Thirty-two
During the week following Ben's troubling phone call,
Wendy slipped a little too furtively into the house each afternoon with
her schoolbooks clutched tightly to her chest, one half hour late. When
she left for school one morning, Lori cleaned the girl’s bedroom
thoroughly and tried not to think of her search as snooping. She found
what she was looking for under the dresser, a handful of exquisitely
rendered pencil drawings on crudely torn wrapping paper.
Ronnie was drawing again. Lori dropped to her
daughter's bed, waiting out the tidal waves of dread. These were
relatively innocent pictures, to be sure. Only one heavily scratched out
below the neck hinted at Ronnie’s predilection for nudes. The others were
busts, drawings of Wendy and Gloria from various perspectives from the
shoulders up.
Regardless, the situation screamed warning. She
could not hope to think herself, her family and friends safe until she had
uncovered the source of inspiration for Ronnie's preternatural skill at
drawing.
When Wendy arrived home from school the next
afternoon, Lori knocked gently at her door. "Come on in!" Wendy called
out with forced cheerfulness.
Wendy sat cross-legged on her bed, running her hand
down Calico's gently swollen sides. Cats didn't know any better, Lori
reminded herself, thinking about her indiscretion with Trent. Human
beings had far less excuse.
Lori seated herself on the edge of the bed. "I have
something to ask of you."
"What, Mom?"
"You've been seeing Ronnie."
The smile faded. "We're just friends. I told Gloria
I'd keep an eye on him for her. We're not hurting anything."
"I know."
"Do you think Ronnie would try anything?" Sarcasm
crept into the teenager's tone of voice. "Are you worried about what
people might think if I'm seen with a retard?"
Lori disregarded the self-defensive accusation. "You
and Ronnie don't have much in common, regardless of your loyalty to
Gloria. Isn't it his talent for pencil drawings that fascinates you?"
Wendy's eyes widened. "You snooped! You found my
pictures!"
"Wendy, I have pictures of my own."
Wendy's outrage faltered. "You do?"
"We have a problem, and I need your cooperation
getting it settled. I'm not prejudiced against Ronnie because of his
handicap. There's something else to guard against, something that could
prove very dangerous to you and me and other young women in town."
Wendy cocked her head suspiciously. "What kind of
drawings do you have?"
"If I show you a sample, will you promise to hear me
out? I'm treating you as an equal in this matter, not as a child."
Wendy shrugged nervously. "Sure. Okay."
Lori fetched Ronnie's drawing of Carol hidden beneath
her mattress along with the others. She returned with the drawing rolled into a tube.
"You're aware that Ronnie was peeking in windows this summer."
Wendy looked embarrassed. "Carl Adler is stricter
with Ronnie than he used to be. He's sure been nervous lately. I guess
he knows something happened, but I don't think he knows what. I don't
think anybody's complained about anything."
"Has Ronnie tried to draw a picture of you without
any clothing?" Lori asked gently.
Wendy turned beet red. "I told him that it was bad
to do that. And bad to peek in windows. I don't think he meant any
harm."
Lori handed the girl the drawing. Wendy rolled it
out onto the bed. Her eyes went wide with shock. She scooted away from
the image as if it had come alive.
She looked up for an explanation, confused and close
to tears. "But he's always been so nice to me, Mom! Gloria tried to mess
around with him, but he's scared of girls!"
"Wendy, listen to me. Ronnie copies what he sees.
He's putting different faces on one body. He's seen a picture, a very
dangerous picture. I would like to think it was something he found in a
magazine, but it may have been a photograph. We have to remember that
Ronnie is a young man despite his handicap. Nudity must fascinate him,
although I don't think he realizes how sick these drawings are. He
doesn't know good from evil in that regard."
"He burned a bunch of stuff out back of the store.
Is that what he was burning?"
"I would imagine so."
"Are you going to tell everybody about what he did?
Mom, they'll take him away and put him in a home!"
Lori put her a hand on the girl's arm to calm her.
"We'll tell nobody, but I have four other pictures with faces that me and
Karen and Carol and Amy have never seen before. I'd like to find out who
they are, but I certainly can't show them around town naked and tied to a
table. You and Gloria encouraged Ronnie to draw just faces. Maybe you
can get him to draw just those four other faces for me."
Wendy wet her lips with her tongue and looked up,
wrought with guilt. "Sure. I guess so, but you're not going to get him
into trouble, are you? You'll keep Karen away from him, won't you?"
"Ronnie's not under any suspicion, Princess. I
promise. I have no reason to believe that he's done anything wrong."
"What do you want me to do?" Wendy said, rife with
distrust.
"Bring Ronnie home some evening. We'll show him
those other four drawings. I'm sure he can give us drawings of just the
faces I need to identify. Will you do that for me?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Don't let Carl Adler know about any of this, and I
don't even want you to go near his store."
"I don't think he knows," Wendy said. "He's just
nervous about what people think of Ronnie."
"He'd be very upset if he saw Ronnie’s drawing of
Carol."
Wendy's eyes grew wide with alarm. "No kidding!"
