Night Terror (10 page)

“She won’t let the little girl go.”

“Who has the little girl?”

“My mother.”

That didn’t sound like a hallucination. It sounded like a certainty. But the look in her eyes told him she had just discovered it. She stared at him as though waiting for confirmation.

“Your mother locked a child in her basement?”

When she spoke, he knew his reading of her was right. She
had
just realized what had happened. Or just remembered it. If it
had
really happened. “Yes,” she said.

He stared at her face and tried to remember what Audrey had looked like during the search for Zach. Naturally she’d been distraught, wild-eyed, but now he had a sense that she was looking through some wall that he couldn’t even make out. She looked as though she was exhausted, just the way she’d been exhausted on that day a year ago.

Was it true? Was her mother some kind of child abuser? Or was Audrey herself insane? And if she was, was it remotely possible that
she’d
had something to do with Zach’s disappearance? He didn’t want to believe that, but he knew mothers did sometimes get rid of their own children for whatever reasons.

“Why would your mother do that?” he asked, leaning closer.

“I don’t know. I followed her into the basement. It was dark and cold. I could hear the little girl crying. The dog was barking outside and I followed the voices.”

“Followed them where?”

“Into the room. Into the little room in the cellar.”

Virgil glanced at the window and noticed that the glint of sunlight was gone from the glass. Shadows deepened in the woods outside and the kitchen was gloomy and chill.

“What happened there, Audrey? What happened in that little room?”

Her eyes flashed and her face tightened. “I don’t know!” She clinched her fists and pounded her thighs until he gripped them and forced her to look him in the eye. Finally she focused on him and slowly her face softened. “I don’t know,” she repeated as he released her hands, both of them embarrassed by the intimacy.

She seemed to be back with him, but he had no idea of where she had gone. Could her mother have possibly done the things Audrey said? Or was it the drug talking? Could Audrey have been deranged all along?

“What did your mother do to you, Audrey?”

“Nothing,” she said. She stared at him as though that remark, too, had been as much a revelation to her as it had to him. “She didn’t do anything to
me.”

“But she locked a little girl in her basement?”

Audrey frowned. “I think so.”

“Did she know that you knew?”

“She found out that night. She saw me.”

“What did she do?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Audrey… Do you think this has anything at all to do with Zach’s disappearance?”

“Yes,” she said slowly.

“How could it?” He was delving into completely unknown territory.

“She has him,” she whispered. “I think she’s going to make him disappear.”

“Has who?”

“Zach. She’s going to make him disappear. Then she’ll say he’s gone.” The last words seemed forced from her lungs.

“Disappear?”

She shook her head, growing more agitated. “After she put the little girl in the basement, the little girl went away.”

“Went away where?”

“I can’t remember!” she screamed. “It’s all gone!” She pounded her temples and Virgil reached out and took both of her tiny hands into his giant mitts again.

“Calm down, Audrey. Just tell me what you remember.”

It took a moment for her to focus again. “Tara came and I went away.”

“Went away where?”

“Home. With Tara.”

“Your aunt Tara? The one who came to stay with you when Zach was taken?” Virgil remembered her. She’d been the kind of person that takes over quietly in a crisis and makes sure the bills get paid and the lights are on when it gets dark and everyone gets fed. She was a striking woman, a gray-haired, older copy of Audrey. But the deputies had told him that there was a ruckus later and the aunt left. Virgil figured the pressure had built up pretty high in the little house. No wonder.

“Yes. My aunt.”

“She took you from your mother?”

“I told Doctor Cates.”

“Your psychiatrist?”

She nodded.

“Tell me,” said Virgil softly.

“I followed them down into the basement and I saw the little girl. It’s all mixed up.”

“How old was the little girl?”

Another confused look, peering into the past.

“My age.”

“What did she look like?”

“I don’t remember. I can’t quite see her.”

“Why would anyone do something like that?”

“The little girl fought her. She screamed and kicked and my mother kept telling her to be still. Telling her everything was going to be all right. The little girl’s knees were bloody from the concrete. My mother was fighting with the girl. My mother looked up and saw me. She screamed at me.”

