What Happened to Cass McBride?

by Gail Giles

  She clamped her mouth shut. I didn't think I'd ever see it. Mom alive and not talking. David and I were certain she even talked in her sleep. I pushed the tip of the knife a little harder so it pierced the skin just under her chin and a dot of blood appeared.

  “So you can bleed? I wasn't sure you were human. You know what I just figured out, Mom? You murdered David.” She opened her mouth and I pushed the knife harder; the spot turned into a trickle. She gulped out a little scream of pain. Tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Yes, you talked him to death. You ranted and screamed and bullied him until he had no hope left. And you know what? Dad let you. And even worse, I let you. You killed him and we watched. You tore hunks out of him day after day until there was nothing left.”

  She sagged, so I cranked her arm around behind her and pulled up, putting the knife across her throat. “And why? Not because you hated him. Because you're a mean, horrible woman and you don't know how to do anything. You don't even know how to be decent.”

  I stopped a minute as a phrase floated into my head. “You chop other people up so you can feel whole.”

  I shoved her back with my shoulder. “Now we're going outside. And the whole world is going to see what a rotten piece of shit you are.”

  I tried to force her down the stairs. She was screaming and fighting me. She kicked me and jerked back and went tumbling down the steps.

  “That's when you guys came in.”

  I dropped my head. Chin to chest. Exhausted. “I don't know what else you want me to say. But I want a trial. I want it all real public. You cheated me out of hanging my mother out for people to see, but I still want it to happen.

  “I'm done talking. Until the trial.”

  CASS

  Is he coming back?

  He has to come back.

  My only way out is through him.

  He has to let me out of here.

  Kyle, he's the only one…

  Kyle has to…

  Kyle…

  I can't get out if Kyle doesn't…

  I can't if Kyle doesn't…

  BEN

  Ben pulled into the Kirby driveway. His headlights flooded the front of the house. He pointed to the front door. Not ajar. Wide open. Almost midnight; the only light on was upstairs and the door was wide open. Not good.

  Ben picked up the radio and called for backup, turned off the car, and glanced at Scott.

  Scott nodded and unholstered his weapon. A .357. The young ones always carried a cannon.

  Ben motioned Scott to the back and approached the open door from the side.

  Standing between the door and a window, Ben eased over to check the front room. Nothing. Where was backup?

  A scream sounded from the house. Ben braced his gun hand and stuck his Glock around the door-jamb to draw fire.

  None.

  “No!” A thud. More screaming. More thuds. Like someone falling down the stairs.

  Ben stepped into the house, gun up and braced; he heard the back door open. Scott.

  “One more scream and I'll slit your throat.” Male voice. Young.

  Ben sidestepped down the entry hall. The hall turned and opened out to the stairs.

  A young man stood over Mrs. Kirby, who lay in a tangled heap at the foot of the stairs. Her body was stiff but her eyes were wild with terror. The young man held a large kitchen knife to her throat. A nylon rope was on the floor beside her.

  “Police. Drop your weapon.”

  The young man looked up, his eyes glazed with fatigue, and blind rage and disgust.

  “Don't stop me. You can shoot me after if you want to. But don't stop me. I have to do this. I have to.”

  “Drop your weapon, son,” Ben said.

  “I don't want to just slit her throat. Don't make me do that. It's not enough.”

  “Calm down,” Ben said. He wanted the boy to look at him. He needed him to turn his head a little. Scott should be coming in from the back, easing through the kitchen.

  “Let's see what's happening here,” Ben said.

  The kid looked at him. “Go away. Either shoot me or get out.”

  Scott moved in. Ben shifted. The kid shifted with him. Holding his mother's hair in one hand, her head tipped back, the knife resting across the jugular, he kept his eyes on Ben's gun.

  “I don't like those options.” Ben shifted again, pulling the young man around, his back more to Scott. “I've met Mrs. Kirby. I'm thinking you're Kyle. You look a lot like your mother. I'm guessing you don't want to hear that right now, though.

  “She's not worth the trouble you're going to put yourself in. Drop your weapon and let's work something out.” He shifted again.

  And quicker than a snake strike, Scott's foot was under Kyle's elbow, kicking up and out, the knife flying toward the wall. Ben's gun was against Kyle's temple.

  “Let go of your mother's hair.”

  Kyle released his mother. She scrambled to her feet, almost spitting. “What the fuck do you—” Before she could kick her son, Scott grabbed Mrs. Kirby. Roger and Tyrell pounded in.

  Ben cuffed Kyle and pulled him to a sitting position. “Put her somewhere. Take a statement. Take her to the hospital if she needs it. But keep her away from here,” Ben said.

  He turned back to Kyle, did a full Miranda, and then squatted down to get eye to eye.

  “You're in a world of trouble.”

  “Why did you come here?” Kyle asked. “You were here before she screamed. The neighbors couldn't have called.”

  “I think you have something to do with Cass McBride's disappearance.”

