by Donna Ball
The house was engulfed in chaos. Police photographers going up and down the stairs, the EMTs with all their equipment cluttering up the room, blood on the carpet, radios crackling, everyone talking at once. Carol was afraid if she even blinked, she would become so disoriented she would lose her balance and be forever sucked into this nightmare that had temporarily invaded her peaceful life.
She had seen the obscenity on the bed. The memory would bring a chill to her spine and bile to her throat for a long time to come. But no more than would the sight of Guy, with blood matting his hair and soaking into the collar of his shirt, lying crumpled on the floor.
Sheriff Case said, “Tell me again exactly what you saw, Mrs. Dennison.”
Carol's fingers dug so tightly into her crossed arms that she could feel the bruises, but that was the only way she could bring the shivering under control. Her shirt and hair were still damp from rain, and even though the window had been closed, the room was cold. It was a deeper cold that chilled her, though, and it came from inside.
She said harshly, “I'd rather talk about what a maniac like that is doing running around loose, Sheriff. You said he just got out of prison? Why the hell isn't he still in prison?”
Guy made an involuntary sound of pain as the paramedic applied a strip of adhesive tape to the gash behind his ear, and Carol's attention immediately shot to him. Her fingers tightened on her arms.
Sheriff Case said, “We don't really know that the man we're talking about is the one who broke in here, so it might be better if we don't jump to conclusions just yet. Could you start at the beginning, please?”
Carol tightened her lips, and made herself look away from Guy. The paramedics had made him remove his shirt and from where she stood, she could see the long, welting red-purple bruise on his arm and shoulder, where he had deflected the full force of the fireplace poker as it came down on his head. If he had not, the blow would have crushed the base of his skull. Carol could not think about that without fighting back a new wave of nausea and shivers.
She said, in a carefully controlled, low and steady voice, “I got Guy's call on my cell phone, telling me he was on his way over and he needed to talk to me. When I got here, his car was in the garage and the door was unlocked. I assumed he had gone in.”
The sheriff said, “And this didn't bother you.”
“I was annoyed at him, I told you that. I had just recently asked him not to come in without an invitation.”
“So something happened recently to make you say that? You had a fight?”
Carol could feel her color rising. “No, of course not! It's just—I've always asked him not to do that—”
“And he continued to ignore you?”
“For God's sake, John, leave her alone,” Guy said shortly, with an edge to his voice that wasn't entirely pain-induced. “She didn't have anything to do with this, I told you that.”
The paramedics began to pack up their equipment. “We'll need to take you in for x-rays, Mr. Dennison,” the senior officer said. “We can bring up the gurney if you don't feel up to walking to the ambulance.”
“No,” Guy said. “Forget it.” The stubbornness in his tone was unmistakable. “I'm not going anywhere.” He reached for his bloodstained shirt.
Carol said in alarm, “Guy, please—”
And the paramedic added soberly. “A head injury is nothing to mess around with, sir. I'm afraid I have to insist.”
Guy said impatiently, “And I'm afraid I—” But a sharp intake of breath cut off his words as he pulled on his shirt over his injured arm, and Carol took an involuntary step toward him.
“Don't be an idiot, Guy, go with them.” She knelt beside him and eased the shirt over his shoulder. “I'll be right behind you.”
And Case added, “We've got all we need from you, Guy. Go on.”
Guy glared at him. “Not until you stop wasting time trying to intimidate Carol and put some effort into investigating this case. I told you, I saw him.”
“But not well enough to identify him.”
“Well enough to know it was him. Jesus, common sense should tell you that. Carol at her maddest couldn't have done this to my arm, I don't care how hard she swung that poker. And I've seen her plenty mad, let me tell you.”
That drew a rueful smile from Case. “I'll tell you the truth, I'm inclined to agree with you. But...” And he fixed a meaningful look on Carol. “It's important to remember there are no clear answers here. If you could just go on with what happened after you came inside.”
Carol looked anxiously at Guy, then got to her feet again. She repeated, brusquely and matter-of-factly—or at least as matter-of-factly as she was able—”I saw the window was open and it was cold. I closed it.”
“When you went to the window, did you see anything? Think hard.”
This time Carol hesitated, trying to replay the moment in her head. The shock of entering her bedroom, of seeing what she had seen on the bed and of finding Guy, had all but erased the previous moments from her head.
“It had been raining off and on all day. It was still misty, and visibility wasn't very good. There may have been someone running on the beach, far down. I didn't really pay any attention.”
She knew the intruder had made his escape beachside. There were footprints on the deck, and on the beach at the end of the boardwalk, which were fresh enough to have been made after the rain.
She went on, “I called out Guy's name and when he didn't answer, I went upstairs. I thought he might be on the deck or the roof. When I went into the bedroom I saw—” Here she had to swallow. The thought of filthy hands going through her underthings, selecting, arranging, forming an imaginary woman on her bed—she made herself go on. “I saw the clothes on the bed, and I knew someone had been there. I was scared. When I moved toward the bed, I saw the poker on the floor, and the blood.”
“But you didn't pick it up.”
