The Girl in the Attic

by Ed Gorman

  Predictably, the men, now away from their wives, reverted to high school antics, including dropping water balloons out of windows, calling the front desk with innumerable cliché pranks ("Do you have tomatoes in the can? Better flush 'em!"), and in general, annoying just about anyone in the hotel.

  Carleton's grandfather did what he could with the men—he was a big man with a splendid temperament. Nevertheless, when the tragedy took place with Barbara Evans, he was asleep upstairs in the owner's suite.

  In the lounge that night, there had been a long drum performance by a local kid named Rick Quinn. Emboldened by the adulation of the drunken salesmen, who in their condition would have applauded a howling dog, Rick went up to the bar and did something he'd long wanted to do—get around to asking Barbara Evans if he could go up to her room.

  Barbara seemed to fascinate men for two reasons. First, she seemed aloof in a slightly prim way that only made the sedately sexual shape of her body all the more alluring. Second, men sensed in her some deep-seated anguish that they genuinely believed they could alleviate.

  At twenty-two, Rick was no different in his ego or his needs. But she was not impressed with him. She politely turned down his offer to buy her a drink; she politely refused to let him sit down next to her. Rick proceeded to get drunk. The next time he looked, Barbara was gone.

  He learned from the desk clerk (who should have known better than to tell him) which room she was in.

  In front of her doorway he saw her saying goodnight to one of the salesmen. The guy was kissing her passionately and at the same time holding out a twenty-dollar bill, which she took.

  Rick Quinn couldn't believe what he was seeing. Barbara Evans—classy Barbara Evans—was a prostitute.

  He waited in the shadows at the end of the hall. He waited till another man came and went, and then yet another. Then he made his move. Next to the EXIT door was a glass case containing an ax and brass bottle of liquid for putting out fires. He took the ax and went into her room.

  The coroner said he'd never seen anything like it. Rick Quinn, once he'd killed her, had spent the next hour or so cutting her up in little pieces. He'd taken off her fingers and her toes, gouged out her eyes, chopped off her ears, pulled out her tongue. Then he'd set her on fire.

  Rick Quinn served just over six months for what he'd done. His lawyer had gotten him off any possible murder charge by pleading insanity. The all-male jury, told repeatedly by the prosecuting attorney that Barbara Evans was "the lowest form of woman, a prostitute," seemed to feel a bit sorry for Rick.

  Hell, it could happen to anybody.

  Get a little hootched up, have a prostie give you some lip.

  On the wrong night. . .

  After he was released from the mental hospital, where the psychiatrist found him remarkably cured (Rick's father was the town's leading banker), Rick went out and got drunk, picked up a girl from the neighboring town of Glenroe, and together they put a 1940 Buick dead through a big elm tree on a curvy, moonlit road.

  "So you believe that Barbara Evans's spirit is still in the hotel?"

  "Yes," Carleton said, quietly, "yes, I do."

  "And you think it possessed Anne that night—and that it possessed Jamie."

  He nodded. "When the facts came out about Barbara's background, it was easy to see she'd never liked men and easy to see why. She'd been in three foster homes, and each of her foster fathers had either had sex with her or tried to. She was a very beautiful woman."

  Sally stared out the window at the gathering dusk. The rain made everything still feel autumnal.

  "I don't know what to do to help Jamie."

  "Neither do I, I'm afraid."

  "I—I don't even know about believing in Barbara Evans's spirit."

  "I understand."

  She sipped her dinner wine. "It's odd, because I don't have any doubt that there's a personal God and that there's an afterlife—but when I'm confronted with something like this. . ." She shook her head sadly.

  Down the hall, the phone rang. "Excuse me." He got up to get it.

  She looked out the dining room door at the sweeping steps leading upstairs to the attic.

  Suddenly her stomach knotted and she felt nauseous and helpless again.

  Jamie.

  She had to help Jamie.

  "We're having trouble with a leak in some of the north rooms," Carleton said when he got back. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to go check them out. Ron Evars, our handyman, has already gone for the day."

