The Dells

by Michael Blair

  “He’ll be angry,” Ruth whispered.

  “Who?” Rachel asked. “Who’ll be angry?”

  Ruth shook her head as her fingers clutched at the front of the thin, tattered housecoat that hung to her ankles and looked as though it hadn’t been washed in a long time. She had shapeless cloth slippers on her feet, frayed and holed at the toes. Rachel was struck by the youthful smoothness of her complexion and the apparent robustness of her figure beneath the housecoat. She wasn’t at all the frail elderly waif Rachel had imagined her to be. Still, it was hard to believe that she was a year or two younger than Claudia Hahn.

  Rachel’s nose itched. The house smelled of dust, mouldy wallpaper, mildewed carpets, unwashed clothing, and stale cooking oil. The only illumination in the living room was provided by the dying evening light that leaked through rents in the heavy brocaded drapes drawn tight across the front windows. It was like being in a cave, albeit one furnished from the Sears catalogue, circa 1945. None of the furnishings seemed more recent, and many were older. There was no television, but a big multi-band console radio dating from the thirties stood against the wall beside the entrance to the dark dining room. The living room set, a long sofa and two matching easy chairs, was Victorian drab, seat cushions stained and sagging. Next to the empty brick fireplace sat a big nineteenth-century oak rolltop desk that would fetch $2,000 or $3,000 in any antique store in the city. On the other side of the fireplace stood a tall, glass-fronted sectional bookcase, crowded with books, most of which appeared to be leather-bound, titled in ornate, gold-leaf lettering. Religious texts, Rachel supposed.

  “Ruth, where are your sisters?” she asked.

  “Gone,” Ruth replied.

  “Gone where?”

  “With Mother and Father.” Rachel wondered if that meant they too were dead. “To Africa,” Ruth added, unhelpfully.

  The gloom deepened. Ruth’s slippers whispered as she crossed the carpet to the floor lamp by the end of the sofa. When she turned it on, the gloom was dispelled only somewhat by the low-wattage bulb.

  “Rachel,” Claudia Hahn said quietly. She gestured toward a table in the front hall, by the doorway to the kitchen. “Those seem a little out of place in this room, don’t you think?”

  Rachel looked closer. “They certainly do,” she said. She picked up the stack of three unlabelled recordable DVDs in slim jewel cases.

  With a suddenness that caught Rachel by surprise, Ruth leapt forward, snatched the discs from Rachel’s hand, and fled down the dark hall toward the back of the house. Rachel hesitated, then followed, Claudia on her heels, past darkened bedrooms. Suddenly, dazzlingly bright light blazed from the room at the end of the hall. Rachel blinked, eyes watering. When she could see again, she and Claudia went into the room. They found Ruth standing by a king-sized bed surrounded by powerful lights and video cameras on heavy tripods. The bed was covered with a blue fitted sheet, stained and rumpled and strewn with sex toys of every size and description: vibrators and dildos and bizarre objects whose function Rachel did not want to guess at. There were three DVD recorders and small colour TV screens in a rack against the wall, next to a desk on which sat a black IBM computer with a flat LCD monitor, a round webcam clipped to the upper edge. On the front of the computer, a light glowed, indicating that it was running. LEDs glowed on the front of a high-speed cable modem and a wireless router.

  “My god,” Claudia Hahn said.

  Rachel looked at Ruth. In the cruelly bright light, she could see bruises on her face and neck, and what appeared to be dried blood on her housecoat.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Ruth said. “He’ll be very angry.”

  “Who, Ruth?” Claudia said. “Who will be angry?”

  She didn’t answer. Nor did she resist when Rachel reached out and took the discs from her hand.

  “I don’t think I want to see what’s on that disc,” Claudia said, as Rachel went to the rack of video machines and turned one of them on. One of the little TVs also came to life, showing a blank blue screen. “In fact, I’m bloody certain I don’t want to see what’s on that disc,” Claudia added as Rachel pressed the button that opened the disc drawer of the machine.

  chapter forty-eight

  Janey opened the door in her underwear, pale and bleary-eyed.