She shook her head. “I might have, but then I saw Guy. I—at first I thought he was... But then I saw he was semiconscious. He kept muttering something about the man who was getting away. I called the paramedics, then you. Can we go now?”
Guy said, waving away the offer of assistance from the paramedic as he got to his feet, “What about the phone call Carol got? Do you think it could have been made from here?”
“It was a woman's voice, I told you that. It couldn't have been the same person who attacked you.” Carol couldn't help noticing how pale Guy was growing, and that he leaned heavily against the wall for support. She knew any offer of help would only make him more stubborn about going to the hospital, though, so she bit her tongue.
Case said, “And it wasn't the same person who called before?”
“No. I don't think so.” At this point she wasn't sure of anything.
“She gave a name, damn it,” Guy said with a display of energy that seemed to come close to depleting his reserves. He frowned as though trying to remember. “It was—you wrote it down. Why don't you check it out?”
Case glanced at him sympathetically. “We will. And we'll also check out the possibility that the call was made from here. I know you're upset, but we have done this kind of thing before. Some people might even say we're specialists in this business.”
Deputy Long came down the stairs with the fireplace poker carefully wrapped in an oversized evidence bag. He believed in doing things right, it was plain to see. He said, “I think we've got everything here, Sheriff. We'll need a set of elimination prints from both victims, of course, and anyone else who might have handled objects in the bedroom, particularly the poker.”
Case nodded. “Guy, get yourself over to the hospital and get checked out. If I need anything else, I'll be in touch.”
“Don't worry,” Guy said. His voice was starting to sound tired. “I'll make sure you do.”
The paramedic took Guy's arm in a firm grip and this time he didn't object. Carol hurried to get her purse and opened the door for them.
Sheriff Case said
, “Mrs. Dennison.”
She looked back.
“I'll be sending a team over to dust for prints, and the place might be kind of a mess tonight. You might want to think about staying somewhere else overnight, just for your own comfort.”
She knew, from the look on his face, that what he meant to say was, “for your own safety”. She started to like him a little better, not because he was concerned about her, but because he didn't say so in front of Guy.
She said, “Yes. I think I will.”
She saw Guy and the paramedics safely out the door, then hurried behind them. She knew it would be a long time before she would be comfortable staying alone in that house again.
~
Chapter Twenty-two
“But he's going to be okay?” Laura insisted worriedly as she brought a tray of coffee and sandwiches into the living room, where Carol sat huddled by the fire.
She nodded. “They always keep head injuries overnight for observation. It's routine. They think he has a mild concussion, nothing's broken. God, Laura, I'll have to borrow a nightgown. I couldn't even go back there to pack.” She couldn't entirely suppress a shudder. “I'm not sure I'll ever be able to wear anything in my closet again anyway. Not knowing what he touched or ... rubbed over himself.”
Laura sank swiftly to the hassock at Carol's feet and placed a hand over hers. “Don't do that,” she commanded firmly. “I know you can't just put it out of your mind, but there's no need to make it easy for that sleaze to drive you crazy, either. Besides,”—she tried to coax a smile— “I don't think your homeowner's insurance will cover replacing your wardrobe under these circumstances.”
Carol tried to smile. “You're probably right.”
Laura gave Carol's hand a final reassuring squeeze and got up.
Her house was located on the marsh side of town; she claimed she didn't mind the occasional cottonmouth in her windowbox or alligator in the fishpond in exchange for the spectacular morning and evening views. The house itself was a cozy traditional design of stone and columns, with wraparound porches and dormer windows. Her second husband, a contractor, had built it as a wedding present, and Laura had shamelessly brought husband number three to live there for the six months it took her to discover his problem with alcohol and other women. Sometimes it brought a wry smile to Carol's face when she thought of the symbols they each had retained of marriages long failed, times from which they both should have moved on. But she wasn't smiling tonight.
Carol pulled the wooly afghan a little tighter about her shoulders, frowning into the flames. “I should have stayed at the hospital,” she said worriedly. “I shouldn't have left him.”
“There was nothing you could do.”
“I know, but it just seems—wrong, somehow, to leave him. He wouldn't be hurt if it wasn't for me.”
Laura fixed her attention on the coffee she was pouring. “And you wouldn't be in danger if it wasn't for him.”
Carol rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I guess.”
Laura brought two cups of coffee over to the fire and handed one to Carol before she resumed her seat on the hassock near Carol's feet. “What did the police say about the woman who called you?”
Carol shook her head, staring thoughtfully into the coffee mug. Its heat was welcome, but her throat was still so dry she didn't think she could swallow anything, not even coffee.
“They couldn't figure out how it was related to the intruder,” she said. “Neither can I.” She shrugged clumsily. “Of course, the police never tell you what they're thinking. So I guess the answer is, “who knows?”
Laura said, “Maybe they're not related.”
Carol tried to follow her, but she could barely make her thoughts focus on one sentence at a time. She kept thinking about Guy, and the black and swelling imprint the poker had left on his arm. The way he'd put on his tough-guy act at the hospital, joking with the nurses and chatting with the other patients in the emergency room. He had done it so she wouldn't worry. He shouldn't have wasted his strength. Carol would never stop worrying, not now.
