“It doesn’t matter why,” Larraine says in her soft, soothing tones, “but if you want to talk, I find it’s always best to do so.”
I wonder what I’m doing here, why I’m wasting time; right now, Jenkins could be hiding evidence, knowing that I’m onto him. Maybe he’s even getting Mike and Victoria to help him, maybe they were involved all along?
I told them that I’d called the police, but of course, I haven’t; the police aren’t on their way, unless Jenkins has called them himself. And if what I suspect about him is true, then there is no way in hell he would do that.
No, he’s going to be undertaking some serious damage control right now, clearing out the basement of anything incriminating.
Isn’t he?
“The girls are connected,” I say, almost without thinking, almost as if I’m using Larraine as a sounding board, to see if I’m barking up the right tree or if I’m truly going mad.
“Which girls?”
“The girls from around the area,” I say, “and the bodies found in Chugach Park back a few years back, maybe even the ones found outside Anchorage a few years before that.”
“And you think it’s Artie?” Larraine asks, and I can’t tell if the tone is amazement or understanding, or something else altogether.
I shrug, confronted with the question outright. Do I think it’s Arthur Jenkins? Obviously, a very large part of me does; otherwise why would I have broken into his house in the first place? It must be Jenkins, maybe in league with others – maybe the Latimer twins, maybe Menders, maybe my own ex-fiancée, here in Alaska unannounced. But the only common denominator in it all is Arthur Jenkins, the man who runs Anchorage Street Shelter, the man who would have known most – if not all – of the missing girls, in one way or another.
But on the other hand, I also realize that I have not called the police; and also that, even though I had a gun in my hand and could have shot the man dead, I did not. If I truly believed that he was the one who had burned me, mutilated me, raped me, tortured me, would I have had such self-restraint? If I was really one hundred percent sure?
But of course, I am not one hundred percent sure; and with that realization, I am deflated yet further, and take another long swallow of my newly-poured whisky.
Is Jenkins ringing the police right now? If he’s not guilty, then it’s a possibility; and what do I do then?
“But I must confess,” Larraine says finally, eyes downcast as if she doesn’t want to say whatever it is she’s going to say, “I’ve had some . . . thoughts about Artie myself.”
“What do you mean?” I ask instantly, grasping hold of the lifeline that Larraine has thrown me.
“I mean . . . well, this is sort of hard to say, with Artie being my boss in a way, and of course with him being a friend and neighbor too, but . . . I guess I’ve always thought his manner with some of the girls was a little bit off, a little bit, I don’t know, I guess the word is ‘suspect’?”
“But why?” I ask, ignoring the whisky now, my interest fully aroused.
“The way he looks at them sometimes, maybe. The way he talks to them. It’s nothing I can really put my finger on, anyway. And like I say, Artie’s a friend, I don’t want to say anything out of line, you know, but . . .”
“But you have your suspicions,” I offer.
“Yes,” she says. “You could put it like that, yes. And then, of course, there’s his brother.”
“His brother?” I ask, interested in this unsolicited piece of information, all of a sudden reminded of our last conversation in this kitchen, over tea and apple pie – a conversation only one of us will remember.
“Yes,” she says, “you know the one, Pat, he’s coming here this weekend, that party Artie’s throwing is for him. Are you going?”
“Good question,” I say. “I’m not really sure anymore.” I pause, take another – slower – sip of the whisky, before speaking again. “So what about him?” I ask. “His brother?”
Larraine replies like the good gossip girl she is, with the same chapter and verse on his activities in Seattle that she gave me last time – the incident at the school, the job as a dog catcher, the whole thing. Only this time, I think of another question to ask about him.
“Has he been here before?”
“Who, Pat? Oh, I should say so, normally not much is made of it, but he comes over regular.”
“How often?”
“Maybe three, four times a year,” Larraine answers. “Maybe more.”
