Night Corridor (32 page)

"That was really great," Danny said, smiling at him, not shy anymore.

Earl took a sip of his beer, turned and nodded. "Thanks. I try, Buddy. Glad you enjoyed it." He went back to his beer.

"I knew you'd remember." Danny batted a tear from his eye, embarrassed, but so overcome with emotion he couldn't help himself.

"Hmmm?"

"That you'd remember me. I knew you would."

Earl looked at him for a long moment, then said, "Sure. Sure I do. We did a road trip a couple of years back. What town …?" Earl was small time, but still accustomed to dealing with overly zealous fans. He forced another smile. "You want an autograph? I'm happy as hell to do that. Ya got something I can write on…"

"St. Simeon," Danny said. He heard his voice crack. "That was the town." His happiness flickered like a candle-flame blown by a cold draft. Threatening to go out, and bring the darkness. No, Earl was just teasing. Earl liked to tease. "I'm Buddy." He was shy again, tentative.

"Earl calls everyone Buddy, young fella," said the bartender, whose curiosity had drawn him closer to the conversation, despite his being busy with customers. "Says he's your kid, Earl. Your boy." He wasn't grinning now.

"My kid?" He gave a soft chuckle that sounded mean. "I ain't got no kid."

"That's your story, ain't it, young fella?"

"You lived with me and my mom. Don't you remember?" Now he understood why Earl was acting this way. He was still mad about what happened. He didn't blame him, but it wasn't Danny's fault. He was just a kid when she kicked him out. "I'm sorry she sent you away, Earl. She wasn't no damn good." He remembered Caroline again. He left her in the trunk; she'd be cold. But she'd be okay. They'd go get her together. "I got you a present, Earl. You'll really like it."

"You're freakin' me out, kid. Look, I don't know you, okay? I've never been to the place you mention, as far as I know. Though it's not impossible, I been a lotta places in my time, shacked up with a few mommas, too." He laughed. "Now, I'm trying to get a little break here if it's okay with you. You wanna hang around and listen to the songs, that's good. Otherwise…well…just back off, okay?"

He'd waited so long. All those years, waiting. No, he had to make Earl understand. They were meant to be together, a real family. "You said you'd teach me some chords on the guitar," he said, desperate to jog Earl's memory. "You loved me." Unknown to Danny, his voice had risen to the point where people were turning in their seats to see what was going on. Conversations fell silent.

Curly said quietly, "Hey kid, take it easy. You heard what the man said. Now am I gonna have to ask you to take a hike or are you gonna settle down?" He had this fixation on Earl, nothing else you could call it. This sort of thing happened now and then, but Earl could usually handle it. He'd been his floorshow for three years now and it worked out for both of them. Earl worked for food, beer and a few bucks and also served as a bouncer, a skill he rarely needed and when he did, he usually handled the problem with a hail-fellow, well-met approach. Curly also liked the guy and didn't take well to his being harassed by a customer, nut case or not.

"No, you don't understand. Earl, you know me. I'm Buddy…please." He practically dove at him then, embraced him, spilling Earl's beer in the process. Earl slipped off the stool and backhanded him across the mouth, sending him reeling. "Get the hell away from me, you little faggot."

Danny staggered backwards, stunned. He stared at Earl, his face on fire. No, no, this can't be. A mistake. "You don't mean it. You…"

"I damn well do mean it."

Danny put a hand out, a childish gesture, an apology, a plea for acceptance, and Earl grabbed his hand, whipping it up behind his back, and frog-marched him out the door. A final push sent Danny sprawling onto the snow-covered sidewalk. Then Earl Parker went back inside.

Laughter drifted out to Danny from behind the closed door.

Seventy-Four

Danny sat on the sidewalk, the heavy wet snow mingling with his tears. The cold snow fell on his heart, smashing the dream, obliterating his path to home. Inside his head, the voice was screaming…screaming…he pressed his hands over his ears to block out the sound, but he couldn't.

