Under the Beetle's Cellar

by Mary Willis Walker

  “Yes.” Molly walked to the fireplace and pointed at the photo. “This woman. The same woman as the photograph I saw at Dorothy Huff’s house. She’s very distinctive. And she took her sunglasses off, so I got a good long look. There’s no question.”

  “Okay. Second: What was she going to say when she stopped?”

  “I think she was going to tell me that if Samuel Mordecai weren’t there to sacrifice the children, you might be able to rescue them. He’s the one who has to do it, according to this Rapture of Mordecai.”

  “Yeah. We’ll get to that. Third: You’re a journalist. You have some sense of when people are telling the truth and when they’re bullshitting. Was Annette Grimes telling the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  A shadow crossed his eyes. He said, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear that. If Mordecai needs to murder those kids to fulfill his worldview, then we’ve spent forty-eight days negotiating for something he can’t give us. We’re going to have to fall back on force and I consider that a failure of major proportions.”

  “Have you heard anything,” Molly asked, “about Annette or the van?”

  “No. APD has put out a BOLO for it. They’ll let us know the second they get anything. And we’ll let you know. I have to tell you, though, Miss Cates, from what we’ve learned about Mordecai and the Jezreelites, you just don’t leave them and get away with it. The Sword Hand of God see to that. That’s why it’s almost impossible to get any insider intelligence. Mrs. Grimes flew the coop, and she told secrets. I don’t think we’ll see her alive again. She will probably suffer the same fate as Dr. Asquith. You were lucky to escape that garage.” He said it dispassionately.

  “I know.”

  Lattimore ran a hand over his still-wet crew cut. “Now I want you to listen to a conversation we had this morning with Walter Demming. This is not for public consumption yet, but Mordecai gave us a minute on the phone with Mr. Demming. In return, we are giving him fifteen minutes on religious radio for his sermonizing. As a bonus, we sent him some newspapers he’d been wanting. We also stuck in the bag some inhalers for Josh Benderson. I hope to hell he lets the kid have them.” He nodded. “Our minute with Demming may have been a real bargain. We just wanted to find out if they’re all still alive, but I think we may have gotten a lot more. Maybe you can shed some light. Play it, Bryan.”

  Again Holihan flipped switches.

  Andrew Stein’s rich voice emerged from the speakers. “Mr. Demming, this is Special Agent Andrew Stein of the FBI. How are you?”

  Walter Demming’s voice was low and controlled. “I’m alive and so are the children. They said I could tell you that. We are fed, and every day Mr. Mordecai instructs us. He said I could send some messages from the children. Here they are: Kimberly wishes her mother a happy birthday. She loves her and her grandma lots. Bucky wonders if his little brother Danny is sleeping in his room since he’s been gone. Lucy says her mom should give Winky a hug and she wants to come home and never leave. Josh says his mom shouldn’t worry and he can’t wait to get back to his dad’s mashed potatoes and sugar bread. Hector says to tell his Aunt Emily and Uncle Theo that he can’t wait to ride old Riddle further than the guests can gallop. Brandon sends his dad the peace of God which passeth all understanding and wishes he had a prayer book. Sandra says to tell Mrs. LaPonte, the school librarian, she’s read Stuart Little every day and it’s her favorite book now. Conrad asks the Second Baptist Church to pray for him. Sue Ellen says she loves her family a bunch. Philip says he wants to come home. Heather says hi, Mom, be good, and sends kisses.

  “And here’s my message. Tell my good friend Jake Alesky to send love to Granny Duck. Tell her I keep in mind what she taught me about survival, and I will live up to her example.”

  When he fell silent, Stein’s voice took over. “Mr. Demming, we are working around the clock to get you all out safe. We haven’t forgotten you. We are worried about Josh Benderson. How is he?”

  “Okay. They said I could—”

  A new voice sliced in. “You’ve exceeded your minute. We just threw our videotape out the front door. Send one of them reporters to pick it up. He should keep his hands on his head.” The connection was broken.

  Holihan hit the rewind.

