Stolen in the Night (14 page)

A
redheaded woman with freckles wearing a baggy, oxford cloth shirt opened the front
door of the neat, barn-red Cape Cod house and frowned. “I know who you are,” she said
bluntly as Tess attempted to introduce herself.

“I wondered if I could see the chief for a minute,” Tess asked.

“He’s in very bad shape,” said the woman. “It would be too exhausting for him.”

“Mary Anne,” came a feeble cry from inside the house. “Who is it?”

Nothing wrong with his hearing, Tess thought.

“Tess DeGraff,” said Mary Anne.

“I promise I won’t stay long,” said Tess.

“Tell her to come in,” said the weak voice.

Mary Anne hesitated and then stood aside, a long-suffering look on her face. She inclined
her head toward the room behind her. “He’s in the family room. Go on through there.”

“Thanks,” said Tess.

Tess walked through the pristine, rarely used living room to the arched doorway of
the family room. The paneled room had obviously been added on to the house. A beige
chenille-covered sofa faced a large gas hearth and an enormous television set. Beside
the sofa was a gray, black, and beige plaid recliner with the footrest extended. Huddled
on the recliner, under an afghan, was Aldous Fuller.

“Chief,” she said.

He turned to look at her. The huge gray circles under his eyes made his bald head
look like a skull. His skin was waxy. He managed a smile.

“Tess,” he said.

Tess went over to the chair and squeezed his hand, which lay limp on the armrest.
His bony fingers were icy. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I need your help.”

“Sit down,” said the chief. “Not there. Sit where I can see you.”

Tess, who had been about to sit on the edge of the sofa, got up and pulled a wooden
chair from beside the fireplace over to a spot in front of the recliner. “Is this
better?” she asked.

Chief Fuller, whose breathing was labored, nodded.

“I need a favor,” Tess said.

“I’m not good for much right now,” said the chief. “But I’ll help you if I can.”

“That’s all I ask,” said Tess. She took a deep breath and explained her proposal.

Because of the rain, Tess passed the Abbott place several times before she finally
located the entrance to the driveway. She turned in and slowly drove up to the house.
She parked in the drive and sat in her car, staring at Lazarus Abbott’s boyhood home,
her heart thumping.

In answer to her questions, Chief Fuller had explained what he knew about DNA collection.
One could, he had said, find saliva on a discarded paper cup, a bottle, or a piece
of gum, or perspiration from a T-shirt, or hairs trapped on a hat or a comb. And yes,
once that object was obtained and placed in a plastic bag, Chief Fuller did have contacts
at the state crime lab who could compare it with the DNA of Phoebe’s killer. But Aldous
Fuller had been very clear—it was dangerous and a bad idea for Tess to get involved
in this.

Tess pretended to take his warning to heart. But, as she got up to leave, she was
already putting her plan into motion. Tess went out through the kitchen where Mary
Anne was stirring a pot on the stove. She had thanked Mary Anne for letting her speak
to the chief and then said that the chief was asking for a glass of water. With a
sigh, Mary Anne ran some water into a glass and started back toward the family room.

Alone in the kitchen, Tess quietly opened three cupboard drawers before she found
what she was seeking—Ziploc plastic bags. What kitchen would be without them? Tess
mused. She had tucked a handful of them into her coat pocket and let herself out the
back door. Then she drove directly to the Abbotts’ place.

Tess had hoped that Nelson’s black truck might be in the driveway. People often drank
take-out coffee in their cars, she reasoned. She thought she could open the door of
the cab, snatch his paper cup, toss it into a plastic bag, and be gone before he even
came out of the house to see why someone was idling in his driveway.

But Nelson’s truck was not there. And there were no lights on in the house. No one
seemed to be at home. Tess got out of the car, opening her umbrella. She walked up
to the foot of the porch steps and looked around at the neatly kept property while
the rain made a persistent clatter on the gutters of the stark-looking gray farmhouse.

