by Ivan Blake
A hot wind swept into the chamber. Chris spun about just as Mallory struck. He was crushed against the iron door, his head slammed several times against its rivets and hinges. Blood exploded from his nose. His left arm was yanked violently into the air, and his wrist twisted backwards until a crack like a rifle shot echoed off the stone walls. The blue light died, the hot wind rushed from the room. Chris fell into a heap at the foot of the tower door. Darkness enshrouded him.
Then suddenly, bright light shone all around. “No, Mallory, please,” he whimpered.
Through the pain and the stars and the ringing in his head, he heard someone cry out, “My God!”
A woman’s voice, but what woman? Not Mallory, surely!
He lifted his head and forced one eye open.
“You have your own demon!” Rose DuCalice stood in the doorway with her hand on a wall switch. “You have your own demon!”
Chris slipped into darkness once again.
* * * *
After Rose left the library, Geraldine Paget hid out among the shelves until closing time, too embarrassed to be seen by the library’s patrons. Fortunately, no one needed help at the Reference Desk or wanted to check out a book. She would have been too mortified to show her face. Everyone in the library had heard her father’s argument with Mrs. DuCalice. Worse, the school kids doing their homework had all undoubtedly heard her father call her Pumpkin. That’s how the teasing had first started, in elementary school when someone overheard her father call her Pumpkin as a term of endearment, and it had stuck. She’d been Pumpkin Patch ever since.
That was partly why she hid out in the Lewis Library every afternoon after school, to escape the unending taunts—about her weight, her pimples, her orange hair, and her dad. It never stopped. There were only thirty kids in Lewis Senior Secondary, and twenty-nine of them were creeps. Her only escape? The library. No one dared taunt anyone in the library. Mrs. Rose DuCalice permitted no “chit-chat” as she called it on library property, and everyone obeyed Rose. She knew everyone in town, she knew every secret, every family skeleton, and every humiliating tale. She could cut a person to the quick with one remark, one reference, or one innuendo. More importantly, everyone appreciated what her family had done and was still doing for Lewis. After all, the library, which had been a gift from her family in the first place, would have closed for good had Rose not bought it back—in fact, paid millions in cash and continued to pay for its operation out of her own resources—when the Council voted to discontinue its funding. People respected Mrs. DuCalice, even feared her, everyone that is, except Geraldine’s father.
Geraldine knew how much it galled her father that Rose was using her own money to keep the library open after he’d led the Council in canceling its funding. In her father’s mind, the library sucked up cash better spent attracting visitors and new business to Lewis. Time and again, Geraldine heard him say, “If that damned DuCalice woman has so much money, why the hell isn’t she using it to promote our town instead of pandering to people who only want to sit on their asses and read all day?” Her dad’s campaign to defund the library had been bad enough, but his new threat to have the library condemned was unforgiveable. Geraldine had taken a lot of crap and heartbreak from her father over the years, but she wasn’t going to let him close her only sanctuary. No way! She swore she’d do whatever it took—spy, steal, and sabotage—to protect Mrs. DuCalice and the library. Besides, Geraldine relished the idea of sticking it to her dad for a change, of making him miserable the way he’d made her life a misery.
There’d been a time when she’d been her father’s little princess, long ago when she was very young. He’d said he loved her pudgy cheeks, said her round little belly was a sign of good health and of her father’s success and the family’s affluence. He’d called her his little butterball and plied her with a ton of candy. Then when she was just nine, she’d got boobs, and he’d been mortified. Then her skin broke out and he’d started criticizing her mother for feeding her too much, for giving her all the wrong foods and for dressing her like a clown. He’d said she was forever bursting out of her clothes, that he was embarrassed by her big ass, and that he was too important in the local business community to be seen with such an unattractive kid. One day, Geraldine heard him shout at her mother that the two women in his life were sea anchors on his efforts to save the town and that he never wanted to appear at official functions with them again.
Geraldine tried to believe her father still loved her in spite of all the cruel digs and thoughtless cracks. Until that is, at school one day someone told her whole class her dad, in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce, had said he wished he had a son to inherit his businesses, and when her mother had run off, he regretted she hadn’t taken the girl too.
Geraldine had tried everything she could to make their house a home and to earn her father’s respect, but nothing worked. He’d often remarked in her hearing how he had no help from anyone in anything that mattered in his life. Oh, he still called her Pumpkin, but she doubted he meant it as a term of affection any more.
* * * *
Jackie Cormier had spent an entire week in the bitter cold outside the South Portland Detention Center, waiting to get a comment from a newly-released Chris Chandler, but the week had been a total write-off. Chandler had somehow slipped out of the Center by a back entrance and disappeared. Worse still, Jackie returned to Bangor late that afternoon to learn she’d also missed the day’s lead news story on every TV channel: the gruesome attack on Ed Balzer in Bemishstock the previous evening.
She was steamed, and no sooner did the elevator door on the news room floor open than she bellowed, “Martin, why the hell didn’t you call me?”
