Head to Head (30 page)

This was the happiest day of Brat’s life. The little girl was back, and they were special friends again. When she was asleep, Brat had taken the two big Cobalts docked at the bottom of the hill and set them adrift in the middle of the lake, so no one would know where Brat lived. Brat had kayaked back through the storm and had gotten drenched to the skin, but now no one would come looking for the little girl and take her away again. She would be Brat’s forever.

Brat smiled just thinking about it. The little girl was in the mother’s room now. She was having fun with Brat’s mother and her friends, and she was smiling at Brat the way she used to do, before she left Brat all alone with the embalmer. Now they could be together forever and ever, and Brat was going to make sure that she was always happy and laughing.

Dinner had been a great success, and the little girl had told him that she liked the meat loaf very much. She was complaining about her shoulder, and Brat felt so badly about having to hurt her. But she’d be okay. Brat would nurse her to health, and they’d go outside when the storm was over and swing and play and feed Mr. Twitchy Tail again. Happy, happy, so happy, Brat hummed and spread caramel icing on the special chocolate cake still warm from the oven. She was going to love this cake. Brat lit the candles and carried it back into the mother’s room.

The little girl was still lying on the bed, and she smiled at Brat. Oh, good, she liked the cake. Brat knew she would! “Chocolate cake’s your favorite, isn’t it?” Brat asked her. She nodded. Her eyes looked scared, and Brat didn’t like that but ignored it because it was wonderful to have her with them.

“I don’t like her,” said his mother all of a sudden. “You love her better than you do me.”

“No, I don’t,” said Brat. “That’s a terrible thing for you to say.”

“You like her better than me, too!” said the brother. “You gave her the biggest piece of meat loaf, and you sat by her and fed her and ignored the rest of us.”

Brat put his hands over his ears to block out their complaints. They were yelling now, all of them at once, all the voices loud and strident until he couldn’t think straight.

“What’s the matter, Dottie? Are you sick?”

That came from the little girl, and Brat looked down at her.

The mother yelled, “She doesn’t even call you Brat anymore. She calls you by that made-up name that you’ve been going by. She doesn’t love us. She hates us. And I hate her!”

“Don’t say that about her!” Brat yelled and then did something he’d never in his life done before: he hit his mother and knocked her off her plate. Immediately contrite, he grabbed her up and held her cuddled close in the crook of his elbow while the little girl stared at them from the bed. She looked scared again, and that made Brat mad.

“You made me hit my mother,” Brat cried. “I’m sorry, Momma, I’m sorry, but she made me do it.”

“She’s evil,” said the mother’s friend. “She must die; then she’ll be nice to us. I had to die before I was nice to you. Don’t you remember that, Brat? We all had to die before we were nice and could live here with you.”

“I don’t want to kill her yet. I love her,” Brat cried, tears burning, then rolling down his face.

“Dottie, please, don’t kill me. I love you, too. I like it here,” the little girl said, her face white and strained. She was trying to pull loose. She was trying to get away.

“Yes, you must!” said Brat’s mother.

“Kill her, kill her, before you serve the cake,” said their new friend, Suze.

“Now, now, do it now, so she’ll be nice to us,” said the brother.

“Kill her now, kill her, kill her, kill her!” they all shrieked together.

The voices kept up no matter how hard Brat tried to stop them, to explain about the little girl and how much he loved her, but Brat finally couldn’t stand their harping any longer and doubled his fist and punched the little girl in the face, so his mother and her friends would all shut up and leave him alone. Her head lolled back and blood ran from her nose, and she lay very still, but Brat hadn’t hit the little girl hard enough to kill her. He loved her too much, and she hadn’t even gotten to feed Mr. Twitchy Tail again or let Brat push her on the tire swing he’d bought at Wal-Mart to hang on the big oak tree in Suze’s backyard.

Ssccccrapppe…

Somewhere far away a strange sound pierced my stupor. I was at the bottom of a very dark place, and I had to stay there, where I was safe. I didn’t want to swim to the top, where the light was, where something horrible was waiting to get me. I had to hide deep in the shadows and sleep forever. But the light beckoned, pulling me up and up out of the black sea, and when I was in the wavery gray layers close to the top, I began to feel pain. My head, my arm, and chest, and fear gripped me so hard my muscles went rigid.

And the sound that frightened me went on, slow and drawn out….
ssccccrapppe…
Then it would stop for a heartbeat…
ssccccrapppe…

I gathered the courage to open my eyes and face my terror. I saw blurry shadows moving around. My heartbeat charged into a staccato, and I knew I had to fight this unknown danger. Where was my weapon?
Think, think, focus.
Where was I? Why couldn’t I move?

Ssccccrapppe…

Panic hit me with an empowering flood of adrenaline. I blinked hard, trying to see better, and realized one eye was swollen shut. Then I made out Dottie Harper sitting across from me, and images hit me in rapid succession—the macabre candlelit room and the severed heads and the party hats and that she was insane and that I was her prisoner. Her hair was wet, and she wore a short white terry cloth bathrobe, as if she just stepped out of the shower.

