Dead Little Dolly (25 page)

FORTY-SEVEN

Audrey Delores turned left at the road as we ran back toward where Dolly’s car was parked in front of the house. Me, running as fast as I could run, but Dolly, heavy boots and all, out ahead.

“Watch her,” Dolly screamed over her shoulder. “Make sure she doesn’t turn around. We’ve got to know . . .”

I was panting by the time I got to the car. Dolly gunned the motor as I jumped into the passenger seat beside her. I slammed the door as she backed down the drive, punched the car into drive, and peeled left at the road.

There was no white Volkswagen ahead of us. Audrey’d had a head start but not much of one.

“This ends in a small park down at the lake,” Dolly shouted as she stomped hard on the gas. “She’s got no place to go. She’s there. We’ll get her. I’ll pull straight in . . .”

Dolly took a hard right.

“I’ll leave the car sidewise in the road. That’ll block the only exit. She’ll have to give up.”

“Did you see her face?” I yelled at Dolly.

She nodded.

“Any sign of Jane?”

She didn’t answer. Her look was fixed hard on the road. We sped between spindly stands of maple and birch, passed a swamp, then through gates that announced a county park:

SPEED 15 MPH.

Dolly slammed on the brakes. I braced myself, both hands against the dash.

The white Volkswagen, both front doors flung wide open, was pulled into an empty parking area. Dolly turned her car to block the exit and we leaped out, running toward the vehicle.

Dolly had her gun out as we approached. Nothing. Nobody. The back was filled with trash. It looked as though Audrey had been living in the car. Dolly lifted a filthy blanket bundled on the front seat. All it hid was an empty car seat.

“She’s got her,” Dolly said, turning one way and then the other, looking to where a stream ran along one side of the park, then around to face Lake Michigan.

I didn’t wait. I ran toward the lake. A set of wooden stairs led down to the beach. I leaped down the steps to the sand then stopped to search in both directions. The low gray sky outlined no shadows. Everything was flat and empty. In front of me, Lake Michigan was almost still, only the soft susurration of small, lapping waves. The woman couldn’t have disappeared. People didn’t. I ran to the very edge of the water, looking frantically south, then north.

I saw her. She was running along a low spit of land jutting out into the lake, a long finger of weedy ground ending in a virtual point at a place where the water turned from blue to green, where the lake deepened.

The woman ran awkwardly, her red back hunched over the bundle she carried.

I screamed at Dolly, who stood on the hill above the beach. I pointed as I ran, not looking behind me, not caring about anything but reaching Audrey and stopping her before she got out into the lake. There was no other way for her to go. If she turned, when the land ended, she’d have to come back through me.

Dolly wasn’t far behind, yelling at Audrey, “Stop!” “Stop!” “Stop!”

I didn’t hear the word after a few seconds, just the blood in my ears, and the thumping of my chest. My feet beat up and down as thoughts of falling streamed through my head and then thoughts of what I’d do when she stopped and turned to face me. And then thoughts of grabbing Jane from her. My hands clenched into fists, my nails dug into my palms
. I’ll get you,
I told myself over and over.
I’ll get you . . .

“Stop!” Dolly called again as we ran across the muddy and stony bit of land. On both sides the lake licked softly. Water covered my feet.

I kept going because the woman ahead didn’t stop. She ran, holding on to the bundle she clutched, elbows sticking out at either side of a broad back in a red jacket.

The ground ended. She should have stopped. She should have turned to face me but she kept going, struggling into the water, trying to run but having to slow, to plod, to lift one foot and then the other as water climbed her legs, soaking the black slacks she wore.

I ran faster, not asking myself if I could. Just doing it. Flying toward the woman who was in water up to her waist now, going slower and slower—as I was being forced to go.

It was a struggle, staying on my feet. Water climbed my legs—ankles to knees then up my thighs. My feet sucked downward into sand and pebbles.

Dolly gave a cry behind me, something from a wounded animal.

For the first time, Audrey Thomas hesitated. She looked over her shoulder at me; a benign look on a confused face, as if she wondered who I was and why I was chasing her.

“Mama
.
”
Behind me, Dolly screamed
.

Audrey, water lapping over her waist, turned, head bent to one side as if listening to something she couldn’t quite understand. I slowed, but forced my way toward her, holding my breath.

I didn’t want to startle her.

I had to reach Jane.

Water licked upward, darkening Audrey’s jacket. Her face, a mask of indecision, was wet with spray. She turned her head slightly to one side as she fought against a wave. The wind rose, ruffling the lake to small whitecaps. Audrey stopped, listening to a sound I couldn’t hear.

She turned. The bundle she carried moved in her arms. There was a single whimper. Audrey’s eyes narrowed, first at me and then, behind me, at Dolly. She frowned hard.

Jane gave a full cry. Audrey looked down into the blanket she held. She blinked again and again as if startled by what was in her arms, then back at Dolly. She smiled and nodded.

