by Mary Leo
As he thrust himself into my anus, I tried to squirm away from the pain, but his strong hands were holding me down, forcing me to remain still while he pushed his now firm penis inside me. I could no longer breathe or move my body from under his weight. I struggled for air, for freedom but the noose just kept getting tighter and tighter as he moved up and down, up and down.
Finally, I let it all go, and when I did, my body released me from its agony. I found myself drifting above the room, above the world. Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere safe, away from the horror.
I drifted into Bob’s love.
Chapter Thirty-five
July 14, 1966
“I’m tired. Let’s go to bed,” Lisa said as she slipped off the swing. We had walked back to Luella Park, through the alley behind the townhouses—our new short-cut. “I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.”
“Me either,” Sharon said, yawning.
The three of us finally gave into fatigue sometime around one-thirty. I wasn’t very upset about not meeting up with Wolf, because if the letter wasn’t from Ringo I didn’t want to know. For a while, at least, I wanted to hold onto my dreams.
When we got to my house we quietly slipped in through the open front door. My parents rarely ever locked it and if they did, it was by accident.
• • •
The phone rang around 6:15 the next morning. I knew because that’s what time my clock said when I knocked it over and it hit Sharon right in the head. She was asleep on the floor on a pile of blankets, next to my bed. I thought the ringing was my alarm and I wanted to stop it before it woke up the whole house. I could hear my dad mumble something and then say something else to my mom. He ran out of the house about ten minutes later. Then, a few minutes after he left I could hear sirens. The noise woke us.
“What’s going on?” Sharon asked, all sleepy-eyed, rubbing the side of her head. I didn’t want to tell her about my alarm clock.
“I don’t know,” I answered and looked out of the window next to my bed. It faced the street. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear another siren. This one came from the police car that passed right by my window.
Lisa opened her eyes, looked around, grabbed another pillow and wrapped it around her head as she plopped back down on the bed next to me.
I slipped out of bed, climbed over Sharon, who had put her own pillow over her head, and walked out of the bedroom to find my mom. When I got to her room, she was gone. I called out for her, but she wasn’t anywhere in the house.
In the meantime, I could hear voices coming from the sidewalk out front, and people running past our door.
Sharon, wrapped in a blanket, came out of the bedroom, “What’s going on out there? Where’s your mom? Did she leave for work? I thought she only worked in the afternoons.”
“She’s not here. I’m going to get dressed,” I told her and went back to my room.
Lisa never moved an inch while I hurried to get dressed. The noise outside kept getting louder as more and more people came out of their houses and rushed down the street. I sat on the bed to put on my shoes, thinking Lisa would wake up and want to join me, but she never budged.
I ran past Sharon, who apparently had fallen back to sleep on the couch and I joined the rest of my neighborhood as we raced to the corner.
Once there, it was hard to get through the crush of people. The police were trying their best to keep the crowd under control, but no one was listening.
There was something wrong at one of the townhouses. The end one: 2319. Policemen were going in and out of the front door. My dad was one of them.
A man sat on a curb, with tears in his eyes, talking to the woman who squatted next to him. He pointed to the townhouse and said, “That’s where she was. Up there on that ledge, screaming ‘they’re all dead in the sampan. All dead in the sampan. My friends are all dead.’ I’ll never forget it. Never.”
He was pointing to the second-floor window where the screen had been bent back, the window open with a white curtain hanging out. A small ledge protruded from under the window. I wondered why anyone would want to stand up there?
More sirens.
This time it was the fire department. But there didn’t seem to be any fire.
As I squeezed my way through the crowd, I heard someone say, “They’re all dead in there. Mutilated. Blood everywhere.”
I somehow felt as if I were dreaming. The people. The sirens. My legs became heavy as I walked closer and closer to the townhouse. There were other kids out there. Younger kids. Kids I’d seen in the neighborhood were now sneaking through the mob of adults. Trying to see. But to see what? Who was dead?
I looked around for my dad. I knew he had to be there. I had seen him only a moment ago, but I couldn’t find him. There were so many blue uniforms that everybody looked the same.
“Stabbed in the neck,” a tall man with glasses said.
“Spread-eagle on the floor. Naked,” a woman, still wearing her apron, yelled. “Strangled with their own silk stockings.”
“Some kind of sex maniac got ‘em,” someone behind me mumbled. “Butchered, like pigs.”
I couldn’t grasp all that they were saying. I tried to push some of them out of my way, trying to find my father, my mother. All at once, I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be back in my house with Sharon and Lisa. But I pushed on anyway.
“Watch where you’re stepping,” an old man said. His hands all twisted with arthritis. He went to touch me and I squirmed away.
Some people in the crowd took pictures and asked questions. They must have been reporters because they were all dressed up and wore plastic name tags. I’d never seen a real reporter before. Not in person, anyway. I guess they looked normal enough. But they were very pushy, screaming out their questions.
A helicopter circled overhead.
Finally, I was out in the open standing next to a small sidewalk which led up to the front door of the townhouse. A policeman kept telling everyone to move back. Everyone tried to oblige without giving up our spot.
