Daddy's Little Girl (10 page)

He could look through a small opening next to the door and she couldn’t see him—

She hung there now, a beautiful, white piece of meat—

Naked, writhing, her pain giving him a pleasure that almost made him blind—

Carefully, he noted each part of her, from the long, trim legs, to the flat stomach, to the slightly jutting hips.

Her breasts were perfection, shapely pieces of sculpture capped by tiny pink nipples that looked ready to nibble on—and the dark thatch of hair between her legs—

The frenzy was on him now—

He jerked away from his peephole and flung himself back against the wall.

Big drops of sweat hung on his forehead, the drops silver in the shadows.

His eyes seemed to pop out of his head.

His mouth ran with spittle.

His breathing came in lunging gasps.

He tried to calm himself, but for now it was impossible. For now—

Slowly, slowly he relaxed.

The sweat on him dried.

His eyes receded to normal.

His breathing calmed.

He had convinced himself that he was not going to get caught.

That he was going to have his pleasures.

And get away with them.

No sense in spoiling what lay ahead of him—the long hours with the girl—her helpless to prevent anything he wanted to do—

Something thick and warm brushed his leg.

A rat.

Angrily, he kicked out at the thing.

Then decided to have some fun.

The rat was about the size of a kitten. Its savage teeth were bared. Its red eyes glowed.

From his pocket he took a knife. A three-bladed one for whittling and using as a screwdriver and cleaning off pennies he found on the street and hoped were valuable.

The rat was going to get one chance.

It stood in the shadows, insolently looking up at him, waiting, still thinking it might have a chance to bite into his juicy flesh.

He was going to get one shot.

One only.

He was going to fling the knife and if the rat got away, so be it.

The rat would have escaped with his life.

He pulled back, got ready.

The rat seemed to sense what was about to happen.

In the gloom you could see the tiny eyes narrow even more. Become even redder.

He pulled back and let go.

The knife seemed to travel as if in slow-motion.

It landed directly in the side of the rat’s fat belly.

The rat made a terrible screeching sound. It dragged itself toward him, as if it were going to attack, then away from him.

This was how death affected all animals—human or otherwise—this frenzy—this knowing that only oblivion awaited—the frenzy.

The rat ran left, the rat ran right.

Trying to lose the knife that held in its side, only driving the knife in deeper.

He watched, amused.

The rat made one more run at him.

It opened its mouth in an enraged and terrified way that was almost comic, and then it bared its teeth again.

By now the rat was so afraid of its impending death that its sense of direction was gone.

All he had to do was sidestep.

The rat lunged forward, into the wall, screeching even louder.

He laughed.

Then he raised his foot and brought it down squarely on the rat’s head.

Bone and meat crunched under his boot.

He liked it when she twisted, tried to get free.

The muscles in her young body rippled.

She had been awake for maybe ten minutes now, and he watched carefully.

He was going to have fun tonight.

He hadn’t had any fun in a long time.

Too long.

She twisted again.

He felt his own excitement stiffen.

Looking through the opening was like having your own peepshow.

With a live model.

Next to his foot the dead rat lay.

He had removed his knife, wiped it carefully on his trousers, where blood remained now.

He went back to the girl.

The only thing that spoiled her body were the bruises.

From being dragged here.

From resisting.

They never seemed to learn.

That it was just easier to give in.

That what was happening was kind of inevitable.

That no matter what they did they couldn’t stop it.

Watching her—how her hips swayed when she tried to move—he touched his pant leg.

Came away with something sticky and wet.

Rat’s blood.

He pawed his hands off again.

Cursed.

Then he leaned forward and stared at the girl again.

Oh, yes, he was going to have some fun with her, for sure.

For absolutely sure.

And then he was going to treat her not much better than he had the rat.

Three men sat at the table at the front of the big cabin.

At the other end of the room, near the flagstone fireplace with the musty moosehead on the wall, sat the good Reverend Heath. He had his face in his hands. Whenever he looked up it was easy to see that he was crying, or something very near like it.

When this happened, the three men at the table glanced at each other and shook their heads.

Outside, just beyond the screened windows, the spring day was beginning to heat up. A doe appeared, looked inside, passed on. Dogs yipped. Cows mooed. Soon there would be butterflies during the day and fireflies at night. Not to mention the flash of trout in nearby streams. This was why the men lived here. The land and its beauty and its bounty. Burton was a wonderful town.