There wasn’t another soul in the newsroom at that hour; staff had put the latest edition to bed and gone home, everyone except Martin Koyman. He was slumped in his chair, at his pigsty of a desk, plucking away at the keys of his word processor, right where Jackie knew he’d be, because, like her, he had no life to go home to.
“Because you were still in Portland when the story came in.”
“So did we have anyone at the press conference in Bemishstock?”
“Nichols.”
“Nichols? He does obituaries!” Jackie moved aside several half-empty Styrofoam cups and sat down on the corner of Martin’s cluttered desk.
“He wanted a change.”
“So what did he get?”
“Only what the Bemishstock Police said in their release. Balzer’s dead. Weird attack, like a wild animal. They have no leads but they want to talk to Chris Chandler. I guess he was in Bemishstock yesterday morning.”
“Yeah, heard that. Any chance Balzer killed himself?”
“His face was ripped off. I don’t think so.”
“Sometimes people go nuts and mutilate themselves. Balzer was a mess last time I saw him,” Jackie said, remembering the sight of Balzer and his friends in the courtroom during Chandler’s trial.
“His tongue was torn out and he’d been disemboweled.”
“Shit. So are you working on the attack?”
“No. On AIDS,” Koyman replied.
“What?”
“Chief Boucher died yesterday.”
“Holy...That didn’t make the news.”
“No, not yet, tomorrow morning though.”
“And he died of AIDS? The illness killing gay men in California?”
“A source at the hospital confirmed it. And it’s what killed that school teacher from Scotland, and it’s what the Catholic priest, Father Raymond, is suffering from.”
“Christ!”
“Appears there was a circle of gay men in Bemishstock enjoying one another’s company...and spreading the virus.”
“I thought AIDS was just a California story.”
“Not anymore. It’s gonna be big. So, for now, the Chandler story is all yours.”
“Thanks heaps.”
“What do you plan to do with it?” Koyman turned away from his screen and smil
ed at his young protégée.
“The judge leading the State’s inquiry wants to focus on who knew about the grave robberies and when, and why they did nothing. He thinks there was a cover-up. But I think there’s a hell of a lot more to the story than just the grave robberies. Like who attacked the Dahlman boy, and Chris Chandler, and now Ed Balzer? And like how does the Dahlman girl fit in all this?”
“Maybe she doesn’t.”
“I’ve got a feeling she could be the key.”
“Okay, so what are you gonna do?” Koyman asked.
“Well, when I got back here from Portland this afternoon, and heard about the Balzer attack, I did drive to Bemishstock.”
“So you were there! You knew I’d sent Nichols, and you didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted to see you squirm,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, I got there way after the press conference, but I was able to talk to Acting Chief Ricky Pike. He’s trying to contact Chandler’s lawyer to make the kid come in.”
“You find out what Chandler was doing in Bemishstock?”
“My guess is he went there to see the Willard girl. Pike said he left in the evening by bus back to Portland. From there, who knows?”
“How can Pike think Chandler had anything to do with the attack even if he was in town? From what I understand, Chandler’s condition is the pits; he couldn’t hurt a flea.”
“But they do, and so do I,” Jackie said.“I think whoever is hurting Chandler is also hurting his enemies, and I don’t understand it, especially why Chandler won’t talk. There was much more going on in Bemishstock than just the grave robberies and a bunch of old gay guys having it off. Chandler keeps getting hurt. There were stories in prison that he had some sort of demon on his side—”
“A demon? You’re serious?”
“And now there’s this attack on Balzer. Sure doesn’t seem like the work of a sane person. So why not say demon, for the moment anyway? Oh, and it also turns out our prissy Miss Dahlman was a real piece of work. Chris Chandler once told the school principal Mallory was vicious, only the principal wouldn’t listen. I can’t help feeling the Dahlman girl has a lot to do with all these attacks.”
“Even though she’s dead.” Koyman shook his head. “Jackie, you’re a good journalist, but don’t go crazy. Stick with the facts.”
“Oh I know. But that’s why I want to find Chandler before the cops do, to figure out what the real facts are.”
“Well, the boss loves your stuff, so do what you must. Just don’t get too carried away with demons and crap. Anyway, I’m glad you’re having fun.”
Oh yeah, the Bemishstock story was great fun. Besides, there was something really fascinating about Chris Chandler. People who liked him, liked him a lot, and for all his injuries, he was still one sexy young man.
* * * *
Chris heard a voice somewhere off in the darkness. “Christopher Chandler, wake up. This is going to hurt.”
What...what was going to...? “Ooow! Christ!” His hand was being ripped off! “Stop! Please!” Someone was pulling and twisting his wrist. The pain was unimaginable! His eyes flew wide. “What the hell?”
A woman was leaning over Chris, peering into his eyes. “Warned you,” she said.
“Mrs. DuCalice?”
Another excruciating wave of pain. Chris screamed again. “There, all done,” the woman said.
“My hand!” Chris couldn’t raise his arm. Mrs. DuCalice had it pinned beneath her knee. “What are you doing to me?” he cried out.
“Well, if you want the technical description, I realigned your lunate dislocation,” she said as she lifted her knee from Chris’s arm.
“My what?”
