Night Corridor (28 page)

It was not hard to put the pieces together. Danny Babineau had copied the key and used it to gain entry the building and leave Caroline his Christmas gift, the brooch he'd taken from Natalie Breen's shop after he killed her. She must have gift-wrapped for him, thinking he was just a last minute customer, as men often are, not realizing it would be her last act. Why such brutality though? Where did the rage come from? Maybe Lynne Addison could enlighten them. But that wasn't their first priority.

"Some of the workers are saying Danny stole Mr. Lawrence's car," Harold said. "Did Danny do…something. Did he hurt Caroline?"

"We hope not, Harold. Do you know Caroline very well?" Detective Aiken asked gently.

"Caroline's my friend. She bought me a model plane for Christmas. She thinks I'm smart. Caroline said I could learn a new job if I wanted."

Harold looked upset and both detectives knew he had nothing at all to do with what had gone down. He was just a nice kid who was a little slow in recognizing the con and danger in a man like Danny Babineau.

"We think he abducted your friend, Harold. We think he has her now. Do you have any idea where he might have taken her? Did he ever say anything to you?"

Harold eyes were big and his skin was pale as flour. "No. He had some relatives in Petit Ridge. Or at least that's what he said," he added, his face expressing suspicions that maybe Danny didn't always tell him the truth. Then, as if a light bulb had gone off in his brain, he said, "Danny said he was going to see his father soon. He said he lives in Toronto."

Sixty-Three

Lynne was waiting for them when they arrived back at the station. She'd had a chance to scan through the file and listened to the tape in the car. Without preamble, she said, "I'll spare you the psychiatric jargon, Detectives. Enough to know that Danny is caught in a sort of 'time warp' and wants to recreate that time. Like tearing a curtain between present and past worlds, and stepping through. But with certain modifications. Somehow Caroline figures into the picture. I'm a little vague on exactly how. Whatever it is, when his plan doesn't work, he'll kill like her did the others. I want to go with you."

O'Neal argued against it but she held her ground. "If you find Caroline with that man, I may be able to talk him into letting her go without any need for more violence. Psychiatry is my field. And Danny Babineau is insane, Detective O'Neal. By anyone's definition, legal or otherwise."

Sixty-Four

For hours they drove in silence, the car swallowing up miles of mainly narrow roads, past service stations, barber shops, fire stations. More towns and villages swept by, one becoming very like the last one they had just driven through. She guessed he wanted to avoid the main highway. He was worried they were looking for him.

The clock on the dash said 2:10 P.M. She and Jeffrey would have been at lunch now. She had somehow brought this monster in their lives. Into Jeffrey's life. Oh, God, I'm so sorry.

Danny must have followed him upstairs. He must have walked very softly, for she heard no footsteps past her door or on the stairs after she closed her door. Nor apparently did Mrs. Bannister.

He suddenly reached across her and she jumped, her whole body reacting.

"Just turning on the radio," he said, almost apologetically. "You like country music, Caroline?"

She said she did, she liked lots of music. She liked blues best. As his fingers found the knobs, she again observed how large his hands were, the dark mat of hair curling on the backs. The tendons in his wrists like ropes. Hands that had beaten and strangled at least three women to death. She banished the horrid images the thought evoked.

He finally found a country music station. Willie Nelson was singing
You Are always On My Mind
, his voice filling the small space around them.

"Good song," he said, and grinned at her.

"It's nice." He was being pleasant again. She chanced it. "Danny, I have to go to the bathroom."

"My name's not Danny. It's Buddy." He spoke matter-of-factly, but gave no answer to her request, one way or another, just began singing with Willie, his own voice deep and out of tune. She found no humor in it, but was glad his hands were back on the wheel.

Willie Nelson's song over, one by Loretta Lynn began to play and he said, "Country music is Earl's favorite, you know."

An icy chill slid down Caroline's spine, for the words spoken were not in a man's voice, but in a child's, high and thin and laced with excitement. In spite of herself, she snapped a look at him. His profile was set in a childish cast, conflicting with the strong nose with its bump on the bridge, the beetle brows. "Earl sings and plays the guitar," he said, staring straight ahead. "He plays at a place in Toronto called Curly's."

"Curly's?" she managed, unable to tear her eyes from him.

"Yep. It's a bar. I think he's going to be discovered soon and he'll be big as Johnny Cash or any of those guys. He knows lots of songs,
Folsom prison Blues
, Glen Smith's
You're the One
. My favorite song, though, is
You Don't Know Me
by Eddie Arnold. Earl's going to be famous just like those guys. "He promised to teach me some chords," the child said, smiling, with something close to joy on his man-child face. "Pretty neat, eh. He calls me Buddy."

Caroline could neither breathe nor speak. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and her skin felt like things were crawling over it. She forced herself to remain calm.
You've seen crazy before. You know crazy. You've lived it
. You have to find out who Earl is. Why we're going to Toronto to meet him. If this Earl wanted to be with Danny, why had he needed to search for him?

She took long, slow breaths --soundless breaths, before she spoke. "He sounds like a very nice man."

He flashed her a shy smile. A little boy smile, and said, "Earl's my real daddy."

Sixty-Five

Across the country, police and the general public had been alerted to be on the lookout for a 1977 grey Mustang, license number BKR-613, with a man and woman inside. A description of Daniel Babineau was released, and a warning that he was armed and dangerous, with a history of violence. Photos of both Babineau and Caroline Hill would make the evening news. The Toronto police had already been alerted to the abduction and informed that Babineau was headed for their neck of the woods.

