The Searing

by John Coyne

  Joe Santucci came out through the front door, buttoning his raincoat as he walked. He shuddered at the sudden cold of the morning, then mumbled, “What a fuckin’ way to make a living.” He glanced at Tom and asked, “You don’t need a lift, do you?”

  Tom shook his head. “I’m parked down the street.” They moved off the stoop, following the curving sidewalk. The lawn was still only piles of dirt. The Volts hadn’t yet gotten around to planting grass, Tom Dine thought, and already they had lost their first kid.

  “What will you do about this murder?” Santucci asked.

  “File it. A baby has been murdered in the new Renaissance Village. It’s a front-page story, Joe,” Tom added as a warning. He didn’t want Santucci trying to suppress the crime.

  “We’re not positive it’s murder.”

  “Joe, you showed me the baby, the way her neck had been twisted like a pretzel.”

  “There’s got to be an autopsy. Whenever you have a death like this, you gotta do one. Don’t write anything until I get the coroner’s report. It could be, you know, accidental.”

  Tom stopped on the sidewalk. “What are you trying to say, Joe?”

  He watched the young detective, watching to see if this was a ploy to put him off the story.

  “It’s Volt,” Santucci answered, speaking softly, though they were standing by themselves on the empty sidewalk. “I just got a call from the office. Volt’s a spook. The FBI and the CIA are both getting involved, you know, just in case.”

  “What does that mean, just in case?”

  “In case there’re any international implications.”

  Tom smiled wryly and asked, “Do you think the Russians are killing our kids? Is that it, Joe?”

  Santucci answered quickly, earnestly, “This Volt, he’s pretty big stuff in the CIA, and they want to make damn sure the kid didn’t die mysteriously.”

  “She did die mysteriously, Joe. Some goddamned pervert twisted her neck.”

  “Okay! Okay!” Santucci motioned Tom to be calm. “Look at this from my position. If they find out in Alexandria that you’re privy to this investigation, my ass is grass.”

  “Joe, you’re not going to keep this murder quiet.” He nodded toward the houses in the subdivision. “Those people are going to find out about it fast, if they don’t know already.” He shook his head. “It’s bad enough that the baby was strangled, but do you think it’s going to be less frightening once they hear the CIA thinks it’s a Russki?”

  “This isn’t your usual beat, Tom. Most of these people are federal. They’ve been overseas with the State Department. They work at the Smithsonian and at the White House. I know this area; these people are in my district.” He said it proudly, as if he could count on them to keep the story quiet.

  Tom unlocked the door to the Volvo, but before he stepped into the driver’s seat, he turned and answered Santucci.

  “These people are also human, Joe, and a one-month-old baby has been killed. Now I guess most of these couples have children of their own, and they’re going to want to know who killed Amy Volt and why.

  “And they’re going to want to know damned fast.” The reporter shook his head. He did not smile and his face looked tough again. “It doesn’t matter whether they work in the White House or the CIA. A baby has been killed by some lunatic. It doesn’t matter if he’s a mental case or a Russian infiltrator. These parents want him caught before he kills their kids.

  “And that’s your problem, Joe.” Tom smiled so his small lecture would not seem too pedantic. “You’re the Man.” Then he slipped into his car and nodded good-bye to the detective.

  FOUR

  Sara Marks left the Volt house through the kitchen door, cutting across the yard, and walking up the hillside to her house on Petrarch Court. She had not realized it was daylight until she stepped outside and saw the cold, gray dawn. She would go home, she decided, shower, and go to work. This was not the time to stay home and obsess about the murder. She had to stay busy, to keep her mind off Peggy Volt and the death of her child.

  She had left her front door unlocked--this was not Washington or Boston, after all—and when she came through the door, she realized immediately that something was wrong, that someone was already inside the house.

  The throw rug in the front hall had been pulled to one side, and she could see mud on the waxed hardwood floor. Someone had walked into the house and through the living room toward the kitchen. And then she remembered what the detective had said, they had found a muddy trail of footprints on the Volts’ basement floor.

