Night Terror (9 page)

19

VIRGIL CLIMBED THE STAIRS
toward the bedroom, too exhausted to keep his eyes open. He knew his lack of sleep and the fact that he wasn’t eating good were wearing him down. With any luck, his lifestyle would take care of him long before he had to worry about another way out.

He placed his gunbelt on the side table in the hall beside the phone, where it had slept for thirty years, and tiptoed into the bedroom. To his surprise, Doris was wide-awake, watching television. A revival meeting was on and a preacher with an impossible head of wavy red hair was exhorting his viewers to send money so that he could continue in his mission. Virgil sat wearily on the bed, resting his head against the headboard and taking Doris’s thin hand in his own. He closed his eyes and wished himself back twenty years before leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“You found Timmy Merrill’s bike, didn’t you?” she said.

“Now, how did you know that?”

She managed a chuckle as thin as her hand. “I’ve known you for thirty-eight years, Virgil Milche. Do you think you can keep secrets from me?”

He smiled. “Never have.”

“That’s right.”

“It was there. Back in the brush. Gonna search the woods tomorrow.”

“You won’t find anything else.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Didn’t you listen? Timmy said the bike was just dropped there. He isn’t there. He’s in some old basement.” She shuddered. “Poor, poor boy.”

“I heard what Babs said.”

“What Timmy said.”

“Whatever.”

“But you don’t believe it. How in the world could you not? None so blind, Virgil.”

“I guess so.”

She sighed, turning back to the television. In a minute her features softened again. She didn’t even have the energy anymore to stay annoyed with him for more than a second or two. “You remember the week after we were married?”

He frowned. It had rained until he thought the second Flood was coming. He could never forget that. They’d planned the trip for over a year, saved like a couple of pack rats, and then the day they arrived the heavens opened.

“I was lying here thinking about those days,” she said.

“About the rain?”

“About our first nights together. I was so scared I wouldn’t please you. I’d never been with a man before.”

He squeezed her hand gently. “You always pleased me.”

She smiled and a light twinkle burned through the dullness in her eyes. “I figure you didn’t mind all that rain, then.”

He chuckled. “Now that I recall, I asked for and got some extra time off when we got back.”

“You sure did. But I didn’t get any.”

They laughed together.

“Sometimes I know things,” she said quietly.

“I wish
I
did.”

“You do. You just don’t
know
you know them.”

“This conversation is getting strange.”

“Uh-huh. You’re not going to find that boy out there in the woods and you know it.”

“Because Babs said so.”

“I talked to her on the phone awhile ago. She was pretty upset.”

“What about?”

“I’m not sure. She said ever since she left here Timmy
Merrill’s been preying on her mind. But it wasn’t only that. I think she’s in a bad way somehow.”

“I don’t want Babs St. Clair calling and worrying you with her personal nightmares.”

“She sounded scared, Virgil.”

“So she called you? What did she think you were going to do for her?”

“Lend her moral support, maybe. Convince her that my husband isn’t going to lay down and die just because I am. A lot of people depend on you, Virgil. They’re going to need you when I’m passed on.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Promise me you’ll stay on the case.”

He sighed loudly. “I am on the case.”

“Good.”

“What do you expect me to do now?”

“Find those boys.”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Virgil.”

“I’m coming to bed,” he said, unbuttoning his uniform. “I need a good night’s sleep.”

“Good. I’m tired too.”

He got up and helped her down into a better sleeping position, kissing her brow again. “You need anything in the night, you just poke me.”

But she was already asleep.

20

RICHARD RESTED HIS ARM
on the car window and enjoyed the cool, wet morning air. Daylight was just rising over the distant hills, warming the sky but not the black-green rolling landscape. The wind was redolent with evergreen, and now and then he detected the smell of wood smoke.

Wood smoke in early June. Only in Maine.

He stared at the run-down farmhouse as he passed, thinking of Audrey’s attack in the car, her sudden fear of the rickety old place. But no evil power emanated from it. No darkness overcame him, no sudden terror attack.