Tess climbed the steps and tried turning the front doorknob, but it was locked. She
felt both disappointed and relieved. She didn’t know if she would have had the nerve
to open the door and just walk inside. Now the decision had been taken away from her.
She shielded her brow with one hand and peered through the wavy glass of the old windowpanes
into the front room of the house. It was a drab, sparsely furnished room with a few
stiff-looking chairs, a dun-colored sofa, and faded wallpaper. The rug that sat in
the center of the floor was flowered and far too small for the space. A grandfather
clock stood near the door, ticking off the minutes. She tried to picture the Abbott
family living in this house: Lazarus sitting in one of those straight-backed chairs
as Nelson cuffed him and yelled in his ear.

Now that she was here, gazing into the Abbott parlor, she was distracted from her
purpose, overwhelmed by thoughts of her sister. Phoebe, she thought. Did he bring
you to this house when he took you away from us? Was he tired of being the only one
who suffered here? Or did he bring you here to satisfy the perverted appetites of
another, more powerful person? Tess shuddered at the idea of it.

She straightened up and walked to the edge of the porch. The garage was not attached
to the house, but sat back at the end of the driveway, a small gray building with
the same multipaned windows as the house. The doors of the garage were closed. The
windows of the garage were covered from within by what appeared to be yellowed paper
shades. It was impossible to see inside. Tess felt thwarted, as if the eyes of the
garage were looking back at her blindly. She wanted to see inside. She felt…entitled
to look in there. To see the interior for herself. To try to determine if she could
feel the presence of her sister. She was sure that somehow she would be able to do
what the police had not been able to do—tell whether this building was the place where
Phoebe had been held captive and killed.

Tess climbed down the porch steps and walked toward the shuttered garage through the
blowing rain, holding her opened umbrella over her head. Every so often a gust of
wind would shake the umbrella frame and Tess had to grip it tighter. At the garage
door, she reached out and grabbed the wrought-iron handle and shook it. The door did
not budge. She tried the other handle, jiggling it back and forth. It was no use.
The doors were locked tight. “Dammit,” she said.

She turned away from the garage and walked back toward the house. Don’t forget why
you’re here—the DNA, she reminded herself. The DNA. Get busy. They could come home
at any minute. Crossing the immaculately kept backyard she passed an old-fashioned
pole clothesline that had some laundry flapping on it, drenched by the sudden rain.
Tess stopped and thought about taking one of the men’s T-shirts, but that would be
of no use. She was sure, judging by the tidiness of the house and yard, that Edith
did a thorough job with her laundry. Every last identifying cell was probably washed
and bleached away.

There were a set of slanted wooden doors beneath a kitchen window that obviously led
down to the basement. Tess walked toward them. Was it there that he took you, Phoebe?
she wondered. When she was found, Phoebe’s body was bound and gagged and bruised all
over. After all these years, Phoebe’s face was almost a blank in Tess’s mind. She
remembered pictures of Phoebe rather than Phoebe herself. Gazing at those cellar doors,
she felt as if she could suddenly see her sister again, in her T-shirt and sweatpants,
her long blonde hair swinging like a curtain around that face that Tess could no longer
visualize, as Lazarus lifted those creaking cellar doors and hoisted her up over his
shoulder, carrying her down those steps like a rolled-up rug.

Tess turned away from the cellar doors, her stomach in knots. There’s no time for
ruminating about the past, she thought. You have to get that DNA sample now, while
you have the chance. She glanced at the plastic trash cans. Surely there would be
items in the trash with Nelson’s saliva on them, but they would be useless, according
to Chief Fuller, if they were bundled in proximity to the rest of the trash. She lifted
a lid, hoping that one bin would be recycling and that she might find a beer bottle
inside it. But both barrels contained trash tied up in plastic bags. Everything neat
and tidy and cross-contaminated, she thought.

Tess looked around and then lifted one of the wooden cellar doors. She looked down
at a storm door and the darkness of the basement beyond it. Was there anything useful
down there, even if, by some fluke, that inside door was not locked? Somehow she doubted
that these people ever left anything out of place. Tess hesitated, feeling sick at
the thought of entering that basement, knowing that Phoebe may have taken her last
breath in that gloom. Knowing that the Abbotts could return at any moment.