  "Of course."

  "Why don't you go up and lie down?"

  "That's a good idea."

  She thought of last night—they'd been lovers, tender ones. Now that seemed so long ago.

  She still liked him very much—his sorrow brought out her maternal needs—but so much had happened that any sort of romantic feeling was out of the question. And anyway, her mind was filled with something else now.

  Carleton took her hands in his and kissed her on the cheek. She watched him go and then raised her eyes again to the stairs leading to the floors above.

  4

  "You're not answering my question, Doctor," Hanratty said.

  He was not angry—indeed he was amused at the cat-and-mouse game he and Dr. Gonzalez were playing. Hanratty would ask him a question, and Gonzalez would answer it three different ways without ever once addressing the issue in any coherent way.

  "Secretly, I've always wanted to be a politician," Gonzalez said. "Now's a good time for me to practice."

  They were sitting in the sort of blue-collar bar Hanratty was comfortable in. Three bumper pool tables running down the middle of the place, red plastic-covered booths running along the south wall, a Polish sausage machine behind the bar (between the miniature American flag and the little plastic statue of the drunk leaning against a lamppost) that turned out a product that was surprisingly edible, and a jukebox that looked like a spaceship. Hanratty faced the window that was aglow with light blue neon from beer signs; fat drops shone in the neon-like bubbles of glycerin. Hanratty hoisted his frosty mug. "I've got an idea," he said.

  Gonzalez smiled. "In other words you've figured out how to trap me into answering your question?"

  "Exactly."

  "Well, let's hear it."

  Hanratty had some more beer. "Before I ask you the big question, let me ask you a smaller one."

  "All right."

  "I assume you're seeing Jamie because you've had some experience with psychology."

  "Yes, I have." He then talked about his studies and the nature of his internship.

  "Good. Then your answer is going to carry more weight."

  Now Gonzalez had some beer. "I'm always happy to be able to impress people with my degrees. That's the first thing you learn in medical school."

  "I thought that learning the fee structure was."

  "That's second." Gonzalez grinned. "You can't charge the big rates unless you have the big degrees."

  Hanratty smiled. "I see."

  Just then the waitress came over. She smelled of sweat and marijuana. Despite these less-than-pleasing attributes, her breasts in their sheer red halter were spectacular, and both Hanratty and Gonzalez nearly went blind alternately looking at them and pretending not to notice them at all.

  "My God," Gonzalez said when she left to get them two more beers.

  "At the very least," Hanratty said.

  Gonzalez said, "So what's your question?"

  Hanratty cleared his throat. "Do you believe Jamie Baines has become possessed by the spirit of Anne Edmonds?"

  The waitress was back. She set down their beers. They set down their eyes, right on her breasts. A pleased little smile crossed her gentle mouth and she left.

  "Holy fuck," Gonzalez said, "and here I'm trying to learn how to be faithful."

  "Getting serious with somebody?"

  "Very serious."

  "Then I'd put on some very dark glasses the next time the waitress comes back."

  Gonzalez sipped h
is beer. "You asked me a question."

  "I did indeed."

  "And I have an answer for you."

  "Remember now—it's up or down; yes or no."

  Gonzalez laughed. "That's where you're wrong. There are three possible answers to that question. Not just two."

  "What's the third?"

  Gonzalez sipped some more beer. "Very simply, I don't know if she's possessed or not. It's a possibility."

  "Then you don't rule out the supernatural?"

  "Not at all."

  "Do me a favor. Listen to these tapes," He handed a copy of Anne Edmonds' audio tape to Gonzalez.

  5

  The sky was black from the rain; it was an early night. The hospital lights were on inside and out.

  On the third floor, where the long, cream-colored floors had just been waxed to a glistening finish, a chunky security guard who had been instructed to look into 307 every twenty minutes now came up to the door to do his duty. He had checked four times thus far, each time seeing the same thing.

