The Piper

by Lynn Hightower

  ‘You can have mine. My office is just around the corner, I can walk.’

  ‘Walk? This from the woman who has extreme claustrophobia, but still takes the elevator rather than climb the stairs?’

  ‘I’ll walk, Amelia, it’s not that far.’

  ‘Okay, then. Be sure you make that appointment with the shrink. Especially after what happened at the hospital, with that Dr McClintock. She called my office, and checked up on you, Olivia, did I tell you that?’

  ‘God. No, you didn’t.’

  ‘The bottom line here, Livie, is that you need to get Teddy in counseling for two reasons. One she really needs it, and two, you need to cover your ass. If that McClintock bitch took the step of calling my office, then there’s an official record of what happened. So now there’s a paper trail. You need to be seen as being a proactive, careful mom. Look, I’m dead on my feet, I’m heading up to bed. But before I head up, pull out your laptop and google that name, will you? Decan Ludde, wasn’t it? I want to know if maybe Teddy is pulling stuff off the Internet.’

  Olivia hunched over the laptop and keyed Decan Ludde into the search engine. Waited. Squinted at the screen. ‘How weird. Look what came up. The Pied Piper of Hamelin.’

  ‘That kid story?’

  Olivia’s fingers trembled over the keyboard. She began to read, bit her lip, and looked up at Amelia. ‘OK. So evidently The Pied Piper was more than just some poem by Robert Browning. It was based on an actual event in Hamelin, Germany during the Middle Ages. When a whole village of children disappeared.’

  Amelia grabbed Olivia’s shoulder. ‘But isn’t that what your brother said in his phone call? You told me that, didn’t you? That he paid the piper, so everything would be OK.’

  ‘Yeah. Amelia, did I tell you what they’re doing for Teddy’s third grade play? The Pied Piper. Teddy’s going to be a rat, she brought home the school instructions for her costume this week.’

  ‘Take it easy, Livie, it’s just a fairy tale.’

  ‘Is it? Really? Maybe Charlotte has a point. She won’t let Annette be in the play.’

  ‘But doesn’t it say anything about what happened to those kids? Surely somebody has theories.’

  Olivia scrolled the computer screen. ‘There’s a theory that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile, kidnapping children and using them in unspeakable ways. Some of them were found dismembered and scattered, or hanging from the branches of trees. Or were never seen again.’

  ‘So what they’re saying is the Pied Piper of Hamelin was a serial killer? Why did it come up for that name, Decan Ludde?’

  Olivia rubbed her forehead. ‘Decan Ludde of Hamelin, 1384. It looks like he may or may not have been a priest. They can’t trace him. But he supposedly had some kind of chorus book with a Latin verse giving an eyewitness account of what happened. There was a stained glass window in the church in Hamelin, circa 1300 – evidently a sort of memorial.’ She frowned at the keyboard. ‘Oh, God. Listen to this – it’s in the town chronicles from 1384. “It is ten years since our children left.”’

  ‘That sounds so sad. And so creepy.’

  ‘Put the pieces together, Amel. The Pied Piper is all about making deals. That’s why they call it paying the piper. So Chris and Jamison and Bennington go to this haunted sanatorium the night before their wrestling match. They go into the Death Tunnel where all the bodies went, back when it was an active hospital. And in the most haunted place in America, this Death Tunnel is where they went. The center of paranormal activity.’

  Amelia sat back down, staring out the window into the night. ‘The next day they each win every match in their wrestling competition. They all get scholarships.’

  ‘Right. They get what they ask for. And then Jamison has his car accident and suffers this closed head injury, so for Jamison the scholarship becomes nothing more than a cruel joke.’

  ‘And your brother Chris?’

  ‘Comes home in happy triumph only to find his sister has disappeared.’

  ‘Because they have to pay the piper,’ Amelia whispered.

  ‘Right. And afterwards, my brother, Chris, is wracked with guilt, like somehow it’s all his fault. And he won’t take that scholarship. Like maybe he doesn’t deserve it. Or it’s tainted.’

