Dead and Berried

by Karen MacInerney

  He followed close behind me as I walked through the door and out into the fresh air.

  “They’re over here,” I said, taking a few quick steps toward the trail.

  And then I ran.

  The branches tore at my face as I plunged into the trees. O’Leary’s footsteps thundered behind me somewhere, but I didn’t look back. I could make it. I had to make it. Please God, I thought, give me the strength to make it to Polly’s. If I could lock the door and keep him out long enough to call the police, then maybe...

  I leaped over a tree branch. As I landed, my foot squirted sideways in the mud. I grabbed a tree for balance and then heaved my body forward again, the air like fire in my lungs.

  “You’ll never make it!” he called behind me, his voice ragged with fury. “I should have taken care of you yesterday!” Yesterday. By the rectory. He had been the one.

  His footsteps pounded behind me.

  Too close.

  Run, Natalie. Run hard.

  Finally, I caught a glimpse of painted wood. Polly’s house. I was almost there. I put on a last burst of speed—I needed to widen the gap enough to give me time to get in and lock the door—and tripped. My body hurtled forward, slamming into the muddy ground. I scrambled to my feet and staggered forward again.

  But it was too late.

  A meaty hand grabbed my left arm, jerking me back like a rag doll. I swung my right arm around. The knife sliced through the air; then there was a crash and everything went black.

  ___

  It was the cold that woke me. My eyes opened to darkness, and the smell of gasoline and unwashed body—and something fouler—made my stomach heave. I swallowed back the saliva that filled my mouth and tried to prop myself up on my hands. They wouldn’t move. I was tied up.

  “Hello?” I croaked, teeth chattering with cold. I tested the cords wrapped around my wrist. They were so tight they cut into my skin. My head was throbbing, a deep purple spike above my left ear. Someone moaned, and a fresh wave of fear washed over me. Dark as it was, I knew exactly where I was. In the storage shed next to Eddie O’Leary’s wife.

  “Marge?” My voice quavered.

  “Who is it?” she whispered.

  “Natalie.”

  She stifled a sob. “Oh, no. He got you too.” The sobs gave way to a ragged cough. Her voice was weak. “But why? Why are you here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shifting to find a more comfortable position on the cold wood floor. Although I was pretty sure I did know. It was because Eddie O’Leary was a murderer.

  My feet were numb with cold; I didn’t have Marge’s pile of filthy blankets. “What happened?” I asked her. “How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was faint. “It’s been two nights, I think.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I...” she choked back a sob. “He caught me.”

  “Caught you?”

  “He found out I... I knew about Polly.”

  “He killed Polly?”

  Her voice was thick. “They weresleeping...”

  I blinked in the darkness. Suddenly it all clicked into place. “He was seeing Polly, wasn’t he?” I said slowly. “And she was going to leave the island.” I remembered the half-packed suitcase, the number for the battered women’s shelter. The razor in the bathroom, gummy with black whiskers. The gun—she must have been running away, shot at him and missed. And then...

  Marge snuffled. “Whore,” she hissed. I was shocked at the venom in her voice. Her husband had beaten her, then tied her up and left her in a shed for two nights. And she was still jealous of his mistress—the mistress he had killed.

  An unpleasant thought tugged at the edges of my mind. If he killed his mistress to keep her from leaving the island, what did he have in mind for us?

  “When did all this start?” I asked.

  “A couple of months ago. All of a sudden, he started coming home late. Sometimes, he never came home at all.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “I followed him,” she whispered.

  “Did he know?”

  “Not until the day before yesterday. I don’t know when... he accused me of making eyes at Tom Lockhart, and I let it slip. About Polly. And then...” She trailed off, but I could imagine what had happened next.

  “Did he ever talk with McLaughlin?”

  “The preacher? I don’t know.” She snorted bitterly. “I can’t think why he would.”

  I stared into the darkness. Marge couldn’t, but I could. O’Leary must have known McLaughlin was visiting Polly—in fact, it was probably his visits down to the little house that started tongues wagging about his seeing another woman. I was guessing that the real reason for his visits was to counsel a troubled—and abused—woman. That would explain his comment about the “sordid details” of Polly’s life.

  And McLaughlin had died just a few hours after I told him my theory about the number of bullets in the gun. Even though he hadn’t shown it, my conversation must have rattled him enough to call O’Leary and start asking pointed questions; O’Leary must have panicked, and killed him to silence him. It had been O’Leary in the house with me that day, stealing the bullets from Polly’s dresser. I was sure of it.

  I remembered the face at the kitchen window of the inn, the muddy footprints on the deck. I must have been asking too many questions about Polly’s death. Icy fingers stole down my spine. He had attacked me yesterday—stolen the diary. But why?

  A deep shiver passed through my body from the cold. I knew who the murderer was; but unless we figured out how to get out of here, it wasn’t going to matter. “Mind if I scoot a little closer?” I asked Marge. “To stay warm?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ve got some blankets, too.” I inched over toward her, and soon our bodies were pressed back to back. I wiggled until I managed to hitch some of the dirty blankets over me.

