“It’s just a little scratch,” the girl grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Shit…”
“It’s destruction of private property and vandalism,” the man said.
Tracy gaped at them both. She and Zach had bought the green SUV only two months ago. They planned to start having kids right after they got married, and the SUV, though a bit premature, was part of that plan. Zach called it their babymobile. He’d put the U.S. flag in the window a few days after 9/11. Tracy couldn’t believe this little urchin had keyed their brand-new babymobile. Zach would have a cow.
“Why would you do that?” she asked the girl. Tracy guessed she was about thirteen. “What did I ever do to you? I don’t even know you, for God’s sake.”
The bratty girl merely rolled her eyes again.
“Pointless, just pointless,” the man said, frowning. “Listen, ma’am. Why don’t you walk out to the parking lot with us? You can review the damage to your vehicle, and decide whether or not you want to press charges.”
“Of course,” Tracy muttered, still bewildered. “I’m parked outside the furniture store.”
But then, he was already aware of that, Tracy reminded herself. In order to know who she was, the man must have seen her parking the SUV in front of the furniture store. Obviously, the kid had keyed the babymobile just moments later, the little bitch.
The funny thing was, Tracy hadn’t seen anyone else in the area when she’d left the car forty-five minutes ago. That section of the mall was usually the least crowded. She’d figured the new SUV would be safe there.
She imagined the cop looking for her, and dragging this punk girl around the mall for the last forty-five minutes. Why hadn’t he just asked them to make an announcement over the mall’s PA system? Would the owner of a green SUV, license plate number COL216, report to the information desk? That certainly would have been easier.
“Are you with mall security?” Tracy asked the man. They were walking through the furniture store, the dining room section. He still had the girl by her arm. She seemed to be resisting a little as they neared the exit.
“No, I’m a cop, off duty right now,” he replied. “At least, I was off duty. If you’d like to press charges-and I think you should-I can radio it in to the station and they’ll start filling out the paperwork right away. I’ll drive you to the station. I promise it won’t take that long.”
He held the door open for Tracy, and they stepped outside. It had grown dark out, and chilly. But the lot was illuminated by halogen lights, which gave the area a stark, eerie, bluish glow. There weren’t many cars left in this section. Tracy could see the SUV ahead, and on the driver’s side, one long uninterrupted scratch. It started above the front tire and continued across the driver’s door, then along the back door to the rear bumper. “Oh, damn it,” Tracy muttered.
“That’s my minivan over there,” the man said, nodding at a blue Dodge Caravan parked nearby. “Come with me, and I’ll radio this in.”
Tracy stared at the girl, who didn’t seem to have an ounce of remorse in her. She just looked annoyed, as if they were bothering her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tracy asked.
“Don’t even try,” the man said, dragging the girl toward his minivan. “C’mon…”
The girl didn’t put up much of a fight as the man slid open the back door, put a hand on top of her head and guided her into the backseat. “Buckle up!” he barked.
He shut the door, then opened the front passenger door for Tracy. “I promise this won’t take long.”
Tracy climbed into the front. She watched him walk around the front of the vehicle toward the driver’s side. The minivan was a bit stuffy, and smelled like a dirty ashtray. Tracy immediately rolled down her window a little. She glanced at the girl in the rearview mirror. The teenager was very sullen and quiet. But she stared back at Tracy in the mirror and shook her head. “Stupid,” she grumbled.
“What?” Tracy asked. “What did you just say to me?”
The man opened the driver’s door and climbed behind the wheel. “You should buckle up, too,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long. The station isn’t far from here.”
Tracy automatically started to reach back for her seat belt, but then she glanced out the window at her and Zach’s SUV. It didn’t make sense to leave the SUV behind. Wouldn’t they want to take pictures of the damage? And doing it this way, he’d have to drive her back to the mall later. Following him to the station in the SUV would be easier. She let the seat belt slide back to its original position.
“Say, you know…” Tracy trailed off as she gazed at the dashboard.