  ‘So what are you telling me here, Livie? That all of them made some kind of deal with this Decan Ludde thing, whatever it is?’

  ‘Look at the pattern, Amel. Say my brother made a deal, all those years ago, and learns a hard lesson. He gets what he wants but the price is too high. Then he leaves this thing he attracted somehow at the Waverly, whatever it is, he leaves it alone. But then. Then his little girl, Janet, is deathly ill.’

  Amelia put a hand to her chin. ‘So he’s a desperate father who will do anything to save his daughter. You’re saying he made another deal.’

  ‘Look how it played out. Janet is suddenly okay, but Chris doesn’t sleep, he loses sixty pounds, he has nightmares and can’t sleep. He makes his family move out of the house.’

  ‘He’s afraid.’

  ‘Right. He knows he’s going to have to pay. Which is exactly what he told me in the phone call. He had to pay the piper.’

  ‘I wonder what happened to the Bennington guy,’ Amelia said. ‘Do you think Charlotte knows any details about him?’

  ‘I think she knows more than she’s said.’

  Amelia put a hard hand on Olivia’s shoulder. ‘You might want to keep some distance between you and this sister-in-law, Livie. Remember, all of this started up when this was her house.’

  ‘That won’t be a problem. She treats Teddy and I like we’re . . . infected.’

  ‘Yeah. But Teddy picked up a lot of nasty ideas from that cousin of hers. Maybe they’re the ones infected. Not you.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  For the first time since Livie had come home to Knoxville, she was able to clear her mind and concentrate on work. Having Amelia at the house made things better. Amelia was smart, and practical, she loved Teddy like her own, and she had a way of tackling problems that made them seem doable. Olivia did not feel so alone.

  If Amelia thought that Teddy was going through a normal phase of adjustment, then Olivia would ride it out. It was parenting. It was life.

  The day got off to a wobbly start when Olivia’s assistant called in sick. Olivia had three morning appointments stacked one after the other, and she made a pot of coffee, her thoughts jumping from a tally of the commissions she was going to need to make her bills this month, to kissing McTavish on the front porch the night before, to imagining Amelia and Teddy having ice cream at the soda fountain at Long’s.

  But the office was more cheerful without Robbie’s air of disapproval and Olivia relaxed and let the phones go to voice mail. One of the clients, a retired elderly teacher, had a windfall from a lottery ticket, and she wanted to invest.

  ‘You ought to travel and have some fun,’ Olivia told her.

  But the woman shook her head. ‘I’ll be getting some new curtains for the kitchen. But I want a safe little nest egg for my grandchildren. Do you think I should play the market with all that short selling stuff?’

  ‘No, ma’am, I think we should find you some safe and boring bonds or a guaranteed annuity.’

  ‘That was a test question, young lady. You are now officially hired.’

  Olivia’s lunch hour came and went with no time to eat, but by two the clients had left satisfied and she had miraculously made her sales quota for another month. Time to savor the moment. She closed her office door, leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, and had an entire ninety seconds of peace before the bells jangled on the front door. She reluctantly slid back into her shoes and stuck her head around the corner of her office, thinking she smelled pizza.

  McTavish was heading toward her down the little hallway, smiling, hair mussed from the wind and a Red Onion pizza box under one arm. He wore gray flannel trousers and a French blue oxford shirt with white cuffs.

  ‘I took a ch
ance you might be free for lunch,’ he said, then put the pizza box on the front counter and looked at her over one shoulder. He was giving her that half smile he had, and Olivia wondered if she’d been on his mind that morning as much as he’d been on hers.

  Olivia flipped the Open sign to Closed and locked the front door. ‘My stomach was growling so much during my last appointment I had to keep scooting my chair around to cover up the noise. I’m glad to see you. Come on back. I’ve got coffee, bottles of water, and Coke.’

  ‘Coke it is.’

  McTavish had put the pizza box on the side table next to her desk and was hanging his jacket over the back of a chair as she came out of the little kitchenette with two icy red cans of Coke. She could see the gun, holstered at his back. He took the cans out of her hand, and set them on the desk, then pulled her close and moved closer still to kiss her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you all morning,’ he said, voice low in her ear.