It did look dank and ghoulish though. If he were going to write a modern gothic novel, he might well use the house in it. A rusted tractor-trailer sat beside it like an ornery old watchdog, and he slowed, reading the sign on the side.

Merle Coonts Trucking.

And below that, in smaller lettering, with a cartoon picture of a smiling truck:

We Haul Anything!

Strange how you never noticed details. Until that moment he’d had no idea of his neighbor’s name, although he must have passed the truck a hundred times. When he thought of it, he realized that he didn’t know any of their neighbors at all. The closest one to their house was nearly an eighth of a mile up the road in the other direction.

Turning onto Route 26 into Arcos, he honked at Bill McDab
standing out front of the greenhouses that bore his name. Farther up the road he pulled into the Arcos Steak House parking lot, stared up at the sign, and smiled. The restaurant was Richard’s biggest success story. He’d convinced Sam, the owner, to switch from the haute cuisine that had been slowly putting him out of business to more family-oriented fare. The steak house turned into a local institution overnight. Sam had become Richard’s best friend and now it was Richard’s policy to stop in for breakfast every morning.

Richard dropped into the booth that Bev kept cleared for him and glanced around at the chattering customers. The sound of clinking cups and saucers from the kitchen and the fast-moving waitresses gave the room an efficient air that would slow a little for the more relaxed lunch crowd.

Sam waddled through the louvered kitchen doors and dropped into the other side of the booth, handing Richard a coffee. Sam was in his seventies and, with each passing year, his growing success had revealed itself in his girth.

“How you been, buddy?” asked Sam in a husky voice.

“Good.”

“And Aud?”

“She’s good,” said Richard. But he knew that Sam caught the hesitation in his voice. They’d known each other way too long.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing probably. She’s just having bad dreams.”

“You can’t blame her for that.”

“We’re going through a hard time. That’s all.”

Sam nodded. “I used to love seeing you three come in together.”

The word
three
lit up pictures in Richard’s mind that he didn’t care to look at right then. “Audrey just hangs around the house. She doesn’t garden. She doesn’t read the way she used to. And she was writing another book, before. Now, I don’t even know what she’s done with the manuscript.”

“She talked about it so much I thought it was already finished.”

“It might be, for all I know. Whenever I ask her about it she says she’s still working on it, but I know she’s not.”

“Maybe you just need to get her out of the house. Why don’t the two of you go on a vacation?”

“I’ve suggested that. She won’t go. She doesn’t want to leave. Just in case.”

“How about you? Are you still waiting for the call?”

“I guess I am, a little.”

“You’re looking better than you were six months ago.”

“I’m doing all right, Sam. It’s not something you just get over.”

“No. Did I ever tell you about my boy?”

“I didn’t know you had a son.”

“I don’t talk about Tony much anymore. It still hurts too much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He’d be fifty now.”

Richard didn’t know what to say.

“He was killed in Vietnam,” said Sam. “I used to keep all his pictures on top of the TV. But after we got word of what happened, I started going a little crazy. So did my wife. It was like we were worshiping those photos. You know what I mean?”

Richard glanced away, nodding.

“I began to sit in his room for hours on end,” said Sam. “Sometimes I didn’t even realize I’d gone in there or how long I stayed. My wife and I started drifting apart and we’d always been so close.”

“What did you do?”

Sam took a long, deep breath, rubbing his jowls with one hand. “One day while Aggie was shopping, I took all the pictures and put them in a trunk in the attic. Then I packed Tony’s stuff—his record albums, books, clothes, everything—and gave them to relatives with kids. When Aggie got home, I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown. I won’t kid you, it was bad. Real bad. And she didn’t speak to me for days. Then it started to get a little better and a little better and finally we were all right.”

“Like before.”

“No. I can’t say that. We were never like before. But we still loved each other, and did until the day she died.”

They sipped their coffee in silence.

“You know,” said Sam, at last, “sometimes I can still see all of Tony’s stuff. It’s like there’s this shrine in my head. I try not to go there or I get lost. That’s silly, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” whispered Richard.

“No breakfast?” said Sam, glancing at the empty table.

