Dead Voices (41 page)

“I think I’ll have a beer, m’self,” Eldon said. He turned to go out to the kitchen, but just then a loud squeaking sound drew his attention to the tape recorder. Elizabeth gave a startled little yelp.

“Ahh, dammit!” Eldon shouted as he jabbed the off button. When he snapped open the cassette lid, Elizabeth saw the problem. The tape had wrapped around the pickup spool inside the machine. It stretched and broke as Eldon tried to pull the cassette out of the deck.

“Friggin’ machine done et the tape,” he snarled as he held up a long strand of wrinkled tape for her inspection.

“Is it ruined?” Elizabeth asked. She didn’t voice it, but she felt a measure of relief, knowing she might never have to listen to that recorded voice again.

“‘Fraid so,” Eldon said as he pulled more destroyed tape from the innards of the machine. “Looks like I’m gonna have to cut it to get it all off the spindle. Damned shame, too! We had something purty interesting there, don’t’cha think?” He glanced at Elizabeth and smiled. “‘Least we got to hear it once. You can’t deny there was something there.”

“Umm,” Elizabeth said, as Eldon started for the kitchen.

“I’ll fetch yah that water, now,” he said. “Don’t’cha be goin’ anywhere.”

Elizabeth waited until he had left the living room before she collapsed back onto the couch. All the air in her lungs came out in one great, whooshing rush. She could hear the sounds Eldon made in the kitchen as he got their drinks ready, but deep inside her mind she could also hear something else — a faint, hissing white noise. Her eyes were sandpaper dry. She licked her lips nervously as she waited ... trying like hell not to think that from now on, for the rest of her life, she was going to hear that warbling voice and those words, repeated eternally —

“
I saw you there ... “

“
Help ... Mommy ... Help ... Mommy!

FOURTEEN

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1.

The day after Elizabeth went out to Eldon Cody’s farm was sunny and warm and by late morning, the temperature was heading up into the high seventies. Elizabeth knew she was being completely irresponsible, but she called Jake Hardy at the store and told him she was sick and wouldn’t be in for work. She just didn’t bother to notify Graydon that she would be missing her afternoon appointment.

After packing a picnic lunch, she threw a blanket and jacket into the back seat of her car and, with WXGL blasting a string of “oldies,” headed out to the beach at Kettle Cove to spend the day — alone. After everything she had been through recently — especially listening to that eerie voice on Eldon’s tape recorder — she needed time by herself to think.

She didn’t understand how that recorded voice could have been real. It didn’t seem even remotely possible that she could have heard someone sounding like a little girl say ...

“
I saw you there! ... Here I ...
”

And did it sound like Caroline?
she wondered.

Where could that distorted, backward message have come from? Eldon had made such a show of not touching the blank tape after she unwrapped it, so if it was trickery, it was damned slick trickery. But she didn’t think Eldon was a fraud, so she found it most comfortable to attribute that voice to some stray radio signals either the recorder or the FM had picked up. That
had
to be the logical explanation, but even so, it didn’t explain everything, such as-why had she received the exact same message that had been haunting her all along? ...

“
Help! ... Mommy! ...
“

Now that she had some distance from that afternoon at Eldon’s, the whole thing was beginning to seem less real, and almost dreamlike. Elizabeth could almost convince herself that she had imagined hearing those words. The worst thing was something Eldon had pointed out to her just before she left his house. It was so simple, she was surprised that she had never considered the ambiguous meaning of the “
Help! Mommy!
” message. It could be read one of two ways, either as
“Help (me) Mommy
!
”
or
(I want to) Help Mommy
!

“Probably a damned good thing that the tape got ruined,” Elizabeth muttered to herself as she pulled into the parking lot at Kettle Cove. Unpacking the car, she walked down to the beach. Any agitation she was feeling quickly dissolved in the shimmering blue waves of the ocean and the hammering heat of the sun. The light offshore breeze at her back was warm and soothing. It lifted her hair and blew if forward into her eyes as she looked seaward at the heavy swell of the waves. Taking a deep, even breath of the salt-tangy air, she kicked off her shoes, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of hot sand beneath her feet as she wandered over the dunes, looking for the perfect spot to sprawl out.

