Blind Spot (41 page)

She let go of the window ledge and slid off the lid. As her feet hit the porch, the empty barrel tipped toward her. She reached for the can, steadied it, and righted it as gently as she could. Her attention darted to the kitchen window. No one looking out. She let go of the can and waved Garcia up. He took the steps slowly, grimacing with each groan of the boards. Once he reached the top, she told him in a hoarse growl: “Tongue’s in the sink.”

Garcia grimly shook his head from side to side and then asked in a low voice. “No Quaid?”

“No Quaid,” she repeated.

He pointed to the back door. Bernadette nodded, drew her gun, and planted herself on one side of the entry. He took out his pistol, went up to the door, and put his hand on the knob. He turned to the right and pushed. It didn’t budge. He turned to the left and pushed again. Harder. “Bolted,” he whispered. He let go and took a step back. He ran his eyes from the top of the door to the bottom.

Bernadette knew what he was considering, and she didn’t like it. Old farmhouses were as solid as bricks, and it would take more than one or two kicks to bring down the door. The murderer inside would have plenty of time to grab his gun. Since Quaid was paranoid—no wonder, since intruders had taken out his entire family—the windows were undoubtedly sealed as well. They needed to find a weak spot in the barricade—an unlatched bathroom window or a rotten basement door. Bemadette grabbed Garcia by the elbow and nodded to the steps. They both padded down. At the bottom, she whispered: “Let’s see if there’s a cellar.”

“What about the front?”

She shook her head. “Saw him lock it up after he went inside.”

“Lead the way,” he said.

They went around to the wooded side of the house. Bernadette kept her gun out, but Garcia holstered his and took out his flashlight. While Garcia trained the beam on the side of the building, the pair walked the length of the foundation from the back of the house to the front. A band of mowed grass a yard wide gave them enough room to walk without wrestling against branches and bushes. No doors on that side. No windows, either. They retraced their steps and returned to the backyard. They squatted next to each other at the back corner of the house, abutting the woods. “There’s gotta be windows or something along the other side,” she said.

Garcia looked across the barren yard to the back of the shed, with its bright yard light. “If there’s someone in there, they could see us. There’s no cover between the shed and that side of the house. Nothing. Plus, that floodlight won’t do us any favors.”

“We’ll stay low and work fast.” Her turn to dart out. She crouched down as she ran, stopping when she got to the other back corner.

Garcia came up behind her. “Let’s go.”

They started up along the side of the house, again checking the foundation. Even with the illumination from the shed, they needed the flashlight in the inky blackness of the country night. A third of the way to the front, they came across a door. “Bingo,” she said. “Basement.”

They took the same position as before: Bernadette on one side with her gun, and Garcia working the knob. “Tight as a drum,” Garcia whispered. He let go of the knob, and they continued walking.

“Stop,” she whispered when they were near the middle of the house. She motioned with the barrel of her gun.

Garcia aimed the light and saw where she was pointing. A boarded basement window. “Perfect.”

He set the flashlight on the ground so the beam illuminated the board. Bernadette holstered her gun. They went down on their knees and worked at prying off the slab of plywood. Bernadette was able to slip her fingers under one of the top corners of the board, but she couldn’t lift it off the window frame. “Stuck,” she sputtered.

“Let me,” said Garcia. She took her hands off the board and shuffled over to give him room. He gripped the corner and pulled. They heard the squeak of nails pulling away from the wood. “Almost there.”

She wrapped both of her hands over the top edge of the plywood and pulled with him. The board cracked in half and came off in their fists. Garcia placed the board on the ground behind them and started pulling at the remaining slat of wood, nailed firmly to the bottom of the window. “Wait,” said Bernadette. She retrieved the flashlight, trained the beam over the window, and ducked her head down to get a look. There was nothing on the other side of the plywood. No glass or screen or window curtain. Just the blackness of the old home’s basement. A mildew odor wafted up from inside the cellar.

“Let me finish.” Elbowing her aside, Garcia clamped his hands over the top of the board and pulled. The bottom half came off in one piece.

“You won’t fit,” she whispered.

He studied the dark rectangle and concluded she was right. “All that enchilada hot dish.”

“I’ll slide through and open the cellar door for you,” she said.

He picked up the flashlight and handed it to her. “Check it out before you dive in.”

Bernadette stuck her head inside the hole and swept the basement with the beam. She held her breath while she took her survey; the musty smell was overpowering. Right below her was the laundry slop tub. She’d aim to land in that. Next to the tub was an old wringer washer. She looked to one side and saw the stairs leading to the basement door they’d passed outside. Across the room were floor-to-ceiling shelves lining the wall opposite the window; they were filled with dusty jars. She scrutinized the contents, half expecting to see body parts floating in the brine, but noticed only peaches and beans and tomatoes and pickles. Against another wall was a workbench, and a pegboard covered with tools. Hammers and hand saws and pliers and screwdrivers. She held the light over the hardware and squinted, but didn’t see anything spattered with blood or bone. She pulled her head out of the hole.

“Anything?” Garcia asked.

“The usual basement junk.” She sat back on her heels and handed him the flashlight so her hands would be free. She decided to go feet-first, sliding in on her belly. She turned around and started shimmying backward into the hole while holding on to the bottom of the window frame. She was through up to her waist when she felt the rim of the tub flush against the wall. She let go of the window and slid down into the tub with a soft thud.

Garcia stuck his head through the rectangle and looked down at her. “You okay?”

