Mother's Day (33 page)

Karen stared at him in horrified amazement. She had read about police brutality, of course. But she had an idea that it was something only practiced on out-of-control criminals brandishing weapons or resisting arrest. It was not something that happened to women and children, alone, in their own home, in a quiet little town like Bayland. She stumbled to her feet and wiped her bloody hand on her shirt. Anger and indignation surged through her. A lifetime of obeying the rules, and this was the treatment she got. “How dare you,” she said. “How dare you lay a hand on me? I was just trying to cooperate with the police.” She looked at the blood on her hand. “I’ll see you kicked off the police force for this. I’ll make such a commotion you won’t know what hit you. There’s a cop right out there,” she cried, pointing toward the front of the house.

“No, there isn’t,” said Walter. “I sent him on another assignment.”

Something about his tone of voice sent a chill through Karen and stopped her tirade short.

“Now, I have asked you nicely. And I am asking you again. Where are the papers?”

Karen was trembling from head to toe. Her hands felt icy cold. It took her a minute to think of an answer. “They’re not in this house,” she said.

Walter advanced on her with hate-filled eyes and caught the side of her face with his fist. Karen saw stars as the blow hit her head, and she heard Jenny’s wail. She could feel darkness coming over her as she sank down to her hands and knees, but she beat it back. She forced her eyes open. Jenny was on the floor beside her, crying.

“You don’t learn,” said Walter. “Where are the papers?”

“In the safe downstairs,” Jenny sobbed. “Leave her alone.”

“All right. That’s better,” said Walter. “Now, let’s go down and get them.”

Hate filled Karen’s heart as she held herself up on trembling arms. “No,” she said.

A dull glint caught her eye as Walter pulled a gun from inside his coat. He grabbed Jenny by the nape of the neck, like a kitten, and pulled her to her feet. “Are you sure about that?” he said.

“All right,” Karen said instantly. “All right. Let go of her.”

Walter pressed the barrel of the gun to Jenny’s head as he dragged her out to the hall closet. Jenny did not resist. Her terrified eyes locked with Karen’s. Karen stumbled to her feet and followed them, tasting blood in her mouth and staring helplessly as the detective forced her child roughly into the closet and locked the door on her. Karen heard the muffled pounding from inside the closet.

“She’ll suffocate in there,” Karen cried.

“Not if you’re quick about this,” he said.

“You’re a sick son of a bitch,” said Karen.

“Get moving,” he said.

“All right,” said Karen. “All right.” She could not swallow or even wince without pain. She forced herself to move, on stiff legs, toward the finished basement. She grasped the doorknob and held on to it. She did not look around at the detective, but her voice was bitter when she spoke. “Do you honestly think you can get away with this? I’ve lived here all my life. People know me. No matter what you pin on my husband, you won’t be able to silence me. I’ll see you pay for this,” she muttered as he pushed her forward, toward the stairs. “I’ll find a way.”

“No, you won’t,” said Walter.

Greg’s head started to reel.
He stared at her. Did he have it all backward? Was this the killer? Was Ference trying to protect his wife?

“Oh, not like that,” Emily scoffed gently, noting his expression. “It was a car accident. A freak thing. I was driving.”

Greg was taken aback. He suddenly saw the frail, distracted woman in a new light. Pity for her welled up in him. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. The picture was obviously old. It must have happened long ago. Still, there were no words adequate to such a profound loss. No time limit on such sorrow. “How awful for you.”

She looked up at him gratefully. Almost hopefully. Then the feeble spark faded from her eyes, and she resumed staring at the picture. “You can’t imagine the suffering. All these years.” She looked up at Greg.

“Can I tell you something? You are a stranger to me. But you understand, don’t you? About children… So you will understand this.”

Greg knew he should edge toward the door. But he felt unable to move. She held him with her voice, her faraway eyes, wise with grief. “That’s when I first found out, you see. I was in the hospital for a long time, after the accident. And I was weak when I came home. Walter took care of me.”

She shifted on her chair and gazed back into the past. “No one could ever know the guilt. The agony.” Her words came haltingly, like someone speaking a foreign language.

