Death Waits in the Dark

by Julia Buckley

  I knew he was studying my face; I had no idea what expression I wore. He didn’t say anything until we got to the car. Then he turned to me. “Something was wrong, even before the accident. Something about you and me. Tell me, Lena. Maybe it will help to talk.”

  “What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong.”

  He shook his head. “Belinda told me that you were sad before the accident. Almost crying, she said.”

  “I was just emotional that day. Marge had told me this story about the bear, the grizzly in the lobby of Bick’s. Did I tell you?”

  “You can tell me later. What else was making you sad?”

  I shrugged. “I think it was the letters. The ones from James to Camilla. I had started reading them, and Camilla told me about him. How they met and fell in love. It was—very romantic.”

  “I think the way we met is very romantic.”

  “It is!” I reached across my lap with my right hand to touch his arm. “I just—I got this weird thought in my head that you never really had the option to choose me. I was—sort of thrust into your life and you felt grateful to me, and things just progressed from there.”

  “That’s nonsense.” His mouth thinned into a line.

  “The reality is that our relationship was forged under stressful circumstances. They say those don’t last.”

  He stiffened. “Are you saying you’re unhappy with me?”

  “No! I love you.”

  “Then why are you manufacturing all this—drama?”

  “I just wondered what it would be like if we had to be separated for months, the way James and Camilla were.”

  Sam’s mouth hung open slightly. “You think I would lose interest in you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just telling you how I felt—you asked me to tell you.”

  He snapped his mouth shut and looked out the windshield at the side of the hospital. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”

  “Sometimes you seem restless. Even Camilla said so.”

  “What? What do you mean, ‘restless’?”

  “Like you would rather be somewhere else.”

  His blue eyes were wide as he studied me. Emotions warred on his face while I sat in silence. “Lena—I don’t know what to say to you. This is the trauma talking, and the pills. I think I was wrong. I don’t think we should talk about this right now.”

  “Okay.” I turned to look out the window. There were ridiculous tears in my eyes once again.

  * * *

  • • •

  SAM DIDN’T EVEN ask if I wanted to be dropped at Camilla’s. He drove straight to his house and helped me out of the car. “I’m going to make you some lunch,” he said. “You didn’t eat breakfast, did you?”

  “No. Thanks,” I said. I was trying to scoop up kittens, but I could get only one. “Miss Arabella, I have caught you,” I said. I set her on Sam’s kitchen island and starting snapping pictures of her on my phone. I sent one to Camilla and said, I’m having lunch at Sam’s, but I’ll come to see you soon.

  Then I dialed the phone. “Doug Heller here.”

  “Doug. Did you find all of our friends and squeeze their hands?”

  Sam had been peering into his refrigerator, but he turned his head swiftly, looking alarmed.

  Doug’s voice was calm in my ear—too calm, as though he were speaking to a child. “Lena, we’ll be seeing everyone today. The sun will not go down without us apprehending the man who put that car in the barn. You can relax. Have a cup of tea with Camilla and let Cliff and me do our jobs.”

  “Right. Fine. Thanks,” I said, and I ended the call.

  Sam closed the fridge and looked at me. He seemed to be choosing his words with care. “I know it feels terrible to not have control over the situation.”

  “You’re right. It does.”

  He walked toward me and kissed my cheek. “Let me get started on lunch.”

  “I think I’ll lie down for a couple minutes.”

  “Good idea. I’ll call you when it’s ready, okay?”

  “Sure.” I went upstairs and sat on Sam’s bed. The two gray kittens were sleeping on it in a pile. “Hi, Jeeves and Wooster,” I said, petting their silky soft fur. They lay, seemingly comatose, their tiny tummies going up and down. I took my phone from my pocket once more; it was almost out of battery power, but I risked dialing a familiar number.

  “Lena?”

  “Hi, Camilla. I’m sorry I’ve been AWOL for a while.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Not really. I’m moody and alienating everyone. I was just rude to Doug and made Sam feel bad.”

