Under the Beetle's Cellar

by Mary Willis Walker

  Looking at the perfectly edged grass and the blooming pink azaleas, she knew that the residents of this house would work hard at maintaining appearances. Even if she didn’t need to keep the search secret, a direct approach would not work here. Pi Alpha Omegas would not willingly reveal dirty laundry, even thirty-three-year-old dirty laundry.

  If she was going to do this, she was going to have to pull out all the stops, and enter wholeheartedly into the lie. She strode into the house. In the sunny living room several girls with long shiny hair were curled up in armchairs studying. A big television was on with the volume low. Molly was pleased to see it tuned to a soap opera, not coverage of the Hearth Jezreelites. One of the girls spotted Molly. “Ma’am, can I help you?” she called out.

  “Yes. Where would I find the housemother or someone in charge?”

  “Well, Miz Larkin is our housemother. She’s usually in her office, down the hall to the right.”

  Molly went the way she was pointed. The office door was open. A woman with unnaturally black hair sat working at a tiny writing desk, her head bent. She looked up, showing a face far too pale and wrinkled to go with the dead-black hair. “Yes?”

  “Are you Miss Larkin?” Molly asked.

  “Yes, I am,” she drawled. “Betty Larkin.”

  “I’m Molly Cates.” She stepped forward and shook the woman’s outstretched hand. “I write for Lone Star Monthly magazine and I’m hoping you might help me with a piece we are doing.”

  The woman’s face brightened. “Won’t you please sit down?”

  Molly did. “Are you familiar with our magazine, Miss Larkin?”

  “I surely am. But, you know, I just don’t have much time for reading. The girls keep me so busy.”

  “I bet,” Molly said. “When I think of how busy one daughter this age kept me, I shudder to think of a houseful of them.”

  Betty Larkin laughed.

  “I’m doing research for an article on Martha Dillingham. You know, the poet, who won the Kemper Prize for Literature last year.” Molly paused to see if her invention went over. Betty Larkin nodded as though she recognized the name. Molly pressed on: “Martha says one of the major influences on her career was a writing course she took right here at the University of Texas. In summer school, back in the summer of 1962. A requirement of the course was a group writing project. She collaborated on a story that summer with two girls who were Pi Alpha Omegas, but she can’t remember their names and she’s lost her copy of the story they wrote together. I’d like to find them so I can interview them—you know, find out what they thought of Martha back then, whether they saw her promise, and what they’ve done with their own writing. And I sure would like to see if one of them kept a copy of the story.”

  Molly settled back on the chair. “The problem is, the course list got lost, so the university registrar hasn’t been able to locate the names of the people in that writing class. And the professor’s been dead for many years. I’m wondering if you might have a list somewhere in your files of the girls who were here during summer school in ’62. Martha feels certain she will recognize the names if she sees them.”

  “A list of girls who lived in the house in 1962?”

  “Yes, especially the summer. I bet you thin out then.”

  “Yes, we do. Of course, that was way before my time.”

  “Mine, too,” Molly said with a laugh.

  “It would have been during Mrs. Stanford’s tenure. She was housemother for thirty years. Beloved by generations of Pi Alphs. Now that would be an inspiring story for your magazine.”

  “Yes, it sounds like it,” Molly said with an attempt at brightness. “Is she still around?”

  “Well, barely. She’s had some strokes and doesn’t even know who she is now. So sad.”

  “Yes,” Molly said, reminded that she needed to go visit her Aunt Harriet in the nursing home. She suffered a brief twinge, knowing how deeply her aunt would disapprove of what she was doing right now.

  Betty Larkin said, “Of course, I have all her records here, and Franny was a meticulous record keeper.”

  “Was she?” Molly said.

  “Yes, but I just don’t know whether it would be right to show you those.”

  “I can see your dilemma,” Molly said, “but it’s information I could have gotten from the registrar if they hadn’t lost it. Just a list of who was here that summer.”

