by Ed Helenski
“You heard me, BaBa.” Her eyes flashed at the use of this pejorative nickname. The white light behind her went out, leaving the flickering orange light from the other room, and the glare of my flashlight. “You are one disgusting pervert. Oh sure, you can go on all you want about being on some crusade. You always did like crusades, didn’t you? No nose rings, no belly shirts, no fucking makeup.” I was on a roll, and my voice grew stronger as I went. “And the whole while you are out here playing with little girls. Oh, let’s face it Babs, you were fucking little girls.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She yelled, waving the gun at me and even taking a half step towards me. That was what I wanted, to give Mags a chance. She still hadn’t come in, I hoped to God she hurried it up. “I didn’t! I just took the little sluts and sent them to hell. I had to get them to come here and prove they were the tramps I knew they were. I was just bringing justice.” Her face was contorted and angry. In the harsh light of the flashlight it was distorted into something monstrous. I began to wonder if we weren’t dealing with a bogeyman after all.
“You can fool yourself if you want, but I saw your face just now. I saw the way you licked that blood off of Meg. You like it. You like the pain. You like the blood. You like the little girls. You killed your husband because he was as disgusted with you as I am.”
“That’s a lie! He just didn’t understand. And why would he? He was a sinner like them. He was fornicating. He had that little slut from out of town, that tramp Mistick girl. He gave me...” She trailed off, looking a little lost.
I pressed on, saving what she said for processing later. Right now I just wanted to keep her attention. And where the hell was Mags?
“Admit it Baba. You play for the other team. You like the ladies. No wonder Bert was fooling around on you. With his women, with his whores.” I was just making it up at this point, but it was having the desired effect. She was focused on me again. Though there was a clarity and sharpness to her eyes that I didn’t like. I went on “You know it’s true. He had to go to bed with real women because his wife was …” I tried to think of a good epithet, but the only one that came to mind was “a mop sucking, pedophilic whorebag.” Well, she got the idea anyway.
With a screech she brought the gun up in both hands pointed right at me. I was paralyzed with fear, and felt my stomach roll. If I got any more scared I was going to lose control of my bodily functions. Her voice was tight and hard when she spoke “You are so smart, Mr. Publisher, Mr. I can have all the women in town I want, but you are not so smart now, are you? I have done nothing wrong, I have been the arm of justice. And now it’s time for you to meet all the little tramps I sent to hell.” She stopped talking and took careful aim, leaving me looking straight down the barrel. I didn’t know what else to do, but the paralysis broke and I flung the flashlight at her.
A huge roar filled my ears as the light tumbled end over end, illuminating sections of the room. Time seemed to slow, and I saw Meg, screaming behind the tape, and Barbara, gun smoking in her hand. The room grew dark as the flashlight hit the floor and went out. I found myself on my knees, then tipping forward as the floor came up to meet me. Another roar pulsed in the small room, and the last thing I remember before the blackness was the smell of gunpowder in the air. Then nothing.
Chapter 22
The rest of what happened I pieced together from what Mags and Meg told me, the police reports, and simple speculation. It was certainly not the story I thought I was telling when I began this.
The next thing I recall from that night was coming to in Maggie’s arms. I was still in the basement, and the bogeyman lay face down on the floor, in her own pool of blood. Meg was wrapped in Maggie’s coat with her face towards the wall, shaking and crying. In shock, no doubt, and badly frightened. She was lucky, if you can call nightmares and depression lucky. With therapy, she might put this past her someday. Barbara had never gotten the chance to really do anything to her, what I saw happen was pretty much it, other than being tied up for a day, as if that weren’t enough.
Mags looked down at me, and I could see the fear on her face. “Hi honey” I said, and she broke into a smile.
“I called the troopers with your phone. They are gonna get here quick as they can, assuming they can find us. Are you doing ok?”
“Sure” I said, “Why shouldn’t I be?” I started to get up and promptly passed out again. Barbara’s shot had entered my thigh, leaving a neat hole in my leg. I was lucky, it missed the femoral artery, or I may well have bled to death. As it was the cold, the shock, all took their toll. She denies it, but I think Mags saved my life twice that night, once with her gun, and once with her caring.
The next thing in my memory is coming to in a hospital room. Maggie was sleeping in a chair next to the bed. My leg hurt like the fires of hell, but I felt alive, and that was the main thing. The doctors later told me it was a pretty minor wound, no bone, no major vessels. The shock was what nearly did me in, not blood loss.
The rest of the tale was pieced together from the various parties involved. The investigation continues, but the FBI took it over shortly after that night. The treeline behind the foundation of the old farmhouse was riddled with graves, more than a dozen at last count. I suspect that the day Mags and I saw the hairy bogeyman what we saw was Barbara, getting rid of evidence of digging. At least that’s my explanation; otherwise I have no idea why she was carrying that rock. Odds are we will never know.