  In her bed lay Jamie Baines, staring straight ahead. No corpse had ever looked less alive. But the sight was nothing special to the guard. During his four years here he had seen many patients shot up with Thorazine. Obviously, that was one of the drugs they'd given Jamie.

  Four times in the past two hours he'd gone to 307.

  Four times he saw Jamie.

  But this time, the fifth time, was different. He looked through the slot at the white room and the white bed; it was empty.

  The guard's body reacted immediately by tensing, by sweating, by turning left, then right, then left again, as if suddenly it were an entity without a mind.

  All the guard could think of was that somehow he would be blamed. He was one of those hapless people who were always getting blamed.

  Then reason prevailed and he calmed himself slightly. Perhaps she had rolled out of bed or was sitting in the bathroom. Sometimes drugs affected the bowels pretty badly.

  He paused a moment, reaching for his holstered walkie-talkie. He'd call somebody, get somebody up here right-fucking-away and help him out.

  Then he disregarded the notion.

  Baker the boss was still down in the security office, and if it was Baker who came up, you'd better believe the guard would get his ass blamed. Even if the little monster (man, she had torn that poor bastard One Eye apart completely)—even if all she was doing was sitting on the john crapping her evil little heart out, he'd get blamed. He pulled the keys out from the flex-a-pull key jobbie on his belt and found the one for 307 and shoved it in heartily.

  He edged open the door and went inside, and that's when he remembered that her sitting on the can was a very unlikely scenario: the girl was in a straightjacket.

  They'd shot her up with Thorazine, and wrapped her up in rubber.

  So it was goddamned unlikely she was going to be wandering around taking a dump.

  The first thing he saw was the straightjacket which lay in the middle of the floor, just in front of the bed.

  It looked very much like One Eye must have looked when the little bitch had gotten done with him: not just torn neatly apart, but ripped into shreds.

  The guard was standing there gawking when the girl came flying at him, crazier than any patient he'd ever seen. He only had time to throw his hands up in front of him before she hit with a kind of tackle, knocking him hard back against the edge of the door.

  He was out cold.

  6

  One beer had become four, and so Hanratty and Gonzalez were leaving the tavern in good spirits. Outside they stood in the fine mist that made the streetlights glow.

  "So what happens to Jamie next? I mean, worstcase scenario?"

  "Worst case?" Gonzalez thought a moment. "I'd say that worst case is that she never comes out of her withdrawal and spends the rest of her life this way."

  "Jesus, her poor mother," Hanratty said, thinking of Sally Baines.

  Gonzalez nodded. "That probably would come close to destroying her—it would any parent." He looked at a lone hot rod, a chopped and channeled '51 baby-blue Olds, sitting at the stoplight, letting all the onlookers fall in love with it. When his eyes came away from the car, Gonzalez said, "Of course there is one other 'worse case.’"

  "What's that?"

  "Fuck," Gonzalez said, as his beeper went off. "I better head to that phone booth over there."

  "Like Superman?"

  Gonzalez grinned. "Yeah, asshole, like Superman."

  Hanratty had a Winston and a long look at Haversham's business district. In the glow of the eight mercury vapors, the main street resembled dozens of towns in the west Hanratty had stopped through in his CBS days. It was tidy, without a trace of artifice, and a proud outpost against the night and nature.

  Gonzalez didn't walk back. He ran. "Shit," he said.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Jump in my pickup and I'll tell you."

  They jogged down the street to the hospital, where a black Dodge pickup sat by itself in the west end of the HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY section of the parking lot.

  All the time he jogged, Hanratty kept puffing on his cigarette.

  "You really ought to give that crap up, you know that?" Gonzalez said.

  Hanratty took a deep drag and shot Gonzalez a smile. "Yes, I'm aware of that—Doctor."

  Then Gonzalez frowned. "She's escaped."

  "Jamie?"

  "Yes."

  Hanratty said, "How do you escape from a mental hospital?"