  The kid dropped his head. Ben was amazed. There was no show of anger or defiance or even a try at innocence.

  “Yeah, I took her,” Kyle said.

  “What did you do with her?” Ben asked.

  “I buried her. When I left her she was alive. But I doubt she is now.”

  CASS

  How much time?

  Have I been asleep?

  My tongue is thicker than before.

  It's so hard to breathe.

  But the pounding

  in my head…

  is not so loud

  anymore.

  And

  the whirling lights are

  getting

  dimmer.

  BEN

  It took fifteen minutes of tire-squealing, limit-busting driving to reach the greenhouse. But the kid's directions were precise. An ambulance and a van with shovels and people to use them were on the way.

  Ben was out of the car before it was completely still. It was dark, but he had aimed the headlights at the door. He found the switch, and row upon row of fluorescent or grow lights buzzed into life.

  “There!” Scott shouted, pointing at a rectangle of disturbed dirt.

  Grave-sized.

  Scott whirled around, caught sight of a small hand spade. He grabbed it and began digging at the loose earth. Ben saw a shovel leaning against the back wall, but heard the van roar up. He waved the shovel—carrying cops into the greenhouse. They headed to Scott and dug. Hard and efficient.

  Ben found what appeared to be a vacuum cleaner hose protruding from the disturbed earth. He knelt down and picked it up. Snapped off the filter cap. “Cass, can you hear me?”

  “Cass?”

  Scott got out of the way of the big shovels. He gave Ben a questioning look. He turned and went to the other end of the grave. Another hose stuck out. It was duct-taped to a big funnel. Taped into the funnel was a computer fan, which was hooked to a part of a computer box, and the whole thing was hooked to a long string of extension cords that ran to an electrical receptacle.

  “Damn! Clever, simple, easy to make, easy to get parts, quiet, and gets the job done.” Scott waved at Ben and pointed to the device. “It won't move a lot of air, there's got to be some carbon dioxide buildup, but she's got a chance, right?”

  “I can't hear anything,” Ben said. “Cass, Cass, wake up. Come on, Cass. I'm Ben Gray and I'm here to help you. A lot
of people are here to help you. We're going to get you out of there. But I want you to say something. Talk to me. Okay. Try to say something, Cass. People say you're the girl that gets things done. So, say something, Cass.”

  One of the paramedics leaned in to Ben. He spoke quickly, pointing to a clear tube he was holding and then to the one Ben had.

  “Got it,” Ben said.

  He returned to the air tube. “Cass, the paramedic is going to run an oxygen tube down this one, so I won't be talking to you for a minute and a clear tube will poke out at you in just a few seconds. Then we'll pump some oxygen down. It's going to perk you up a little. Just breathe deep when it comes in. Then talk to me, Cass. Please. Say something.”

  Ben handed the tube to the waiting paramedic.

  “Tube's in.” He passed the tube back to Ben and whirled his finger in the air. “Okay, oxygen's pumping. Nobody smokes in here.”

  “Cass?”

  Ben rubbed his head. “Can't you guys dig faster?”

  “Why didn't we get the walkie from the kid?” Scott said.

  “It's in the front seat of his truck. Still at his house,” Ben said. He put the tube up to his ear. “I think I hear her breathing.”

  “That's the oxygen, Detective,” the paramedic said. At Ben's bitter glance, he looked away and muttered, “Sorry.”

  “Cass, we've got him. Kyle can't hurt you again, so don't be afraid. Tell me you're alive, Cass. Talk to me. C'mon, Cass. Be the girl that wins.”

  “We're here. There's a tarp over the box.”

  “Get that off,” Ben barked.

  Scott dropped to his stomach and grabbed the tarp, pulling it back with him.

  Crowbars replaced shovels and the box lid was levered up.

  Ben looked in.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  CASS

  I'm back in a dark, narrow space with a square button under my thumb. Talking. Finding the words for my story. I do this every night.

  I know I'm not still in the box. After all the lights went dim, I woke up and was in the hospital.

  The hospital spooked me—so loud and busy and glaring. Sensory overload. I pulled blankets over my head. If anyone pulled them away, I shook and whimpered until someone took pity and returned the blankets.

  I think I slept a lot. Tranquilizers? Don't know. Don't care. Sleep was good. Dark, restful, and quiet. I woke once and Dad was holding my right hand. The one that had held the radio. My left hand was in bandages that looked like a boxing glove. My feet looked the same way.

  He seemed to sense my eyes open, or he was watching. But he looked straight at me and started crying. I closed my eyes again and went back to sleep, but I don't think he let go.

  Later, I woke up because I felt something move the bed. Weight near me. I woke up a little more fully and saw my mother. This time it was me that started crying. She pulled me into her arms and I nuzzled my face into her neck like I used to do when I was a little kid. She stroked my hair and said, “I hear you. I hear you, Bebe. You don't have to say a word.”

