A History of Murder

by Lynn Bohart

  I tried to suck up some snot. “I’m crying, Emily, because your brother is going to kill us.”

  “I know,” she said simply, stepping closer.

  “Emily, I’m surprised you’d want to hurt us.” I was hoping to play on her sympathies.

  “Oh, I don’t, Julia. But I have to do what Mansfield wants. If I don’t, he…he…”

  “He hurts you, doesn’t he?”

  She dropped her head in shame. “I have to do what he says. I’m sorry, Julia. I thought he was going to have you play the game, like he’s done before.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Usually, he gives the women a chance to get away. They never do, but at least he gives them a chance.”

  Once more, my stomach clenched. “What do you mean? What…women?”

  Emily seemed like a little girl, completely unaware of the magnitude of the situation. She chewed on a cuticle and swayed back and forth. Then I remembered what Mansfield had said about cutting her medication.

  “Oh, there’s been a bunch of them,” she said. “He picks them out. They always look like Rose. He loved Rose, you know. He didn’t mean to kill her. He was very sorry about that, but she rejected him. I think he kind of liked it, though. Killing her, I mean. He used to kill birds and squirrels all the time around the house. That’s why I didn’t like to play with him. That and…”

  She stopped and turned her head to the side as if listening to someone. I kept quiet, mainly because I felt like screaming. I took a deep breath to quell the tornado inside my head.

  “What happens with these other women?” I finally asked, bringing her attention back to me.

  “I help bring them here. I’m the decoy; that’s my part in the game. Sometimes I just catch them in conversation, and then he drugs them. But the last girl was at a restaurant with a friend. After the friend left, Mansfield had me get her to drive me to Kirkland. I told her my car had died. She never suspected anything. She was really nice.”

  Oh my God, I thought. She was talking about Melody Reamer, the girl who had floated up on the shores of Mercer Island.

  “And then he plays with them,” she said, finishing her thought.

  “He plays with them?”

  Her eyes drifted over to the counter against the far wall. I followed her gaze this time, noticing the glint of metal. The counter was littered with small tools of some kind, and I swallowed a ball of spit.

  Oh my God!

  “He never plays fair, though.” she said sadly. “Even when we were kids. There are rules to the games, but he always changes the rules so that only he wins.”

  “But, Emily, these girls were innocent. How could you help? Why didn’t you ever call the police?”

  She looked over at me, her eyes round with fear. “You don’t understand. He…he…” She stopped speaking and began to hyperventilate. Finally, she pulled up the sleeve of her left arm. Her skin was covered in bruises and scars from old cuts.

  “Oh my God.”

  She sucked up a gulp of air and stared at me. “I have to play the game, don’t you see?” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Actually, he’s a monster,” she whispered. “Worse than my father ever was.”

  A cold chill rolled over me. This poor woman had endured more than just her own mental illness. The men in her life had taken advantage of it and put her through hell.

  She had begun to bite her nails again, and I noticed that her cuticles were now bleeding. A drop of blood fell to the floor, only to blend in with what looked like several other blotches of dried blood.

  I took a deep breath. I had to say something. I had to get her to help us. Somewhere in that distorted brain of hers was a decent person.

  “Mansfield cheats, doesn’t he? But you don’t, do you? You play fair.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Yes. I always play fair.”

  “I know you do. So maybe you could play fair with us tonight.”

  She blinked several times. “No. Mansfield will…will…no, I can’t.”

  “But Emily, he’s not here. He must trust you. He left you in charge, didn’t he?”

  She smiled weakly. “Yes. He did, didn’t he? You know, I had a riddle all worked out for you, Julia,” she said proudly. “I was sure you could figure it out, because it had to do with the Wizard of Oz.”

  My breath was irregular, and I thought I heard a buzzing in my ears. I glanced at Doe. Her eyes were half open now and she seemed to be trying to focus her gaze on me.

  “What…what were the clues?” I asked, trying to keep Emily talking.

