by Rick R. Reed
She had stood silently as he strapped the woman into the truck, weighing her down with rocks he found in the grass. He put the truck in gear so it would roll down the hill toward the brackish gray water, ruffled by a cold November breeze. The vehicle gathered speed and, as it hit the surface of the fishing pier, Beth wondered if the rickety structure could support its weight. The wood groaned, but the truck was on it for only a short time. It headed over the water for a moment, then gravity snatched it into the icy depths. The truck, with its open door, filled rapidly with water. It seemed like only minutes before only the white roof remained visible, and then, with a big bubble, that also disappeared.
Abbott turned to her and finally showed some emotion. He laughed, delighted, like a little boy.
Beth had closed her eyes, trying to imagine the woman’s spirit fleeing to some better place.
Now, Beth listened for sound in the cottage. What was Abbott doing now? It had been quiet since he had left her alone in the storage room. He had faced her away from the door she had broken and she was too spent—and too tied up—to even attempt to roll over to see what kind of light came in through the opening she had made.
The silence proved more disturbing than if she could hear him moving around. She couldn’t bear to think of him sitting out there in that narrow room, with the day’s light winding down into dusk, his pale blue eyes staring as he thought, plotted.
What will he do with that acid?
Rather than think about that, she let her mind drift further back, far enough to see Mark. She pictured his blond hair and strong jaw line, his clean-shaven face and perfect white teeth. Was he really dead? A quick vision, like a snippet from a film, rose up—Abbott on his knees, plunging the knife into Mark again and again. Another snippet—a spray of blood on the wall.
Beth trembled, forcing her mind to more pleasant memories—Mark holding her in his car on a hot summer night, parked near a beach in Evanston. From the CD player, Joni Mitchell sent out a plea for help because she was falling in love too fast. They had danced by a crescent moon that night.
Perhaps, by some miracle, Mark had survived. Maybe, somehow, the knife had missed vital organs and he was lying in a Chicago hospital, wondering where she was and what she’d had to do with his attack.
Beth felt the warm salt of tears on her face. It was the first time she had cried since everything had happened.
And then she felt Abbott’s presence behind her, heard him breathe, felt his gaze bore into her. A crawly sensation invaded her, making her feel like her skin was alive with bugs. Was he smiling?
Does he have the jug of acid?
If she had anything in her stomach, she was sure it would come up.
“Beth? It’s time.”
She tried to swallow, but she had no spit in her mouth. She knew he expected her to ask, “Time for what?” but she wouldn’t give him the pleasure. She would do anything to stave off whatever he had in store for her.
He cleared his throat. When she heard the swish of liquid in a plastic jug, she tried to draw her knees closer to her chest.
“It’s time for things to begin.”
His voice had no inflection, hardly any quality or tone. Was he even human?
“I’m going to loosen the rope.”
And then he knelt next to her, providing the warmth of his body when his knees dug into her back. She had wanted him to fuck her, she thought, now recoiling, trying to position herself away from his touch. That desire was the catalyst that set all of this in motion. She couldn’t think like that—she would go insane.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
He laughed. “Something you wanted me to do.”
No. She had no patience for riddles. Let him do whatever he’s going to do and get it over with.
But what if that meant pouring acid on her face, just as he did with the post woman?
He untied the rope that connected her wrists and ankles, but left her wrists secured. Her muscles, bunched into the same position for hours, screeched in protest as he forced her to extend her legs straight out and her arms above her head. He turned her on her back and she closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of his grinning face.
“Please don’t,” she whimpered.
“Oh, I think you’ll like this part.”
She pulled her stomach muscles taut when his fingers touched the button of her jeans, unfastening. Then he lowered the zipper. Both hands grabbed her waistband. “Lift your ass.” He tugged the jeans down to her knees.
She tried to twist away, but he pressed his hand into her stomach until the pain caused her to feel sick and she stopped trying to escape.
“This is what you wanted me to do to you all along, isn’t it?”
Beth looked up at him. He wasn’t smiling. There was an earnestness in his face. He pressed harder. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she gasped, just to get him to remove his hand from her stomach. It felt like something inside would burst if he pressed any harder.
“Well, don’t expect anything more. I don’t want to get AIDS.”
She noticed he didn’t look anywhere lower than her face, that he made an effort to avert his eyes from what he had exposed.
Their gazes met. “I want you to close your eyes now. This part of your lesson will go easier if you don’t know what’s coming and you just lie still.”
Peripherally, Beth saw the jug of acid on the floor beside him. “What are you going to do? How can you expect me to close my eyes with that bottle of acid there?” She tried again to roll away, to flail herself into some impossible corner where he couldn’t reach her, even though she knew what she was doing was futile, would, in fact, only serve to infuriate him further.
“If you don’t lie still, I’m going to have to make you.” He took a breath. “How would you like me to nail your arms and legs to the floor? Don’t doubt me. I’ll do it.”
