Locked Doors (36 page)

“Get you gentlemen a glass of iced tea?” Rufus offered.

Sgt. Mullins shook his head.

“Your wife at home, sir?”

“She’s out running an errand.”

Sgt. Mullins motioned to the long living room.

“Let’s have a seat in there, Mr. Kite.”

On her way to the stairs Beth stopped and looked inside the room where the Kites had been hammering and jawing and sawing.
 
Tools littered the floor.
 
A bare light bulb burned her eyes, humming directly above what all the ruckus must’ve been about—a rude chair in the final stage of construction, with copper plating along its armrests and front legs, numerous leather restraints, and thick copper wire coiled in the dirt beside it.
 
The thing had an undeniable presence.
 
As the architecture of a cathedral exudes solemnity and peace, its raw blocky masculine design radiated pure malevolence.

Beth shook off the chill and moved on.
 
In the distance she could see where the corridor opened into a larger space.
 
One of the Kites had left a kerosene lantern hanging in a corner to spread its worthless light upon the dirt and stone near the foot of the stairs.

She emerged from the passageway.
 

She rubbed her bare arms, bumpy with gooseflesh.

The stairs spilled down out of darkness.

Beth peered up, unable to see where they terminated.
 

And she wrapped the chain around her wrist to keep it from dragging and began to climb, the steps creaking so noisily that she did not hear the whispered footsteps of the old woman creeping out of the shadows behind her.

Sgt. Mullins eased down onto the same ottoman his detective had occupied six days ago during her first encounter with Rufus and Maxine Kite.

The old man lounged comfortably on the flaxen sofa, running his fingers through his cottony coif.

Max King stood by the cold hearth.

“Mr. Kite,” Sgt. Mullins said, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees.
 
“A week ago, I sent my detective, Violet King, to
Ocracoke
Island to talk with you and Mrs. Kite about your son, Luther.
 
I understand she came here last Wednesday?”

“
Yessir
, she did.”
 
Rufus smiled.
 
“A lovely little thing, I must say.
 
She met briefly with me and Maxine.
 
Like you said, she wanted to know about our boy, Luther.
 
And I’ll tell you what I told her.
 
I haven’t seen my s—”

“Sir, I’m aware of what you told her.
 
She called me that night.
 
That’s not why I’m here.”
 

Sgt. Mullins motioned to Max.

“This is Max King.
 
Ms. King’s husband.
 
He last spoke to Ms. King on Thursday morning.
 
Late Thursday night, Ms. King called my home and spoke briefly with my wife.
 
My wife is the last person we know of to have had contact with Ms. King.
 
No one has seen her or heard from her since.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“Now
Vik
—Ms. King was supposed to come back here and talk with you and Mrs. Kite late Thursday afternoon.
 
Did she?”

“No, sir.
 
We’d agreed to meet with her again after five o’clock, but she never showed.
 
Do you think something’s wrong?”

Sgt. Mullins twisted his mustache and glanced up at Max, the young man’s jowls fluttering against the saltwater in his eyes.
 

The bare feet of Beth Lancing stopped on the third step.
 
She was squinting up into the darkness at slits of light that framed a door when she heard something like the muffled
thock
of a knee or hip bone popping.

A leathery hand seized her left ankle and the floor hit her hard in the back, the old woman upon her, face contorted in the
lanternlight
, black eyes shining through a mass of wild wrinkles that looked hardly human.

Something caught the
lanternlight
thinly, fleetingly, and Beth heard herself gasp at the cold wet burn that was spreading through her abdomen.

Beth rolled on top of Maxine, grabbing at the old women’s wrists as the soles of Maxine’s orthopedic shoes found her stomach.
 
Beth slammed into the corner, knees turning liquid.
 

Both women scrambled to their feet, panting.
 
Maxine was just out of reach, blocking the stairs.
 
Beth unraveled the chain on her left wrist, noting the warm red trickle down her inner thigh, the boning knife in Maxine’s right hand, and the weightlessness filling the space behind her eyes.
 

When Maxine lunged the chain caught her in the mouth.
 
She choked and spit blood, staggered into the wall and dropped the knife.

Beth spun Maxine around and punched her so hard it broke her hand and the old woman’s jaw at once.

Swiping up the knife, she left Maxine unconscious in the dirt and tore up the stairs toward the slits of light.