  She left the front door open behind her and moved inside, glancing into the living room on her right to see if anyone was there, but the room was empty.

  “Who’s there?” she called out. Her voice was tense, and she had begun to shiver from her own fear.

  There was no answer. She stood quietly, listening for any sound, and then she thought she heard a single soft footstep from the kitchen. Her heart jumped and left her breathless.

  “Who is it?” she demanded. She was almost hysterical, and her voice screeched in the silent house. If someone did attack, she could not defend herself; she would be too frightened even to run through the open door.

  She glanced out front. There was no traffic on the cul-de-sac. A few of the houses on Petrarch Court were occupied, but no one was up this early. She could, however, run back to the Volt house. Still, she did not move. It was her house and she would not be driven from it. Her pride made her daring, and she carefully pulled an ancient shillelagh, a gift from an old boyfriend on a Boston St. Patrick’s Day, from the tall ceramic stand that held her umbrellas, and went into the dining room. There were more muddy tracks on the creamy white rug.

  The door into the kitchen was open. She saw a sliver of the large room, a corner of the butcher block table, the copper stove, and the back door. The door was open. She saw a wedge of cloudy sky and felt the draft whipping through the house.

  She relaxed some and sighed, thinking: he’s gone. She was safe. It was all right. She sighed again. The tension had left her weak. She went to the front door and locked it, then put away the shillelagh. What was she doing with that? she thought. She could never have hit anyone.

  Sara returned to the dining room and, taking out the vacuum cleaner, worked it quickly over the rug. The mud had dried and it cleaned away easily. Then she put away the vacuum and locked the kitchen door, pausing a moment to see that everything was in place.

  The kitchen was her favorite room in the new house. She had had the builder modify the model design so the breakfast nook was open to the rest of the kitchen. As a result, people congregated there. She liked that. When she had a dinner party, or neighbors came over just for a drink, and crowded into the kitchen, it gave her a sense of family. She was an only child and a crowded kitchen, for some psychological reason, satisfied her notion of what a family was.

  Sara began to strip off her clothes as she went upstairs to get ready for work. She was late, and if she didn’t rush through her shower, she’d be caught in the long lines of traffic on the Beltway. She was not sure yet whether it was worth living so far from the city. It would have been much simpler to have bought a place in Bethesda. Then she could have walked to work.

  Once more, she had doubts about her job at NIH. Perhaps it had been a mistake to leave Boston, to walk away from Sam, and come to Washington. She sank down at the end of the queen-size bed and slipped off her shoes. Well, it was too late now. She had made a commitment to the others and had invested her savings. She couldn’t afford to leave, even if she wanted to.

  She had never owned anything before in her life. In college and medical school, and even when she was working at Harvard and living with Sam, her apartment had never had any good furniture. She had owned only secondhand stuff and castoffs from her parents’ old farm house.

  Now her house was elaborately decorated, like a feature in Better Homes and Gardens, and she was self-aware enough to know why her style had suddenly
changed. It was her way of separating herself from Sam and their life together. Their ascetic lifestyle. It was silly, she realized. She was only trying to get even with him in some crazy way. To show that she could live independently from him. And this was what she had gotten herself into! She shook her head at her own foolishness, then threw herself into her stretching exercises, doing her deep knee bends, sit-ups, and a half dozen others to tighten her stomach muscles.

  Exhausted and out of breath, she got up and walked into the bathroom. Why was she thinking of Sam, she scolded herself, when it only made her feel miserable? It was the reporter at the Volt house, she realized suddenly, who had triggered her recollection. But why? He and Sam were not alike. Sam was thin and tall and tweedy, as fastidious as she was.