“What did she say?”

“She screamed at me to go away.”

“She didn’t try to catch you?”

Audrey shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“She just told you to go away?”

She nodded.

“What did you do?”

“I ran…”

“And
Tara
came for you?”

Audrey frowned. Virgil waited patiently.

“No,” she said at last. “She didn’t come for me that night. … Maybe it was later. I can’t remember.”

Audrey seemed hypnotized—and distant at the same time. “What’s your aunt Tara’s full name, Audrey?”

“Tara Beals.”

“Spell it.”

Audrey did.

Virgil took a small pad out of his shirt pocket and wrote down the name. “Where does she live?”

“North of Augusta.”

He looked at her and she gave him the address, watching him write.

“What about your mother? Where’s she now?”

“She’s gone.”

“She never tried to get in touch after Tara took you?”

“I thought I saw him in the glass,” she said, glancing back mournfully over her shoulder toward the window.

“What about the memories, Audrey?” he said, ignoring her response to the previous question.

She stared at the bottle. “I haven’t seen him so much since the pills.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, then.”

“Is it?”

“Do the memories have anything to do with Zach disappearing?” he repeated, trying to get her to focus on his eyes again.

“I had a bad spell the other day by the old farm down the road.”

“The Coonts place?” said Virgil. A nerve somewhere along the base of his spine twitched.

“The farm with the truck.”

“What happened?”

“I thought Zach was locked up in their basement….” She looked into his eyes as though waiting for him to deny the possibility.

“I questioned Mister Coonts when he got back from his trip, Audrey. I told you what I found out.”

She nodded. “The pills make it better. But now and then I get a glimpse of Zach. And he’s still in a basement. I can feel it all around me. Dark and shadowy, with no windows.”

“Did you see anything when you passed the house? I mean, really?”

He had the strong sense that Audrey believed every word she was telling him, even when all she could remember were shattered remnants of her past. He also believed that on some level, no matter what she said, she was still convinced Zach was held in the basement of the Coonts farm and that there was nothing she could do about it. But it would be just as easy to believe that Audrey was a victim of some horror in her childhood that had twisted her mind, turned her into a child-killer, and now that same warped psyche was covering up the crime by foisting suspicion off on an innocent neighbor.

You don’t believe that. Look at her. She couldn’t hurt a flea, certainly not her own son.

But stranger things had happened. What would that do to his one monster theory? Audrey surely hadn’t kidnapped Timmy Merrill. But she
had
invited Virgil into the house. And she kept talking about a cellar….

“Audrey,” he said, as calmly as possible. “Why don’t you and I take a look around
your
basement?”

She squinted at him. “Why?”

If he found anything at all, a shyster defense attorney would probably say that she had given her permission for him to search under the influence of drugs, but that was a battle for a prosecutor to fight. Suddenly, more than anything, Virgil wanted to take a tour of the Bock cellar. He didn’t really expect to find anything there. He
prayed
he wouldn’t find anything there. But now it was one more item he needed to check off his list. “I’d just like to take a look, if it’s all right with you.”

Audrey shrugged. Virgil followed her to the cellar door
beside the pantry. When she flipped on the light and glanced back over her shoulder at Virgil, she seemed nervous.

“I don’t want to go down there,” she said, stepping aside.

Virgil peered down the bare wooden stairs toward the furnace, then back at Audrey. “What’s the matter?”

“I never go down there.”

“Never?”

“No. I don’t like basements.”

Well, neither did he. Virgil pulled the door wide open and stared down into the well-lighted cellar. “Looks pretty airy to me,” he said in an encouraging tone.

Audrey shook her head and backed away, making Virgil just that much more determined to see the basement. But if there
was
something down there, he certainly didn’t want to leave Audrey upstairs where he couldn’t see her. If she was unstable, no telling what she’d do.

“Audrey,” he said, “we
need
to do this. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I promise.” He tried to make it sound as official as possible, but he held out his hand reassuringly.