  Betty Larkin smiled, a woman who wanted to please. “It’s hard to see the harm in it. And it sounds like it might be good for the sorority. Was … you know, that writer you’re doing, was she in a sorority?”

  “No, ma’am. She couldn’t afford it.”

  “Too bad. We offer scholarships now. Not enough, of course. It’s such a fine thing for these scholarship girls, gives them contacts for the rest of their lives, entrée into a world they wouldn’t have access to.”

  “I imagine so,” Molly said.

  “Well, let me see if we can find that list for you.” She picked up her phone and pressed two buttons. “Cindy,” she said into the phone, “would you look in Mrs. Stanford’s files for me—the light green cabinet. I need a list from 1962—girls who lived in the house during summer school that year. And bring in the directory from ’62. I know we’ve got that in the top drawer.” She listened for a minute. “Yes, now please. And make copies for me, will you? Thanks.”

  She put down the phone and turned back to Molly, her forehead crinkled in thought. “But you know, Mrs. Cates, you say she’ll recognize the names, but how will you find them? You know how we women are. We change our names and move away.”

  Molly nodded. Yes, we change our names, our residences, and our hair color—often many times. How do people ever find us?

  “What you’ll need is one of our current directories. They’re cross-referenced by maiden name and year. Also it tells who is deceased, not that your girls are likely to be. They’d just be in their early fifties, wouldn’t they? Most members are in it. Some fall through the cracks, but not many. I’ve got a few extra directories, so I could loan you one, but I’ll need to have it back.”

  Molly repressed the urge to kiss her. Betty Larkin had the makings of a good researcher, one who anticipated the problems. Molly wasn’t sure what the duties of a housemother were, but she imagined Betty was a good one. Maybe what everyone needed in their lives was a housemother to keep track of the details and anticipate problems. Might be even better than having a wife. “Thank you so much,” Molly told her. “This is such a help.”

  “Well, one of my jobs is to help promote networking. And this sounds valuable for the two classmates of—oh, I’ve forgotten her name.”

  Molly scrambled mentally to dredge up the name she’d invented. “Martha. Martha Dillingham.”

  “Yes. I’ve never read her, but I’ve meant to.”

  When the secretary brought in the copies of the 1962 lists and Betty Larkin lent her the directory, Molly was out of the house like a flash. She didn’t stay to chat or leave a card, as she usually did. She had gotten the information she’d wanted and more. To have gotten it any other way might have been impossible.

  Molly walked back to her illegally parked truck feeling edgy, but exhilarated. This was like robbing a bank and getting away with it. There must be some moral deficiency in her that allowed her to do it so fluently and, she congratulated herself, so well. She had already gotten further than the Austin police and the Department of Public Welfare, further than Donnie Ray Grimes himself.

  But so what? In one morning, she had broken most of the ASNE ethics for journalists, had taken advantage of a poor old alcoholic, and had lied outrageously to a helpful housemother. All in the hope—tenuous at best—of finding a woman who left a newborn in Waller Creek thirty-three years ago. And even if she could find the woman, unlikely as that was, would she be willing to cooperate? Would Samuel Mordecai want to hear from her? Would he care enough to bargain for the privilege of talking to the woman who abandoned him?

  Probably n
ot. But it was not going to stop Molly from trying. A serial killer she had once written about had compared her to a pit bull bitch he’d seen fight. Getting the bitch to let go of something she’d gotten hold of had required beating her practically to death.

  Molly grabbed the ticket off the truck’s windshield and stuffed it in her bag without looking at it. Didn’t matter—she’d deduct it. Of course, that pit bull stuff was a dramatic overstatement. It was true that once she got on the trail of something that interested her, she liked to see it to the end. But she wasn’t a zealot. She was not going to take this to extremes.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  “I probably shouldn’t say this to a child, honey, and if you tell your Aunt Harriet I said it, I’ll deny it, but I think religious faith has done more harm in this world than the seven deadly sins combined.”

