Sammie hesitated and Alex froze. Was this bald man with the ugly little beard going to help them?
“What the shit?” The man’s mouth was so wide open that Sammie could see that his teeth in the back were black. She shrank back when his bulging black eyes stared at her. Still, she couldn’t tell if this man was going to help them or not.
“What the —?” The man spun to face Maggie. “What the hell is goin’ on here?”
Maggie stood perfectly still. “What do you mean, Spanky?”
“The hell you say! What’re these girls doin’ down here?”
Sammie was trapped between the man and Maggie, but Alex was close to the door, which was wide open. Sammie cut her eyes to the door. She wished she could yell, “Alex, run.” But Alex was staring at the big metal thing the man held in one hand. Sammie had helped her dad around cars enough to know that it was a pipe wrench.
“Ma, what are you, crazy?”
Then with his free hand the man reached for Sammie’s shoulder. Sammie tried to shrink back as far as she could against the wall, but before he could grab her, Maggie lurched forward and grabbed his arm.
“Spanky, don’t,” she yelled, but the scary man with the stupid name shoved Maggie back, toward Alex, pinning her against the wall.
“Ma,” he said, grabbing Sammie’s shirt and staring at her with really black eyes. “What the fuck are you up to?”
“Let us out of here,” Sammie finally found her voice. “She locked us up in here. We want to go home.”
“Well, you do, do you?”
“Look, Spanky, it’s Jennie and Jessie,” Maggie said, grabbing Alex’s hand and leading her closer to him.
“No!” Alex opened her mouth for the first time. “We’re Alexandra and Samantha Monroe. She locked us up down here, but we’re not supposed to be here.”
“What the fuck?” Spanky turned and stared at Maggie. “You’re crazy as a loon.”
“Spanky, let me explain.” Sammie watched as Maggie took a step away from Alex.
If the big man would just let go of her shoulder, Sammie would jam the shovel into his knees. If only she had a baseball bat, it would work better.
“Let go of me,” she cried, but the man only squeezed her more tightly.
If she could just make a move, Alex would follow. The door was still open.
“You’re fucking crazy, Ma. I gotta give it to you though.”
“Spanky, watch your language,” Maggie said.
“You’re the one that took them? Whole fuckin’ world’s lookin’ for these girls. And I come home and find them in my basement. Holy shit.”
Sammie looked at Alex. Her sister looked like she was paralyzed. Sammie wondered whether she’d heard him say that the whole world was looking for them.
“Let’s just go up and talk, Spanky,” Maggie said in a shaky voice. “You and me. We’ll leave the girls down here. They like it here with me.”
“No we don’t! Please mister, make her let us go,” Sammie said, trying to sound nice so he’d feel sorry for them.
“Well, well,” he said. “You wanta leave my nice mama, huh?” The man let go of Sammie’s shoulder and took the shovel out of her hand. “I gotta think about this.”
Then he set the pipe wrench down and walked toward Alex.
“Give me that thing.”
He stepped forward to take the spade Alex clutched protectively in front of her. Sammie stared at Alex. She looked so scared. She’d never seen her eyes so wide, but she didn’t make a move.
“Give it over,” he repeated.
Maggie moved closer toward Alex as the man demanded again, stepping closer, “Give it over.”
Then Sammie saw just the tiniest flick of Alex’s eyes toward the open basement door. She took less than an instant to react.
Marge’s gaze fixed with dread on Spanky as he approached Jennifer with his brawny arms outstretched. When his back was fully turned on Jessica, Jennifer suddenly jerked the spade she was holding out of Spanky’s reach. She raised it up and with one big gulp, swung it as hard as she could against the side of Spanky’s knee.
“Oh my God,” Marge screamed. What should she do? Spanky was so big; Jennifer so small.
“Little bitch!” Spanky yelled, shaking and rubbing his leg.
That’s when Marge snatched Jennifer out of his reach.
Enraged, Spanky wrenched the spade out of Jennifer’s hands and hurled it to the ground, smashing the card table, sending pieces of Risk flying.
