Night Terror

by Chandler McGrew

  “Yes. My aunt.”

  “She took you from your mother?”

  “I told Doctor Cates.”

  “Your psychiatrist?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me,” said Virgil softly.

  “I followed them down into the basement and I saw the little girl. It’s all mixed up.”

  “How old was the little girl?”

  Another confused look, peering into the past.

  “My age.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “I don’t remember. I can’t quite see her.”

  “Why would anyone do something like that?”

  “The little girl fought her. She screamed and kicked and my mother kept telling her to be still. Telling her everything was going to be all right. The little girl’s knees were bloody from the concrete. My mother was fighting with the girl. My mother looked up and saw me. She screamed at me.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She screamed at me to go away.”

  “She didn’t try to catch you?”

  Audrey shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “She just told you to go away?”

  She nodded.

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran…”

  “And Tara came for you?”

  Audrey frowned. Virgil waited patiently.

  “No,” she said at last. “She didn’t come for me that night. … Maybe it was later. I can’t remember.”

  Audrey seemed hypnotized—and distant at the same time. “What’s your aunt Tara’s full name, Audrey?”

  “Tara Beals.”

  “Spell it.”

  Audrey did.

  Virgil took a small pad out of his shirt pocket and wrote down the name. “Where does she live?”

  “North of Augusta.”

  He looked at her and she gave him the address, watching him write.

  “What about your mother? Where’s she now?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “She never tried to get in touch after Tara took you?”

  “I thought I saw him in the glass,” she said, glancing back mournfully over her shoulder toward the window.

  “What about the memories, Audrey?” he said, ignoring her response to the previous question.

  She stared at the bottle. “I haven’t seen him so much since the pills.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing, then.”

  “Is it?”

  “Do the memories have anything to do with Zach disappearing?” he repeated, trying to get her to focus on his eyes again.

  “I had a bad spell the other day by the old farm down the road.”

  “The Coonts place?” said Virgil. A nerve somewhere along the base of his spine twitched.

  “The farm with the truck.”

  “What happened?”

  “I thought Zach was locked up in their basement….” She looked into his eyes as though waiting for him to deny the possibility.

  “I questioned Mister Coonts when he got back from his trip, Audrey. I told you what I found out.”

  She nodded. “The pills make it better. But now and then I get a glimpse of Zach. And he’s still in a basement. I can feel it all around me. Dark and shadowy, with no windows.”

  “Did you see anything when you passed the house? I mean, really?”

  He had the strong sense that Audrey believed every word she was telling him, even when all she could remember were shattered remnants of her past. He also believed that on some level, no matter what she said, she was still convinced Zach was held in the basement of the Coonts farm and that there was nothing she could do about it. But it would be just as easy to believe that Audrey was a victim of some horror in her childhood that had twisted her mind, turned her into a child-killer, and now that same warped psyche was covering up the crime by foisting suspicion off on an innocent neighbor.

  You don’t believe that. Look at her. She couldn’t hurt a flea, certainly not her own son.

  But stranger things had happened. What would that do to his one monster theory? Audrey surely hadn’t kidnapped Timmy Merrill. But she had invited Virgil into the house. And she kept talking about a cellar….

  “Audrey,” he said, as calmly as possible. “Why don’t you and I take a look around your basement?”

  She squinted at him. “Why?”

  If he found anything at all, a shyster defense attorney would probably say that she had given her permission for him to search under the influence of drugs, but that was a battle for a prosecutor to fight. Suddenly, more than anything, Virgil wanted to take a tour of the Bock cellar. He didn’t really expect to find anything there. He prayed he wouldn’t find anything there. But now it was one more item he needed to check off his list. “I’d just like to take a look, if it’s all right with you.”

  Audrey shrugged. Virgil followed her to the cellar door beside the pantry. When she flipped on the light and glanced back over her shoulder at Virgil, she seemed nervous.

  “I don’t want to go down there,” she said, stepping aside.

  Virgil peered down the bare wooden stairs toward the furnace, then back at Audrey. “What’s the matter?”

  “I never go down there.”

  “Never?”

  “No. I don’t like basements.”

  Well, neither did he. Virgil pulled the door wide open and stared down into the well-lighted cellar. “Looks pretty airy to me,” he said in an encouraging tone.

  Audrey shook her head and backed away, making Virgil just that much more determined to see the basement. But if there was something down there, he certainly didn’t want to leave Audrey upstairs where he couldn’t see her. If she was unstable, no telling what she’d do.

  “Audrey,” he said, “we need to do this. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I promise.” He tried to make it sound as official as possible, but he held out his hand reassuringly.

  “Please don’t make me go down there,” she whispered.

  Virgil stepped directly in front of her. “I’ll be with you, Audrey.” He took her hand and she followed him, but he noticed that her breathing was gaspy and her eyes darted around the kitchen.

  Virgil stopped as a thought struck him. “Would you like to take one of your pills?”

  Audrey shook her head. “I just took one.”

  Great.

  “Come on, then,” he said, backing down the stairs and tugging her gently along until they stood in the middle of the basement together.