She said a single word, a question, “Dolly?”

There was a deep intake of breath. I was close enough to touch her. I put out a hand, struggling against the deepening water, but she pulled away again, out of reach.

I heard Dolly stumble and splash down behind me, hampered by her uniform and the heavy boots she wore. When I glanced over my shoulder, she was fighting to get to her feet. At first she tried to swim then slid under the water again.

I forced myself to concentrate on Audrey. I swam full out, thinking I could pull ahead of her and herd her back toward Dolly. When I got close, I grabbed at her arm, trying for the fabric of her jacket. She flinched, pulling her arm and Jane out of reach. She turned a disturbed face to me. I prayed I hadn’t scared her so badly she’d take Jane farther out.

My brain calculated how strong I was, what it would take to overpower Audrey, there in the water, and snatch Jane from her.

Behind me, Dolly sputtered and yelled and finally, after a shuttering cry, screamed,
“Mama. Please. I love you
.
”

Audrey’s head snapped up. She turned fully toward where Dolly flailed behind us. Her mouth dropped open. Her face changed, from troubled and angry to pleased, almost pleasantly surprised—a woman getting a bouquet of flowers; a woman whose child had done something marvelous.

I was close enough to touch her. She looked down at me, where I awkwardly half swam, half walked, as if amused. She smiled. Confused, she shook her head, looked back at Dolly and said again, “Dolly?”

Her faced changed. Pleasure to horror. She looked at the baby she carried and then at me. As if caught in some terrible mirror, the woman’s face went through one agonizing expression after another. Her head dipped. Her terrible eyes filled with panic.

I thought she was going to come back so I could help her. I put out my arms and tried to stand erect, the water rising, pushing me one way and then another. If I could just get my arms around her, hold on to Jane and her both, I thought. But when we were close enough to touch, she simply tipped the crying baby forward, sliding her out of her arms and into mine.

I grabbed Jane as hard and fast as I could grab and held on. I turned to Dolly, screaming, “I’ve got her. I’ve got her.”

Dolly held one arm out to take her daughter. She stretched her other arm toward her mother, who’d turned back to the lake.

“I called. Rescue’s coming,” she yelled, voice echoing across the roughening water. “They’ll get you out. We’ll save you . . .”

Audrey Delores Thomas didn’t turn again. She struggled away from us, arms disappearing, chin at water level. She slipped under a single, growing wave. At first there was a red glow in the water, where I could still see her jacket. Then there was an aureole of pale hair. And then there was nothing

“Mama!”
Dolly screamed a last time.

Audrey Delores Thomas was gone.

EPILOGUE

Even Dolly urged Jackson to stay for Harry and Delia’s wedding but he begged off. After the
British Times
had so praised his Chaucer book, he’d been asked by learned journals to write articles and needed to be back in Ann Arbor, he said. Preparations had to be made for his trip to Great Britain and yet another book.

I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek as he’d stowed his bag in the trunk of the Porsche and got in to drive away.

It was an odd leave-taking. Something had changed between us. Maybe it was his kindness, his worry about my safety, and the way he’d stepped up to help at the police station. Or maybe it was seeing something deeper in him, what I’d thought was there when I first met him. It felt like vindication for both of us. A sad good-bye.

Whatever the cause, a tie had been broken—finally.

The wedding had been postponed a week. The search for Audrey’s body, and then the funeral afterward—when she was laid to rest as close to Cate and Grace Humbert as Dolly could get—had drained everyone in Leetsville. Now it seemed they were all coming to the wedding. Everyone wanted to be together, to celebrate life and joy and all those good things that brought people back from the brink of depression.

I was ready for a celebration, giving up my last self-upbraiding dictum:
You must be perfect in the eyes of the world,
and settling for doing the best I could. I cleaned and polished everything I could clean and polish. The rest of my stuff went into the closets so that I had to lean hard against the doors to get the latches to catch and then pray nobody needed anything from inside them.

Harry’d had the weeds between my house and lake mowed so there was plenty of space for the church people to set up tables and chairs. There was a bar with a keg set on top, and a big barbecue for the hot dogs. Coolers full of food came down my driveway like rocks in a landslide. Tables for the food were opened and set in a line from the barbecue to the bar. White tablecloths were spread. My scruffy lawn was turned into a sea of blinding white.

The day was beautiful. Fitting for a charming groom like Harry, all shaved and smelling of cologne, and a lovely bride like Delia, wearing her mother’s creamy silk wedding gown circa 1925. The two of them, together, looked like an old-time couple on top of a wedding cake, maybe something out of Dickens: the ornament on Miss Havisham’s ruined cake.

Bill called and begged off, disappointment in his voice as he said it was also the day of the newspaper’s picnic. He couldn’t be in two places at once, he explained. What I didn’t tell him was how sorry I felt, missing the picnic, but even more, not going as his date. Though I did say, “I hope there’s another time,” and he did say, “Let’s make it soon.” Which was as close to a promise of a real date as I was going to get for a while.

