Nathan was weeping, snot dribbling from his nose and the tears coursing down his cheeks. How could he see to hold the gun? But he did. “It’s all her fault!” he shrieked, waving the gun toward his mother.
I ducked and bobbed, afraid the gun would go off. “Mariah, did you kill those girls?”
“What are you doing?” Lizzie muttered.
“Go with it,” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth. I could hear rustling and what sounded like a booted footstep; I needed to keep them focused on me and their mutual antagonism. I motioned slightly with my head back the way we had come.
Her eyes widened, and she stuck a hand in her frizzing hair. “Crap. Okay.” She stood taller. “I don’t think it was her. It was all you, wasn’t it, Nathan?”
“No . . . it’s the mom,” I argued. “Mariah, why did you kill those girls?”
She glanced my way as her son, still holding the gun and still weeping, moaned in agony, his free hand pressed against his stomach. “Little witches needed to be taught a lesson,” she growled.
“What kind of lesson?”
“If you’re gonna tease a guy, you got a duty to come across with the goods.”
“Was that why you killed Glynnis?”
She smiled, but it was a weird, tired, disgusted smile. “She’d have told the cops what Nathan tried on her. He liked her, but she wasn’t having none of that. She was going to leave so he grabbed her to have a little fun, but she screamed.” She shrugged. “It didn’t go so well after that. He was gonna do what he’d done before, but he was being slow about it, so I had to shut her up.”
My stomach lurched. “What about the other girls? The ones in the past? You said he was going to do what he’d done before.”
She sighed heavily, the much put-upon mother. “He’s never had much luck with women. He’s such a good-looking boy . . . what’s wrong with girls today? So damned picky. I’ve always just tried to help him find a girlfriend. But he just can’t keep his hands to himself . . . can’t be gentle.” She turned and glared at her son. “Now look, Nathan, this woman is going to blame it all on you, all those girls we took care of.”
“But Mom, you told me . . .” He looked confused and worried, and the gun drooped even more.
I had no pity in my heart for him, but in that moment he looked so young and afraid. I wondered how she had raised him, how she had warped him. I’m never for blaming the mother—I think moms get a bum rap—but in this case . . . I blamed the mother. “You killed any girl he tried to do anything to. Any girl he assaulted.”
“Oh, he killed a couple. The first ones, anyway, coupla hitchhikers.”
“Mom, that was an accident! You know that,” he whined. “You told me it was okay!”
She glanced at me with a smile, like, kids . . . what are ya gonna do? “He was just a kid, messing around . . . like a cat with mice, you know?”
My eyes widened and my heart thudded. Messing around . . . how could she put it that way?
“But then he wanted to drop that Yolanda girl off on the road, alive, but I told him she would have told the police and the cops would have put him away.” She turned back to her son again. “You and me need to stick together,” she said sweetly. “Nathan, honey, give me the gun. I’ll kill ’em both and we’ll make sure no one blames you for anything.”
“Nathan, keep the gun. Your mother is the one who is going to blame you for it all,” I said, my gaze flicking back and forth between the mother and son. I kept hearing sounds, and I needed to keep them at odds so they wouldn’t notice the help that was coming for us. “She’s going to kill us and blame it all on you.” Staying at this encampment, the Light and the Way had been their shield for so long. Seeing them interact I now had no doubt who the mastermind was. Mariah/Maria had pretended to a womanly submission to stay at the Light and the Way camp under Mother Esther’s dubious leadership, but underneath she was a seething cauldron of dangerous brooding emotion.
“We know you’re innocent,” I said to Nathan. I’d say anything to make him keep the gun, because I thought that if Mariah got hold of it she’d kill us in a heartbeat. “We believe you; your mother did it all.”
“Shut up, witch,” she hissed, turning a furious wild-eyed look on me. She pushed her kerchief back on her head and wisps of hair escaped, fluttering in the breeze.
“Mariah, why did you marry Barney?” I asked, casting about for topics to keep her busy and talking. Where were Pish and Virgil and the others? It felt like hours had passed, but it had probably only been five minutes. I felt like they were near, but I didn’t see anyone!