Jennifer cowered behind Marge and broke into convulsive sobs. As Marge bent to comfort her, she knew that something was very wrong. Where was Jessica?
“Spanky,” she cried. “Quick! Jessica got out! You have to find her. Hurry, hurry! You can’t let her get away.”
“What the fuck —” Spanky swung to face the open door. “Oh shit.”
To Marge’s relief, Spanky flew toward the door and clamored up the steps.
“You tie that one up,” he yelled as the side door slammed closed.
What was Spanky going to do? Would he help her get the girls out of here to a place where no one would ever find them? Marge clutched the remaining twin tightly. Spanky had not been in her plan, but now she had no choice but to tell him. Maybe it was for the best, she thought, but deep in her heart, she knew better.
CHAPTER 42
Tragic Drowning of Eight-Month-Old Spansky Twins.
— Detroit News, June,1977
Marge never imagined her little girls as twenty-six. That’s how old they’d be. But in her mind, they were still children. She’d kept their room for them, the frilly curtains and the crib covers now faded and limp. Once in a while she’d buy them something new, an article of clothing, a new doll so that the small room was now crammed, leaving only the space for the daybed where she slept from time to time.
Margie Wisnewski had been an only child, growing up a Catholic girl in the Polish enclave of Hamtramck, a little city within the big city of Detroit. Had she been spoiled? Yes. Her girlfriends had siblings with whom they had to share the little discretionary income of their blue-collar fathers. But for Margie, every extra penny went to please her insatiable appetite for little girl paraphernalia. Her father toiled to construct her dollhouse. Her mother sewed doll clothes, the envy of all her friends.
Little Marge managed her doting parents well. So well that when she became an adolescent, she was not about to let overprotective parents stand in the way of a teenage romance with the boy two blocks over, a pimply boy, three years older. But Marge had not been a pretty girl, and she just wanted a boyfriend. Which she did not have anymore, once she became pregnant. And from then until she married Evan, she’d lived her life in shame.
Now, holding Jennifer closely, Marge brushed aside the child’s tears. And she, too, started to sob when she recognized what she’d just seen. That look in Spanky’s face when he rushed out the door after Jessica was the same look he’d had that day, when she’d come hurrying out of the cottage after checking on her cupcakes.
She’d parked the double stroller on a small patch of soft pine needles and she’d very carefully locked the brake. When she came back, the stroller wasn’t there. She saw Spanky standing at the end of the dock, staring into the dark water. She’d screamed her son’s name and ran.
It had been a windy day and the water was murky with weeds, but looking down, Marge could make out the outline of the overturned twin stroller. The wheels were facing her just under the surface and she could almost reach over and grab them. Evan was out in the motorboat, fishing somewhere across the lake. No one else was around. Marge had jumped in fully clothed, submerged to her shoulders, the stony bottom scraping her feet. Bending down, arms flailing, head submerged, she found the inert bundles trapped in the stroller. She pulled up one baby, struggling to heft her up onto the dock as Spanky stood passively by. She didn’t know if it was Jennie or Jessie. Reaching back into the murky water she pulled up the second twin and dragged her straight to the shore before fra
ntically rushing back to the narrow dock to carry the first twin to safety.
Hysterical, she’d knelt down in the sand between the babies and frantically breathed into their dark blue mouths, first one and then the other, like she’d seen demonstrated on TV, but Jessica and Jennifer, eight months old, never took another breath. The next thing Marge remembered was Evan forcibly dragging her from the two fresh mounds of dirt at the cemetery. She still had every article of their clothing, every little toy, all enshrined on shelves in their bedroom upstairs.
There could be no other explanation — Spanky had deliberately pushed the stroller off the dock. At seven, he was strong enough to push it the few feet through the sand and onto the wooden planks. She tried to concoct a story for Evan, but she knew that he knew how the accident had happened. Neither ever admitted it to each other or discussed it with Spanky. It was just too unthinkable, too unspeakable. If they’d taken him to a child psychologist, things might have been different. Instead, after the babies’ funeral, Evan practically destroyed himself with heavy drinking before leaving Marge with the house in Holly — and with Spanky.
