No Place to Die

by James L. Thane

  Releasing her foot, he picked up the shopping bag and held it out to her. “It occurred to me that you maybe might like something to read, and so while I was out this afternoon, I stopped by a Borders and picked up a few things.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I appreciate it.”

  McClain stood by the bed and watched as she opened the bag and pulled out several books and magazines. He’d bought a Newsweek and an Atlantic Monthly, as well as paperback novels by Lawrence Block, Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, and Nick Hornby. “I didn’t know what you might like,” he said tentatively, “but I hope there’s something in there that will appeal to you. If not, you can give me some ideas for the next time I’m out.”

  “These look fine,” she said. “I’ve read a couple of these authors before, and I’ve enjoyed them. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “I’ll go get to work on dinner.”

  McClain walked toward the door. As he reached it, he turned back to Beverly. “I got a bottle of wine to go with dinner. Would you like a glass while you’re waiting?”

  “Yes, please,” she replied.

  McClain drew the door closed behind him without locking it. A couple of minutes later, he returned with the bottle of lotion and a glass of chilled white wine. “It’s a Pinot Grigio,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t know a lot about wine, but the guy at the store said that it should go well with the dinner.”

  Beverly nodded. “Thank you, Carl. Actually, Pinot Grigio is one of my favorite wines.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling almost shyly. “Dinner’ll be ready in about thirty minutes.”

  With that he left the room again, leaving the door ajar about six inches. Beverly waited until she heard him moving about in the kitchen, then got up from the bed, went quietly into the bathroom, and poured three-quarters of the wine down the sink. Then she sat back down on the edge of the bed, shaking her head in amazement.

  He picked today, of all days, to bring her presents and wine? Did the despicable bastard really think that they were going to celebrate Valentine’s Day together? Was he completely deranged?

  But this, after all, was what she’d been aiming for—some sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome in which her captor developed an emotional attachment to his hostage.

  After her outburst on the second night of the ordeal, Beverly had forced herself to be pleasant, submissive, and nonconfrontational, and the effort had required virtually every last ounce of strength and self-discipline that she possessed.

  She’d now faked three orgasms during his sexual assaults, hoping to convince McClain that she was bonding to him against her will. That, of course, had been the most difficult and most disgusting part of her battle. She hated herself for betraying David and for allowing an animal like McClain to think that he could conquer her and that he could make her respond to him in such an intimate way.

  Rationally, she knew that she had no choice, and she also knew that David would have understood—that he would have expected and encouraged her to do everything in her power to survive and to see McClain punished. Still, she felt as if she were conspiring with McClain in her own violation and in her own diminution as a human being. And she realized that if her ordeal lasted too much longer, McClain would win his revenge no matter how it ended. Even if she did somehow manage to survive, she would have debased herself to such an extent that any life she might have in the wake of the experience would be worthless.

  On the positive side, though, McClain seemed to be buying into the illusion she was attempting to create. He had definitely softened in his treatment of her, as evidenced by the new clothes, her occasional freedom from the cable, the lotion, and now the books, magazines, and wine. But how far had he really come?

  Beverly was certain that McClain’s initial plan had been that he would ultimately kill her, and she had little doubt that he still intended to do so. When she’d braced him with it the other night, he’d been evasive, insisting that was still to be determined. But realistically, she couldn’t imagine a scenario in which he would leave her alive to identify him and testify to his crimes.

  She could only hope that she might be able to soften him enough to make him vulnerable somehow—that he might get careless and make even a small mistake that would allow her a chance to survive and see him punished. And that slim, desperate hope was the only thing now keeping her alive.

  Beverly could no longer imagine what sort of life, if any, might exist for her even if she were to survive this horrible nightmare. And she realized that in an odd sense, she and McClain were now united in an unlikely communion: each of them was now willing to sacrifice everything to avenge an injustice that life had dealt to them. In the end, only one of them could succeed, and Beverly was now more determined than ever that it would not be Carl McClain.

  She picked up the Lawrence Block novel and the glass of wine, moved over, and took her usual seat at the card table, facing the door. McClain was still making noises out in the kitchen. Could he see the bedroom door from there?

  Beverly set the paperback and the wine on the table. Listening carefully, she got up and moved toward the door. She stood for a moment, her hand on the doorknob, then tentatively peeked around the door and out into the hall.

  McClain’s backpack was sitting on the floor again, and the kitchen noises were coming from down the hall to Beverly’s right. Without opening the door any farther, she looked up at the hook that was screwed into the outside of the door. A two-foot length of cable, like the one McClain used to tether her to the floor, hung from the top of the doorframe. The cable had a small loop in the end and was long enough to reach the hook in the door itself. But the cable was simply screwed into the top of the doorframe; it was not attached to any explosive device. The clicking she heard when McClain locked the bedroom door each day was nothing more than a sound effect.

  From the kitchen, Beverly heard the radio playing softly, tuned again to a classic-rock station. Above the music, something suddenly began to sizzle as McClain apparently dropped a piece of meat into a sauté pan. Cautiously, she pulled the door open a bit farther and looked out into the hallway. Beverly could hear McClain working in the kitchen, but from this vantage point, she could not actually see into the room. Beyond the kitchen, at far the end of the hallway to her right, was a closed door that might lead to—what?—a utility room, or perhaps a garage?