She felt like a schoolgirl playing hooky as she spread out her blanket and sat down. This, she told herself, was all the therapy she needed to drive away any thoughts about disembodied voices, nightmare visitors, dug-up graves, and severed hands.

For the number of cars she had counted in the parking lot, the beach was remarkably deserted. Elizabeth could see only nine other people, either lying on beach towels or propped up in beach chairs. The loudest sound was the tearing rush of waves as they folded over onto the sand and pulled back, making the glistening pebbles along the shoreline rumble like distant thunder. Below that, faint with distance, she could hear the cry of sea gul1s wheeling high overhead. The ocean was dotted with dozens of lobster buoys, and several boats moved with a faint putt-putting sound back and forth across the water. The beauty of the sights and sounds reminded her momentarily of the view from Graydon’s office, but she didn’t allow the twinge of guilt for missing her appointment to last for long.

The sun, sand, and salty air all worked their magic. Even before she ate her lunch, Elizabeth was feeling refreshed and revitalized. Several times she shook her head, surprised to catch herself sitting up and just staring out at the heaving ocean without any particular thought in mind as she watched the play of light and motion. After eating lunch and lying in the sun for another hour or so, she shook the sand from her blanket, picked up her things, got into the car, and headed back to Bristol Mills.

Just after she crossed the town line, though, her bubble of wellbeing broke and her heart skipped a beat. She saw in the rearview mirror a police car pull out from a side road behind her.

A quick burst of the siren told her she was the one he was after. She slowed and pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, her heart pounding and hands tightening on the steering wheel as she watched the police cruiser’s door open and the cop get out. Her lap and arms were shaded by his shadow as he stepped up to the driver’s window and leaned down.

“I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t realize I was doing anything-” she said, turning to look up at the policeman. When she saw who it was, she finished with, “Why you lousy son of a bitch! You scared the hell out of me!”

Frank leaned down and smiled at her through the open window. In a low, menacing voice he said, “Just the facts, ma’m. I’d like to see your driver’s license and registration please.”

Only for an instant did Elizabeth think he was serious. Then his smile widened, and he burst out laughing.

“You bastard! For a minute, there, you had me wondering if I had done anything wrong,” Elizabeth said. The flush of panic she had felt as soon as she saw the cruiser had made her buoyant sense of well-being instantly evaporate; and seeing Frank, smiling though he was, only reminded her of all the things she was trying so desperately to forget.

“Oh, make no mistake,” Frank said, gripping the window’s edge and looking in at her. “I wanted you ... but for something other than a traffic violation.”

“And what might that be?” Elizabeth asked, feeling herself tightening up.

“Well —” Frank said. He straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest and, looking up and down the stretch of road, took a deep breath. “I really haven’t had a chance to talk to you since —”

“We don’t have anything to talk about, do we?” Elizabeth snapped. “I’d like to go, if it’s all right with you.” The longer she sat there, the more she resented Frank for shattering her good mood.

If he tells me something else has happened, or that they found something else out at Caroline’s grave, I’ll scream
, she thought.
I swear to God I will!

Flustered, Frank shrugged and said, “I kinda thought-at least I hoped-we had something more to talk about. I mean, I don’t want you to think that ... you know, that night out at Bristol Pond was — was some kind of setup.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really!”

Elizabeth sighed deeply, her hands tightening even more on the steering wheel. She watched her knuckles go white. The sound of her grinding teeth filled her ears.

“If you want to know what
I
truly felt,” she said, “I’ll tell you. You made me feel as though being with me was nothing more than part of your job. Part of your investigation! I felt like you were using me to get information about Doug — unless
I’m
still a suspect in what’s been going on. Look, Frank, I don’t have any delusions, all right? I mean, I didn’t come back home thinking, ahh, now’s my chance to pick up where I left off with Frank, that maybe we could start living the life we should have had together right after high school. Okay? That’s bullshit! Whatever happened that night, happened; and now it’s over with. The sooner we get on with our own lives, the better off we’ll both be. Am I making myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Frank said. He swallowed with difficulty as he regarded her. He took a deep breath before continuing, surprised at how faint, how feeble his words sounded when they came out.