He’d said he would radio in a report to the police station. But there was no radio in the car. Then it dawned on her: He’s not a cop.
“Stupid,” the girl repeated.
“Oh, no,” Tracy murmured. “God, no! Wait-”
In one quick motion, the man had her by the throat.
All at once, she couldn’t breathe. Tracy tried to fight him off, pounding away at him and, at the same time, frantically groping at the door. But she couldn’t find the handle. And she couldn’t stop him. He was too strong.
With one hand taut around her neck, he practically lifted her off the seat. He was crushing her windpipe. Tracy thought he’d snap her head off. He held a blackjack in his other hand.
For a second, everything froze, and Tracy caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror.
Nibbling at a fingernail, the girl stared at her. There was something in her eyes, something Tracy hadn’t seen earlier. It was remorse.
Then everything went out of focus. Tracy desperately clawed at the hand around her throat. She felt something hard hit her on the side of her head.
She didn’t feel anything after that.
In the kitchen, it sounded as if the faint, distant moaning might be something in the water pipes, maybe a plumbing problem. The girl had to listen very carefully to hear it. The drip in the kitchen sink, where she’d just washed the dinner dishes, made a more pronounced sound.
She scooped up Neely, the tabby who had been rubbing against the side of her leg for the last few moments. Cradling the cat in her arms, she opened the basement door. She could hear it better: a murmuring that might have been mistaken for one of the other cats meowing. As she started down the cellar stairs, the creaking steps temporarily drowned out that other faint sound.
The 13-year-old stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She stroked Neely’s head. She could hear the woman’s voice from here, muffled and undecipherable, but sounding human now, a woman crying out.
The girl flicked on the light switch as she stepped into the laundry room. The basement was unfinished, with a concrete floor and muddy-looking walls. Above the washer and dryer, there was a small window and a shelf full of houseplants her mother had collected and nurtured in old coffee cans and cheesy planters. One was a pink ceramic pot with WORLD’S GREATEST MOM in faded swirling gold script on it. That held the philodendron with the vines that draped down across the top of the washing machine operation panel.
Exposed pipes and support beams ran across the ceiling throughout the basement. It was from the far right support beam here in the laundry room where her mother had hanged herself nine years before. The girl had found her there at the end of a rope, dressed in a black skirt and her favorite blouse-white with pictures of gold pocket watches and chains on it. One of her slippers had come off, probably when she’d kicked the stool out from under her. It would have been a horrific discovery for almost any child. But by that time, the four-year-old girl had become quite accustomed to death and suffering.
The girl still watered her mother’s plants when she did the laundry twice a week, like some people tended to flowers on a grave.
She continued on to the furnace room, where the muffled cries didn’t seem so far away anymore. She could make out parts of what Tracy was screaming: “Please, please…can somebody hear me? Help me! My parents have money! They’ll pay you…please! God, somebody…”
She knew the woman’s name, because she’d looked at her driver’s license: Tracy Eileen Atkinson. Born: 2-20-1975; Ht: 5-06; Wt: 119; Eyes: Brn.
She reached up and pulled the string attached to the furnace room light that dangled from the ceiling. She stared at the big, heavy metal door to the bomb shelter. He’d lodged a crowbar in the door handle, so no matter how hard Tracy pulled and tugged at the door, it wouldn’t budge.
“Can anyone hear me? Please! Help me!”
If Tracy was like the others before her, she’d grow tired and stop screaming for help in a day or two. And a day or two after that, he’d grow tired of Tracy and slit her throat.
But until then, Tracy would learn that if she cooperated with him, he would give her some food scraps, maybe even an orange or an apple. If she put up a fight, she wouldn’t get anything, except maybe cat food.
Neely meowed, and the girl continued to pet her head as she approached the bomb shelter door. “There now, Neely,” she said.
“Is someone out there? Hello?”