By the following morning, Lori had gathered enough
courage to accept Benjamin's challenge to visit Karen at the hospital for
a second time. She drove the thirty miles into town in her battered
Volkswagen on a bright and cool morning.
Karen smiled innocently as Lori entered her private
room. She was dressed in her own clothing and looking calm. "I'm glad
you stopped by. I've talked with my doctor this morning. I might be out
of here in a few days if everything goes well."
Lori told Karen of Benjamin's follow-up phone call to
see what her reaction would be. She left out the part about Ben's
warning. "He wanted to thank me for looking out for Gloria until he
arrived. He said that he and Gloria are doing well."
Karen's face smoothed over to a gray mask. "He had
no right to take Gloria from me. My doctor says I'll have visitation
rights, if I handle myself well. I have the self-discipline to do that.
And the motivation now. I intend to get Gloria back, you know. I know
what they expect of me."
Lori chatted for a half hour, continually steering
the conversation back to Benjamin and Gloria. At no time did Karen allow
her temper to flare. Lori left the ward a half hour later, thoroughly
chilled by Karen's new level of self-control. She drove home with Ben's
warning running through her mind, almost hoping circumstances would work
against Karen ever returning to Sorrel.
She stopped off at the diner before returning to the
house and sat in a rear booth. Carol brought two coffees with her and
slipped in across the table. "X-rated boyfriend problems," she said with
an eager shake of her shoulders. "Beats the soaps any day. Hon, you look
beat."
"Carol, he scares me. He's attracted to me, but he
has secrets. It's all so sinister."
"You're getting circles under your eyes again. Are
you still having that dream?"
"I wish I had someone to help me, except they'll just
stuff pills down my gullet and make things worse.”
"Unpleasant things happen in life," Carol said
uneasily. "Sometimes pills are all we have to make them go away."
Lori told her about Benjamin's phone call and
warning.
Carol grimaced. "Jogging? I'll have to see that to
believe it."
"She's such a fanatic about everything she does."
Carol nodded calm agreement, not a gesture typical of
her. She had mellowed since Ruben's assault. She seemed less harried,
more serious and not as spontaneous. "We both know more or less what to
expect from Karen, but I had higher hopes for you and Trent. I haven't
heard about anything going on in the county that would give anyone the
creeps. Karen certainly would have picked up on it."
"I thought as much myself."
"Maybe it's all a smoke screen," Carol said. "Trent
may be having difficulty coping with an intimate relationship after so
long. Would it be so impossible to believe that he's never gotten over
his wife's disappearance? He may have loved her very much."
"I don't think that's the case. Regardless, I can't
pry."
"Are we going to show him Ronnie's drawings?"
Lori shook her head adamantly. "We need to know who
those four women are, and where that body came from before we show those
drawings to anybody."
Carol studied her for a time. "Are you afraid of
him, maybe? Just a little?"
Lori gave a reluctant nod.
"Is he kinky?"
She had to laugh at that. "He's imaginative."
"I don't suppose I get any details on what you'd
consider imaginative."
"Not hardly."
Carol leaned back in her seat and sipped her coffee.
"It's probably nothing to get all shook up over. About Trent, I mean."
"That's what I'm hoping."
Carol ventured a pale specimen of her old, wicked
smile. "Snoop. Nose around a little. Once you've got the ball rolling,
one thing always seems to lead to another, like tissues coming out of a
tissue box. I hate to say it, but I think there's a lot you don't know
about Trent that passes for common knowledge in these here parts. It's
what you get for not being a gossip like the rest of us."
"Where do I start?"
Carol gave it a moment's thought. "Go talk to Maggie
Shire, Trent's next door neighbor. She's lived in Jumer since before the
dinosaurs. She might be able to tell you a few things about Trent that
even I don't know, and if those women in Ronnie's drawings ever lived in
this area, Maggie would certainly recognize them, if maybe you just clip
out the faces and show her. She's a sharp old
bird."
"Jumer's just up the road, but I haven't been out
that way in ages. I certainly don't know Trent's address."
"Halfway through town on the north side on the
highway. It's a big blue house. Maggie lives in the white house next
door. Maggie's usually working in her garden in the mornings. It's kind
of late in the season, but she'll be digging up bulbs or something.
Trent's at the substation near Clayton during the day, certainly in the
morning, so you don't have to worry about getting caught."
The clock over the cash register gave her fifteen
minutes to get home before the school bus spewed forth Sorrel's share of
the county's school children. Lori got up to leave.
"Be careful," Carol said. "Karen, Amy and I owe you
more than you can imagine. We'll help with anything you need, no
questions asked."
Lori touched Carol's arm with heartfelt appreciation,
but wondered why Carol continued to look so upset. "I'm going to find out
more than I bargained for, is that it?"
Carol gave a helpless shrug. "Please be open-minded
about anything you might find out about Trent. He's really a nice guy."
"You're not going to give me a little forewarning?"
"I'd rather let Maggie take the heat. And be careful
with those drawings. They're starting to give us all nightmares."
