Cellar Girl

by Josefina Rivera

  For now, I was just trying to keep cool, trying to keep up the act that had so far convinced Gary that I was on his side. We’d made a deal. I helped him get a girl, he let me go see my family. As long as that held up then she should come out of this okay.

  But the stakes couldn’t have been higher. I knew that one wrong move, one wrong word at any time, and it could all go wrong. This wasn’t a game I could afford to lose. For my sake or any of the others.

  Gary drove us both back to North Marshall Street and I stayed downstairs in the living room while he took Vickie up to the bedroom. It was only about fifteen minutes later when he brought her down naked in the cuffs.

  Maybe it was the fact that I was there and acting really casual that put her at her ease, maybe it was the fact that she knew Gary from before, but Vickie was very nonchalant as he marched her down the steps to the basement.

  She didn’t cry and she didn’t seem mad either. Gary shot a look at me and jerked his head in the direction of the basement, a silent command: Follow me.

  So for the first time since I was freed I followed him down to the basement. The other girls looked up as we came down – it was a strange, uneasy meeting. They stared at me, wide-eyed with confusion and mistrust.

  I was instantly on edge back down there in that basement: the familiar dank smell, the bright light and bare walls. Claustrophobia clawed at my skin, making it hard to think and breathe normally.

  Meanwhile Gary was going through the routine with the muffler clamps and Vickie was calm as you like, just sort of standing there, nodding to the other girls.

  This one is clueless, I thought.

  ‘Get in the hole,’ he instructed and, nice as pie, she got in and sat down. Gary replaced the board on top.

  The other girls were looking straight at me but I couldn’t meet their gaze – I couldn’t face them. I knew what they were thinking: She’s gone over to his side. Now we’re all doomed.

  I desperately wanted to grab them and tell them – it’s okay, we’re nearly free. Just trust me. Hang in there. But of course I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t let my poker face slip for an instant.

  We were on the cusp of freedom but nobody knew it except me.

  This had to work. It just had to. Failure wasn’t an option.

  By the time Gary and I got back upstairs it was nearly nine.

  ‘Okay,’ Gary said. ‘Let’s do your thing now.’

  He seemed satisfied that I’d fulfilled my part of the bargain so we got in the Cadillac again and drove up to Six and Gerard, near where Gary picked me up.

  I indicated a gas station at the corner.

  ‘Pull in here,’ I told him. ‘You can wait here while I go and talk to them. Grab a cup of coffee and I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so.’

  My heart was pounding so hard, I was surprised he couldn’t hear it. He seemed content with the whole setup – in his mind I was now his partner, I was going to find a way to convince my family everything was okay and then he’d keep right on going with his crazy plans.

  I got out the car and walked slowly down the street – I couldn’t be seen to rush this, he mustn’t get an inkling of what I had planned. If he did, it could all fall apart in an instant.

  So I headed down Gerard Street and after one block I turned a corner where I knew there was a phone box. I was striding now, long purposeful steps, and almost fell into the phone box like a drowning man reaching for a rescue raft.

  My hands shook as I lifted the receiver and dialed 911 – I knew what I was going to say, I’d been rehearsing this for weeks. As soon as I was put through to the police I started speaking, fast but clear: ‘Listen, I don’t have a whole lot of time. I’ve been kidnapped and held for four months in this guy’s basement. I’ve been shackled, beaten and tortured. There are other girls still there. The guy that did it is waiting for me at the gas station at Six and Gerard. I need somebody to come out here and pick him up so that he can’t get back to these other girls because if he does he’s going to kill them.’

  There was a pause on the end of the line.

  ‘Erm, can you tell us that again, Miss?’

  Oh Jesus! I knew that while I was here every second counted. How long had I been gone now? Three minutes, maybe more?

  They didn’t believe me – they didn’t even understand me so I explained my story again and this time I added: ‘Can you please just send someone out now. I’m at the phone booth at 5th and Gerard. Please! This is a matter of life and death.’

