Night Terror (29 page)

51

RICHARD COULDN’T SEE
out of his right eye. It stung like blazes and his throat felt as though someone had fired a bottle rocket down it. He’d twisted his knee and a couple of ribs were beginning to ache every time he drew a breath. But Merle was in worse shape.

The battle had been brief and Richard’s emotions had careened from mind-numbing terror to murderous rage. At times he’d been certain that Merle was about to kill him. He’d struggled wildly, gouging Merle’s eyes with his fingernails, grasping the man’s throat between broken fingers, kneeing, punching, head-butting. At other moments he was afraid that he was going to murder Merle and there seemed to be no stopping himself.

Merle had a torn cheek where Richard had bitten his lip, and part of Merle’s ear hung away from his skull. But there was little strength left in the man, and now he had Richard’s knee on his abdomen and both of Richard’s hands around his throat. It was only when Richard saw the light fading from Merle’s eyes that the fire went out of him and he eased his grip on the man’s soft larynx, removing both thumbs from Merle’s bobbing Adam’s apple. Slowly Merle began to cough and shake and some color returned to his cheeks.

A noise to Richard’s right caused him to jerk and he spun, trying to make out the shadowy figure silhouetted against the stars. At first he thought it was Audrey, but then
his eyes adjusted and he stared in shocked disbelief, barely able to speak. “Tara, what are you doing here?”

“I saw your car out front.”

Merle shook beneath him. “You!” shouted Merle, pointing a shaky finger at Tara.

Richard saw the light of recognition in Tara’s eyes. “You know each other?” he said, struggling weakly to his feet.

“Yes,” she said, stepping away from Richard and removing a small automatic pistol from the back of her pants.

“Tara, what…” sputtered Richard.

She shot Merle once in the forehead and once in the chest before Richard could blink.

“My… my God,” he gasped.

“Yes. Pity you had to murder poor Merle.”

“What?”

“Where did Audrey go?”

“Tara, you just shot that man!”

Tara aimed the pistol directly at Richard’s face. “Take me to Audrey.”

“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

She fired a shot over Richard’s shoulder and he jerked. “I don’t have time to waste, Richard. Take me to Audrey. Now!”

52

VIRGIL FILLED THE COFFEEMAKER
, not paying attention to what he was doing, spilling water over the counter. He glanced at the spot where Doris had fallen and he almost broke the glass pot, shoving it back into the machine. He locked his hands on the countertop and took a deep breath. Doris had almost died right there. If he hadn’t come home when he did, she
might
have died. Right there. On the goddamned kitchen floor! And she looked like hell. Like there was nothing left inside her. He rested his head in his hands and tried to calm himself.

It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten out of bed and fallen when he was gone. During the first few weeks being house-ridden it had irked her, coming to terms with the new realities of life. She hated being an invalid. But lately she hadn’t had much strength, so he at least hadn’t worried about her going down the stairs. The thought that she might have taken a worse spill, that she might have tumbled down that long flight while he was away, made him physically ill.

He dropped into a chair at the table, waiting for the coffee. A car honked somewhere downtown and he thought once again of the fire. He couldn’t get the look he had witnessed in Mac’s eyes out of his head. Why would a man like Mac commit murder or suicide? Even with a gun on her, why would Babs pour gasoline over herself like it was baby lotion? Surely she had to know it would have been better to
get shot than to burn to death. When the fire blasted them, they knew. Wherever Mac was before that instant, when the heat scorched his skin, he was awake then.

The phone rang and when he answered it, Charlie was on the line.

“I did what I could,” he said. “But whatever Tara Beals was into at Perkins, most of it is buried real deep. I have an old friend on the inside and he got me what little info I could dig up.”

“The inside?”

“Well, some people way back used to call it the
Company.
It’s in better favor now than it was then, okay?”

“Okay. So tell me.”

“Tara Beals was the last researcher involved in something called Project LongLook.”

“Long-distance viewing?”