Some time went by while we all waited outside. A lot of people came in and out of the townhouse. More rumors about what went on in there spread through the crowd. “Pajamas ripped off.”
“Pulled off her sanitary pad and shoved it—”
“Stabbed in the eye.”
“In the back.”
“In the stomach.”
“In the heart.”
“Chopped off her breast.”
“I think those girls invited whoever did it, in. They must have known him. I heard they were wild.”
“Stacked up, like cordwood.”
And still no sign of my dad.
Then, the police started bringing in wooden-handled stretchers. Not five minutes after one went in, two policemen carried somebody out on a stretcher, loosely covered in a white sheet. The crowd went quiet. No one said a word as the first stretcher passed about a foot in front of me. The sheet, so sheer that I could almost make out a face. I wanted to run, but I stayed.
Three kids stood next to me, the youngest about six, the other two somewhere around nine and ten. The boy was probably the oldest and in charge of the two girls. He stood with his hands on his hips as the stretcher passed. Staring down at it. Looking. Watching. Waiting. The kids had been planted there by their parents almost as if they were waiting for a parade to pass by and the parents had pushed the kids up front so they could get a better look. I guess it was a parade of sorts. A parade of the dead.
One by one, body after body was carried out of that townhouse. Some with blood-stained-sheets or blankets. Those were the worst. I heard one woman say something about why couldn’t the police have covered that up? Why did we have to see it? I thought I would ask my dad that question whenever I saw him.
The police set the stretchers down on the ground beside the curb. All in a row. All seven of the them.
Somebody said, “Here comes another one.”
I looked up the walkway as stretcher number
eight was being carried out. It looked like all the others. Perhaps a little more blood on the top of the gray blanket. As the body passed before me, I noticed that it wasn’t covered very well. Something was hanging out on my side of the stretcher. One of the little girls standing next to me actually reached for it, gently poking at it with her finger. “Look,” she said. I did, just as another policeman, walking alongside the stretcher, gently moved the little girl away and covered the exposed flesh with the blanket.
But I had seen it. A girl’s hand. Fingers curled. Nails chipped and broken. Dried blood splashed across her wrist and palm. She wore pink nail polish and a diamond ring. A diamond ring that I recognized. That I yearned for just two days before in a hot little apartment, where a group of young women made plans for a wedding and to go to the beach, Rainbow Beach, because we would be safe there.
Panic swept over me. I had trouble breathing. Trouble thinking. My stomach pitched as I turned and pressed through the crowd. Everything started spinning. Voices seemed louder. People seemed meaner. I pushed and shoved everyone out of my way. I kept hearing someone call out my name. I didn’t look up. Wouldn’t look up. Someone grabbed my arm and called to me. I couldn’t understand. I tried to pull away, but it was my mother. Her face was red. Her eyes, swollen. I leaped into her arms. She held me tight while I sobbed on her chest. “It can’t be true,” I mumbled over and over. “It just can’t be.”
Mom stroked my hair and said, “Let’s go home, baby.”
Chapter Thirty-six
September, 1987
“I heard you play the piano,” I tell guard Henrietta just as she picks up her magic wand to run it along my body. The alarm goes off like it always does from my underwire bra. “I wanted to give you a little gift before we left for putting up with us for the past couple weeks. I have an aunt who used to play the organ at the Chicago Theater during the silent film days. I thought you might be interested in this.” I hand her the sheet music. She puts the wand down on the table. The alarm stops. Her whole face lights up.
“I love silent movies. My gawd, look at this! You say she used to play at the Chicago Theater? I love that old theater. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine too. She was there from 1913 to sometime in the late twenties when talkies came in—every Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoons. Got her family through the Depression.”
“Look at this. Tillie’s Punctured Romance.” Henrietta beams as she opens the yellowed booklet. “Oh, I know this movie. Charlie Chaplin and Marie Dressler from 1914. There’s a small theater on the North Side that shows silent movies every Tuesday night and I must have seen this old flick five or six times. Of course, the music is part of the movie now, but this is the original sheet music!” She carefully turns the pages. “Gawd. This is incredible. But I couldn’t accept this. It’s too much.”
“I want you to have it. My aunt gave me so much of this stuff that it just collects dust.”
“Oh no…I could never…this must be worth…I couldn’t.”
“Please, take it. Really, I know my aunt would want you to have it. She was a sweet, giving woman. Please.”
Henrietta smiles from ear to ear and lets me walk right through with a nod and a wink and not one grope.
As easy as that.
“Let me call Vivian up to escort you through,” she says as I head out the back of the Visitor’s Center.
“That’s all right, I’ll be fine,” I tell her, anxious to get away from her.
“No, it’ll just take a minute.”
I walk away. She calls after me, but I don’t turn around. Can’t stop. Heart pounding. Hands clammy. Have to move fast. Have to find Speck. No time for Vivian or anybody else. Need to stay on course. I walk through the tunnel. Follow the yellow line, the yellow brick road. Need to find the Wizard. Speck’s playing the Wizard today. The evil Wizard and I have a present for him. A trip to the Emerald City. A one-way ticket. Only this city’s not green. It’s red. Bright red.
