Satan’s Lambs (25 page)

Moberly frowned. “Let's see what she does.”

Sally's head bobbed up and down with the strength of her strokes. She scrambled up the muddy creek bank, then stopped. She turned and looked toward the light, at Ted.

Sally jumped back into the water and swam toward them. She looked eager, happy.

“I don't understand,” Lena said. “Does she want us to come across?”

Moberly shook his head.

Sally came up the creek bank and jumped at Ted, paws hitting his chest, knocking him backward. She turned back to the water, then back to Ted.

“Good girl,” Ted said. His chest was wet and muddy, but he did not seem to notice. “Go find.”

Sally whimpered and splashed back into the water. She weaved back and forth in the shallows, splashing water up on Moberly's calves. She veered left, and Lena and Ted followed along the shoreline.

Moberly flashed his light, catching a deadfall of trees and banked-up mud. Sally headed for the downed trees, and Ted splashed into the creek behind her.

Lena hesitated, then went in. The water was warmer than she'd expected. She went slowly. The creek bottom was sandy and uneven, and there were rocks and chunks of wood underfoot.

Sally jumped up on a fallen tree. Ted spoke in a soft, kindly voice, but Lena could not make out the words. He splashed through the water, shining his light. Lena saw him bending over.

“Good dog!” he said suddenly, his voice full of warmth and praise. “Good girl, Sally! I knew you'd do it. What a smart girl you are.” He was rummaging in his pocket. Sally jumped forward and snatched something out of his hand.

Lena quit moving. She watched Ted pet the dog, watched Sally wag her tail and wiggle with pleasure.

“Lena,” Ted said. It was a tone of voice she'd never heard from him. “Lena, I think we got her. I need you to come look and make sure.”

It was strange, Lena thought, how vivid the night sky was in the forest. To her right was a blaze of light that was downtown Nashville. It seemed a long way away.

“Lena?”

“Coming.”

The water got deeper as she went, up to her knees, then her thighs. The bottom dropped off suddenly, and Lena stumbled forward. Moberly reached out and caught her.

“Thanks,” Lena said. She shivered, water up to her waist.

Moberly pointed his light.

The body floated just under the surface. A scuffed tennis shoe, dark and soggy, had snagged on the jagged V shape of a broken tree limb. Lena bit her lip. What kind of shoes had Melody been wearing? Tennis shoes, she thought.

Long brown hair billowed softly. The waterlogged body rocked gently, set in motion by the easy current and the rowdy dog who panted and smiled from her perch on the dead tree.

“This her?” Moberly said.

To be sure, Lena thought, she should reach down, turn the shoulders gently, and look into the face. She thought of Melody Hayes sitting in the wheelchair, clutching the violin—fiddle, Melody would call it. Sometime the day before she had sat down with a pen and a piece of orange construction paper, and made a list of people whose names she was afraid to write down. She had hidden seashells all over the grounds of the Rolling Ridge Institution. And her mother had died when she was two.

Her mother, Lena thought, would not hesitate to take those thin, waterlogged shoulders, and raise her daughter's body up out of the cold black water.

“It's her,” Lena said.

Moberly lifted the radio to his lips, then stopped. “You understand, don't you, about the dog? She has to be praised. As far as she's concerned, it's all a game. And she did her job. Like she's been trained.”

“Of course,” Lena said. She would have liked to pat Sally, and scratch behind her ears, but the dog was just put of reach, and Lena did not feel like moving closer.

It was warmer in the water than out. At least, Lena decided, it was if your clothes were wet. She stood out of the way on the bank of the creek, close to Ted Moberly and Sally. They weren't needed anymore, and nobody seemed to have any thanks or praise for Sally and Ted, who had brought bad news.

The sheriff and his people were surprisingly gentle with what was left of Melody Hayes, and for that Lena was grateful. She had half expected coarse jokes and rough handling, but the quiet was thick, and the only conversation was muted, emotionless instructions.

Delores Criswold hovered near the rescue team, getting in their light, standing too close. The body was noisy coming up from the water. Delores reached out, but found nothing to hold on to.