  “I was going to give you two clues from the Wizard of Oz. If it’s really your favorite movie, then you would know the answers.”

  “Tell me the clues, Emily. I’ll play fair, I promise.”

  She perked up. “You’re smart, Julia. You might just get away.” She whirled around to a shelf behind her and grabbed something. It was a giant toy hour-glass, just like the kind from the movie. I hadn’t noticed it in the shadows.

  “I’ve had this since I was a little girl,” she said, putting it on a rickety table. “It’s not a real one, like in the movie. This one takes a little less than an hour to run out.”

  My head was reeling. She wanted us to reenact the Wizard of Oz scene, when Dorothy is imprisoned by the Wicked Witch of the West. And I was going to play the part of Dorothy. Under normal circumstances, I’d have been thrilled. But now…

  “So you’ll have about fifty-five minutes,” she said with apology.

  “To do what?” I asked weakly.

  “Get away, silly. I’ll be watching.” She gestured to the corner of the ceiling. A camera was focused right on the center of the room. “But I won’t interrupt you until the hour glass has run out. That’s the deal. But then, I’m afraid I’ll have to come back,” she said. She awkwardly pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, smearing a streak of blood along her cheek in the process.

  “Okay,” I agreed. I’d do anything. “What are the clues?”

  Real joy lit up her face. “Well the first one is…how did the Tin Man help the Wizard escape?”

  “What?” I snapped. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  She giggled like a little girl. “Yes, it does. Just think, Julia. You’ll get it.”

  “What’s the second clue?” I said with some impatience.

  “You can escape the same way the Wicked Witch of the West arrived to meet Dorothy. There you go.” She grabbed the hourglass to flip it over. “I’m counting on you, Julia.”

  “Wait! Emily, I’m still tied up. I can’t go anywhere even if I guess the clues. That isn’t fair, is it?”

  She paused a moment. Clearly, cutting me loose posed a risk. But logic won the day.

  “No, that wouldn’t be fair.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small knife. Why she had a knife in her pocket gave me the creeps, but I was hardly in a position to worry about it at that point. With practiced ease, she cut my ties and then stood back. “I doubt you’ll be able to take your friend with you,” she said pointing to Doe. “The drug lasts a long time in their systems.”

  “But your brother said the elevator is the only way out of here.”

  She smiled indulgently. “I’ve already told you, Julia. My brother lies. He lies all the time. There’s one other way, but you’ll need to find it. That’s the game,” she said with a creepy smile. “You asked if we used to play games in the barn, and we did. I just never won.” Her smile faded, and she dropped her chin.

  I glanced around the room. There were four walls. No doors.

  “How the heck am I supposed to find the second way out?”

  “Think of the clues, Julia. The clues.” She gave me a nod and then held up the hour-glass.

  “Emily, wait! I have to know one thing. Did you kill Marigold?”

  Her facial muscles froze, and her eyes filled with tears. “Yes. But it was an accident. Really, it was.”

  “What do you mean an accident?
”

  Her shoulders drooped. “I was taking care of her, and she started to cry. I couldn’t get her to stop. So I carried her around the room. But I knocked over the candle, and it set the rug on fire. When I tried to put out the fire, I stumbled over the candlestick and dropped her.” She sucked up a sob and wiped her nose. “Her head landed on the candlestick base.” Her eyes pleaded with me. “My father hated her because she was different. He wouldn’t even look at her. But I loved Marigold, Julia. She was the sweetest baby. I would have never hurt her on purpose. You have to believe me.”

  Her pain was palpable. “I do. I do believe you, Emily. But why did you hide her? Why didn’t you just tell your parents what happened?”

  “You didn’t know my father. I was scared,” she said. “My father always said I was an imbecile. He beat me when I couldn’t do something just the way he wanted. So I lied. I told my parents that someone must have come into the attic and taken her when I was in the house using the restroom. But they didn’t believe me, and my father sent me away a short time later.”

  “I’m sorry, Emily.”

