by E J Kindred
“Long enough,” Rachel said. “You’ve been so obsessed I thought you’d never notice.”
“She didn’t,” Sally said with a smirk.
“You knew? And you didn’t tell me?” I looked back and forth between them a few times. “How did this happen? And when?”
“It turned out he wanted to call me, but he wasn’t sure he should, since you and I are friends,” Rachel said. “And you thought he hadn’t noticed me. Some detective you are.”
Two days later, I got another text from Lupe. Elise was headed into town. Though I knew I shouldn’t, I went, too, and resumed my usual spot at the diner. Sally and Rachel would have tried to talk me into giving up, but I wanted more photos, more information.
Too many questions were unanswered. Why, for instance, would Carl the Third drive to Portland, when he presumably had patients to see and a family to care for? Elise had more free time than he did. She could have easily gone to Seattle and stayed there, if they wanted to see each other so frequently. Did Carl’s wife know about his absences? Surely his medical colleagues would notice.
Of course, I wouldn’t get any answers sitting on my butt, but that didn’t keep me from waiting and watching. The battery on the GPS tracker must have died because I no longer had the ability to know where Elise was going. It didn’t matter much. The photos I got of Carl and Elise confirmed that their relationship was ongoing.
The next day, I left the diner before they came out. Sitting and watching the hotel was useless, as well as boring. I had memorized the front façade of the Finley Hotel, along with faces and little quirks of the doormen who stood there day in and day out. I’d finally had enough.
The day was one of those pristine early April days that come along unexpectedly in Oregon. The sun was shining and the breeze, while still cool, was refreshing. I stood outside the diner door for a moment and inhaled deeply, stretching my arms above my head. A walk was definitely in order.
I went toward what Portlanders call the Park blocks. Bordered by Park Avenue, the Park blocks were a series of green spaces stretching from near the Finley to the Portland State University campus. I walked on the paths that cut through the blocks, enjoying a little bit of awakening nature in middle of the city. Several blocks up, I found an unoccupied bench near a stand of trees and sat down to listen to the birds and do a little people watching.
Students from the university walked by in groups, chatting and checking their phones. A young mother pushed a stroller while holding the hand of a toddler. Men and women in business attire hurried by. A young man threw a Frisbee for his dog.
“Annie!”
I jumped when I heard my name. Before I could turn around, an arm went across my shoulders in a tight hug.
I pulled away to see who’d greeted me with such familiarity and came eye to eye with Carl the Third. Surely any passersby would believe we were friends or lovers. But despite the happy tone he’d used, I saw anger in his eyes.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His tone was low and grating.
“Sitting in the park. In public. Now let go of me.”
He tightened his hold on my shoulders. “Did you think you’d get away with it? Do you think I’m so stupid that I wouldn’t recognize you?”
“Get away with what?” I tried bravado, but my voice quavered. “I have every right to be here.”
“You’ve been watching Elise.”
“No, I haven’t.” I tried to pull away again. “Let go of me or I’ll scream.”
He slid his hand off my shoulder, but when I started to stand, he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me back.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
I struggled again, but he tightened his hold.
“Stop! You’re hurting me.”
Something sharp poked against my neck and I flinched. I struggled again to free myself, but I suddenly felt weak. I couldn’t focus. He was talking, making it appear as if we were having a friendly conversation, but his voice was receding, growing quieter. My vision narrowed and started to go dark. I couldn’t move.
Just before I blacked out, I heard him, as if from a distance, say, “She’s okay. I’m a doctor and I’ll take care of her.”
And then I was gone.
Chapter Ten
What seeped into my consciousness first was the stench of rotting food and human waste.
I opened my eyes, but the darkness was so deep that I had to put my hand up to my face and feel the sweep of my lashes to know that my eyes were indeed open.
My back hurt, my neck was sore, and my head felt as if I’d spent four hours on a tilt-a-whirl. I lay on a thin mattress, covered by a light blanket. I was reluctant to sit up or stand since I couldn’t see anything. Trying not to move my head, I reached to my right and felt a rough wall. More exploration with my fingertips revealed what felt like horizontal seams, so perhaps the wall was built of unfinished wood planks. To my left, I encountered only empty space.
I shifted my position in an attempt to relieve the pain in my back and heard a soft clinking sound. I sat up slowly and clutched at my leg. A shackle encircled my left ankle. After a moment, my fingers touched a heavy chain attached to the shackle.
“You bastard,” I whispered, my head pounding. I jerked at the chain, but it was solidly affixed. I was too fatigued, still too drugged to investigate further.
Bit by bit, I tried moving my limbs and when nothing else hurt, I turned on my side, facing away from the wall. I couldn’t seem to think clearly. I pulled the blanket up around my shoulders and tried to ignore how bad it smelled. Wherever I was obviously had no heat.
I became more awake as time passed and thought through what must have happened. Obviously, Carl the Third, pretending to be my friend for the sake of passersby, had drugged me somehow.
Where was I? And why was it so dark?
