Scarecrow

by Robin Hathaway

  Because the windows were boarded up, the only light came from the open door. After a few minutes they were able to make out the rooms. A living room, dining room, and kitchen on the first floor. The first two rooms were empty, except for piles of trash—old newspapers and garbage. In the kitchen, chicken bones, orange peels, eggshells, and coffee grounds clogged the sink, and the sticky linoleum sucked at the soles of the men’s shoes with each step.

  Tom was the first to mount the stairs. From the landing, a long room stretched out, filled with heavy-duty sewing machines for stitching canvas or leather. “What were they making here?” he wondered aloud.

  Banks came upstairs to have a look. Familiar with printing machinery, he made an educated guess. “Belts, wallets, or handbags, probably,” he said.

  Tom continued up the next set of stairs to the attic. Another long room. This one had a sloping ceiling and rows of filthy mattresses. At one end was a bathroom. The sink and toilet were stopped up. He had to hold his breath against the stink.

  As Tom started down the stairs, he met Banks coming up. “Nothing there,” he reported.

  Nothing significant turned up in the closets or basement, either. The two men stepped outside and inhaled the fresh air greedily.

  “The bastards flew the coop,” Tom said.

  Back in the boat, they started upriver. After skirting several docks, Tom cut the motor and coasted silently toward shore. There was no dock here, just a wooden post with a metal mooring. As the boat bumped against the bank, Tom stood up and examined the muddy ground. The footprints were undisturbed. He pointed them out to Banks.

  “What do they mean?”

  “I think Jo went to the Wistar house by boat. They discovered her and brought her here—to the Sheffield place.” He waved at the field above them. “They unloaded her and kept her prisoner.”

  “Where?”

  “In an old bomb shelter under the barn.” He started the motor and made a U-turn.

  “But who … ?” Banks cried over the noise, his face white.

  “That’s what I mean to find out,” Tom screamed back.

  With a sudden spurt, he headed downriver. This time when he came to the abandoned rowboat, he took a closer look at the faded stenciled letters on its side: PROPERTY OF LOBSTER TRAP. Fred would be glad to know his boat was found.

  CHAPTER 55

  As they walked to the pickup, Tom noticed Banks was dragging. He glanced at him. He didn’t look good. He must be pushing seventy. Tom dropped him at the motel, promising to keep in touch. He watched the older man cross the parking lot with slow, unsteady steps. He’s aged ten years in a few days, he thought.

  Although what he wanted to do was scream and yell and smash things, Tom cruised silently. Be cool, he told himself. Think logically. Now’s not the time for hysterics. Why was he upset? What was she to him? She wasn’t even polite. Hell, half the time she was downright rude.

  He hardly knew where he was driving when the Sheffield farm came in sight. A police car was pulling out of the driveway. At least they had answered his call. He slowed and waved the car to a stop. Dan, an old high school buddy, was at the wheel.

  Tom got out and went over to the window. The policeman cracked it open an inch. It was cold.

  “What do you make of the place?” Tom asked.

  “Not much to go on.”

  “What about the bloody cloth?”

  “Yeah. It’s in back.” He tilted his head toward the gray metal container on the backseat. Dan hadn’t been the sharpest guy in their class.

  “Going to get a DNA?”

  “Yeah. I’m gonna drop it off now. Want to come along?” Bayfield cops were lonely. Since there were only two of them, they weren’t allowed to travel in pairs.

  “No, thanks. But I think the blood belongs to Jo Banks.”

  “The missing doc?”

  “Yeah.” Must be one of Dan’s brighter days. “You might want to get the name of her doctor in New York. Get her blood type. Maybe even a sample. See if you can make a match. Her father’s at the Oakview Motor Lodge if you want to ask him anything. But if you ask him about the blood type, be sure to say it’s just routine,” he warned.

  “Right.” Dan rolled up the window.

  Back in his truck, Tom continued driving. DNA tests were good, but it took time to get the results. When he was out of sight of the Sheffield farmhouse, Tom parked and got out. The cornfield on his right was still Sheffield property. He shivered, looking at the long rows. On impulse, he plunged into the cornstalks. They crackled and scratched as he bored his way between the rows. It felt good, smashing through the razor-sharp stalks. At least he was doing something. This was an ideal hiding place. No one would think of looking here. He pushed on until he came out the other side. Without a pause, he turned and pushed his way back between the next two rows. He continued until he had covered half the field and came to the scarecrow in the middle. Time to take him in, if they wanted to use him next season. He raised his eyes from the straw man to the leaden sky. Empty, except for two buzzards circling. “God, Jo! Where are you?”

  A small movement at the base of the scarecrow. The wind? There was no wind. An animal? But there was no sound. Even a mouse would make a rustle running through these dry stalks. He stared at the scarecrow’s right foot. Had it twitched? Get hold of yourself, buddy! His eyes moved up the faded denim overall, over the shabby gingham work shirt, to the cloth bag tied at the neck with a piece of clothesline. His hat had been lost to the wind long ago. The painted face, faded after a season in the weather, still wore the ghost of a smile, mocking him. What are you doing out here, jackass, he seemed to say.