  We passed a few minutes in silence, listening to the cold wind moan around the corners of the shed. Then I said softly, “How long has he been abusing you, Marge?”

  Her large body shuddered next to mine. “Since the beginning.”

  “Why did you stay?”

  “What choice did I have?” Her voice was soft, resigned. “This is where my whole life is. My family, my people. I have nowhere else to go.”

  My mind clicked into gear. “He attacked the other lobsterman, too, didn’t he?” I said. “The one in the hospital. Eddie was starting the gear war, wasn’t he?”

  “Ayuh,” she said. “And it’s not the first time, either. He’s got a bad temper, does Eddie.”

  My heart ached for the woman pressed up against me. I had never liked her—her venomous tongue, her accusing eyes—but now I understood. She was living a life of imprisonment.

  “What do you think he’ll do next?” I asked.

  I could feel her body tense. “I don’t know.” She was quiet for a moment, and the wind howled outside. Then she whispered, “I’m afraid he’ll kill us.”

  My body shuddered with fear. We lay motionless for a few minutes, and my mind started wandering in terrifying directions. Would I spend the last hours of my life in this dirty shed? Only to be murdered by a man who abused his wife, then killed his mistress?

  “Marge. We have to get out of here.”

  “It’s no use, Natalie.” The resignation in her voice turned my spine to ice. “We can’t escape.”

  “No. You’re wrong, Marge.” I squirmed into a sitting position. The blood roared in my head as I sat up. I’d been cracked over the head twice in two days, and my nerve endings screamed in protest. I sat quiet for a moment, until the pain receded enough to speak.

  “I’m going to see if I can get your hands free.” I twisted around and felt for her wrists, my fingers
exploring the cords that bound them. It felt like some kind of cable, a phone cord or something. “Maybe I can untie this. If one of us can get loose...”

  “The door’s padlocked.”

  “There’s a window. If I can get out...”

  “It’s no use, Natalie.”

  “We have to try,” I said. “Once I get your hands untied, you can do mine. I can get out the window and go for help.”

  “I guess so,” she said as my half-frozen fingers struggled to unknot the cords that bit into Marge’s fleshy wrists. My fingertips kept slipping on the slick cords, and the knots wouldn’t budge.

  “We need something sharp. Are there any tools in this shed?” I asked.

  “Up on the back wall. Only I can’t get up—I think my ribs are broken.”

  “I’ll do it.” The pain in my head hammered at me as I lurched to my feet. The shed was pitch black—I couldn’t even see where the window was. New moon, probably.

  “Which way?”

  “Behind me,” she said.

  O’Leary had tied my hands, but left my legs free. I did my best to step over Marge’s large body, moving slowly toward what I hoped was the back of the shed, until my right shoulder hit something hard. “I think I found the wall. Do you remember exactly what was here?”

  She sighed. “Not really. It’s a big jumble.”

  “I guess I’ll just have to see what I can find then.” Turning my back to the wall, I extended my arms behind me, searching with bound hands for something sharp enough to cut the cords.

  After a minute of groping, my fingertips grazed something rough and sharp. A saw. The handle was too high to reach, so I closed my hand around the blade and tried to lift it up and off of the wall. The teeth bit into my skin. I winced, hoping I was up to date on my tetanus shots. Although with what Eddie O’Leary probably had planned, chances were it wouldn’t matter much.

  “I found a saw,” I said.

  “Great.” For the first time, there was a flicker of hope in Marge’s voice.

  “It’s big, but maybe if I hold it, you can saw back and forth on it, get through the cord.”

  “I’ll see if I can do it.”

  I groped the saw until I was holding the handle instead of the blade, then blundered back toward Marge. A minute or two later, we were back-to-back again. I gripped the handle of the saw as Marge positioned her wrists against the blade.

  She yelped suddenly.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I cut myself.”

  “Me too,” I said. “But at least it’s sharp.”

  She chuckled, and I gripped the saw handle harder as she pushed against it.

  “I can’t tell if it’s working,” she said.

  “Just keep going.”

  My fingers were beginning to cramp when Marge gasped, “They’re looser! I think it worked!”

  I released my grip on the handle. “Can you get them off?”

  “I think...”

  We froze as heavy footsteps clumped outside, and a flash of light illuminated the cobwebbed ceiling. I dropped the saw. Marge whimpered. Then a cold blast of wind hit us as the door banged open. The flashlight bored into my face, then moved away. I lay frozen, heart pounding. I could hear him breathing above us. Then something slammed into my stomach.

  “Bitch,” he hissed.

  I doubled over, gasping for air.

  He kicked me again, and pain exploded in my midsection again. I couldn’t breathe.

  His voice was like gravel. “Couldn’t leave it alone, could you? Well, you’ll pay for it now.”

  Marge whimpered beside me. “Eddie... no... it’s all a mistake...”

  “Shut up!” he barked. I heard a sickening thud, and Marge yelped. “When will you learn to keep your big trap shut?”

  “I’m sorry... so sorry...”

