Dead Little Dolly (23 page)

FORTY-TWO

We were in my living room. I sat in front of Jane, so we could stare at each other. She’d look at me for a while, get bored, check out the rest of the room, then back to me.

“So, are you doing all right?” I asked and smiled my best hostess smile.

Jane’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling, then around to where Sorrow had jumped up to look at her. She was far more interested in him than in me so I left Sorrow in charge while I made myself a cup of microwave tea and sat back down, nerves jingling.

What a perfect time to go out and write in my studio. A whole day with nothing to do, but so nervous I had to keep my mind busy. I figured Jane could look at the ceiling in my studio as well as here in my kitchen so I packed her up and took her out through the trees to the little building where I wrote.

She liked the trip, listening to birds singing—tending to nests filled with eggs. She liked watching a single cloud shaped like a really long rabbit, twisting her head around to keep it in view. She liked Sorrow’s jumping in the air near us and yipping and caterwauling after a fox. She bounced around in my arms to follow him behind the studio, almost falling as she threw her head back, trying to see behind her.

I held on tight and opened the studio door with my key. I set Jane up in a chair aimed straight at me, then sat at my desk and opened my MacBook.

There’s something about total quiet. Sorrow worn out at my feet. Jane facing me but quickly sleeping. A single peaceful forty-five minutes before she began to stir. She made noises, every once in a while a tiny cry of protest. I’d just get into a new scene, with ideas forming, places to take the book deeper, and she’d coo, or burp, or had a few words to say in that unintelligible language of hers, and I was distracted, turning to smile at her, turning to talk to her, asking if she was hungry, as if I expected an answer. I figured she was probably soaked and would want her diaper changed. I told her I didn’t blame her, I’d want mine changed, too, and not to feel bad about interrupting my—oh, so important—work.

As if sarcasm would get me anywhere with a baby.

By one o’clock we were back in the house and I’d said everything I could think to say to her and smiled all the smiles I could come up with and was totally bored.

At three o’clock I turned on my small TV, which rarely got turned on, and sat down with Jane in my arms to watch a talk show where the star gave out presents and all the women in the audience screamed.

I changed channels and found a mystery about people who’d married strangers and took much too long to find out their spouse had a terrible past—like cannibalism. Inane, but it held our interest so Jane and I sat watching until we both fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until the phone rang.

Bill. He’d been in touch with Lucky, who told him I had Jane.

“Your last story really scares me, Emily,” he said. “That woman’s after Jane. Or maybe it’s Dolly she’s after. Anyway, Lucky said you’re alone with the baby out there. I hear Dolly’s gone to Norwood. You should have a cop with you. Somebody.”

“Dolly’ll be back as soon as she can.”

“Why don’t I come out?”

I was his employee. I was a reporter. Since when did reporters ask their editors to come and save them? I turned him down flat. “I’m working, writing, we’re getting along fine. No strange phone calls. No strange cars in my drive. Nobody anywhere around. Sorrow lets me know if a squirrel runs across the deck so I think we’re okay for right now.”

He hesitated. “What if Dolly can’t get back?”

“You mean before tonight?”

“Yes. I don’t want to think of you alone in the dark.”

I found the depth of his caring touching. But irritating.

I assured him again that I was fine and would get another story to him in the morning.

“I hope they catch her out there at Norwood. Put an end to this. She’s got to be the one who killed Cate.”

“I hope not. For Dolly’s sake, I hope not. She’s got enough hatred in her.”

I hung up. The phone rang again. This time it was Omar Winston. He was going to Norwood but offered to drop his mother off to stay with me. I declined politely, swallowing what I thought of a few hours trapped with that particular woman, and hung up.

I fed Jane cereal. I gave her a bottle. I changed her then held her and sang a bunch of old Stevie Wonder songs to her and then K. D. Lang—especially my favorite about dreaming of springtime—then turned the TV back on just as the phone rang again.

Jackson Rinaldi, with a buoyant voice and a note of triumph. “You’ll never guess, Emily,” he said without as much as a “Hello” or “How are you?” or “You still alive?”