Something large and unmoving lay on the table between us. I squinted painfully out of my good eye and realized it was Harve. His eyes were closed, but his chest was rising and falling. He was still alive.

“Little, silly sleepyhead. It’s about time you opened those eyes,” Dottie said, not in her regular voice but in the spooky, singsong little girl’s voice she’d started using right before she punched me in the face and I’d lost consciousness.

I tried to think. I realized that we were no longer in the travel trailer but down in the cellar, where I’d found Suze’s head. We were sitting under the naked lightbulb hanging from a chain, and my arms were stretched up tight over my head, turning the stitched-up wound in my shoulder into unbearable pain. I tried to pull the injured arm loose, but Dottie had the ropes tied to a metal pipe in the ceiling.
Stay calm, stay calm, don’t panic, play her game, talk her out of whatever she was planning to do.

With a beatific smile on her face, Dottie watched me struggling to free myself. I stopped fighting the ropes when I saw Dottie draw the razor-sharp, eight-inch meat cleaver down the length of a long razor strop also attached to the ceiling. My blood was still on it, and there was a baseball bat crusted with blood on the table in front of me.

“That’s right, Annie. Stop fidgeting and sit still like a good girl. Dottie’s special matinee’s about to get started.” I licked dry lips. She had descended further into madness now; her eyes didn’t look right, looked black and empty. She was ready to kill us. My mind raced out of control. My feet weren’t tied. I could use them to disarm her.
Think, think, reason with her, make her stop, make her talk
. Oh, God, oh God, she was sharpening the cleaver because she was going to behead us.

“Dottie, please.” I barely recognized the hoarse, raspy croak. I wet my lips again and forced down rising nausea. I could
not
panic. I could
not
give up. It was Dottie sitting there. Dottie, who’d been my good friend. There was a reason she was doing this; she thought we were someone else, someone from her past maybe.
Find out who, find out why, talk her out of it
. “Hey, Dot, why do you have me all tied up? I thought we were friends. Untie me; the ropes are hurting my shoulder.”

“Annie, Annie, everybody thinks you’re so bright, but you’re not, are you? In fact, you’re pretty stupid. For two years I’ve been right here under your nose, and you were still clueless about who I am and what I’ve been doing.” Dottie’s face changed, tightened until she looked like a completely different person. She was angry now, her face flushing dark red. I tensed all over. I didn’t want her angry. Her voice went an octave higher, and the singsong intensified. “All Harve could talk about was Claire this and Claire that. Claire’s the best cop in the state. Claire’s been through some terrible things. Claire’s the best friend I ever had. It made me sick to listen, because you both were lying to me. I knew you weren’t Claire. You were Annie. You were my little girl, my friend, not his.”

“Dottie, listen to me, please. You’ve got my arms strung up too tight. It’s killing me, and the stitches are coming out. Please, loosen the rope a little so it won’t hurt so much.” Behind Dottie, I could see lightning flash in the small window in the door above the coal chute. It was dark outside, and I wondered how long I’d been unconscious, if it was the same night or the next night. Thunder rumbled, and the rain started in earnest again, sluicing down the glass. I could hear the wind banging something in the night.

Harve groaned, and both of us looked at him.

Dottie said, “Goody, goody. The star of the show’s gonna wake up, and we can get started.”

Suddenly, she leaned over and slapped Harve across the face. The sharp crack made me flinch. “C’mon, big guy. You’re on. Curtain time.”

Fury flooded me, and I struggled to keep it out of my voice. “Cut it out, Dottie. Harve’s never done anything to you. He adores you. This is about me, not him, right? You and me. Leave him out of it.” I kept my eyes locked on her face while I estimated how far I could kick out; maybe I could get her in the head and knock her out or disorient her. But that wouldn’t do us any good if I was tied up.

The singsong disappeared. “Aha, now you’re talking. You’re finally getting it through that thick head of yours. It’s about you, all right. It’s about making you suffer. Tell me, Annie, what in the world would make you suffer more than me filleting your best friend alive right in front of you? We’ll pretend he’s a great big bass, and we’ll clean him. What’d you say?” She picked up a large electric fillet knife and plugged it into a white extension cord. She flipped the switch, and I watched the sharp blades vibrate and heard the low buzzing sound it made.

I stared at her in abject horror. We were out in the middle of nowhere. A storm was buffeting the lake, making the search for us difficult, if there even was a search. Nobody knew where we were. Nobody was coming to rescue us. Nobody could hear Harve’s screams, no one but me. “Dottie, listen, don’t do this. I’m begging you. We’re your friends. Harve and I both love you. You
know
that’s true; you have to know it. Please, don’t hurt him. Let him go.”

Dottie’s teeth flashed, and she looked almost normal for a second or two. Then the singsong was back. “Oh, okay, sure, you talked me into it. I know what. I’ll untie you and Harve; then you can call Bud and tell him where I am, and he can put me in jail for killing Suze and Sylvie and all the others.” Her forehead crumpled in a deep frown, as if she was suddenly annoyed. She turned off the electric knife and concentrated on sharpening the cleaver. I looked down at Harve. He was untied but still heavily sedated. I saw his eyelids flutter, and my heart stopped. Oh, God, he was coming around.

