4:06. Why 4:06?
A thought fluttered at the edges of her memory, like a lost bat that disappeared back into its cave. She had so deliberately kept herself from remembering that the past had become a place that she visited with effort, a place that required a travel agent. She would only go when Dr. Forrest told her so.
She went back through the house, locked the front door, and then checked all the other windows. She would unpack under the morning sun. For now, she was safe enough. As safe as she could ever be inside her own head.
Unless someone had a key to her head as well as her house.
Julia took a plastic shopping bag from the great mound of them under the sink. She slid the errant clock into the bag and tied it tightly closed. She wrapped a second bag around it for good measure and then tucked it under some coffee grounds and an ice cream box in the kitchen garbage. Maybe tomorrow she would find a big rock and smash the clock to bits.
Killing time. The image was almost funny, but the persistent buzz of adrenaline still tickled the surface of her skin. She felt as if she were being watched.
Was someone still in the house?
No, she had checked all the rooms. The attic access was in the bathroom. She’d covered a case in Memphis where a Creep had crawled through the maintenance access of his apartment, climbed over the rafters to the next unit, and drilled small peepholes in the bedroom ceiling. The woman had come home one day to find Sheetrock dust on her bedspread, saw the holes, and called the police.
The Creep was caught, but the woman never knew how many times he had watched her through his little series of spy holes. A hundred hot showers couldn’t wash that kind of violation from your skin. Could the victim ever again undress without a tiny paranoid shiver? How much therapy had the woman needed before she’d quit scanning the ceiling of every room she entered?
Paranoia was partly a survival instinct. But at some point you had to let it go.
Julia thought of calling Dr. Forrest. Her wristwatch said eight o’clock, plenty early enough. But she suspected Dr. Forrest had a lover, the man Julia had overheard in the background of several phone conversations. Julia hated to be so needy, so dependent, so demanding of the therapist’s time and attention. Most of all, she didn’t want Dr. Forrest to tire of her.
If she could survive the night, she would be okay. If she could survive her life, she would be okay.
Julia went back through the house to her bedroom. She stopped herself from double-checking the window. An odd buzz sounded in her ears, the near-silent alarm of something amiss. The shelf where the engagement ring was hidden appeared undisturbed, Mr. Ned giving his friendly terrapin grin and books in an alphabetized row. But the top drawer of her dresser was slightly ajar.
She wasn’t a neat freak by any stretch, but she did have a compulsion to close things. Doors. Windows. Lids. Cabinets.
She pulled open the drawer. Underwear and bras lay in ruffled tangles, a few of them black and red, most boring old beige or white. She dug into the pile, turned it over. The teddy was missing.
Mitchell had bought it for her in hopes that she would model it. And she would have, if Mitchell hadn’t turned savage. How she had longed for the right moment, a moonlit holiday, maybe, or a romantic anniversary of their first time. But Mitchell never mentioned it again, and Julia could never be sure how he’d react to a seductive surprise. Turned out he was the one full of surprises.
She was glad to be rid of that reminder of their flawed relationship, but there was the immediate problem of the teddy’s disappearance. Did a Creep sneak into her house for the sole purpose of digging through her naughties? Was he, at this very moment, parading around in the negligee, shivering and swelling with a secret thrill?
Julia sensed the eyes on her again. Paranoia, she knew. And yet–
She turned to the window.
Two bright glints, reflecting the light of her room. Staring between the lace of the curtains.
The eyes faded back into darkness as Julia’s breath caught. Then she heard a shout, the breaking of tree limbs, and a grunt of pain as bodies slammed against the siding and fell to the ground.
“Quit it, or I’ll break your arm,” someone shouted.
Julia stood undecided for a moment. Then she reached under the bed, got her Louisville Slugger, and ran to the window. In the rectangle of light cast into the back yard, she saw two men struggling on the ground. She gave the Louisville Slugger a little test swing. It was easier to handle than a wooden lamp.
God, I’m getting better with all this batting practice.
Julia hurried through the house, stopped in the living room to grab a flashlight and stuff the mace in her pocket. Feeling a little braver gripping the baseball bat, she went out the kitchen door to the side of the house. She edged around the corner into the back yard, shining the flashlight ahead of her.
“Get off me,” one of the struggling figures yelled.
The two had rolled to the trees that grew near the house. Julia pointed the light at them, but her hand was trembling so much that she couldn’t see their faces. “Who’s there?” she said, but her voice was lost amid the sound of scattered leaves and grunts.
She raised the bat, hoping to be menacing, and tried again. “Who the hell is it?”
“Julia!” gasped the man who was currently on top.
“Walter?”
She held the light more steadily and saw that the man on bottom was pinned, belly down, his arm behind his back. Still his legs flailed, and he twisted like an eel on a spear. His face mashed against the dirt, bits of leaves stuck to his hair. Walter straddled his back, a bronco rider whose steed had collapsed.
Walter grimaced with effort as he tugged the man’s wrist up to the shoulder blade. The man groaned sharply.
“I’ll snap it,” Walter told him. “I’ve wrestled a steer or two in my day, and if I can handle them, I can surely handle the likes of you.”