“Ducky,” she said in a low voice. Bernadette reached up and took the flashlight from him.

“Unlock the basement door and let me in.”

“In a second.” She stepped out of the tub. Something skittered across the floor in front of her feet, and she stumbled back against the side of the tub. She followed the rodent with her flashlight as it ducked into a hole in the basement wall.

Garcia, whispering through the window: “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing. Stupid mouse.”

“Unlock the door.”

“In a second,” she repeated. She wanted to take her time and look around without him.

Bernadette went over to the washing machine and shone the light inside. Empty. She ran the beam around the floor and stopped when it landed on a pile of clothes mounded in a corner of the room. Aiming the light up at the ceiling, she found the mouth of the chute. Something was stuck and hanging down, and she went over to it. A tee shirt dangled just over her head. She shone the light up and didn’t see anything red against the white. She hunkered over the pile on the floor, but couldn’t spot any blood. More work for the lab guys, she figured.

She walked the perimeter of the dank room, breathing through her mouth as she went. Bernadette felt something in her hair—cobwebs or spiders or both—and waved her free hand over her head. Since the fat lady’s hand needed to be matched to a body, she looked for a fresh mortar job in the walls or the floor. She knew it was a long shot; Quaid’s practice had been to discard the bodies as well as the parts. Still, he’d kept Chris Stannard’s tongue, so maybe he’d brought other souvenirs back to the old homestead. She shone the light between the canned goods, but detected nothing amiss behind them. Examined the dates on the peaches and judged them ready for a museum. Quaid was hanging on to the jars for sentimental reasons. The labels, penned by a feminine hand, had to be in his mother’s writing or his sisters’ script. A picture flashed in her head, a snapshot from her curse of sight: Quaid hugging a stuffed toy. She felt a twinge of pity and waved it aside with the same revulsion she’d demonstrated for the cobwebs.

Forty-six

Quaid hung up the file and dusted off his hands. He picked his coat up off the stool and slipped it on. Before switching off the light, he inspected the pegboard one last time. His eyes traveled to the far end, landing on one space. The outline had been empty for some time. He’d taken the tool with him; it had been a dependable companion on all of his missions. Now it was in the trunk of his car, covered with blood. Since he was home, he could reward the ax with a proper cleaning and sharpening.

He opened the door and set one foot outside. He froze with the door ajar and his hand on the knob. He backed up into the shed, gently closing the door. He snapped off the interior light and leaned his shoulder against the door.

Quaid stayed motionless while he struggled to calm himself. He couldn’t believe he’d seen a man crouched next to the house. It was happening again. Of all the houses scattered across all the rural roads, his home had been targeted. Another stranger on another dark night. He’d been even more cautious than his parents; he’d locked all the doors. So the thief was breaking in through a window instead—the one busted window he’d put off repairing.

His horror over another home invasion spun him into a personal time warp. Suddenly everything that had happened since his family was slaughtered—the knock on his dormitory door when the police presented the horrible news, the murder trial, his entrance into religious life, his flight from the priesthood, the executions—was erased from his memory. He was back where it all began, his family being butchered anew.

He couldn’t utter a formal prayer; all he could muster was a three-word entreaty: “God help me.” He chanted it again and again, his voice getting weaker and more plaintive as his body crumpled against the door. “God help me…God help me…God help me.” Finally, all that escaped from his lips was a hoarse puff of air, a one-word plea to anyone: “Help.”

As Quaid curled up on the floor of the shed, he tried to strike a deal: make the bad guy go away and he would work hard to be a better person. He would go to mass every day. He’d pray more. He’d do anything if God spared him, if the Lord let him survive. In the midst of his negotiations, he hugged his knees tight to his chest and felt something hard in the pocket of his barn coat. The terrified, powerless victim evaporated in a flash of confidence and anger.

He wiped the tears off his cheeks and rose to his feet. He was furious at his own gutlessness and growled an order to himself: “Don’t be a coward this time.” He thrust his hand in his coat and felt the hard edges of the gun. The thief had picked the wrong countryside, the wrong house, the wrong robbery victim. The words of Job:

Their strong steps are shortened, and their own schemes throw them down. For they are thrust into a net by their own feet, and they walk into a pitfall. A trap seizes them by the heel; a snare lays hold of them. A rope is hid for them in the ground, a trap for them in the path. Terrors frighten them on every side, and chase them at their heels.

Quaid vowed that this stranger arriving in the middle of the night would know terror akin to that suffered by his family. When he threw open the door, light from the outside security lamp poured into the shed. A white swath fell across one of the pegboards, illuminating a set of axes. Quaid took it as a sign to use the tools with which he was most comfortable. He snatched one of the axes off the board, ran through the open door, and sprinted across the lawn to the dark hump hunkered against the side of the house.

The man was still crouched facing the window; the idiot hadn’t yet figured out that he’d never fit through. Quaid saw no other activity around the outside of the house and noticed no shadows moving around inside, on the other side of the curtains. The robber was alone. Quaid resisted the urge to yell a warning or a curse as he ran. He wanted to take the thief by surprise, knock him cold, and drag him to the shed. Finish him there, amid the tools and the rope. The wind had started to pick up, and Quaid was glad. The rustling trees masked the sound of his footsteps. He was almost on top of the stranger before the man looked over his shoulder. The man started to stand, but it was too late. Quaid swung the side of the ax against the robber’s forehead, and the man flew flat onto his back.