Melody Hayes, drowned and swollen, dripped streams of water. Her hair wrapped around her face like bandages, and she was settled onto a dark plastic tarp. Delores Criswold fluttered close, and the sheriff stepped back, silent and watchful.

Delores bent down and peeled the hair away from Melody's face, then plucked a leaf from the dead girl's mouth.

Lena waited for Sheriff Butcher to object. He didn't. He was thinking drowning, not murder.

Delores Criswold lifted Melody's head and shoulders and embraced the cold wet corpse. Lena thought of the mother that Melody had never known but always missed.

40

Lena had relieved the stuffed bear from sentry duty in the rocking chair, but left the TV on, picture, no sound. She rocked back and forth. She had changed to dry clothes—lavender sweats and a white T-shirt. She picked the phone up off the floor and set it in her lap. For once, there was no message.

She wanted to call Delores Criswold, though she wasn't sure why. Dr. Criswold had likely prescribed herself some medication and gone to bed. Maybe even enough medication to sleep. Unconscious would be nice.

Lena ran her fingers lightly over the telephone buttons. She could call Mendez. She could tell him, please, talk to the damn sheriff in Tennessee, make him see that Melody Hayes was murdered. But she didn't want to talk to Mendez just yet. Didn't want him to know that she had likely caused Melody Hayes to die in a cold black creek.

She missed Whitney. Some times more than others. This was a more-than-other time. She closed her eyes and thought of her sister, reading to Kevin in the rocking chair, storybook propped on her ever-expanding belly, maternity clothes culled from her pals in costume, so she wouldn't have to face the usual tiny bows and puffed sleeves.

Headlights shone through the foyer window to the living room, and Lena heard a car in the driveway. She waited. The doorbell rang three times. Rick.

She half expected him to ring again, or use his key and come in.

He didn't. A car door opened, then slammed. A car engine started.

And just like that she changed her mind—didn't want to be alone anymore. She ran to the door, fumbled the locks, heard the car back down the drive.

“Rick!” she shouted. “I'm home! Rick?”

His headlights pinned her, shivering, on the sidewalk. The brakes squeaked, the car jerked to a stop. The engine seemed loud in the middle of the night. The car backed and returned. Lena took a breath.

Rick came slowly up the sidewalk.

“I'm home,” Lena said.

“So I see.” He smiled with his mouth, but not with his eyes.

“Come in. You can have the chair.” Lena sat on the floor, back to the wall.

Rick picked up the bear and absently plucked at its ear.

“Is Maynard okay?” Lena said. “Is he eating?”

Rick grimaced. “Is he
eating?
Yes, dear heart, he is eating. Off the kitchen tables, off the counters, everywhere we leave food.”

“Damn, Rick, you're getting him into bad habits.”

Rick fluffed up the loop of hair on the top of the stuffed bear's head.

Lena cocked her head sideways. “How'd the audition go?”

Rick settled back into the rocking chair and folded his arms. “I don't want to talk about that, Lena.”

“Thank God.”

Rick looked at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I thought it might be something impor … What I mean is, Rick, that you're always like this after call-backs. You always get depressed. You didn't get turned down for the part?”

“Not yet. But I will.”

“You
always
say that. Especially when you do good. This is one of the stages you go through.”

Rick frowned. “Is it?”

“Yep.”

“How come I don't remember?”

“You never remember. It makes no sense, but you do it every time.”

“I do?”

“Yes. So quit worrying.”

“You're
really
sure about this, Lena?”

“Jesus, I hate these postmortems.” Lena winced and looked away.

“There are certain advantages to ex-wives.” Rick was thoughtful. He tossed the bear up in the air and caught it. “What are the clothespins for?”

“To pin back its ears.”

Rick sat the bear in his lap, settling him carefully on one knee. “Lena, did you know that you can arrange a child-sex vacation in Mexico? I didn't know that. I didn't
want
to know that. This takes a lot of shine out of hacking.” He looked at Lena. “I have a message from Mr. Enoch.”

Lena sat up. “Something off the computer boards?”

Rick rolled his eyes, “It didn't come UPS.”

“What does he say?”

