Liberty or Death (39 page)

Alone in the bathroom, I quickly tended to necessities and then, with a nervous glance at the door, which didn't seem to lock, I opened the bottom compartment of my purse. The gun was still there. My sweet little Barbie special. Still loaded. They couldn't really have missed it, could they? I couldn't believe it. It had to be some kind of a trick. They'd substituted blanks or something. How would I know if they had? To me, one bullet looked just like another. I tucked it away and went to ask about feeding Lyle.

Roy Belcher was waiting just outside, this time with a gun in his hand. He used it to gesture toward the door. "Kendall's in the kitchen. He wants to talk with you." Nothing in his tone or his manner was reassuring.

"I was hoping you might have something I could feed the boy. He says he's hungry."

"Lyle will have to wait." His tone was ominous.

"He's only a little boy, Roy. He's not part of this."

He grunted. "He's Harding's boy and that makes him part of this. You coming?" The gun moved away from the door and pointed at me. He didn't touch me but I could feel the cold metal, feel the tightening and puckering as my skin produced a Braille message of fear.

I knew the bully side of him wanted me abject and I gave him what he wanted. Without taking my eyes off the gun, I said, "What's going to happen to me?" I didn't have to fake the quiver in my voice.

He shrugged. "They don't explain themselves to me. Guess you'll have to see for yourself."

"I'm scared, Roy."

"Oughta be."

"Roy, I know what happened to... Paulette Harding. Is he going to do that..." I couldn't seem to get the words past my throat. I swallowed hard and forced them out. "...to me?"

All he said was, "Kendall and them, they didn't do that," and then, even more strangely, "but it had to be done. As a warning."

"A warning to whom?"

He shrugged. "Women who... people who get out of line. Those who betray us... it's like the Reverend says. You're either with us or against us."

"If Jimmy didn't do it, who did?" I don't know why I asked. I really didn't want to know.

He smiled, a sick, twisted grin that revealed, once and for all, the total corruption of his nature. "I did." He might as well have added, "And I can tell you this, honey, because you aren't getting out of here alive."

The horror of it zapped me like an electric shock. How could anyone do something that savage and speak about it matter-of-factly? I saw in a flash who Roy was—the pathetic suck-up who will do anything to be liked. Anything. And while I'd felt stupid and foolhardy many times since embarking on this thing, I'd never felt like such a fool. This was the end. I was in the lion's den. And the lions were about to eat me.

I should have stayed home and set up my new office. I should have waited patiently for Jack Leonard to do his clever policeman's things, defeat these bad guys, and bring Andre home to me. But no. It had been a whole week, and they hadn't found him. I'd found Andre, hadn't I? The hard way, true, but I'd found him. Touched him. Held him. Slept by his side. Had that many more hours with him. Hours I might otherwise have spent pacing the floor through restless days and sleepless nights.

He prodded me with the gun. "Come on, will ya. Don't make me use this." Obediently I went into the kitchen. It might be growing dimmer, but as long as I had life, I had hope.

Three men were sitting at the kitchen table. Kendall Barker, the Reverend Stuart Hannon, and Clyde. Clyde. Sweet, caring Clyde, the man I'd chosen to reveal myself to. One of the butchers of Merchantville. There was a fourth chair. Empty. Waiting. For Jimmy McGrath, I thought. Across the room, against the wall, was a single chair, also empty, waiting for me. Streaks of what looked like dried blood on the wall suggested that I wasn't the first person to enjoy such an inquisition. So did the bullet holes in the plaster.

Roy gestured toward the chair. "Sit," he ordered. I crossed the room and sat, my weariness suddenly back with me again, weighing me down like armor. Then we all waited, as heavy footsteps announced the arrival of the owner of that fourth chair.

Even before he appeared, I knew who had those heavy footsteps, knew what face would come through the door. And it wasn't Jimmy McGrath, though until now I would have bet the ranch that he was head of the whole shebang. I couldn't believe it. Magical thinking again. Judging a book by its cover. People who seem nice and kindly don't suddenly morph into villains and fiends. It was clear why I wasn't a cop. Despite my advancing age and plenty of negative experience, I was still far too naive and trusting.