  The voice on the other end of the phone still sounded skeptical but he said, ‘Okay, what do you have on?’

  I described my outfit and he said, ‘Stay right there on that corner. We’re sending a car out now.’

  ‘Okay.’ I put the phone down. My hands were still trembling and I grasped them together under my chin. Now I stepped outside the phone box and stood there on the corner, my eyes darting up and down the road, looking out for the police car, and also the Cadillac. It could be either.

  The seconds ticked by so slowly, I felt like screaming. Come on, come on, come on! I stomped my feet on the floor, hopping from one foot to the other – to keep warm or to stop myself going insane, I wasn’t sure which.

  Just then I saw a man I recognized turn the corner, with a few of his friends. His name was Vincent Nelson – we used to live on the same apartment block. We used to get high together – but that wasn’t unusual, in this part of the world everyone got high together. He spotted me immediately.

  ‘Nicole! What’s up?’ He seemed happy to see me and judging by his movements and the way he was walking I reckoned he must be high right now. It was funny, in the whole time I’d been captive I hadn’t once thought of taking drugs.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he drawled. ‘We ain’t seen you for months.’

  ‘I can’t talk now, Vincent. I’ll tell you later,’ I muttered irritably, trying to get rid of him.

  ‘Shit, Nicole! You disappear for months and we just want to know what’s up!’

  ‘Look,’ I was losing my rag now. ‘I got kidnapped, okay? I got caught up in some mess and we’ll talk about it some other time. Please, just leave it.’

  Vincent shrugged and by now his friends were dragging him off down the street. ‘I’ll catch you later!’ he shouted as he wandered off.

  The minutes dragged by so slowly. My heart was racing. I was jittery, breathing hard. Were they ever going to get here? Would I have to call them back?

  Finally, after ten minutes, a police paddy wagon turned the corner and pulled up next to me.

  Two cops got out the car.

  ‘Okay, Miss. We got some very strange call from you so can you tell us again what’s going on?’

  Christ!

  ‘Look, I’m gonna explain this to you one more time,’ I said, panic starting to rise in my voice. ‘Because all this… this talking! This is detrimental. There are other girls there. This guy Gary Heidnik has kidnapped me and he’s had me chained and shackled in his basement for four months. Me and some other girls – he’s killed two already. And we’ve all been raped, tortured and beaten. Look!’

  I hoiked up the bottom of my jeans to show him the back of my legs where the shackle marks were still red and sore.

  That convinced them.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You stay here. We’re gonna go back there and pick him up and we’ll have another car come here and meet you.’

  He got back in the wagon while his partner radioed the station to get another car to meet me. When it pulled up, they took off.

  This time a black lady cop got out of the car.

  ‘Unbelievable!’ she complained loudly as she heaved her bulky frame out of the driver’s seat. ‘I’m getting ready to get off work and now I have to come down here and sit with you?’

  She was so mad, it was almost laughable.

  We were there a couple of minutes before her radio went off.

  ‘Get in.’ She motioned for me to get in the back. ‘I got to take you to
the gas station. They want to make sure they got the right guy.’

  I nodded. I was ready for this. So I got in the back of the car and we drove the short distance to the gas station. When we got there I could see Gary’s Cadillac still parked at the side but he wasn’t in it. Oh no! Did they lose him? Did he run?

  I was gripped with panic and fear.

  But then I looked over to the paddy wagon and the cops opened up the car door and there he was, sitting there with his hands cuffed behind him. I almost smiled with relief.

  ‘Yup, that’s him,’ I said. Gary looked directly at me but didn’t say a word. I could tell what he was thinking – I know I shouldn’t have trusted you.

  I breathed out for what felt like the first time that night. Relief washed over me. It was over. It was finally over. I’d won.