  “Lena, it’s been four days since your arm was almost snapped off. No one is judging you.”

  I wiped my eyes. “I know. I guess. I just—I want this to be over, Camilla. Doug says they’ll have him, one way or the other, by tonight. But I need to go over it in my mind.”

  “Let’s go over it together.”

  “I’m trying to see him. The way I saw him that afternoon before the crash. The way I’ve seen him in dreams and in a couple of visions that disappeared. I know he’s there, right behind my consciousness.”

  “So we’ll bring him out. Let’s think of the clues. All the things James has told us, in his letters, about Carrie. Rusty called me this morning, adding to what you told me last night. I missed quite a series of events.”

  “I’m guessing you wish you had been there to hear it all firsthand.”

  “I do. But I’m glad that you got information. So our perpetrator might have a swollen wrist. But we know something else. Remember what you told us about your time in the recovery room? If you called out his name in the hospital, it was a strange name. Isn’t that what the night nurse said? Doug was going to talk to her, wasn’t he?”

  “If he did, he never got back to us.”

  “Perhaps we should call her. But let’s think: whose name would be considered strange?”

  “Not Paul Graves. Unless she thought ‘Graves’ was weird,” I said.

  “Travis Pace?”

  “Is that a weird name? I guess it might have sounded odd to her, especially if I slurred the first and last names together.” I tried to imagine myself, asleep in that blue-walled recovery room, calling out the name of a murderer.

  “Hmm. And what about Thibodeau? That’s a remarkable name.”

  “Yes. So is ‘Key.’ I was actually feeling very suspicious of her, last night in the dark. I wondered if she were staring at me, wanting me dead. You see how weird I am?”

  “It’s not weird at all, Lena. One of those people did try to hurt you.”

  “So she’s a suspect. Her name is unusual.”

  “But are we thinking about a woman at all?” Camilla asked.

  I sighed. “I don’t think so. Not if we’re looking for a rapist. Assuming that the rapist is also the murderer, and the attempted murderer.”

  “Maybe Key’s husband?”

  “But would I have been thinking about her husband in the hospital? Even if I saw him in the rearview mirror, I wouldn’t have recognized him. So how could I link that to his name?”

  “Hmm. Yes.”

  “What about Rusty? What if I said his name? But he seemed genuinely surprised when he read his father’s journal.” And yet, hadn’t I been truly afraid of him in the car? Hadn’t I feared for my life?

  “Let’s look at it this way. If one of those men is a rapist and a killer, and we stood in front of him and said we would find the truth about Carrie, wouldn’t it be hard for him to hide his dislike?”

  “So we’re taking the psychological view here. Okay, who seemed mean or aggressive at the restaurant?”

  “They all looked a bit annoyed, even Marge and Karina. Well, maybe not Marge. She invited us over, after all. But you know what, Lena? Now that I think of it, most people ha
d kind things to say about both Carrie and Jane. Except one person: do you remember?”

  I thought back. “Someone said that they were grasping. That they were always grasping around for men or attention or something.”

  “Yes. Has anyone else ever said that about those women? James certainly never said a word against either of them.”

  “And who said that? Was it Travis?”

  “Yes.” Camilla’s voice grew thoughtful. “Travis Pace. Really, when I think of it, wasn’t it most inappropriate for him to speak ill of the dead? Of two dead women? Or was it perhaps that he couldn’t resist trying to blame them for their own fates? Blaming the victim has always been popular among criminal types, hasn’t it?”

  “Travis,” I said, mulling it over. “I’m going to call the hospital and ask Nurse Annie.”

  “You do that. I’m going to scour some letters to see if James mentions Travis’s name. I know we certainly didn’t see much of him when I got here. But, of course, James didn’t know who was responsible, did he? I’ve been thinking about this since Rusty called. Poor James was in quite a dilemma, trying to protect Carrie and to get justice for her at the same time. And it turned out he could only do one of those things.”

