Legacy of Masks

by Sallie Bissell

  “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered. Had she been right about Keener, days ago in Ravenel’s office?

  Quickly, she punched in the girl’s number. She got a busy signal, then tried twice more. Deciding that someone must be surfing the Net with a dial-up modem, she dug her old personal tape recorder out of her drawer and plugged it in. She read the letter again, inserted the tape marked with a red label, and leaned close to listen.

  For the first few moments, she heard nothing but tape hiss, then INXS’s “Need You Tonight” came on. She groaned; she’d heard that song at least a dozen times this summer while driving around in Deke’s car. As the music grew louder, she heard voices begin to speak.

  “Just get it over with,” a girl was saying.

  “You want to go in the front or the back?” asked a man.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then let’s do it here, in the driver’s seat.”

  Though the man could have been any adult male anywhere, Mary’s hands grew cold as the music went on. U2 followed INXS, with “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Then “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” by the Georgia Satellites. Soon Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time” would start. All hits from her senior year in high school, played in exactly the same order as the CD in Deke Keener’s car.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered as the man told the girl to “stick her bottom out.” She flipped the tape over, hoping the B side offered something different, but it continued on with the Beastie Boys, now accompanied by male groaning. She sat, horrified, listening with the ears of both prosecution and defense. So far, she’d heard nothing on the tape that positively identified either the molester or his victim. And though the background music was definitely the same as Deke’s, who could prove that it belonged to him? He might have copied it from somebody else, or even loaned it to one of his child-molester pals. She’d just pulled out a legal pad to make notes when, at the end of one long, climactic groan, the molester nailed his own coffin shut. “Oh, Bethany! You’ve just made your old Coach Keener a very happy man!”

  Shaking, she rewound the tape and listened again. Her intuition had been right, but she had ignored it. Deke had played her for a fool since day one. How he must have enjoyed these past weeks, secretly laughing while she struggled with Ridge’s defense!

  “You bastard!” she cried. She picked up her phone to call Jerry Cochran. If indeed those little girls were out trying to trap this man, God knows what kind of trouble they could be getting into. She had to get them away from Keener right now. You can’t turn him in, a small smug voice seemed to taunt inside her head. Deke’s your client. It would break attorney/client privilege. She stopped, paralyzed, halfway through Jerry’s number. Keener had set her up even worse than she’d imagined. Though she’d never represented him in anything other than real estate matters, she was nonetheless his counsel. If she turned over criminal evidence against him, it could conceivably end her practicing any kind of law, prosecution or defense.

  “Damn!” She sat down, staring at the mask in the corner, then she picked up the phone and frantically redialed Kayla Daws’ number.

  Some miles away, Kayla Daws was sitting on her bed, watching her little Elvis Presley wall clock hip-swivel the seconds away. She’d stared at it ever since she’d gotten home from ball practice, a sick feeling of dread growing as she waited for Avis to call. Something had gone wrong. Though Avis and Coach Keener had showed up at the ball field, Coach Keener had made Avis sit right beside him for most of the practice. She’d desperately tried to make eye contact with her friend, but the bill of Avis’s huge Panthers cap covered her eyes, making it impossible to read her expression. Kayla had no idea what had transpired between Avis and Coach Keener, and whether Avis was happy, sad, triumphant, or terrified. Then, when she’d called Avis twenty minutes ago, Mrs. Martin had just gotten back from getting their new truck and told her that Avis had gone home with Coach Keener. After that she’d gotten really scared, and she called Mary Crow. Now, every second that the phone sat silent made her feel sicker inside.

  “Come on, Avis!” She lifted her telephone receiver to make sure that neither of her parents were on the line. A few minutes ago her father had received a long, involved call from somebody on a roofing crew, but now, blessedly, she heard nothing but the buzz of the dial tone. “Two more minutes,” Kayla vowed. “Then I’ll call her again.”

  She returned her gaze to Elvis Presley, wishing she and Avis had never dreamed this up. This was real, not some stupid novel, and Avis was no more a detective than Darby was. Coach Keener had killed her sister. Was he about to kill her best friend as well?