  "In her case, you rip your straightjacket off with seemingly superhuman powers and then you beat the living shit out of the guard."

  "A thirteen-year-old girl?"

  "A thirteen-year-old girl."

  When they reached the truck, they piled in and Gonzalez, already firing up the motor, said, "You remember I told you about the other 'worst-case' scenario?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well," Gonzalez said, squealing backward, "you still want to hear it?"

  "Sure."

  "It's very simple, really. What if Jamie isn't possessed at all, but has just become psychotic. Children have done that before, you know. Lizzie Borden was a true case. And our hospitals hold more and more children who have killed people during rampages."

  "So a psychotic child escapes and begins roaming around and. . ."

  "And possibly starts killing more people."

  "Shit," Hanratty said.

  They had gone four blocks west, then turned and gone two blocks east. Gonzalez pulled up in front of the Royal Hotel.

  "Where are we going?"

  Gonzalez was jumping out of the car before he finished his answer. "We're going to talk to her mother and hope that she knows where her daughter is."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1

  Upstairs, in the attic, she would find a secret that would in some way help Jamie be free of her madness; Sally was sure of it.

  But the day had been so draining that she had decided to lie down and nap first. Then in a few hours she'd be fresh and she'd go up to the attic.

  She fell asleep with the TV on. But then she woke up as if she'd been shot. At first—her face covered with sweat, her heart pounding in her chest—she had no idea who she was. Or where she was. Or what had wakened her.

  Then she saw the phone, and somehow that made everything real.

  She was Sally Baines . . . in a hotel in Haversham.... Her daughter Jamie was suspected of being a killer . . . and the phone was ringing . . .

  A terrible reality, true, but one she could now recognize as her own. She grasped the phone. "Hello!" she half-shouted into it, terrified that something had happened to Jamie.

  There was only silence on the other end. But the peculiar silence of a human presence. Listening.

  Then, Sally, coming more and more awake, realized who it was.

  "Jamie."

  And then she heard her daughter begin to cry—quietly, so heartbreakingly quiet—and then she said, quiet herself now, "Jamie, where are you, honey?"


  "I—I left that place."

  "The hospital?"

  "Yes."

  Sally was about to hear how she'd gotten out, but she knew there was a more important question. She said again, "Where are you, honey?"

  "By the river."

  Sally could tell that Jamie had little idea of where she was herself. "Can you describe anything that's around you?"

  "Yes, a graveyard."

  "All right. A graveyard."

  "Then down the hill there's a Burger King."

  "A Burger King."

  She wrote these things down on a small pad with the unconscious speed of someone doing automatic writing.

  She decided this was the time to ask the question she had to know. "Honey, would you be honest with me about something?"

  Long pause. "Mom, I know what you're going to ask."

  Now Sally paused. "Honey, maybe it would be better if you stayed in the hospital and—"

  "But she won't let me."

  "Who?"

  Jamie took a deep breath. "Remember when we walked over to the Royal Hotel yesterday afternoon—and I got so scared about going in?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I got scared because I guessed I must've sensed she was in there waiting for me."

  Carefully, Sally said, "Anne Edmonds?"

  "Yeah. Anne Edmonds."

  "But that's why you should be in the hospital, so people can help you."

  "You don't believe me, do you?"

  "Of course I do—it's just . . ."

  There was a silence again. Jamie said, "It's hard to believe. I'm not sure I believe it myself. It's like the time I tried marijuana."

  "You tried marijuana?" Sally couldn't believe she was doing her freaked-out suburban mother routine. Marijuana—big deal. "How do you mean it's like marijuana, honey?"

  "Well, I can't tell if I'm really hearing Anne's voice or I'm just imagining it."

  "I'm coming to you."

  "No!"

  The sharpness of Jamie's response chilled Sally.

  "Jamie, I just—want to be near you."

  "That wasn't me."

  "What?"

  "I mean, I didn't intend to say no like that. It was—Anne. She doesn't want me to be with you right now."