“Not hungry,” said Richard, rising.

Sam placed a fat hand over Richard’s. “You two are too good for each other. Don’t let this kill you and Audrey.”

“I’m trying not to.”

“Whatever help she needs, you get it for her, hear?”

“I will.”

“You need anything, any money, whatever, you just call. Understand?”

“Thanks, Sam. We’re all right.”

Sam nodded, waddling along to the door. “Audrey’s too sensitive. She feels things you and I don’t. It’s a mother thing. That can be a wonderful gift sometimes. At other times it can be the worst kind of hell. It’ll drive a woman crazy. I know I watched it eating at Aggie.”

“You got that right,” said Richard, stepping out into sunlight that held no warmth.

21

THE BELL-LIKE BAYING
of the hound shattered Virgil’s thoughts. He glanced over the bridge railing, down toward the creek. The big black-and-tan bounced on the end of his thick leather leash like a puppy, but Bill Keens, the dog’s trainer, glanced up at Virgil and shook his head.

“He’s just excited,” said Bill. “He gets frustrated when he can’t find anything.”

“Nothing?”

“If that boy was here, Sentry would have picked up something, even after all this time,” said Bill. “This dog’s got a nose like Jimmy Durante. I think the bastard just dumped the bike here.”

“Give it a little more work,” said Virgil.

“Okay,” said Bill, turning reluctantly back toward the woods. “But I’m telling you it’s a waste of time.”

Virgil watched Bill and the dog disappear into the trees. He hadn’t informed Tom Merrill about the bike yet, and he wasn’t about to call for a full search if even Sentry couldn’t find anything.

The bike was Timmy Merrill’s all right. The boy had his name on a personalized plate underneath the seat. But the bike did nothing except lend credence to the voice out of Babs St. Clair’s mouth, and Virgil meant to talk to her about that this very day. He didn’t know if Babs was playing some kind of game or whether they’d all been the brunt
of some weird coincidence. But someone was going to explain to him how he ended up finding the boy’s bike right where Babs had said it would be.

Virgil had been up off and on all night, getting Doris water, cleaning her bedpan, feeding her pills. She was resting easier before he left, but he felt even more done in than usual and the day had just started. The only thing that kept him going was his desire to bring the kidnapper of Timmy Merrill and Zach Bock to justice before he died.

It was the same bastard both times. He felt it in his gut. Two different assholes hadn’t come into his county and committed the same crime four years apart. If Babs knew something, by God, she was going to tell him.

He took the long way back to town, looping around by the Bock house to see if anything stirred in his head. Sometimes that happened, like he could hear a
click
and then things would fall together in his brain. Maybe passing by the scene of
that
crime would stir a recollection or tie two odd strands of information together in a new way.

He rounded a sharp curve and started to ease past a parked Buick sedan when he spotted Dan McNeil off on the shoulder, driving one of his real estate signs into the rocky ground with a small sledgehammer. Dan waved and Virgil pulled over in front of his car.

He sauntered across the shallow drainage ditch, smiling. Dan was one of Virgil’s staunchest supporters on the Board of Selectmen, and Virgil figured he was about the most trustworthy real estate agent in the area. Virgil and Doris had bought their house from Dan when he’d first gotten his license.

“Catching any bad guys?” asked Dan, giving the sign a final whack and dropping the hammer onto the ground. He wiped sweat off his bald head with a light blue handkerchief that matched his shirt.

“Not lately.”

“How’s Doris?”

“About the same. You know.”

“Yeah. You doing all right?”

Virgil glanced around at the thick forested area. “Yeah, fine. Living day to day. Whatcha selling, trees?”

“Five acres of prime property. Heavily timbered. Private. Water frontage.”

“Water frontage?”

“There’s a small stream back through the woods,” said Dan, winking. “You look worn out, Virg.”

“Bad night.”

“Tell Doris our prayers are with her.”

“Thanks. I’m sure that’ll mean a lot to her.”

“What are you doing out this way?”

“Just cruising. Say, you haven’t seen Cooder around, have you?”