  Tom pulled out his penknife. With a jerk he cut the cord. Yanking the bag upward, Jo’s head lolled forward.

  CHAPTER 56

  He lowered her gently from the pole—she had been hung by her overall straps—and cradled her in his arms. As he bored though the cornstalks, he pressed her face into his chest to protect it from the razor-sharp edges.

  He lifted her onto the passenger seat of his pickup. “There you go,” he whispered. “You’ll be okay now.” He propped her, limp and unconscious, into a sitting position, and ran around to the driver’s side. He drove with his left arm, the other around her waist, and forced himself to drive slowly in order not to jar her. Even so, her head bounced against his shoulder. He tried to pretend they were at a drive-in movie. “This is a great picture, hon. Pretty soon this car chase will end and we’ll get to the love scene … .” His voice petered out.

  At the emergency entrance, he parked and stretched her out on the front seat. He ran into the emergency room and came back with a paramedic pushing a gurney. The medic transferred her expertly to the gurney and pulled a blanket up to her chin. Tom told him where he had found her.

  “Shock and exposure,” the medic said, and trundled her quickly inside.

  Tom followed until they disappeared into a booth and the medic pulled the curtain.

  A businesslike voice spoke at his elbow. “Do you have her insurance card?”

  He turned. “What?”

  “Her insurance card. We need it for billing—”

  “Billing?”

  “It’s the hospital rule,” she said crisply.

  “Listen.” He leaned into her office cubicle, enunciating every syllable.” She doesn’t have her card because when she went out three days ago, she didn’t know she was going to be kidnapped, tortured—and almost killed!”

  Everyone paused—orderlies, nurses, doctors, patients. The woman who had asked for the card cowered behind her desk.

  “Oh, shit.” He walked out.

  CHAPTER 57

  As soon as he was outside, he knew he couldn’t leave. He had to be near her. He moved the pickup away from the emergency entrance and found a parking space. He sat there, his mind empty, unconscious of the cold. Gradually, something nudged at the back of his mind. He got out, hunted up a pay phone, and found one in the lobby.

  “Oakview Motor L
odge,” Paul answered.

  “I found her.”

  “Is she … ?”

  “She’s … in good hands. I’m calling from Bridgeton hospital. Is Banks there?”

  “In his room.”

  “Tell him to get down here. Better have somebody drive him. He was looking a little shaky. Oh, and tell him to go to her room and see if he can find her insurance card.”

  “Right.”

  CHAPTER 58

  “Dr. Banks is in here. But you can only stay a few minutes.” The overbearing voice broke into my dream. It had been a good dream, too. Dad and me walking along the beach, looking for seashells … .

  “Jo?” A small, cautious voice.

  I opened my eyes.

  A huge bunch of russet chrysanthemums hovered at the edge of my bed, and above them—a small russet head.

  “Becca?”

  Her eyes danced. “I knew you’d make it!” She threw the flowers on the bed and reached for me.

  I was dozing off again when I felt a familiar hand resting on mine.

  “Dad?”

  He couldn’t speak. His eyes glistened as he squeezed my hand.

  That evening, they came in pairs, bearing their blue visitor cards, allotting them five minutes apiece. First the Nelsons. They were happy to see me, but subdued, distracted—as if something, nothing to do with me, was preying on their minds.

  Next came Maria and Jack. Smiling shyly, Maria placed a package in my hands. I started to open it, but asked her to do it for me. The smallest activity was still an effort. Inside was a small leather-bound Bible.

  “The Lord’s words are in red,” she stammered.

  I had paid scant attention to the Lord. Maybe it was time to start. “Thank you, Maria.”

  “Hey, Jo.” Jack stepped forward. “That must have been some date!” He grinned.

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t you remember what you said the night you left?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I smiled. “Some date.” I shuddered.

  “Here!” He pushed a flat package into my hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “A video of The Return of the Jedi” He grinned. “Watch it with your boyfriend—when you’re feeling better,” he added.

  “Thanks, Jack. I will.” I laid the package carefully next to the Bible.

  Mike and Polly came together. An unlikely couple. Probably paired by a hospital volunteer. They sat stiffly in their chairs, one on either side of the bed.

  “How’s school?” I asked Polly.

  “Fine.”

  I turned to Mike. “How’re you making out at the garage?”

  “Okay.”

  Small talk was never my forte, and in my weakened condition I was glad for the five-minute curfew. I’d make it up to them later, when I was feeling stronger.

  After they left, an aide came to fill my water jug and plump my pillows. The beginning of the nightly routine. “Lots of visitors,” she remarked.

  “Yeah.” I sighed.

  “Tired?”

  “A little.”

  “There’s one more lurking in the hall. Shall I send him away?”

  “Who … ?”

  “Tall, dark, and …”

  Tom poked his head in the door.

  Oh, God. Was I up to this?

  He didn’t come any further. Just stood there in the doorway, sort of drinking me in. The aide looked from him to me, and edged around him, out of the room.

  “How do you feel?”

  “So-so.”

  He came up to the bed, peering at me. “You look better.”

  “Than what?”

  “Than hanging from a pole.”

  I laughed. It was the first time.

  He sat down. After a minute, he said, “I came to ask you for dinner.”