  Lattimore looked at his watch. “We’ve sent a car for Jake Alesky. They should be here in a few minutes. We want to hear about Granny Duck.”

  “Me, too,” Molly said.

  “Did anything strike you about the kids’ messages?”

  “The one from Hector was strange.”

  Lattimore grimaced. “You don’t know the half of it. We’ve got all the parents corralled with some counselors at the Lutheran church over in Round Rock. We played the tape for them. Hector’s mom and dad say Hector has no Aunt Emily or Uncle Theo, and no horse named Riddle or anything else, and they have no idea what that message means. None of the other parents do either, so it isn’t a question of Demming’s having gotten it garbled or mixed up with some other kid’s message.”

  “What did he say again?”

  “Bryan, give Miss Cates a copy of the transcript.”

  Holihan handed her a sheet. Molly read it through, lingering on the message from Hector.

  “Mean anything to you, Miss Cates?”

  “ ‘Tell Aunt Emily and Uncle Theo that he can’t wait to ride old Riddle further than the guests can gallop’—No. Strange.”

  “We thought so, too,” Lattimore said.

  “Wait!” It came to her the way most good ideas did, like a silver fish slithering through a crevasse in her brain, exciting some neurons and dendrites as it rubbed past them. “Oh, my God. Walter Demming is in a poetry group with his neighbor Theodora Shea. Theo. It’s for Theo. And they’ve been reading Emily Dickinson—Aunt Emily.”

  Lattimore slapped both palms against the wall. “Shit. The neighbor lady. We talked to her a few weeks ago. Poetry group, huh?” He turned to the man standing by the door. “Curtis, get me Theodora Shea on the phone. Do not tell me she isn’t home. I want her, and I want her right now. Put her on the speaker.” His voice was harsh with excitement.

  Curtis sat at the computer and with a few keystrokes got a phone ringing.

  A firm female voice answered.

  Lattimore spoke into the speaker next to the computer. “Miss Shea, this is Agent Patrick Lattimore of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We talked a few weeks ago. I’ve got you on the speakerphone here at our command post near Jezreel. There are three other FBI agents present. Lieutenant Traynor from the Austin PD is here, too, and Miss Molly Cates, whom I believe you have met.”

  “Yes, sir.” Her voice was crisp and businesslike.

  “Miss Shea, we talked briefly on the phone with Walter this morning.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “He said they were all alive and he relayed some messages from the children to their parents. One of the messages had no meaning for the parents involved. Miss Cates thinks you might know something about it.”

  “Try me.”

  He picked up the transcript. “Here it is, ‘Hector says tell his Aunt Emily and Uncle Theo he can’t wait to ride old Riddle further than the guests can gallop.’ ”

  Without a second’s hesitation Theo said, “Not guests, Mr. Lattimore—guess, with two s’s, no t. Further than guess can gallop, further than Riddle ride. It’s Emily Dickinson. From the poem that begins: ‘Under the light, yet under, under the grass and the dirt, under the beetle’s cellar, under the clover’s root.’ ”

  “Holy Christ,” Lattimore muttered. “Under the grass and the dirt.”

  “I don’t know the rest of it by memory, but it ends with that wonderful line: ‘Oh for a disc to the distance between ourselves and the dead.’”

  “I’m going to need a copy of that poem, and right quick,” Lattimore snapped. “Curtis, see if you can locate it on-line. Miss Shea, what’s the title?”

  “Dickinson’s poems are numbered, not titled. You said Molly Cates is there?”


  “Yes.”

  “I gave her a complete Dickinson to send to Walter. It would be in there. Molly, do you have it with you?”

  Molly shook her head. “No. I’m afraid I left it at home.”

  “Well, if you’ll wait, I’ll find it for you and I’ll read it to you. Just a minute …”

  “Tape this, Holihan.” Lattimore’s face was white with concentration. “But keep trying on-line, Curtis.”

  Theodora came back on. “Let’s see if I can find it. I don’t remember the number, so I’m looking under first lines. Here is it. Number 949. Are you ready for me to read it?”

  “Yes, go ahead,” Lattimore said. “We’re taping this, Miss Shea.”

