by Mark McNease
The sound came again, more like an animal this time than a human, and Maggie suddenly wondered if this is where Checks had gone that first day.
Steeling herself as best she could, she opened the other half of the cellar door, letting light down into the stairwell. She slipped her hand into her purse, feeling the gun for security, then she headed down into the basement.
The first thing Maggie noticed was the warmth. It struck her as odd. Houses were certainly warm in October, most of them having turned on their heat by now, given winter’s slow approach. But basements were always cold. It’s what made them the coolest place in a house during summer’s high heat. This basement, however, was heated.
She slowly descended, leaving the steps and walking into a completely finished room. It wasn’t unusual for people to turn their basements into rec rooms or home offices. Davies had made his quite comfortable: a couch and matching chair, a coffee table, a large screen television on a chest of some kind. And a bed.
A bed? Maggie wondered. That was an odd addition, unless he used it as a guest room—a strange choice for a man who lived alone and was reputed to be a recluse.
She’d been able to see all this in the dim light from outside. Then something caught her eye: a sliver of light seeping out from beneath a closed door in the back of the basement. A staircase leading upstairs was to the left, with the door across from it to Maggie’s right. There was another room down here. Was it another furnished room? A wine cellar perhaps? Although having a heated basement would make it ineffective for storing wine.
She reached the door and was surprised to see a padlock on it, open and hanging loose. She stared at the lock, trying to make sense of it all: a heated basement, a door with a light on behind it, a padlock left open and hanging.
Just open the door, Maggie, she told herself.
She felt her resolve weaken. What was there to be afraid of? Why was she reacting this way?
She reached out and removed the padlock. She opened the door, pulled it back, and gasped at what she saw.
Inside the room was a large cage. It contained a desk, a dresser, a bed, and a woman.
Already knowing the answer, Maggie said to the woman, “You’re Lilly Stapley, aren’t you?”
The woman sat in a small child’s rocking chair, too big for it but oblivious to that fact. She stared up at Maggie, both understanding her and uncomprehending of what was happening. It was, Maggie believed, the inevitable result of being confined in a basement cage for ten years.
“He took you, didn’t he? It was Cal Davies.”
The whistling provided her answer. That same vaguely familiar but unidentifiable tune, blown quietly through the pursed lips of a killer.
“I see you found the cellar door,” Davies said. “I left it open hoping you would. You’re very smart, Maggie Dahl. Too smart for your own good, but I think you know that by now.”
Maggie turned around and saw Davies standing at the bottom of the cellar steps, backlit by the light from outside.
“I brought you something,” he said.
Maggie glanced down and saw a claw hammer identical to the one she’d purchased at his store, indistinguishable but for the blood from the one she’d found by Alice’s crushed skull.
He walked toward her and stopped. Not ready to come in for the kill, wanting, she assumed, to educate her before he bludgeoned her.
“I’d never boarded up the basement windows,” Cal said, explaining the circumstances he must have known she wondered about. “I didn’t see any need to. The house is alarmed, as well as equipped with surveillance cameras discreetly placed around the property so I can see what’s going on.
Alice must have thought her cat was in my house. I don’t know why. She was a strange and annoying woman. But she found one of the basement windows unlocked—even I make mistakes after ten years of being undiscovered—and in she crawled. Short, inappropriate, stupid Alice, squeezing through my basement window. Snooping. Breaking the law. Unaware I could see her on a video feed upstairs. And finding my prize, my sweet Lilly, just like you did. Someone should have taught you both about boundaries a long time ago. You’re in a place you don’t belong and won’t be leaving alive.”
Maggie let her arm slide casually to her side, placing her hand next to her purse.
“Why would you keep a child in your basement?” Maggie asked, buying time.
“I don’t see a child here,” Davies said with a smile. “Do you?”
Lilly Stapley remained silent in the cage behind Maggie. Did she even still know how to speak? Maggie wondered. Of course she did. She was twelve when this monster kidnapped her.
