Vicious (26 page)

The man slowly shook his head. “Nice try. I know where you’re going with this. Because I’m mad at my dead mother, I go out and kill all these mothers, right? Where’d you get this shit, Psychology 101?”

“You’re not answering his question!” Jordan piped up from the stairs.

Leo didn’t want to admit it, but Meeker pretty much had his number. He did hope to make a connection between Mama’s Boy and this man who felt some resentment for a mother who had abandoned him. He also wanted to find out if Meeker had been abused as a child—by either parent.

“Weren’t you angry at your mother?” Leo pressed. “Didn’t you miss her enough to be angry, Allen?”

Meeker said nothing.

“Maybe you were happy to see her die,” Leo dared to say. “Was that it? Did she beat you or something?”

“My mother was a sweet, gentle woman,” Meeker said steadily. “She never laid a hand on me.”

“But did she ever raise a hand to defend you?” Leo asked, hoping he might hit on something. It was worth a shot. “I’m—I’m talking about when your dad came after you. Didn’t she ever try to stop him?”

“Of course she tried to stop him!” Meeker blurted out. “He was much worse on her than he ever was on me. He beat the shit out of that frail, little woman. The son of a bitch once threw her across the kitchen, and she hit her head against the edge of the refrigerator. She got thirteen stitches that time. She always took the blows meant for me. She was like his goddamn punching bag. He—” Meeker seemed to choke on his words. He suddenly clammed up and glared at Leo.

“But then she killed herself and left you all alone with him. You didn’t have your mother to run interference. It must have been a nightmare. And you can’t admit you’re mad at her for that?”

“Screw you!” Meeker yelled. He had tears in his eyes. “Think you’re so goddamn clever. So what’s your point? Just because I had it tough as a kid, I’m supposed to be some kind of serial killer? That’s ridiculous. You have your head up your ass….”

Leo turned to his friend. But Jordan was looking toward the basement window. “Oh, shit,” he murmured, quickly getting to his feet. He rushed toward the worktable.

It took Leo a moment to realize what was happening. Then he heard tires squealing and a car engine purring outside.

Meeker must have heard it as well, because he started to yell out: “HELP! HELP ME! OH, GOD, PLEASE…!”

Jordan nearly plowed into Leo to get to their captive. He yanked the blanket off Meeker’s shoulders and tried to stuff one corner of it into his mouth. Meeker kept turning his head. He frantically tugged at the rope, and the whole table shook. He wouldn’t stop screaming.

Leo hurried to the window. Through the dirt-streaked glass, he could see the cop car in the driveway. “Oh God, it’s the police….”

This made Meeker shout even louder—until Jordan punched him in the face. Their prisoner let out an aborted cry and then slumped against the table.

Leo could only see part of the patrol car, but he heard the door open and shut. He turned to his friend, who hastily stuffed one corner of the blanket into Meeker’s mouth. “Jordan, here’s our chance,” he said. “Let’s hand him over to the cops now. We’ve gone as far as we can with this guy. We have enough on him to make the cops
suspicious
at the very, very least. And we have to let the police know about Moira….”

But Jordan was shaking his head. He pulled at the rope around Meeker’s wrists to make sure it was tight. “We can’t quit now, Leo,” he said, out of breath. “He’s finally starting to crack and tell the truth. He—”

A knock on the front door upstairs interrupted him.

Jordan grabbed Leo’s arm and pulled him close. “Please, Leo,” he whispered, his mouth against his ear. “Don’t screw this up for me. I’m counting on you. Please…just wait down here….”

He turned and pulled the gun out from the back of his jeans. He checked it, then tucked it back under his shirttail and hurried up the cellar stairs.

The rapping on the front door only got louder and more intense.

At the bottom of the basement stairs, Leo listened to Jordan’s footsteps above. Why had he checked the gun like that? In his crazy plan to keep this man his prisoner at any cost, did Jordan actually consider shooting a policeman an option?

Leo glanced over at Meeker—his eyes closed, lifelessly sprawled over the worktable. One corner of the old blanket was stuffed in his mouth. If he hadn’t seen him breathing, Leo would have sworn the man was dead.

He heard the front door opening, and then Jordan’s voice—with strained cheerfulness. “Well, hey, hi again. I hope I’m not in trouble or anything….”

