Mother's Day (32 page)

Karen reached for the papers, but Walter put his hand on them, holding them down. “I’m not saying we’re not interested in these, Mrs. Newhall. I mean, if what you say is true…well, you’re right—this could implicate another person. Even though Linda doesn’t mention who that person might be “

“I understand that,” said Karen stiffly.

“But, these aren’t even the original documents,” said Walter. “These are just copies.”

“I have the originals,” said Karen.

“May I see them?”

Karen hesitated. Then she said, “I’ve decided I’m not going to show them to anybody but our lawyer.”

“Well, until I can authenticate these, they’re really meaningless. We would need to have a document expert in the lab go over the originals, to determine the age of the paper, the ink, and so on. We would first have to prove this is not a hoax.”

“Show him, Mom. Give him the real ones,” said Jenny.

Karen saw the panic in Jenny’s eyes and felt that she had been impossibly naive about this whole thing. Of course the police would want to see the original documents. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Please, Mom,” Jenny pleaded. “Please, for me.”

Walter Ference looked at her expectantly.

The person did not move. Greg looked again. It’s a mannequin, he thought. It has to be. Now that he looked closer he saw that its head lolled to the side. It’s got to be some kind of doll, he told himself. They have everything else in the world down here. He felt as if his hands were glued to the woolen fabric of his borrowed shirt. He crouched there, opposite the doll, unable to move. His teeth began to chatter.

Finally he forced himself to breathe. Just turn around, he told himself. Go on. Go up the stairs. But instead he fumbled with the penlight, now recovered, and trained it on the figure against the wall.

The eyes were glassy, staring. Through the blondish bangs on the forehead, something dark made streaks that meandered down the side of the face.

• • •

Greg felt his heart leap in his chest. He moved the tiny beam, with trembling fingers, up to the source of the streaks. The top of the blondish head was dark and pulpy. Greg rose to his feet and moved closer, on leaden legs. He bent over and touched the face. The cold flesh made him gasp, as if it burned. “Jesus Christ,” he cried. “Oh, my God.” He leapt back from it, staring. It was a woman. A dead woman. His heart was thundering in his chest. He looked wildly around the dark basement, half expecting her killer to jump out at him. He stumbled away from the body, then turned to look again. Who was she? My God, he thought, what kind of monster is this man? He forced himself to look again at the dead woman. She was unknown to him. A young, square-faced, stocky woman. With her head bashed in.

Run, he thought. Run. Get away from here. But his legs refused to budge. And another, more rational voice was trying to influence him. Here it is, he thought. The proof you need that Ference is a killer. Keep your head. But the panic rose in him again. What do you do? Tell the police what you found in Ference’s basement? Sure. It was the same thing all over again. You’re the one they’re looking for. You’re the one they’ll blame. How can you explain what you are even doing here?

Greg stood there, wearing Walter Ference’s shirt, his eyes riveted to the ruined face of the corpse. After a trance-like minute, he looked around. He had an idea.

Tracing his way back carefully through the cellar, he reached the steps to the first floor. This is it, he told himself. Go carefully. This is it. Gripping the handrail weakly, he climbed the steps. The house was perfectly silent. If anyone was here, they had to be dead asleep. It was a chance he had to take. Before, he almost hadn’t cared. He wanted only to meet the devil on his own ground. But, suddenly, he had hope. That poor, dead girl in the basement was his lifeline. Now he had a ghost of a chance, and he had to act quickly. He tried the door at the top of the steps. It opened. He pushed it to slowly and stepped out into the dark room, illuminated by the foggy moon and the dim glow of a streetlight.

He was in a kitchen, neat, empty and old. There was no one around. No sound. He walked over to the kitchen door and closed it. Then he returned to the wall telephone he had spotted when he emerged from the cellar. Greg took a deep breath, picked up the receiver, and dialed. He leaned against the counter for support. The operator came on the line.