“A wonderful review. The
British Times
, of all places. They get it. They understand me. No academic carping. Oh, Emily, I can’t tell you how good it feels to be accepted in Chaucer’s own country, his own language, his own people of like humor.”

Jane shot a raspberry I agreed with but I enthused over his news and congratulated him. When he’d gone through every superlative he could think of to describe the English press, he thought to ask me how I was doing and I told him.

“What?” he exclaimed again and again. “What? You’re there with a baby? You? And a madwoman after you? Is this a joke? Something you thought up to top my story of success?”

I assured him that was it, letting sarcasm drip. Me getting even in my own passive-aggressive way.

“No,” he said. “I can tell. You’re serious. I’m coming up. I’ll be there first thing in the morning. I have an evening class, you understand. Don’t let anyone in that house. Do you still have that mangy animal of yours?”

I assured him I did.

“Then let him bark and howl to his heart’s content until I get there.”

“I don’t need you, Jackson.”

“I’m not falling for that, Emily. I just am not certain of the time. As early as possible.”

We left it at that. I was too tired to argue. Too tired to point out to one more man the futility of riding to my rescue. And too tired, later, to do more than fry an egg for my dinner, and make toast to dip in it, all the while holding a bottle in Jane’s mouth as she sat in her bouncing chair in front of me and watched with snapping brown eyes that seemed to be laughing.

I didn’t hear from Dolly until almost eight o’clock.

“Nobody can spell me out here,” she said. “I’m down the road, watching the house. Not many cars driving by, let alone any pulling up the doctor’s drive. How’s Jane?”

“She’s fine,” I said and kept the news from her of Jackson on his way to save me. “We’re having a great time.”

“Yeah, I bet. I know you. Not a baby person.”

“I beg your pardon.” I took umbrage at her judgment. “Me and Jane are fed and dry and about to engage in a conversation about modern philosophy.”

“You are so full of it,” she groused at me. “So, I don’t know when I can get back there. Are you going to be okay? Omar was coming out here. I thought maybe I could get him to stay but he just called. There’s been a shooting in a Gaylord bar so he’s out of it for now.”

“What about Lucky?”

“He’s here with me. He made me leave your car at the station. Said it was like a big yellow lightbulb. Not the kind of thing you take on stakeouts. We’re stuck here together.”

“Told you I should’ve taken you back to town.”

“Yeah, well, nothing like crowing over your shoulder.”

“So when will you get back?”

“Could be the middle of the night. Who knows? You’ve got plenty of formula and lots of diapers. I didn’t bring many clothes for her. Who knew she’d be staying? You could wash out that Onesie she was in today.”

I assured Dolly we’d be fine but added, “Just get back, okay? Jane’s getting bored with me.”

“I will. I can’t leave this place, Emily. It’s all she’s got to come to.”

I put the phone down, looked over at Jane, whose eyes were half shut, and shrugged.

“It’s just us,” I told her, then glanced at my ratty dog that looked back at me with adoration in his eyes. I knew if anybody in the whole world would give his life for me, it was Sorrow. I reached down and patted his head, which made him drool on my foot.

I gave Jane a last bottle, washed her, changed her into her last pink Onesie, then held her until she drifted off just after ten o’clock. I set her carefully in the nest of blankets in the bureau drawer. Her lips shivered and sucked as she settled into a dream.

She reminded me of Sorrow, when he was deeply asleep and his paws were going, running in a field where he was happy and free.

FORTY-THREE

It was after eleven before it got truly dark, late spring dark that mirrored my face in windows. It was a dark that appeared thick but revealed moving shadows and lights where there shouldn’t have been lights or shadows.

I went from window to window checking locks, then checking doors, then pulling the curtains aside quickly, certain I would catch a movement in the yard, or a face.

All the while I sidled from room to room, I told myself what an idiot I was. But that didn’t make my heart stop racing.