59

AS Sgt. Mullins came to his feet he said, “Mr. Kite, this is one big old spooky house ya’ll got here.”

Rufus smiled.
 
“It’s haunted, you know.”

“That right?”

“There’s a ghost lives up on the third floor, gooses my wife every time she walks into our son’s old room.”

Sgt. Mullins grinned.

“I think I’d bolt that room shut, never go back in.”

“Nah, our ghosts are all right…just a little horny.”

“Mr. Kite, thanks for your time.”

As the old man stood, his eyes lit up.

“You know, come to think of it, there’s someone else you should talk to.
 
Fellow named Scottie Myers.
 
Works at Howard’s Pub.
 
Used to be a friend of Luther’s.
  
I told Ms. King about him, so he may have seen her after I did.”

“We’ll look him up.”

Rufus walked them toward the front door.

“Will you let me know when you find Ms. King?” the old man asked.
 
“It’ll keep me up nights thinking about her.”

“Do you have a phone?
 
We tried to call first, but couldn’t—”

“Sure don’t.”

“Well, if I remember, I’ll write you a note, let you know when we find her.
 
Because we will find her.”

Rufus patted Max on the shoulder as he opened the door for them.

“Your wife will be in my prayers, young man.”

Sgt. Mullins and Max stepped outside and walked down the disintegrating steps into the waving beach grass.
 
When Max heard the door close behind them he said, “Barry, you have to search that house.
 
I have a bad—”

“Wait till we’re in the car.”

The black Crown Victoria was parked between the two live oaks in the front yard.
 
Its windshield glinted and then went dark as the sun slipped behind the house.

The men climbed into the car and closed the doors.
 

“Something isn’t right in there,” Max said.
 
“Get a search warrant, whatever you have to do, turn that place upside down.
 
That old man…I don’t know.”

Sgt. Mullins put the key into the ignition but didn’t start the engine.

He stared through the windshield at the great stone House of Kite, ensconced on the banks of the sound.

“Well, I
do
know,” he said finally.
 
“Been doing this quite awhile.
 
You learn how to read people, how to know if they’re hiding something.
 
If they’re nervous.
 
Body language says a lot.
 
Fidgeting.
 
If the eye contact is too intense or nonexistent.”

“Barry, look—”

Sgt. Mullins held up a finger.

“That old man,” he said, “doesn’t have a thing in this world to hide.”

“It’s your suspect’s father for—”

“Means nothing.
 
I looked into his soul, Max.
 
He’s telling the truth.”

Sgt. Mullins clicked in his seatbelt and cranked the engine.

“Let’s go find Mr. Scottie Myers,” he said, shifting the car into
reverse
.

Max scowled.

Sgt. Mullins grinned.

“Trust me, Max.
 
I’m right.
 
It’s a gift.”

Sgt. Mullins turned the car around and they headed back along the dirt road that wound through the thicket of live oaks.
 
Reaching down, he turned on the radio, found an oldies station, drumming his hands now on the steering wheel.

As Max reached to buckle his seatbelt he happened to glance in the side mirror.

“Stop the car, Barry!”

“What?”

“Look!”

Sgt. Mullins stepped on the brake and both men looked back through the window.

Beyond the tunnel of live oaks, they could see the stoop of the stone house, the front door flung wide open, a woman in torn yellow lingerie falling down the steps, picking herself up again, and running after them, the blood on her left leg visible even from fifty yards away.

Sgt. Mullins said, “Holy God.”

He turned back to shift the car into
park
.

The windshield shattered.

His right arm exploded.

Sgt. Mullins stomped the gas and as the car accelerated, the man with the shotgun stepped out of the way and fired pointblank through the window at Sgt. Mullins’s head.

The detective collapsed into Max’s lap, his foot slipped off the gas pedal, and the Crown Victoria rolled a ways down the dirt road before veering into the thicket.
 
After ten feet, its front bumper collided gently with the trunk of a live oak and the car was at rest, idling quietly.

Max’s left shoulder had caught three pellets of buckshot but he felt nothing as he strained to lift the big detective off his legs.

He heaved Sgt. Mullins back into the driver seat and glanced through the rear passenger window.
 
A man with long black hair was thirty yards away and closing, moving deliberately through the thicket toward the car.
 
He saw Max looking, smiled, and pumped his shotgun.

They killed Vi.

He swept Sgt. Mullins’s coat back as the footsteps of the assailant waxed audible over the purr of the engine.