She leaned close to the thick metal door. “I can hear you,” she called softly. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes. Oh, thank God! You have to help me…”
“Listen,” she said. “I just want you to know. I didn’t touch your car. He’s the one who scratched it up.”
“What? I don’t care…you’ve got to let me out of here…. Are you still there?”
Tracy started screaming and pounding on the metal door. But the sound was so muffled outside the bomb shelter, it was quite easy to ignore.
Stroking Neely and pressing her cheek against the tabby’s fur, she turned away from the door. She pulled the string to the single overhead light, and the furnace room went dark once again. She switched off the light in the laundry room, then ascended the basement stairs.
She could hardly hear Tracy anymore-unless she tried. And even then, it was just a faint, distant moaning.
Seattle-six years later
“Your father always loved my fried chicken.”
Jessie seemed so flattered by the way Frank gorged on her chicken, Karen didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d attacked his serving of shepherd’s pie with the same relish last week-and that was the most revolting dish the rest home cafeteria served. “Well, Dad obviously misses your cooking,” she said.
Frank sat in a hardback chair with Jessie’s home-cooked dinner on a hospital table in front of him. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, yellow pants, a white belt, and slippers. He had a towel in his lap in lieu of a napkin. He’d turned into a very messy eater in the last few years.
Sitting with Jessie on the foot of his hospital bed, Karen was dressed in a black skirt and a dark blue tailored shirt. Sometimes, watching her father gnaw away at a meal-especially finger foods-was pure torture for her. Corn on the cob and spareribs were the worst, but fried chicken ranked high up there, too. Forcing a smile, she could only glance at her father momentarily before turning away.
Karen looked out his window, and the smile vanished from her face.
There it was again-the old black Cadillac with the bent antenna. She’d seen the car several times the last few days. She’d started noticing it after that Saturday Amelia had come to her about the deaths of her parents and aunt. Twice the banged-up Cadillac was parked on her block; another time it cruised along the drive at Volunteer Park while she’d been running laps around the reservoir. She’d spotted the same vehicle in her rearview mirror on her way to pick up Jessie this afternoon. And now it was in the parking lot at the convalescent home.
Karen got to her feet and moved to the window. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if anyone was in the car.
“Frank, slow down,” Jessie was saying. “The chicken’s all yours. It’s not going anywhere. Take your sweet time.”
“Jessie, come here and look at this,” Karen said, gazing out the window. Jessie waddled up beside her. “See that Cadillac out there, the one with the broken antenna? Does it look familiar? I think someone in that car has been following me.”
Rubbing her chin, Jessie squinted out the window. “You know, I’m not sure. These old peepers aren’t what they used to be. I-”
Karen heard the chair legs scrape against the tiled floor. She swiveled around to see her father with his mouth open and eyes bulging. He pounded at his chest. “Oh, my God, he’s choking!” she cried.
“I got him!” Jessie pushed her aside and rushed behind the chair where Karen’s father sat, writhing. Within a moment, the big woman scooped him up out of the chair and locked her chubby arms around his stomach. Jessie jerked her forearms under his ribs-lifting him off his feet with every squeeze. Once, twice, three times, four times. Then a piece of food shot out of his mouth.
Karen’s father let out a cry, and then he gasped for air. He seemed to sag in Jessie’s arms. She lowered him back into the chair, and patted his shoulder. Karen hovered over him. “Just sit there and get your breath back, Poppy,” she said. He seemed okay, just a bit shaken.
But Jessie wasn’t so well off. Karen gazed at her. She staggered toward the bed and plopped down on the edge. Wincing, she put a hand over her heart. The color had drained from her face, and she started wheezing.
Karen hurried to her side. “Jessie, are you okay?
She didn’t respond. She just sat there, struggling for her breath.
Karen snatched up the phone and called for the doctor on staff. “There’s a woman here with breathing problems. Could you come to room 204, quickly please?”
As she hung up the phone, she heard Jessie say, “Aren’t you-aren’t you supposed to say ‘stat’?”