Maggie’s hand slipped closer to her purse, her fingers prepared to grab the gun grip inside it.
She saw Davies tighten his fist around the hammer.
“I can throw this faster than you get to your phone,” he said. “By the time you hit 911 you’ll have a hammer buried in your forehead.”
He stepped toward her. Maggie looked at the stairs behind him, the light from outside, wondering if she could distract him somehow and make an escape into the backyard. She’d never shot a person before, only targets at a range. She let her hand fall against her purse.
“I’ll just shut the cellar door and give us some privacy.”
Davies turned around, intending to close the door behind him … and froze.
Chip McGill stood on the last step into the basement, silhouetted by light from the stairs.
“You destroyed my life,” Chip said. “I’ve come to return the favor.”
Cal Davies shouted and lunged at Chip, the hammer held high above his head. A moment later the men were struggling on the floor, Chip gripping Davies’s wrist in an effort to keep the hammer from being brought down on his face.
Do something, Maggie told herself. Davies is bigger, stronger, enraged. Do something now!
Without thinking about it, without considering her movements, Maggie pulled the gun from her purse and hurried to the struggling men.
“Drop the hammer or I’ll put a bullet in your brain,” she said, holding the Glock in both hands and aiming it mere feet from the back of Cal Davies’s head.
Her decision had come just in time. Davies had freed his arm and was holding the hammer directly above Chip. If he chose to, he could still bring it smashing into the smaller man’s skull.
Knowing the moment was critical, Maggie shouted, “I mean it, I will shoot you!”
She thrust the gun upward and fired a warning shot.
Did you just do that, seriously? she asked herself. What if the bullet went through the ceiling and killed someone upstairs? No one’s home, idiot, stay focused.
The door leading to the kitchen burst open, followed by the sound of Sergeant Hoyt rushing down the stairs.
“Don’t do it,” Hoyt shouted, aiming his service pistol at the man now straddling Chip McGill’s chest. “Either I’ll kill you, or she will.”
Davies calculated his odds. He could still do serious damage to the man who’d taken the blame for his actions a decade ago, the man who, despite being cleared, had always borne the stain and the damage of accusation. But then they would surely both shoot him, one in the front and one in the back.
He was many things. A kidnapper, a murderer, a rapist, a sexual predator extraordinaire … and a coward.
He let the hammer fall to the floor, precariously close to Chip’s left temple.
“Now get off him,” Hoyt said, stepping further into the room, his gun still aimed at Davies. “Turn around, hands above your head.”
Davies did as he was told, climbing off Chip and turning slowly around, clasping his hands in the air.
Hoyt reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a zip tie.
“You can put the gun away now, Mrs. Dahl,” Hoyt said. “We’ll talk about your possession of it later. Your sister called me as soon as you left the house.”
Of course she did, thought Maggie. And she’ll never let me forget it.
&
nbsp; Standing behind Davies, Hoyt holstered his gun and quickly used the zip tie to handcuff Davies.
“I thought I was too late,” Hoyt said. “I had to break the door down when no one answered.”
“We couldn’t hear you,” replied Maggie. “The basement is soundproofed.”
“Soundproofed?”
“Yes. Lilly Stapley is here.”
Both Sergeant Hoyt and Chip McGill had been unaware of the room with the open door and the cage beyond it.
Yanking Davies to his feet, Hoyt said, “What are you talking about?”
“She’s talking about my accomplishment,” Davies said. “See for yourself.”
Chip had already rushed to the doorway, peering into the cage and gasping at what he saw. “Oh my God.”
“God had nothing to do with it,” Davies said.
“Shut up!” Hoyt demanded. “You’ll be able to talk all you want in custody.”
“I say nothing without a lawyer.”
“I don’t think the best of them will get you out of this,” Maggie said.
The next thing she heard was Sergeant Bryan Hoyt calling for backup, adding to the dispatcher, “We found Lilly Stapley.”