  “Camilla, let me call you back. I want to call the hospital.”

  “All right. Call me soon.”

  I agreed and ended the call. My phone rang in my hand. I slid my finger across the screen. “Hello?”

  “Lena? This is Sandy from Dr. Salinger’s office. You left your purse here, dear.”

  “Oh, darn. How did I not notice? This is the second time I’ve done that.” Dr. Salinger had told me to follow her to the front desk where she would write down the name of a therapist. I had done so, apparently leaving my purse behind . . .

  “Rather than come back out, would you like me to have someone drop it off? I see you live off of Wentworth; I was just talking to my brother, and he’s going that way. Shall I have him drop it off to you? He can be there in ten minutes.”

  “That would be wonderful, thanks. But I’m at a different address, right next to the other one.” I gave her Sam’s address. “Thanks again. And Sandy? Can you transfer me to another department?”

  “Of course. What do you need?”

  “I want to talk to Nurse Annie from recovery. Or at least she was working recovery a few days ago.”

  “I’ll transfer you.”

  “Thanks, Sandy!”

  A recovery nurse answered after three rings but told me that Annie wouldn’t be on duty until four o’clock. I thanked her and ended the call. My hands itched, and I felt restless. I paced around the room, noticing that my little gray friends hadn’t awakened through any of my phone conversations.

  I found a charger in a drawer of Sam’s bedside table and plugged in my phone. I looked up to see Arabella strolling past, with the mien of feline royalty. She certainly had settled in to her new house. I laughed and left the room.

  Downstairs the table had been set with a lovely blue cloth; Sam had lit a fat white candle and set out colorful plates. I thought of the first meal we’d ever shared in his kitchen, when he’d made waffles for me and I realized that I was attracted to him. He waved from his spot at the counter and said, “I’m almost ready, Lena. Let me just toss out some bread for Eager.” That was the name of Sam’s chipmunk, who visited regularly in hopes of food.

  “Okay. Someone’s going to come to the door. I left my purse at the doctor’s office and Sandy is sending her brother to drop it off.”

  “Sandy?”

  “The receptionist.” I realized I hadn’t told him what Sandy said about Carrie. I could do that over lunch, assuming we could get over the new constraint that seemed to mark our dialogues.

  Sam carried some crumbled bread to the glass door that led onto his patio and slung open the door. Little Geronimo appeared from nowhere and hurtled through the opening.

  “Oh no!” I said. “Isabelle says to be sure to keep them indoors. It’s safer, she says.”

  “Shoot,” Sam said, and gave chase.

  The doorbell rang. I stiffened, then realized it was probably Sandy’s brother with my purse. I walked to the door. In retrospect it seems that I did it all in slow motion: moving toward the frosted glass–paneled door and seeing the silhouette of a man. The shape of my purse was visible in his hand, and I was already turning the knob when I realized something else: his hair made an odd halo around his head, just as it had in the gray light on Juniper Road. I paused, the knob turned to the right, but I stopped short of opening the door. Travis Pace. These thoughts went tumbling through my head:

  If Travis Pace was on my doorstep, that meant he was Sandy’s brother. No one had ever mentioned that Travis had a sister, or that she hung around with the group. But of course she hadn’t, because “Sandy” had been two years younger than Carrie. Still a schoolgirl.

  Sandy said that Carrie had never spoken to her again. If Travis Pace had raped Carrie, she wouldn’t want to look at Travis or his sister or anyone who reminded her of him.

  Travis Pace had a sister who worked at the hospital. He could have borrowed scrubs from her. He could have walked around undetected because everyone knew he was Sandy’s brother.

  Perhaps it was Sandy’s car that had struck us?

  It hadn’t dawned on me that the door was essentially open because I had frozen after turning the knob. He pushed on it from his side and the door swung back.

  Travis Pace forced a smile. “Lena? I think this is yours.”

