Better Off Dead (36 page)

Perplexed, Burly wheeled out onto the porch,
looking for bodies. He had heard the shots and the shattering of
glass. He was amazed to find no one injured.

Then he heard more glass breaking in the
back of the house and realized what was happening. He headed toward
Helen's bedroom—where he had warned her to stay—stopping only to
retrieve his handgun from a drawer in the front hallway. He
remembered seeing Miranda hovering on the steps above him, her
hands clutching her bathrobe tightly around her neck, her face a
terrified mask.

"Call the cops," Burly shouted at her, not
realizing that all the telephone lines had been cut minutes before.
He wheeled furiously toward Helen's bedroom, bumped the door open
with his chair, gun in his lap, ready to shoot if he had to. A man
dressed in black, a ski mask hiding his face, was bent over Helen,
pinning her to the bed. He had something in his hand, a knife, or
maybe a syringe, Burly thought. Behind them, the cool November air
poured through Helen's shattered bedroom window. Burly shouted at
the man to step back and raised the gun to shoot.

He was hit from behind. Someone knocked him
hard over the head and light pinwheeled before his eyes. His vision
blurred. The second man grabbed his gun and yanked it away, pulling
a hood over Burly's head and trying to drag him from the
wheelchair. Burly fought back, biting and struggling, but his
useless lower body weighed him down and his hands were held fast by
someone with a strong grip. The man pulled harder, ripping out
Burly's catheter tube in the process. Burly hit his head on the
armrest on the way down and thought he passed out for a few
seconds. When he came to, he was being dragged down the hall toward
another bedroom. Astonishingly enough, Killer appeared, roused from
his perpetual slumber at last. Burly could hear him growling at the
intruder, could feel the brush of air as the basset darted past,
nipping at the man's heels. But then the man kicked out, there was
a thud, and Killer squealed piteously. Burly cried out to Killer to
run, not knowing if the dog would understand. He did. Killer's
toenails scrambled against the hardwood floor as he ran from the
hallway, seeking refuge beneath a chair or bed.

The man started dragging Burly again, then
hoisted him over the threshold of a bedroom and flopped him down
inside, rolling him over and over like a sack of sand until he was
wedged against the bed. When the man tightened the hood around his
neck, Burly thought he was trying to strangle him and tried to
fight back, only to realize his hands had been bound behind his
back at some point, maybe when he had passed out. The man laughed
when Burly tried to butt him with his head, the only part of his
body he could control. Then he let go of Burly. Burly slumped to
the floor. He heard footsteps, a door slamming, the click of the
lock—and knew he was alone.

As he worked frantically to undo the cords
around his wrists, he listened carefully to the sounds outside the
locked door.

The bikers and men chasing them were long
gone, but Burly could hear more than one person crashing through
the bushes beside the house, probably two people, he decided. They
were cursing and hurrying, bumping against the siding, maybe
dragging something. Then he heard footsteps slapping against the
asphalt of the driveway, one loud thump and more cursing. This was
followed by a single set of running footsteps. A few moments later,
a car drove up near the house, then stopped with its engine idling.
There were more dragging sounds and car doors slammed. Then the
engine gunned and the car sped away.

They had taken Helen.

By the time I arrived, Burly had managed to
untie his wrist cords and remove the hood from his head. He had
crawled across the bedroom, dragged himself up on top of

an overturned chair, unlocked the door and
was halfway down the hall, trying to reach a telephone when I burst
through the front door.

"Where is she?" I yelled.

"I don't know," he said. "They took
her."

It was all I had to hear.

"Where is she?" I screamed at Miranda. The
old woman was huddled on the stairs leading to the second floor,
eyes wide, a zombie of selfishness.

"Took who?" she stammered. "Who are you
talking about?"

I wanted to shoot her dead right then and
there. Instead, I tried all the telephone lines. They were dead. I
threw the phones against the wall and ran toward the front porch,
nearly tripping over Killer, who lay whimpering in the hall. I
examined his fat, tubular body. He was okay, thank god.