“Now, don’t you ask interesting questions!” she said. “You think I didn’t know who Barney was?” She smiled. “I knew from the start, the minute he dragged into Ridley Ridge, running from the law and hiding out in that farmhouse Bardo Voorhees had as the Light and the Way. We got to be friends. Good friends. He confided in me . . . like another son in a way.”
“You knew who he was all along? And you knew that Arden Voorhees was really Bardo?”
“Who do you think showed Barney how to clean himself up so he didn’t look anything like his wanted photo? Hah! Get his real name . . . it’s John Doe! I thought that was a hoot. And who do you think taught him how to act so folks wouldn’t be suspicious?” She snorted in derision. “That man . . . I knew he was a felon from the get-go, the moment I met him. He stank of it, of fear, of deception. But he was helpful. Good cover. We kept him safe, and he acted the crazy street preacher who kept folks from wanting to look into the Light and the Way more closely. All my idea. I told Bardo my plan, and he approved.” She sighed and shook her head. “But after a coupla years Barney was getting cocky, full of himself; he felt safe. He was bored with living out here, and being without a woman.”
“But he had you, right?” I said.
Wrong thing to say. Her cheeks flushed a deep wine, and red blotches broke out on her neck. “He didn’t want me,” she spat out. “After all I’d done for him he wanted to leave the Light and the Way! But I knew how to get him to stay. The stupid sot fell in love with Felice; she’s so pretty!” Mariah snarled, jealousy darkening her tone. “I told him I’d help him marry that prissy little tramp Felice, make her trust him. I told her that she was destined for great things, and that she had been chosen for us as my sister-wife.”
I shivered. How close had Felice come to being murdered by a jealous Mariah? Pretty close, I would bet.
She snickered. “Fool. The woman’s an idiot. All Barney wanted was to get her in his bed. He woulda gotten tired of her pretty quick.”
I’d had it, that casual reference to poor Felice, now in a hospital room, and I literally saw blood red, a blinding flood of fury that sent me rocketing at the woman, clawing and scratching, as Lizzie—with me all the way—lashed out. It was a melee in the midst of which was a loud report, a deafening bang. I screamed, as did someone else. All I could see was Mariah’s hair, the kerchief pulled askew, and her patterned dress. I pushed her off me and she grunted, a groan of anguish or pain, I didn’t know which. I was helped to my feet by a pair of strong hands as I wept in fear and anger, my gaze slewing around. “Lizzie!” I yelled, flailing, feeling like the world was spinning out of control. “Lizzie, where . . . ?”
Virgil had grabbed hold of me, binding me tightly in his grasp. “Sweetie, are you all right?” He kissed my brow, the warmth and comfort of his arms infusing me with strength. “I’ve got to help Dewayne, honey, I have to let you go. Are you okay?”
I nodded and pushed him away, confused and scared and worried for Lizzie. Shuddering with the adrenaline flow, my vision cleared and I took in the scene. Dewayne had Mariah in his strong grip and had pulled her to her feet, bending her arm behind her back and holding her firmly. She was wailing, and I looked in the direction she was staring; Nathan had used the gun on himself. He lay bloody and dying on the ground by the hole that was intended as his grave by his mother, who, paradoxically, was now weeping in anguish for her dead son. Lizzie sto
od nearby, arms wrapped around herself, tears flooding her eyes and dripping from her chin.
I muttered that I was okay and dashed to Lizzie, taking her in my arms, pushing her head on my shoulder. “Don’t look, honey, don’t look.”
After a few minutes of heaving tears she stilled. Lizzie took a deep breath and pulled away from me, her wet, shimmering eyes full of wisdom and pain. “I’m okay. Truly, Merry. I’m alive. You’re alive. Alcina and Felice are okay.”
In so many ways Lizzie was a stronger woman than I, and I loved her for it, but she needed to know it was okay to break down. I looked deep into her eyes. “It’s all right if you’re not okay, you know. This was a lot; you don’t have to be strong. You can lean on me.”