“I won’t move anymore,” Beth spat, her terror making it nearly impossible to speak.
“Close your eyes.”
“I can’t!”
“I can make you.”
With great effort, she squeezed her eyelids together. Her breath came in gasps; it felt like the air in the room had disappeared.
And it seemed to be getting hotter. Her face flushed, with sweat trickling down her cheeks. She wanted to pray, but could find no words.
Somewhere in the back of her throat, a scream gathered, but she couldn’t summon it. She lay trembling, eyes shut tight. Instead of seeing darkness, though, she saw stars and bright arcs of color on her inner eyelids.
She felt warmth between her legs as she urinated.
“Ah, look at what a mess you made.” Abbott’s voice sounded distant, as if he were no longer in the room with her. “No self-control.”
She flinched when she heard him lift the plastic jug, heard its contents swishing around. Her whole body went stiff; her spine ached. But she couldn’t unclench her muscles.
He loosened the cap on the jug, slowly, slowly. Wasn’t this the part where she was supposed to pass out? Wasn’t her conscious mind supposed to deliver her from her terror?
“Just a little bit,” he said. “For now. This will let you know what the acid feels like.”
The liquid splashed on her thigh. It felt cold for an instant, then everything went hot as the scalding agony seared into her skin. She arched her back and the scream that would not come previously now emerged with a force that felt like it would rip the membranes in her throat.
The white-hot pain grew unbearable. She tried desperately to claw at the tender skin on her thigh, to get the acid off, to go back to a time when she was innocent of such unendurable agony. It made her want to die.
A smell of rotting meat and chemicals rose up, burning.
Abbott said something, but she couldn’t make sense of the words. She felt his hand on her stomach, the other on her right shoulder, trying to hold her down as she bucked and writhed. The pain seemed alive, a monster s
ent from hell to torture.
“This is what it does to your thigh.” She at least heard him, his voice high with excitement. “Imagine what it will do to your face—your pretty, pretty face!”
She opened her eyes and saw him, his own face clammy with sweat, flushed bright red, eyes twinkling.
He stood. “I’ll get some water. We gotta flush that burn for twenty minutes.”
The thought of the cool water calmed her a little, and she tried to stop the bunching and releasing of her muscles in reaction to the pain.
Before she fainted, she thought she had to get away or die trying. She didn’t want to imagine what he could do to her pretty, pretty face…
Chapter 20
Last night, he hadn’t read the newspaper. Thank God for that! Kate clutched yesterday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune tightly in her lap as morning inched its way toward noontime, doing nothing but sitting in the living room. Maybe, she thought, holding onto it so tightly, she could prevent the paper from spreading its hateful message any further.
He would find out, of course, when he went to work that day. When you worked at the Mercantile Exchange, it was impossible not to keep up on current events; they affected the prices of futures. What would people say to Ted when he went on the floor that morning? What would they whisper behind his back? Would they couch their words to spare him any shame? Would they hide gossip’s glee behind masks of sympathy for his daughter—the whore, the runaway, the murderer?
What fuel they had! Kate shifted in the chair, so unforgiving, the wingback forcing her to sit ramrod straight and to imagine her husband’s face. Would his careful composure finally slip for just a second? Or would he feign knowledge of the article while at the same time try to elicit details? He would slip back to his office, she was sure, trying to appear none-too-urgent and dig the story out of the trash, where he would read it, perhaps over and over, as she had, scanning each line for some evidence of an error, a joke. Would he have the same feeling of lightheadedness?
He would read the story and she would bet no one at the Mercantile Exchange would dare mention it to him. His blue eyes, always cold, could silence even the most innocent inquiry. For certain, he would pick up the phone and call her.
And then the blaming would begin.
Kate jumped as the phone, as if on cue, rang. It caused her heart to thud in her chest. She looked at the cordless on the cherry side table, thinking she could see it vibrate with each ring. Was it Ted? She didn’t know if she could bear the accusations, the cold deliberateness with which he would cut into her, allaying his own guilt in what their daughter had done, making it hers.
The phone rang a third time, a fourth, and Kate watched, wishing it would stop, wishing they would have invested in voice mail or an answering machine, but Ted would never allow it. It rang on and on, as if to irritate her, invading what little peace she had left. My God, she was trembling, digging her nails into the palms of her hands so hard she feared drawing blood.
Finally, to silence the nerve-jangling ringing more than anything else, she picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Donner?”
The voice was unfamiliar, female and eager. Kate dug her nails harder into her palms. “Yes?”
“Hi, Mrs. Donner, this is Melissa King, at the Trib? You probably saw my story in yesterday’s paper—about your daughter?”
“Yes, and frankly I wish the media could show a little more discretion.”
“I understand that, Mrs. Donner. May I call you Kate?” The woman didn’t wait for an answer. “I wanted you to know how much I sympathize with your plight.”
“What do you know about my plight?”
“I just wanted to call and let you know what we at the Tribune are doing is not in any way an attempt to smear your daughter’s good name.”