“Yeah, right. I told you”—Charlie sounded like he was sipping coffee, or maybe something stronger—“Project LongLook was one of those sixties leftovers that somebody in the government kept funding forever, even though cooler heads had long since declared it a waste of time. During the sixties or seventies, word got around that the Russians were experimenting on mind control and ESP, and this longdistance viewing baloney. He claimed Tara’s group actually had results where people could locate buildings and rivers and stuff they had never seen before, just by being told to focus on a certain area.”

“It worked?”

“Evidently.”

“But they stopped it?”

“Well, it was never any more accurate than the information they could get from spy planes and satellites and spies. I guess the technology outstripped the spooks. And he said it was never all that reliable. If you’re going to start a nuclear war, you don’t want somebody coming in thirty minutes later and telling the president it might have been church steeples he was seeing and not ballistic missiles. Beals was the last one to lose her funding. My friend didn’t know why, except that she must have had friends in high places.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. Beals was working on mind control. Drugs. Hypnosis. That was a different project and I couldn’t get much out of my buddy about that one. Just talking about it made him real nervous. The way he talked, Tara’s research made even his people nervous.”

“Why?”

“I think maybe her methods weren’t all that nice.”

“What kind of mind control?”

“How many kinds are there? Hypnosis, I suppose. That’s her specialty.”

“Everybody I talk to tells me you can’t control someone with hypnosis. At least you can’t make them do anything they wouldn’t do when they were awake.”

“Yeah, well I think Beals got around that by using drugs. Apparently there was something fishy about her
treatment
of some of the patients at Perkins. It was hushed up, but she lost her license. Whatever she was working on, my buddy got
real
nervous talking about it. I kind of got the idea her system might have worked
too
good.”

“How could it do that?”

“Maybe they were afraid she’d get so good at it she’d start using it on them.”

“Mmm. So what we have here is a doctor who knows how to control people using drugs and hypnosis.”

“Yeah. And she likes to play around with ESP.”

“Why would she do that at a hospital for mentally disturbed patients?”

“Got me. Maybe crazy people are easier to work with. And mind control there might be a
good
thing. Who’s going to talk? And if they do, who’s going to believe them?”

Virgil thought of Cooder and shuddered.

“Anything new on your end?” asked Charlie.

“Mac Douglass killed a woman in town a little while ago. Killed himself at the same time.”

“Shit. Mac?”

“Yeah.”

There was a short pause and another sip. “You thinking Beals had something to do with it?”

“Maybe. I’d like to see the autopsy after they’re checked for drugs.”

If they got enough out of the blaze to autopsy.

“Might not be any evidence. I got enough out of my buddy to get the idea that the drugs were only required in the beginning to break down the patient’s will. After that, it was all just hypnosis.”

“Great.”

“I’ll keep digging, but I think I might have hit rock bottom on the info well.”

“Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it.”

“Say hello to Doris.”

“Yeah.”

Virgil hung up and called the station. The dispatcher answered on the third ring. “Are you all right, Sheriff? Birch said you looked a little shaken.”

“I’m fine. Who’s on call?”

“Birch is still at the fire. Bob’s investigating a possible firearm discharge in South Eden. That’s probably just a night hunter. I could call Mike at home. What’s up?”

“Call out
all
the deputies and make the search for Doctor Tara Beals top priority.”

“Are we charging her?”

“Just bring her in. I’ll make it up as I go along if I have to.”

“Okay, Sheriff.”

Tara Beals hypnotized Audrey to make her forget. What else did she do to her while she was under? Did she use drugs on her and Mac and Babs, something to strengthen the hypnotic suggestions? And what was so terrible in Audrey’s past that it
had
to be forgotten?

The sound of the coffee hissing into the pot reminded him of Mac and Babs’s skin, singing under the flames. Instead of the aroma of French roast, his nose was assaulted by the stench of burning flesh and he flinched. What did this all have to do with Zach Bock? Tara had been working on a lot of weird shit at Perkins. Messing with people’s minds. But Perkins closed before Zach Bock was born.