I stop and think, wondering how this has not been factored in by the ABI. Have they checked this out? Have they cross-referenced dates with reports of missing women?
Damn, this thing just gets more and more complicated.
“So, why the party?” I ask. “Why this time?”
“Well, the conditions of his bail from earlier charges meant that he couldn’t really travel out of Washington,” Larraine says, “at least that what Artie tells me. So, he’s kind of been sneaking over the past few years. But now everything’s over with, with that last case, he can travel freely, so this is really the first time he can come over here ‘publicly’, so to speak.”
I don’t believe it; Pat Jenkins has been coming here for years – a convicted sex felon – and the police and ABI might not know the first thing about it?
“I see,” I say, looking down into my glass, wondering what new spin this puts on things.
“Say,” Larraine says, “what the hell happened over there, anyway?”
“I . . .” Hell, what did happen over there? It is all getting too much for me – has Jenkins called the police? Are they coming to arrest me? Or else, is he clearing out his basement, removing the evidence? Should I call the police myself?
Damn it all, should I just go over there and shoot the son of a bitch and be done with it?
“I . . . need to use the bathroom,” I say at last. I need to splash some cold water on my face, wake myself up. I need a break, a moment to get some perspective on this mess.
“It’s just down the hall,” Larraine says, “first door on the left. Maybe I’ll get a pot of coffee on while you’re gone.”
She’s right again, I think – the whisky has done its work, but I think I’d appreciate the caffeine more than the alcohol right now.
“Thanks,” I say as I stand. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Oh, take your time, dear,” she says in her grandmotherly manner. “You just take your time.”
7
I walk down the hallway, observing the gold-framed pictures that line the walls, the fine china that fills the cabinets.
It is a nice house – not as big as Jenkins’, but much more homely – and again, I find myself taking inspiration. Despite what has happened, despite the reasons that brought me here, I still think about how much I like what she has done with the house, think about how I can apply those lessons to my own home.
I reach for the handle of the first door to my left – as instructed – but then something stops me.
Something familiar.
A ticking sound.
The ticking of a clock.
The terrifying tick-tock of the clock, coming from a room on the other side of the hall.
I stand stock-still, blood once more turning to ice in my veins.
But then I move – away from the bathroom – propelled by a curiosity, a morbid search for the truth that I cannot ignore.
I look to the kitchen, see it obscured by the semi-closed door, and creep stealthily across the carpeted floor.
I push open the door to the room opposite, see a neat, old-fashioned sitting room, like something out of a Charles Dickens novel.
And there, above the fireplace, is a clock, ticking loudly.
The same clock that I saw in Jenkins’ upstairs room, the Saturday that Lynette Hyams died in my arms.
The clock that – for all I tried – I couldn’t find in Jenkins’ house today.
What does it mean?
Why is it here?
&
nbsp; I approach it slowly, wondering how such a small thing, an inoffensive thing, a simple device used for measuring time, can cause such heart-stopping, nauseating terror. How is that possible?
I see that it is definitely the same clock I saw when Larraine and I were in that room in Jenkins’ house, there is no doubt in my mind about that.
Damn, that thing’s annoying, I remember saying, and Larraine smiled and said, Yes, it is, isn’t it? Do you feel like your life is being counted down?
It is the same clock as that, yes.
But is it the same clock that counted down the hours, the minutes, the seconds, until I was hurt again? Raped again? Abused again, tortured again, mutilated again?
The tick-tocking fills my ears, my brain, my soul, it is all I can hear, all I can think about, all I can perceive of the world . . .
It is everything, and I stumble, I falter, I am too scared to do what needs to be done, what I know should be done . . .
But then something within me grips me, moves me, drives me to the clock despite my fear, my terror . . .
Drives me to pick that damned thing up, to look at the time – eleven minutes past four – and to set the alarm, almost without thinking, to twelve minutes past four.
I can see the large semi-spherical bell sitting astride the curved top of the mantelpiece clock, can imagine how it will sound when struck . . .