  Olivia sighed as he planted nibbling little kisses up and down her neck. She pushed in closer, and kicked her shoes off. McTavish sucked her lower lip gently into his mouth and ran his hands down her back, then lifted her skirt.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, running a finger around the lacy top of her stockings.

  He lifted her off her feet, and sat her on the edge of the desk, pushing her skirt up and out of the way, and pressing close, kissing her again, one hand moving up under her sweater and the other moving between her thighs.

  ‘Oh shit, McTavish.’

  ‘Oh shit yes, or oh shit no?’

  ‘Oh shit yes.’ Olivia caught her lip in her teeth, wondering if he was going to do that thing he used to do. She touched him through the cloth of his trousers, and began to unbuckle his belt.

  He had her bra unfastened, and the sweater up and over her head, and cupped her breasts in his hands as he put his head between her legs. Olivia bit the edge of the collar of his shirt, leaving little teeth marks where the point of the collar was securely buttoned down. She grabbed hold of his shoulders and shut her eyes tight, and he wrapped his arms around her waist so she could give herself over to the excruciating sweetness of the sensations that rippled like tiny little shocks making her legs tremble.

  He grabbed her suddenly, roughly, and pulled her off the desk, turning her so he could take her from behind, thrusting and pulling out slowly, one arm around her stomach pulling her in hard and tight.

  ‘This is really good pizza,’ Olivia said. ‘What’s in the other box?’

  ‘Baklava.’

  They were sitting side by side with their backs to the desk, clothes back on but with the kind of telltale tangles and creases that could lead to speculation from coworkers.

  McTavish rooted through the pizza box for another slice. ‘You know that sweater you had on last night is pretty irresistible. I lay awake half the night thinking about you taking it off.’

  ‘Really? What about the sweater I have on now. You don’t like this one?’

  ‘I thought it was the same sweater.’

  Olivia winced and shifted sideways, reaching under her leg for whatever it was that was causing her pain, coming up with a white plastic fork. ‘So this is a baklava slash pizza joint?’

  McTavish nodded, chewing thoughtfully. ‘Pretty much. They deliver, by the way, and they’re just a couple of blocks from your house. Jamison and I order out there all the time. Oh, hey.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘I got some information for you. You know that guy you asked me to check out last night? That old buddy of your brother’s? That Bennington guy?’ He handed her a scrap of paper from a memo pad. ‘Background check looks fine, he’s married, got a couple kids. Here’s his phone number. I called a couple times around noon, but no luck.’

  ‘He’s probably at work,’ Olivia said.

  McTavish frowned. ‘Maybe.’

  Olivia cocked her head sideways. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Just that the first time I called somebody actually picked up, but didn’t say anything. The second time, no answer. But, you know, sometimes people get freaked when they see Knoxville PD on the caller ID. Maybe you should call him,’ McTavish said. ‘Or better yet, just leave the whole Waverly thing alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, come on, Olivia. You’re home, you got a new job. A beautiful daughter, and me bringing you pizza for lunch. What more could a woman want?’

  Olivia stuck the scrap of paper under her desk blotter, thinking maybe McTavish was right.

  McTavish was gone by three thirty, and though Olivia unlocked the front door and turned the Open sign back around, nobody wandered in, and the phones were quiet. She waited till the market closed at four, imagining Teddy and Amelia at Long’s Drug Store, digging into hot fudge sundaes. Something chocolate would be good right about now. Right about anytime, actually. If they were still there, she could join them. She’d pulled her weight in the office today.

  But Amelia didn’t answer the phone.

  Olivia changed to her walking shoes, leaving her heels under the desk. Gathered up the trail of tissues she had somehow shed from doorway to desk. Long’s was just a block and a half away. She’d surprise them.

  She locked the office up, double checking both the front and back door, then headed down to the corner, waiting for the light to change. Her briefcase was heavy. When the walk signal came on, she hesitated. It bothered her that Amelia hadn’t answered the phone. And she’d confiscated Teddy’s cell phone, so she could not call her daughter direct. She dialed Amelia’s number again.