He took his hands away and at last the screams died away. The snow fell, softly, silently, and for a long time Danny didn't move from the place where he sat on the sidewalk. The snow turned him white, as if he were a sculpted likeness of himself. Pedestrians hurrying past, glanced in his direction then stepped into the gutter to avoid him. At last, his face like stone, eyes glazed with madness, he rose slowly to his feet, his hand reaching inside his coat where the hunting knife with its gleaming curved blade, waited.

No one saw it coming. One woman later told police it reminded her of Norman Bates in Psycho the way he came at poor Earl with that knife.

Earl was sitting with his back to the door when it was flung open and the cold snow blasted in along with a knife wielding man with crazed eyes. A woman screamed, but before Earl could turn around the man flew at him, and with a bone-chilling primal howl, plunged the knife between his shoulder blades.

Earl shot up straight in the chair and arched his back, hand flailing behind him as he tried to reach the source of his pain, so excruciating it was like he'd been kicked by a horse.

Danny's strength was that of the madman he was, and he pulled out the knife as if it were buried in butter, and brought it down again and again and again, until Earl slid from the stool, boneless, and now lay in a heap on the floor, dead. The cries and screams in the room had fallen silent. Curly Burrows, the owner of Curly's, stood frozen behind the counter, not quite believing his own eyes as he watched the life go out of his friend. Patrons looked on in shock. Someone had slipped away and called police. A woman was weeping softly. It had begun and ended in less than a minute.

His rage spent, Danny looked down at what had once been Earl Parker. He cocked his head, looked mildly puzzled, like a dog, listening. Then he turned and left the bar. He was still holding the bloodied knife at his side when he walked back out into the storm.

Like a zombie, he plodded through the snow to where he'd parked the car. When he got to it, he sagged down on the ground with his back against the driver's side, crying, and let the knife fall from his hand. The white swirling world swam through his tears.

"I'm sorry, mommy. I'll be good," the child Danny whimpered into his chest. "Don't let the man hurt me. I won't be bad no more."

Seventy-Five

Sirens wailed through the streets. This was not just another killing in the big bad city of Toronto. This was serial killer, Danny Babineau they were honing in on. Dozens of sightings had been reported of a man walking blindly down the street through the storm, a knife clutched in his hand.

The blood drops from the knife and stopped a short distance from the bar, but the cops were able to follow his boot tracks to the small parking lot off Yonge. They found Danny sitting with his back against the Mustang, now blanketed with snow so you couldn't have told what make it was. A dozen cops leapt from their cars, and scurried behind the open car doors for cover, guns drawn.

"Lie face down and put your hands behind your back," one cop bellowed. "Down. Now!"

A sane part of Danny understood and obeyed. They were on him at once.

Danny was eight years old again, back in his little bed, filled with terror. He could smell the stink of the mattress, the man pushing his face into it, his whiskey breath on his neck. Pain ripped through his small body. No, no, he wailed.

The cop pressed his knee into the small of his back, and roughly grabbed his left wrist to snap on the handcuff, sending a lightning bolt up through Danny's shoulder. Danny's other hand frantically felt in the snow for the hilt of the knife. His hand closed around it and he thrust the blade swiftly behind him, wanting only to stop the pain. To make the man go away. He found flesh. The cop shrieked and fell backwards, clutching his leg.

"Shit, he stabbed me. He's got a knife."

Danny had begun to sit up, still holding the knife. The popping of bullets knocked him back, made his body jerk about on the ground and sent sprays of blood over the pure white snow.

The uniformed men looked down at the still body, silent now. Others came to look, were told to get back. Two cops had their guns still drawn, as if the fallen man might only be feigning his death and would leap up at any second, wielding his knife.

Three of the faces in the small crowd that was fast growing belonged to Detectives Tom O'Neal, Glen Aiken and Lynne Addison. They were at the police department when the call came in from the bar that a man fitting Babineau's description had just killed Earl Parker.