Karen sat down on the bed, and gently patted her back. “I’d feel like an idiot saying ‘stat;’ that’s for the nurses and doctors. How are you?”
Jessie nodded. “I just overdid it a bit. I’ll be peachy in another minute or two.” She glanced over at Karen’s father and started to chuckle. “Well, I’m glad he didn’t let my having a coronary slow him down.”
Frank was sitting up and gorging on his fried chicken once again.
Karen managed to laugh, but she noticed Jessie wincing again. She stayed at her side until the doctor arrived with a nurse. Dr. Chang felt Jessie’s throat, then put a stethoscope to her chest. He asked if she could walk with him to his office down the hall. Jessie nodded. But she seemed a bit unsteady on her feet as Dr. Chang and the nurse led her out of the room.
Karen hated to see her looking so feeble. Jessie was her rock. She couldn’t have managed without her these last four years.
Now that she’d moved her dad into Sandpoint View, Karen was getting pressured by her older brother and sister to sell the house. But she didn’t want to sell it yet. She kept Jessie on three days a week. They often took these trips to the convalescent home together.
Her father’s face and hands were a greasy mess. Karen got him cleaned up. Then she washed off the plate and utensils in his bathroom sink, along with Jessie’s Tupperware containers. All the while, she thought about Jessie, down the hall, being examined by Dr. Chang. The reality of it was, Jessie wasn’t much younger than Dr. Chang’s regular patients here.
One good thing, at least she hadn’t heard an ambulance yet. Whenever there was a severe medical emergency, they sent for an ambulance and rushed the patient to University Hospital. Many of the ones from this place died on the way.
Karen finished drying off Jessie’s Tupperware, and then checked on her father again. He’d moved into the cushioned easy chair, and was dozing peacefully. She decided to give Dr. Chang another five minutes with Jessie before going to his office and finding out how she was doing.
She glanced outside her father’s window, and once again focused on that beat-up, old black Cadillac. Was someone really following her? Maybe one of her patients? Most of her clients weren’t a threat to anyone, except maybe themselves. Every once in a while she got a truly disturbed new patient. But Karen sent those to a more qualified specialist.
Some
of them didn’t like being sent away.
Karen looked at her dad again. He was snoring now. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
Grabbing her purse, she retreated down the hallway to the side door, and then out to the parking lot. The cold wind hit her, and Karen shivered as she headed toward the old, black Cadillac. She wanted to get the license plate number. She still had a few connections with the police department from when she’d worked at Group Health Hospital, counseling the occasional crime victim or criminal. She could pull a few strings and maybe get a trace on the plates through the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Approaching the car, she didn’t see anyone inside. She wasn’t close enough to read the license plate, but started to reach into her purse for a pen and paper. Then she heard a faint, distant wail, and Karen stopped in her tracks. The siren’s high-pitched cry grew louder and louder.
The ambulance sped up the street, its red flashers swirling on the roof. It turned into Sandpoint View’s parking lot. “Oh, my God, Jessie,” she murmured to herself.
Running back to the side door, she ducked inside and raced down the hallway toward B wing, where Dr. Chang had his office. But as she turned the corner, Karen came upon about a dozen elderly residents hovering outside the TV room. Roseann was trying to get them to disperse. “C’mon now, clear the door, folks,” she was saying. “The paramedics need to get to Peggy, and you’re blocking the way.”
Karen approached her. “What happened?”
“Peggy Henderson fell and hit her head,” Roseann whispered. “There’s blood everywhere. I think she might have had a minor stroke, too, poor thing. Dr. Pollard is in there with her now. Help me get these people out of here.”
Karen glanced in the TV room, and saw the frail old woman lying on the sofa, with the other doctor on staff and a nurse hovering over her. Two bloodstained hand towels were wadded up in a ball by their feet. Pollard was checking her vital signs. Karen didn’t have much time for more than a glance. Two paramedics were barreling down the hallway with a collapsible gurney.
One Last Scream Page 13