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“Who’s the second elopement?”

  “Tharp, Erik, twenty nine, I.Q. 137, but he doesn’t do much on the diagnostics. A drug burnout. Never a problem. Been in almost five years. We gave him Class II last week. We figure he’s calling the shots, and Belluxi’s the muscle.”

  “What did he do?”

  Greene put his feet up on the desk, sighed. “We’re not sure. He got caught burying bodies, but there was never any evidence that he killed anyone. He’s no killer, you can see that. But there was a big to do because a lot of the bodies were kids and babies. So they sent him to us.”

  “Diagnosis?”

  “Unipolar depression. We put him on Elavil and he evened out. He was delusional and probably hallucinotic when we first got him. Read his story, it’s wild.” Dr. Greene pointed to a big leather bag on the floor. “It’s all there.”

  “What can I do to help?” Dr. Harold inquired.

  “Update the evaluations, augment them. Look for anything we might’ve missed; it would help if we could figure out where these guys are going. After twenty four hours the stats for reapprehension go into the ground. Try to have something for me soon; I need something to show the state mental hygiene board, and right now I’m too busy with the cops and the press.”

  Dr. Harold nodded and rose.

  This should be some very interesting reading, he thought.

  The bag was very heavy.

  «« — »»

  “Why…is it—Ann?” asked the astonished face at the door.

  “Hello, Mrs. Gargan,” Ann greeted.

  “Come in, come in,” the woman hurried. “I almost didn’t recognize you at first. It’s been so long.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  Ann, Martin, and Melanie entered the dark half paneled foyer. At once, familiarity struck home, and memory. This was the house she grew up in. It never changed. The same old paintings were on the walls, the same carpets on the floor. The same grandfather clock she remembered tolling in the wee hours as a child. The moment seemed surreal. She was not merely stepping into her parents’ house, she was stepping back into her past. Ann felt instantly morose.

  “Melanie! How are you, child?” Mrs. Gargan leaned over and gave Melanie a big kiss. “Look how big you’ve gotten, and how beautiful!”

  “Melanie, you remember Mrs. Gargan.”

  “Hi,” Melanie said, a bit stunned by the sudden gush of affection.

  “And this is Martin White,” Ann introduced.

  Mrs. Gargan had been a close friend of the family’s for as long as Ann could remember. She was in her fifties but didn’t look it; she beamed good health and didn’t have a single gray hair. Her husband, Sam, ran the farm supply store on Pickman, which served the entire town. They were nice people, if not a bit weird—Sam, like a lot of the men in town, seemed withdrawn against his wife’s popularity and outgoing demeanor.

  Just like my father Ann thought.

  Though Mrs. Gargan tried not to show it, her enthusiasm hitched down a bit upon introduction to Martin. “Oh, yes, you must be the poet,” she said. “We’ve heard lots about you.”

  “Very nice to meet you,” Martin said.

  Ann lowered her voice. “How’s Dad?” she asked.

  But Mrs. Gargan turned. Had she ignored the question deliberately? “Everybody, Ann Slavik and her daughter are here.”

  Dim lights glowed in the large colonial dining room. Cold cuts, cheese, and the like had been spread out on the table, around which at least a dozen people stood quietly conversing. The room went dead silent when she entered. Suddenly, she saw them all as they looked when she was younger. Mrs. Heyd, the town doctor’s wife. The Crolls and the Trotters. Mrs. Virasak, whose husband had been Lockwood’s police chief until he’d died several years back. In fact, there were many widows here, whose now dead husbands Ann ghostily remembered. These were staunch, robust women, conservative, and polite with an edge, and who looked good for their ages. Several younger women—Ann’s age, she guessed—stood in the background, with what seemed attendant daughters. Ann had indeed lost touch; the more she looked around, the more she took note of people she didn’t know at all. No, she didn’t know many of them. So why did she have the gut feeling that they knew her?

  They went through the round of grueling introductions. The elders constantly fussed over her and Melanie, yet all but ignored Martin. All the while Ann felt like wilting. These people. This place. Her father sick upstairs. Perhaps he had already died—that would explain this bizarre scene, but certainly someone would’ve told her by now.