Rick fished a scrap of notepaper from his shirt pocket. “To Lawrence of Arabia—”

“To
who?
”

“That's my code name.”

Lena wrinkled her nose. “Rick, that is so—”

“So what?”

“Nothing. What's the message?”

“Tell her—you get that, Lena? He said tell
her
.” He looked back at the paper. “Tell her this: ‘The pleasure of hell for the people of hell. I invite you to drink from the bowl, that you may know him. Know also, that it comes for lambs who inquire.'”

Lena sat back and closed her eyes. “Ask him when is the party. Tell him the lamb is inquiring.”

41

The dank hallway and staircase were all too familiar. Lena knocked on Eloise Valetta's door. She had showered, used the new conditioner on her hair, changed to loose cotton khakis and a tailored shirt. She'd even cleaned up her bedroom.

She knocked again, teetering back and forth on the balls of her feet. She leaned close, ear to the door.

Eloise might be out, of course. Lena wondered if Valerie had stopped by, like she'd promised. Lena's mind conjured an image of Melody Hayes, body moving gently in the creek.

It had been stupid to leave Eloise Valetta alone.

The front door was no thicker than the inside doors in Lena's house. Lena put her shoulder to the door and shoved. The door popped open, scraping wood and snapping the lock.

The living room was quiet and empty. Matchbox cars were lined up on the coffee table, organized too neatly for a chubby-fingered child. Lena went into the kitchen. Dirty cake pans had been rinsed and stacked in the sink. She veered down the dark hallway toward the bedroom. The dry brown bloodstain had coarsened the nap of the carpet.

In her mind's eye, Lena pictured Eloise Valetta sprawled on the bed, gun in limp, stiffening hand, blood soaking into the mattress.

The bedroom was empty. On the right-hand side was a black iron bed made up with a thin chenille bedspread. On the left side was a matching iron bed, made up with a blue bedspread that had dinosaurs on it. In the corner was a stack of dirty, worn blocks, a coffee can crammed with broken crayons, and several coloring books—the thin giveaway kind. A pair of threadbare red pajamas was neatly folded in the center of the bed.

Lena checked the bathroom, picturing bodies in bathtubs, slit wrists.

The bathroom was clean and empty. A wooden potty chair with a yellow plastic seat sat opposite the toilet. There were two toothbrushes, one big, one small, on the counter beside a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

No one home.

Lena went down the hall to the kitchen and dialed the spouse abuse center.

“Lena?”

“Valerie, have you seen Eloise? Eloise Valetta?”

“Yeah, sure, she's here now.”

Lena took a breath. She glanced at the front door, which now bowed inward.

“Sorry, Lena, I should have called you. But you know how crazy it is right now.”

“How is she?”

“Hanging in, Lena. It's hard.”

“How'd you get her to come down?”

“She wouldn't at first. So I went by. She was baking cakes,
dozens
of them.”

Lena smiled.

“She taught me how to bake a cake from scratch, and not have it come out crooked.”

“
You
cooked?”

“Yeah. I did okay. And then I was talking, you know, about how we cook meals around here. Like we assign them to whoever's living here, you know how we do. To tell you the truth, I don't think she heard a word I said. But what I kept thinking about the whole time I was talking, was empty arms. How she was waiting for this child of hers that she wanted to hold and love, and couldn't. And I thought, maybe she needs to bake because she needs to … nurture. Does this make any sense?”

“Sure.”

“I see so little of that. Around here. Most of these women are so burned out, they don't have an ounce of nurture left. So I thought she might be a help. And I asked her if she would come cook for us. I told her it was dangerous, that we were being threatened. But that some of the women were so upset, that the last thing they wanted was KP. And I was really surprised, but she said okay. Tell you what, she is terrific in the kitchen, Lena. I've gained three pounds.”

“Valerie, you are a saint. A brilliant saint person.”

Valerie paused. “She wants to talk to you, Lena. She keeps saying she's going to call you, and I keep telling her to wait.”

“Just tell her that I don't know anything yet, but I'm working on it.”

“Don't you think you should tell her yourself?”

“It's all I can do, Valerie, to keep my own head above water. Oh, shit. I can't believe I said that.”