Lena sat back in her chair and bit her lip, remembering Whitney, after Jeff had hit her—her refusal to look Lena in the eye, her shame.
“Eloise, I need you to think. It looks like Archie might have been blackmailing somebody. Do you know anything about that? It’s probably tied up with the killing, and whoever it was may know something about Charlie.”
“Why did he take him? Jest to hurt me? Charlie isn’t his kid. Oh, why did I let him go to the door? Open it a crack, and he … oh, God.… He shoved and I fell back and stumbled over Charlie. We was baking! Just baking a cake and listening to the radio.”
Lena pulled the sheet down, uncovering Eloise Valetta’s bruised, swollen face.
“Think for me, Eloise. How does the location fit into this? Was there anybody in Tennessee Archie might have been blackmailing?”
“Blackmail?” Eloise quit moving. “Oh, God. I wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“This cult, this group that your brother-in-law run? They used to take pictures of people, during the ceremonies, doing … things, you know. Things they wouldn’t want other people seeing. And I think sometimes Jeff and Archie would ask for a ‘donation,’ you know what I mean? Backed up by a picture showing what a good worshiper the person they wanted money from was. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand.”
“And some of them, some of them may be from around there. Archie and Jeff used to go down there a lot.” Eloise pulled the sheet up under her chin. “Archie’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“That feels funny. He … he held Charlie over the burner on the stove and turned it on high.”
Lena took a breath.
“And I screamed and begged. Swore I didn’t have that stupid money.”
“Did he burn him? Did he burn Charlie?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think so. Everything runs together.… Charlie was crying, but not like if he was burned, you know, not that scream he has. And suddenly Archie put him down. Down soft, like, you know, maybe God was listening to my prayers. And he … he grabs me by the hair, and says … says why you make me do this to you? And he took a bottle off the cabinet and broke it, and said, ‘Here’s what’ll turn the trick and open your fat mouth.’” Eloise took a deep, uneven breath. “And that hurt my feelings. It hurt my feelings that he called me fat. Isn’t that stupid? Isn’t that stupid?” She sobbed loudly, then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Stupid.”
“Eloise?”
Eloise stared straight ahead.
“Eloise, I want you to listen to me. I’m going to find Charlie for you. I’m going to. And when I find him, he’s going to need his mama. You understand me, Eloise? Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Eloise moved her head just a little. Lena decided to count it as a nod. She watched Eloise for a long moment, then headed for the nurses’ station.
The nurse behind the counter did not look up. Her hair was yellow blond, neatly flipped under. She sat sideways in the chair, and she wore white hose that made her heavy legs look thicker.
“Eloise Valetta,” Lena said. “The patient in three thirteen.”
The nurse looked up and frowned. Her name tag said Steward.
“Mrs. Valetta is … she’s upset. She needs something, I don’t know. Something to get her through—”
“That the one got beat up? She’s about due, anyway.” The nurse shook her head. “Tell you the truth, honey, you look like you could use something yourself.”
21
Lena sat in the dark and hoped she was alone in the house. She wiped dust off the answering machine with the tip of her finger. A luminous green 2 heralded her messages.
Mendez had left his tie on the end table. Lena ran a finger across the cool blue silk. She pushed a button and the tape on the answering machine rewound.
“Lena? Rick. Eloise Valetta’s divorce from Archie went into effect two months after her kid was born. Charlie. Is that what you need? And listen, Lena, your cat ate an entire begonia yesterday. Then he threw up four times in the living room. And once in the kitchen! Does he need to see his pediatrician? Talk later, sweetheart.”
The machine whirred and beeped.
“Ave Satanas.”
Lena sat up.
“All glory be unto the dark lord, Abaddon. All condemnation to the weary child of God. Dear dying lamb, spill thy precious blood.”
Lena bit her knuckle.
“Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of hell.”
Lena’s finger trembled over the Save button.