  The ceiling consisted of raw joists. White electrical wire fed porcelain light sockets loaded with bare bulbs. The walls were exposed concrete, as was the floor. A big green oil furnace took up the center of the room, sitting silent now like a sleeping guardian. The back wall was lined from floor to ceiling with cardboard file boxes. A row of them had been stacked to create a wing wall, blocking Virgil’s view of the far corner.

  He glanced around the open area, but nothing sinister caught his eye. If anything, the basement was too clean, too neat, but a CPA might have the neatness gene built right in. Still, people collected junk over time. Everyone did. Where was all the Bocks’ junk?

  “Mighty neat,” he said.

  “Richard doesn’t like a mess,” said Audrey. “He empties everything out of the basement once a year.” Her voice was quaky. Virgil felt her hand shaking.

  “What’s the matter, Audrey? What is it?”

  “Please,” she said, trying to turn back to the stairs, but she was gazing at the wall of boxes and Virgil felt a shiver of doubt.

  “Come on, now,” he said, tugging her across the basement. “Just one quick look-see and we’ll get out of here.”

  She didn’t struggle. It was more like dragging a sack of sand. He rounded the barrier of files with Audrey in tow before he realized what he’d found. As he stared at the neat arrangement of clothing and toys, guilt tightened his throat.

  There was no hidden cell here. No child had been kept down in this basement against their
will, and there was no new rectangle of concrete in the floor where someone had disposed of a body. Instead, there was a bicycle that showed signs of frequent polishing. There were shelves of clean blue jeans and T-shirts and neat rolls of socks built into a pyramid. There was a large stack of board games topped with a Chinese checkers set. A telescope stood on a tripod, peeking out the cellar window high overhead. A dresser drawer backed against the files and the top was covered with rows of baseball cards and miscellaneous trinkets. A bookshelf was filled with books and comics. Virgil ran a finger along the top of the dresser. Not a dust mote.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Audrey.

  Audrey turned away, staring down the length of the basement. “This is Richard’s place. He comes down here when he thinks I don’t notice. He stays down here for hours sometimes.” She glanced back at the bicycle and then quickly away again.

  “Come on,” said Virgil, taking her arm. She jerked it away but followed him.

  “Why are we here?” she asked.

  “It was a mistake, Audrey. I’m sorry.”

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “No, I don’t. I think you’ve had a hell of a hard time. But I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re not going to help Zach, because you don’t believe me. No one believes me. That’s why I’m on the pills. Not to get rid of the nightmares. The pills help everyone live with me.”

  “Come on now, Audrey.” He tried to shepherd her toward the stairs. First he hadn’t been able to get her into the cellar, now he couldn’t get her out.

  She stepped around him into the center of the shrine, fingering the telescope, then the checker set. She opened the top drawer and lifted a white T-shirt to her face, sniffing the soft cotton, stroking it as though it were filled with a living, breathing, child.

  “I can smell him,” she whispered. “Doctor Cates told me mothers could. Did you know that?”

  “Maybe I should go,” said Virgil, but she ignored him.

  “I didn’t see it so much in Richard.”

  “It?”

  “The pain,” she said. “Pain hides sometimes….I knew he was hurt. But he didn’t show it like me. When he came down here I just thought he wanted to be away from me. Alone.”

  “Where did you think all this stuff was?”

  She shrugged. “I thought it was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  She nodded. “This is all old stuff. Zach’s new bike is in my shed. His clothes are in his room.” She lifted a T-shirt and Virgil realized it would have been too small for the boy. “He must have been saving all this before Zach was taken.”

  “Why don’t we go on upstairs, Audrey.”

  “You wanted to come down here.”

  “That was a mistake,” admitted Virgil.

  “No. It was good I saw it,” she said, patting the shirt back into place and gently closing the drawer. “Good I did.” She closed the drawer slowly and perused the toys again. “He used to play with this telescope all the time when he was smaller. Knew all the planets. Then he got bored with it. He got into mathematics. Zach had a way with patterns. He could memorize them, figure things out.”

  “He was a smart kid,” said Virgil.

  “Richard bought him this because he loved astronomy when he was a kid,” she said, stroking the telescope, leaving oily finger patterns on the shiny black surface. “Oh, Richard,” she whispered, biting her lip.

  “I’m sorry” was all Virgil could think of to say. He stopped and turned at the foot of the stairs. “If you get any information I can use just call.” But Audrey never answered.

  22

  VIRGIL WAS HALFWAY BACK to town, still mulling over his meeting with Audrey, when Birch’s voice on the radio shattered his thoughts.

  “We got a situation here, Sheriff.”

  Virgil recognized Birch’s voice on the radio immediately. He snatched the mike. “What’s wrong?”

  “Evan Johnson’s holding a shotgun on Babs St. Clair and he looks like he’s gonna use it.”

  “What’s your twenty?”

  “Right in front of Babs’s place. She’s sitting on her steps.”

  Virgil goosed the cruiser. It was only five minutes to downtown, but five minutes could be a long time. “Sitting?”