That simple declaration was about to explode across the town, through the media and into the world. Whatever private show Cal Davies had enjoyed for ten years would be a global circus by nightfall.
CHAPTER Forty
DAHL HOUSE JAMS AND SPECIALTIES opened on schedule two days after the discovery that sent shock waves through Lambertville and far beyond. Maggie had seen no reason to postpone it, despite being advised by friends and her son to wait.
“What for?” she’d asked Wynn when he’d called from Queens. “Waiting isn’t going to change anything. Peter and his daughter will be gone for months, if they ever come back. They’ve taken her out of state to work with experts. And I promised your father …”
“Dad’s dead, Mom,” Wynn had replied, less gently than Maggie would have liked. He’d pressured her to move on from David’s death, and even to date men again. She ignored him.
“Then I promised myself,” she replied. “There, is that good enough, Wynn? I owe it to me, and to the people who work for me, to make sure this show goes on. We worked so hard for it. No, it’s not being postponed. Are you and Leo still coming?”
“That’s a crazy question,” said Wynn.
He and his boyfriend Leo had made plans weeks ago to stay with Maggie for several nights during the opening. Now that Gerri lived in the house, Maggie intended to give them her room and sleep on the sofa bed in David’s study. Maggie had not changed anything in that room and had no immediate plans to. She liked having one room frozen in time where she could sense her husband’s presence.
They’d spent an hour on the phone. Maggie had filled Wynn in on life with Aunt Gerri, leaving out details about Tom Brightmore. Wynn had talked about a new job he was hoping to get, and about his and Leo’s plans for marriage in the spring. What they had not talked much about was Maggie finding Lilly Stapley in a basement cage, or the media circus that followed, or just how easily she could have been killed. It wasn’t too soon to open her store, but it was too soon to talk about the most traumatic event of her life besides finding her husband dead next to her in bed.
Wynn said they’d rent a car and drive, with plans to tour Pennsylvania after a few days and see the fall foliage.
Several of Maggie’s friends from Manhattan had come also, taking a bus from Port Authority to Lambertville, where they disembarked at a gas station. The sight of four of her oldest, dearest friends climbing down from a commuter bus had been something to behold. They’d all booked rooms at the Lambertville Station Restaurant and Inn, a luxurious, sprawling complex on the banks of the Delaware River. They had also insisted they were perfectly fine being ignored while Maggie went about the hectic business of opening her store while they enjoyed fine dining and walks across the bridge to New Hope.
There were TV trucks parked outside her house the morning Maggie headed to the store for the big opening. She’d ignored them for two days and intended to continue waving away their questions. She was being portrayed as a hero, the woman who found long lost Lilly Stapley after everyone but her father had given up hope she was alive. This, Maggie knew, was not quite true: Peter Stapley had also assumed his daughter was dead, as had Maggie herself. No one, in fact, expected to see a now-twenty-two-year-old Lilly sitting in a cage in a neighbor’s basement.
Maggie also knew no one had more questions that she did. Had Cal Davies built his lair for a captive he hadn’t yet abducted? Was it just waiting for Lilly or some other innocent child? Or had he kept them concealed while he built his cage, one bar at a time, all the while serving customers at a hardware store they’d all been going to for years?
The answers would have to wait. For one thing, Cal wasn’t talking, barricading himself behind a team of lawyers no doubt as interested in the fame the case would bring them as in any amount of remuneration Cal could provide. For another thing, Lilly herself was gone, whisked away to a clinic in upstate New York that dealt with victims of the kind of trauma Lilly had most assuredly experienced, the details of which Maggie would be happy to never know.
Finally, there was the store opening. It had been six months since David died. He had not lived to see the opening of Dahl House Jams and Specialties, but he would be proud of what Maggie had achieved. She had gone ahead with their vision as much for her husband as for herself. This had all been a couple’s dream, not just his or hers. They’d done it all together, and to Maggie’s mind, they still were.
