Burning Time (36 page)

“Yeah, sometimes they do.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?” Her throat was raw. She eyed the water. She wanted it, but was afraid he’d start suffocating her with it again.

He was sitting beside her on the bed, making a strange noise from the back of his throat instead of answering why. The noise didn’t sound human. He adjusted the wick on the Zippo so the flame flared higher. He flicked it on and off He held the switchblade in his other hand. He was trying to scare her.

Emma had the terrifying feeling she’d played this scene before. Only last time it was an acting improvisation, an exercise. This time she didn’t have to imagine what it felt like. Her whole body really did ache, every joint, every muscle. And the point here was she couldn’t just pretend
to be brave. She couldn’t afford to be a coward. This was the real thing. She had to survive.

She closed her eyes to get into that place where she could think about survival.

“Don’t do that,” he snapped.

She waited for a second before opening them.

“Damn it, fucking bitch. You’re not dying on me.” He smacked the bed with his hand. “You hear me? You better not die.”

He seemed to think she had some kind of choice in the matter. If he stabbed her with the knife, or electrocuted her with the battery he had down there on the floor, she’d die all right. But maybe not today. She opened her eyes.

“I’ll take the orange juice,” she said.

He got up to get it for her, then held it up to her lips so she could drink. This encouraged her. When she finished drinking all of it, she had another idea.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Sure.” He put down the glass.

She heard it
clink
on the floor when he set it down. He leaned over her to untie the knots. She could smell the beer more strongly now, and old sweat. It made her want to gag up the orange juice, but she kept it down.

When all the knots were untied, he helped her up. She shuddered when he touched her. His hands were all over her as he pulled her to her feet. She hated herself for moving so slowly. Everything took time. She had thought that when she was free she’d find a way to get him. Maybe grab the knife. Her heart started beating faster. She was going to make a move.

But before she was even up and on her feet, he wrenched her arms behind her back so hard she gasped. Then he tied her hands. He was behind her. She had no chance to get him. He guided her to the door with one
hand around her neck, squeezing just enough to let her know he could end it right then. In the bathroom he stood there in the doorway, watching her pee. Even though the pressure on her bladder was great, it took a long time to get it out with him watching. She struggled to reach for the toilet paper, couldn’t reach it.

“Dirty bitch,” he cried. “Didn’t anybody teach you to flush the toilet?” He laughed suddenly. “Don’t move.” He set the knife on the floor.

The window was behind her, high over her head. He started filling the tub. The knife was on the floor beside him. She eyed it. What now?

“Get in the tub,” he commanded.

“What?” She couldn’t move.

“Are you deaf? I said get in the tub.” He grabbed her and shoved her into it, knocking her legs against the cold porcelain. He turned on the taps and adjusted the temperature carefully. Not too cold, not too hot. Water splashed into the tub. He closed the toilet and sat on it, waiting for the tub to fill up.

Emma’s eyes widened with the sudden terror that she would not live through the day, after all. He was going to drown her as soon as there was enough water in the tub. She started to gasp and pant.

“Take it easy. Don’t you want a bath?”

Emma whimpered. A bath?

He reached for a bar of Irish Spring and started lathering up her chest and arms.

“Don’t! I’ll do it myself,” she cried. “You’re hurting me.”

“Shut up.” He was getting hard. She could see it. She went limp and closed her eyes.

“Shit! Get up. I told you, don’t do that.” He pinched her.

He didn’t like it when she fainted. That was a good tiling to know. She groaned a little.

“Get up,” he ordered.

Water sloshed around her chin as she sank deeper. Maybe he’d drown her now and put her out of her misery.

“Get out.”

She opened her eyes. “Huh?”

“Get the fuck out. Are you stupid?”

That was it? That was the bath? She struggled to get out. It wasn’t easy to move with her hands tied behind her back. He had to help her up, and wrap her in a towel. Out of the warm water, she started shivering again. She moved so slowly, staggering as he held her up. He swore at her.

“You’re no good at all,” he said.

“Let me go,” she said weakly. “I may die. Then what will you do?”