Dan frowned. “No. I haven’t been looking for him. Are you?”

“Not really. I was just wondering.”

“Why?”

“He said something strange the other day. You know Cooder. It probably didn’t mean anything, but I still want to talk to him.”

“Talking to Cooder is a waste of time.”

“I know. But if you see him, give me a call. Okay?”

“Sure, Virg. Want me to detain him?” Dan gave Virgil a sly look and Virgil smirked in reply.

“A call will suffice.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the Bock boy, does it?”

Virgil stiffened. “Why would you say that?”

Dan shrugged. He gave the sign a shake to test it, then looked back at Virgil. “You’re in the neighborhood, that’s all. And I know that one bugs you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Virg, everybody that knows you knows. Those two boys have been eating at you since they disappeared. You’re the only one who never noticed how obsessed you are.”

Virgil’s voice rose a notch. “Obsessed?”

Dan put both hands out in front of him, shaking his head. “Don’t get me wrong, Virg. Folks like having a sheriff they think really cares about them. But some of us worry that maybe you’re getting hurt by it. You hear me?”

“Not that I don’t appreciate your concern, but I’m just doing my job.”

“Sure, Virg. I didn’t mean anything by it. Hell, those two
disappearances tore up everybody in the community. My wife cried every night for a month after Rosie killed herself.”

Virgil nodded.

“I get the creeps myself everytime I come around this area, to tell the truth,” said Dan. “Can’t see why anyone would want to live here.” He glanced at the sign and changed his tune. “Not that it’s a bad area. Just thinking out loud.”

“Most folks up this way have lived here all their lives. Some for generations.”

“Everybody but the Bocks and Merle Coonts.”

“The Bocks’ neighbor?”

“Yeah. The old farm just this side of Richard and Audrey’s place. You know the one. Merle’s semi is out front all the time. Merle bought the house two years ago.”

“I didn’t know Merle bought the place. I thought he must be in the family and had taken it over.”

“Merle had me find the owners. I worked as a buyer’s agent,” said Dan.

“A buyer’s agent?”

“Yeah. Sometimes people are looking for a particular property that might not be on the market, so they have an agent find one for them and they make an offer. That old farm had been sitting there for years. The owners got it in an estate and they lived in Florida. They didn’t want to fix it up and they were tired of paying taxes, but they still stuck us.”

“Why didn’t you find another one? The county’s loaded with run-down old houses.”

“Merle didn’t want another one. He wanted that one.”

“Why?”

“Beats me. I told him the same thing. Hell, I could have had him a new home built on prime property for what he paid for that place.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Go figure. I don’t argue with the customer. I closed the deal and it was fast and clean. Slam-bam and there’s my commission.”

“Where did Coonts come from?”

Dan frowned. “Out West, I think.”

“And he moved all the way to the backwoods of Maine and couldn’t live without that old farm?”

“Evidently.”

“Who financed the house?” asked Virgil.

“He paid cash.”

“How does a trucker end up with that kind of money?”

“I didn’t ask, Virg. That’s really not my business.”

“You had to be curious.”

“Curious, sure. Inquisitive, no. I’m a salesman. The wrong question in my business can queer a deal.”

As Virgil climbed back into the cruiser, Dan tossed the hammer into the trunk of his Buick and walked up alongside Virgil’s window.

“Merle Coonts is a nice enough old boy, Virg. Don’t read too much into him buying that house. I mean, where was he the day Zach Bock disappeared? You questioned him, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“And?”

“He was out of state the day it happened. On a run to the West Coast.”

“So he’s clean.”

“Yeah,” said Virgil. Coonts had produced his logs and they had backed up his story. Virgil had gone so far as to call one of the delivery points. Merle had been there, just when he said he had.

Virgil drove away deep in thought. When he rounded the next curve he found himself staring at the Coonts place. Why would a man spend as much money as Merle had on the house and then leave it in such a state of disrepair? The corners were all out of plumb, boards were popping off the walls. The place looked like it would collapse in the next high wind.