"He's scared to death," I said, feeling his
shivers. "See what you can do to calm him."

I couldn't afford to stay. I had to go after
Helen. I was almost to Bobby's car when I thought of Burly inside,
crawling on his belly toward his wheelchair, fueled by thoughts of
revenge. I changed my mind and ran back inside.

"Where are they?" I asked him.

"Where are what?"

"Your car keys." I didn't want him following
me or trying to track down Carroll or Brookhouse on his own. He'd
kill someone and be locked away forever.

"I'm not telling you," he said. "Get away
from me." His colostomy bag had leaked out all over his pants and
he smelled like a Bowery bum. He hated for me to see him like that,
but that wasn't why he was mad. He knew why I wanted those
keys.

"You can't take them," he said, trying to
swat me away.

"I can and I am." I patted down his pants.
His pockets were empty.

"I have a right to fight back," he yelled as
I dashed into our bedroom and checked the bedside table. There they
were, next to his shaving kit. I scooped up the keychain, pocketed
it and ran.

"You bitch!" Burly screamed after me. "You
need my help."

"Stay here," I shouted back. "When the cops
get here, tell them what happened. Tell them that I think they must
be taking her to Lyman Carroll's house since Brookhouse is being
watched." But not watched well enough, I thought. Not if two men
had carried Helen away. "You have to be here to tell them, Burly. I
can't trust her to remember."

We both knew I meant Miranda. Burly didn't
like it. He wanted to follow me. He wanted to take both men
out.

I couldn't let him take the chance. I didn't
want Burly to be anywhere near them. I had to make sure he stayed
behind.

And now I had to find Helen.

Halfway to Lyman Carroll's house, I realized
I had no gun. It was lying in the mud on the bottom of a pond in
Duke Gardens. I had no idea what I would do when I found them. I
had to stall, had to find a way to deflect them until the cops
arrived.

Carroll's house was dark. I screeched to a
halt in front of the curb, hopped out of my car and raced to the
edge of the house, examining every window, even checking what I
could see of the basement from the outside. No signs of life at
all. And there were no cars anywhere near the house.

They hadn't taken Helen here. And they could
not have been at Brookhouse's. Where else would they take her? If
they had a special place, there was no way I would ever find it.
But then, none of their victims to date had mentioned being taken
anywhere.

Think, I told myself. Take a deep breath and
think. I sat behind the wheel of my Porsche. What had Brookhouse
once said in class? Something like: the key to understanding a
troubled mind was to be able to get inside it, to follow the
twisted logic of a twisted mind. I tried to put myself in
Brookhouse's shoes. Why had they taken Helen? Because of the
countersuit, because she had caused them to be suspended from their
jobs, because they believed she was starting to remember something
that might hurt them, because she had taken away all their
power?

They would return to where they felt most
powerful. That was when I got it. They had taken her back to
campus. It made sense. It was the night before a holiday. The
building would be empty. And I knew the interview rooms in the
basement were soundproof. That was where they would take her.

How could I let Ferrar
know? All I could find was an old parking ticket I had failed to
pay and a tube of lipstick that had fallen out of my knapsack. I
scrawled a message in red on the back of the ticket,
TELL DET. FERRAR THEY'VE TAKEN HER TO THE
PSYCHOPATHY BUILDING
. I prayed it was true
with every word I wrote. Then I used a wad of old chewing gum to
stick it to Lyman Carroll's front door. God, but I hoped the
responding officers would notice. If they even believed Burly and
bothered to send someone here.

The front porch light in the house next door
to Carroll's blinked on just as I turned away from the front door.
An old man stuck his head out into the night and stared at me.

"Call the cops!" I yelled at him. "Tell them
to get out here right away. Tell them a murder's about to take
place."

The old man's mouth fell open. I knew he
would remember nothing more that I told him. He was in information
overload.

"See that note," I yelled, pointing at it.
"Just make sure the cops read it."

None of it made sense to the old man. But
he'd call the cops, I knew. He was an upstanding citizen. And, god
willing, one of the cops would call Ferrar.