“Your wrist was dislocated. I suggest you not move it for a while, or you’ll pass out again from the pain. Put it in this. The cold will reduce the swelling.”
He looked down at his wrist, badly deformed and discolored, and now immersed in a large bowl of ice. And he realized he was stretched out on the cellar floor. A single bulb dangling from the joists immediately above his head provided all the illumination there was in the cavernous cellar.
“One of the lunate bones in your wrist had to be realigned immediately or you’d have needed surgery someday soon. Your wrist will have to be splinted for a while to give it a chance to heal. But nothing’s broken and the reduction has worked perfectly, so there shouldn’t be any permanent damage.”
“I can’t feel my fingers.”
“Just the effects of the ice. Now drink this.” And before Chris could object, Mrs. DuCalice poured a thick greenish liquid down his throat. He gagged and coughed some out onto his shirt, but Mrs. DuCalice filled his mouth once again, and this time, most of the liquid went down the right way.
“What the hell was that?” Chris said as he gasped for air.
“Something to help you sleep.”
“Something to wha...?” And the darkness returned.
Chapter 4
Tuesday, March 3
When she heard the news about Balzer’s death, Gillian Willard knew immediately what had happened. Mallory. Why hadn’t Chris told her what he’d been planning? Why hadn’t he trusted her? She felt sick that he’d kept his intentions from her. Then again, she’d been keeping her own secrets from Chris.
Gillian had told Chris school was going well because she didn’t want him to worry. But school wasn’t going well, and hadn’t been for some time. She was still getting good grades, and she had her early acceptance letter from U. Maine, and at home, the family’s financial situation was much improved as a result of their sale of Felicity’s paintings. At school, however, Gillian was no longer the hero she’d been after her release from hospital. The Allied Paper plant was now closed, and along with it, many of the remaining businesses in town. More and more families were moving out, boarding up their homes and walking away from their mortgages. The School Board had sent out notices to parents informing them that three elementary schools were to close in the new academic year because of falling enrollment, and the Board was exploring the possibility of closing the senior high school and bussing Bemishstock’s remaining students to a neighboring town. The worsening economic misfortune of Bemishstock was bad enough, but most people in town found the drip-drip-drip of scandalous revelations coming out of the State Inquiry truly humiliating. They blamed, not the police or the funeral home, but the people who’d brought the original scandal to light, and since the Chandler family had long since left Bemishstock, that meant Gillian Willard.
Chris made Gillian feel like the most beautiful girl on earth, but that wasn’t how her classmates treated her. For years, she’d been almost invisible among her fellow students, but no longer. Sitting with her friend Madelyn on the bus each morning, she had to endure the same kind of taunts that Chris had once experienced. Word had somehow gotten back to Bemishstock that Gillian had been visiting Chris Chandler in South Portland and their relationship had become grist for some of the filthiest innuendo imaginable. “So, do you make conjugal visits?” and “You give Chandler any nude pictures to keep him happy?”
Morning news reports that Ed Balzer had been killed drove the insults to a whole new level. As she boarded the bus, someone said, “Hey, Willard, I hear you cut out Balzer’s guts while Chandler held him down!” Another shouted, “Someone sliced Balzer’s dick off. Was that you too?” Hoots of laughter. “You got it stashed in your house somewhere?” and “Bring it to show and tell, why don’t ya?” As she followed the mob off the bus, the driver muttered, “Looks like your boyfriend wasn’t so innocent after all, eh?”
The acting principal intercepted her on the school steps to say the police were waiting to question her. As she followed the principal to his office, she heard students up and down the corridor whispering, “Willard’s gonna get arrested,” and “They got them both now.”
The principal ushered Gillian into his office but then remained outside. Acting Chief Ricky Pike was seated behind the principal’s desk. “Sit there,” he said
, pointing to a metal chair.
Pike stared at her. “You know what I don’t understand? You’re a good looking broad. Why the hell would you want to get mixed up with a loser like Chris Chandler?”
Gillian looked at Pike in amazement, jumped up and said, “You’ve got to be kidding! You’re hitting on me? Is that really why you wanted to see me? If so, I’m leaving right now, and you can’t stop me.”
Ricky started to get up, but Gillian was furious. “You touch me, you stupid clown, and I’ll yell rape so loud the whole school will hear!” Pike fell back into the principal’s chair, caught off-guard by her outburst.
Heavens! Where had that come from?
Gillian’s anger had been building up for some time. She was mad at the school, at the idiots on the bus, at this town, at Chris for keeping things from her, and probably at herself for taking all the crap being thrown at her. And now the police chief was hitting on her?
No way. I’m not taking anymore crap from anymore!
“No...I...no, I just wanted to ask you about yesterday,” Pike said in a voice filled with trepidation.
“What about yesterday?” Gillian sat back down.
“Well, the way I figure it, Missy, you saw Chris Chandler, that he visited your home.”
“Yes, I picked him up at the bus station, and drove him to my house.”
“So, like, what did you two kids do there?”
“We visited Felicity Holcomb’s grave, then we talked about his courses and what he was going to do next. Then we had lunch, and I drove him back to the bus station.”