“Get me the police department,” he said in a hoarse voice he hardly recognized as his own. The sound seemed almost shattering in the silent kitchen. As he waited, he told himself that he should have run from the house and found a phone booth. But what if Ference came back in the meanwhile and somehow got rid of her? Surely he did not mean to leave the body there. Besides, Greg knew that every moment he spent out in the street he was in danger. He could be spotted on his way or in the phone booth. He had to make his move immediately.

A voice in his ear said, “Bayland Police Department.”

Here goes, he thought. Greg gripped the phone with both hands. “My name is…” He coughed and groped for the name. “Lund,” he said. “I live at Twenty-seven Hickory Drive. I was just out calling my dog and I thought I spotted a prowler outside my neighbor’s house. Can you send somebody out to check? I think he went into the basement, and there doesn’t seem to be anybody at home there.”

“What is that address?” asked the dispatcher.

“Well, I’m not positive. Probably Twenty-five. I’m at Twenty-seven Hickory. It’s the home of one of your officers. His name is Ference.”

“Detective Ference’s house?”

“Yes. You’d better send a patrol car. It could be nothing but—”

“I have a man in the vicinity. I’ll send him right over.”

“Thanks,” said Greg. He did not give the dispatcher a chance to request more information. He hung up quickly. “Don’t take my word for it,” he said to himself with grim satisfaction. “Come over and see for yourself.” He let go of the receiver and turned around.

Emily Ference stood in the kitchen doorway, holding a gun.

Karen shook her head.
“I’m sorry. I have to be firm about this one point.” Walter put his hands on his knees and stood up. “Well then, I guess there’s nothing more to say.”

“No,” Jenny cried, clambering to her feet. “Wait a minute. What about my dad?”

Karen hesitated and then held her ground. “So be it, then.” She stood up and started for the door. “You may as well leave.”

“Mom, you’re ruining everything,” Jenny cried.

“A day or two more isn’t going to matter,” said Karen with a conviction she did not feel. “I’d like you to go now.”

Walter sighed. “Mrs. Newhall,” he said in a reasonable tone, “I’m afraid I can’t leave without those papers.”

Karen felt herself bristle with indignation. “This is my house, and I’m asking you to go.”

“Mom, don’t get him mad.”

“This is official business,” he said. “Those papers are evidence. They don’t belong to you. Now you’ll have to relinquish them.”

Karen felt suddenly shaky. She had blundered ahead when her instincts told her to wait. She should never have called the cops. She had somehow been lulled into thinking that they saw her and Jenny as innocent victims in this whole mess. But she had the sudden realization that in their eyes the whole family was somehow guilty. “Look,” she said uncertainly, “don’t you need a warrant or a court order or something?”

Walter chuckled as if to belittle the ignorance of her terms. “I don’t need a ‘warrant,’ as you call it, to claim evidence. I don’t believe you understand the legal technicalities of the situation.”

Karen chewed her lip. It was true. She didn’t know much about the law. She’d never had to, for heaven’s sake. It had never been a part of her life before this. But this did not seem right to her. “I’ll admit that I’m confused by legal jargon, Detective,” she said stubbornly. “But what if I give you the papers and they somehow disappear?”

“Aren’t you being a little paranoid, Mrs. Newhall?”

“You wouldn’t think so if you were me,” she said ruefully.

“I’ll give you a receipt,” he said calmly.

Karen thought it over. Then she shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Do you want to end up in jail, too, for withholding evidence?” he demanded.

“You wouldn’t even have known about these if it weren’t for me,” Karen protested.

“Yes, but now we do. And you’re obliged to relinquish them.”

Karen felt like a butterfly being trapped under a wide net. She’d heard the term withholding evidence. Was it like contempt of court? Could he arrest her? Jenny would be left all alone. The situation was impossible. But Karen felt suddenly tired of being pushed around. Tired of being treated like a criminal when all she’d done was try to bring the truth to light, whether the police wanted to believe her or not.

And the same instincts that had warned her to wait for the attorney now nagged her not to give in. She decided to trust herself this time. She did not meet Jenny’s beseeching gaze. This was tough enough. She screwed up her nerve and took a deep breath. “You can have the copies,” she said. “But until I see my lawyer, you can’t have the original papers. The last time I looked, this was not a police state where you could just seize people’s property. Now I want you to leave my house.”