The campus was deserted. Every building
seemed locked up and dark. Only the International House on Anderson
Drive showed a spark of life—here were the non-Americans immune to
the holiday of mass gluttony sweeping the land. I sped past it,
looking at the lights longingly. I knew the psychopathology
building would be as dark as the others.

I was walking into the unknown, unarmed. And
I had no choice but to do it.

Worse, I did not know why they had taken
Helen. To kill her and silence her as a witness? Perhaps worse, not
to kill her, but to maim her further, thus silencing all other
possible witnesses? Or had they taken her as bait for me? Was I the
one they were ultimately after?

No matter. I had to go to Helen. I had given
my word.

I didn't see a single person as I pulled
into the parking lot of the building. Dim lights glowed through
some of the basement windows—security lights? I doubted a cleaning
crew or the injured janitor's replacement would be here the night
before Thanksgiving. Maybe Brookhouse and Carroll?

It was a definite maybe that they were
there: a dark blue van was parked by the back door. And it had
rental plates. I peeked into the back window of the vehicle. The
seats had been removed from the rear. There was a bedspread heaped
in the center of the floor—the bedspread from Helen's room.

They had probably gotten in the bolted door
by using their keys—keys the administration had failed to
confiscate when they were suspended—then loaded Helen into the
building through the basement. Chances were good she was still
unconscious.

Surprise did not matter. Only speed. I
grabbed my tire jack from its storage compartment in the hood
space. All the basement windows were blocked with security wire and
I didn't have time to pry my way inside. I chose the fastest way
instead. I drove my Porsche onto the sidewalk, over landscaped
flower beds and through the bushes until I was parked directly
beneath a first-floor window. I climbed onto the roof of the car
and began swinging the crowbar as if I were driving in the winning
run. Glass shattered; wood splintered. I kept swinging. It took me
a good two minutes to smash an opening large enough for me to crawl
through and I still cut my leg in the process. I dropped down into
the middle of a darkened first-floor classroom. Its door was
double-locked from the outside and I had to smash the glass to get
into the hallway.

By then, I'd made enough commotion to alert
a passed-out frat pledge to my presence. Footsteps running up the
hallway toward me told me that Brookhouse and Carroll knew I had
arrived. Instead of fleeing from the approaching footsteps, I ran
toward them, then stepped into a side corridor at the last possible
moment and pressed myself against the wall. Lyman Carroll ran past
me, his chubby body moving with surprising grace. It was dark, but
my eyes had adjusted. I could see that he was carrying a gun,
either his or the gun he had taken away from Burly.

Burly's gun? Was that part of the plan? Was
I being set up to make it look like I had killed Helen?

No, that was too weird. The whole thing was
too complicated if you started getting that crazy. I needed to
focus. The one thing I had to do was find Helen. Everything else
would follow from that.

With only the tire jack for a weapon, I
darted down the hallway, heading for the stairwell doors. I could
hear Carroll behind me, his shoes crunching the shattered glass
into shards as he reached the classroom where I had gained
entry.

I slipped through the fire door and fled to
the basement. I knew they had to have taken her there. I opened the
door slowly, holding my breath. It groaned as loudly as ever. God,
had no one ever heard of WD-40 in the maintenance department? Light
from the two vending machines cast a yellowish glow along the
corridor. It was empty. I darted into the hallway, dashing from
room to room, stepping inside each threshold and peering into the
small square windows that opened onto the various labs. The
soundproof interview rooms were on the far end of the floor, but I
needed to make sure the other rooms were empty first.

I had just glanced into the lab containing
the rows and rows of white mice in cages when I heard the stairwell
door open. Lyman Carroll had followed me back downstairs. I tried
the door to the mouse lab. It was unlocked. I slipped inside,
closing the door softly behind me. Hundreds of mice—sensing a human
presence—began to scurry about in their cages. Their movements woke
up still more mice. Ingrained behavior kicked in. The natives were
restless. Some thought food was coming. Others eagerly awaited the
arrival of their happy drug. The scrambling and rustling grew
louder. They were about as subtle as the goddamn ducks.