Then there was some muttering from the cop, but Leo couldn’t make out what he was saying. He crept up the stairs and quietly opened the basement door to hear them better.

“Well, it’s just like the lady told you,” Jordan was saying. “We were in the store at the same time—around noon. He didn’t say squat to me. I saw him get into his car and drive toward town. End of story. I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

“Where did you go after you left the store?” the cop asked.

“Here, I came here—but, um, my friends were gone, so I decided to go exploring. Then I ran into you….”

“At the old Chemerica plant,” the cop said. “You just went there to
explore
?”

“Yeah—I mean, yes sir.”

“Sure you weren’t up to something else?”

“Nope,” Jordan said. “I was just hanging out, killing time.”

“A lot of kids go there to get high….”

“Well, not me. I don’t do drugs.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess you got your fill of drugs back when they put you in that institution—or
care facility
or whatever they called it. Sure must have taken all the fun out of pharmaceuticals for you….”

Standing on the cellar stairs, Leo wondered what the hell the cop was talking about.

“It was the Patrick-Hannah Clinic,” he heard Jordan grumble. “They called it a
clinic
. And yes, they had me on different medications for a while.”

“If you don’t mind me asking—I mean, as long as we’re on the subject—did they ever give you shock therapy?”

“No. They didn’t do that there. P.H. Clinic was a very advanced, swanky place, only the most affluent nut jobs were welcome.”

“Hah, at least you got a sense of humor about it, that’s good,” the cop said with a chuckle.

Leo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Jordan spent time in some kind of mental health clinic? He glanced over the banister—down at the half-naked, half-dead Allen Meeker, strapped to that worktable. No sane person would have done this—and here he was practically going along with Jordan on the whole thing. Meanwhile, his friend was upstairs with a concealed gun, talking to a policeman.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Jordan said. “Sorry I can’t be more help tracking down this Alex Meeker person.”

“Allen,” the cop corrected him. “Allen Meeker. Where did your friends disappear to?”

Leo hesitated for a moment, then hurried up the last two steps to the kitchen. “Jordan?” he called, moving toward the front of the house.

Turning, Jordan stepped aside to gape at him. Leo saw a good-looking, beefy blond-haired cop standing in the front doorway. He tried to smile at the policeman, and all the while, figured he must have a dazed, dopey look on his face.

“Hello,” he said, a bit out of breath.

Directly below them, a very conscious Allen Meeker heard the cop talking to Jordan’s buddy. He recognized the cop’s voice. He was the same patrolman who had stopped Jordan hours ago, while Allen had been bound and gagged in that dark, tiny, cramped trunk.

He listened to them upstairs. For a moment, Allen thought Jordan’s friend would put an end to all this and tell the cop that they’d taken someone prisoner in the basement. But no, Leo was pretending he didn’t know who or where “this Alex Meeker person” was.

Allen could hardly breathe with part of the foul-tasting, moldy blanket crammed in his mouth. His head ached horribly. That last punch Jordan had dealt should have knocked him out, but it hadn’t. He’d merely faked unconsciousness, hoping Jordan would stop hitting him—and maybe, eventually they’d think it was safe to leave him down here alone. To his surprise, his ploy had worked.

What he needed to do now was make a lot of noise. But he couldn’t scream past the makeshift gag in his mouth. He tried to throw his weight from one side to another—to get the worktable to move. The legs scraped and yawned against the dirty cement floor, but the noise wasn’t very loud.

He’d lost all feeling in his arms. But the blood was still flowing in his legs. A small section of material from his pants remained on his right leg—down near the ankle, which was duct-taped to the worktable leg. Sweat and hours of wiggling that foot had loosened the tape, but Allen had made sure Jordan and his friend didn’t realize that.

Upstairs, he heard Leo tell the cop that he was worried about their friend. “Her name is Moira Dancey,” he said. “We went for a walk in the woods this morning. And close to one o’clock we had this stupid argument, and she said she wanted to be alone. So I left her there…and…and she’s still not back yet.”

“Well, if you’re so worried about her, what are you doing here?” the cop asked. “Why aren’t you in the woods looking for her?”

“I don’t know. I just kept hoping she’d come back before dark….”