I also noticed the silence. The quiet was as impenetrable as the darkness. I was either in a cellar deep underground or outside the city, but how could I tell where? I listened a while longer and thought I heard the chirping of crickets. Unless I’d been confined to a building away from all traffic, it seemed more likely that he’d taken me out of Portland. On the other hand, the overpowering stench of the place made me wonder if he’d brought me to a building near a landfill. It was all I could do to keep from gagging.
Time and again, I peered into the darkness hoping to see something, anything, but in vain.
I must have fallen asleep, perhaps succumbed to the remaining effects of the drug he’d given me, because when I opened my eyes next, a thin gray light shone between the boards of the wall. Of course, he’d grabbed me during the day and the sedative wore off throughout the night.
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I wasn’t underground or in a cave.
After a few minutes, I realized that my head had cleared somewhat, so I carefully put my feet on the floor and sat up. There was enough light to let me see the shackle around my ankle and the attached chain. The chain led from my leg to the end of my cot.
Then I looked more closely. I wasn’t attached to a cot; the surface on which I’d been deposited was a cheap metal bed frame. I pulled up the corner of the thin mattress to find metal cross bars and wires acting as support.
The dim light let me take stock of my surroundings. The space was about ten feet square. I’d been right; the walls were rough wood planks. A window opening in the first wall I’d touched had been boarded over with plywood. Opposite that wall was a half-wall topped with vertical bars made of metal. A wood sliding door, also with bars on the upper section, took up half the width of the wall. The other two walls were wood planks from top to bottom except for a couple of feet at the top, which was open. The floor was compacted dirt.
To the side of my bed stood a battered cardboard box containing half a dozen bottles of water. I grabbed one and drained it immediately. The water bottles were accompanied by a box of granola bars and three cans of soup with pop top lids. In the bottom of the box, I found
a plastic spoon wrapped in paper towels.
I pushed my blanket aside and stood, careful not to trip over the chain that held me captive. As the light grew brighter, I saw something that made my stomach turn. In the far corner of my prison sat a white painters’ bucket, and next to it, a grimy roll of toilet paper.
Carl clearly planned for me to be here for a while.
“Don’t count on it, buddy,” I muttered.
I sat on my bed and ate a granola bar. I resisted using the white bucket for as long as I could, but after a few hours, I had no choice. The raw edge of the bucket bruised my skin. After that, I had nothing to do but wait and wonder where I was and what Carl intended to do with me.
From time to time, I thought I heard rustling sounds nearby. The sound was so fleeting that after a while, I put it down to squirrels or birds. I hoped it wasn’t bats.
The light seeping in from outside grew brighter and the space warmed somewhat. The building was obviously above ground and in an area open enough to let sunshine bathe the exterior.
In the following hours, I alternated sitting on my bed and lying down. The chain attached to the shackle on my leg was heavy enough to make moving difficult, and the small space in which I was confined made walking pointless.
At one point, I tried to go to the front of my cell and peer out between the bars, but I was able to go only six feet before coming to the end of the chain. Out of frustration, I grasped the chain in both hands and pulled. To my surprise, I managed to move the bed frame away from the wall and drag it far enough along the dirt floor to let me to reach my destination.
All I could see in the dim light from my new vantage point was another row of bars and more wood. The doors across from my cell had latches on the outside. They were metal, made of two pieces, a horizontal bar attached to the door and a movable piece attached to the wall that closed down over the bar. Opening it would require simply lifting the beak-shaped lever.
I reached down and felt for the latch on the outside of my door. I could barely reach it, but I managed to get the top of it between my fingers and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. I stretched my arm as far as I could, almost wedging my shoulder between the metal bars on the top of the door and ran my fingers over the lock mechanism. What I found made me want to weep. The latch to my door was secured with a padlock.
Discouraged, I pushed my bed back against the wall. When I sat down, the bed wobbled so badly that I got right up again. The bed’s metal leg nearest the wall was weak and had been displaced when I dragged the bed across the floor. I straightened it and sat down.
I ate another bar. I couldn’t bring myself to eat cold soup, but I realized I’d have to sooner or later. I’d be in no shape to escape if I didn’t eat.
Darkness fell and the few birds I’d heard earlier were silent. I still occasionally heard rustling, but since I was almost sure that I’d been taken outside the city, I attributed those sounds to the local wildlife.
Sometime during the night, I heard distinct sounds of movement nearby. I lay on my bed and held my breath, wondering what kind of creature was there. A coyote, maybe, or a family of raccoons? Whatever it was, I hoped it was friendly, because I was in no position to defend myself.
Then I heard two familiar sounds, the soft clink of chain links and the unmistakable sounds of liquid falling into a bucket.
And then a heavy sigh.
The sound of paper crinkling.
Another sigh.
Soft crying, a sound so full of despair that my heart broke.
I lowered my fetid blanket and listened for another few seconds. “Hello?” I spoke softly, unsure.
All sounds stopped.
I spoke again. “Is someone there?”
Slowly, almost glacially, I sat up.
“Please, can you talk to me?”
