“What was that about?”
“That, mother, was frustration. Set off by the reminder that the most important thing on your mind, always, is yourself—your amusement, your comfort, your ability to pass judgment. In the meantime, I’m in a crisis. But by all means, store up the details of what’s been going on here so you’ll have some good stories to tell back at the brothel.”
Mae stared at her and at the mess at the door. Then she turned and walked to the kitchen. “I’m going to make shepherd’s pie.”
Beth followed her. “That’s it? You’re not going to tell me that I’m taking things too seriously?”
“No, actually, I can see that having two deaths on campus would be pretty awful. I’m sorry I didn’t seem to be taking it seriously.” Mae started opening cabinets and pulling ingredients out.
Beth didn’t know what to make of the apology, so different than Mae’s usual admonishment to Beth to “have a sense of humor” or “suck it up.”
“Put on your sweats, watch some TV, and I’ll make dinner. Shepherd’s pie will make you feel better,” Mae said.
“If we’re going to have that, I’ll need the baking dish that I left at Delilah’s. I’ll run over to get it.”
“You don’t have to. We can have something else.”
“No, that sounds like the perfect thing to have. I’m going to change and walk over. It won’t take long.”
Delilah’s house was just three blocks away and Beth took her time walking over, trying to let go of some of the tension in her body, trying to figure out why her mother seemed different. Was she ill? That thought sent another frisson of fear racing through her, but she simply couldn’t add something as big as that to her crowded list of possibly life-changing issues.
The house seemed vacant when she walked up—the front drapes drawn, the car gone from the driveway. The front door was locked. Usually Delilah’s place had a welcoming feel to it—the front door propped open, classical music wafting out the open windows, often the smell of something baking. Delilah was home a good portion of the time, it seemed to Beth. She knew she even kept her office hours in her home, with students sitting in her kitchen, eating cookies and discussing anthropology papers. Beth rang the bell twice, but there was no response.
Beth knew where Delilah kept a key from when they were dating, but she’d never had cause to go in the back and dig it out from beneath a rock. She couldn’t stand the thought of not having the meal she now had her heart set on, so she walked up the driveway toward the back to get the key. The blinds along the side of the house and in the kitchen were also drawn. It seemed very strange, and was starting to feel a little alarming as well, though the explanation could be a simple one. Perhaps she was upstairs sick in bed?
Beth found the key under the large rock next to the air-conditioning compressor. It looked like no one had disturbed it since Delilah last showed it to her years ago. She rubbed it clean and stepped up to the back door, ringing the bell and knocking loudly before finally letting herself in. She stopped in the kitchen and listened and then she called out again. Delilah’s purse was on the kitchen table, her keys on a hook by the back door, so it would appear she must be upstairs, and she must be asleep—or really sick—if that were the case.
Beth really didn’t want to go up there. One of the main reasons she’d ended things quickly with Delilah was the discovery of what a neurotic she was, the worst manifestation of which was her inability to throw anything out. As soon as you left the rooms designated for the “public” to see—the kitchen, the front stairs, the main floor bathroom, and the double parlor—the house was like a jungle of junk with the thickest undergrowth imaginable. A thin path had been carved through the mess enabling one to move about, though toppled towers of National Geographic magazines and collections of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries cluttered the way. It was not only mind-boggling to see, but the expense of accumulating all of the junk sent Beth’s mind galloping. She’d heard that this behavior was a real psychiatric condition. Surely there was medication to help? When they were dating, Beth was once left on her own in the house for an hour while Delilah was teaching. She’d opened a closet and found a five-foot stack of hooked pot holders, a craft that Beth had heard Delilah once ridicule as a hobby for the simpleminded, the comment coming out of the blue and apropos of nothing they’d been talking about. Apparently when you ran out of things to horde that you liked, the next step was to horde the things you didn’t like.