But will it?
Will it?
I feel the sweat start to appear at my brow as I wait, feel it start to drip down my face as I listen to the seconds go by.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
I want to leave, I want to run, I want to die before I hear that alarm again, but I have to know, I have to know, I have to, I have to, I have to –
BBBRRRIINNNNGGGGGGG!!!!
The alarm sounds, and my heart stops dead, recognizing it for exactly what it is; and in a Pavlovian response, my body freezes up, it tenses, prepares itself for the torture that I know will come, that I know the alarm heralds.
And sure enough – still frozen in place by sheer terror – I hear the sound of a door opening.
I turn, finally, painfully, fearfully, and see Larraine Harrigan standing there in the doorway, eyebrows raised.
“Are you okay, dear?” she asks with what appears to be genuine concern, apparently unaware of my discovery, the significance of the alarm bell.
But why is the clock here? Why is it not at Arthur Jenkins’ house?
Lynette escaped on Saturday – kept and tortured for several days.
The clock was there on Saturday.
I was imprisoned, tortured
(died?)
before Saturday, and the clock was obviously somewhere else
(here?)
at that time.
Where was it?
(it was here!)
Why wasn’t it at Jenkins’ house?
(it was here!)
It was here!
It was here!
“It was you . . .” I say before I can stop myself, the words rolling off my tongue unbidden, “it was you . . .”
And although she cannot possibly understand the specifics, cannot possibly understand the significance the clock holds for me, I can see in her eyes, in her expression, that she understands completely . . .
And in that instant, the Larraine Harrigan that I know and admire is gone in an instant, and the monster, that is surely her true self, emerges in all its fury.
8
She races across the room toward me before I can react, murder in her eyes.
I fumble for the gun in my pocket, but she is there before I can pull it clear, there with her hands around my neck, and the force of her body colliding with mine sends us both crashing to the floor.
Larraine lands on top, and the breath is knocked out of me; I feel the hands tighten, fingers strong around my neck, thumbs digging hard into my throat, and I cannot get any air in at all, I cannot breathe, I cannot do anything.
“Fucking little cunt whore,” I hear her spit in my ear as she strangles the life out of me. “Fucking slut, you’re going to die, you bitch, you’re going to fucking die . . .”
The oxygen to my brain is being cut off, starved, and I start to feel light-headed, as if drunk, I feel everything going . . .
I am floating on clouds, looking down at our happy little hamlet of ranches, and I wonder if Doug Menders is watching us right now, watching with his telescope through Larraine’s window; I wonder who she’s been doing this with, know it must be Jenkins, maybe his brother too, maybe the Latimers; then I think again that maybe it’s everyone in this whole damn valley, this whole damn town; my vision starts to turn red at the edges, and I cannot believe that this woman, this monster, is going to murder someone – murder me – with her two children upstairs in the same house.
I see Beauty, in vivid, glorious detail, muscles rippling, coat gleaming, eyes on fire . . .
I see Jack, my loving brother, my only friend, in the open casket at his funeral, all those years ago . . .
I’m coming to see you, Jack, I think; I’m coming to see you, at last . . .
But then I see the Red Moon once more, and it obliterates images and ideas of anything else, of everything else, it occupies my entire field of vision, it dominates my thoughts, my dreams, my actions . . .
I hear a BANG!, a gunshot, and I do not know what has happened; but then I feel the grip on my neck relax, open my eyes to see Larraine’s face hovering above mine, disbelief and surprise on it, life dimming from those dark, black, hate-filled eyes; I feel the gun in my hand, do not know how it got there, just feel the grip in my palm, my finger on the trigger; I feel wet, liquid flowing freely down across my body, and I understand that it is Larraine’s blood, I have shot her, I have shot her dead . . .