She made herself look at Laura, her expression helpless and apologetic. “I'm afraid I don't...”
Laura gave a brief dismissive shake of her head, although it was clear her impatience was not directed at Carol. “It's just that—men. They always have to have everything all tied up in a neat little package. Sometimes I think it's because their brains can't handle more than one concept at a time. The man that broke in today—why does he have to be this same ex-con who's been threatening Guy? And why does he have to be behind the phone calls you've been getting? I mean, there are hundreds of college kids swarming over this island and yours isn't the first empty beach house that’s been broken into this week. As for the lingerie—well, just because you're a burglar doesn't mean you can't be a pervert.”
Carol lifted the coffee cup to her face and inhaled the steam, but couldn't bring herself to drink. “I don't think I like your theory.”
“It's no more cockeyed than anything Guy or the police have come up with. They don't have a single piece of evidence to link all three of these things together.”
“I know.” Carol raised her eyes from the cup to look at Laura, her expression bleak. “But if you're right, then I've got three people out there to worry about—four, if you count the woman who called me this afternoon—and that's at least three more than I can deal with.”
Laura nodded glumly. “God, honey,” she said, “what did you ever do to deserve this?”
Carol managed a dry grimace. “When I find out, I'll let you know, because I'm going to make sure I never do it again.” And then she groaned. “Damn, the police are going to want to interview Ken Carlton. I hate to involve a client in something like this. But he was with me when the call came in.”
“I don't suppose he made an offer on one of our beachfront lots before you distracted him, did he?”
Carol accepted her friend's attempt to cheer her up. “No. But he looked kind of interested in those three adjoining lots on Deer Trail. Then it started raining and...” She trailed off. Laura knew the rest of the story.
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the crackle of the fire and the rush of wind and rain against the windows. The clouds of the afternoon had gathered force for one last angry burst, and from the sound of it, a genuine coastal storm was on the way.
Carol realized she missed the sound of the surf. She wanted her house back, and she was angry, briefly and fiercely, at the intruder who had taken it from her—and who had taken, more importantly, the innocence of security she had always felt within its walls.
Then Laura said, “Whatever happened to you two anyway?”
Carol was confused. “Me and Ken Carlton?”
“You and the only man you've ever loved, fool,” Laura said with a mixture of indulgence and exasperation that made Carol smile.
“We broke up,” she said.
Laura looked at her steadily. “No, you didn't.”
Carol closed her eyes for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was low and strained. “God, I don't know. We always had more passion than sense. We were so different, we knew exactly how to get on each other's nerves, and after all those years it just got so hard, you know? Hard to keep fighting, hard to keep explaining, hard to keep overlooking things and forgiving things.” Her lips tightened with a brief sharp shake of her head, and her voice grew abruptly thick as she said, “Stupid things, all of them, the kinds of things every marriage goes through and none of them were worth losing our daughter over.”
It took a moment to collect herself and she didn't look at Laura. She tasted her coffee and finished in a calmer, more tired voice, “I don't know what happened. I never knew what happened. We just—let it get away from us, somehow, the anger and the stress and the stupidity. But the thing is—the really strange thing is—if it hadn't been for Kelly, and what happened, I don't think it would have been permanent. I think we would have gotten back together.” She shrugged and a
lmost managed a wry smile. “Another thing we let get away from us.”
Rain slammed against the windows and sputtered down the chimney. Carol shivered. Laura put a comforting hand on Carol's knee, then sat back.
In a moment Laura said, “This woman, girl, whoever she was—she gave you her name?”
Carol nodded. “The police didn't seem nearly as impressed by that as you might think.”
“Well, maybe not, but it seems to me it's a place to start.”
Carol frowned again into her coffee cup. Small flames, reflected from the fireplace, danced within its black depths like eyes glittering in the jungle. She said, “I don't know, Laura. When I first got the call, when I listened to her, I was convinced she was just who she said she was and that she did know something about Kelly. But now ... I mean, this man was a child molester, a rapist. He was...” She had to catch her breath and then swallow hard, because she had not even had the courage to say the words to herself until now. “He was in Tallahassee when Kelly disappeared and it's possible he—knew her and now he wants to get back at Guy for putting him in prison and it's all just so crazy. I mean, the things this girl said—that Kelly couldn't get away, like she was being held prisoner, that she knew where Kelly was but she couldn't tell me any more than Kelly—the first caller—could. It's crazy. The kinds of things you would say if you wanted to torment someone. And the voice … the more I think about it, the more I think it might have been the same one—kind of hoarse and husky like.” She looked at Laura and drew a breath. “It might have been a man, disguising his voice.”
Laura nodded, understanding. “Maybe you're right. Maybe this has been just one long sick joke designed to torment you and Guy, and now they've got the fingerprints of the man who's behind it. He'll be back in jail in no time.”
Carol dropped her eyes. “Maybe.” And it was awful. Because she wanted to believe it, and she didn't. She wanted it to be that simple ... and she couldn't bear it if it were.