Beth was still hesitating in the kitchen when the door to the basement opened behind her and Delilah walked in. She looked at Beth without expression on her face, as if she didn’t recognize her. Something is really wrong, Beth thought. Delilah was dressed in her fleece sweatsuit again. Her bare feet looked huge and overpadded somehow, like Fred Flintstone’s feet only not comical. They were filthy too, dusty all over, with rivulets of mud leaving streaks across both feet. Beth was staring at them when Delilah seemed to come to.
“How the hell did you get into my house?” she snapped. Her voice was gravelly.
“I’m really sorry, Dee. I needed to pick up my casserole dish so I thought I’d just pop in. I used that old key under the rock.”
“The rock? I forgot about that.”
“Are you okay?” asked Beth. “You don’t look particularly well.”
Delilah didn’t look too pleased at that, but she moved over to the kitchen and grabbed one of several dishes stacked there.
“There’s always a fucking parade of people ‘dropping’ in here for days after my parties. ‘Just stopping by to pick this up. Thanks for scrubbing it clean for me.’ They have no interest in talking with me.” Delilah whirled around and thrust the dish in Beth’s hands. “Here.”
Beth felt the force Delilah put behind the dish and stepped back. “I don’t know what’s going on, but clearly you’re upset about something. Do you want me to stay?”
Delilah stood still again, and then pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat. She pointed at another chair and Beth sat too. Between them was a cutting board, a chef’s knife, and two zucchini. Delilah pulled the chopping board over by its handle and started chopping the vegetable.
“My mother’s making shepherd’s pie, which is why I needed the dish.”
“Your mother’s here? I’ve never even heard you talk about your mother.” Delilah paused in her chopping and gave Beth a hard look. “I mean I never heard you mention her, even when we were lovers.”
Beth tried not to wince. She viewed her time with Delilah as having taken place when she was particularly vulnerable to someone willing to lavish her with attention and romance. The fact that she’d slept with Delilah was not something she was proud of.
“My mother and I have not been on particularly good terms for a long time. I really don’t talk about her. We seem to be reaching some sort of détente lately. Who knows why.”
Delilah resumed her chopping. The work was proceeding slowly, with each zucchini being cut into tiny pieces. “Are you sure, Beth, that it was not another incidence of you keeping something important from me?”
“Keeping something from you? Generally, you know more about everything than I do, don’t you think?”
“Not when it comes to Katie. That’s where I think you’ve known something I didn’t—and you didn’t tell me.”
Beth felt the hair distinctly rise on the back of her neck. She wondered if Delilah knew about Mel and Katie. Her brain was now hyperalert from some animal-like warning system. She started to rise slowly from the table, not wanting to seem afraid, placing her hands flat on the surface and pushing herself up.
“I’m not aware of anything about Katie, but in any event we’ll—”
The knife flashed through the air and came down with all the strength of Delilah’s shoulder behind it, straight through Beth’s right hand, pinning it firmly to the table. The handle quivered before holding still. A full second ticked by as Beth’s brain caught on to the horror of what had just happened, and
then she screamed, but only for the full second it took Delilah to get behind her and cover her mouth with her meaty hand. Delilah picked up a hand towel from the table and started to stuff it into Beth’s mouth, just as Beth found the use of her left arm and started to pummel Delilah’s head for all she was worth.
Beth had never fought before. She had no concept of what the force of her fist felt like, especially adrenaline stoked as it now was. Apparently, it didn’t feel like much to Delilah, who appeared quite calm in battle. She easily grabbed Beth’s wrist, held her left hand on the table, and using her prodigious strength, smashed the edge of the cutting board down on her fingers, bursting two of them open. Beth screamed again as Delilah pushed the towel farther in her mouth, securing it in place with the tie to an apron that she cut off with some kitchen shears. Then she sat back down in her chair across from Beth and started scraping the scattered zucchini pieces into a pile.