And what about Audrey’s mother? Where was she? The state had granted Tara custody of Audrey, after all. Maybe he was making this too complicated.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, holding it under his nose and sniffing deeply to rid himself of the hateful odor in his mind. He sipped it black, relishing the sting on his tongue and the bitter flavor.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he muttered.

“Neither do I,” said Marg through the screen door.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on in.”

She waddled through and plunked herself across a kitchen chair, accepting the coffee he handed her.

“Doris all right now?” asked Marg.

“She’s conscious, if that’s what you mean.”

“She didn’t break anything?”

“Doesn’t seem hurt. Just more run-down than I’ve ever seen her.”

Marg made certain she had eye contact before she spoke. “It won’t be long now, Virg. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, turning away.

She slipped her wide hand over his. “You did everything for Doris a man could do. She could never have wished for a better husband.”

He nodded, but his brain was seething. Doris was dying. She could go at any minute. He had sensed it in the way she spoke, the weariness in her eyes, the low rasping of her breath. He should be with her right now, not sitting in the kitchen calmly drinking coffee with Marg. But there was something else torturing him as well, something he’d missed about Tara Beals, something simple that he should have grasped immediately. Doris’s health had ruined him as a cop, but his old police instincts wouldn’t be denied.

“Virgil, you need to get some rest,” said Marg, squeezing his hand. She set her coffee cup down on the table.

He shook his head. “I’m trying to put it together in my head. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s too many threads that all end up in the same weave for it to be just coincidental. Mac wasn’t a murderer and when I saw him
something
was wrong with him. And for him and Babs to be at Perkins at the same time, well…”

“Something
doesn’t have to be hypnosis, Virgil. That’s a real longshot. I know Mac was your friend. But people do insane things that they don’t really mean to do. It happens all the time.”

“There’s a lot that you don’t know.”

“So tell me. Why would Mac kill Babs and himself?”

“I don’t know. Unless it has something to do with Tara Beals’ experiments at Perkins.”

“What kind of experiments?” said Marg, frowning.

“Tara was working for the government on classified stuff. Mind-control experiments. Babs worked there and Mac was treated there.”

“And Tara wanted to cover them up? The experiments?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Perkins has been closed for years.”

“Maybe Mac and Babs just remembered.”

“After all this time?”

“What if Tara made them forget and something just reawakened the memories?”

“Like what?”

Virgil poured himself another cup of coffee from the pot on the table and stared into the swirling blackness.

“Audrey Bock,” said Virgil. “She’s Tara’s niece. Tara Beals took her away from her mother when she was young and then hypnotized her to help her forget her traumatic childhood. Audrey went to Babs for a reading. Maybe she mentioned Tara Beals. Who knows what she mentioned? Maybe something in those dreams she’s been having triggered something in Babs’s head. But I think it got back to Tara and Tara didn’t like it.”

“But what about Mac? Mac didn’t know anything about Audrey.”

Virgil frowned. “Not until I asked him to start investigating Audrey’s past.”

“You asked him to investigate Audrey?”

Virgil nodded. “And he led me along, aiming me at Audrey’s mother when it was Tara Beals I should have been investigating. I think she was controlling Mac all along.”

“You make Tara Beals sound like some kind of voodoo witch doctor.”

“Maybe she is. I think she did something at Perkins that she doesn’t want to be discovered.”

“But Audrey was never at Perkins. Was she?”

“I don’t think so.”

He sipped the bitter coffee; thoughts twisted and merged like dark swirling clouds in the back of his head. Doris. Babs. Mac. Doris. Audrey. Tara. What the hell was it he’d missed? Something Ken had said. Mac had come in looking all drugged up and bought four gas cans. Ken said a woman
who fit Tara Beals’ description had spoken to Mac. But it wasn’t that. It was something else. Ken said when Mac came back he carried three gas cans into Babs’s house.

Three.

Not four.

“Shit!” he said, flinging the coffee cup into the sink, shattering it.

“What?”

“Watch Doris!” said Virgil, heading for the door. “I’m such an idiot!”

“Where are you going?”

“The Bocks! She’ll go after Audrey next!”