Eugenia, hair done to a fantastic height and stuck through with a dozen rhinestone stars, arrived early to supervise the setup.

As two o’clock neared, the wooden bower was set up down at the lake, then twined with white ribbon and a few of my early roses.

Excitement grew. Harry and Delia, standing on my deck, held hands, looking out at the lovely setting the people of Leetsville had created for them. After a minute, her steepled hands to her lips, Delia leaned into Harry and rested her head on his shoulder.

“You did us proud,” Harry said as I passed behind the couple carrying catsup bottles for the food table.

Next the Reverend Runcival arrived and huddled with Harry and Delia, going over the ritual of marriage. Harry practiced his resounding “Yes” while Delia beamed up at him.

One by one the people, wrapped presents in their hands, arrived, the line of cars stretching up my drive and, I imagined, all along Willow Lake Road.

Omar Winston, in a blue suit that looked as close to a uniform as a man could get, walked down the hill in the midst of a clutch of other guests. He proudly carried a very dressed-up Jane in his arms and stopped for anyone who wanted to kiss the pretty little girl and express their joy that she was home, and safe.

I hurried to Omar from where I’d been taking salads from the coolers and setting them on the food table. “Where’s Dolly?” I asked, surprised. It was the first time I’d seen him alone with his little girl. “She meeting that Realtor about getting her house on the market?”

He shook his head at me. “Don’t you worry.” He smiled wider than I’d seen that stiff, official face ever smile. “Got it done. She’s selling the house. Then she had to go up to Kalkaska. Picking Ariadne up at the hospital. Got her released into her care for as long as she can swing it. Ariadne’s going to watch Jane until the trial. It’ll work out for both of them. Dolly said she’d be here fast as she can.”

“Well.” I was about to complain sarcastically that she’d sure turned out to be a lot of help, when I stopped myself and smiled at Omar. “That’s good news,” I said instead and went back to setting out bowls of salads and beans and baskets of rolls for the buffet lunch to follow the ceremony.

Dolly, with Jane back in her arms and Ariadne behind her, came looking for me in the house, opening my bedroom door without knocking and stomping in as I scrambled to get my blue dress down over my head.

“Geez,” I complained, then zipped up the dress and hurried around the bed to hug Ariadne.

“She needs something to wear,” Dolly said, herself in a freshly washed blue shirt and pressed pants. Ariadne was still in hospital blue. “I didn’t know everybody was going to dress up like they was going to a ball or something.”

She hurried out, to get a good seat, she said.

Easy fix, I assured Ariadne, her face still smudged with yellowed bruises from the beating she’d taken. She looked as if she wore the same size I did and, though my only other dress might have been slightly fashionable about six years before, she didn’t mind and even seemed pleased with the summer print I handed her.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” Ariadne whispered as I zipped her up. “Dolly had to stop by the cemetery. Said she had a lot to tell her mothers.”

She turned a shy smile on me. “Dolly says her mother’s brain was broke. Said it’s sad she never got to be the person she could’ve been. And so awful, Cate had to pay the price. Dolly loves Audrey, you know. Says she’ll always love her. Oh, and you’ll never guess what she told Audrey while we were kneeling down out there. Never guess in a million years.”

I shook my head, impatient. The wedding march was booming down by the lake.

“She told her she’s been waiting to decide who should be Jane’s godmother. Until she had just the right person.” She leaned in closer. “She’s asking you.”

Ariadne nodded and stepped back, pleased with her news. “Said you’re like Jane’s second mother now.”

I don’t know why I got tears in my eyes but I did, and they stayed there right through the shaky vows exchanged under the beautiful arbor.

Flora, seeing me cry, patted my back, thinking I was moved by the ceremony. She had to step over Sorrow, who hadn’t left my side since the night Audrey Delores broke into my house and kidnapped Baby Jane.

Eugenia, still thinking I was worried about hosting such a grand “do,” sidled up to say gruffly, “It’s almost over, Emily. Don’t you worry. Things are working out just fine.”

Gloria put her arm around my shoulders. “I know this has been a lot on you, Emily.” She leaned her head in to whisper, “But the whole town’s grateful. Just look at the joy you’re giving Harry and Delia, there. And I hear you’re driving them up to the bridge for a honeymoon. Couldn’t be a nicer gift.”

I didn’t even flinch. Of course I’d drive them up to the bridge. And back. All they wanted to do was take a look at the Mighty Mac and be home before dark.

Dolly stood on one side of me as the groom leaned over to kiss his new bride.

Jane peeked out of a way-too-big pink bonnet to give me a wobble-headed, toothless grin.

Ariadne stood on my other side. Three very different women, and a woman-in-training, all in a row.

I took Dolly’s hand, then Ariadne’s hand, and held them until the brittle kiss was exchanged, the happy groom gave a fist bump to the crowd, and one hungry, and impatient, Leetsvillian yelled out, “Let’s eat!”