In a panic, I roll her body off mine, throw the gun away and scramble to my feet, eyes wide in horror at what I’ve done; I see the body of Larraine Harrigan lying on the floor in an ever-widening pool of dark, crimson blood, the surprise still stark across her monstrous visage, surprise and hate, hate and surprise . . .
“What the fuck have you done?”
I look up and see Larraine’s children looking down at their mother’s dead body, feel a terrible shot of guilt race through me. Little Adam is not even twelve years old, Rich just fourteen. What have I –
And then I see that Rich has my gun, is raising the barrel, aiming it at me.
“You’re dead, you fucking bitch,” he spits at me, more hate in his eyes even than his mothers.
“No,” little Adam says then, his eyes the same as his brother’s, his mother’s, even as he wipes tears from them. “No. I want to fuck her first. Make her pay.”
No . . .
It’s not possible.
Is it?
But Rich nods his head, gestures at me with the gun. “Come on,” he says, voice cold, eyes dead. “You’re going down to the fucking basement.”
9
“You don’t want to do this,” I whisper to the boys, but I know they are already doing it; I am halfway down the basement stairs, and I will not be able to reason with them.
“Shut your mouth, you fucking slut,” Rich says, poking me in the back with the barrel of my gun.
“You killed our Mom,” Adam adds, “you’ve got to fucking pay for that, right Rich?”
“Yeah,” Rich says as we near the bottom, “she’s got to fucking pay, all right.”
“Hey,” Adam says in a high-pitched whine, “I get to go first this time though, okay?”
“Bullshit,” Rich says, “I’m the oldest, I get to go first.”
“Damn it Rich, you always fucking get to go first, I want –”
There is shouting upstairs, crashes and bangs, and we all freeze, there on the cold stone steps. “Shut up,” Rich hisses, and then listens. “There’s someone up there,” he says to his younger brother. “Go and check it out.”
“But Rich –”
&nbs
p; “Just shut up and go check it out,” Rich says, “while I deal with the slut.”
Adam sighs, but does as he’s told, runs back upstairs to find out what’s happening.
Is it Arthur Jenkins? Is it the police?
I feel the metal barrel in my back, know that Rich might kill me if I scream; but I also know that this might be my last chance of getting out of here alive, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this bastard get me down into that basement again, I’ll be damned if I’m going to be raped again, tortured again.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen!
“Help!” I scream at the top of my voice. “Help me, please! I’m down here! Down in the – ”
Then I feel the weight of the gun as it crashes into the back of my head, and I am instantly silent, falling down the last few steps into the cold, damp basement below.
Rich stalks down the steps after me, but I am already back on my feet, adrenaline coursing through me, propelled by fear, energized by terror, and I rush toward him, grabbing the wrist of the hand that holds the gun, aiming it downward; he fires off one round, then two, the crack of the gunshots almost deafening within the confined walls of the basement, but they hit the floor and ricochet off harmlessly. I hold onto Rich’s other arm too, to stop him from slapping me, punching me; I jerk a knee upward, hit him in the balls, and he jerks back, nearly pulling the gun-arm from my grasp, but panic means that my grip is like a vise, nothing is going to make me let go.
The boy-monster in front of me must understand this, because instead of continuing to try and free his arm, instead he flings his head forward, smashing the hard brow of his skull into my unprotected face.
The pain is intense, disorienting, and I feel him stamping down hard on my foot, and I gasp, letting go of the death-grip I had on that arm; I see stars through blurred vision, but I also see him grin and raise the pistol and I brace myself for the impact; I see the flash of a muzzle erupting in the darkened room, flashing off the walls, and know I must die; but in that moment of bright light, I also see the smile break apart as teeth fly from the kid’s face, teeth and bone, along with a geyser of black blood that covers me, blinds me, and my hands go to my face to claw away at the blood even as I hear the supersonic crack of the round that did it, the sound threatening to burst my ear-drums, the echo reverberating off the walls as Rich’s dead body collapses, near-headless, to the floor.
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