A creak in a floorboard. The thump of Sorrow’s tail. Any noise and I was up, out of my chair even before Sorrow stirred himself to give a weak “woof.” I was aware of creaks from the crawl space. I jumped when the refrigerator came on. When I turned on the TV again, wanting to cover all aberrant noises in and outside of my house, I couldn’t leave it on, always certain I’d heard a sound beneath the canned laughter, something at a window, a car in the drive, a footstep on the deck. Turning the TV off was worse. I put on music, then turned that down, too.

It was close to four a.m. when I’d tired myself out enough to get a pillow from my bedroom, look in at a soundly sleeping Jane, then lie down on the sofa, Sorrow on the floor next to me. I fell asleep for minutes at a time until finally falling into something like a cavern where I dreamed I was standing on the shore of Willow Lake watching a humpbacked monster swimming toward me.

Sorrow woke me with his barking and leaping in happy circles.

Someone at the door.

I checked my watch. Six thirty a.m.

Jackson. Maybe Dolly. I sat up, leaned forward, and dropped my head into my hands for just a minute. It was the ultimate disaster—Jackson here to add his needs and wants to an already intolerable situation. I was in one of those “Why me?” moments of self-pity as I got up from the sofa and hissed at Sorrow to shut up, for fear he would wake Jane.

I stumbled to the door, fiddled with the lock, and pulled it open while, at the same time, remembering I should be checking first.

Sorrow, my stalwart protector, distracted me, bounding out of the house and around toward the lake. I’d forgotten to let him out the night before. I blinked against the morning light, and was about to say something to Jackson about wishing he hadn’t bothered . . .

The woman in red pushed me back and into the wall behind me. I think it was a red shirt. Maybe a jacket. There wasn’t time to be afraid or think or notice much of anything as she came at me. I put my hands up expecting a knife and protecting my face—it was all I could think to do.

I looked out, between my spread fingers, at a ravaged face. At dark eyes, with black circles beneath—the kind of face you never want to see come at you in a nightmare. Dirty blond hair sprang out around her head.

First there was the seething face, and then a pair of hands up in the air, coming at me before I’d regained my balance. Fists hit me hard across the chest, then, after I fell, came down on my head.

I tried to fight back but it was like fighting a machine running over me. There was pain. There was fear. My head was knocked back into the wall and I slid, closing my eyes.

Something else hit me or kicked me.

I was flat on the floor.

FORTY-FOUR

I wasn’t completely knocked out, more dazed, confused, and not able to grasp what had happened until Jackson was bending over me, yelling at me, maybe more dazed and confused than I. Sorrow stuck his head between me and Jackson and licked my face until I pushed him away, saying something under my breath about a ne’er-do-well.

“I’m taking you to a hospital,” Jackson yelled as if loudness was all it took to get through.

“The baby,” was the first thing I croaked out, head in my hands, wincing at the pain when I tried to move. “Go get Baby Jane. Maybe you scared that woman away in time.”

“I didn’t see anybody coming in. Where?” he demanded. “Where’s this supposed baby?” I heard him scramble to his feet and move away even as he asked.

Next his voice came from the living room. “Where is she? Did you mean the real Baby Jane? That movie thing? Maybe you’re not coherent. I want to get you to the hospital right now.”

He was a bit hysterical so I forced myself to be calm. I took deep breaths and ignored the pain. I held my head steady in both my hands. “Dolly’s baby. She’s in the guest bedroom. Go get her. Now!”

I struggled to rise from the floor, holding on to the hall bench, then pulling my shaking legs around under me. So many things to do. Call Lucky first—get all cars in the area looking for that Volkswagen from Norwood. Then Dolly . . .

Oh, no . . .

“Where is she, Emily? There’s nobody on the bed,” he called from back in the bedroom.

“Dresser drawer. She can’t be sleeping through all of this.”

“Dresser drawer?” I heard his bewildered voice as he moved to the other side of the room. “I’m standing in front of the bureau. One drawer is open. There’s a blanket in it.”

“Get the baby. Bring her out here.” I put my hands against the wall and inched toward the back of the house.

“But Emily.” He must have known what his words would do to me. His voice held back. I heard deep hesitation.