Morning bled into afternoon, and afternoon slipped quickly into evening. Everyone was there, including news reporters who were kept outside by one of the off-duty police officers who’d volunteered to help Maggie, “the Maggie Dahl,” as he’d said when he realized she was the one who’d found the Stapley child. (Oddly, everyone kept thinking of Lilly as a child still, because that’s what she’d been when she was last known to be alive. It would take time for the world to know and see the woman Lilly Stapley, if they ever did.)
Maggie allowed herself to enjoy the evening. She’d come so far, so quickly. The people who had helped her were all there in the store, enjoying wine, cheeses and a cello player. (“Seriously, Maggie?” Gerri had teased her. “A cello player? What is this, the Met?”) Gloria and Sybil kept trying to sell jams, jellies and pottery, despite Maggie having told them this was not a work event. Only Janice was on duty, spending most of her time through the day and night at the cash register. Maggie had decided that morning to offer her a stake in the business. Not a raise—she couldn’t afford that at this point—but a piece of a pie she believed would grow over time.
Peter Stapley was off with his daughter, as he should be. His ex-wife Melissa was rumored to have flown to meet them in New York. It was another detail they may never know, and that was up to Peter to reveal if he chose to.
Maggie stood by the cash register taking it all in. Her Manhattan friends were gathered in a clique in one corner, her son Wynn and his now-fiancé Leo were standing in another, lost in conversation.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
Startled, Maggie turned to see Sergeant Bryan Hoyt standing next to her, a glass of wine in his hand.
“Where’s your wife?” Maggie asked, looking around to see if she could guess who that might be.
“Jennifer’s at home,” he replied. “With the baby.”
Maggie felt foolish. She had known so little about the man who helped save her life, and she had not wondered about him. She’d been so caught up in her own fixations that she hadn’t even considered he had a life. Not only did he have one, but he had a baby at home.
“I’m so sorry,” Maggie said, blushing.
“For what, Maggie? I think I can call you that now. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. I told you, I don’t mix business with pleasure, and I don’t discuss my personal life with strangers. And let’s face it, until about for
ty-eight hours ago you were both a stranger and a suspect.”
“That sounds like business,” Maggie said, glancing at his wine glass.
“All right, well, I almost never mix the two. But the lines are pretty blurred here, aren’t they? Anyway, congratulations, and we still need to discuss that gun you have.”
“It’s licensed!” Maggie said. “It belonged to my husband. Please don’t—”
“Don’t worry, I’m playing with you. But we have to discuss it. The defense will bring it up in court for one reason or another.”
The defense. It reminded Maggie that this was not over. There would be a trial, assuming Cal Davies did not accept a plea deal. It could go on for months, and Maggie would find herself as a witness in a courtroom … a long time from now. It wasn’t something to allow into her thoughts tonight, and she wouldn’t.
“Tell Jennifer I hope to meet her soon,” Maggie said. “And the baby.”
“I’ll do that,” Hoyt replied. He raised his glass to her, then turned and walked away.
No sooner had Hoyt left, then Gerri walked in with Tom Brightmore. Maggie had told Gerri to enjoy herself, she wasn’t needed or expected at the store. The opening, yes, but only when she got there. And now she had. She’d arrived well into the evening, and she’d shown up with her arm laced around Tom’s. If this was not dating, Maggie didn’t know what was.
One more look around, old girl, she told herself. She would spend the rest of the night schmoozing, chatting, and maybe even selling a jam jar or two. She would catch up with Gerri and the man she swore would not be her fourth husband, despite indications to the contrary. She would thank Gloria, Sybil and Janice for all they’d done at least three more times, asking Janice to meet her for breakfast, there was something she wanted to talk about.
And finally, as midnight neared and everyone had gone home, she would crawl into bed with Checks on the pillow and David in her heart. If she dreamed at all, she hoped it would be a good one. A “Well done, my love,” from David, perhaps with a satisfied cat somewhere in the corner.