“But — I dunno. I was sort of hoping there’d be more to it than that,” he said. Unable to look at her, he glanced down at the ground.

Elizabeth flashed him a questioning look. “What do you mean? I know damned well that you and those detectives think I might have been involved with what happened out at — uh — my uncle’s grave!”

A dark curtain dropped over her mind, and she realized that she hadn’t been able to say — at Caroline’s grave!

“If you want the truth, that entire evening — even when we were out at the pond — I felt as though you were observing and testing and probing me to see if I said or did anything to give myself away.”

“That’s not true,” Frank said, almost pleading. “It’s not like that at all. “

“Oh, sure — you say that now, but I don’t feel it! If you had even the slightest interest in —”

“But I do,” Frank said sharply. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, for Christ’s sake! I do still feel ... a lot for you.” He took another deep breath and stared at her intently, his mouth set in a hard line. “Maybe you never felt it, but I sure did! As soon as I heard you’d come back home, I started hoping, as crazy as I knew it was, that you and I could pick up where we’d left off.”

“We’re adults now, Frank. Don’t you think it’s time to put aside these ... these half-assed romantic notions?” Elizabeth asked. “Come on, Frank. We’re just not the same people we were twenty years ago.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he said. “But I didn’t ask you out and
certainly
didn’t want to make love to you simply because I was trying to get information out of you!”

“You sure as hell made me feel that way,” she replied. That wasn’t the truth, and she was instantly angry at herself when she felt her eyes beginning to tear up.

Frank knelt down beside the car window, his face level with hers. His eyes probed her, seeming to cut right through her defenses. She hated herself for even the tiniest impulse that made her want to reach out to him, grab him, hold him close, lose herself in him. Maybe all along she had been wrong about him, she thought. Maybe he was the one she could talk to, the one who could soothe her frayed nerves. Maybe he would be willing to listen to her and be there when she cried it all out.

No, Goddamn it
! she told herself.
It can’t be that easy
!
It’s never that easy
!

Forcing her mouth into a hard line, she shook her head stiffly and said, “We’re not the people we used to be, Frank. And no matter what or who you think I am ... you just don’t know me anymore.”

“But 1 want to get to know you,” Frank said, almost pleading. “I really do, and not how you were; how you are! For Christ’s sake, Elizabeth, don’t you understand what I’m trying to say? 1 love you!”

She looked at him and for several seconds was speechless. Then, her voice sounding low and gravelly, she said, “But Frank ... I can’t — love you.” She hated herself the instant the words were out of her mouth, but she couldn’t unsay them. “Don’t
you
understand
that
? After everything that’s happened, I don’t know —” Her breath caught in her chest with a needle-sharp jab. “I don’t know if I can love anyone anymore!”

Frank was about to say something, but just then the radio in his cruiser squawked, drawing his attention. He gave Elizabeth a lingering look and, waving his hands for her to wait, said, “Stay right here. I’ll only be a second.” With that he turned and ran back to his cruiser. Reaching in through the window, he picked up the microphone.

Elizabeth sat there watching him in her rearview mirror, letting his words repeat in her mind no matter how much she told herself she didn’t want them to.

“
Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say? I love you!”

He leaned into the cruiser to replace the radio microphone, then came back to her car. Bracing both hands on the side of the window, he said, “Look, I’ve got to go. There’s been an accident out on Burnham Road.”

“Nothing serious, I hope,” she said, nodding silently. She wanted just to sit where she was and not say anything else until he left. Her mind was a hissing blank of white noise and ...

“
Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say? I love you!”

“Look, Elizabeth,” Frank said. His voice was tight, and he jabbed with his hands for emphasis. “I don’t want you to feel any kind of pressure from me, all right? And I certainly don’t want to force myself on you. But look — let’s not cut anything off, either, okay? I mean, what’s the harm in our just seeing each other?” Elizabeth opened her mouth to reply, but he hushed her.