  “Sorry. No appetite.”

  “Not now. When you’re out of here.” He looked morosely around the room.

  “Okay.” He’d saved my life, for God’s sake. Everyone said so. Becca, Dad, Maggie, Paul—they’d all said if it weren’t for Tom … Besides … I felt my blood stirring like it hadn’t stirred for months. “I don’t know how to thank—”

  “Shh …” He placed a finger to his lips. “I’ll pick you up at the motel when you’re released.”

  “You make it sound like prison.”

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  “Not when you’ve been in prison.”

  He looked distressed.

  Mustering the last of my energy, I said cheerily, “It’s a date.”

  As he backed toward the door, his smile was the same as that first day, when he forgave me for scaring away his herd.

  CHAPTER 59

  I later learned that my visitors had been instructed by the doctor not to tell me too much in the beginning. But gradually, as the days slipped by and I regained my strength, my friends became less cautious and the story leaked out. From Tom, Paul, and Maggie, I was able to put together the pieces.

  Juri, Becca’s cousin, had been the originator of the plan. Having a liking for luxury and a dislike for work, he had always sponged off one relative or another. When he learned that some of his Czech countrymen yearned to leave their semidepressed homeland and come to America—the land of plenty—his scheme crystallized. Because of his aversion to employment, he enlisted the help of a couple, two former Communist spies (now unemployed), to take care of the details. Apparently, they made out like bandits. If Juri questioned any of the Milacs’ practices, he was silenced easily with a bigger piece of the take. The émigrés were lured here under the guise of free passage to New York and the promise of employment when they arrived. Their passage was free all right, but the accommodations left something to be desired—crowded together in the hold of a leaky freighter, with next to no sanitary facilities, on a starvation diet. When they arrived in New York Harbor, they were transferred to a smaller boat that carried them to a remote part of South Jersey—Bayfield. There they were rolled up in carpets, unceremoniously dumped at an old farmhouse (the Wistar house), and forced to work in a sweatshop making elegant leather handbags until their captors extracted enough money ($20,000 apiece) from their relatives back home to pay for their cruise and lodgings. If they rebelled or if their production rate fell, they risked my fate—becoming a scarecrow. The dead man that Jake Potter had stumbled on in the field was an émigré from Slovakia who had committed the sin of trying to call home.

  One day, Juri discovered Becca’s drawing of the Wistar house in her sketchbook, and decided she was getting too nosy. He convinced her aunt to take Becca to visit her grandfather in Prague. “He’s getting on, you know.” Later, when he found the sketchbook missing and deduced that I had it, he informed the Milacs, and they took matters into their own hands. They already suspected me of spying on them; this merely confirmed their suspicions. I foiled their first attempt to kidnap me by dumping my attacker that night at the Wistar house. But later, when I took the boat upriver, I walked right into their hands.

  I still shied away from thinking of my captivity and the persuasive methods they had used to discover my motives. Hollywood does a poor imitation. They know an American audience would never put up with the real thing.

  The worst revelation came from Maggie. She had fallen into the habit of dropping by in the afternoon to keep me company until dinnertime. (Dad always ate dinner with me.) Sometimes we talked, but more often I dozed and she sat by the window, knitting. Once, when I opened my eyes, I noticed a tear sliding down her nose. My first thought was for myself, egotist that I am. Did she know something about my condition that I didn’t?

  “Maggie?”

  She brushed the tear away and looked at me.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  She looked away.

  I am going to die, I thought. They fudged the tests, lied about the reports. As a doctor, I knew that feeling better wasn’t necessarily a sure sign of recovery. No use beating around the bush. “Am I cooked?” I demanded, using the medical pro
fession’s jargon for terminally ill.

  To my relief she smiled. “Oh, no, Jo.”

  “Then … ?”

  “Nick …”

  “You found him?”

  She nodded.

  “But that’s wonder—”

  She shook her head.

  “Is he ill?”

  “No.” She lay her knitting aside and haltingly told me the whole story. Her son had been working for the Milacs. Nick was the foreman in the workshop who guarded the émigrés. The job earned him enough to feed his drug habit.

  “But …”

  “Yes.” Her mouth formed a grim line. “During those three years while we were mourning him, he was in Philadelphia, just fifty miles away, and for the last six months he’s been working a few miles down the road!”

  I could think of nothing to say.

  “Where is he now?”

  “They arrested him. He’s in prison, awaiting trial. That handyman at the Sheffield place—”

  “Juri?”

  She nodded. “He dreamed up the whole scheme. I didn’t even know he knew Nick but he kept in touch with him, and when the Milacs came he contacted Nick and brought him back to run the sweatshop.”

  I wondered if Nick was the one who had jumped me. My neck tingled and I felt the pressure of those hands on my throat again. “Have you seen him?”

  She nodded, turning back to the window.

  “And?”

  “When we came in …” She paused. “ … he … spat on us.”

  I waited a long moment. Finally I asked, “And the others?”

  “All in prison. The FBI finally came in on it. Although it was Juri who dreamed up the scheme, you’ll never guess who carried it out.”

  “Mrs. Milac.”

  “How did … ?”