  VERNON CATES, TO HIS DAUGHTER

  Feeling resentful, as though she had been coerced into taking an unwanted stepchild to piano lessons, Molly stopped to pick up the dog at Jake Alesky’s. As they had unloaded his groceries the night before, Jake had offered to take care of Copper when Molly couldn’t. She’d leapt on the offer and dropped him off the next morning, so she could track down Hank Hanley. But she couldn’t impose on Jake indefinitely.

  Pulling up to the trailer, she was surprised to see Jake sitting in his wheelchair throwing a tennis ball and Copper barreling after it with the vigor of a regular sporting dog. “He likes that,” she called out the window.

  Jake reached down to accept the filthy, dripping tennis ball that Copper had retrieved. “Of course he does. He’s a dog.”

  “I suppose,” Molly said.

  “Did you know this breed can accelerate from zero to thirty-five in two seconds?”

  “Amazing, but not particularly useful for a house pet. Thanks for having him.”

  “Ah, we both need the exercise.” He wheeled over to the truck. “So when are we going out to Jezreel?”

  “I told you. Never.”

  “Let me know when you change your mind. I want to go.”

  “Watch it on TV,” Molly told him. “That’s what I do. A crime scene is like football. You can see it better on the tube.”

  Fifteen minutes later, heading home with Copper in the back, Molly called in to the office. “There’s a package and a fax for you,” Stephanie said, “and some woman’s been calling every ten minutes all morning and won’t leave her name or number. Says it’s urgent.”

  “Urgent? Well, what does she expect me to do about it with no number?”

  “You got me.”

  Molly was just passing Fifth Street. “I’m coming in for a few minutes. If the woman calls back, tell her I’ll be in my office in five minutes.” She drove to the office and up into the parking garage. As she was getting out of the truck, the dog leaned over the tailgate and whined at her. Molly cursed softly under her breath. She’d forgotten about him.

  The dog stood trembling with anticipation. “What a bother you are. I can’t take you in, but—” She stopped talking when she saw a small figure watching her from the stairwell doorway. It was a woman wearing jeans, sunglasses, and a big scarf that hid her hair and some of her face. She headed directly toward Molly, walking fast, with her head down. She was tiny, about five feet tall. Certainly not menacing, but Molly clutched the pepper Mace canister attached to her keys and braced herself. She glanced around the shadowy garage, wishing someone else would appear, but the level was totally deserted.

  The woman stopped in front of Molly. In a whisper, she asked, “Are you Molly Cates?”

  Molly whispered back, “Who wants to know?”

  The woman lifted her head and glanced around the empty garage. “I know who you are. I’ve seen you before. I have to tell you something. Something important.” Her voice was shaky and breathless. “Something so terrible you won’t believe it.”

  Molly felt suddenly very old and jaded. There was nothing, she was certain, nothing under the sun that was so terrible she wouldn’t believe it. “Let’s go up to my office,” she said, “and you can tell me about it there.”

  “No! I can’t. Let’s stand over here, behind your truck.”

  “It’s more private in my office. And much more comfortable—”

  “No! I can’t be seen. You don’t know. Here.” The woman walked swiftly to a cement stanchion behind the truck and leaned into the corner. Molly followed with grave misgivings. The woman’s fear was palpable. It was also contagious.

  Molly took her first good look at the young woman—the heart-shaped face and small, delicate features. She’d seen a photograph of that face just yesterday. “You’re Annette Grimes,” she said, keeping her voice very low and as calm as she could manage.

  Samuel Mordecai’s wife nodded. “I saw you before, through a window when you were out at Jezreel. He was so mad at what you wrote. He never let any of us see it. When I left there seven months ago, I looked it up at the library. That’s why I came to you. You’ve got to tell them—the FBI and the police, the ones who are out there trying to talk to him.” She leaned around the post to survey the garage again.

  Molly found her anxiety level soaring; this was a dangerous situation and she needed to do the sensible thing. “Annette, I’ll pass on whatever you want me to. But we need to get in my truck right now and drive to the police station. Ten blocks. We’ll get protection for you, and you can tell them yourself. In safety. Come on. We’ll talk on the way.”