Truly, Marge tried her best to raise her troubled son, now a twohundred-forty-pound hulk of a man with a protruding beer belly, a shaved head, and a mean temperament, but underneath she knew that Spanky’s shortcomings were all her fault. She should have known something was not right with Spanky when he started torturing those frogs at the lake and chopping the heads off turtles. Why hadn’t she realized he was crying out for love? She’d been too busy dressing up the twins like dolls. At least she and Evan had stood up for him when the detectives came around asking about how the accident happened. But then Evan walked out on them, and she’d had to go back to work.
Spanky now had a job driving an eighteen wheeler on the Detroitto-Miami run. Not bad for a kid who hadn’t graduated high school. And face it, he’d never done time except for when the cops kept him in the lockup after a bar fight. For his own good, they said. Drunk and disorderly, but nobody pressed charges or made a big deal of it.
But in the privacy of her heart, Marge had to admit her horrible, secret suspicions. Over the years, child molestation cases had been reported in Oakland County, all involving little girls. Marge was pretty sure that nobody else connected her son with these sordid reports, but she knew about the little panties he kept hidden in the small chest under his bed. The chest he took with him on the road. Whenever there’d been a report, she knew that Spanky had been in the vicinity. The last time she’d secretly checked his box. Panties stained with something brownish on a Mickey Mouse pattern had been added. She did feel bad about those little girls, but she could only blame herself.
But now, for Marge, things were different. God had answered her prayers. She must have paid for her sins because He was giving her a second chance. She had Jennifer and Jessica back and she had to protect them. She no longer even noticed that their skin was darker and that their eyes were not the color of copper. She’d been so happy, but she’d not planned to tell Spanky. She couldn’t let him harm her little girls again.
Now Jessica had run outside, and Spanky was chasing her. Marge was all mixed up.
“We’ll find her.” Marge stroked Jennifer’s forehead, hoping the child would stop shaking. “Everything will be all right.”
CHAPTER 43
Yankees and Marlins to Hold Prayer Service for the Safe Return of Scott Monroe’s Daughters at Land Shark Stadium in Miami before Tomorrow’s Game.
— News on Sports, Friday, June 19
Sammie ran as fast as she’d ever run in her life. Dad was always making them run and clocking their time. Although Alex was the fastest of the three, Sammie could almost beat her. But could she run fast enough to get away from the big man? He was fat and she hoped that he would get out of breath really fast. And what about Alex? She’d left her behind. For a split second Sammie slowed, wondering if she should turn back. That look on Alex’s face, swinging that spade at the man, scared to death. She’d heard him yell a very bad word and she’d heard the door slam several seconds after. She was sure he was coming after her, and right now she couldn’t think about Alex or anybody else. She had to find somebody to help them.
But run to where? She was surrounded by trees and scratchy bushes and she didn’t know which way to go, but she kept on running. The sky had gotten darker and she felt a few drops of rain. She had to get out of the woods and find a road where there would be houses. Everything was too dark. Maybe being in that dim basement for so long was making her blind? That really scared her. How could she go on to be a baseball star if she was blind?
Sammie kept zigzagging through the woods until her legs started to sag and she had to lean over to catch her breath. That’s when she felt the warm, stickiness on her bare arms. Blood, she thought with horror from all those prickly branches that tore at the skin on her legs and arms. Sammie was squeamish about blood, always had been. Alex and Jackie used to laugh at her when she freaked out about the sight of blood.
Then from far away, Sammie heard the bark of a dog. She dropped to a running stance and pushed off. She just had to find a street even though the streets out here were dirt, not cement like the city. And what if that barking came from a wild dog? Or a wolf? What if a wolf smelled her blood? She couldn’t remember if wolves were like sharks. Whether they attacked when they smelled blood.
When Sammie was five, at a Yankee team picnic, she’d been bitten by a pit bull. She’d been petting it, when it turned on her, snarled, and ripped a piece out of her knee. She’d had to go to the hospital for stitches and she still had a big scar. And every time Jackie begged their parents to get a dog, she showed off her scar and said, “No way.”