  “Your mother’s upstairs, dear, with Josh,” Mrs. Croll said.

  “She’ll be down presently,” added Mrs. Virasak.

  This was frustrating, cryptic. Ann still didn’t quite know what was going on. She took Mrs. Gargan aside. “How’s my father? How bad is it?”

  The woman stalled but maintained her cordial smile. “He’s resting,” she said. “He’s—”

  “Is he even conscious?”

  “Well, sometimes. We’ll go up when you’re ready.”

  But that was it: Ann didn’t know if she was ready. She felt threatened by images. The image of her father as she’d always known him, and the image of what he must look like now: bedridden, sallow.

  Abruptly, then, Mrs. Gargan hugged her. “Oh, Ann, it’s so good to see you. I’m just so sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”

  Ann stiffened in the embrace. For her whole life she’d felt distanced by the townspeople, and now it seemed like a homecoming. More images crashed.

  Again, the room fell silent. Ann turned.

  A figure stood in the entry—a solid figure, unflinching as a chess piece. She was sixty but looked forty five, well bosomed, shining dark hair pinned in a bun. Fine lines embellished rather than depreciated her face. That face, like this house, the town, like everything here—hadn’t seemed to have changed at all. Stoic touched with kindness. Hard and compassionate at the same time.

  The figure stepped into the dining room.

  “Hello, Mother,” Ann said.

  —

  Chapter 10

  “Women sure are noisy sons of guns, ain’t they?” Duke chuckled.

  Erik remained numb in the driver’s seat. They’d parked on an old abandoned logging road, figuring they’d wait out the heat; the police probably didn’t even know this road existed. This, however, left them with time on their hands, and Duke Belluxi was never one to waste time.

  The girl screamed and screamed.

  She’d fainted after Duke had blown her boyfriend’s head off, but she’d come to real fast when Duke had pried off one of her long, shiny painted fingernails with a pair of Craftsman pliers he found in the toolbox. She’d lurched awake, screaming. “Sleep tight?” Duke asked, and began tearing off her scant clothes. Little as she was, though, she put up a formidable objection to Duke’s plans, clawing, slapping, trying to bite, so Duke clunked her in the head a couple of times with an empty Corona bottle to take some of the zing out of her. By now Erik knew the futility of trying to intervene—the guns were all in back with Duke. Now all the girl could do was moan and churn a little. Duke spraddled her out right on top of her dead boyfriend and began raping her at once. “Some bed, huh, honey?” he said, chuckling. Erik had no desire to watch this, yet every so often something—guilt perhaps—forced him to take a glance. “Oh yeah, oh yeah,” Duke was going. When the missionary position lost its thrill, he flipped her over and began to sodomize her. She jerked into full consciousness again and vomited. “Aw, shit, girl!” Duke objected, thrusting. “Look what you done! Puked all over our nice van!” Soon the girl started screaming again, in gusts, so Duke gave her another clunk with the Corona. “Simmer down, sweetheart,” he advised, then laughed.

  He pushed her face down into her dead boyfriend’s crotch. “Give your honey a nice big kiss from Duke!” Then he yanked her head back by her hair, stepping up his thrusts. Erik stared blankly out the windshield.

  This cannot go on, the thought ha
mmered in his mind. Once Duke got going, he was beyond reason, beyond control. He was on a killing spree, and it was Erik’s fault. He had to do…something.

  He glanced in back again. The Remington and the Webley lay beside the rear wheel hump. No way I can get to them, Erik realized. The box of stuff they’d taken out of the Luntville car was reachable but useless. All it contained were a few boxes of shotgun shells, some road flares, and the bulletproof vest—nothing he could use to fight Duke. I’m going to have to kill him, he reasoned. But I’ve got to get to those guns.

  “Aw, come on, Duke!” he yelled when he saw what his associate was doing.

  Duke chortled like a farm hog, grunting. His orgasm was obvious, spurting into the air and onto the girl’s back as he slowly strangled her with a battery cable. Duke wiped himself off with her panties, laughing. “Thanks, baby. Hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”

  Erik just stared—at this monster he’d helped escape.