  “Please not,” she whispered, fighting back tears. “Please let Avis be all right.”

  She watched Elvis Presley swivel for another ten seconds, then she picked up the phone. Maybe Avis was back by now. Maybe she was just getting ready to call her. The phone rang once, twice, then Mrs. Martin said, “Hello?”

  Kayla’s heart leapt. Please, please, please let Avis be home! “May I speak to Avis please?”

  “Kayla? Is that you again?”

  Kayla sucked in her breath. Mrs. Martin sounded like a normal mother on a normal night—certainly not like someone whose daughter had just been kidnapped by her murderous softball coach.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m afraid Avis is still not back from softball practice,” said Mrs. Martin. “But I promise I’ll have her call you when she gets in.”

  “Don’t forget, okay?” Kayla begged, knowing Avis would never get back, that this would be the last time she would ever again have a regular conversation with anyone. “It doesn’t matter how late.”

  She hung up the phone. She felt frozen in place, like a stupid cartoon character, too scared to move. What should she do? She’d already called Mary Crow. She supposed now she could try to tell her father, but he was back with his six-packs and her mother had locked herself in her room with the home makeover channel. She could call Mrs. Martin back, but what would she say? Avis thinks Coach Keener killed my sister and is wearing a tape recorder on her head to prove it?

  She paced around her room in a tight little circle, trying to decide what to do. Suddenly the phone rang. She jumped as if a gun had gone off beside her. Scooping it up, she clutched the receiver to her ear.

  “Hello?” she said, breathless, praying that Avis would answer.

  “Is this Kayla Daws?” A woman’s voice came over the line, using the same no-bullshit tone teachers used during bomb scares at school.

  “Yes.” Kayla clutched her strawberry necklace, terrified.

  “Kayla, this is Mary Crow, Ridge Standingdeer’s attorney. Did you just leave a message on my answering machine and put some tape cassettes under my door?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her voice came out in a squeak.

  “I take it those are genuine tapes, not something you’ve manufactured yourself?” The woman sounded like the angel of death. Kayla’s knees were shaking so much, she had to sit down on the bed.

  “Yes, ma’am. My sister taped them. My friend Avis Martin and I found them. We think Coach Keener killed my sister.”

  “Where’s your friend Avis now?”

  Kayla tried to speak, tried to work her jaws, but no sound came out.

  “Kayla?” asked Mary Crow again. “Where exactly is your friend Avis now?”

  “She went to trap Coach Keener, she put a tape recorder inside her cap!” Kayla broke down in huge, gulping sobs. “After the game he took Avis up to his house. I think they’re still there now!”

  41

  Avis sat clutching the armrest of Coach Keener’s car. He’d sped her away after practice, before she could even twitch an eyebrow at Kayla, and for the past half hour they’d twisted higher into the mountains on a curvy gravel road. She was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the tape recorder. Though he’d acted odd at practice, once they’d gotten in the car to go home, he’d started chatting away just like always. Still, she was going to Coach Keener’s house
, all by herself. That fact alone made her mouth dry as a cracker, her legs tremble with the urge to get away. As his headlights flashed across the trees that pressed against the road, all she could think about was how much she hated the woods at night! If she could ever just get back home, she would never go outside after dark again. She would just curl up with her books in bed and read for the rest of her life.

  “You okay?” Coach Keener looked at her, the dashboard lights giving his face an unnatural pallor. “I know this road’s pretty twisty—sometimes it makes people car sick.”

  She nodded. She was sick, sick to death, but not because of the road.

  “Like I said, this won’t take long. We can check out my telescope after I get my plans.” He glanced up at the dark sky that rushed over the tops of the trees. “It’s so clear tonight, you could probably see Uranus.”

  Your anus. The joke the boys in her fourth-grade class had found so hysterical buzzed through her head. She wished she thought it was funny now. She wished she thought anything was funny now. With clammy hands, she gripped the armrest tighter as Coach Keener drove on. Up they climbed, the pavement growing even more bumpy and rutted. Her stomach flopped as they veered close to the edge of the road and she saw the lights of Hartsville twinkling far below. One of those lights is our house, she thought, tears stinging her eyes. In one of those little dots of light live my mom and dad.