Kate was flabbergasted. But the woman continued.
“What we’re trying to do is help her. I’ve been working very closely with Pete McGrew and he’s assured me the more information we can get out there to the public, the more likely it will be that we can help find your daughter. The media can open all kind of doors.”
What did this woman want? Gratitude?
The reporter continued, voice high, chattering, excited. Kate pictured a blonde cheerleader.
“Anyway, you need to know that I want to present the facts in the best light possible.”
“You’re doing another story?” Kate asked, mouth dry.
Melissa King paused. “Well, yes. There’s a lot of interest in the case. And that’s a good thing for finding Beth. As I was saying, I want to present the facts in the best light I can.”
“I see.” Kate twisted her wedding band around and around her finger. “Perhaps you’d like my permission to print excerpts from my daughter’s journal. Wouldn’t that be great? I bet it would cause a huge jump in circulation.”
The woman said nothing for a second or two. “Kate, I’d like to talk to you. Maybe if someone out there could see your hurt, see what it’s doing to the family, it would motivate them to come forward, to share any information they might have.”
Kate saw herself on tomorrow’s front page—through her husband’s eyes.
“What do you want? An interview?”
“Well, yes. I’d just like the chance, as I said, to present your side of things.”
“You never said that. And I’m not sure what I could possibly add.”
“I think you could add a lot, Kate.”
“I never gave you permission to call me Kate. I never gave you—or anyone else—my permission to publish my daughter’s innermost secrets for a reading audience of millions and to ruin her reputation. But it seems my permission isn’t needed for much.”
“As I explained, Mrs. Donner, it’s not our intention to drag your daughter’s reputation through the mud, but to help find her. That’s why the police contacted us.”
“You’re selling newspapers, Ms. King, newspapers, and using my daughter’s good name to do it. Let’s at least be up front.”
“Fair enough—but we do want to help Beth, that’s the truth. So what do you think? Could I come over and talk to you? It could help find Beth. Isn’t that what you want?”
“What I want is for you to leave me alone.” Kate hung up the phone.
The phone rang again.
Kate snatched it up. “Didn’t I make it clear? No interviews!”
“What are you talking about?” Ted’s voice almost made Kate slam down the phone once more.
She swallowed hard. “Sorry. I thought you were this reporter from the Tribune who just called. She wanted to interview me.”
“Melissa King?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“She called me earlier this morning.”
“Struck out with you, too?”
“Kate. How could you do this? What’s all this malarkey about a journal? What journal?”
“I found it at Beth’s apartment. I thought the police should have a chance to…”
“Why didn’t you ever show me?”
“I…I didn’t get a chance.”
“What do you mean? We live together, for Christ’s sake.”
Ted sounded angry. He so seldom showed any emotions that Kate was taken aback. She couldn’t find any words to say.
“Why would you do such a thing? Do you know what this has done? Do you know they’re already sensationalizing our lives?”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.” She wanted to cry. “I only wanted to help them find Beth.”
“Well, I don’t know how much this is going to ‘help’ anyone. I want to know why you didn’t show it to me first.”
“I don’t know!” she screamed, then calmed herself. “I thought it would upset you. I didn’t want to upset you. I never want to upset you. I thought this Detective McGrew would handle things more discreetly. He promised me nothing like this would happen.” She wracked her brain, trying to recall if McGrew had ever actually made such a promise. Now, s
he wasn’t at all sure he had.
“You should have known better. I’m ruined down here…a laughingstock. Do you know that?”
Kate shook her head. “Oh now, what does all of this have to do with your work?”
“A man’s reputation is all he has.” He took in a breath. “At least it’s all I had.”
She listened as he hung up the phone, whispering to herself, “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”
She went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, rummaged in the refrigerator until she found the remains of last night’s roast pork, then sat at the table with it, eating with her bare hands while the phone rang and rang in the background.
What if it was Ted?
Wearily, she got up and wiped her hands on a paper towel, then picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
“Could I speak to Mrs. Donner please?” She started to hang up, but the man asked, “Is this Mrs. Donner?”
“Yes.”
“This is Wes Marenson, down at Channel Eight. We’d like to do a follow-up to the story in yesterday’s Tribune and we wanted your input.”
Kate sunk to the floor, sliding down along the wall, listening as yet another reporter told her how he wanted to tell her side of the story.
Here was her chance to be on TV.
Who would call next?
* * * *
After twelve rings, McGrew hung up the phone. No one answered at the Donner house. He picked up a Styrofoam cup of coffee and drank down its tepid remains. He thought of trying the Donners’ number one more time. But what was the use? What could he say? That he was sorry? Would his apology do much to ease the pain of exposing their daughter’s extramarital affairs to an entire city? Would it take away the paranoia Kate Donner must now feel every time she left her house? Would his sincere apology make it any easier to bear that the public was now certain Beth Walsh must have been implicated in her husband’s murder?