  The connection was jumpy – it was windy out, but the sky was clear. The phone rang six times, with no answer.

  The light changed again, and Olivia went left instead of right, turning the corner and heading down the wide sidewalk to her house. She was being ridiculous, of course. Stupid to be worried on an afternoon when the sun was shining. A man walking a mastiff passed her by, and grinned and said sorry when the dog tried to put a nose up her skirt. Olivia thought about McTavish and felt her cheeks go pink. A man and a woman, both in motorized wheelchairs, swooped past her like lovebirds in flight. There were section eight apartments up the road, niches for the disabled, and those struggling with the recession and keeping their children fed on jobs that paid minimum wage. Jamison lived there, two blocks northeast.

  Which meant McTavish would be close by quite a lot, Olivia thought.

  Olivia passed the stone wall next to her house and hesitated. Her car was parked right next to the garage, canted a bit to the left, where she’d left it the night before. Olivia headed up the steep asphalt drive. Could Amelia possibly still be asleep? Had she remembered to pick Teddy up after school?

  Olivia began to run toward the house, catching a flash of movement from the front porch. Maybe the stray dog she and Teddy had seen, but it was gone by the time she made it up to the door.

  Which was closed, but unlocked.

  Olivia went in slowly, warily. It felt somehow wrong in the house. Her heartbeat picked up and the mom fear, always a breath away, was making her stomach clench. Olivia could hear Winston barking in the backyard and the scrabble of his toenails as he whined at the back kitchen door. Teddy’s backpack was on the floor next to the coffee table, along with her pale yellow sweatshirt, that had been wadded and tossed on the couch. She took a breath. So Teddy was home then. Home safe from school.

  ‘Teddy?’ Olivia said. ‘Amelia?’

  Olivia picked Teddy’s backpack up, to set it on the couch, and something fell out of the side pocket and hit the floor. Chalk. A piece of blue chalk. Olivia thought about Teddy’s name newly scribbled on the ceiling stud in the bathroom upstairs. Could Teddy have done that? How? Even with a ladder she wouldn’t be tall enough.

  The house was quiet, but oddly present. Olivia thought about what Teddy had said the night before, that she and Winston were being watched. She was glad for Winston’s sake that he was out in the yard, but it was strange that Teddy had not let him back in. She dropp
ed her briefcase to the floor and headed up the hardwood stairs. It was dim upstairs, no lights on at all. Amelia’s orange flip flops were in the hallway, right outside the bathroom door. Amelia was obsessively neat. It was odd for her to leave her shoes like that, out in the hall.

  Olivia thought to call out again, but didn’t. She moved quietly. Not even a creak of the floor. She listened for voices. Maybe Amelia and Teddy had simply walked. It was, after all, a beautiful day. Maybe they’d forgotten Winston, and left him out in the yard.

  Olivia paused in the hallway, listening. Something – the tiniest gurgle of noise, like water lapping against the side of the tub. The bathroom door was open.

  It took a full moment for her brain to register and her mind to accept everything that she saw. Water on the floor, a lot of it, as if someone had struggled mightily to get out of the tub. Amelia, naked, twisted sideways, her head under water, her hair undulating gently. And Teddy. Standing at the foot of the bathtub. Holding tight to Amelia’s feet.

  ‘Oh my sweet Jesus God.’

  Olivia’s words broke the spell. Teddy began to sob and shake, and Olivia pushed her out of the way and stepped into the tub, the water drenching her shoes, her panty hose and the bottom of her skirt.

  ‘Oh, Mommy, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. I think Dr Amelia is dead.’

  ‘Call nine one one, Teddy. My phone’s in my purse, it’s in the living room downstairs.’

  Teddy was wearing her monkey shirt today, a worn out favorite her father had given her, with a circle of chimps throwing bananas. Her hair was in pigtails and her shirtfront was drenched. Olivia was aware of every detail as she listened to her daughter’s frantic scramble down the stairs.