“You’re right about one thing, Beth. I do know more than you do—about everything. Always have. Don’t think you would have made dean without me guiding you along. And don’t think you would have gotten through your first year without making a mess of things if I wasn’t your consigliore. And in return you’ve been loyal to me, or so I thought. But then I find out that not only did you know that Katie was leaving me for that piece of shit auto mechanic, but you coached her on how to break up with me. I’m sorry, but if it’s going to be left to me to see that this college doesn’t run itself into the ground, I’m going to expect to be paid certain respect.”
Beth hardly heard a word Delilah was saying. She was concentrating fiercely on not throwing up. She expected that Delilah would happily watch her choke on her own vomit and die. There was also the unholy pain of the broken left fingers. She had barely moved them an inch and the pain roared through her. The knife through her hand was not as painful, but it was more effective than leg irons at keeping her where she was. She forced herself to breathe slowly through her nose.
Delilah finished scooping the zucchini into a pile and then transferred it back on the cutting board. Before Beth could even realize what she was doing, Delilah reached over with both hands and pulled the knife straight up and out of Beth’s hand and resumed cutting the vegetables into their tiny pieces. That was the last Beth saw before passing out.
When she came to, she was lying on a camp cot in the corner of a room that had red walls and fluorescent lights. She felt sick to her stomach. Her right hand had a meager amount of gauze wrapped around it, thoroughly blood soaked. The fingers on her left hand were swollen and bloody. She couldn’t look at them, so she looked all around the room instead. On the opposite side of the room there was a big sink with stainless steel countertop and cabinets, and a stainless steel table stood in the middle of the room, a portable tool tray next to it. There were drains dotting the cement floor and the room smelled a little musty. Delilah was nowhere in sight.
She tried to rise without using her hands and as she swung her legs to the floor they hit something. Mel lay on the floor, unconscious, deathly pale, a pool of blood next to her middle. She was curled up as if protecting it. The blood matched the color of the walls.
Delilah did not appear to be around, but Beth did not trust any of her senses. She felt drugged with pain and fear. She touched Mel very gently with her foot, whispering her name. After a while Mel stirred and opened an eye, her face grimacing with pain. Then she seemed to understand that it was Beth and not Delilah above her. Unbelievably, she smiled.
“I told you she was crazy,” Mel said.
“Shush. We don’t know where she is. How bad are you hurt?” Beth was leaning over, trying to see the area of her abdomen that Mel was protecting.
“She stabbed me in the gut. Fucking hurts, I gotta say. She called me over to take a look at her car, and when I turned around in the garage to talk to her she stuck me. Just like that.”
“Is it bleeding a lot?” Beth was really scared now. She wouldn’t die of hand wounds. But gut wounds, those were really bad.
“I think I’ll be okay if we can get out of here. The bleeding’s slowing down.”
“I guess we’re in the basement of her house,” Beth said.
“That’s what I think. She knocked me out after she stabbed me, and I’m big enough that it would have been too hard for her to take me much further than that. Plus, the floor’s cement.”
Mel grew quiet while Beth thought. She gingerly felt along the pocket of her jeans, but her cell phone was gone. Her mother knew where she was. God, she hoped her mother wouldn’t figure out where Delilah lived and come over looking for her. Chances were she would just stay at home, thinking that Beth blew her off again, and that thought was so painful that Beth’s eyes stung. She didn’t want her mother to think that of her. Not anymore. But she didn’t want her showing up at Delilah’s either.
A door in the center of the room opened and Delilah walked in. She put a large paper bag on the steel table and then strolled over to Beth and Mel. She had changed into one of her signature Delilah outfits—black cape, leopard blouse, black pantaloons, black boots. Kind of a Zorro/Sancho Panza mix with the leopard print to mark it as her own. She nudged Mel with the toe of her boot and got a groan in response.
“Don’t worry, stud. You won’t be uncomfortable much longer. I’ve brought supplies. I’m going to put you right on that table and make it all better.”