“Jackson—for God’s sakes . . .” I’d reached the hall and groped my way toward the bedroom.

“Emily,” he said again, then looked up as I stood in the doorway, holding on as my head lightened and the room moved in front of me.

“Emily. There is no baby.”

He led me back into the living room and helped me sit down at the desk. I kept saying things: who we had to call, what had to be done, she couldn’t have gone far, then in the middle I would simply dissolve and say nothing but, “Dolly, Dolly, Dolly,” until he took the phone out of my hand and dialed the number I stammered out to him.

Lucky answered on the first ring. “Emily?” he said, recognizing my number. “Everything all right?”

“No. No.” Jackson helped me keep the phone to my ear. “She got Baby Jane.”

I was yelling. The words didn’t sound right but Lucky got it.

“Calm down, Emily. Who took Jane? The woman who tried to kidnap her the other day?”

“Yes. Yes. She knocked me down. I don’t know how long I was . . . out. The baby’s gone.”

“Oh no,” he moaned at the other end of the line. “Okay. She’s got to be around somewhere. If she’s still driving that Volkswagen, we’ll get her. Don’t worry. You got a description?”

“Red shirt. Wild, dirty blond hair—medium length. Blue eyes like Dolly’s. Big hands. Medium height. Medium build. Medium, medium, medium.” I was getting hysterical.

Again he said, “Don’t worry,” as if to himself. “Dolly’s on her way in from the stakeout. She’ll want to be here, monitoring what’s going on. I’ve got to get this right out. You want to call her?”

I knew why he was pushing this off on me. Something that went way back in a man’s old brain stem:
Avoid a raging mother.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I hate to . . . with her driving.”

“Don’t worry about Dolly. She can handle anything. She won’t be alone, Emily. Every man and woman up here will be looking. We’ll get Jane back.”

I shouldn’t have, I suppose, but I did feel comforted by his reassurance.

I put the phone down and looked at Jackson, who’d gone to the kitchen to make me tea. I thanked him. A shot of caffeine might clear my head. Maybe I could recall that wild face better.

Jackson leaned over and smoothed my hair out of my face. He kissed my forehead as I dialed Dolly’s cell number and reached out to take Jackson’s hand, holding on tight.

“Officer Wakowski,” Dolly came on, obviously not checking the caller ID.

“Dolly.” I filled my voice with all the strength I had in me. “Dolly . . .”

My voice shook. But that wasn’t going to help Jane. It wasn’t going to help Dolly.

“Emily?” she yelled back at me, alarmed already. “What’s the matter?”

“She got Jane,” I spit out. “She came to the door. I thought it was Jackson and opened it. I was knocked down. Hit my head . . .”

There was no hesitation. She didn’t take time to gasp or scream or wail as mothers did when they lost a child. “How long ago?”

“I don’t know for sure. Maybe an hour.”

“You see the car?”

“I was out for a while. I didn’t see anything.”

“You call Lucky?”

“Yes, he’s bringing every department in on it. They’ll be on the roads from Grayling to the bridge.”

“Yeah. I’m heading into the station now. I’ll see what’s happening.”

“What about the house in Norwood?”

“We’ve been watching it. Nothing going on there.”

“Where else would she go?”

There was no answer.

“I’ll meet you at the station,” I said. “Jackson’ll bring me in.”

“Okay . . . Okay.” Confusion hit her. “We’ll get her. She wouldn’t hurt Jane. What I’ve been thinking is, she thinks Jane’s her baby. All that ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ stuff. She thinks Jane is me. While I sat out there in Norwood, I worked it out. She thinks Jane’s me and she’s getting her baby back.”

“Oh, Dolly.” My heart broke wide open for her.

“I can’t think of that right now,” she said. “What I’ve got to think about is finding Jane. That’s all. I’ll deal with my mother later.”

She was gone.

I put Sorrow on the porch, a kind of punishment he seemed to understand and accept, and then had another argument with Jackson, who still wanted to take me to the hospital to get checked out. We headed off in his Porsche, into Leetsville and the police station.