Do it, she thought. For Phoebe. She looked around, lowered her umbrella, and hurried
down the cement block steps. She tried the handle on the door at the bottom of the
stairs, rattling it vigorously, but it did not budge. The musty smell from inside
seeped out, assailing her nostrils. She peered through the storm window. By the light
that filtered down the stairs, it was too dark to see more than a few feet into the
basement. Directly in front of her Tess saw a tool bench, with all the tools neatly
hung on hooks and all the nails and screws in jars divided by size. There did not
appear to be so much as a dirty rag on the surface of the workbench.

If I could only get in there, she thought, I could go through the basement and up
into the house. Into the house where there would be a bathroom, with everything she
might need. A toothbrush, a comb, nail parings. For a moment she toyed with the thought
of breaking in, but she dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to her mind.
What if Nelson Abbott came home and found her in his house? He might have a gun, and
if he did, he could shoot her and be justified. Even if there was no gun, he could
call the police on her and be within his rights to have her arrested. Tess sighed,
pressing her face against the pane, trying to peer inside. And then, suddenly, she
froze. Above the whistle of the wind, she heard a car door slamming.

Oh my God, they’re back. They’ve seen my car. I have to get out of here, she thought.
She turned away from the storm door window and quickly ran up the cinder-block steps.
Looking all around, she emerged from the stairwell and turned to lower the wooden
cellar door as carefully as possible, so as not to make a sound.

Then, clutching her bag and her closed umbrella, she straightened up and hurried toward
the driveway side of the house. She turned the corner and came face-to-face with Nelson
Abbott, peering at her from beneath the brim of his John Deere cap.

Tess let out a cry.

“What the hell…? What do you think you’re doing?” Nelson demanded.

He advanced on her. Tess stumbled back. She had a sickening feeling that he knew what
she was doing. That he could read her intentions in her eyes. “I came here to see
you,” she stammered. She brushed her wind-whipped hair off her face.

“To see me? In the backyard? Behind my house? What are you playing at?”

“Nothing,” said Tess. “I…just was…I thought you might be…”

“You thought I might be what? Huh? Speak up. Why are you trespassing on my property?”

Tess’s heart was thudding. They were alone. There was no sign of Edith Abbott anywhere
around. And Tess was at a loss to explain her presence here. She felt as if the letters
“DNA” were flashing on her forehead.

“I’ve got a good mind to call my nephew, the police chief. He’s none too fond of you
as it is,” said Nelson in a steely tone, pointing a finger at her. “Your lies have
given him more headaches than he knows what to do with. Well, you’ve lied once too
often, missy. You lied about Lazarus and you are going to pay dearly for that. As
a matter of fact, you’re soon gonna find out there’s a lawsuit against you…”

The legal papers, Tess thought with relief. The lawsuit. She almost sagged against
this man, her enemy, in gratitude. Her reason for being here was obvious. He had pointed
it out himself. Now, she thought, tread carefully. Hide your indignation. Be…conciliatory.
“Yes,” she said in a deliberately even tone of voice. “Yes. I received those papers
from your attorney. That’s why I’m here. I wondered if we could talk about that.”

Nelson peered at her suspiciously. “We got nothing to say. We’ll say all that we need
to say in court.”

It made her flesh crawl to appeal to him—this man whom she suspected of being Phoebe’s
actual killer. The thought of trapping him through the DNA helped her to overcome
her revulsion. “I was just hoping that you and your wife and I could maybe…discuss
this whole thing. I mean, I probably shouldn’t admit this to you, but I do feel…very
responsible for what happened to Lazarus.”

“My wife’s not here,” he said flatly. “She’s at the church.”

Tess raised her hands in supplication. “You and I then. Could we sit down and talk
about this…?” The thought of entering the house made Tess feel weak with dread, but
she couldn’t give up. If he would only invite her in, she knew she could get to the
bathroom, to get what she needed. “Could we just go inside and talk…?”

“I don’t know what it is you want to talk about,” said Nelson suspiciously.

“Just…to, um…clear the air,” said Tess.

He peered at her and seemed to be calculating something. “Clear the air how?” he said.

“I don’t think we…necessarily need an intermediary. I mean, lawyers can get in the
way. And they’re expensive. Would you mind if I came in?” she said. “It’s awfully
wet out here.”