  The reporter was different. He had seemed intense. And too muscular. And then she realized what it was about him that reminded her of Sam. It was how he had kept watching her all night, that look of adoration, a surrender to her beauty. Perhaps it should have thrilled her, but it did not. She was frightened by men who seemed so taken by her, who succumbed so quickly. Frightened, because she had come to realize such sudden passion was not to be trusted. That it meant men loved her beauty, and not herself, and that their commitment to her was shallow and misdirected.

  She slipped her hand under her long hair and piled it on her head, pinned it, and pulled on a bright yellow shower cap. Well, she wouldn’t let it happen again. She would keep that reporter out of her life. She could keep out the world, and thinking that reassuring thought, she opened the frosted shower door, and screamed when she saw the child crouched in the tight corner of the small stall.

  Sara’s fright was only momentary. Recovering from the surprise, she grabbed the white terry cloth bathrobe off the door and, pulling it on, went back into the bedroom to telephone the child’s parents.

  “Oh, thank God!” Mrs. Delp exclaimed, then shouted to her husband, telling him that Cindy had been found. “Is she all right?” she shouted at Sara.

  “Yes, I believe so.” Sara looked up to see the child standing in the doorway. She was staring at Sara, but her eyes were unfocused. Sara lowered her voice and whispered, “Would you please come immediately?”

  “Bruce is coming, Miss Marks. We’ve been half-crazy, looking for her. She’s been gone all night, and then this baby getting killed …” Mrs. Delp’s voice broke and Sara said quickly, “She is all right. She is right here with me.”

  Mrs. Delp quieted down and Sara hung up. Then she said to the child, “Cindy, it’s all right. You can come into the room.”

  The child stepped forward. Her head was cocked, as if she was listening to someone far away, and she began to slowly walk in a tight circle, standing on her tiptoes. Sara saw then that Cindy was barefoot. and that her feet were muddy with the red clay dirt of the housing excavation, and wet from the shower stall. She was tracking mud across the rug, as she had done downstairs.

  “Cindy, please,” Sara said, going to her. The child was dirty and unkempt. If nothing else, Sara decided, she would clean her up before her father came. But at the first touch of her hand Cindy flailed out with her arms, as she had done the last time, but now Sara caught her arms by the wrists and held them.

  The girl was stronger than Sara had expected, and she knew from the hospital that distraught people were often capable of unusual strength. Still, she held the struggling child, whispering calmly, “I won’t hurt you, Cindy. I am your friend.”

  The girl had twisted around in their struggle, so now Sara held her from behind in a bear hug. It was easier to contain her that way, but Sara could hardly stand it. The girl smelled of barnyard filth. Sara turned her head away and gagged. God, she thought, how did these people live?

  Sara could feel Cindy tiring and finally giving up. The little girl sank against her, then slipped to the floor and lay in a heap on the soft creamy bedroom rug.

  Sara let go of the girl’s arms, and Cindy curled quickly into the tight fetal position that Sara was coming to recognize as her favorite pose. Her blank black eyes were open and she stared vaguely at the floor.

  Sara knelt beside her.

  “Cindy?” she whispered and touched the girl’s thin, bony shoulder. Again, the child recoiled.

  Sara pulled back, let the girl calm down, and then asked, “What is your name?”

  The girl did not respond, but Sara saw the question had alerted her.

  “Is your name Cindy?” Sara settled down on the rug, stretched out near the child so she could see her face. “Is your name Cindy?” she asked again.

  The child took a deep breath and screeched into Sara’s face. It sounded like words, but none that Sara could understand. Then Cindy screeched again.

  “I’m sorry, Cindy, I can’t understand you.”

  The front doorbell rang. Thank God, she thought. Now Cindy was no longer her problem. Wrapping the white terry cloth bathrobe tightly around her body, Sara went downstairs to let the farmer in.

  Bruce Delp did not look her in the eye when she opened the front door. He stood on the walk, not even on the cement stoop, and said, “I’ve come for Cindy.”

  “She’s upstairs, in my bedroom. You’ll have to carry her, I think; I left her curled up on the floor.”

