Head to Head (29 page)

Oh, my God, my God, my God…

I stared down at Suze Eggers’s head lying on the cellar floor and tried hard not to panic. My God, if Suze wasn’t the killer, who was? Where was he? I had to get Harve and Dottie out of this house. I ran up the cellar steps and found the door at the top locked. I kicked it hard, twice, and when it gave, I came out into the hallway, with my gun leading, and heard someone running up the steps.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” I cried, then took the steps two at a time until I reached the second floor. Everything was silent again, so I moved to the bedroom where I’d left Harve. The light was off, and I reached around and flipped it on. Harve was still on the bed, but now Dottie was standing beside him.

I ran to the bed, relieved Dottie was awake and able to walk. She could help me carry Harve. “C’mon, Dottie, we’ve gotta get Harve out of here. The killer’s somewhere in the house.”

I shook Harve’s shoulder, keeping my weapon trained on the doorway. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the gun. “Dottie, help me pull him off the bed. Hurry!” When she didn’t answer, I turned to look at her and glimpsed the eight-inch meat cleaver she held high in one hand. Before I could react, she knocked my gun arm aside and chopped the cleaver down hard against my left upper shoulder. I screamed as it cut deep, the top of the blade lodged into my collarbone.

Then she was all over me, cackling the most awful laugh I’d ever heard and grabbing for my gun. The weapon went off, slamming two slugs into the wall. The struggle made the embedded blade twist in the bone, and I went woozy with pain. I almost blacked out, and my knees buckled weakly to the floor. Dottie wrestled the gun away and threw it across the room, where it hit the wall and slid under a chair.

“Oh, Annie, Annie, you shouldn’t’ve come out here. I didn’t want to hurt you. Lie still, sweetie, and I’ll fix you up.”

I groaned in agony when she lifted me bodily and carried me to the bed. She laid me gently down beside Harve and ran out of the room. I fought to stay conscious and looked down and saw that the cleaver angled out of my upper chest just under my collarbone. It looked like it had pierced my muscle at least an inch deep. My shirt was cut open, and my bra strap was severed. The wound would’ve been worse if my leather shoulder holster hadn’t taken some of the blade. My white shirt was already turning red with blood.

When I tried to move, the pain was so bad I almost fainted. I shut my eyes and clamped my bottom lip with my teeth, groaning and turning my head until I could see Harve. He hadn’t moved, still deeply drugged.

Oh, God, I had to get my gun. I set my jaw and tried to sit up, but that drove the blade deeper into the wound. Then Dottie was back, and I tried to think how in God’s name I’d ever get away, but she was standing over me and pushing me down into the pillow.

“Dottie, please…help me…I’m bleeding…The pain’s awful….”

“I know, I know, honey, but don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours. I’m gonna take good care of the both of you. You’re my best friends, and you’ll be Momma’s best friends, too, you’ll see. Dottie’s gonna make you feel better.”

I shut my eyes and heaved in some deep breaths, but every time I moved, the pain overwhelmed me. When I looked at Dottie again, she was threading a big embroidery needle. Oh, God, I had to get away from her, but I couldn’t move, and I watched her pick up a fat roll of silver duct tape. She pulled out a long length with a sharp shriek, tore it off, and quickly taped my wrists together.

“Dottie…why…why are you doing this…Please stop….”

“Hush, hush, now, darlin’. You’re gonna understand everything soon enough. I’ve got a big surprise for you. Now hold real still while I get you all stitched up.”

When she suddenly reached down and jerked the cleaver out of my shoulder, I came off the bed in sheer agony, but that was nothing compared to the pain I felt when she suddenly dumped a bottle of iodine into the open wound. I screamed and writhed on the bed until she held me down.

“I know, I know, poor baby. It hurts so bad,” Dottie said soothingly as she cut off my shoulder holster and shirt with the bloody cleaver and tossed them on the floor, “but it’s gonna feel better once I get it all sewed up.”

She picked up the needle and pinched the edges of the bleeding wound tightly together with her thumb and forefinger. I groaned some more and clamped my jaw when she pushed the needle through one lip of the wound and out through the other. Oh, God, I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t, and everything went black for a moment, but not for long enough. I gasped for breath and moaned as she slowly and methodically stitched up the six-inch gash.

“There you go, all better.” She gave me the big, familiar Dottie smile, and I could only lie there and stare dully up at her. Nauseated, I wet dry lips and tried to breathe.

“See, I’m taking good care of you, just like always. Don’t worry so much. I love you guys, ya know that. I don’t like having to hurt you, but you forced me to.”

For a moment I could only stare at her in absolute shock; then I shifted my eyes down and saw the neat line of large black stitches she’d made across my bare flesh. Blood was still seeping out between the sutures and dripping on what was left of my bra. Dottie moved away from the bed, then came back a few seconds later with a hypodermic needle. “This’ll help the pain, so you’ll feel all better for the party. We’ve been waiting for you to get to come to our party for ever so long. Did you know that, Annie? Everybody’s so excited to have you home again, just like old times.”