He watched the farm disappearing in the rearview mirror, waiting for the
click
, but nothing happened. So he stopped at the end of the Bocks’ driveway and stared at their nondescript little ranch house. Audrey had surrounded the place with sculptured hedges and shrubs. To Virgil, the place had a Hollywood feel, the way the shrubs blended into the gardens and the rock borders flowed around the trees, but he didn’t know that much about landscaping.
Richard was going to need to get out the lawn mower pretty soon, though, or he’d have a real job after the first good rainstorm.

Virgil pulled up near the side stoop, half-hoping that no one was home. But when Audrey’s face appeared in the window, he smiled. She opened the door too quickly and Virgil shook his head and held up one hand. He should have known what she’d think. Her sudden frown darkened a face that was meant to shine. That saddened Virgil. What the devil was he doing here anyway?

“Hello, Sheriff,” she said, stepping back into the kitchen as he climbed the stoop. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“Thanks.”

“Sit,” she said, bringing a carafe and cups to the table. “Richard’s gone to work.”

Virgil accepted a demitasse cup from Audrey, holding it self-consciously in his big hands. He and Audrey eyed each other, neither knowing what to say. Virgil figured the truth might be a start.

“I don’t have any real news, Mrs. Bock,” he said. “I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

“Audrey,” she said, nodding. “That’s all right. I’m glad to see you.”

She acted artificially calm to Virgil’s mind. Her smile seemed glued on.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Getting by. It’s been a little more than a year.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I was in the hospital.”

“I heard.”

“They gave me some medicine.”

He followed her eyes to the bottle beside the salt and pepper shakers. “Does it help?”

“It makes me feel better. I don’t have so many… nightmares.”

“I guess it’s good for you, then.”

“I thought I saw Zach, you know,” she said, staring straight through him.

She seemed hollow somehow, and Virgil thought of Doris, fading away before his eyes. But he and Doris had grown kids. Grandkids. He and Doris had had a life. Richard and
Audrey Bock’s lives had been ravaged before they’d had a chance to start.

“In that window,” she said, pointing across the sink.

Virgil stared at the sunlight glinting on the glass and, for just an instant, he, too, thought he saw something reflected there. “But you don’t see it now? With your medicine?”

She shook her head. “I thought I saw him in the fountain out back too. But that was before I started taking the pills.”

“How’s Richard?”

“He’s all right. He’s at work now.”

It didn’t sound like she remembered telling him that already.

“I wish I had more to tell you, Audrey. I wish with all my heart I could have done more.”

“You did everything you could, I guess. It wasn’t you. It was me.”

He frowned. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Audrey. Don’t ever think that. It was something that was going to happen and it did. There was nothing that you could have done. You couldn’t be there with Zach all the time.”

“It was me,” she whispered. “I did it. We didn’t close the door.”

“What door, Audrey?”

“We didn’t close it all the way and it got open again and now Zach’s gone. It’s my fault. I should have kept it closed.”

Her voice was artificially calm, like her eyes. But the words were those of a mother crying alone in the dark, calling for her son, blaming herself because there was no one else to blame.

“What door?”

“The door to the basement. Where the little girl was.”

“What little girl?”

“The other little girl.”

“What
other
little girl?”

Audrey buried her face in her hands and shook her head. “I don’t know!”

She seemed to have crossed over into someplace where Virgil couldn’t reach her. But something about the conversation reminded him of the weird dialogue he’d had with Babs, the way he seemed to be talking to more than one
person. He sensed that there might be
real
answers here if only he knew the right buttons to push.

“Who’s the girl, Audrey?”

She squinted, as though trying to see down a long dark tunnel. “I don’t know who she is.”

She chewed her lip so hard Virgil was afraid she’d bite through it. He glanced at the bottle of pills, wondering if she needed another one or if she had taken one too many.

“She’s locked up in the basement,” she whispered. “She can’t get out.”

“Who, Audrey?” It all sounded so crazy. Virgil wondered if he should carry on with the conversation. Was it possible he was hurting her, driving her into madness? Playing with a person’s mind was something a shrink could take responsibility for. Virgil didn’t want to. But Audrey wouldn’t stop now.