“No,” he murmured, picturing it. “No, I guess not.” He could not tear his gaze from her. He had just told her that her husband was a murderer, that his latest victim was here, in her house, and she was rambling on about the past. She must be crazy, he thought. But despite her vague, confused manner, she did not seem crazy to him.

She looked up at him and spoke as if she had read his mind. “I know you think it’s strange…you say this terrible thing about my husband. And I’m not surprised by it. I want to explain to you… You see, I’ve known for a long time.”

“That your husband was a murderer?” Greg exclaimed.

“Oh, no, not that. No, of course not. But I’ve known that he was not a normal person. Since the accident. You see, he never mentioned the accident. He took care of me, and he brought me back to this house, and he never said a word about it.” She frowned, as if she were trying to assess it again, to piece it together with this new information about her husband. “I told you, I was used to his being…reserved. It had been…disappointing for a bride, but the children were so full of…” Her face lit up, then dimmed. “Well, they were children. But, as I say, after the accident he was kind, and he never, never said a word of reproach. Everybody said it wasn’t my fault, and he would always agree. But I figured that beneath it all, he must be so mad at me that he was ready to explode. So, finally, one day, I said to myself, Emily, you have to face him. No matter what. You have to bring it up.” Suddenly she looked up at Greg with an expression of embarrassment on her face. “Maybe you don’t want to hear all this,” she apologized. “I usually keep it to myself. But you seem like someone who would understand “

“No, go on,” said Greg, knowing he should bolt from the house, knowing he couldn’t. He had to let her speak.

“I went into the living room, where he was sitting, reading.” She pointed across the kitchen as if she could see him there. “And, I said, ‘Walter, I have to talk to you. I know how you must hate me…’

“And he looked up and said, ‘No, I don’t hate you.’” Emily looked up at Greg, wonderingly. “Can you imagine how relieved I felt? I could see that he really meant it. There was no anger in his eyes, or his manner. And it was like something was freed in me and I broke down and began to babble and weep. I said, why couldn’t I have been the one who died, and about our babies, and how nothing would ever bring them back, and I went on, and then he looked at me and do you know what he said?”

There was an expression on her face of incredulity, almost of wonder, and of horror. Greg shook his head, mesmerized by her face. “What?” he whispered.

“He said, ‘It’s too bad, isn’t it?’” She gazed at him, letting the banality, the indifference, of the words sink in. “Just like that. Like he was talking about some children he had read about in the newspaper. It’s too bad.”

Greg shuddered. Automatically, without thinking, he tried to explain the man, as a way of comforting her. “Sometimes men have trouble saying…” And then he stopped. She was right. Walter Ference was inhuman, a killer…

“No. That was it. Up till then I had always told myself he was a man who kept his feelings hidden. But then I understood. There was nothing hidden. I knew I was alone. Completely alone. I have been alone ever since.”

“Yes,” said Greg. “You need to get away from him.”

Emily shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s part of my punishment,” she said mildly. “For my sons.”

“But you’re not to blame. It was an accident.”

Emily smiled at him. “How kind you are. You’re the Newhall man, aren’t you?”

Greg looked at her in surprise. She had known it all along, he thought. “Yes.”

“It’s strange. Walter went off to your house not long ago.”

Greg’s heart was gripped with fear. Sweat broke out all over him. “What for?”

“I don’t know. Your wife called him. And now, here you are. Are you giving yourself up?” she asked in a small, reedy voice.

“No,” said Greg.

A knocking on the door startled them, as if they were waking from the same dream. Emily rose to her feet. Greg gazed at her desperately.

Without a word, Emily turned and walked out of the kitchen. Greg heard her go to the front door and open it.

Larry Tillman stood at the door, another cop on the steps below him. “Emily?” Larry asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Larry,” she said gently.

“We just got a call from one of your neighbors saying they spotted a prowler outside your house.”

“I haven’t heard anything.”

“Well, Walter wasn’t around so we decided to come and check it out for him. This guy, Lund,” said Larry, consulting his pad of notes, “thought he saw the guy go into the basement.”