  “No.” For the first time the woman’s voice rose above a whisper. It was shrill and feathery with fear. “I can’t. I want you to tell them. If you won’t do that, I have to leave.”

  Molly was torn. Annette looked ready to bolt at any second. The right thing, the safe thing, was to get her into police protection, but she couldn’t force her, and she didn’t want to scare her off. “Okay. I’ve got a little tape recorder here in my bag. I’d like to record what you say.”

  “No!” A tear rolled out from under her sunglasses. “I just want to tell you what I came to say, and get out of here.”

  Molly reached out and rested a hand on her arm. From the pickup came a low growl. They both jerked their heads in that direction. “Stay,” Molly said to the dog. “It’s all right. Listen, Annette. I think you have something very important to tell. If you let me record it, I will give it only to the FBI commander at Jezreel and the chief negotiator for the Austin police. What you say will carry more weight if I have it on tape. No one else will ever hear it. I promise.”

  Now the girl was trembling visibly. “Okay, but I have to hurry. They know I’m in town.” She wrapped her arms around herself.

  Molly already had her hand on the little recorder inside her big bag. She’d been planning to turn it on, permission or no. Now she pulled it out and pressed the “record” button. “Go ahead.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ve been with him since I was fourteen—eleven years.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “But I have to.”

  “Go on.”

  “I saw one of the mothers—on TV—and … Oh, I feel so—” She was crying so hard she could barely get the words out. “So awful, so guilty, so … ruined. You can’t know. No one can know.” She put her hands over her face. “Tell them—they have to go in now and save those children. They have to. Right now.”

  An image of eleven-year-old Kimberly Bassett came to mind and the boy with the dark cowlicks. “Why?”

  Annette was sobbing so hard she could get out only a word or two at a time. “Because—he—has to—kill them.”

  “Has to? Why?”

  “His Doctrine of Human Agency. Sacrifice is necessary.”

  “Sacrifice? Necessary for what?” It was Molly’s worst fear, something she had avoided giving voice to for forty-eight days.

  Annette took off her sunglasses. Her streaming eyes were intensely blue under black lashes. “It’s the way—the Apocalypse will start—see—fifty perfect martyrs—purified—innocent.” She tugged a c
rumpled piece of Kleenex out of her jeans pocket.

  “He’s only got twelve,” Molly said quickly.

  “Eight more is all he needs. By now maybe less.” She wiped under her eyes with the Kleenex.

  A surge of revulsion rose in Molly’s throat. She thought she knew the answer, but she had to ask. “Where did the other martyrs come from, the other forty-two?”

  “The babies—he sent them back to God direct.” Tears dripped off her chin. “On the fiftieth day. Always the fiftieth day.”

  “The babies born at Jezreel?”

  “Uh-huh. For three years.”

  “So it was going on when I was out there?”

  Annette nodded.

  “How?”

  “Oh.” Her nose was running in long strands. She used the back of her hand to wipe it. “This ritual—with a sickle. Handed down from prophet to prophet. Had to be done just so. At sunset. He will do it. Friday. Unless they do something to stop him …”

  Molly looked down to reassure herself that her recorder was working. “Annette, to rescue them, they need to know where the children are. Where would he keep them?”

  “Underground somewhere. I don’t know, but the babies—” She was interrupted by gulping sobs. “They were kept in these … like underground cribs, in the barn. Earth purifies.”

  “The white barn?”

  “Yes. With the tin roof. They were fed and changed, kept alive, but they stayed in these … boxes underground … I didn’t know how awful until a few weeks ago … I had my own and he’s so—” Her shoulders slumped and she sobbed uncontrollably.

  Molly moved closer and put an arm around her. She looked to see what the dog was doing, but Copper was not visible in the truck bed; he must be lying down. “Annette, did you have a baby?” she asked.