  “I was asleep,” she said, as she climbed onto the bed and pulled the covers over her bare legs. The air conditioning was turned up high, and the room was chilly. “Where’d you go, anyway?” she asked. The empty plastic tub from the noodle place was on the bedside table, along with another empty miniature of vodka and can of tonic. The television flickered quietly on a music video channel.

  Shoe told her, then said, “Earlier you said it was your fault Cartwright went away? What did you mean by ‘If I’d told the truth’? Told the truth about what?” She didn’t answer and she wouldn’t look at him. “Janey?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She pointed the remote control at the television and raised the volume. A skinny white man in his twenties, wearing an oversized sports jersey and a baseball cap on sideways, intoned unintelligible lyrics while the music thudded and sweatshiny, scantily-clad, and surgically-enhanced women writhed and gyrated against him.

  “Did Freddy or Dougie know that Marvin knew they were sexually abusing you? Did they threaten to come after him if he took you with him? Is that why he left without you?”

  She didn’t answer. She just sat on the bed, head down, back bent. Shoe took the remote from her hand and turned off the television.

  “Hey.”

  “Look at me, Janey.”

  She shook her head, refusing to look up. He sat down beside her on the bed. Perhaps a little shock therapy was in order, he thought.

  “Did you kill Marvin Cartwright, Janey? Were you lying to me about being in Hamilton with your band? Did you meet him in the Dells last Thursday night and kill him because he didn’t take you with him when he left?”

  “No,” she said, almost inaudibly, hugging herself. There were goosebumps on her arms.

  “Tell me how it was your fault he left, then.”

  “Because I knew … ” She paused. Shoe waited, afraid that if he spoke, she might not go on. After a moment, she said, “They told me they’d kill me if I ever told. And kill whoever I told. They would have, too, so I never said anything. To anyone. I just let everyone think it was Marvin who’d raped Daphne, your teacher, and killed that black girl.” She looked at him. “Nice, eh?”

  “You were just a kid,” Shoe said.

  “I stopped being a kid the first time I let Dougie fuck me,” she said harshly.

  “He raped you,” Shoe said. Her breathing hitched. He gathered her into his arms. “It’s not the same thing. It’s not your fault.”

  He held her as she sobbed against his chest. It wasn’t long, though, before she abruptly pushed him away and sat up. “Christ, I hate weepy women,” she said, blotting her eyes with the corner of the bedsheet. Her makeup left dark smudges on the sheet.

  “Was it Freddy or Dougie?” Shoe asked when she’d regained her composure.

  “Dougie,” she said.

  “Did your mother or stepfather know?”

  She took a deep, unsteady breath. “They both knew. They lied to the police, told them Dougie was away on business with Freddy when Daphne and the teacher were raped. Freddy was actually proud of him. Can you believe that? Then he killed the black girl. Freddy beat the crap out of him for being so stupid, then told him he’d kill him if he didn’t stop. I guess he figured Dougie would eventually get caught and he didn’t want the heat. He told him he’d just have to be satisfied with me and my mother. Dougie’s lucky Freddy didn’t just kill him and bury him in the Dells. I wish he had,” she added.

  Shoe had always considered himself to be fairly tough-minded, but felt sick with anger and self-recrimination. His voice was hoarse when he said, “I’m so sorry I was too stupid to figure out what was happening to you, Janey.”

  “You were just a k
id too,” Janey said. “In some ways more of a kid than me. Anyway, what could you have done?” She threw back the covers and swung her legs off the bed. Her colour wasn’t good. “Excuse me a minute.” She fled into the bathroom and closed the door.

  He sat on the side of the bed, elbows on his knees, scrubbing his face with the palms of his hands. Through the bathroom door vents, he could hear Janey being sick. What could he have done? she’d asked. The answer was easy. More than likely he’d have tried his best to kill Dougie and his father, even if it meant going to prison. He’d have considered it a fair exchange.

  Janey came out of the bathroom. Her colour had improved, but she looked slack and de-energized. She slumped onto the bed beside him, pressing her shoulder against his, taking his left hand in both of hers, held it tight in her lap. The flesh of her thigh was cool against his wrist.

  “Are you up to answering a couple more questions?” he asked.

  “Sure. Why not? How much worse can it get?”

  “Was it Dougie who molested Marty?”

