The Dells (37 page)

“Yes, Ruth. That's right. Your mother and father
died in Africa a long time ago. You and your sisters have lived here alone for thirty years. Where are your sisters, Ruth? Are they here?”

“Naomi and Judith are with Jesus,” Ruth said, with matter-of-fact calmness. “That's what he said. They are with Mother and Father and Jesus. In Africa.”

“Bloody hell,” Claudia whispered.

“Who?” Rachel asked. “Who told you Naomi and Judith were with Jesus, Ruth?”

“The man,” Ruth said.

“What man? The man who hurts you? The man who makes you do things with him on that bed? Did he tell you your sisters were with Jesus and your parents?”

“He sent them to be with Jesus because they were bad and wouldn't do what they were told.”

“Bloody hell,” Claudia said again, louder.

Rachel shivered, but it wasn't from cold.

“Ruth,” she said sternly. She gripped Ruth's arm. The woman looked at her, eyes wide. “Where are they, Ruth? Where did he put them?”

Ruth stared at Rachel, expression flat, devoid of any emotion, or even intelligence, it seemed. When Rachel released her arm, Ruth turned and left the bedroom, shuffling down the hall toward the dark living room. Rachel and Claudia exchanged looks, then followed. Ruth went into the kitchen, then proceeded down the back stairs to the basement. There was a door at the bottom of the basement stairs. Ruth opened it. Rachel blinked as bright light spilled into the stairwell. A heavy, damp aroma filled her nostrils. Rachel followed Ruth through the doorway, to find herself at the edge of a small forest of tall plants in big plastic pots. The plants gleamed a lustrous green under clusters of glaring 150-watt bulbs.

“Is this what I think it is?” Claudia said from behind her.

“If you think it's a marijuana grow-op,” Rachel said,
perspiring in the stifling heat and humidity, “then, yes, it's exactly what you think it is.”

Once the basement may have been finished like the basement in her parents' home, but now the floor was painted concrete, scabbed and wet, and the walls had been stripped to the studs and lined with heavy-duty polyethylene plastic. Similarly, the ceiling was lined with reflective Mylar plastic stapled to the joists. A sprinkler system constructed of black PVC tubing was suspended from the ceiling, sprinkler heads hanging below the lights. The PVC tubing was connected to a complex system of valves and what appeared to be a timing device installed over the deep concrete double sink against the wall. Bottles and bags of garden fertilizer were stacked on the floor by the sink. An old clothes washer stood next to the sink, enamel streaked with rust and ugly green stains.

“Ruth,” Rachel said. “Why did you bring us here?” Ruth didn't answer. She stared silently at nothing. No, not nothing, Rachel realized, following Ruth's gaze. She was looking at an irregular patch of the grey-painted concrete floor that was less uniformly smooth than the rest of the floor. The rougher area was about six feet long and three feet wide.

Despite the heat and humidity, Rachel's flesh puckered as a chill ran down her spine, and the fine hairs on her forearms actually stood on end. She looked around. Through the thick forest of marijuana plants she saw a rusting wheelbarrow leaning against a far wall. She made her way through the plants, which swayed and rustled as she pushed between them. Propped against the wall next to the wheelbarrow were a heavy pickaxe, a garden hoe, and a flat-bladed spade. The rusted blades of the hoe and spade were caked with a pebbly grey substance. Grasping the handles of the up-ended wheelbarrow, she lowered it. It was inordinately heavy. The barrow was thickly lined
with the same pebbly grey material that caked the blades of the hoe and spade. She scraped at it with a fingernail. It was hardened concrete.

“Oh, Christ.”

“What is it?” Claudia asked, still standing by the door with Ruth.

“They're here,” Rachel said. “They're buried under the floor.”

“We need to get out of here,” Claudia said.

“No shit,” Rachel responded, beating her way through the jungle of marijuana plants toward the door. Then she saw something above the door that made her stomach clench and her heart leap into her throat. Momentarily paralyzed with fear, she thought,
How could I have been so stupid?
Of course Hallam would have a security system to protect and monitor his investment.

“What?” Claudia asked, looking up. “What is it?”