  The farmer nodded and started up the steps. Sara moved back, out of his way, and said, “The bedroom is at the top of the stairs.” She waited in the foyer, so her presence would not cause another outburst from Cindy. Delp was downstairs again almost immediately. For a short stocky man, he moved quickly. Cindy was walking on her own, but she clung lovingly to him, her small hand in his thick fist.

  “Thank you, Miss,” Delp muttered as the two of them swept past her and out the door. The odor from their bodies and clothes floated back to her as they passed.

  “Mr. Delp,” she called after him. “What’s the matter with Cindy?”

  The farmer stopped. He had his arm wrapped protectively over Cindy’s shoulder, and the girl still clung to him.

  “They tell me she’s autistic,” he said, and now he did look at Sara. His eyes were small and cold, and as dark as his daughter’s. “You know about that?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you have her in a special school?”

  The farmer shook his head. “They can’t do nothing for her. We keep Cindy at home. It’s best.”

  “Mr. Delp, I am with the National Institutes of Health. If you’d like, I could telephone my colleagues and see if we can find a good school for Cindy. Doctors understand a great deal about autism today, and …”

  Delp snapped his head back, silencing her with his threatening look.

  “Don’t you do nothing. I’ll take care of my own.” And then he pushed Cindy ahead of him and into the truck.

  “I was just trying to help, Mr. Delp,” She felt as if she had been slighted and misunderstood.

  “I don’t need your help with my kid,” Delp answered, sliding behind the steering wheel. He stared at Sara for a moment, then said, “You keep away from her and she’ll keep away from you people.” Then he slammed the door and turned over the engine.

  Sara closed the front door firmly and leaned against it, shocked by Delp’s reaction to her offer. She was unprepared for such hostility; it frightened her. Who were these people? she asked herself. And why were they so strange?

  She turned the lock on the front door and, as an extra precaution, slid the chain bolt into place. Then she went upstairs to shower and dress, but was so uneasy that she locked the bedroom door behind her as well.

  Still the uneasiness remained. She paused and took several deep breaths, but her heart was racing. She was momentarily dizzy, from the excitement, she thought, and her own nervousness, and she slumped down on the end of the bed. And then she realized that something more, something frightening was happening to her.

  She felt the tingling up the back of her thighs, and she fell onto the soft bed as her leg muscles tightened, and the blood went rushing to her center. Her body seemed out of her control; t
he muscles of her rectum contracted and her hips and pelvis jumped involuntarily, thrust forward, as the warm blood burst through her body, flooding her groin and exploding into her limbs.

  She let the rush spread out in a long, slow wave. There was a moment of peace, then another wave tore into her and held her tight for a moment before slipping away. Another shuddering. Another rage of thick pleasure. She was dizzy and confused and the temples of her brain hurt from the relentless charge of electricity.

  She clung to the damp mattress, trying to keep her sanity as the bombardment continued. And then, just as suddenly, it was over. She lay still, breathing fast and hard for a moment, before she rolled on her side and clutched a pillow in her arms, trying to shield herself from the terrifying realization that something truly extraordinary had just happened to her.

  FIVE

  “It wasn’t murder,” said Santucci’s voice over the telephone.

  Tom Dine swung his legs down from his desktop and reached for his notepad.

  “What do you mean it wasn’t—you told me! I wrote it up for tomorrow’s paper. It’s already typeset!”

  “I just got the medical report. The baby wasn’t strangled.” Santucci spoke offhandedly, as if the whole business now bored him, but Dine could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  “What killed her?”

  “They’re not sure yet. I guess it’s a little too technical for a county coroner. He’s calling in a neuropathologist, but his preliminary examination is that the child died from a brain swelling, not strangulation. He’s not sure yet, but it looks like meningitis.”

  “Ah, shit!” And this guy calls himself a detective, he thought.

  “I guess we’ve struck out again, Tom.” Now Santucci sounded guilty.