“What?…I don’t understand…what party?…home?…” I kept trying to think straight, but the pain was throbbing and hot, and I couldn’t think about anything else. When she brought the hypodermic needle down close to me, I shook my head. “No…don’t give me that…don’t…” Then I cried out when she jabbed it between the stitches and injected God knew what into my wound.

“Now, now, be a big girl. It’s just a little morphine to help ease the pain. I’m so sorry I had to hurt you. I never wanted to, but you were gonna shoot me, and I had to. I’m pretty good with that cleaver, don’t you think, Annie? I practice on bodies I don’t need, sometimes with knives and hatchets, too. It’s fun. I’ll teach you if you want me to.”

The drug was taking me quickly, but I struggled to get out something first. My plea was slurred and breathless. “Bud…Black…they’ll come looking for me…Let us go, Dottie…please…. You can get away…. I won’t tell them what you did…”

Dottie bent over and spoke very close to my face. “Oh, that’s so sweet, darlin’, and I know you wouldn’t tell on me. You never did. God, I’ve missed having you at home with me like this. I promise you, Annie, I’m never going to leave you again, never, ever. We’re gonna be together forever. Just like me and my mother.”

Then I felt her lips press down on mine, and the smell of the Clinique she wore filled my senses as the morphine took hold of me and dragged me down into a dark and murky ocean of oblivion.

I awakened slowly, groggy and disoriented. My eyes were heavy, and my shoulder was burning up. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t quite grasp what was the matter, though I knew something awful had happened. I could hear rain beating down somewhere and rumbling thunder. I lay still, but the pain was so terrible that I lifted my right hand to see what was causing it.

When my hand wouldn’t move, I opened my eyes and tried to focus and saw the silver duct tape securing it to a bedpost. Then I remembered and groaned with the realization of where I was and what was happening. I examined the wound in my shoulder, not sure how long I’d been unconscious. The black stitches were swollen and red, the edges puffy and puckered and oozing blood. The morphine was wearing off.

Blinking away the confusing effects of the drug, I tried to figure out where I was. I was lying in the middle of a double bed, and my feet were taped to the spindles of the footboard. No lights were on, but I could see flickering lights at the foot of the bed and realized there were about a dozen red candles glowing in front of a long mirror. Above the candles and mirror, pinned to the wall, was a computer-generated sign with lots of big yellow smiley faces on it and big black block letters that said:
WELCOME HOME ANNIE
.

Oh God, oh God, Dottie, Dottie’s the killer. I remembered Harve then and Dottie attacking me with the meat cleaver, everything. Frantic, I turned my head to the left and looked for a way out. I froze. Beside me on the bed was Suze Eggers’s head, carefully balanced on a Blue Willow dinner plate. A green party hat shaped like a derby sat atop her blond, spiky hair. Congealed blood pooled around her neck like a maroon collar. A second Blue Willow plate sat in front of the head, with a knife and spoon to the right, a fork and salad fork to the left. In the middle of the plate was a precisely folded white linen napkin and one of those curled-up New Year’s Eve party favors that blows out long and makes a whistling sound.

I heard an awful, low moaning and realized it came from deep inside me, and I began to struggle violently against the duct tape. I kept my eyes shut tight, not wanting to see any more, fighting my descent into absolute panic.
Don’t, don’t, don’t scream, don’t go to pieces
, I kept telling myself, but I was petrified with fear. Where was Dottie? What was she doing? Where was I? I had to get hold of myself. It took me a few minutes, but I finally willed myself to lie still. I opened my eyes and looked around for a means of escape.

At the foot of the bed were two more Blue Willow dinner plates, and each held horribly mummified human heads. Both heads had long blond hair that had been neatly braided, but there were patches where the hair had fallen out. Some of it had been glued back in place; some had been stapled with artful precision. A fourth head, one that looked like it might have belonged to a man, was sitting on the bed to my right. All the heads had a place setting, silverware, and a party favor directly in front of them. All of them had different colored plastic hats beside their plates. There was a chair drawn up to the bed beside me, and there was a plate there for me and one probably meant for Dottie.

Oh, Jesus, please, please help me,
I thought for a couple of minutes in utter despair; then I clamped my jaw and forced myself to calm down. I had to get away. That’s all I could think about, getting away. I couldn’t think about the heads or what Dottie was going to do to me, or where she was or where Harve was. She was gone for the moment, and I had to escape before she got back.

I looked around again and realized it was a very small room. The bed took up nearly the whole area, leaving little room for a built-in dresser, where the candles were burning. I couldn’t figure out for a moment where I was; then I remembered the old travel trailer in the barn. That’s where Dottie had brought me. My left hand was untied because of the wound, and I reached across and tried to jerk off the tape holding my right hand. I was so weak I could barely pull on it, but I got it loosened a little, then stopped when I heard a door open in the next room. I held my breath.