Bump Peters came in, nodded to the others, and sat down in the fourth chair. I looked from Bump Peters to Clyde and back again. Over and over. I didn't know which surprised me more. Clyde, whom I had assumed was a very minor functionary in the movement, one who might be turned, who had seemed, earlier this same night, to have a conscience, or Bump Peters. I had taken him for a good-natured old duffer. If there was a lesson here, it was to be more careful making assumptions about people. I probably wasn't going to live long enough for the lesson to be useful.

Roy picked up a roll of tape from the counter and walked toward me, beginning to unroll a long strip. Oh rats. I wasn't vain but I really didn't want to lose any more hair. I wanted to look good in my coffin. But given what these guys did, hair was the least of my worries. I also wanted to be buried with all my body parts still connected.

From the other room, Lyle's voice called, "Dora! Dora! Are you ever coming back?" It wasn't the words but the tone that got to me. All his fear and helplessness.

I looked at Bump Peters, who had risen and was holding a piece of paper that looked official. My indictment, perhaps. He no longer looked pleasant or benign. He looked serious, formal, and displeased. What I had taken for dignity was rigidity. Had I also mistaken condescension for kindness? I was too tired for this, for any of this. Too tired for terrorists. Too tired for small, sad children. I wanted to topple off my chair onto the dirty kitchen floor and sleep. Only fear kept me upright.

The past week had been a progression of kitchens. From my mother's impeccable kitchen, bustling with wedding preparations to the sticky discomfort and intensity of Theresa's kitchen. From Mary Harding's threadbare, well-scrubbed kitchen to the wrecked, blood-smeared horror of the trailer kitchen. Now it was all ending here, in yet another dirty, violence-filled kitchen. These guys didn't understand about kitchens, did they? Kitchens were for feeding and nurturing people, not for torture and killing. Too late for me, of course, but it only confirmed what I sometimes thought—it was time for women to start running the world. Far fewer women committed murder and mayhem in their kitchens.

"Dora!" The voice was a small, pathetic wail. "Please. It's dark in here and I'm scared. Aren't you ever coming back?"

I pulled myself together and looked at Bump Peters. "Mr. Peters, please. He's scared and hungry and he's only a little boy. Can I just fix him something to eat... some cereal or something... and see if I can get him to sleep before you... before you..."
Oh hell. Why not just say the words?
"Before you kill me?"

He shook his head, seeming surprised at my forthrightness. "Honey, no one said anything about..."

"Of course they didn't, Mr. Peters. Let's be honest with each other for once. You're a man who will break all the rules for your cause, and I'm a woman who'll break them for mine..."

"Dora? Dora, why don't you come?" There were tears in the voice now.

Peters sighed. "Go see to the boy. There's cereal in the cupboard and milk in the refrigerator... and a reasonably clean bedroom at the top of the stairs." I stood up but before I took a step, he waved toward me with his gun. "Your shoes," he said.

I sat back down and bent to take them off. It was a long way down and bending made me feel light-headed. This time, I noticed, Clyde didn't help. I wasn't surprised. Like with all the others, nothing about Clyde made sense.

"Hold on, Lyle," I called. "I'm bringing you some cereal." As a reprieve, it wasn't much. I was still dangling off a cliff face with nothing holding me in place but a small boy. I had a gun. They had an arsenal. And they still had shoes. Trying to keep my teeth from chattering, I got up, fixed the cereal, and carried it into the living room.

 

 

 

Chapter 28

 

I pulled the covers up to his chin and bent and kissed Lyle Harding on the forehead. If life had gone differently, someday I might have been doing this for my own child. Might still, though it seemed unlikely. My child was lost and I might be lost, too. "Close your eyes," I said, hearing my own mother saying that to me. "Close your eyes and I'll tell you a story."