She nodded, and the tears came again, welling and running, dripping down her face. “I’m . . . I’m kinda horrified, you know? But . . . God, it sounds awful. I’m relieved, too, that he offed himself.”
“I get it. Just let yourself feel whatever you feel, honey.”
Pish, his face lined with weariness, came to us and took us both in his arms. He was, as I had figured, responsible for getting Virgil and Dewayne to us so quickly, guiding them to our location. I had felt them near, but it took a few minutes, likely, to figure out how to get us safely extracted. My precipitous launching at Mariah had hurried the event.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, my darling girl, but I was worried that if I rushed them, or . . . or tried to help I’d be worse than no help.”
“Pish, you brought Virgil and Dewayne. You did the right thing.”
Even if the police had allowed us, I couldn’t leave. There was still something nagging at me; Lynn had claimed that while she was wandering, looking for drugs, she had heard screaming. I shielded my eyes from the brilliant cold sun and looked into the distance. There was the other abandoned shed I had noticed once before, and that I had seen in some of the drone footage . . . the abandoned one I had never searched because I had found Lynn before I had a chance to.
I had a bad feeling, a sickness in the pit of my stomach. Without a word I skirted the dug grave and the dead body of Nathan, and I took off at a run over the grass, toward it, stumbling and staggering in my anxiety. Virgil and the others yelled, but it was as if I was possessed. Something about that shed in the drone footage had bothered me; there was a trail leading away from it, but it went back across the land, toward the far woods, through which there was a path. That was, I would bet, the woods that Mariah so confidently knew the way through when she left Mack’s farm on Quarry Road, the next road over.
I raced to the outbuilding, grabbed the door, and shook it; the whole shed shuddered, but the door wouldn’t open. I stood back. There was a shiny new padlock. Who puts a shiny new lock on an old, rickety shed in the middle of a field? I heard a noise inside. I shook the door again, and put my ear up to the door as the others came to me.
“What’s going on?” Virgil said.
I turned to my husband. “There’s someone in here! I hear a noise, a muffled moan.”
He put his ear to the door and grunted. “Yup.” He said more loudly, “Hello! We’re here to help you! Stay away from the door and cover your eyes, if you can.”
I expected him to pull out his gun, like in the movies, and shoot off the padlock, but instead, he backed up and gave a powerful kick at the plank door. It shuddered, and the wood cracked, splintering. He did it again, and again, finally breaking through the wood with his booted foot. He pulled away boards, ignoring the cuts and scrapes he was inflicting on his bare arms, and kicked more of the door apart. He pulled out his cell phone and tapped the flashlight app, shining it inside as he pushed his thick body through the opening he had made.
Something in a far corner sparkled, reflecting the light, which I saw as I followed. My shape is a little different than his, but I can get through where he gets through. He held up his cell phone, hunching down, probably knowing how intimidating he would look, full height.
I looked over him. Cowering in the corner was a girl confined by duct tape, dirty, hair matted, shaking with fright and choking with fear, her eyes wild over the duct tape that covered her mouth.
Chapter Twenty-four
I moved forward, pushing past my husband. “Honey, you’re safe,” I said softly, my voice quivering. “I promise you. Whatever has happened, you’re safe now. We have the people who hurt you. This is my husband, and he’s a good man,” I said, gesturing toward Virgil, behind me. “We’ll get you out of here as fast as we can. Do you understand?”
Her eyes full of tears, she nodded as Virgil knelt by her and with his penknife cut the tape over her mouth and that bound her hands and ankles.
By now the ambulance drivers knew their way well to the encampment, and the young woman, the missing girl, was taken directly to the hospital, the ragged ends of duct tape that had gagged her still clinging to her filthy hair. And of course we couldn’t go home. We had to talk to the police.
They were puzzled by how I had zeroed in on that shed, and how I had connected so many random occurrences—Lynn hearing the screams, the drone footage of the shed, Mariah walking, unerringly, through the woods as if she knew the way—and came up with the latest missing girl being held in that cabin by the weird duo. I couldn’t explain it myself; it sounded dumb, no matter how I put it.