  Janey shook her head. “No. That time Dougie and Freddy really were away somewhere, fencing the stuff they stole, I suppose.”

  “Do you know who it was? Could it have been Joey?”

  “Joey? Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “After Freddy beat him up for killing Elizabeth Kinney,” Shoe said, forcing the words out, “was he ‘satisfied’ with raping you and your mother?”

  “For a while,” Janey said. Her hands were cold.

  “I don’t remember any more rapes with his MO in the Dells after Elizabeth Kinney,” Shoe said.

  “My memories of that time are pretty mixed-up,” she said. “Like when you wake up from a bad dream, you know, and it’s hard to tell what’s real and what was part of the dream. There was someone else, I think, before Daphne. Besides me and my mother, I mean. Whoever she was, she never reported it, but after Freddy and my mother were killed, I think Dougie raped her again. More than once.”

  “Do you know who she was?” Shoe asked, an icy coldness growing within him.

  “No,” Janey said. “For all I know, she doesn’t exist, that they really are my own memories, projected onto an imaginary person because I just can’t handle them. Or maybe it’s what one of my shrinks called confabulation, when you make up false memories to fill in the blanks. A lot of my childhood is like that. Blank.”

  “I don’t think she’s imaginary at all,” Shoe said. “I’m afraid she may be all too real.”

  “Then god help her,” Janey whispered.

  chapter forty-nine

  After watching a few seconds of the video recording, Rachel turned off the DVD machine. Bile burned in the back of her throat. Although he had been wearing a ridiculous Lone Ranger mask, there was no doubt in her mind that the man in the video with Ruth was Dougie Hallam.

  “We have to get her away from here,” Claudia said.

  “Ruth,” Rachel said. Ruth seemed not to hear, stood staring mutely at the bed. “Ruth,” Rachel said again. “Where are your sisters? Where are Naomi and Judith?”

  “Gone,” Ruth said. “To Africa. With Mother and Father.”

  “No, Ruth,” Rachel said sternly. “Your sisters are not with your parents in Africa.” She took a breath. “Your parents are dead, Ruth,” she said gently.

  “Mother and Father are dead.”

  “Yes, Ruth. That’s right. Your mother and father died in Africa a long time ago. You and your sisters have lived here alone for thirty years. Where are your sisters, Ruth? Are they here?”

  “Naomi and Judith are with Jesus,” Ruth said, with matter-of-fact calmness. “That’s what he said. They are with Mother and Father and Jesus. In Africa.”

  “Bloody hell,” Claudia whispered.

  “Who?” Rachel asked. “Who told you Naomi and Judith were with Jesus, Ruth?”

  “The man,” Ruth said.

  “What man? The man who hurts you? The man who makes you do things with him on that bed? Did he tell you your sisters were with Jesus and your parents?”

  “He sent them to be with Jesus because they were bad and wouldn’t do what they were told.”

  “Bloody hell,” Claudia said again, louder.

  Rachel shivered, but it wasn’t from cold.

  “Ruth,” she said sternly. She gripped Ruth’s arm. The woman looked at her, eyes wide. “Where are they, Ruth? Where did he put them?”

  Ruth stared at Rachel, expression flat, devoid of any emotion, or even intelligence, it seemed. When Rachel released her arm, Ruth turned and left the bedroom, shuffling down the hall toward the dark living room. Rachel and Claudia exchanged looks, then followed. Ruth went into the kitchen, then proceeded down the back stairs to the basement. There was a door at the bottom of the basement stairs. Ruth opened it. Rachel blinked as bright light spilled into the stairwell. A heavy, damp aroma filled her nostrils. Rachel followed Ruth through the doorway, to find herself at the edge of a small forest of tall plants in big plastic pots. The plants gleamed a lustrous green under clusters of glaring 150-watt bulbs.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Claudia said from behind her.

  “If you think it’s a marijuana grow-op,” Rachel said, perspiring in the stifling heat and humidity, “then, yes, it’s exactly what you think it is.”