The Reverend Heath was spoiling whatever appreciation for the spring day they felt.

“Reverend,” one of the men said, “why don’t you sit up and act a little more like a man?”

“Reverend,” another man said, “what’s done is done, and there’s no use ruining your day and ours.”

“Anyway,” the third man said, “we’ve all got jobs we need to get back to. Even you, Reverend. God’s work, I believe it’s called.”

The reverend erupted.

He came up from his melancholy crouch, his eyes blazing, and brought his fist down on the table in front of him.

“You know what happened to that young girl last night!” he roared. “And you know who’s responsible!”

The men glanced at each other again.

The tall, slender man, the one who a few hours earlier had threatened Richard with his knife, said, “Reverend, that’s not a very charitable thing to be saying about your God-fearing neighbors.”

There was no irony in the man’s tone. He was serious.

The single eruption seemed to exhaust the reverend. He slumped back into his previous position. Something like whimpering seemed to pulse through his body.

The tall man got up and walked the length of the wood floor, the heels of his workboots sharp against the pineboards.

When he reached Reverend Heath, he frowned. He was not unsympathetic to what the minister was going through.

He reached out a hand, touched the reverend on the shoulder. “Why don’t I take you back home so you can relax some in the rectory?”

The minister did not answer.

Only stared.

“What’s done is done,” the tall man said again.

The minister looked up. His eyes filled. “Wayman had me out there last night. To size the man up. Her father. How do you think I felt—knowing what I knew? The man is half-crazy. With grief. His daughter—”

The tall man sighed, said nothing.

One of the other men came down, his shoes loud on the pineboard floor.

He was gentle with the minister, too. “Best we not talk about it, anymore, Reverend. Best we just get on with our personal lives.”

The reverend looked up again. “You think nobody’s ever going to find out, don’t you? Well, you’re wrong, all of you. They’re going to find out.”

“So far only the people in our group know,” the tall man said, “and that’s the way we mean to keep it.”

The men stared at the floor.

There was nothing to say.

“Where did the blood come from, Richard?” Deputy Vince Reeves patiently asked the scarecrow man in the living room of Beth Daye.

Beth stood in the corner, watching the questioning. She was afraid for Richard—he was a delicate man, really. He had so many fears, even a glance could set him off—frightened as a spooked animal. Beth stared at Richard again. She held her breath, hoping that her dread would not come true—the dread that the blood on Richard’s hands might implicate him in the disappearance of the girl last night.

She had also begun to wonder if other mysteries of recent days might not also have some bearing on the girl’s disappearance ... such as her dead husband’s notebook and the queer notation ...
June 8, 1953. The insatiable animal is born.

A headache started across her forehead as the date came into her mind again. June 8, 1953. June 8, 1953. Why had her husband written it down? What relevance did it have to his death and her life?

Richard blinked, scared.

He sat in the chair all drawn up into himself and watched Vince Reeves with huge, dark eyes.

Vince patted him on the arm.

“Do you know about the girl who disappeared last night, Richard?”

Richard just stared at him.

“She was a very pretty girl. A very nice girl. Somebody may have hurt her. Wouldn’t that be terrible, Richard, if somebody hurt a pretty, nice girl like that?”

Richard nodded.

“Did you see the girl last night when you were out by the motel?”

Richard shook his head. But as he was doing so he looked up at Beth. There was confusion and fear in his expression. For the first time, Beth felt sure that Richard had seen the girl, knew something about her vanishing.

“Richard, I need you to think hard, to think about last night,” Vince said. “Did you see the girl out by the motel?”

Again, Richard simply shook his head. In the sunlight his greasy, bearded face was darker than usual. He sat in his rags, secretive in his knowledge.

Vince Reeves stood up, his knees cracking.

“You think he knows something?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Well, if he does, he’s probably going to keep it to himself.”

“He’s afraid.”

“Well, I’ve done everything I can to keep him from being afraid.”

“I know. And thank you.”

“You sure it was blood you saw on his hands last night?”

“I ... think so, Vince. I don’t know what else it could have been.” She nodded to the kitchen. “How about another cup of coffee?”