Mel’s eyes grew narrow. Then she made a hacking noise and spat a big glob onto Delilah’s shiny boot. Without hesitation, Delilah swung the boot back and kicked Mel in the head. Mel tried to hold back a scream, but a horrible noise worked its way out. The kick had shifted her body and must have torn at her midsection. Blood ran from the gash on the side of her head.
“That’s the way it works, darling,” Delilah said, addressing Beth. “When you’re bad, you must pay. Spitting is bad. Fucking my girlfriend? Very, very bad.”
Delilah walked away and started taking items out of the bag, setting them up on the tray next to the table. She was whistling.
“Delilah, Mel needs to get to a hospital right away. There’s nothing you can do for her here.”
Delilah threw her head back and laughed, the full-throated laugh that had sounded merry and infectious before and simply maniacal now.
“People think that anthropology is not a relevant area of study,” she said, placing more items from the bag on the counter. “But I have extensive knowledge of all kinds of compounds and techniques. I am a healing master.”
Beth got off the cot and walked toward Delilah. “Dee, please let us go. Or at least let Mel go. I don’t know what is going on with you, but I do know you’ll eventually get caught. Just think how much better things will go for you if we’re safe.”
She stopped two feet from Delilah and stood her ground. She did not harbor any notion of overpowering Delilah—her wounded hands and Delilah’s great size advantage made that a nonstarter. If she could talk to her, though, find out what was driving this, find out what it was she wanted, maybe there was some hope.
Delilah picked up a long metal spoon and turned to Beth. “Do you know what has driven me crazy for years now? Everyone underestimating me.”
“That’s just not true, Delilah…”
Delilah whipped the spoon across her body and caught Beth right below her left eye, opening a cut. Delilah pulled back to strike again and Beth raised her hands to protect her face. The metal spoon connected with the broken fingers. Beth howled and fell to the floor, trying to protect her hands and her face with her back as Delilah struck her again and again. Then she stopped abruptly, stepped back, and delivered a mighty kick to Beth’s ribs. Beth screamed again, until she realized that the screaming itself hurt.
All was quiet for a few minutes. Delilah finished unpacking her supplies and began measuring and mixing contents. Beth tried not to sob. She was now on her side, curled into a fetal position, her left hand and ribs more painful than anything she remembered feeling, her right hand bleeding at the
entrance and exit wounds, the cut under her eye bleeding alarmingly. By moving her head slightly she could see Mel, who was flat on her back and appeared to be unconscious, her hands still covering the wound in her middle.
“Why are you doing this?” Beth asked, struggling to sit up. Delilah kept working, her back to Beth, apparently unconcerned that Mel or Beth could pose any threat.
“By ‘this’ do you mean what we’re doing here today? Because you’re right that it’s separate from the Landscome/Barrow thing.” Delilah hit the button on a blender and watched as a murky mixture whirled around.
Beth’s head was a mess. What Landscome/Barrow thing? The only thing she was aware of now was the thing that was likely to kill her, the thing that less than an hour ago she thought was a friend and colleague.
“Everything’s been going to hell since that nincompoop Landscome came to Grafton. I had about had it with his insistence on tenure for Barrow, but I thought the situation could be made tolerable by getting rid of Barrow. I wasn’t about to have Katie lose that spot to someone as unqualified and asinine as Barrow. So I broke into his house a couple of times while he was away or in classes, looking for something I could use against him. You didn’t know any of this, did you?”
“How would I?” Beth was feeling lethargic. She wanted to go to sleep next to Mel, but she knew she should be doing something to stay alive. Just keep her talking, isn’t that what they say to do?
“Did you find something?” Beth asked.
“Bingo. I found photos of Landscome with a little girl, and they were disgusting. Nothing on Barrow, though, so I figured Barrow was blackmailing Landscome and now I would just blackmail both of them. Then I realized that was entirely too messy and complicated, so I just killed them.”
“You killed Landscome?” Beth had climbed to her feet, swaying slightly. She thought her rib must be broken and it made breathing difficult and painful. Worse though was a new and awful realization.
Veritas Page 21