“Uh-uh. You are not going to die.”

He put her back to bed, tying all the knots, one by one, just as he had untied them before. When he was finished, he tucked some towels around her and squirted some menthol-scented shaving foam on her from neck to ankles, concentrating on the crotch area.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she cried. “Don’t do that.”

He picked up the razor. He didn’t hear any protests. He was tired of her. He put her out of his mind and began shaving her all over, muttering to Willy. He could see his hands get bigger and bigger. He felt a lot better when she started screaming.

Newt Regis couldn’t really afford to send two men down to San Diego, but he did it anyway. The image of his own daughter, Clarissa, so happy with her husband and new baby, wouldn’t leave him alone. He thought about what it would mean to lose Clarissa, all the time he was talking with Jennifer Roane, the mother of the dead girl, who’d come from New York to get her.

Without any warning, she’d come in a rented car all the way to Newt’s office in Potoway Village, and Raymond had to lope across the street to get Newt at the café where he was having a late lunch.

“I thought I told her that wasn’t necessary.” Newt shook his head with disbelief.

Raymond looked at the half-eaten hamburger in Newt’s hand. “She wanted to see where it happened,” he muttered. “Said she needed it for
closure.”

“Closure, huh.” Newt put down the hamburger and wiped his hands on the too-small paper napkin in his lap. He got up, shrugging. “I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder to the surprised waitress.

Mrs. Roane was sitting stiffly on a chair outside the sheriff’s office. She was wearing a khaki bush jacket, as if she’d come to Africa, a wrinkled matching skirt, and huge sunglasses. She was working at the large wad of tissues balled up in her hands.

“Mrs. Roane? I’m Sheriff Regis.”

She stood up and held out the hand without the tissues. “You were the one who found her?”

Newt took the slender hand, nodding. “No one told me you were coming.”

“I didn’t tell anyone. The policewoman in New York said I didn’t have to.…”

“No,” Newt said gently. “You didn’t have to.” He held the hand sympathetically, taking a minute to assess the situation, then let it go.

The woman’s dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her white skin was puffy. She wore no makeup and sniffed back tears Newt guessed had been pouring out nonstop for days.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asked. Coffee was all he could think of to offer.

She shook her head. “Where is she? I want to see her.”

“We’ve—taken good care of her,” Newt said slowly, ushering the woman into his office.

“I want to see her.”

“I understand.”

She looked around the office, at the cheap furniture, the cluttered desk, the window with its dusty Venetian blinds that didn’t prevent the afternoon sun from streaming in between the slats. He couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses.

“What was Ellen doing out here?” she asked.

Newt didn’t respond to that question.

“Tell me. I loved her so much.…” She let go and sobbed.

Newt never could bear to see a woman cry. He took a deep breath. Right under his fingertips was a folder that contained all the photos he had of the dead girl who was this woman’s child. Before a madman, the desert, and the vultures got to Ellen Roane, she had been a beautiful, healthy, much-loved college girl. If the suspect was ever apprehended and went to trial, Mrs. Roane might hear the testimony and see the photos of what happened to her daughter. As far as Newt was concerned, that would be too soon.

“Mrs. Roane,” he said, “if it were my daughter, I’d hold onto that love. I’d hold onto it real tight.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I need to see her … to say good-bye.”

“No. You got her whole in your heart. Keep her that way. Take her back home with you and say good-bye when you bury her.”

Since she didn’t want to do that, it took Newt a long time to convince her. It wasn’t until the next day that he could send Raymond and Jesse down to San Diego with the photos of Ellen and Troland Grebs that Sergeant Grove had supplied. They also had copies of the six credit card charges Ellen Roane had made, sent by the detective from New York. There was no hotel or motel charge, so Newt figured Ellen never checked out. He had the sheet on Troland Grebs. He couldn’t tell from the old arrests on it why the detective in New York was so sure it was Grebs. But one witness tying Grebs and Ellen Roane together would do it.

“Find out where she stayed first,” he told his officers. “They’re probably still holding her things at some hotel. Maybe they saw who she was with.”