“Move, move!” Rachel cried, pushing Ruth and Claudia through the door toward the stairs. “That's a wireless webcam, tied into the computer upstairs. There's another webcam in the bedroom.
Go!
He's been watching us all along.”

Ruth fell on the stairs. Rachel hauled her roughly to her feet. She whimpered like a recalcitrant child as Rachel pushed her up the stairs. She cried out as the back door suddenly opened and Dougie Hallam stepped onto the landing. He loomed above them. Rachel and Claudia retreated to the bottom of the stairs.

“I tried to tell them,” Ruth wailed, quailing before him, clawing at his boots. “I tried to stop them. He'll be angry, I said.”

“Shut up,” Hallam said, kicking out at her, sending her scuttling away. He slammed the back door shut, twisted the inside deadbolt, and yanked out the key. Grabbing Ruth and thrusting her into the kitchen, he said, “You two might as well come up. There's no way
out down there. C'mon now. Don't make me come down there and get you. You won't like it.”

Cautiously, fearfully, Rachel and Claudia ascended the stairs. Hallam stood aside, ever the gentleman, allowing them to precede him into the kitchen. As if reading each other's minds, Rachel and Claudia simultaneously bolted toward the front door, but Hallam must have read their minds too; he caught them before they'd gone half a dozen steps. Holding each of them by the upper arm, handling them as easily as if they were children, he dragged them down the hall and threw them into a bedroom across the hall from the makeshift studio. He thrust Ruth in with them.

“Gimme that,” he demanded, gesturing to Claudia's bag, slung across her shoulders.

Claudia handed it to him. He pawed through it, took out her cellphone and dropped it to the floor. He stomped it to shards. Throwing the bag aside, he looked at Rachel. She held out her arms. She wasn't carrying a purse.

“Pockets,” he said.

She turned out the front pockets of her jeans, turned so he could see the back pockets.

Satisfied, he left the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Rachel heard the snap of a lock, but tried the door anyway. It was no use.

“What are we going to do?” Claudia asked, retrieving her bag from the floor.

Rachel went to the window and parted the dusty drapes. A piece of heavy construction plywood covered the window, screwed to the frame every six to eight inches. Even with the proper tools, it would take time to remove it.

“You wouldn't happen to have a Leatherman multitool in your bag, would you?” she said to Claudia as she let the drapes fall closed.

“I don't know what that is,” Claudia replied as she dug through her bag. Lowering her voice, she said, “I do have a Swiss Army knife.” She handed Rachel a small red pocket knife. It had a single tiny knife blade, a nail file, and scissors, plus removable tweezers and a plastic toothpick.

“I was hoping for a .45 automatic.”

“No gun,” Claudia said with a brave smile. “Sorry.”

“Father has a gun,” Ruth said. “Mother doesn't like it, but Father says they need it for protection in Africa.”

“Where is it now?” Rachel asked, thinking that Mr. Braithwaite must have been a very pragmatic man, for a missionary.

“With Father,” Ruth said. “In Africa.”

“Of course,” Rachel said. Through the closed door she could hear Hallam's voice. She put her ear to the door.

“I don't give a fuck about that,” she heard Hallam say. “We got bigger problems. Get your ass over here.” A pause, then: “Where the hell do you think? Come through the woods to the side door. No one will see you.” Another pause, followed by: “Tell them whatever you need to tell them, but get the fuck moving.” There was a muted click, the sound of a cellphone being snapped shut.

Rachel straightened and looked around the bedroom. It was sparsely and simply furnished. A sagging single bed with a wood frame, a bedside table with lamp, a three-drawer dresser, and a straight chair. Rachel started going through the drawers of the dresser. They contained women's clothing — underwear, pullovers, nightwear — all neatly folded but dusty and musty smelling. The bedside table drawer contained a few personal items: oldfashioned eyeglasses, a hairbrush and comb, and a small plain wood box that held some hair pins and a religious
medallion on a length of kitchen twine. The closet contained a few plain dresses, three blouses, three skirts, a cloth coat, and two pairs of cracked black leather shoes with laces. Other than the lamp and the chair, there was nothing in the room that could be used as a weapon or a tool.

“How you ladies doing?” Dougie Hallam called through the door.

Ruth whimpered, like a trapped animal.