  Once the basement may have been finished like the basement in her parents’ home, but now the floor was painted concrete, scabbed and wet, and the walls had been stripped to the studs and lined with heavy-duty polyethylene plastic. Similarly, the ceiling was lined with reflective Mylar plastic stapled to the joists. A sprinkler system constructed of black PVC tubing was suspended from the ceiling, sprinkler heads hanging below the lights. The PVC tubing was connected to a complex system of valves and what appeared to be a timing device installed over the deep concrete double sink against the wall. Bottles and bags of garden fertilizer were stacked on the floor by the sink. An old clothes washer stood next to the sink, enamel streaked with rust and ugly green stains.

  “Ruth,” Rachel said. “Why did you bring us here?” Ruth didn’t answer. She stared silently at nothing. No, not nothing, Rachel realized, following Ruth’s gaze. She was looking at an irregular patch of the grey-painted concrete floor that was less uniformly smooth than the rest of the floor. The rougher area was about six feet long and three feet wide.

  Despite the heat and humidity, Rachel’s flesh puckered as a chill ran down her spine, and the fine hairs on her forearms actually stood on end. She looked around. Through the thick forest of marijuana plants she saw a rusting wheelbarrow leaning against a far wall. She made her way through the plants, which swayed and rustled as she pushed between them. Propped against the wall next to the wheelbarrow were a heavy pickaxe, a garden hoe, and a flat-bladed spade. The rusted blades of the hoe and spade were caked with a pebbly grey substance. Grasping the handles of the up-ended wheelbarrow, she lowered it. It was inordinately heavy. The barrow was thickly lined with the same pebbly grey material that caked the blades of the hoe and spade. She scraped at it with a fingernail. It was hardened concrete.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  “What is it?” Claudia asked, still standing by the door with Ruth.

  “They’re here,” Rachel said. “They’re buried under the floor.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Claudia said.

  “No shit,” Rachel responded, beating her way through the jungle of marijuana plants toward the door. Then she saw something above the door that made her stomach clench and her heart leap into her throat. Momentarily paralyzed with fear, she thought, How could I have been so stupid? Of course Hallam would have a security system to protect and monitor his investment.

  “What?” Claudia asked, looking up. “What is it?”

  “Move, move!” Rachel cried, pushing Ruth and Claudia through the door toward the stairs. “That’s a wireless webcam, tied into the computer upstairs. There’s another webcam in the bedroom. Go! He’s been watching us all along.”

 
; Ruth fell on the stairs. Rachel hauled her roughly to her feet. She whimpered like a recalcitrant child as Rachel pushed her up the stairs. She cried out as the back door suddenly opened and Dougie Hallam stepped onto the landing. He loomed above them. Rachel and Claudia retreated to the bottom of the stairs.

  “I tried to tell them,” Ruth wailed, quailing before him, clawing at his boots. “I tried to stop them. He’ll be angry, I said.”

  “Shut up,” Hallam said, kicking out at her, sending her scuttling away. He slammed the back door shut, twisted the inside deadbolt, and yanked out the key. Grabbing Ruth and thrusting her into the kitchen, he said, “You two might as well come up. There’s no way out down there. C’mon now. Don’t make me come down there and get you. You won’t like it.”

  Cautiously, fearfully, Rachel and Claudia ascended the stairs. Hallam stood aside, ever the gentleman, allowing them to precede him into the kitchen. As if reading each other’s minds, Rachel and Claudia simultaneously bolted toward the front door, but Hallam must have read their minds too; he caught them before they’d gone half a dozen steps. Holding each of them by the upper arm, handling them as easily as if they were children, he dragged them down the hall and threw them into a bedroom across the hall from the makeshift studio. He thrust Ruth in with them.

  “Gimme that,” he demanded, gesturing to Claudia’s bag, slung across her shoulders.

  Claudia handed it to him. He pawed through it, took out her cellphone and dropped it to the floor. He stomped it to shards. Throwing the bag aside, he looked at Rachel. She held out her arms. She wasn’t carrying a purse.

  “Pockets,” he said.

  She turned out the front pockets of her jeans, turned so he could see the back pockets.

  Satisfied, he left the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Rachel heard the snap of a lock, but tried the door anyway. It was no use.

  “What are we going to do?” Claudia asked, retrieving her bag from the floor.

  Rachel went to the window and parted the dusty drapes. A piece of heavy construction plywood covered the window, screwed to the frame every six to eight inches. Even with the proper tools, it would take time to remove it.