“Please don’t make me go down there,” she whispered.

Virgil stepped directly in front of her. “I’ll be with you, Audrey.” He took her hand and she followed him, but he noticed that her breathing was gaspy and her eyes darted around the kitchen.

Virgil stopped as a thought struck him. “Would you like to take one of your pills?”

Audrey shook her head. “I just took one.”

Great.

“Come on, then,” he said, backing down the stairs and tugging her gently along until they stood in the middle of the basement together.

The ceiling consisted of raw joists. White electrical wire fed porcelain light sockets loaded with bare bulbs. The walls were exposed concrete, as was the floor. A big green oil furnace took up the center of the room, sitting silent now like a sleeping guardian. The back wall was lined from floor to ceiling with cardboard file boxes. A row of them had been stacked to create a wing wall, blocking Virgil’s view of the far corner.

He glanced around the open area, but nothing sinister caught his eye. If anything, the basement was too clean, too neat, but a CPA might have the neatness gene built right in. Still, people collected junk over time. Everyone did. Where was all the Bocks’ junk?

“Mighty neat,” he said.

“Richard doesn’t like a mess,” said Audrey. “He empties everything out of the basement once a year.” Her voice was quaky. Virgil felt her hand shaking.

“What’s the matter, Audrey? What is it?”

“Please,” she said, trying to turn back to the stairs, but she was gazing at the wall of boxes and Virgil felt a shiver of doubt.

“Come on, now,” he said, tugging her across the basement. “Just one quick look-see and we’ll get out of here.”

She didn’t struggle. It was more like dragging a sack of sand. He rounded the barrier of files with Audrey in tow before he realized what he’d found. As he stared at the neat arrangement of clothing and toys, guilt tightened his throat.

There was no hidden cell here. No child had been kept down in this basement against their will, and there was no new rectangle of concrete in the floor where someone had disposed of a body. Instead, there was a bicycle that showed signs of frequent polishing. There were shelves of clean blue jeans and T-shirts and neat rolls of socks built into a pyramid. There was a large stack of board games topped with a Chinese checkers set. A telescope stood on a tripod, peeking out the cellar window high overhead. A dresser drawer backed against the files and the top was covered with rows of baseball cards and miscellaneous trinkets. A bookshelf was filled with books and comics. Virgil ran a finger along the top of the dresser. Not a dust mote.

“I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Audrey.

Audrey turned away, staring down the length of the basement. “This is Richard’s place. He comes down here when he thinks I don’t notice. He stays down here for hours sometimes.” She glanced back at the bicycle and then quickly away again.

“Come on,” said Virgil, taking her arm. She jerked it away but followed him.

“Why are we here?” she asked.

“It was a mistake, Audrey. I’m sorry.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

“No, I don’t. I think you’ve had a hell of a hard time. But I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“Yes, you do. You’re not going to help Zach, because you don’t believe me. No one believes me. That’s why I’m on the pills. Not to get rid of the nightmares. The pills help everyone live with me.”

“Come on now, Audrey.” He tried to shepherd her toward the stairs. First he hadn’t been able to get her into the cellar, now he couldn’t get her out.

She stepped around him into the center of the shrine, fingering the telescope, then the checker set. She opened the top drawer and lifted a white T-shirt to her face, sniffing the soft cotton, stroking it as though it were filled with a living, breathing, child.

“I can smell him,” she whispered. “Doctor Cates told me mothers could. Did you know that?”

“Maybe I should go,” said Virgil, but she ignored him.

“I didn’t see it so much in Richard.”

“It?”

“The pain,” she said. “Pain hides sometimes….I knew he was hurt. But he didn’t show it like me. When he came down here I just thought he wanted to be away from me. Alone.”

“Where did you think all this stuff was?”

She shrugged. “I thought it was gone.”

“Gone?”

She nodded. “This is all
old
stuff. Zach’s new bike is in my shed. His clothes are in his room.” She lifted a T-shirt and Virgil realized it would have been too small for the boy. “He must have been saving all this
before
Zach was taken.”