  They twisted around two more tight curves, then abruptly he pulled into a drive. With the click of a button on his key ring, a tall, soaringly modern house erupted in bright lights. It was built like a castle—one side seemed to overlook a cliff while the other three sides nestled into a forest of tall black pines. A red light blinked from some kind of tower at the top.

  “That’s my red winker,” Coach Keener explained. “It keeps low-flying planes away.”

  He punched another button; a great maw of a garage opened. They pulled into a dimly lit basement cluttered with shovels and huge sacks of lime, then he turned off the engine of his car.

  “You can stay down here if you like,” he said, again smiling. “Or you can come upstairs and have a Coke. This won’t take me a minute.”

  He acted so normal that she wondered if she hadn’t just imagined his earlier weirdness. Ever since they’d gotten back in his car, he’d seemed no more threatening than her own dad. Though she didn’t much want to go into his house, she also didn’t want to stay out here in this spooky garage.

  “Okay,” she said, slowly opening the car door, careful to keep the cap balanced on her head.

  She followed him up some stairs and into a kitchen that looked bigger than her grandmother’s whole house. “How about a Coke?” He tossed his own cap on the counter and got two frosty cans of soda from a stainless steel refrigerator.

  She wanted to say no, thanks, that she would stay right here in the kitchen while he got his blueprints, but he handed her a Coke and kept talking and walking so quickly that she followed him, not knowing what else to do. He crossed a big living room with a huge fireplace and walked over to a wall-sized bookcase that held more books than she’d ever dreamed of. He paused once to flip on some kind of stereo system. She cringed, waiting to hear the same old tunes she’d heard on Bethany’s tape, but classical music, with violins, filled the air.

  “Come have a look at the Keener Kats of years past.” He pointed to one of the bookshelves that glittered with gold trophies and team photographs. “I’ll go get those blueprints and be right back.”

  Avis held her breath, wondering what he was really going to do, but he turned and trotted up a wide staircase to the upper level of the house. Apparently, he truly did need to pick up something. She considered taking off her cap and hiding the tape, but she was terrified that he’d come downstairs and catch her. She settled for adjusting the thing more firmly on her head and crept over to the bookcase, gazing at his Kats memorabilia. The photographs interested her more than the trophies, and as she heard him thumping around upstairs, she found some players she recognized. Last year Jeannette Peacock had been chubbier, while Kayla had worn her hair long. Three years ago neither had been on the team at all; five years ago a taller, blonder version of Kayla stared out at the camera.

  “It’s Bethany!” she whispered to the frozen image, recognizing her from the photos she’d seen at Kayla’s house. She picked up the picture and held it close. Though Bethany was the prettiest girl on the team, she had not smiled when they snapped her picture, and her eyes looked like she was hiding a great, sorrowful secret.

  “Did you ever meet her?” The question came from behind her, so softly that she jumped. Coach Keener had come downstairs without a sound.

  “No,” Avis said, quickly returning the photo to the shelf.

  “She was a beautiful girl.” His voice was husky. “I think about her every day.”

  I do, too, thought Avis, suddenly aware of the cap on her head. And so does Kayla.

  Another silence sprang up between them.

  “I got what I needed,” he said, digging his car keys from his pocket as he held up a long roll of blue paper. “Shall we go out and take a peek at Uranus before we leave?”

  Again, he seemed so normal that she felt stupid. Not once had he put his hands on her. He’d given her a Coke, then he’d left her to look at team pictures while he got his stuff. If he’d planned to do something, wouldn’t he have done it when they first pulled in the garage? She felt her face flame with confused embarrassment. “Okay,” she told him.

  He crossed the room to draw back nubby white drapes that revealed a wide flagstone patio that seemed suspended over the outer darkness. At one corner sprawled the biggest telescope she’d ever seen, pointed at some distant light in the sky. He walked out onto the patio and motioned for her to follow.

  “Let’s see what’s showing tonight.” He put his Coke down and peered through the viewfinder, adjusting the focus knobs. A moment later, he stood up.