“Yeah. Love one.”

He followed her into the kitchen. They sat at the table. The way his eyes fell to the floor, she could tell that whatever was bothering Vince was bothering him still.

“You don’t seem like yourself today,” Beth said.

Vince had been staring hard into his coffee. “Huh?”

She smiled. “I said, you seem distracted today, preoccupied. Is everything all right?”

He shrugged. “Oh, yeah. Mostly, anyway.” He sounded as if speaking were a terrible chore.

She let it drop; instead, brought up what was bothering
her.

She told him all about the notebook that she’d found, along with her husband’s peculiar note about June 8, 1953.

Her words had a curious effect on Vince. She could easily see that, as she spoke, he began to perspire heavily. His right hand began to twitch.

She finished by saying, “Neither you nor Sheriff Wayman ever had any doubt that Sam’s death was an accident, did you?”

He responded too quickly. “No, Beth, no we never did have any doubts.”

She appraised him carefully. “What I said, about his notebook, that upset you, didn’t it, Vince?”

“I’m just having a bad day, Beth. It wasn’t about the notebook. Not at all.”

“How about the 1953 date? Does that mean anything to you?”

He tried for an elaborate shrug. Vince was a terrible liar. “No.”

Vince was about to expand on his response, but he was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Adam Carnes.

Apparently, Beth thought, the man was in enough grief that he couldn’t even sleep.

Shaved, with clean clothes, he at least looked better than he had, though his eyes were still tired.

He came into the kitchen and said, “Richard’s just sitting out there.”

“He’ll be all right,” Beth said. “He comes over and sits and stares and then gets up and leaves all the time. Richard runs by his own clock.”

Vince stood up. “Well, I’d better be getting back to the office, Beth. Sorry I couldn’t be more help with Richard.” Once more he tried for a broad effect of casualness. “I’m sure that whatever he knows, it isn’t important. Otherwise, he’d tell us.”

She watched him with disbelief and pity. There was something very wrong with Vince Reeves.

The deputy clapped Adam Carnes on the back. “See you soon, Mr. Carnes.”

Carnes only nodded pleasantly, said nothing.

Beth walked Vince to the door. His right hand still trembled. Sweat stood on his forehead. She wanted to ask him if she could help. She knew better.

She also knew that her reference to Sam’s notebook and the 1953 date had made Vince’s condition even worse.

Much as she pitied him, she knew she also needed to learn what he knew.

“You consider me a friend, don’t you, Vince?” she asked at the door, as Richard sat behind her, stiff in the arm chair, staring straight ahead.

“Sure,” Vince said.

“Would you answer me honestly if I asked you a question?”

He surprised her by being candid. “There are some things I can’t answer. At least not right now.”

She started to reach for his arm, but he pulled away.

“It’s better if you just let it ride for right now, Beth. Honest, it is.”

With that, Vince was gone.

In the living room, she bent in toward Richard and said, “Would you like some hot chocolate with a marshmallow in it?”

Usually, the response she got was a big kid smile. Today Richard only continued to stare.

While she was bending into him, as close as she could get considering his apparent aversion to water, she noticed the two cuts on his neck.

She hadn’t noticed them the night before.

Somebody had cut Richard. One of the gashes was especially long.

She went into the kitchen where Adam Carnes sat at the table.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

He smiled glumly. “Appreciative of the hospitality. But mostly just very confused. And lost.”

She went over to him. Put her hand on his shoulder. “I want us to be friends.”

“So do I.”

“So I want to tell you some things.”

By the excited look on his face, Beth knew she was not treating him kindly. She didn’t want him to get any hopes up. “The—man—in there—Richard?”

“Yes.”

She told him about the blood on his hands.

He started up from the chair. She put her steadying hand back on his shoulder.

“I don’t think he did anything.”

“But—” Carnes started to protest.

“But he may well know something.”

“That could help us, you mean?”

“Yes.”

Then she told him about the June 8, 1953 reference in her husband’s journal.

Carnes looked confused.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Neither do I,” Beth Daye said. “At least I don’t right now. Maybe it has some bearing and maybe it doesn’t.” She told him how upset Vince had seemed when she’d mentioned it.

“Why was he upset?”

“If we find that out,” she said, “maybe things will start to make sense.”