Dottie breezed in, smiling and dripping rainwater off my black sheriff’s rain slicker. So that’s where it went. She must’ve stolen it out of my car. I wondered if she used it to trick her victims.

“Oh, man, it’s become a flood out there, and there’s a whole front of storms coming through. Oh, good, you’re all awake. I guess you’ve been getting to know each other while I’ve been gone?”

I stared up at her and tried not to shudder. I watched her shrug out of the wet slicker and walk to the bed. “How’s that shoulder, sweetie? Oooh, look at all that swelling; I’ll have to give you another dose of iodine.” She put her face close to mine, kissed me on the mouth, and smiled. “Well, aren’t you gonna say hi?”

“Hi, Dottie,” I croaked out of cracked, dry lips.

“How do you like my little surprise party? Did everyone yell ‘surprise!’ like they were supposed to?”

“Yeah.”
Play along, play along.
She’s insane, but she’s not threatening to kill me yet. Maybe I could buy time or talk her into cutting me loose. “You know how I love parties,” I said and forced a caricature of a smile.

Dottie clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, Annie, I knew you would like it here with us. You can be the sister and my friend. I’ve always loved you so.”

I tried to think who she was and if she’d really known me before, but I didn’t know her, hadn’t met her until Harve hired her. She had somehow woven me into her psychotic fantasies. I watched her move around the bed, kissing each head on the lips. I almost gagged but forced myself to lie quietly.

“My shoulder sure does hurt, Dottie. I think it’s the way I’m lying. Could you let me sit up? Maybe it’d feel better.”

“Okay, but not until after we eat. I’ve got everything about ready in the oven. I’m just starved, aren’t you?” She suddenly turned to the man’s head and said, “Just hold your horses; it’s almost ready. I’ve got rice and meat loaf tonight, if you must know.”

Then she was gone, and I heard her rattling pans and running water in the next room. Okay, she’s not violent at the moment. Black knew where I was going, he’d be out looking for me soon, and Bud would go to my house to see why I hadn’t shown up with his car. One of them would find Harve’s note. They were probably out searching for me already. They knew I’d be looking for Harve, and they knew I was in a Cobalt. Black knew Dottie fished in Possum Cove, and that’s where he’d look. It was just a matter of time before they showed up, and I had to survive until they did.

“Here we go. Time to eat.”

I watched Dottie smile and smile and talk to each head as she forked up slices of meat loaf and put them on each plate. Rice came next in a matching Blue Willow bowl, then coleslaw and one half of a dill pickle for everybody. I felt like I was going to vomit. I couldn’t move; the horror kept rising up and overwhelming me, and I kept forcing it back down.

I watched her move around the bed, tucking snowy napkins around the heads. When she had everything exactly the way she wanted it, she sat down beside me. She looked at me and said, “Let us pray.”

Closing her eyes and folding her hands together, she began a long prayer about friends and family and staying together always, then looked at her watch and said, “Now we can begin. First, we’ll all eat a bite of meat loaf. Everybody together now.” She took a bite herself, then said, “Umm, yummy, if I say so myself.”

Then she cut a piece of my meat loaf with my fork and held it poised in front of my face. “Open up, Annie. It’s so good. You always did love my cooking.”

“Dottie, I’m not hungry. My shoulder hurts.”

Suddenly she got angry, and she slapped my face and said sharply, “Quit complaining, you brat. This party’s for you. Now open your mouth and eat this, or I’ll stuff it down your throat.”

I opened my mouth and chewed the meat loaf. My stomach rolled, and I forced down the bile burning my throat. Dottie patted me on the head. “Very good, Annie.”

She fed the other heads bites of food, which fell down onto the white napkins and bedspread, talking and smiling all the while. When she smiled at me, I smiled back. When she fed me, I ate.
Cooperate; do everything she says; don’t make her angry.

“Well, you’re sure not very talkative tonight, Annie. I thought you’d be so happy to see us all again, but you act like you don’t give a fig about any of us.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “I love you all. I’ve missed you all.”

She looked at one of the heads with blond braids. “Well, now are you satisfied? She loves us. See, I told you she still loves us.”

I watched her have a long conversation with the heads; then suddenly, she jumped up and said, “Okay, everybody! Time to put on our party hats like Suze and bring in the cake! This is a big celebration! Annie’s home at last!”

Dottie moved around the table, putting the hats on the heads, and she put mine on last. “I know it’s not your birthday, Annie, but I put some candles on the cake, anyway. I love you so. I’m so glad you’re home.”

I looked around at the decapitated heads in their colorful hats and closed my eyes. Oh, God, I was never going to get out of here. Nobody was ever going to find me.