  “Have a look,” he said. “It’s not Uranus, but you might recognize it, just the same.”

  She stepped over and looked through the eyepiece. The planet Saturn blazed at her from a field of ebony space, its rings hazy purple and pale gold. It was the most coldly beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  “Wow!” she cried, forgetting her earlier resolve to keep her mouth shut. “That’s so cool!” She was about to ask if he would show her some other planets when all at once she felt a weight lift from her head. As the cool night breeze caressed her newly exposed scalp, Coach Keener’s voice echoed in her ears.

  “Why, Avis,” he said. “You dropped your cap!”

  Trembling, she turned around. He stood just behind her, holding her cap in his hands as if it were a bowl, looking down and smiling.

  “You know, I thought I heard a funny noise on the way to the ball park. A little hiss. Like a tape recorder.” He turned his gaze from the cap and stared directly at her, his eyes as bright and cold as Saturn. “And son of a gun, I found one! Right inside your cap!”

  She realized then that his good humor had all been an act. He’d planned this for hours, and he’d set it up perfectly. Called her parents with a fake story about a blueprint, given her a Coke, gotten her out on the patio with the promise of Uranus. No doubt next he would toss her off this balcony, then call the cops, distraught. Oh my God, officer! One of my ball players has fallen off my patio! She was standing right there, looking through my telescope. I turned away for just a moment and she fell! The cops would come, survey the scene, and call her parents. They would cry, heartbroken, and everyone except Kayla would think it was nothing more than a terrible, tragic accident.

  He threw back his head and laughed. She turned away, looking up into the sky, at the merciless stars glittering from the dark void of space. Help me, she prayed to whoever or whatever might be out there, on the other end of the telescope. Please help me.

  As if in reply, a sudden cold wind carried the low rumble of a growl. It shook the mind-numbing fear from her brain, making her ke
enly aware of everything from the newly ashen look on Coach Keener’s face to a distant owl, screeching from the trees. Realizing that she was just two steps away from being tossed off the balcony like a sack of garbage, she took a huge breath, then did what they’d taught her to do way back in the fifth grade when they’d had self-defense in gym class. Pointing her toe like a majorette, she aimed, then kicked Coach Keener between his legs as hard as she could. Never had she dreamed of doing such a thing, but she felt a rush of triumph when she felt her foot plunge deep into something soft. As he cried out in pain, she turned and ran. Across the deck and back into the house, back where the classical music mocked her terror with its lush civility.

  She fled to the kitchen, desperate to find a phone, but the room was not like her mother’s—its high-tech counters held nothing but knives and stainless steel cooking utensils. Frantic, she looked back toward the deck. Coach Keener was doubled over, but he’d recovered enough to start limping after her, his mouth twisted in rage. Forgetting about the phone, she tore down the hall to the front door. She had to get away. If she could just get into the trees before he caught her, she could hide until she figured out what to do next.

  “Avis?” she heard him call as she grasped the front doorknob. “Where’d you go, honey? Why did you run away?”

  She tugged at the door, but it was locked. Her heart pounding, she fumbled with the deadbolt and tried the knob again. It turned, but now the door stuck, as if swollen. She put one foot against the jamb and tugged as hard as she could. With a great grinding noise, the door finally budged, admitting an amazingly cold blast of outside air. Whimpering, she fled into the darkness, running along a short paved walkway and into the tall pines that surrounded the house. She fought her way through sticky, fragrant needles that scratched her face as she ran, and she didn’t stop until she came to a small clearing that allowed a view of Coach Keener’s front door. Peeking between the rung-like branches of the trees, she tried to gulp in air silently and still keep watch on what he was doing. No floodlights came on, no doors slammed, no one came out at all. Just as she began to wonder if she’d truly injured him, she saw a figure in the doorway. Coach Keener walked out of the house. He’d changed from his softball clothes into black pants and a black shirt, and he carried a rifle in his arms. There were some funny-looking goggles over his eyes. At that moment she realized in terror that wherever she ran, wherever she tried to hide, Coach Keener intended to find her.