  She wiped her nose. “I hope you get away, Julia.” Then she flipped over the hour-glass. “I have to go. Mansfield will be back soon. I’ll have to turn off the elevator again, so you’ll have to solve the clues to get out of here. Good luck.” She turned and disappeared down the hallway toward the elevator. A moment later, I heard the whir of the engine again, and she was gone.

  I turned to Doe, whose eyes were still only half open. “Doe! You need to wake up.” I ran over and pulled the syringe out of her arm. I shook her. “Doe, wake up.”

  “I’m awake,” she mumbled. “Sort of.” She glanced around. “Where are we?”

  “We’ve been abducted. We’re at Emily Foster’s.”

  “What?”

  My gaze swept the room, taking in stacks of boxes, broken furniture, an old exercise bike, and a bunch of PVC pipe stacked in the corner. The floor was covered in broken, stained linoleum tiles. There was a drain in the middle of the floor, with an old hospital gurney above it. The gurney gave me pause, but I had to ignore it.

  I looked past the gurney to the far wall, where a set of floor-to-ceiling shelves stood. The shelves were filled with a variety of jars containing different kinds of liquids. Next to the shelf unit was a chipped sink and the countertop where the tools were laid out.

  “How do we get out of here?” Doe mumbled.

  “I don’t know.”

  We were too isolated to have heard when Mansfield actually left the property. Unless he knew right where Blair would be, he’d have to find her. If he drove as fast as Blair, I figured the shortest time he’d be gone was a little over two hours. And by my estimate, a good 45 minutes had already elapsed. I had to hurry.

  But first things first.

  I found a small scalpel on the counter and ran to Doe. “Doe, I have to cut you loose.”

  She nodded. “Okay, but why am I so groggy?”

  “You’ve been drugged.”

  “Drugged? Why?”

  “Never mind about that now. We have to get out of here.”

  “I don’t understand,” Doe said. She was still slurring her words.

  “Emily and Mansfield Foster abducted you,” I told her, while I began to saw through her constraints. “They’re going to kill us.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Kill us? Whatever for?”

  “Because Emily admitted too much to us the other day, and I made the mistake of calling and telling Mansfield about it. Now, he’s gone after Blair. When he gets back, he plans to kill all of us. So you have to stay awake.”

  “It’s so hard,” she said, closing her eyes again.

  “No!” I slapped her.

  “Ow!” she said, her eyes popping open.

  I tugged at the zip ties binding her wrists and finished slicing through the first one. I got halfway through the second one and then said, “Here.” I handed her the scalpel. “Can you finish?”

  “Um…yes, I think so,” she mumbled.

  “Okay, but don’t get up,” I said. “You’re too woozy. And cut away from yourself,” I said, guiding her hand. “Be careful. I have to figure out how to get us out of here.”

  While she fumbled with the small knife, I turned to the rest of the room.

  Okay, what the heck were Emily’s stupid clues? I thought. Something about the Tin Man and how the Wicked Witch of the West arrived to meet Dorothy.

  What had Emily meant? I plopped into a nearby rocker a moment and dropped my head into my hands to think.

  In the movie, the Wicked Witch of the West arrives in Munchkin Land in a burst of crimson smoke.

  I glanced up and around the room. Were there gas canisters in here? What did Emily mean by that clue? The Wicked Witch normally traveled by her magic broom. But there were no brooms or canisters of smoke that I could see. In fact, there was just a bunch of junk in the room.

  Damn! What else?

  I got up and began pacing around the center of the room. Doe was beginning to come around. Her eyes were open, but she was staring stupidly at me.

  “Get out of the zip ties,” I ordered her.

  She glanced down and went back to work, while I continued to pace. As I paced, I kicked an old bucket in frustration, and then it hit me.

  The Wicked Witch actually arrives on the movie set of Munchkin Land through a trap door in the floor. It’s pretty obvious if you’re watching closely. Crimson smoke emerges in the outline of a trap door for a brief second when she emerges. Early special effects.

  I stopped and studied the floor, mentally dividing it into quadrants. As I moved around the center of the room, I looked for an area where the space between tiles might appear darker or wider than everywhere else.