  The lady cop drove me over to the Sex Crimes Unit in the police station where a specialist from the unit took care of me, a lovely lady called Mary, someone that didn’t treat me like a nuisance or a waste of her time. Mary offered me a cheese sandwich and a soda then led me through to an interview room where a female detective was sitting at a desk.

  ‘We need you to go through everything in detail,’ she explained. ‘We need to know where everything is because we don’t want to make any mistakes. We’re gonna get a warrant so we can go into every part of the house that we need to. So it’s very important you tell us everything. Right from the start.’

  So I started talking and once I started, I couldn’t stop. It all came pouring out of me. I told them everything that had happened to me in the last four months, everything I’d seen, heard and experienced. I told them about Sandra, about how he cut her up into little bits and boiled her head on the stove and roasted her ribs in the oven. I told them about the dog food and how he fed bits of her to the other girls. I tell them about the electrocution, about Deborah Dudley dying, about the letter Gary made me sign, and how it earned me my freedom. I told them about dumping her body in the Pine Barrens and about the three girls still there in his basement, alive. I described the house in perfect detail, telling them where the girls were being kept. But as I spoke I could see the shock on their faces. This was unbelievable, they were thinking. And as I listened to myself talking, I realized I was thinking the same. It was unbelievable to me too. I’d lived it and I found it too crazy, too beyond comprehension to fully take it all in.

  By the time I’d finished it was the early hours of the morning and the police got the search warrant they needed to send their team into the house.

  They reported back to me an hour later.

  ‘The house was so normal we couldn’t believe that anything was going on there but it was just like you said. The girls didn’t even make any noise when we came in – they thought it was Heidnik playing a trick. We had to get bolt cutters to free them from the shackles. We’ve taken them to the hospital to get checked over and that’s where we’re gonna take you now.’

  I was driven to the hospital just as the sun came up on a new day, my first day of freedom. I hadn’t slept, I’d barely eaten but I wasn’t tired or hungry.

  In the hospital they conducted a full examination and took blood samples. I was sat in the lobby waiting for the results when I saw Vickie coming out of one of the rooms.

  ‘That’s her,’ she shrieked, pointing at me. ‘That’s the one who kidnapped me! I told you it was a girl and there she is!’

  I just sat there and shook my head.

  After a few minutes I was called back into the doctor’s office.

  ‘Well, you’re lucky,’ he said. ‘You’re not pregnant.’

  Thank God for that! I wanted to smile but I didn’t quite understand.

  ‘But I didn’t get a period for four months,’ I said.

  ‘Well, it was probably the stress of the situation,’ the doctor explained. ‘That, combined with the fact that you were eating very little. Don’t worry, it’ll come.’

  Just a few hours later my period arrived. I was hugely relieved that I didn’t have to go through the emotional turmoil of an abortion. But also, I felt triumphant.

  It didn’t work. None of his plans had worked.

  Even my body found a way to beat you, Gary Heidnik!

  Chapter Nineteen

  Freedom

  ‘You think you can remember where he left the body?’ a cop asked me. We were back at the police station. I’d still not had a shower or slept but I was so wired I couldn’t even think of sleeping.

  ‘I’ll do the best that I can,’ I told him. I’d thought about this, I knew they’d want to recover the body and I’d attempted to make a mental map when Gary took me there so I was prepared for this moment.

  The station was now a hive of activity – cops ran backwards and forwards, carrying bags and bags of stuff. I learned later it was all the evidence recovered from Heidnik’s house – those coppers didn’t take any chances. They took out everything and they made a list so long it took them eleven days to compile.

  Now I was sitting in an interview room nursing a strong cup of coffee and the officer in charge of the case came to get me.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said.

  We got into the car park and that’s when the enormity of what was going on hit me.

  There was press everywhere! We could hardly hear for the whumping of the news choppers overhead. The parking lot was full of reporters and every type of news vehicle you could imagine.

  The moment I stepped outside the shouts started up and a million cameras flashed in my face. I was temporarily blinded.