  Beverly held her breath and stepped out into the hall, praying that in her bare feet, she would not make any noise that McClain might hear above the sounds he was making in the kitchen. A few feet down the hall on her left, a door opened into a second, smaller bedroom. The room was empty of furniture, save for a dresser and a chair. McClain had tossed a pair of jeans over the back of the chair, and several T-shirts were folded and neatly stacked on top of the dresser.

  Across the hall from the second bedroom was the bathroom that McClain was using for himself. A razor and a variety of toiletries were organized around the sink, and a number of magazines were stacked on top of the toilet tank. Beverly stepped into the bathroom and took a quick inventory, but she saw nothing that might serve as a weapon.

  In the kitchen a small hand mixer whined into action. Hoping desperately that McClain would be occupied for another couple of minutes, Beverly stepped out of the bathroom and looked to her right, where the hallway led into the living room. From the hallway, she could see a tattered couch and an easy chair that faced out into the room.

  She realized that, logically, there should be a door leading out of the house somewhere at this end of the structure, most likely from the living room itself. But did she dare try to reach it? If she did, would the door be locked? If it wasn’t, could she open the door quietly enough so that McClain would not hear her? And if she could get through the door, would she have any realistic chance of making good her escape before McClain discovered her missing and came tearing after her in hot pursuit?

  Beverly well understood that if McClain caught her outside of the bedr
oom, every effort she had made and every indignity that she had endured in her campaign to soften him up would have been for naught. He would tie her to the cable for good, and she had no doubt that he would punish her brutally. But she also understood that this might well be the only opportunity she would ever have to effect an escape.

  In the kitchen, the mixer continued to whine. Beverly took a deep breath, then took three steps into the living room. A small television set sat on the wall opposite the easy chair, and ten feet away, at the other end of the living room, was the front door.

  It looked like McClain was preparing for a siege. He’d nailed a two-by-four across the door, effectively sealing it shut. Four feet back from the door, he’d nailed another two-by-four into the floor, and he’d jammed a third piece on an angle between the door and the board on the floor, bracing the door. Beverly realized that it would be impossible for anyone to push the door open from the outside. From the inside, you’d have to have a pry bar and a hammer to disassemble the defenses that McClain had constructed.

  Beverly’s heart sank as she realized that McClain must be entering and leaving the house through a door at the back or on the side of the house. But where was that door in relationship to the kitchen? Could she have any chance of reaching it without him seeing her? And if so, would she find it locked and barricaded as well?

  In the kitchen, the mixer suddenly stopped and Beverly heard the sound of McClain’s footsteps walking out of the kitchen and into the hall. Her heart suddenly racing, she looked desperately around the small living room but saw no place to hide. As McClain’s footsteps drew closer, she pressed herself back against the wall next to the television set. Cursing herself for having been so foolish, she waited for the inevitable explosion when McClain walked into the bedroom to serve dinner and discovered that she wasn’t there.

  McClain had discarded a couple of empty beer bottles in a wastebasket next to the television set. Moving as quietly as she could, Beverly reached down and picked one of the bottles out of the basket. Gripping the bottle by the neck, she held it behind her back in her right hand, hoping that when McClain tore into the living room looking for her, she might be able to get in one miraculously lucky blow that would disable him at least momentarily.

  The house fell suddenly quiet, save for the sound of the radio in the kitchen, and Beverly imagined McClain standing in the door of the bedroom, perhaps holding their dinners in his hands, and suddenly realizing that she wasn’t in the room. She swallowed hard and braced herself so that she could push away from the wall and spring at McClain the moment he rushed into the living room. But then she heard the door to the second bathroom screech on a protesting hinge before bumping closed.

  Beverly held her position for another couple of seconds, every nerve in her body pulsing in fear. Then she forced herself to step away from the wall and peek out into the hall. The bathroom door was tightly closed and from inside the small room, Beverly could hear water running into the sink. She gently set the beer bottle back into the wastebasket and took a deep breath. Then, again on her tiptoes, she raced down the hall past the bathroom and into the bedroom. When McClain walked through the bedroom door two and a half minutes later, he found Beverly sitting at the card table, the glass of wine in her hand, as she read the opening pages of the Lawrence Block novel.

  Tonight’s dinner was chicken again. McClain had sautéed chicken breasts and seasoned them lightly with lemon and herbs. He’d mashed Yukon Gold potatoes and steamed some fresh green beans. This was apparently his favorite vegetable, but they were done perfectly tender-crisp and seasoned with lemon and butter.

  He brought in the bottle of wine and filled Beverly’s glass to a third full. He then poured himself a few ounces and set the bottle on the table. “I intended to make another salad,” he said, “but the lettuce had started to fade on me. I’m sorry. I should have checked it before I left. I made extra potatoes and beans to make up for the lack of a salad.”

  “That’s fine,” Beverly said. “You needn’t apologize. It looks great.”