  I couldn’t hide my horror, or my recognition of his face as I had seen it just before the terrible impact. He saw my expression and knew everything in an instant. He threw my purse past me on the floor and pulled something out of his pocket with a hand that was weirdly swollen. I managed one short scream before I felt a pricking pain on my good arm and turned to see the syringe sticking out of it, then looked up in shock.

  “What did you do?” I managed, my words slurred.

  His face, filled with hatred and a weird triumph, was the last thing I saw before I fell.

  17

  I think you are brave and strong, Camilla. I think women in general are braver than men.

  —From the correspondence of James Graham and Camilla Easton, 1971

  FOR THE SECOND time in a few days I found myself gradually returning to consciousness. Something darted past my eyes, again and again, like a persistent bird. After a few minutes I realized it was the flashing of scenery—mainly trees—as we sped past them. We were in a forested area.

  My mind became lucid enough to panic. How long had I been out? Were we still in Blue Lake? What if he had taken me hours away? And what exactly did he intend to do with me? I was lying on the backseat of a car; I could see the back of Travis Pace’s head as he sat in the driver’s seat. There was no one else in the car. Surreptitiously, I readjusted myself so that I could look directly out the window. The trees we flew past did not look particularly familiar; I waited, hoping to see a billboard, a road sign, anything that would give me a sense of my location.

  Finally, I spied a rustic wooden sign that said, “Entrance to Emerson Woods.” The car slowed, then turned into the driveway.

  My insides grew cold. The Emerson Woods Nature Preserve was in Canfield, which was several towns away from Blue Lake. I moved my good hand slowly and carefully over my pockets. My phone wasn’t there. With a pang I remembered that I had been charging it at Sam’s house. This was a desolate reality. The last time I had been in trouble, my phone had given me access to the outside world. I had called Doug and Cliff, and they had come to help me confront a madman.

  How had Travis gotten me into the car? He had a sprained wrist; but adrenaline, I knew, could achieve wonders.

  So here was another madman, driving me into a forest. What did they always say in self-defense presentations? Never let them take you to an isolate
d location. Never walk willingly into the woods with an abductor. I assumed Travis wanted to take me somewhere private before he did away with me. My thoughts pinballed crazily in my head as I tried to work out a solution. I needed to get away, to separate myself from Travis Pace. Perhaps if I held very still he would leave me alone; there was no way he could carry me far, and surely there would be other people here?

  My main concern was that, while my thoughts seemed lucid, my fear impulse was dulled. I knew I should be afraid, but there was a distance between me and my terror. In a vague way I knew this was probably the residual effect of whatever drug he had given me, so I lay there in the backseat, almost peaceful, watching the trees flash by and wondering what to do.

  When Travis finally pulled into a parking space just across from an opening in the trees, I saw that there were no other cars in the lot. This was not good. A remembrance of fear glimmered beneath my drug-induced calm.

  Pace turned off his engine and stared out the front windshield for a while.

  I lay still and silent.

  “I know you’re awake,” he said, still facing forward. “I saw you squirming around back there.”

  I said nothing.

  He said, “I’m not some kind of monster, you know. I just want to stay out of jail. If you and your friend Camilla had kept your noses out of things I wouldn’t have to do this now.”

  My voice sounded weirdly serene to me. “That’s called ‘blaming the victim.’ People do it when they’re not capable of taking responsibility for their own actions. That’s you in a nutshell, Travis. I have you figured out.”

  “Do you?” He sounded bored now.

  I sat up, struggling against my cast. “Yeah. A spoiled, indulged, self-centered kid who couldn’t believe someone would reject you. When Carrie did, you took what you wanted anyway, figuring somehow you wouldn’t have to face any consequences. And I guess you were right. Only Carrie had to face them. She endured a traumatic experience and self-banishment from the town she loved. All because she knew society wouldn’t punish you.”

  “You don’t know anything about it. You weren’t even alive.”