  Theodora read in a clear slow voice:

  “Under the Light, yet under,

  Under the Grass and the Dirt,

  Under the Beetle’s Cellar.

  Under the Clover’s Root,

  Further than Arm could stretch

  Were it Giant long,

  Further than Sunshine could

  Were the Day Year long,

  Over the Light, yet over,

  Over the Arc of the bird—

  Over the Comet’s chimney—

  Over the Cubit’s Head,

  Further than Guess can gallop,

  Further than Riddle ride—

  Oh for a Disc to the Distance

  Between Ourselves and the Dead!”

  “Miss Shea,” Lattimore said, “what do you make of that message?”

  “The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is that they’re being held underground. He’s trying to tell you where they are, so you can go in there and rescue them before it’s too late. I fervently hope you will do just that, Mr. Lattimore. Without delay.”

  “We will do our best. Please stay home near your phone, Miss Shea, so we can reach you if we need to. Will you do that for us?”

  “I certainly will.”

  “Thank you.” The agent nodded to Curtis to break the connection. “Transcribe that right away, Curtis, so we can all have copies.”

  Grady Traynor turned to face Molly. “While he’s doing that, Molly, this would be a good time to pass on the information you have.”

  Molly was startled. “What?”

  “The circumstances of Donnie Ray Grimes’s birth. I already told them the general outlines this morning. Fill it in for us.”

  She looked at him hard.

  “Go ahead, Molly. All bets are off now.”

  He was right, of course. With forty-eight hours left and Annette Grimes’s revelation, they needed to know everything. But she was reluctant to give it up. Once she did, it might lose its potential power. “Okay.” She felt suddenly exhausted. “Is there somewhere I could sit?”

  Grady gestured to the old armchair and she sat in it. She looked directly at Patrick Lattimore. “All right. Yesterday I talked with Dorothy Huff.”

  “The grandmother in Elgin,” Lattimore said.

  “Yes. She told me Donnie Ray was adopted by Evelyn Grimes, as a baby.”

  Lattimore scowled. “I really don’t understand how our intelligence group missed this.”

  “If you doubt it, I have the papers to prove it.” Molly summarized her conversation with Dorothy Huff. Then she told about Grady’s unearthing the old patrol report, about Hank Hanley and the Greek letters, and her extraction of information from Betty Larkin, the Pi Alpha Omega housemother. She watched their expressions for disapproval, but the men all looked unperturbed, as if this was just business as usual.

  “Thelma Bassett believes that mothers are a real obsession with Samuel Mordecai and I do, too. He searched desperately to find his birth mother. It’s enormously significant to him. If we could come up with her identity now, I’m sure we’d have something of value to trade to him.”

  “Maybe,” Andrew Stein mused. “God knows we haven’t been able to tempt him with anything else. What were you planning to do next?”

  From her bag Molly pulled out the directory and the list Betty Larkin had given her. “Well, I took the summer school list and checked to see if there were any members who were there that summer and have a current address in Austin. There are two of them, but one, Nancy Saint Claire, was a sorority officer—VP of Special Events—and might have been more actively involved in sorority life. I was planning to call her and ask if we could talk.”

  “What would you ask her?” Stein asked.

  “Well, I hadn’t decided how to proceed.” Molly thought for a minute. “What I want to know is who in the sorority was pregnant in the summer of ’62. I could say I’m doing a piece on how sexual morality has changed in the past thirty-five years and I’ve been talking to a sophomore Pi Alph who is pregnant out of wedlock and I want to compare her feelings and experiences with someone who was in that situation in ’62.”

  The room was silent. She looked around.

  “No,” Andrew Stein said. “Too convoluted. Why lie if you don’t have to? The best lies are as close to the truth as you can make them.”

  Molly flushed. Stein was right. “What if I said I was looking for the birth mother of a man who needed that information desperately and we have reason to think the mother is a Pi Alph who was at summer school in 1962. I’ll ask her if she was aware of any pregnancies.”