At least an hour ago, Allen had first spotted a flat-blade shovel leaning against a support beam. It was about two feet behind him on the right. If he could knock over that shovel, it would make a loud clatter. The cop was bound to hear it.

“Well, Ms. Blanchette was concerned about this Moira girl, too,” the officer was saying. “Sounds like Allen Meeker and your girlfriend disappeared around the same time. I’m wondering if there’s a connection.”

“Why is Allen Meeker’s fiancée worried about Moira?” Jordan’s pal was asking. “She’s never even met Moira….”

Allen wiggled his foot, then pushed and turned his ankle against the loose duct tape. He heard the policeman answer, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. His voice sounded a bit farther away. Allen wondered if the cop was starting back toward his patrol car. He tugged and tugged at the tape around his ankle—until his shoe fell off his foot.

“Well, I can tell you practically for sure that Moira has never met Allen Meeker either,” Jordan’s friend was saying. “I don’t think there’s a connection. But I’m really worried about her. Moira’s not familiar with the area, and she’s all alone in those woods….”

“Wasn’t exactly smart of you to ditch her there, was it?” the cop replied.

Allen heard him clearly that time. He still had a chance of being heard himself. With one last yank, he managed to squeeze his sweaty, swollen foot past the loose duct tape. His leg was cramped up, but he managed to wave it around behind him. He tried to tip over the shovel with his foot, but his toe kept missing the handle by an inch or two. He pulled down at the rope around his bound wrists and then stretched his leg out farther—until he thought his arms would pop out of their sockets. Every muscle in his body ached. Perspiration dripped down from his forehead and the back of his neck.

He kept swinging his leg back. His toe brushed against the shovel handle, but it just grazed it. Still the shovel moved slightly, and the flat blade made a dull scraping sound. Allen tried to kick it again—and again. At last, he connected. The shovel toppled over and landed on a rolled-up drop cloth on the other side of the support beam.

It barely made a sound.

Exasperated, Allen wanted to scream, but he couldn’t.

“Well, if you and your girlfriend had a fight in the woods,” the cop said, scratching the back of his neck, “there’s a good chance she’s just avoiding you. Maybe she hitched a ride to town….”

“No, she wouldn’t have done that,” Leo interrupted, shaking his head. He heard a scraping noise in the basement, and he could tell Jordan had picked up on it, too. Standing on the front stoop, the policeman must have been just out of earshot. If the noise got just a little bit louder, the cop would certainly hear it.

“I’ll tell you what,” the blond deputy said with a sigh. “Maybe you guys can do a little of the legwork for me. Get yourselves some flashlights and go look in the woods for your girlfriend—like you should have done a couple of hours ago….”

Suddenly a loud thump reverberated from down in the basement.

The deputy blinked. “What the hell was that?”

Leo watched Jordan reach back toward his shirttail. “It’s just the furnace finally starting up,” he said. “It was freezing in here last night.”

Brushing past both of them, Leo stepped outside. “That’s where we were,” he said, pointing toward the forest in back of the house. “There’s a stream about a half mile into those woods, and we walked at least another mile beyond that.”

The cop stepped away from the door and gazed at the dark woodlands. “Well, like I say, why don’t you guys get off your asses and go look for her?” he said impatiently. “That’s step one. But do me a favor and stick together, so you don’t get lost. I don’t need any more missing persons on my plate tonight.”

Leo noticed Jordan stepping out to the front stoop. He closed the door behind him.

The deputy swaggered back toward his patrol car. “I’ll check in with you in an hour or so,” he grunted. “If you haven’t found your girlfriend by then, I’ll start to get a search party organized. Meanwhile, I got to track down this Allen Meeker character before his fiancée has a conniption. The broad’s going out of her mind with worry.” He opened the door to his patrol car, but paused and glanced at Jordan, his eyes narrowed. “You sure you can’t tell me anything else about this Meeker guy, anything at all?”

Jordan shrugged and shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Okay, well, see you dudes in about an hour.” He ducked inside his car, started up the engine, turned around in the driveway, and drove off.

“Whew,” Jordan said, putting his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “That was close. I thought for sure we were screwed. You totally saved the day, getting him away from the house….”

Leo recoiled from him. He shook his head. “Jesus, Jordan I can’t believe it. You were going to shoot him.”