• • •

The two men started early. They planned to cover the area around where she had shopped and eaten. There had been no car rental charge on her credit card. It seemed fairly clear that Ellen Roane hadn’t had a car. There were two hotels, three motels, and one bed-and-breakfast within walking distance of the places she had made the charges. The beach was only a few blocks away from the shopping area.

After an hour, they found Ellen’s possessions at the sixth place they tried. The Coral Reef Bed and Breakfast was one of those quaint places with no phones in the rooms. On the second floor, a large patio overlooked the ocean just across the street. They served breakfast there, and iced tea, wine, fruit, cheese, and crackers in the afternoon.

The owner, a tall, very thin, overtanned woman in her forties, took one look at the two deputy sheriffs in their khaki uniforms with their hats in their hands and asked them to sit down at one of the tables.

“Would you like a glass of iced tea?” she asked.

It was a hot day. Raymond, who thought he knew how to handle women, glanced quickly at Jesse, then nodded. Jesse was the elder, nearly fifty now, and looked tired. He sat.

The woman came back in a moment with a fluffy blonde who was clearly her girlfriend. The blonde carried a pitcher.

“I’m Gena Howard. I’m the owner. And this is Roberta. Roberta cooks.”

“Hello.” Roberta poured out two glasses of dark tea with lots of frosty ice and handed them over.

“What can we do for you?” Gena Howard had clearly dealt with cops before.

“About two weeks ago, did you have a young woman staying with you?” Raymond asked. The iced tea was cold and strong and very sweet.

Roberta nodded. “Debby,” she said. “This is about Debby, isn’t it? Where is she? What happened to her?”

“Debby?” Raymond said.

“Shh, Bobbie. Let him ask the questions.”

Raymond took out the picture. “We’re looking for this girl. Her name is Ellen Roane.”

Bobbie and Gena took the photo of Ellen Roane in shorts with a tennis racket in her hand, and a big happy smile on her face. The two women held it together, their heads almost touching as they bent over it. The recognition was immediate, but they continued holding the photo as if they didn’t want to let it go.

“Debby,” Bobbie confirmed.

“Such a
nice
girl,” Gena Howard said, still studying the picture. “She wanted a room where she could see the water. We put her on the third floor. She was just crazy about the ocean.… You know, I was really worried when she took off without her things.… But sometimes they do that when they don’t want to pay—”

“You thought she left to avoid paying the bill?” Raymond asked incredulously.

Gena looked at Bobbie, then shook her head. “We didn’t want to think that of her. And she had expensive things, more than the room was worth. It didn’t seem likely.”

“We were afraid something happened to her,” Bobbie said softly. “But …”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?” Raymond interrupted.

Gena put her hand protectively on Bobbie’s shoulder
and shook her head again. Bobbie kept her eyes on them, clearly frightened.

“It’s always such bad news,” Bobbie explained.

“We’ve got a lot of things to do to keep this place going,” Gena added defensively. “We have ten rooms, and it’s just us. We don’t really bother with the news.” She changed the subject. “We did keep her stuff in case she decided to come back. Like I said, it’s good stuff, worth more than the room. We hoped she’d come back.”

“What happened to her?” Bobbie’s face was very pale.

Raymond told her as gently as he could. “Somebody took her out into the desert and left her there.”

“Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth.

Jesse sat there drinking his iced tea. His expression hadn’t changed since they walked in. Raymond glanced at Jesse and wondered if he’d ever get to be that cool.

“She was a pretty girl,” Gena said, still studying the photo. “Real pretty.”

Raymond nodded. “Why don’t you tell us about her,” he suggested.

“What do you want to know?” Gena finally relinquished the picture. Raymond took it back and reached for his notebook.

It took some time to hear everything the two women had to say. They had never thought Debby was her real name, Bobbie said. She didn’t always answer to it. She kept pretty much to herself. Yes, they could see her on the beach from here, and they did see her, Gena supplied. But when they were looking, she was always alone.

Raymond handed over the two old photos of Troland Grebs. Gena laid them down side by side and studied them doubtfully for a long time.