  “Yeah. She’s cool as a cucumber. But I don’t like the look in Evan’s eyes.”

  “Who’s talking to him?”

  “Steve.” Steve Meyers was senior deputy. He’d been with Virgil for over twenty years. Steve had as much training as anyone on the force with hostage situations and negotiating with gunmen, which was about none.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Telling Evan that no one’s gotten hurt and if everyone stays calm maybe no one has to go to jail.”

  “That’s good. Reassure Evan that we aren’t going to try to rush him or anything like that.”

  “Steve’s doing that.”

  “You really think Evan’s serious?”

  “He’s madder than I’ve ever seen him.”

  That was bad. Evan got into more fights than any other forty-year-old Virgil knew. Virgil had always wondered if Evan’s keg might blow over one day and get him into something real. Virgil sure didn’t want to see it turn into real homicide right on Main Street.

  “I’ll be there in two minutes. Tell Steve to keep doing what he’s doing and everyone stay calm.”

  “Right.”

  Virgil slipped the mike back into place and blasted through the intersection onto Route 26 without slowing for the yield sign, lights flashing but no sirens. It was a straight shot from there into town and he made the last mile weaving in and out of traffic, slowing only as he neared the hill that led up Main Street.

  It was a busy Wednesday morning. Every parking space was filled on both sides of the street and people milled along the shop fronts. Just ahead, the stores gave way to the small residential area between downtown and the hospital. Some people had noticed Birch’s and Steve’s flashing lights and were gawking or moving in that direction. Others could have cared less and were going about their shopping. That was an affected Maine attitude. Acting like it was none of their business. But Virgil knew they’d be the first ones to dig around for the real gossip.

  He eased in between one of the cruisers and a pickup truck and parked on Babs’s lawn. Babs gave him a look that said she didn’t think that was necessary, but then she went back to staring at Evan. Virgil figured he would have paid closer attention if Evan had a shotgun pointed at him.

  From behind, Evan looked like a bear in blue jeans. But Evan wasn’t fat. He was broad muscled. The only loose flesh on the man was his beer gut. As Virgil eased around to stand a few feet to one side of Steve, he could see that the shotgun was actually resting across Evan’s stomach, aimed directly at Babs as she sat casually on her front stoop.

  “Don’t try anything, Sheriff,” said Evan. He sounded like someone who had decided on a course of action and was

  rlamnprl wpll point* to follow throncrh on it ”All it takps is two pounds of pressure on this trigger and this old bitch turns into ketchup.”

  Virgil glanced at Babs. She was more calm and collected than anyone else on the scene. The whole damned commotion was too weird. It seemed more like a comedy skit than a real situation. But the shotgun wasn’t joking.

  “Evan, how about we talk this over,” said Virgil.

  “Time for talking’s done.” Evan’s finger twitched and he tensed, but there was no chance either Virgil or Steve could reach the gun before it blasted Babs into eternity.

  “Why, Evan?” said Virgil, giving Steve a head shake to still him, edging a step closer himself. He glanced toward the road and saw Birch in a firing stance, his pistol leveled at Evan’s back. If Evan fired, he’d be dead before he could pull the trigger again. Not that it mattered. One blast from the shotgun would finish Babs. “Why do you want to do something like this? Think of what it’ll do to your family, to Janie.”

&nbs
p; Evan’s mouth twisted and his hands shook. The muscles in his face looked as tight as barrel bands. “It’s too late now.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s never too late as long as you just put that gun down.”

  A siren sounded somewhere in the distance and Evan jerked his head toward Virgil. “Who’s that?” said Evan, nodding over his shoulder toward the approaching car.

  Virgil gave Birch a nasty look and Birch stepped out into the road, waving. In a second the siren went dead and Birch hurried quietly back to his position.

  “Just another of the boys, Evan. Don’t panic.”

  “I’m not panicking.”

  “No, you don’t look like you are and that’s good. We can work this out in a sensible way and go home.”

  “Don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause I’m gonna kill this bitch.”

  “Now, you don’t want to do that. Your mother will be heartbroken, Evan. She’s got a bad heart.”

  Evan nodded, sniffling. “I don’t want to hurt Mama. That’s for sure. But I’ve had it up to here with her!” He cocked his chin toward Babs and then spat tobacco into the grass.

  “You just don’t want to listen,” said Babs.

  “I’ve listened to enough of your shit!” shouted Evan. The shotgun shook in his hands, sending ripples across his belly. He glared at Virgil and yet Virgil didn’t sense any danger to himself. “Kill me, Sheriff,” he said. “Just kill me.”

  “No one’s going to kill anyone. We’re going to talk through this and work something out. Then everyone can go home in one piece.”

  “It’s too late for that,” said Evan, his finger tickling the trigger. “I can’t go home now that Janie’s gone.”

  So that was what precipitated this. Evan was a beater. But like most abusers, he thought he loved the girl. If Janie’d left him and he thought Babs was to blame, then there was gonna be hell to pay. Virgil was sure at that moment that Evan was about to do it.