Lynne sat in the back of the cruiser, the buff folder containing the copy of Danny's file open on her lap. Glen Aiken drove, while O'Neal rode gunshot.

"I don't know all the details, of course," she said. "But according to Dr. Rosen's notes," (God, she would have to tell Dr. Rosen she'd taken the file) Danny was terribly abused as a child."

"Lots of people are abused," O'Neal said, turning around in the seat, facing Lynne. "They don't go around raping and killing."

"I know. But some abuses are more terrible than you know, Detective. I know you see a lot of the underbelly of the world in your line of work, but so have I in my work over the years. I've seen the results of what that world can do to people. Especially kids."

Neither detective spoke. The tires hummed over the asphalt. The Mustang would be miles ahead of them by now. Please let her be okay, Lynne prayed.

"There aren't a lot of specific details in the medical notes," she said, "most abuses implied, both physical and sexual, enough to get a very good sense of his childhood," Lynne continued. " Anyway, apparently this Earl Parker, who is mentioned in the notes, and I'm reading between the lines, was something of a hero to the little boy that Danny was at the time. He made him feel special, loved. I imagine it was the only time in his life Danny experienced that, so when Parker took off on his mother, disappearing from his own life, he was traumatized. It did something to him. And God knows what atrocities happened to him after that. His mother was an alcoholic. And not a mother you would want, according to all accounts. Anyway, Danny hung onto the dream, determined to find Earl one day, and I guess, bring back that brief time in his life when he was happy. For all intents and purposes, he's still that same little boy.

"You feeling sorry for this creep who has your friend?" Detective Aiken asked, merely puzzled, not angry.

Lynne bristled at the question. "No, of course not. But I think I understand him. Anyway, that's about it. He apparently has a fixation on this man, as I said. He'd go into a rant in Dr. Rosen's office about him being his real father and how his mother sent him away. Sent love away." Took hope away, she thought, but didn't say. "But on the admission form his father is listed as unknown. That's probably closer to the truth."

"Parker's probably the father he was talking about when he mentioned to Harold Bannister that he was going to see him," Detective O'Neal said to his partner. "The guy's a real psycho."

"Incidentally," Lynne said, "you guys brought him in to Bayshore. Well, not you specifically, Detectives, but the police. He'd beaten a woman within an inch of her life. He didn't know her, just saw her on the street one day and something about her set him off. The judge said he was unfit to stand trial. That was four years ago. He was released last spring. Before that, he was in and out of jail. Somehow he kept being sent back out on the streets."

Detective Aiken nodded then braked for a white cat sprinting across the road. Brakes squealed behind him and Lynne braced herself, but there was no impact. "It's the way of the system," he said, stepping on the gas. "On the other hand, if we're placing blame, you people had him in your care for a time, you think you coulda fixed him." He gave her a half-smile in the rearview mirror to soften the words.

"Point taken. But some things, and people, are beyond repair." Lynne consulted her notes again. "Oh, by the way, there was a sister, but she died. Apparently, she drowned in a bathtub. She was three. Her name was Millie."

"Accident?"

"It was ruled accidental. But who knows? Danny would have been six at the time."

"More reason to hate the mother," Detective O'Neal said.

"Possibly, though I don't think he needed more reason. I managed to track down his mother, thinking I might learn more, but she died a year ago in a nursing home.

Sixty-Six

Dolly Parton was singing
Coat of Many Colors
when they entered the brightly lit city of Montreal. In different circumstances, Caroline, who'd only read and dreamed of places outside St. Simeon might have been excited to be driving through these streets.

Danny snapped the radio off before the song ended. "Makes herself up like a whore," he mumbled, in his man's voice. All the way here, every time a country station faded out he fiddled with the dial until he found another one. Now they sat in silence.

Caroline liked Dolly Parton, especially liked watching her on TV. She was like a beautiful big doll. It made you smile to watch her sing and make jokes, mostly on herself. You knew she was real and had a good heart. And you could tell she was smart too.

Traffic snaked slowly along the highway, then stopped altogether. The car idled, its big engine vibrating. Danny yawned. "Must be an accident up ahead," he said.

Caroline had been considering in the past hour or so telling Buddy where she first saw him, try to establish a report with him. She'd tell him she was at Bayshore Mental Hospital, too. Would he know that? Harold did. Would be have told him? Maybe not. She and Harold were friends, after all. But there were other ways he could have found out things about her.

The urge to jump out of the car and run for all she was worth was overwhelming. They were stopped here in traffic. Why didn't she? Because he would be faster, she answered herself. She wouldn't get one foot out the door and he'd have her. Maybe stab her to death right here. Splatter her blood all over the front seat.

The awful imagery shattered as suddenly the car broke from the line of traffic and veered left onto a narrow side street, throwing her against the door. Straightening again, Caroline glimpsed the police car up ahead, dome light flashing. The policeman appeared to be handing out some sort of flyer to the driver. Then he was gone from her view as they left the scene behind them. She should have tried to get away.

Sometime later, maybe half an hour, she saw a McDonald's coming up on their left on the edge of some small town or village. He glanced at her and as if reading her thoughts, asked, "Hungry?" Or maybe he was hungry himself.

"Yes."

"Good. We'll eat here, then find a motel."

She said nothing. And then they pulled into the line at the McDonald's drive-through. Without giving her a choice, he ordered cheeseburgers, fries and Pepsis for both of them. After he'd given the order, she said, "I need to use the bathroom."

He looked long and hard at her. "Yeah, okay." Hope rose in her. She would tell someone to call the police, that she'd been kidnapped. She would be saved.