Walter gave an extra push to emphasize his point. The man lay still, breathing heavily.
Julia approached slowly, stopping a few feet away. “What’s going on?” she asked, not sure which of the two she should be prepared to slug with the bat.
“Call the police,” Walter said, blinking into the flashlight’s beam.
“You didn’t answer me,” she said, fingers clenched around the bat handle.
“He–” Walter panted. His face was strained, and she wondered if he really could keep the other man pinned. The man on bottom seemed younger and just as strong as Walter.
“I saw him climb out your window,” Walter said. “Right, scumbag?” he said to the man beneath him.
The man turned his face toward the forest, away from the light.
Julia backed up slowly and ducked inside, still holding the bat. She dialed 9-1-1 from the living room, carrying the phone so she could watch through the window. Walter was still on top.
“Communications,” came the clipped male voice.
“Yes, sir, I’d like to report a–”
“Yes, ma’am?”
What? A Creep? She thought of all the false reports she’d filed in Memphis, how the Metro cop had ridiculed her. She tried out the copspeak she’d learned as a crime reporter. “There’s an altercation in progress.”
“Altercation. You mean a fight?”
“Yeah.”
“Any weapons involved?”
“Not that I can see. But you better hurry.”
“Could you confirm that address, ma’am?”
“102 Buckeye Creek Road, in Elkwood.”
The man on the ground flopped like a beached fish, but Walter held on.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the communications officer. “I’ll send a patrol car right away. Say, you live near Mabel Covington, don’t you?”
Julia sighed into the phone. What was next, a recipe swap? “You may want to dispatch an ambulance, too.”
“Why? Is somebody hurt?”
“Not yet, but may be.” Especially if you don’t hang up a
nd get on the damned radio.
“You where you’re safe?”
“Excuse me, but I’d better go help.”
“I wouldn’t advise that–”
Julia hung up before the dispatcher could finish his “ma’am.”
Julia ran outside, her hand cramped from gripping the bat. Even Mark McGwire had to rest the lumber on his shoulder once in a while, steroid-stoked or not. But Julia couldn’t rest yet. She wasn’t going to let the bat go until the police arrived. And maybe not even then, because Snead might be on duty.
“You doing okay?” Julia asked Walt.
He shook his head “no,” but said, “I’ve been whooping punks like this since I was six.”
Then he jerked his head, urging her to help. His brown hair was damp with sweat and a nasty bruise welled up under one red and watery eye.
“If he moves again, brain him with the bat,” Walter said.
“Bat?” the man grunted against the ground. “You’re crazy.”
“Hey, I ain’t the one that was sniffing a woman’s underwear,” Walter said.
The teddy. This was the Creep. The one who had left the footprint, who had sneaked into her house, who had reprogrammed her clock. She fought a brief urge to tap his skull with the Louisville Slugger.
A siren wailed in the distance, coming up the valley and echoing off the slopes. The Creep gave another half-hearted struggle upon hearing the sound. Then he lay quietly again, his arm forced at a painful angle.
“Thank you,” Julia said to Walter. “No telling what he would have done….”
“The thing that burns me the most is that people like this got no respect,” he answered, giving another upward yank to the young man’s arm.
“I was–owww–just here for the ring.” The flashlight showed the reddened face of a college-aged man, and Julia recognized him from the apartment building down the road.
The guy’s face clenched in pain, and Walter eased off the pressure a little. “What ring?”
“Some dude hired me to get it,” he answered. “Called me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, mailed me a money order.”
Julia raised the bat. “And the underwear?”
“Christ, lady, it was a gag,” he said. “The dude said to screw with her head.”
Walter was ratcheting up the pressure again when the guy moaned and said, “No more till I get a lawyer.”
Blue lights flashed across the trees as the patrol car roared up in front of the house. Julia ran to them, waving the flashlight, letting the bat drag on the ground. Two policemen bounced out of the car, one drawing his sidearm.
“Don’t shoot,” Julia said. “They’re around back.”
“Drop the weapon and step away,” ordered the cop with the gun.
“It’s only a souvenir bat,” Julia said. “It’s got an Ozzie Smith replica signature on it.”
“Drop it.”
She complied. Satisfied, the cop with the gun went past her while the other crept to the corner of the house. Julia didn’t know what she was supposed to do. The cop hadn’t ordered her to freeze or anything. She stood for a moment, watching the bar lights bounce off the nearby apartment building. Some of the college students had come out and were standing on the porch, talking and drinking beer.
Julia followed the policemen around back. The cop with the gun now had it pointed at Walter. The other cop knelt by the man on the ground, fumbling with a pair of handcuffs and shining a large-beamed flashlight.
“This guy was breaking into her house,” Walter said. “I saw him peeping at her through the window.”
“Get off him and slowly back away, sir,” ordered the cop. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Walter’s eyes narrowed in anger, but he obeyed.
The second cop helped the other man to his feet. The man rubbed his elbow, glowering at Walter with a “You just wait” look.
“What’s your side of it?” the cop asked the injured man.
“I didn’t break in,” he replied. “I was just cutting through the yard to walk through the woods when this freak jumped me.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Walter. “What’s that in your back pocket, then?”