The noise from the inmates helps guide me to my target, F-house. Need to get to F-house. He’s got to be there. Watching. Waiting. He loves to stand around and joke with his buddies. His lovers. He’s got to be there now. Maybe he knows I’m coming for him. Maybe one of my nurses whispered into his ear. Told him to wait for me.
I’m almost there now. Got through the first gate without a problem, without an escort. Behind the wall. Two more gates. Walk. Just walk fast. Don’t hesitate. Walk. Faster. Move. Hips carrying me to my destiny. To Wolf.
I get through the second gate. Same easy access. No problems from the guard. Walk like you belong. Like you know where you’re going. It always works. No reason it shouldn’t work this time. Just like McCormick Place. Just like when I was a kid.
I walk faster now. Getting closer. Then I spot him, Richard Franklin Speck, just like when I was a kid. Walking in front of me. Only this time, I’m the stalker, not him. I’m the one he should be afraid of.
He slowly pushes his cart. Free to fuck-off. Free to fuck whenever he pleases, “life goes on…as long as I’m having fun.”
Not any more. Your executioner has arrived. “Speck,” I yell out. “Richard Speck.”
He stops. Turns. Smiles. Trusting, like his victims must have been.
Footsteps behind me. Someone ordering me to stop. I can’t stop. Not now. Not until it’s over. May have to pull out my gun and warn whoever it is not to try and stop me. Don’t have enough bullets. Should have bought the Beretta.
“Carly, stop.” It’s the Captain’s voice.
Speck turns away and moves through the last gate. Waiting on the other side. Watching it slowly close with a guard by his side. Watching me. Smiling. Laughing. I keep walking toward him, faster now. Ignoring the Captain’s order.
He yells at me again. He’s running. Suddenly, I’m running. Have to catch Speck. Have to catch Wolf. “Hold that gate,” I yell as I reach for my gun.
Vivian. I bump right into Vivian. “Oh my gosh,” she says. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I readjust the weapon between my breasts. “Just have to get to the set before the director leaves. Need to tell him something. It’s important.” Agitated, I try to move her out of my way. She doesn’t budge.
“But you know you can’t come through here unescorted. You know that,” she says. “I don’t know how you got this far.” She takes a closer look at my face. “Oh, dear. What happened to—?”
The gate closes and Speck walks away down the tunnel, giving me one last smarmy look.
“Everybody’s gone. Left this morning,” Captain Bob says, interrupting Vivian’s question. “Only a few people back there now. Let me bring you back out.”
Just the sound of Bob’s voice is enough to generate more anger in me. More determination to get this done. Part of me would like to put the first bullet through him, but I can’t get his kids out of my head. Couldn’t do that to his kids. His wife. Too much love going on there.
Have to think fast. “I left some of my paperwork on the table. It’s important.” I start to walk away. The Captain gets in front of me. “Can’t let you do that.”
“Let me go. I have to go and look.”
He pushes me back. Vivian steps in between us. “Now, now,” she says. “Let’s not get all excited here. I can bring you back there so you can look around. It’s no trouble.”
The Captain interrupts, “Can’t let you do that, Vivian. She needs to leave. You can send her anything she’s left behind. Those are my orders. Movie making is over.”
“Well, she looks upset. At least let me take her to my office to calm down. Poor thing.” Vivian puts her arm around my shoulder and leads me out a side doorway into the open courtyard. I struggle against her touch. She grips harder. The Captain follows us all the way to her office and stands outside the door after we go in.
“Why don’t you lie down while I make us some nice hot tea,” she says in that high-pitched voice she gets when she’s trying to mother me. I can’t stand
it, or her. I want to scream. I need to get out of here. Need to do what I came for.
My breathing is messed up. Can’t get enough air. Feeling trapped. I open one of her windows to get some air and look up at the sky.
Vivian puts the tea cups down too hard on her desk. “Stop pacing and sit down,” she orders. Her voice firm now, like some stressed-out teacher trying to control her classroom.
I follow her orders.
She sits down next to me on the sofa. “Take some slow, deep breaths,” she says.
I do, closing my eyes. The tension starts to leave.
“Now,” she says as sweet as ever, “you want to tell me about the gun between your breasts or do I call the Captain in?”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Vivian’s words cut through me, catching me off guard. This kook of a woman has discovered my secret. But how? I try to stand. She holds me down with tremendous strength while looking me straight in the eyes. Those eyes. Her eyes. Soft. Kind. Always seeing the rosy side of life. How did she know?
“Let me go, Vivian. This doesn’t concern you,” I say firmly, so that even with her ditzy brain she can understand me.
“But it does concern me. I like you, Carly. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I repeat, “Let me go, Vivian.”
“Not until you give me the gun. Whoever you want to harm can be handled by the law. You don’t want to end up in a place like this, a murderer, confined to hell. You’re a beautiful, talented woman. Now please.” She holds out her hand confident that I’m going to give it over. Yeah. Sure. Just like that.
“You stupid, silly woman. What do you know about anything? Working in here with all these monsters—the entertainment director. What the hell kind of title is that? Like murderers deserve to be entertained. You’re a nut-case. They’d rape you then slit your throat if it wasn’t for all the guards protecting you. They should be put to death, not entertained.”