But that’s how my mind works. I’ve always been like that, random images and thoughts coalescing into one gleaming idea that takes hold of me. It’s what I was like as a stylist, and designing our home. Everything I had been thinking pelted into my brain and I knew that was where Mariah and Nathan had kept their victims, and probably where they had murdered them. One detail stayed in my mind from finding that poor missing girl in there just now. “Detective Sanchez,” I said to the handsome fellow who was from the DA’s office. “I saw something in that shed . . . something that I’m wondering about. I heard that poor girl, Glynnis Johnson . . . she had one sparkly barrette in her hair, but it looked like another had been torn out. I saw one in that shed just now, sparkling from my husband’s cell phone flashlight app. I’m wondering . . . could it be the one missing from Glynnis Johnson’s hair?”
He assured me they would check it out, and I told him everything else I knew and had seen and thought and heard. There was an old truck visible behind the shed, I remembered, from the drone footage. Something Ford Hayes always said came back to me: it didn’t matter what a car or truck looked like, it was what was under the hood. When police investigated it they found that that “old truck” was in perfect working order, despite its broken-down, rusted-out appearance. That’s how they had picked up their other victims, those who didn’t come to the camp willingly, and that is likely how they transported victims like the girls who had been found partially buried, like Yolanda Perkins, driving them away from the encampment to dispose of when they could.
We talked and talked at the site, of course. Lizzie and I both took the New York State Police detectives through the confusing narration of the crimes by Mariah and Nathan. It sounded like they had both killed, Nathan the first two girls, and Mariah poor Yolanda Perkins. Lizzie, Virgil, Dewayne and I—among others—then went to Baxter’s sheriff station to talk some more with the FBI, and the New York State Police, and anyone else who wanted to listen. We talked for hours.
Finally we left, free to return home, even as the police set up camp at the Light and the Way Ministry because they suspected that behind that awful shed, where there was some indication that the ground had been disturbed, was the grave of at least one girl, Ashley Walker. She was the one from the list who had been missing for two years. Maria/Mariah was not talking, and had been put on suicide watch. Which of them had killed who would be sorted out eventually, I supposed, taking into account what we had heard and the evidence gathered by the forensic team. The NYSP were coordinating with the FBI because of the complicated nature of the multi-county, multi-state murder and drug smuggling case.
I had shared a thought with the police, but
I didn’t know if they would be following up on it; I would bet that the prophet knew about the pair’s murderous proclivities but didn’t see fit to turn them in, as that would have brought law enforcement down on Voorhees’s head and disrupted his tidy little drug smuggling ring. I would bet that the day I was there he was alarmed enough to warn them to get rid of Glynnis, if she was in that shed, because he may have suspected, knowing my husband had been a cop, that there would be police following my visit. That was likely the turmoil that Isadore had witnessed, Mariah’s agitation, though we might never know.
The one thing that buoyed me over the next few days was a beacon of light shining through the awfulness: we had saved that poor girl in the shed. She had been beaten, but if Nathan and Mariah had stayed alive and free they would have undoubtedly killed her. As good as that thought was, it wasn’t enough comfort to counter the confirmation I received through the grapevine that the barrette in the shed was Glynnis’s. That poor child had been through so much; there was evidence found that she had been beaten, then taken from the shed and dropped off in some bushes—Mariah and Nathan assumed she was dead—but that she had dragged herself to the side of the highway to be found by Anokhi and her daughter and son-in-law. I’d never get over that, the knowledge that the poor girl may have been close at hand even as I wandered the camp.
Among all the horror I had to focus on the positive. Felice was okay and out of the hospital. Gordy, free and exonerated of any criminal actions, was back in Ridley Ridge, living in the apartment above Binny’s bakery, recovering from a broken heart and a wounded spirit. Lynn was doing as well as could be expected, and Pish was, I think, enjoying having company in the castle again. And I knew he loved having someone to take care of, to father and nurture.
Muffin But Trouble Page 26