She went to the kitchen and took the steak knives out of the drawer. They had come in a set of six, but she could only find five of them. She hid one under the middle cushion of the couch, one in the drawer of the end table next to the rocking chair. There ought to be one in the bedroom, and one next to the shower in the bath. She started up the stairs.
The phone rang. Lena leaned against the wall, and let the machine answer.
“Lena, this is Joel. I—”
Lena grabbed the receiver. “Hi … hi, Joel. I’m here. Joel, I think Hayes has Charlie.”
Mendez’s tone was sharp. “What makes you say that?”
“He left a message on my machine. He said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of hell.’”
Mendez was silent. Lena was aware of the hard beat of her heart.
“You can’t be sure, Lena. But it bears looking into. What else did he say?”
“Some kind of mumbo jumbo stuff.”
“How did he sound?”
“What do you mean?”
“Raving, amused, threatening?”
“Kind of, I don’t know, intense. Like he was enjoying it, but was serious.”
Mendez was quiet.
“Why don’t you come over?” he said. “I’m tied up here at home, with paperwork. But I’d like to hear the tape.”
“I can’t, Joel. I have something I need to do.”
“Okay, then.” Mendez paused. “Good night, Lena. Be careful.”
She left the knives by the phone and headed for the basement, not her favorite place at night. She moved down the stairs slowly, guided by the light from the kitchen. She wondered what Mendez was working on, what he was thinking about. She had never seen his place—was it a house or an apartment? She pictured him in a stark, nearly empty room, sitting behind a massive wooden desk.
Lena pulled the cord that hung in the center of the basement, and the bulb flashed on. The light was yellow and harsh, bright against the night-filled windows.
Suppose Eloise was right. Suppose Archie was blackmailing members of the cult.
Lena chewed her lip. She knew they were looking for seed money, Archie and Jeff, a business stake. And business was selling drugs and pornography to the cult. Drugs, pornography … and negatives?
The hit was a cult hit. Thirteen bullets. Mutilation. And Charlie, somewhere in the middle.
The box of Jeff’s old things was still upended on the floor. The Book of Shadows was at the bottom, buried beneath old bank statements.
Somewhere, there might be a name. A name she could use. She flipped to the first page, the references to M.
Who was M?
Whitney had told her about a cousin that Jeff seemed attached to. Whitney had mentioned it because Jeff sent her birthday cards and Easter cards care of a state mental institute.
Was M the cousin? If she had the kind of childhood Hayes described, it made a lot of sense. M would know who was in the cult. If she could find M, maybe she could find out who they were dealing with, who Hayes and Valetta used to “worship” with. Which might lead to Valetta’s killer, and maybe even to Charlie.
Lena closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. What was M’s full name? Whitney had told her at least once. And where was the institution? She seemed to remember that the cousin had moved from the state hospital to a private facility.
Lena squeezed her
eyes shut and tried to remember.
22
Lena put a hand on the radio knob, then changed her mind. She drove steadily, about ten miles over the speed limit, grateful for the sunlight that poured through the car windows. Farmland lined both sides of the interstate, and frost glittered in the matted brown grass.
She’d stopped at a Cracker Barrel and had sourdough toast, one of three slices of bacon she’d ordered, fresh orange juice, and coffee. She’d woken up in a panic at least three times last night, thinking about Charlie. She hoped Eloise was getting lots of drugs.
It took her two hours to get to LaRue County. She spent another forty minutes on a two-lane road that was a downhill succession of ninety-degree turns, coming at last to the outskirts of Nash, where Jeffrey Hayes had been born and raised. Every hundred yards was a poster that said Clump for Sherrif. She hoped Clump was better at law enforcement than spelling. Most of the posters had been used for target practice. Probably by English teachers.
The Clump posters thinned out, and Lena realized that she was back to farmland on both sides of the road. A brown sign with an arrow pointing left said Ray Lake Recreational Area, 20.4 mi.
She hadn’t been on the outskirts of Nash. That had been Nash.