  Nothing.

  Then I moved the area rug and noticed some inconsistencies in the flooring.

  That made me think of something I’d seen in a TV show, and I ran for the shelf unit to grab an old bottle of some kind of cleaning solution. I unscrewed the top and began to pour it over the tiles. When I hit the tiles that had been under the rug, the liquid drained through a crack in the floor.

  Bingo!

  I put the bottle down and studied the floor. If this was a trap door, there was no hand pull, no way to lift it.

  I ran back to the shelf unit and found a long, flat piece of metal that had probably been part of an appliance or a bed. I dropped to my knees and was able to slip the rod in between the tiles. But when I tried to angle it so that I could lift the floor area, it bent and nothing moved. I put more pressure on it, and the bar snapped.

  Damn!

  I was breathing hard now and chanced a glance toward the hour-glass. More than a third of it was gone. My heart fluttered in panic. There had to be a way to lift this thing.

  I stopped and put my hands to my head. I had to think.

  What was the second clue? Something about the Tin Man. How could the Tin Man help the Wizard escape?

  I sat back on my heels. Tin Man. Wizard. What had Emily meant?

  The Wizard didn’t escape anything in the movie. He chose to fly off in his balloon and was going to take Dorothy with him.

  I closed my eyes and imagined the scene from the movie.

  Dorothy and the Wizard are in the basket of the balloon. Dorothy is holding Toto. Toto sees a woman’s cat and wriggles out of Dorothy’s arms. Dorothy quickly climbs out of the basket and runs after the dog, while the Wizard is saying goodbye to people. And then the basket starts to lift and float away.

  Wait! No.

  The Tin Man is standing outside of the basket, holding onto one of the ropes tethering the balloon. But…while everyone is focused on Dorothy, the Tin Man actually unwinds the rope from the pole, releasing the balloon.

  That’s right!

  Clearly, the moviemakers counted on people being distracted by watching Dorothy and the Wizard. But I had noticed it. And so had Emily.

  I climbed to my feet and looked around the room. W
hat could Emily have been referring to here?

  Just then, a hand grasped my arm.

  “Julia, where are we?” Doe mumbled.

  She was free of the zip ties and finally coming around.

  “Oh, Doe,” I said, leaning over. “We’re in the basement at Emily Foster’s home. We have to get out of here.”

  “Okay,” she nodded and started to get up.

  “No. Not yet,” I said, holding her down. “Wait until I tell you.”

  “Okay,” she said again.

  I moved through the room, pushing boxes aside, looking under things, opening cupboard doors and peering into corners. I reached the shelf unit again and turned to study the room from that perspective. I started at the left wall and slowly rotated my gaze to the right.

  And then I saw it.

  In the far corner was a rope looped through a pulley. The rope dropped to the floor.

  I ran towards it, moving boxes and pulling furniture out of the way. Once there, I stood back and studied it for a moment.

  There was a hole in the floor where the rope dropped out of sight. The pulley above my head was securely anchored into the ceiling. I reached up and grasped one loop of the rope and pulled.

  Nothing.

  I reached over and grasped the other loop of rope and pulled.

  The rope moved.

  Bingo!

  I pulled harder until I heard a scraping noise. I glanced over and saw the square of flooring begin to move. As I pulled hand over hand, the secret trap door began to rise.

  Doe’s eyes grew wide. “Where does that lead?” she said weakly.

  “I have no idea.” I pulled until the trap door was all the way up, and then I secured the rope on a hook on the wall. I scrambled back over to look through the trap door. A set of wooden stairs led down into a dark, dank, musty hole.

  “We need a flashlight,” I said.

  Once again, I searched through everything in the basement. I was just about to give up and then remembered my phone. I reached into my blouse, brought it out and turned it on. The battery was low, but it worked. I looked at the hour-glass again. We had less than fifteen minutes to go.

  “Okay, Doe,” I said to my friend. “It’s time to get out of here.”