“People know we're here,” Rachel replied, leaning close to the door. “If we aren't back soon, this is the first place they'll come looking for us. You might as well let us go. Your little enterprise is going to get blown no matter what.”

“We'll see about that,” Hallam replied.

“Don't be any stupider than you have to be, Dougie,” Rachel said. “Making and selling pornography isn't illegal and you'd probably get just a slap on the wrist for the pot farm, but assault and forcible confinement are more serious. You could do some hard time for that. Dougie? Are you there?” No answer. “Dougie?” Still no response. “Shit.”

“How soon do you think it will be before Harvey starts to worry?” Claudia asked.

“We've been gone less an hour,” Rachel said quietly. “He probably won't start to worry for another hour or so.”

“We could be dead by then,” Claudia said.

“Dougie isn't that stupid,” Rachel said. “What would he gain by killing us? The police will come looking for us sooner or later and they'll find his little operation. He'll probably just keep us locked in here for a while to give himself time to get away.”

“I hope you're right,” Claudia said.

“Me too,” Rachel replied.

When Shoe and Janey pulled up in front of Shoe's parents' house in his father's Taurus, Hal and Harvey Wiseman were standing in the driveway by Hal's Lexus. “What do you expect me to do about it?” Shoe heard his brother say as he got out of the car. “Kick the door down?”

“What's the problem?” Shoe asked.

“Doc thinks Rachel and Claudia Hahn have been poisoned by the crazy Braithwaite sisters and buried in the basement of their house,” Hal said.

Harvey Wiseman scowled at Hal and said to Shoe, “Rachel and Claudia went to talk to Ruth Braithwaite over an hour and a half ago,” he said. “Rachel said they wouldn't be more than half an hour — we were supposed to have dessert and drinks at my place. When they didn't come back after an hour, I got worried and knocked on the door of the house. No one answered.”

“Have you tried Rachel's cellphone?” Shoe asked.

“Yes,” Wiseman said, “but she left her phone in her purse, which is on my kitchen table.”

“Claudia has a cellphone,” Shoe said.

“I don't know the number,” Wiseman said. “Do you?”

“No. What do you want to do, Harv? Do you want to call the police?”

“It might be, um, well, a bit premature for that,” Wiseman said.

“You don't really want to kick the door down, do you?”

“No, of course not. But … ”

“All right,” Shoe said. “Come with me. Janey, you stay here.”

“I'm coming with you,” she said.

Shoe knew there was no point arguing with her. “Hal, you stay with Mum and Dad.”

“What? And miss all the fun? Not on your life. I want to see you in action.”

“It's about fucking time,” Rachel heard Hallam say.

“Damnit, Dougie. We agreed I wouldn't ever have to come here. Jesus Christ, I don't believe this. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I'm getting really tired of your crap,” Hallam replied. “You're so goddamned smart, you tell me what the fuck else I was supposed to do.”

“Okay, okay. Shut up a minute and let me think, for Christ's sake.”

“I know that voice,” Claudia whispered in Rachel's ear as they hunched by the door.

“So do I,” Rachel said, heart sinking.

“Who is it?”

“It's Tim Dutton.”

“Think faster,” she heard Hallam say. “We don't have all fucking night.”

“We gotta get them out of here,” Dutton said. “Before someone comes looking for them. I've got too
much invested in these operations. I can't afford to have them busted.”

“What do you suggest we do, let 'em go?”

“What? No. Christ, we can't do that. They'll go straight to the cops.”

“So we kill 'em and dump their bodies in the Dells. That'll give us a little more time.”

“Jesus,” Dutton moaned. “We can't just kill them.”

“Why not? You killed Marty because you were afraid she was going to blow the whistle on you. How's this different?”

“I didn't kill her.” Dutton protested. “You did.”

“I just gave her the ‘coop de grass', like they say, because you were too fucking chickenshit to finish what you started. I don't give a shit what you decide. Kill 'em or let 'em go, it's the same to me. Either way, it's time for me to pull the plug. There's not much of Ruthie's trust fund left and sales of her videos haven't been so great lately. If I sell my house and the bar, I'll have more'n enough to keep me in booze and cooze in Mexico or some place for the rest of my life.”