  She cut a small piece of her chicken breast and ate it. It was done exactly right—moist, tender, and seasoned perfectly. “Again,” she said, truthfully, “this is really very good. Can I ask where you learned to cook so well?”

  McClain flushed. “In the joint,” he said in a self-deprecating tone. “My mom was a great cook—one of those people who never used a recipe and who could create a fantastic meal out of whatever she happened to have on hand at the time. I never really paid much attention to how she did it. I guess I just assumed that all women cooked like that. Then I got married and found out that all women didn’t cook like that. At least Amanda sure as hell didn’t.”

  Toying with his wine glass, he seemed lost in reverie for a moment. Then he gave Beverly a small, sad smile. “God knows, the girl was fun to hang out with, and she was great in the sack. But put her in the kitchen and she didn’t know shit from Shinola.

  “The food was even worse in the joint, of course—lots of starches, mystery meat, and canned vegetables. In Lewis most of us had jobs, and after a while, I wound up working in the kitchen. Four years ago we got a new warden, and he had the bright idea of introducing a culinary program. He figured that teaching cons how to cook would give them a marketable skill when they went back out into the world. He also hoped it might improve the quality of the food in the prison mess and reduce at least some of the bitching about the meals.

  “Of course, what the warden didn’t realize is that seventy-five percent of good cooking is shopping. And as long as we were getting lousy raw ingredients, the end result wasn’t all that much better. But at least some of us who enrolled in the program learned a few basic principles.”

  Beverly swallowed some potatoes. “I hope you don’t think I’m saying this just to humor you, Carl, but you do seem to have a real knack for this. Obviously you must have inherited a considerable amount of your mother’s natural talent. Once you learned you were going to be freed, didn’t you ever think about the prospect of trying to find a job in a restaurant somewhere and creating a new life for yourself?”

  McClain took a sip of wine and looked over the top of his glass to meet her eyes. “Easier said than done, Beverly,” he sighed. “And as I said, I had other plans.”

  He hesitated for a moment, toying with the wineglass. “Perhaps after what I’ve put you through over the last week or so, you can begin to get some small, tiny glimmer of understanding of what I went through in prison. Imagine this last week stretching out for the next sixteen years and thirty-three weeks. As angry as you are right now, imagine the rage you’d feel at the end of that time.

  “You think you’re an innocent woman. You think that you don’t remotely begin to deserve what’s happened to you here. Some sick bastard’s murdered your husband, kidnapped you, and has forced you to have sex with him repeatedly. You probably figure that you’re going to die here in this room.

  “Well, goddammit,” he said, warming to the topic, “that’s exactly how I felt. I was an innocent man, Beverly. The system sent me to prison for something I didn’t do. I lost my wife, and although she didn’t physically die, she was sure as hell dead to me. She gave up on me the second I was arrested, and I haven’t heard a word from her since. And yeah, she probably had some cause to do it, but in spite of the way I behaved, I loved her.”

  He hesitated for a long moment, staring at the floor. Then, still without looking up at Beverly, he said, “She took my daughter away from me and she killed my baby…She was pregnant when I was arrested, and she got an abortion…For some reason, I always think of it as a boy. He’d be sixteen now, and I used to lie awake nights thinking about the things we might have done together, playing ball, going to the games, all that sort of father-and-son shit…

  “As for the rest of it…well…you knew me when, Beverly. I went into the pen a fat, pudgy boy who had no idea how to fend for himself in the system. I was new meat, and it wasn’t pretty.”

  Ag
ain he paused, pushing a couple of green beans around on his plate. Finally he looked up at her, his eyes harder now. “So like I say, Beverly, imagine the prospect of spending the rest of your life in here—in this room, with me. Then imagine that one day after seventeen years have passed, I walk in and say, ‘Jesus, Beverly, I’m really sorry. I made a terrible mistake, and I’m letting you go…’ You’re telling me you could just shake hands and walk away—forgive and forget? Let bygones be bygones, and all that shit?”

  “No, of course not,” she said, tearing up. “And I truly am sorry for what you went through. And whether you believe it or not, I’m especially sorry that I didn’t do a better job for you. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and I can only say again that I tried as hard as I could for you.”

  Looking up to meet his eyes, she said, “But there is a fundamental difference in our situations, Carl. You know that I’m an innocent person, as were the judge, the prosecuting attorney and the jurors who combined to send you to prison. You know that while we participated in what ultimately proved to be a gross miscarriage of justice, we did not do so deliberately. We were all doing the best that we could.

  “I will tell you honestly that at the time of the trial I didn’t know whether you were innocent or not. I hoped that you were, but irrespective of that, I believed that like anyone else accused of a crime, you had a constitutional right to the best representation you could get. And whether you believe it or not, that’s what I honestly tried to give you.

  “As for the others—the prosecutor, the judge, and the jurors—they had no way of knowing whether you were innocent or not. They could only go where the evidence led them. And in fairness, certainly, you have to concede that there was a considerable amount of evidence against you. If they had known absolutely that you were innocent, as you know that they were—if they’d even had a reasonable doubt—then they would have never condemned you to that hell.”