, Benjamin started coming home from work late,
and he was gone most weekends. Does that sound familiar?"
Lori just nodded.
"He was screwing that little bitch, Jessica Bates. I
followed him one morning, just like you did with Dave. He parked his
truck on a gravel road behind the Bates' farmhouse, and I looked in her
bedroom window and saw for myself the truth of what was going on between
them. They were fornicating. When I demanded that he stop seeing the
woman, Ben left me. He moved into Clayton, but he kept sneaking back to
her at night. Ronnie was about five years old at the time. There was
something about that boy that bothered me during this period of time. In the end, the reason for
Benjamin's loyalty to that woman finally dawned on me."
"I don't understand," Lori said.
"The affair had been going on longer than I had
imagined. You see, Benjamin is Ronnie's father. Nathan Bates may have
suspected. I can't imagine who else would have killed him. It must have
been Ben, my husband."
Lori felt her skin crawl. "Oh, shit."
Karen chuckled grimly at her reaction. "Surprised?
Ronnie is Gloria's half-brother, conceived and born in sin."
Lori gripped the edges to the chair, not certain if
she wanted to hear the rest of the story alone with Karen in a dark house.
"I didn't leave Ben right away," Karen said. "I
thought I could get him back if I had a child of my own. God knows how
hard I tried. But even after Gloria was born, Ben just kept sneaking back
to Jessica. Even when he had a lovely daughter by his own wife, he went
back to her."
Karen sighed, her face contorted with tension. "I
confronted Jessica finally, and we had a terrible fight. She tried to
stab me with a knife."
Karen's eyes unfocused. Her complexion turned
ashen. "I hit her with my fist. She fell down on the lawn by the front
gate. I went into the house to phone the sheriff. Gainer was sheriff
back then. When I went back outside to wait for the deputies and the
ambulance, Jessica was gone. I thought she was hiding. I thought she
might still be hurt, so I went looking for her. I found her in the
pasture with the hogs."
Karen eyed her with a deeply haunted look. "Lori, I
swear, I don't know who moved her. She was unconscious when I left her.
She was just waking up when I found her."
Lori shot to her feet. "Karen, please. I don't
think I want to hear the rest."
"Sheriff Gainer said the boars had been neglected and
were half starved. Jessica hadn't been caring for them properly. When I
found her, she was rolling around on the ground, screaming, and they were
tearing at her clothes. I thought at first of goats eating the paper off
tin cans. That's what I thought at first, that they were just eating her
clothes off her body, and it was rather funny. I figured I could just
wait until they were finished and then go in and drag her naked ass back
to the house to wait for the deputies."
Karen shook all over. Her eyes flashed with
desperation and pegged Lori with a maniacal glare. "I didn't do it, did
I? How could it have happened again? Jessica, and now Virginia? Did
something happen that I don't remember?"
Lori eased closer to the door.
"At least you know now why I use that terrible
expression," Karen said, her tone of voice once again calmly reasonable.
"It means something very real to me when I'm angry. Because I've seen it
happen with my own eyes."
Her tone of voice softened. "So now what are you
going to do, Lori Malcolm? Do you believe me when I tell you that I'm
innocent? Do you think I should I be put in jail for my own protection?
"Or for yours?"