  Do unspoken words speak loudest? Say the most?

  A big man came to see me and said he had been the lead detective on my case. He said I talked my way out of that grave. That might be true. But he's ignoring something.

  I talked my way into it.

  When I realized that, I decided to start listening.

  So I've stopped talking to people. It's not that I can't talk. I think that I don't know when I should talk and when I shouldn't.

  Sometime later, I was transferred to the psych unit. I like it here. Safe and quiet. My doctor says that I did die in that grave. A person doesn't really live through something like that. A new person is born and steps out.

  My fingers and toes aren't in bandages anymore. They told me I had skin grafts because they were shredded to the bone. My fingertips are all patchy and funky-looking.

  But how did I heal so quickly? Nothing is making sense. What people say, things, time; it's still all mixed up.

  For instance, Mom was here today. She told me that Dad bought her a house so she can stay here with me. Bought the furniture, but let her pick it all out herself. That's as reasonable as me saying I'll go home with Mom and live in the swamp and sling crawfish and take in foster children and never be a bitch. Get serious. Dad might buy her a house to stay near me after all this mess, but he'd never, ever let her pick out the furniture. So that other stuff is probably wrong too.

  My mother has brought Christmas trees here. Little ones, all decorated, to “cheer up my room for the season,” she says. And presents. And she and Dad have both brought birthday presents. And cakes. More than once.

  Why all that in just a few months? Are they just trying to make me think time has passed so I'll get better sooner?

  I don't care how many cakes or Christmas trees come in here. I know it's only been a few months because I haven't been called to testify at the trial.

  Kyle's.

  Detective Gray came back to tell me that if I was afraid of Kyle, I didn't have to be. Kyle was in prison. He wasn't even in general population, but in a special section. He has a cell to himself. Kyle spends all his time with law books, trying to find a way to put his mother in jail for being responsible for David's murder.

  The shrink wonders if I have some sort of Stockholm syndrome. You know, like I bonded or fell in love with Kyle. That's not this movie. I get it that Kyle lived with a monster, but he had choices, and someone that buries a human being alive should be locked up forever.

  And that's where the time thing goes all—wrong. I know Kyle can't be in prison yet. I know there hasn't been a trial. The only way out of that box was through Kyle. And the only way to get Kyle in prison was through me. I had to put him there. I had to go to that trial and testify. Tell the story. How could anyone know what happened if I didn't tell them? He put me in my box, and I have to be the one to put him in his.

  At night I crawl into the narrow metal locker in my room with a tape recorder held in my right hand. I punch the button with my thumb and I tell the story. I start from the beginning when David asked me out to the end where I'm making the tape. Here in the dark where there's no place to hide from myself. And then I listen.

  And then I erase.

  And when the words make sense and all the blame is where it belongs, I'll be ready to talk in the light.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As ever to my wonderful agent, Scott Treimel, for taking such good care of me. To Andrea Spooner, my editor, who gave me a shovel, taught me to dig and did it so graciously. To Sangeeta Mehta, the assistant editor that kept us both sane. Deb Vanasse, thanks for the early read and catching the big inconsistency. Pam Whitlock for listening to me read this thing over and over when she should have been resting.

  And to the memory of my most steadfast writing companion, Jack London, my Great Pyrenees, who sat by my feet through every revision of every book I've had published right through this one. Yes, I'm aware he was a dog, but he was my muse and my companion, and he wouldn't let me out of my chair until I was finished. I miss him.

  And to Little, Brown—thanks for having me.

  GAIL GILES might not be claustrophobic, but she was inspired to write What Happened to Cass McBride when she was snowbound at home in Alaska. “I was entombed,” she remembers, “and I felt like I was buried alive. And then I knew I had to write about what that experience might be like.” Gail is also the acclaimed author of Playing in Traffic, Dead Girls Don't Write Letters, and Shattering Glass (an American Library Association Best of the Best selection). She now lives in The Woodlands, Texas, with her husband, her cat, and two dogs. She blogs at notjazz.livejournal.com.

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  Reader's Guide: what Happened to cass McBride?

  1) At first glance, the title What Happened to Cass McBride? seems to refer to Cass's disappearance, meaning, “Where is Cass McBride?” But the title may have other implications as well. For example, what happened to Cass emotionally a) after she learned of David's suicide, b) after she realized she had been buried alive, c) when she found a way to get through to Kyle, and d) when she awoke in the hospital? Perhaps the tide asks, “How did this experience change Cass as a person?” How do you think some of the characters (such as Kyle, Cass's dad, and her friend Erica) might answer this question?

  2) Ben describes the McBride home as “a place of barely beige and white, chrome and glass. Cold. Nothing could feel at home here but ghosts.” Do you think Cass felt at home there? How do you think the pale colors of Cass's room and clothes might be a reflection of her character? When she recovers, do you think Cass will still dress in white? How do you think she might redecorate her room?