One of the officers broke from the group and walked over to a cruiser, reached for the microphone inside and spoke into it. Another officer put on a latex glove, picked up the knife and slipped it into an evidence bag. It was then that he heard the faint knocking. He turned head. "What was that?"

"The trunk," Lynne cried out. "Oh, my God, someone open the trunk."

Now the others heard the knocking, too. Faint, very faint. But definite. The officer found the keys in Babineau's jacket pocket, and opened the trunk.

"Help me," the young woman inside whispered up at him. "Please, help me."

Seventy-Six

One Year Later

Caroline smiled at the woman. "This is a great book, Mrs. Tompkins," she said, as she rang in the sale. "You'll love it."

"Thank you, dear," the woman said. "And thanks for the recommendation; you've never let me down yet."

Caroline had been working in Mr. Goldman's bookstore for four months now, and she loved it. Mr. Goldman was training her in all aspects of running a bookstore. He came to the hospital to visit her and offered her the job, telling her he'd thought she was the perfect person to take over for him when he went to Florida next winter, and the winters following, with an option to buy down the road, if she was interested. Because she'd needed physiotherapy after the long hours in the trunk during which she had been unable to straighten her legs, she couldn't accept the job right way. But he'd waited for her.

Now and then she still had faint stabs of pain in her legs, though not for a while now, and the limp was barely noticeable. Sometimes she still had bad dreams of being locked in the trunk of a car, or being chased with a knife, and woke up in a panic, soaked with perspiration, her heart hammering, but the bad dreams too came less and less as time passed. She had many people to thank for her recovery.

Detectives Tom O'Neal and Glen Aiken were her first visitors in the hospital the day she'd been transferred back to St. Simeon General. They'd been so kind to her. She'd received hundreds of cards offering good wishes, and 'get well soons' from friends and strangers alike.

Last week, she'd been both surprised and pleased to see Detective O'Neal's engagement to Gloria Clark-Breen in the paper. She hoped they'd be happy.

Caroline admired her own lovely diamond in the light from the window; Jeffery had given it to her on Valentine's day. They would be married in June. Jeffrey had come very close to dying from the stab wounds he'd received, but thankfully recovered, though it was a slow process. He lost a lot of blood and the surgery was major. They were in the hospital at the same time and visited one another's rooms, shuffling up and down the corridors, until they were both well enough to go home.

Jeffrey's mother was a lovely woman and Caroline got on well with her. Jeffrey said she was thrilled with the upcoming wedding. She was much better these days, but Caroline thought that probably had more to do with the gentleman friend she'd been seeing, a retired school teacher, then any wedding. Love could work powerful magic.

She also had a new kitten to love, Misty, one of the latest balls of fur with blue eyes. Caroline shared her room and her heart and didn't worry anymore about someone taking her away.

Caroline was feeling particularly good today, if also on pins and needles, but for a different reason. She would be seeing her daughter this afternoon. Lynne had arranged with the adopted mother to bring her daughter into the store. There would be no formal introduction, the woman had said, but she wasn't closed to a meeting when Beth (she had kept the name Elizabeth) was older, and ready to make that decision on her own. Beth had known from a young age that she was adopted.

Oddly enough, she'd been watching the evening news a couple of months back and saw William, Elizabeth's father, on the screen. He had become a prosecuting attorney. He still had the same kind face, if made slightly sterner by his vocation, though most of his lovely fair silken hair was gone. She felt only that pleasant sensation one feels upon seeing someone you've known and cared for once. A very long time ago.

Caroline knew neither the last name of Elizabeth's adoptive parents, nor where they lived, and that was fine with her. The woman was being more than generous, and Caroline was grateful for the blessing she was being given. She would, of course, give no sign that she was anything but a clerk in a bookstore. Nothing to give away what was in her heart.