Lena put her turn indicator on and waited for the tractor that was inching down the left lane. She’d be fifteen minutes getting back into town.
The tractor, driven by a teenage girl in a Cardinals baseball cap and a Motley Crüe sweatshirt, rolled to a stop. The girl nodded laconically, chewed gum, and waited while Lena did a U-turn in the middle of the road.
Lena waved. “Thanks.”
She passed a cement-block building that proclaimed itself The American Primitive Church of Jesus. An ancient gas pump was rusting in a concrete island in the center of the church parking lot.
Lena passed a Hardees, Cal’s Shoe Repair advertising Cloggers and Stompers, a movie rental place that also sold Hunting Licenses and Live Bait-n-Nightcrawlers, and a boarded-up tin shed that swore it had Tanning Beds.
The LaRue County Courthouse, red brick and stately, was next to Horwald’s Realty & Law. There were angled parking spaces down both sides of the street. Lena got out of the car. A huge American flag snapped and rippled over the top of the courthouse. Lena’s hair blew in the wind. She put a quarter in an ancient gray parking meter, and bought herself two and a half hours of time.
Lena’s feet tore through tangles of dried brown meadow grass. She kept an eye out for anyone who might object to her disregard of the Posted signs that were nailed to the trees at two-hundred-yard intervals.
Jeff Hayes had a cousin named Melody Hayes, born in the LaRue County Hospital in 1954. Cousin M. Melody’s mother, Esther Gerrold Hayes, had died in 1956.
Esther had given her daughter a beautiful name. Melody, Melody, Melody Hayes. Where was Melody now?
Lena could see over the hill now, and she caught a glimpse of the house. Jeff had spent his young years here, before his family turned prosperous and moved closer in to town. The house was empty now, protected by a thick knot of trees so old that their lowest branches were on a level with the roof. The trees formed a horseshoe around the house, their limbs black and stark, the bark oddly smooth and impenetrable. The gravel drive was weed grown, full of hardened tire ruts, evidence that people still came here, often in wet weather.
It was a small house, a modest wood farmhouse, showing bare wood and peeling white paint. One of the shutters on the far right window had come unhinged, and now hung crooked, moving with the wind. The shutters had been painted red once, and they were all missing slats.
Lena climbed the boundary fence, holding the wood post with one hand, pressing down the top two strands of barbed wire with the other. She swung one leg over, then the other. A rusty knot of wire caught the inseam of her jeans. She plucked the wire loose, wobbled from side to side, lost her balance. She grabbed the wire to keep from falling. Her left palm came down on a barb, but was protected by the thick bandage she still wore over the cuts on her hand.
Sunlight glinted off a rusty propane tank that squatted by the side of the house. A pile of bricks had fallen like rotten teeth from the chimney. Lena was surprised the house had no front porch. She headed up the crumbling concrete steps and tried the front door. Locked.
The windows had been covered from the inside with masking tape and brown paper sacks. Lena peered into a dirt-encrusted corner where the paper had sagged and curled. She squinted, making out an empty room with a linoleum floor. Something—garbage?—was piled in a corner.
Lena walked around the house, glancing once, then twice, behind her. Somebody was using a chain saw a couple of miles away. She noticed the latticework of wood that enclosed a dark dirt crawl space. Whitney had told her about Jeffrey’s nightmares, how he dreamed about “under the house.”
The back door was locked, too.
There was a rusty yellow swing set behind the house, and a sagging shed of silvery gray wood. The swings moved with the wind, and Lena thought of ghost children. The shed was windowless, and flat-topped, and had not been erected by any whiz at carpentry. The door was held shut with a simple hook and eye. Lena wrestled the rusty hook out of the loop, and tugged the metal hasp.
The door groaned, but stayed wedged in the dirt. Lena kicked the bottom and pulled again, and the door swung suddenly free.
The shed was dark inside, earthy smelling. Daylight came like smoke through seams in the slats of wood. There was nothing there to give her the tight feeling in her chest, nothing but four rough, splintery walls, a hard-packed dirt floor, and streamers of pale web hanging loose.