Obediently, he closed his eyes. "I love stories," he whispered. "Love them." A little smile lifted his mouth and once again I thought of a fairy child. He looked like something from the cover of a book I'd loved when I was little. My mother read me stories and my father told stories. She always said she didn't have the imagination to make up stories. I hoped I did. I'd never really tried before.

"Once upon a time there were three bears..." I said.

"I know this one."

"No, you don't. Now listen. Three bears who had run away from the circus and set up housekeeping in a hollow tree deep in the middle of a very large forest. One of the bears was a very good dancer, one of the bears was an excellent juggler, and the third bear could walk on his front paws. Unfortunately, none of the bears could cook, or clean, or knew the first thing about laundry, so their tree was a terrible mess. One day, the juggling bear looked around and sighed and said, 'We have got to do something about this mess!' "

Lyle giggled. "He sounds like my grandma." He yawned and nestled deeper into the pillow.

Outside, there were heavy footsteps on the stairs and Bump Peters appeared in the doorway. I put my finger to my lips. He nodded, but stayed where he was. What did he think, that I was going to jump out a second-story window, evade four armed men, and run off into the woods? I suppose that's why they'd taken my shoes. They couldn't do anything about the pregnant part but barefoot they could manage. Having him standing there made me incredibly nervous. There's something more upsetting about evil when it has a friendly face. I swallowed and tried to go on with my story.

"The bear declared that he was going out that very day to try and find them all a housekeeper. He set off through the woods and he hadn't gone very far before he heard sobbing noises coming from a clearing. There sat a kangaroo, sobbing as if her heart would break. The bear, thinking he would comfort her, burst out of the bushes and rushed toward her. It was the wrong thing to do. He'd forgotten that he wasn't in the circus anymore, but deep in a forest, where a charging bear was a scary thing.

"In an instant, the kangaroo was on her feet, and with just a few enormous hops, she was gone, leaving her luggage behind. Curious, the bear lumbered forward to see what she had left. He stared and shook his big, shaggy head. All she had for luggage was a bucket full of rags, several brushes, a crisp yellow corn broom, and a large purple feather duster."

I thought about Andre, who, like my dad, would have been our family storyteller. Andre with his deep, rumbly voice, kind of like one of the bears in my story. Andre, lying helpless somewhere underground, waiting for me to come and rescue him, while I waited in vain for the cavalry. If they were coming, they would have been here by now. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the warmth of his body, the shape of it, hearing the sound of his breathing. Silent tears were running down my face.

"Dora? Dora? Why are you crying?"

Because we're all going to die and none of us want to, Lyle,
I
thought. Aloud I said, "I got something in my eye, sweetie. Shall I go on with the story?"

"Please."

" 'Aha!' thought the bear to himself. 'This kangaroo must be just what I'm looking for. Who but a housekeeper would have luggage like this?' He set off after the kangaroo, but though a normal bear can travel long distances, he'd grown lazy and fat since leaving the circus and after a few miles, he had to give up. She was much too fast for him. 'It's that tail,' he growled. 'It's just like having a pogo stick.' He went back to the clearing, picked up the cleaning supplies, and went back home to tell the other bears what had happened."

" 'Oh, you're just a clumsy oaf,' the dancing bear said. 'I shall go out myself, find that kangaroo, and persuade her to come and work for us.' He stumped away through the forest, but though he walked all day and late into the night, he didn't find the kangaroo anywhere. Everywhere he went, he asked the animals he met if they had seen the kangaroo. All of them said yes, and pointed out the way she had gone, but no matter where he went, when he got there, the kangaroo was gone. He came home, tired, grouchy, and footsore, ate all the honey in the honey jar, and went to bed."

I stopped and listened. Lyle's breathing was soft and regular. I waited. He didn't complain or ask me to go on. He was asleep. I sat listening to him breathe, savoring what might be my last good moment on this planet. Then I wiped my eyes, got up, and followed Bump Peters down the stairs and back into the kitchen. He dumped himself back into his chair and gestured for me to resume mine.