  Again, he thought: Yeah, I’m going to have to kill him.

  “Hey, partner, we got any more of them Twinkies?” Duke asked.

  «« — »»

  The Lockwood police station was a small brick extension of the fire station on Pickman Avenue. It had two holding cells, an office for Chief Bard, whose only window offered a resplendent view of the garbage dumpster in back, and an anteroom where they kept their files and supplies.

  Sergeant Byron trudged into the office. He was a young big brawny kid, and a good cop. Now, though, he looked pale, disgusted.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Bard asked. “I could’ve used some help out on the state roadblock.”

  “I was on that 5F, remember?” Byron sat down, sighed. “You sent me on it.”

  “That was hours ago.”

  “Took the damn M.E. that long to get out there. I had to secure the scene and wait. Unless you want me to leave two cooked bodies sittin’ in a pickup truck.”

  Bard set down his coffee. “What do you mean…cooked?”

  “They was burned up, Chief. Somebody iced these two fellas, doused ’em with gas, and lit ’em up. Right on the town line, past Croll’s fields.”

  “Lockwood residents?”

  “Naw, two guys from the other side of the line. Gary Lexington and Lee More, both twenty five. No rap sheets, no trouble.”

  “How were they killed?”

  “M.E. don’t know yet. It was hard to tell anything by lookin’ at ’em, burned as they were. They was naked, though, clothes throwed in after. Ready for the best part?”

  Bard gazed at him.

  “M.E. said some of their organs were gone. Someone gutted these fellas, then torched ’em. Ready for more?”

  Bard nodded, though he thought he already had a good idea.

  “Fellas’ heads were busted open. Brains were gone.”

  Bard opened his proverbial small town police chief desk drawer. He removed two glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. He poured them each a shot.

  “I know you’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, Chief. Heads busted open. Brains gone. Shee it.”

  Bard tossed back his shot, smirked, and nodded. But what could he say? What could he tell him?

  “Just like some of the bodies we caught Tharp buryin’ five years ago,” Byron finished. He threw back his Maker’s and put his glass back up for another.

  «« — »»

  “How have you been, Mom?” Ann asked.

  She followed her mother up the heavily banistered staircase. On the landing wall hung a mirror which had always scared her as a child—at night she’d come up the stairs to find herself waiting for her.

  “Thoughtful of you to ask,” her mother replied.

  Here we go, Ann thought.

  “It’s absolutely disgraceful that you’ve seen fit to completely ig—”

  “Mom, please. I didn’t come here to fight.”

  “I’m surprised you came at all. We haven’t heard from you in six months—we thought you’d written us off altogether.”

  “Damn it, Mom. Just stop it, would you?”

  The headache was already flaring. This happened every time; they’d tear at each other until there was nothing left. Almost twenty years now, and the only bind that remained constant between them was bitterness, scorn.

  “I came here to see Dad, not to argue with you.”

  “Fine,” her mother said. “Fine.”

  Down the hall, another lane of memory.

  “I suppose you’ll stick your head in, look at him, and then be off again, back to your ever important job in the city.”

  Ann felt her nails dig into her palm. “I’m off all next week.”

  “Oh, a week, a whole entire week. I suppose we should feel privileged here in lowly Lockwood, that the prodigal daughter has graced us with a full week of her cherished time in order to spend it with her family, one member of whom is dying.”

  Ann’s teeth ground together. Her jaw clenched. No, she thought. I will not fight with her I…will…not.

  They’d set up a convalescent bed in the end spare room. The shades were drawn; pale yellow lamplight cut wedges in the room. From a corner chair, a stout man rose in a baggy suit. He was bald on top, with tufts of salt and pepper hair jutting from the sides like wings, and a bushy goatee. This was the man who’d delivered Melanie on that stormy night, and the same man who’d brought Ann into the world through her mother’s womb. Dr. Ashby Heyd.

  He smiled warmly and offered his hand. “Ann. I’m so glad you could come.”