I waited, straining to hear.
“Who are you?” The voice from the other side of the wall was soft, scratchy, as if it hadn’t been used recently.
I didn’t know what to say. Should I give my name? What if it was Carl, playing some kind of cruel joke?
The voice came again, a little stronger, a woman’s voice. “Are you here for me?”
“I was brought here.”
“Me, too.” The sobbing resumed, and then a whisper, “I want to die.”
“No, don’t say that.” I was almost crying myself. “Who are you? How long have you been here?”
“Forever,” came the whisper. “I’ve been here forever. You will be, too.”
“No, I refuse to accept that.”
She was silent again.
“Tell me your name,” I said. Maybe if I could get her to talk more, I could help her feel better. What she said next knocked me flat.
“I’m Mo,” she whispered. “Who are you?”
“Mo?” I jumped up from my bed so fast I got dizzy and had to put a hand on the wall to steady myself. “Did I hear you right? You’re Mo? Maureen Shaughnessy?”
She was quiet for a long moment, and then, as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears, she said, “Annie?”
I knew how she felt.
Knees wobbling, I fell back onto my bed and sobbed. Through it all, she tried to comfort me, which only made me cry that much harder. After a few minutes, I blew my nose on one of the paper towels from the cardboard box and wiped my face. “Honey, I knew you were still alive. I told the police that they had to search for you. Everyone told me you were dead or you’d run off, but I didn’t believe it. I never gave up.”
“You didn’t?” Her voice was closer now. She was in the space next to mine, perhaps leaning against our shared wall.
“I kept telling the cops you never would have killed the doc. They wouldn’t listen, but I tried, I really tried.”
She was quiet for a long time, and I heard sniffling.
“Mo, you okay?”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes.” I already felt bad enough for her, but she’d apparently held out hope that Doctor Wentworth was alive. “I thought you’d know.”
“I knew he and Carl the Third had a fight, and Carl went after the doc with my knife, but the last time I saw him, he was alive.” She sighed deeply and when she spoke, her voice was constricted with tears. “Poor doc.”
“And Carl brought you here?”
“Yes. I was in my room, but I went down to the kitchen when I heard noises. The doc was bleeding, and when he saw me, he yelled for me to call 9-1-1. Carl pushed him out the back door and grabbed me before I could get to the phone.” She paused for a long moment. “I don’t remember how it happened, but when I woke up, I was here.”
“He probably drugged you, same as me.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “Annie . . .”
I knew what she was about to ask.
“How long has it been? What’s the date? I’ve completely lost track.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I told her the truth.
“Today is April fourth.”
At that, she started crying again, this time with anger.
“Three months? That fucking bastard has kept me here for three months?”
I heard a thumping sound—Mo was pounding on the wall.
“Mo, stop, please. Together we can figure a way out of here. Please stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
The pounding stopped. “How can we get out? I’ve tried to escape, but I’m chained to my bed. He puts a padlock on the door. How can we get out?”
“I don’t know yet, but now there’s two of us, and we can find a way. We have to. We can’t let him get away with killing the doc and kidnapping us.”
“You know what I don’t understand?” Her voice was softer again.
“What?”
“Why he’s kept me alive all this time. If he killed the doc, what’s he got to lose by killing me, too?” She took a deep breath. “Or you?”
I nodded, as if she could see me. “It doesn’t make much sense, does it? We’re definitely a risk, if we get away
. Tell you what, once we have him locked up, let’s ask.”
Mo’s voice was grim. “Yeah, I’ll ask him, as long as I can do it with a sledgehammer and some wires hooked to a car battery and stabbed into his shriveled hairy balls.”
“That’s the spirit.” After three months of captivity in the dark and who knows what other punishments, I couldn’t be sure of her sanity, but an angry Mo with a purpose was better than a weeping Mo who wished to die.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked.
“No. Only that it’s a horse barn somewhere remote. I don’t hear traffic go by very often.”
A barn. My cell was a stall. “Horse barn? How do you know?”
“For one thing, the smell. Haven’t you ever spent any time around horses? And then there are the bars.”
“Bars? What are they for?”
“You’re such a city girl, Annie.” Mo actually managed a low laugh. “Sometimes, especially in barns for show horses, the people install bars to control the horses. A pony I knew once climbed right over his stall’s half-door. I’ve also seen horses who could open latches and get out and liberate their friends. If the wood and the floors are any indication, this is an old barn, but someone installed the bars recently.”
“How terrible for the horses. They can’t put their heads out and see each other.”
“I know how they feel.”
That explained the heavy wood planking and the bars, but without more information, our location was still a mystery.
“How often do you see him?” I had an inkling I knew his routine.
“About every other day, sometimes every third day.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been following Elise, trying to get a clue to what happened. Turns out she’s been meeting Carl the Third at the Finley Hotel on the same schedule.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Lupe and I agree.”
We chatted until the daylight was long gone. I filled her in about the aftermath of Doctor Wentworth’s death, including how I’d told Elise off when I quit my job.
“Good for you.”