The bodies haven’t all been identified yet; most of them are just bones. I have a feeling all the missing girls will be accounted for by the time they are done. The first one was probably their daughter, Emily, back in 1991. There was no diary, no journal, no explanation from beyond the grave of what Barbara was up to. So we really don’t know why she killed her daughter. But the odds are good that she got a taste for it with that one. Maybe Bertram knew about that one, maybe not. He isn’t talking.
The basement we fell into was normally accessed through a small hole that led to the stairs down. There was a heavy door that covered it, and she no doubt kept it camouflaged. That was the way Maggie got in. She saw a flicker of light while she was trying to find me, and just stumbled down. Then she heard the voices and crept up. The FBI says the floor of the place is saturated with blood, not all fresh. So my guess is that place was her abattoir all along.
Barbara is dead, of course. As dead as Bertram, and Reggie. Mags got her in the back of the head with that little .22. Damn good thing, too. She doesn’t want to talk about it, and I can’t blame her. Taking a life, even one like Barbara, cannot be easy. So we don’t talk about that.
Near as we can figure Reggie made his way down the list Maggie found. He talked to Chuck Peters, that much is certain, and to Mac Taylor as well. Neither said anything useful at the time, though they both no doubt admitted to having sex with Sioban. But nothing linked them to the other girls.
He must have gone out to confront Bertram. He would have had no reason to suspect Barbara, other than perhaps to think she knew and was covering. My guess is he went in after getting no answer, and found Bertram already dead. Maybe he heard the shot and went in. No one will ever know. But he was shot from behind, just like Maggie said. I asked her where she learned so much about wounds, and she said she read all of Patricia Cornwell’s books. Typical of Americans today. We are all lawyers from reading Grisham, we are all doctors from reading Robin Cook, and we are all forensic pathologists from reading Cornwell.
Mac Taylor held the only real surprise in all this. All along Sioban didn’t really fit into the mold. Yes, she was certainly a likely victim based on Barbara’s madness, but the evidence didn’t fit what had evidently been done to the other girls. And as it turned out, she wasn’t a victim of Barbara’s at all.
Mac finally admitted that Sioban had been with him during the time she was missing. He had a motel room in a little town on the way to Coudersport. He would drive up there every day and see her. He kept her happy with cocaine; she kept him happy in the usual way
. Maybe they had loved each other, maybe they both just used the other, no one will know. He went there one afternoon, and found her dead, apparently overdosing on the coke. The room had been rented by him, and he was afraid if the body turned up there he would be caught. So he dumped it in the woods. And got away with it.
His conscience finally did him in. The story of what happened to her was in his note, the one he left before going to the garage and starting his car with the door closed. Word is his wife Loiuse might have known about the affair, but didn’t say a word. She left town right after he died. I hear she is back together with Chuck Peters, with whom she was having an affair of her own. Just a rumor, once again we will never know.
The funniest thing is, the clues that led us to Bertram were false. He, nor his wife, had anything to do with Sioban dying. My belief is he had slept with the girl, and ended up with Chlamydia as a result. Having seen him around town, and at Dewey’s, it was clear he was catting around. And so, Barbara alienating Bert, and Bert stepping out, ended up leading to her downfall. A little late for Bert. For Reggie. For all those girls. Not so funny I guess.
I went out to Chessick Hills Cemetery when I was out of the hospital. Went to Reggie’s grave to let him know how things turned out. Then on a whim I found Elmer’s grave. Told him he could rest, the case was closed.
We never saw the Carrones again, either. We both wanted to thank them, but they had picked up stakes and moved out. The whole town is pretty much empty now. The Paul Bunyan closed. The school closed, the rest of the year those few kids left will be bussed to Siegly, which left Maggie out of work.
With both of us out of work, I decided I had better find something to do. That was when Mags told me she had been poking into my computer and found the emails from Larry. She started corresponding with him. She told me that Larry had talked with the editors at the Courant, and I could come back any time I wanted. Especially with a story like this one.
And so here we are back in Hartford. I haven’t started back at the Courant yet, but I guess I will soon. We have had a three month honeymoon, and that is more than most folks get. Yes, Mags and I got married, in Apollo. It’s nice to have a family.
I don’t think the Courant is going to get this story, though. A friend of Larry’s is an editor at one of the big houses in New York. He thinks this might make a good book. I kind of agree.
And so I finish my tale of Squid Corners. With the exception of the events after Christmas, all of it is exactly as I wrote it, at the times it happened. Small towns, cities, they all have their secrets. I came to The Corners looking for one thing, and found another. The town ended up dying. And I ended up with the love of my life. I don’t know how anyone else would judge the trade, but I think I came out on top.
Thomas Tharon
Hartford Connecticut
March 2001