Sammie ran a few minutes then stopped to listen for the barking. She still heard it, but it didn’t seem any closer. She stayed put long enough to try to figure out which direction the bark was coming from before starting out again in the opposite direction. She ran until her legs buckled at the edge of a cluster of bushes that came up to about her height. Her chest hurt with every breath and she had to lean over and pant as quietly as she could.
That’s when she heard the man’s voice. The man from the basement. The man that Maggie called “Spanky.” And hadn’t Maggie also called him “son”? One thing Sammie could tell, the man was mean. Totally holding her breath, she waited as his voice came closer and closer.
The voice kept repeating, “Come out, little girl. Wanna go home to Mama and Daddy?”
Sammie stood perfectly still, but she couldn’t hold her breath any longer. Without moving a muscle other than her eyes, she strained to see where he was coming from. Should she stay here or would he stumble into her any second? Stay, she decided. If she moved even an inch now, he’d find her. Suddenly, she could make him out. His face and his bald head were but a shadow, but he was so close that she could hear his heavy breathing.
Something scurried on the ground within a foot of her white sneaker. The big man stopped short and fixed his gaze in her direction just as a striped chipmunk scurried out onto the rustling leaves.
“Fuck,” the big man grunted. “Little bitch’s gotta be out here somewhere.” There were bushes in front of him, and he stepped over them coming within inches of Sammie’s protective thicket.
“Spanky-y-y, where are you?” Maggie’s voice cut through the soft droplets of rain.
“Hold on, Ma!” the man yelled. Slowly he turned away from Sammie’s hiding place. “I’m comin’ back.”
Spanky banged back into the house and thudded down the stairs, tripping on an old duffel bag he hadn’t seen in years. He was sweating like a pig and frustrated. He’d checked out Parker Road and Oakhurst all the way to Davisburg, then circled back. No sign of the little bitch. How long would it take for her to bring down the law? And what would happen to Ma?
Marge was sitting on one of the beds, cradling the other kid. “Ma, you gonna tell me what the fuck’s going on? Every cop in the country is lookin’ for these kids. Shit,
you got Scott Monroe’s kids? I always knew you were crazy, but this? You gotta be outta your fuckin’ mind.”
Marge placed both her hands over Alex’s ears and glared at Spanky. “Watch your language. Okay?”
“Fuckin’ okay?” Spanky stood over her, hands on hips. “You’re in deep, deep shit and you’re worried about cuss words. That’s my fuckin’ crazy ma.”
“Find Jessica so we can leave here.” Marge laid Jennifer down on the sofa and stood a moment before going about, gathering up toys and kids’ clothes.
“You’re in heavy doo-doo and you’re worried about shit like that?” He took a pink doll clothes case out of her hands and set it down.
“The picture in the newspapers,” Marge said. “It’s not very good, but the girls at work were kidding around. You know, Elmira, Beatrice, and even Janie — What if —”
Spanky crossed the room and plunked down on the other bed. “Stubbed my goddamned toe,” he mumbled, taking off his shoe to rub his foot. When he looked up, he took a closer look at the kid still sitting on the other bed. She was a cutie in those little red shorts and a snow-white polo shirt. “Hmm,” came out, unplanned. “What if what, Ma?”
“What if they tell the cops? I have vacation time. I was gonna leave tonight. When all this blows over, we’ll come back.”
“So you figure this is gonna blow over? You’re one crazy lunatic.”
“Spanky, please help me. Please. Go find Jessica. I’ll pack the car and we can go.”
“Go where?” he asked, humoring her, clueless as to how to get her out of this mess.
Marge stopped stuffing things into plastic bags and came over to whisper something in his ear.
“That might just work,” he said. “At least it’ll buy us some time until I get this all figured out. But I got bad news for you, Ma. It’s only gonna be this one. The other one got away. I spent forty-five minutes out there chasin’ her down. She’s outta here. And she’ll lead the law straight back here. So we gotta go. Now.”
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