The cop shined his flashlight at the man, turned him around, pulled the frilly black teddy from the man’s pocket. The cop held it up, letting it dangle between his thumb and forefinger as if it were contaminated. The college guy looked sheepish.
“Is that yours, ma’am?” asked the cop with the gun. He had relaxed his stance and was now pointing his gun at the ground near Walter’s feet.
Julia nodded. “Yeah. I just noticed it missing a few minutes ago. Someone had broken into my house.”
“Anything else missing?”
“Not that I know of, but he said something about looking for a ring.”
“Do you know this man?” the cop asked, waving the weapon casually toward Walter.
“Yes,” Julia said. “He’s a friend of mine.”
The cops looked at each other, and then one led the Creep around the house, reciting the Miranda warning.
“Are you both willing to make statements?” the other cop said, finally returning his gun to its holster.
“Sure,” said Julia. “You want to come in the house? I guess you’ll want to check for fingerprints and all that.”
“The crime scene tech is on duty at the hospital,” the cop said, taking out a small notepad. “She’s going to hate coming out this time of night. So, you going to press charges, Mrs.–?”
“Stone. Julia Stone. Of course I’m pressing charges.”
The cop scribbled down her name and asked for Walter’s name. When Walter gave it, the cop lowered the notepad and let his writing hand make a subtle crawl toward his holster. “Triplett?”
“That’s right.” Walter straightened a little and glanced at Julia. “That Walter Triplett.”
The cop nodded and asked Julia, “So you’re vouching for his side of the story?”
Julia considered the possibility that the intruder had actually been Walter, and the college guy may have caught him in the act. But Walter had a key and needn’t bother sneaking in or out the window. And despite his reputation as a possible wife-killer, his kindness had eased her fears. “He’s safe,” she said.
The cop glowered at Walter, went to his car, and retrieved a clipboard. He spent the next fifteen minutes filling out an incident report. Then the car pulled away, lights still flashing. The college students jeered as the cops passed, holding their beer cans in the air.
“I thought they were going to check for fingerprints,” Julia said.
“This is Elkwood,” Walter said. He touched the bruise under his eye and winced.
“Come in and let me get you some ice for that.”
Julia retrieved her Louisville Slugger on the way inside. If discretion was the better part of valor, she figured 34 inches of hardwood would bridge the remainder of the gap if necessary.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Walter sat in the living room, looking at the baseball cards spread out on the table, as Julia wrapped some ice in a washcloth. She brought the cloth to him and then sat across the room in the chair at her work desk.
“Stan Musial,” Walter said, noting the arrangement of the cards by position. “Didn’t he play centerfield?”
“No, left,” Julia said. She shifted restlessly on the couch. She had leaned the bat in the corner, but the mace still bulged in her pocket. “He couldn’t throw well enough for center. He hurt his arm pitching in the minors. Three-time MVP. Led the Cardinals to two championships during World War II.”
“I thought all the good players got drafted by the army. Wasn’t Ted Williams a fighter pilot?”
Julia shrugged. “Maybe it was a conspiracy to make St. Louis look good. The old St. Louis Browns made their only World Series appearance in 1944. First time in 42 years. They won in 2006, too.”
Walter pressed the impromptu ice pack to his cheek. “Ouch.”
“Did that
Creep slug you?”
“Nope. He accidentally elbowed me in the face when I tackled him.”
Now came time for the question Julia had been delaying. She tried to sound casual, not like an interrogator. “When did you see him break in?”
In other words, what were you doing lurking in the woods behind my house? WATCHING my house?
“I do yard work for Mrs. Covington. She saw me fixing up this house after Hartley moved out and she hired me. I was over yonder–” he waved with his arm, “–laying some mulch when I saw somebody go around back of your house. I didn’t think much of it, figured he was heading down that trail in the woods. My Jeep was parked behind Mrs. Covington’s, so I reckon he didn’t know I was watching.”
Julia slid her hand into her pocket, felt the contour of the mace canister. “He lives in one of those apartments. Mrs. Covington told me one of them had a history of peeping.”
“Guess he took it a step further this time. When I didn’t see him pass there where the trail goes by Mrs. Covington’s back yard, I got suspicious. So I went through the woods and saw your window open. I figured somebody had been messing around there before, or else you wouldn’t have asked Mr. Webster to check your windows.”
“Maybe you should become a cop,” Julia said. Just like T.L. Snead. Then Walter could be part of the great Satanic conspiracy and get his piece of the action.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I don’t like guns.”
“You sure didn’t flinch when that cop pointed one at you.”
“Because I was frozen stiff. I thought old Barney Fife there would blow my head off if I so much as blinked.”
Julia laughed a little, but her abdomen was too tense to put much force behind it. “I take it that the Elkwood police don’t have a very good reputation.”
“They thought ‘Police Academy’ was an instructional video.”
Julia laughed more easily this time. She was so tired that she was almost giddy. Too much had happened in the last few days. The skull ring, a piece of the past unburied. The discovery of Snead’s move to Elkwood. A sexual assault by the man she had thought loved her. A Creep stealing her underwear. If she dared to think at all, she feared she might just start laughing and never stop.
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