I had to get her attention off him. “Why are you doing these terrible things? Tell me, Dottie. Why’d you kill Suze? She was your best friend, for God’s sake. The two of you were together all the time.”

“Suze was a stupid bitch, but I needed someplace to keep my things where nobody would find them. Her house’s out here in the woods, and she didn’t have any family or friends. It was too perfect until she started snooping around in my trailer and found my mother and her friends. Then she had to go, but I didn’t like her, anyway. After tonight’s show is over, we’ll have to move on, but that’s okay. Momma and I like to travel.” Dottie placed the strop on the table. There was dried blood on the buckle; there was dried blood all over it. Her face metamorphosed into the big Dottie smile, but the eyes remained dark and empty. “Ready for the show to begin? I’m good at this. Lots of practice through the years. I just love it every time. I wish you could’ve seen all the friends I brought home for my momma. There’s been twenty-two in all. Counting your mother.”

“My mother?” I didn’t believe her. Nothing she said made sense, but I had to keep her talking. People would be looking for us; I had to believe that. Bud and Charlie would search for me, and Black, Black liked to keep tabs on me. He’d track me with the Cobalt’s satellite system, or would the storm interfere? Unless he obeyed my wishes and stayed away from me. Oh, God, I’d told him to leave me alone and let me handle the case.
Stay calm, play the game, keep her talking. That’s all you can do, bring her back to sanity somehow.
“Dottie, you need help, is all. You’re sick, and Black can help you….”

Dottie suddenly raised the cleaver and slammed it down toward Harve’s head. I cried out, but she drove the blade hard into the wood picnic table inches from his ear. It quivered from the impact. I quivered from the relief.

“You little bitch,” Dottie ground out through clenched teeth. “How dare you blame me for this? This is all your fault, yours, not mine. You’re the sick one. You make me sick!”

Oh, God, she was completely crazy, living inside some kind of psychotic delusion where I was someone who’d hurt her. How could this be happening? How could we not have seen signs that she was so dangerous?

I made my voice soft and soothing. “I promise I won’t tell anybody if you let us go. I won’t tell Bud or Charlie. I’ll help you get away.”

“Oh, there you go again. But we both know that perfect little police officers like you don’t do bad things. You’re too perfect and pretty and wonderful. Annie doesn’t have to whisper and tiptoe around. She doesn’t have to be afraid.”

“Who’re you afraid of, Dottie? Your father? Did your father hurt you?” But it wasn’t Dottie anymore who sat there staring at me. The eyes glittering in the dim light were mad. Dottie was gone. This was someone else. This was a monster.

Dottie leaned close to my face. Her eyes were so bleak and deadly that chills rippled up my back. “Yes, it was my father. Surely, you remember him from when you lived in the old coach house? I remember you. I’ve never forgotten you. We were best friends. You were like my little sister that I played with and ate cookies with. Then you went off with the cook and left me behind. I’ve been watching over you and your friends since I got away from him. I’m your own special avenging angel.”

She grinned crazily; then she shook Harve’s shoulder. “Harve’s being a bad boy and won’t wake up. I gave him too strong a dose. I could’ve killed you any time I wanted to, you know that? For years and years, I watched every move you made. I followed you everywhere you went and killed all your friends, one by one. Sometimes it took me a while to find out where you went, especially after I killed your Aunt Kathy and Uncle Tim in Pensacola. But I always found you. I lost you for five long years once, but I caught up to you in Los Angeles just in time to turn your husband against you. All I had to do was call him a time or two and whisper how you were screwing Harve behind his back.”

Dottie threw back her head and laughed, then sobered instantly and said, “Then you got away from me that one year, and I couldn’t find you. But you know what? I found Harve, and I knew you’d show up sooner or later to be with him.”

She nodded, self-satisfied. “And you did, of course, and we became best friends again, just like when we were little. And I sorta liked that, being your best friend again and hanging around with you and having you trust me. Sometimes when I gave you toddies to make you sleep, I’d make them very strong. Then I’d walk down to your house and lie in bed with you while you slept, but you never knew that, did you? I made it really strong the night you went out to Black’s boat, but you were already gone with him when I came back later to sleep with you.”

“Who are you?” I got out somehow, so full of dread that I could barely speak. I tried to remember what Black had been trying to tell me on the phone at Ha Ha Tonka, who he thought had been killing people. I couldn’t think straight, and nothing made sense. Something about the boy named Thomas, but this wasn’t him. This was Dottie. I fought down hysteria. “Why’re you doing this to me? What’d I do to you? I never laid eyes on you until Harve hired you on.”

“You’ll see soon, little Annie. Everything will be all cleared up. I’ve got so much to show you, Annie, so much to share since we were little kids. I kept souvenirs because I knew this day would come, and the truth would come out and we’d share it together.” She stood up. “And I brought everyone down here to watch Harve’s show with us. Isn’t that a super idea?”