Emily nodded, comprehending. She frowned at the floor, and then she looked up. “Well, you’d better go down there and have a look,” she said.

She stood back and let in the young cop and his partner. “The cellar door is in the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” said Larry.

He followed her through the house to the kitchen. The gun was gone from the table. There was no one in the kitchen. Emily led them to the cellar door and opened it.

“Here,” she said, flipping a switch at the top of the stairs. “You’ll need a little light.”

Karen gripped the railing with both hands
and struggled down the stairs on rubbery legs toward Greg’s office. Walter prodded her from behind with the gun, so that she stumbled as she went.

“What can you ever hope to gain by this?” Karen mumbled. “You can’t get away with this. Sooner or later my husband is going to be exonerated. If not with this evidence, then some other way…” “Shut up,” said Walter. “Open the safe.” Karen looked helplessly from the safe to the detective. Once she gave him the papers she had no more proof. No one would believe her. She and Jenny would just be considered desperate liars. If only she had not called the police. Or if she had just contacted the police chief. Maybe that would have been all right. Or better still, waited for Arnold. This man seemed to have a personal vendetta against Greg, and he would stop at nothing to destroy him.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Do you mean to convict my husband at any cost? Is it because he escaped? Made the police look…” She started to say “foolish” but thought better of it. “Don’t you understand? He only did it because he knew he was innocent and he thought no one would believe him…”

“My reasons are none of your business,” said Walter. “Now open the safe.”

Karen felt tears coming to her eyes. In her heart she said to Greg, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I had no idea about the police. She tried again. “Look, you saw the copies. They don’t even identify the man who was assaulting Linda…”

The pounding started again on the floor of the upstairs closet. “How long do you want to leave her in there?” said Walter.

Karen looked fearfully at the ceiling.

“Get the papers,” he said.

She wanted to threaten him or curse him for his cruelty, but it was too dangerous. He might take his displeasure out on Jenny. She wouldn’t put it past him. There was no other choice but to appease him. She had to think of Jenny first. She knew it was what Greg would want. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She bent down to the safe, and her hands trembled on the dial. For a moment she truly could not remember the numbers. All she could think of was this man standing over her, willing to brutalize a child to get his way. An adult was one thing, but how could he be so cruel to a young girl? Jenny would never forget this. She would be scarred for life. Karen started to say it. She started to say that only the worst kind of creature would victimize a helpless young girl, and then, all of a sudden, a realization ran through her like an electric shock. She bit back the words, grateful he could not see her face.

“What’s taking you so long?” he demanded. He kicked her in the lower back, and Karen gasped at the spasm of pain. She worked the combination with trembling fingers while her mind raced. She tried to do some mental calculations as she rotated the dial. He was the right age. He could have known about Randolph Summers through some kind of police thing. Maybe a Wanted poster or something that crossed his desk. He was certainly in a position to have framed Greg. It couldn’t be. But it could. She knew it could. It all made an awful kind of sense now.

She heard the click as the combination caught, and so did he. “Open it,” he said.

With stiff fingers she jerked down the handle, and the door to the safe swung free. Taking a deep breath to calm her shaking, Karen reached inside. She put her hands on the papers and pulled them out. This changed everything. Suddenly the most important thing was to satisfy his demand and get him out of the house. Lock the door against him. This was a monster who preyed on young girls. And her Jenny was just upstairs. She had to pretend a defiance she no longer felt. Her stomach was heaving, and a cold sweat broke out all over her. Make it good, she thought.

“You’re a disgrace to the police department,” she said. “Railroading an innocent man like this.”

He kicked her in the side this time, and she doubled over, gripping the door of the safe for support. Breathing in caused a shooting pain. Walter snatched the papers from her hands.

“Get up,” he said.

Numbly she rose to her feet. She saw him crumple Greg’s last chance into a ball and stuff it into his pocket. The newspaper clipping crackled as if it had been lit by a match. She felt a fleeting sadness, but there was no time for it. She had to maintain an attitude of indignation. He must not suspect that she had guessed his secret.