Lena’s eyes adjusted. There were hieroglyphics on the walls—childish drawings, scribbles. A childish hand had sketched cats (horses maybe?), a couple of dogs. In the corner were the initials JH and 1963. Jeff Was Here. Lena inched closer. A tree, a circle, and a cat (or dog?) hanging from a noose. Something had been written at the bottom.
I HAF TO KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT OR THEY CUT OUT MY TUNG.
The wind smacked the door shut, leaving Lena in the dark.
23
She hadn’t called to see if Mendez was in his office, and the empty chair threw her. Lena stood beside the desk, hands behind her back. She ripped a sheet of paper off a legal pad and sat down in his chair. CALL ME, she printed in large block capitals. She chewed the eraser and wondered if she should say anything else.
Jeff has a cousin, she wrote. They grew up together. Trying to track her and will
Lena realized that someone was looking over her shoulder. The pencil lead snapped, leaving crumbs of graphite on the paper.
“Mendez, what are you doing?!”
“Reading my message.”
Lena took a breath. “Here. You can have your chair back.”
“No. Sit. I’m on my way out.” His jacket and tie were neat. He picked a file up off the corner of the desk. “Did you bring me the tape?”
“I forgot.”
“What’s up?”
“I just … I wanted to know if you’d heard anything. From Knoxville.”
He nodded, frowning. “There’s not much.”
“They find the hubcap?”
“No. But the lab found trace elements of a hypo clearing agent on the inside of the glassine sleeve. That’s what photographers use to clean negatives.”
Lena chewed her lip. “Eloise told me that Archie and Jeff took pictures of people during, you know, meetings. Whatever. She said they used them to encourage ‘donations’ to the group.”
Mendez scratched his chin. “The killing definitely looks like some kind of blackmail dodge. We may be seeing an internal squabble. Considering the nature of the hit.”
“Were you right? Were there thirteen bullet wounds?”
“Eleven. But they found thirteen slugs. Looks like the shooter missed a couple of times.”
“And the way they cut him up. Is that typical?”
Mendez shrugged. “There’s not a rule book, Lena. Some of these gro
ups make things up as they go along. But it’s the right—”
“Flavor.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Lena put her chin in her hand. “How does Hayes fit in?”
“Don’t know. But he used to lead a pretty hardcore group based in the area where he grew up. They may have members all over. Anywhere. Somebody had to run things while he and Archie were in prison. We may be seeing blackmail, or some kind of power struggle. There’s no way to tell.”
“Do you think Hayes has Charlie?”
“We’ve been watching his place, trying to pick him up since he showed at your house that last time. He hasn’t been home.”
“You’ll get him.”
“Maybe not.” Mendez took a breath. “The captain pulled our man off. So unless we get lucky.” He shrugged. “I’m on my way to Knoxville right now.”
“Something going on?”
“Hackburton has a tip. Sounds remote, but you never know. What I’m interested in is the clinic. There are plenty of places Valetta could have gone. Why this particular one? Why Knoxville?”
“He got connections—family in the area?”
“None we know of. He’s a Kentucky boy. From Jackson. Hackburton’s checking on this Dr. Whitter. Getting a list of license numbers on cars in the clinic parking lot, for comparison to any numbers they can pick up at Valetta’s funeral.”
“When is that?”
“Coroner hasn’t released the body yet. And nobody’s claimed it.”
“Eloise told me Archie and Jeff went down that way sometimes. On business.”
Mendez nodded.
“What are you going to do down there, Joel?”
“Talk to Hackburton. Retrace likely routes from the clinic to the motel. See if I can figure out where he lost Charlie.”
“You’re looking for a likely place to dump a body.”
Mendez was quiet.
Lena stood up. “I sure hope you’re wrong, Mendez.”
“I’ll call you when I get back.”
Satan’s Lambs Page 10