  ‘Nicole! Nicole!’ they hollered at me. Microphones were shoved towards me; even the detectives appeared overwhelmed.

  The press was everywhere and they were all clamoring to speak to me. I didn’t say a word, it was too much for me to take in. The two detectives immediately swung into action, one making a path through the crowd, shouting, ‘Let us through! Out the way!’ while the other shielded me with his large body, protecting me from the hands and voices and faces and questions that came at me from every angle.

  It seemed to take ages but we slowly pushed our way through the crowds and I let the officers bundle me into the back of the car. Once we were inside, me in the back with the two detectives up front, we all sat back in stunned silence. I never even expected one reporter to be there, let alone thousands. I just never considered the media in this at all.

  I listened to the helicopters circling above us.

  The detectives started up the car but we were surrounded. It took us forever to move through the swarm of cars and people.

  ‘This is just ridiculous!’ the detective who was driving exclaimed.

  We all looked up now at the choppers – one, two, three. How many of those damn things have they got up there? I wondered.

  I noticed the sides of each were marked with the logo of TV channels – Channel 6, Channel 3, CNN, CBS.

  We edged out onto the road and now we were travelling in a massive convoy – dozens of cars trailing behind us, the choppers following too.

  ‘Why are all these press here?’ I asked, dazed.

  The officer answered me: ‘You don’t even realize how big this story is, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, this will probably be an ongoing thing. Try not to pay them any mind.’

  I don’t know how you can ignore a succession of eager, clamoring press – they followed us all the way across the bridge. There was a huge cavalcade of vehicles: press cars, more police cars, helicopters.

  I just hoped I could remember where Gary dumped Deborah’s body. We headed out now towards New Jersey – the Pine Barrens is a million acres. It covers a quarter of the state. I knew the chances of finding her in all that forest were practically nil but still, I was going to do my best.

  Now we were travelling down the same road I went along with Gary just a few days before and the signs were familiar. But once we were out in the Barrens, there were no landmarks, nothing to indicate where we’d stopped.<
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  Still, my senses were in a heightened state of alert. I didn’t want to get this wrong. I’m usually terrible with directions! But I was so upset at the thought of Deborah just lying out in the forest, dumped like a pile of rubbish, I was determined to try my best.

  The miles drifted past us, the noise overhead still deafening. Suddenly, I felt we were nearing the spot. I told the cops to slow down.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said, biting my nails anxiously, scanning the rows of trees. This felt close. ‘Here! It’s here!’

  We turned off into what looked like the same clearing I stopped at with Gary.

  I directed them to keep going a little way then we came to a stop.

  Behind, the other cop car had screeched up behind us and two cops got out, ordering the media pack to keep back.

  I pointed over in the direction Heidnik had walked. ‘He took her over there. Not far, maybe ten, twenty steps.’

  I was just guessing – after all, it was dark when we came here with Deborah.

  ‘You wait here,’ the cop ordered and they got out.

  They set off on foot in the direction I’d given them and the next thing I heard was: ‘Whoa! Whoa! We got her! We got her!’

  I sent up a silent prayer: Rest in peace, Deborah. Now you can rest in peace.

  Another cop car pulled up behind us and two more cops went over to the body – I didn’t get out, I didn’t want to see. A few minutes later an ambulance pulled up and the detectives returned to the car.

  ‘I’d like to see my family now, please,’ I told them.

  * * *

  On the way back the detective radioed the station and they told him to take me to the office of the Assistant District Attorney, a man called Charles Gallagher.

  Gallagher was the man in charge – he greeted me solemnly but with genuine warmth.

  ‘I’m going to try to do everything I can to make you comfortable,’ he said, his eyes full of concern. ‘We got your kids coming to see you and we’ve arranged for you to stay in a hotel for now. It’s a secret location so the press can’t get to you. The fact is, we don’t know at this stage if Heidnik had any accomplices so we’re going to give you as much protection as you need.’