  “Hello, Dr. Heyd.” But Ann’s attention was already being pricked at, dragged toward the high bed. Antiseptic scents blended with the musk of the old house. The room seemed stiflingly warm. Inverted bottles on a stand depended IV lines to the still form on the bed.

  Ann looked down at her father.

  It scarcely looked like him. The vision crushed her, as expected. Joshua Slavik’s face had thinned, leaving his mouth open to a slit. His eyes were closed, and one forearm had been secured to a board, needles taped into blue veins large as earthworms.

  “He’s borderline comatose, I’m afraid. A massive cerebral hemorrhage.”

  Ann felt desolate looking down. Her father barely seemed to be breathing; Ann had to fight back tears. Even in her worst moment, or during her mother’s worst tirades, Joshua Slavik had always had a smile for her, a simple encouragement, the slightest note of hope to help her feel better. He’d given her his love, but what had she given him in return?

  Abandonment, she answered.

  “He looks so peaceful,” her mother remarked.

  Ann snapped. “Jesus Christ, Mom! You’re talking like he’s already dead! He’s not dead! You’ve even got this whole goddamn house full of people like it’s some kind of goddamn funeral home!”

  Dr. Heyd took a step back. Her mother’s face went dark.

  “We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” Ann went on. “He should be in an ICU, not lying in this stuffy crypt. What kind of care can he get here?”

  “Dr. Heyd is perfectly capable of—”

  Ann rolled her eyes. “Dr. Heyd’s just a small town general practitioner. He delivers babies and treats sore throats, for God’s sake. We need a neurologist, we need a CAT scan and an intensive care facility. We’re taking him to a hospital right now.”

  “I forbid it,” her mother said.

  Dr. Heyd stepped in, “Ann, what you don’t understand is—”

  “All I understand is my father’s dying and nobody’s doing shit about it!” Ann yelled at both of them. “And if you think you can forbid me from taking my own father to a proper hospital facility, then you better think again. You may run this ridiculous little backward town but you’re not the law. I’ll go straight to the state probate judge and file a petition for guardianship. The court will appoint me guardian ad litem, and there’ll be nothing you can do about it. I might even—”

  “Why not sue me while you’re at it, Ann?” her mother suggested. “Sue me for mental anguish
. That’s what lawyers do, isn’t it? Sue people? And you’d do it too, I know you would, Ann. You’d sue your own mother.”

  Ann caught herself. Her mother and Dr. Heyd exchanged silent glances. Ann stared, more at herself than them. What am I saying? she thought.

  Her father groaned once, lurched and twitched a few times.

  “Are you happy now?” her mother asked. “Look what you’ve done, you’ve upset him. Haven’t you upset him enough in your life? You’ll even upset him on his deathbed.”

  Ann wished she could melt into the wall. For that moment she’d felt completely out of control of herself.

  “This is a disgrace,” her mother said, and left the room.

  Dr. Heyd followed her. He quietly closed the door behind him.

  Ann sat down. Her outburst left her limp, jointless. Her gaze returned to her father. She seemed to be looking at him from miles away, or through a fish eye lens.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” she muttered.

  He lay still. The flesh on his thin face seemed translucent, sagging into the crags of his skull. Then he moved.

  Ann leaned forward, held her breath.

  Very slowly, her father’s right arm lifted. His hand turned, and his index finger extended feebly.

  Shakily, and only for a second, the finger pointed directly at her.

  «« — »»

  The house was emptying when she came back down. Visitors smiled curtly, bid subtle goodbyes, and left. A few teenage girls were picking up in the dining room, putting things away. Martin stood alone in the corner, his arms crossed.

  “We could hear you yelling all the way down here,” he said.

  Ann sulked.

  “I know it’s not easy for you, Ann. But it’s not easy for your mother either. It’s not exactly sincere to threaten your own mother with legal action when her husband’s dying in the same room. You’re going to have to get a grip on yourself.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me.” Martin lit a cigarette and frowned at his cup of punch. “She went out back with Melanie. Dr. Heyd’s in the kitchen, I think.”