Detective Ference stepped up to her, raised one hand, and in one dizzying movement smacked her as hard as he could across the face.

“Why in the world did you do that?”
Emily asked.

Greg stared at her. She had turned the light on with her free hand, and she stood in the doorway, looking like a child holding a toy weapon. She was small and fragile, with large, glassy blue eyes and grayish-blond hair in a Buster Brown sort of haircut.

For a moment he was too startled to understand what she meant. Then he realized that she had overheard his phone call to the police. “I found something terrible in your basement,” he said.

“Besides that shirt?” she asked with a wispy smile at her own joke.

There was something eerie about the calm way she was looking at him. She was dressed in a bathrobe and slippers. The gun seemed too heavy for her hand. She did not seem nonplussed to find a strange man in her kitchen. She was not afraid. “Are you ill?” she asked in a solicitous tone.

Greg hesitated. Then he nodded. “Yes.”

“Sit down,” she said.

He could not figure out if she was crazy or if the delirium of his fever was getting to him. He glanced at the back door. The patrol car was on its way. He couldn’t be found here. He remained standing, his body rigid.

“I heard you down there,” she said matter-of-factly.

Greg felt the confusion crippling him. “I thought the house was empty.”

Emily’s smile was painful to behold. “It is,” she said. She lowered the gun.

What is she doing? Greg wondered. Why isn’t she afraid?

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Your husband…I have a grievance with your husband.”

Emily smiled wistfully. “He may be gone for a while. You’re welcome to wait.”

Greg had a sudden urge to shake her. “Is this some kind of game?” he said.

Emily looked surprised. “No. What do you mean?” The gun dangled, seemingly forgotten, by her side.

“You don’t know who I am. I broke into your house. Are you on drugs or something? I could be dangerous to you.”

Emily shook her head emphatically. “No drugs,” she said. “No drugs, no alcohol. I just got back from a…” She pressed her lips together. “I have a problem with alcohol. But I’m sober right at this moment. And as for danger, well, you seem like a decent man. Besides, death doesn’t frighten me. I would welcome it. It’s living that’s so hard.”

Greg was suddenly angry. Furious. “There’s a woman’s body in your basement,” he said bluntly. “She’s been murdered. And I doubt very much if she welcomed it.”

Emily’s face turned ghastly pale, and she swayed slightly. Tears welled in her eyes, but she did not protest or cry out. Greg watched her, fascinated. She pulled out a chair from the table and sat down.

“Do you know who it is?” he demanded.

Emily shook her head. Then she looked up at him with worried eyes. “Do you?”

Greg ran a hand through his hair. There was a pounding between his eyes. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Someone killed this woman. I think it was your husband.”

He expected an argument, an accusation, even a mocking laugh. But Emily just shook her head and stared. “My husband is a policeman, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” said Greg, “but all the same…”

“Policemen are good at keeping their feelings hidden. It’s something they learn on the job, you know. They see a lot of ugly things. And they learn not to show it. That’s what I always thought about Walter. Even when I met him he was that way, but I just figured still waters run deep…”

There’s something wrong with her, Greg thought. This woman is not tracking. Even in his febrile state, he felt sure of that. “I have to get out of here,” he said. He turned toward the door. He half expected to hear gunfire, feel the blast between his shoulder blades. Instead he heard the melancholy croon of her voice. “These are my sons,” she said.

For some reason her words made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He turned around. She had removed a well-creased photograph from her bathrobe pocket and laid it on the dull, nicked surface of the table where she had already placed the gun. The boys in the picture were blond-haired toddlers, their gently rounded little bodies bursting with energy and laughter, as if they could spring out of the photograph and clamber all over this frail ghost of a woman.

“I see,” said Greg. Family pictures. A murdered woman in the basement. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I killed them,” she said.

L

Blood spurted from her nose
and Karen stumbled back and fell to her knees beside the sofa. Jenny screamed.

Walter shook a finger at Karen, who was groaning, holding a hand over her nose and mouth. “Don’t use that tone with me,” he said. “You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you “