  “That’s more like it, close to the facts. All true, really,” Lattimore said. “We’ve got almost no time left. This may not be worth fussing with. What do you all think? A woman who’s kept a secret this long is unlikely to give it up now. And Grimes may have moved on to other obsessions. This may be worthless.” He looked around the room.

  Stein shrugged. “It’s worth a try. If it doesn’t take away from our other efforts.”

  “Definitely worth a try,” Grady agreed. “We could let Miss Cates do it.”

  Lattimore’s cool eyes were assessing Molly. “Do you want to have a go at it? Or shall we take it over? I could send Holihan.”

  Molly looked at the broad-shouldered Bryan Holihan. The agent was probably thirty, with a square head and pug nose. “Let me. If I can’t get anything, you could always take over.”

  Lattimore looked around at the others. Curtis shrugged and Andrew Stein said, “I think it’s more likely that a woman would tell a secret like that to Miss Cates than to Holihan.”

  Lattimore sighed. “We haven’t discussed confidentiality yet, Miss Cates. I realize you’re a member of the press. I don’t know what you intend to write about when this is over, but anything we’ve discussed in this room is strictly off-limits.”

  “I have no intention of writing about this,” Molly told him.

  Grady moved away from the wall where he’d been leaning. “Lattimore, you don’t realize it, but you’re lucky to be standing there with your nuts still intact. This is not a woman you dictate to.”

  “I’m not dictating,” the agent said to Grady. He looked back at Molly. “Sorry to be heavy-handed. I just wanted to make sure you knew how we play these things.”

  “I’m glad to know,” she told him. “But just for interest’s sake, how would you stop me if I did want to write about this?”

  “We couldn’t stop you. But we’d deny everything. And we could make your life a living hell after the fact.”

  “How?”

  “For starters, we’d get the IRS to audit every detail of your taxes for the past eight years.” With a sly smile, he asked, “You remember what it was like when you got audited in ’89?”

  Molly’s face must have betrayed her astonishment because he continued: “Oh, yes. It took Curtis about twenty seconds to get that. Makes you wonder if Mr. Mordecai has got some valid points about the menace of computers.”

  “Well,” Molly said, “I survived it in ’89 and I could survive it again.”

  “Maybe, but the audit they would do this time would make that one seem like a love feast. This time they’d ask for every receipt, every scrap of paper for every tiny deduction, every canceled check and deposit slip, going back eight y
ears. They would find irregularities that required an even more rigorous audit. You’d be spending all your time rummaging through your records and meeting with accountants, getting friends and business associates to make affidavits about this and that business expense. We’d do the same thing to your magazine and make sure the publisher knew that you were the reason. Shall I go on?”

  Molly managed to squeeze out a smile. “No. I’m convinced. Maybe the IRS is the weapon to use against Mr. Mordecai.”

  He didn’t smile. “Oh, we tried that early on. It usually gets people’s attention right quick, but Mordecai didn’t even flinch. When you really believe the world is ending, taxes lose their sting.”

  Grady Traynor said, “If she says she won’t write about it, she won’t. But in light of this morning’s attack and the known viciousness of the Sword Hand of God, she needs … an escort.”

  “Definitely,” Lattimore said. “Holihan is your new best friend, Miss Cates. I hear your truck got disabled, so he’ll drive you. Curtis, do your magic on that computer and find us personal data on Nancy Saint Claire. And, Curtis—ASAP.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  “It’s safer to believe. If you’re wrong, well, there’s nothing lost. But if you choose not to believe and you’re wrong, there’s hell to pay.”

  HARRIET CATES CAVANAUGH, TO HER NIECE

  As Jake Alesky wheeled himself across the threshold, Molly felt a stillness descend on the room. They must have known of his condition, but Jake’s presence clearly caused discomfort. It would be the very devil to have to face that reaction day after day, she thought.

  Lattimore leaned down to shake his hand. “Mr. Alesky, I’m Patrick Lattimore. Thank you for coming. Sorry for all the rush and secrecy, but we are running against the clock here.”

  “I’ll do anything I can to help Walter,” Jake said.

  “We talked to Walter on the phone this morning and he sent you a message. I want to play it for you.” He nodded toward the tape player. “Holihan, make it so.”