  He kicked her again. “I said, SHUT UP!”

  I took a ragged breath, struggling to talk through the pain. “Why did you come to my house that night? And why did you steal the diary?”

  “You were nosing into things that wasn’t your business.”

  “Why...” I gasped for air. “Why the diary?”

  “I didn’t know what it was. Had to be sure Reverend Pansy hadn’t written anything down, didn’t I? But it was all just garbage. Old stuff.”

  Keep him talking, Nat. “And the lobsterman in the hospital?”

  “Got what he deserved,” he said shortly. “Enough jabbering, now. We’ve got things to do.”

  “One more question... where did you get the knife?”

  “The knife?” He laughed, a sick, wheezy sound. “Oh, good old Margie stole it for me. Wasn’t that nice of her? She just picked it up from your pal’s little store. Five-finger discount, you know? And I knew if I used it...” He coughed, a wet, mucousy sound. “Some people call me stupid. But I’m smarter than they think. A lot smarter.”

  I was trying to come up with something else to say when he grabbed my shoulder. “Get up.”

  My legs convulsed beneath me as I tried to stand. My knees buckled, and I sank to the ground.

  “NOW!” He belted me across the face, sending me reeling into Marge, who was curled up under the blankets.

  “Both of you! Up!”

  I staggered to my feet, wheezing, as Marge squirmed, trying to rise.

  “Fat bitch. Can’t even get yourself up, can you?”

  “Eddie...”

  “I said keep your mouth shut,” he said. He put the flashlight down on a broken-backed chair near the door, then grabbed her roughly, hoisting her to a standing position. The light from the flashlight lit his face, and Marge’s. O’Leary’s eyes were flat in their dark hollows, Marge’s barely visible in her swollen face.

  He was going to kill us.

  Marge tottered to her feet, and he stepped away. “That’s better,” he said, retrieving the flashlight. Marge swayed. I lurched toward her, catching her just before she fell.

  “Now walk,” he said, pointing the beam at the door. Marge leaned on me as we shuffled toward the door. I was still struggling to breathe, and fighting the urge to throw up. We were out of the shed. But going where? And had Marge managed to cut through her bonds? I should have had her hold the saw, I thought. If I were free, I could.... Could what, Natalie?

  Could get us out of here. Somehow. Maybe I still could.

  “Where are we going?” I rasped.

  “To your boat.”

  “The Little Marian?”

  “Enough questions.” He shoved me hard. I reeled forward, catching myself just in time, but Marge, who had been leaning on me, stumbled and fell.

  “Stupid cow. Get up!” She grunted in pain as he kicked her again.

  “She can’t,” I said. “She’s hurt too badly.”

  “She’s a lazy bitch, that’s what. Always has been.”

  “Eddie...” Marge moaned.

  “Shut up! I don’t want to hear your whining voice again. I’ve been listening to it for ten years. Now, get up!”

  I hurried toward her, trying to help her as she staggered to her feet. “Are your hands free?” I whispered.

  “Not quite.”

  O’Leary cuffed me on the neck. “Keep your pie holes shut and get moving.”

  We trudged forward with O’Leary walking behind us, pointing the way with the flashlight. “That way,” he muttered, and we followed the light into the forest.

  Except for the crunch of leaves and the occasional hoot of an owl, we marched in silence, trying not to trip over the tree roots that jutted up at our feet. Marge stumbled and fell more than once. O’Leary hauled her to her feet every time, cursing at her. Once he slapped her across the face so hard that blood leaked from her mouth.

 
I forced myself to focus on the path in front of me. The pain still throbbed in my head and my stomach, but my mind raced to find a way to escape.

  O’Leary hadn’t lied; we were headed back to where I had tied up the Little Marian hours earlier. It felt more like days, now. But why? Where was he taking us? And was there any way I could run to Emmeline’s house, get help? A cold breeze wafted O’Leary’s stale smell toward me again. I was hurt, and my hands were tied. And he was faster.

  There had to be another way.

  But what?

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with another solution. And if I couldn’t come up with something, then Marge and I were dead.

  The ground softened beneath our feet—we were back at the bog. I turned and strained to see Polly’s house, but it was too dark. The stars shone bright and cold and hard above us, and the waves slapped somewhere nearby. Occasionally I heard the clunk of wood against the rocks—the Little Marian. We were getting close.

  I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “Where are you taking us?”

  He guffawed behind us, a sound that froze the blood in my veins. “We’re goin’ on a one-way trip, lady.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re goin’ down to meet Davey Jones.”

  “No...” Marge whimpered. “You can’t.”

  “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, woman.” I heard another thump, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and Marge’s stifled cry.

  Then O’Leary spoke again. “Get moving. It’s cold out here, and I want to get home.”

  Davey Jones. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t think I wanted to know.

  What I did know was that time was running out. I strained to loosen the bonds at my wrists. If I could just get free, then maybe I could hit him with the anchor, knock him out or something. As we marched across the spongy bog, I tugged at my wrists with all my strength, trying to loosen the tight cords.

  All too soon, we were at the Little Marian.