by Maureen Tan
Before playing the next message, I went to the fridge intending to cut myself a slice of cheese. And discovered the surprise. Katie had made me a cake. The kind usually reserved for the hotel’s guests on special occasions. Single serving, tiny and perfect, it was encased in a paper-thin layer of marzipan and sprinkled with something that made it glitter like an ornament. This cake was decorated with miniature roses. Yellow Cherokee roses.
Nice, I thought. It didn’t solve any problems, but it reminded me how sweet and thoughtful my sister could be. How hard she was trying to do the right thing. And the gesture gave me hope.
I picked up the cake, carried it back to the kitchen counter, and took a bite as I listened to the next message. Inside the marzipan wrapper, the cake was yellow with ribbons of dark chocolate dividing three uniformly thin layers.
On the answering machine, the next caller was Aunt Lucy. Her voice was calm and pleasant even though her message was all business. As was typical when we spoke about the Underground, Aunt Lucy’s message was deliberately vague. But it conveyed a wealth of information.
“I’m going out of town this afternoon, honey. To meet an old friend for dinner. I’ll be back before midnight. Thought you’d be pleased.”
She’d called at 2:00 p.m.
Though I didn’t envy Aunt Lucy the long drive to rendezvous with another Underground volunteer, I was happy for Jackie. Pleased she was on her way to a new life. Mostly, though, I was thrilled that she was well away from the Cherokee Rose. Now only regular guests remained for Katie to interact with, and I had a little more time to resolve the issue of her involvement with the Underground.
Maybe, I thought as I took another bite of Katie’s lovely cake, there was some middle ground. Maybe Katie could be convinced to focus on some other aspect of the Underground, one that didn’t involve direct contact with abused women. Like finances. Despite private donations, demand for services were a constant drain on Underground resources. My sister was clever, good with money and investments. She could really make a difference.
As I hit Erase, the phone rang again. Before I could review the last message.
“Oh, good. You’re still home.”
The relief that I heard in my grandmother’s voice was completely out of character. And absolutely alarming.
“What’s wrong?” I blurted, abandoning the last bit of cake on the counter.
“Our special guest checked out earlier, but I saw her husband a few minutes ago.”
I had no doubt that Gran was talking about Hector Townsend.
My first thought was that Jackie’d had a moment of doubt. Beatings destroyed a woman’s confidence, often making her believe she couldn’t survive apart from the very person who mistreated her. So sometimes, no matter how vigilant we tried to be, women traveling along the Underground contacted their abusers. Told them where they were. Jackie, I feared, had done just that. Called Hector to come get her, then changed her mind again. And escaped with Aunt Lucy. Leaving Gran to deal with an enraged, possessive and physically powerful man who could easily recognize her from the hospital. Might assault her to get information. Or just to get revenge.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I grabbed for my gun. “If he trespasses, call 911. Tell them you’re Officer Tyler’s grandmother and a man is threaten—
“No. Brooke. Honey. Listen to me!” Gran said urgently. “I was running errands and saw him drive his motorcycle off the ferry. He was headed up Route 146, so he’s probably long gone. But I decided it was a good idea to tell Katie about him and to have her work late tonight. Until Lucy comes back home. And I want you to keep your eyes open, too. You’re the police, so I’m sure you can handle any trouble he makes.”
“Of course I can, Gran,” I said as I moved my fingers away from my gun belt and let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
Though I hadn’t taken the job in Maryville just to protect the Underground, there were certainly advantages to my position. If I saw Hector tonight—and it seemed to me the bars on Dunn Street would be a magnet for someone like him—I’d find a way to discourage him from remaining in town. Arrest him, if need be.
“I saw the evening news,” Gran was saying. “And I’m proud of you. Finding all those people who were executed out there. Anyway, as busy as you’ve been with that, I wasn’t sure I’d even catch you at home.”
And that explained the relief in Gran’s voice, I thought. She hadn’t expected to reach me so easily. Cell-phone reception out at Camp Cadiz was nonexistent, and routing an emergency call through dispatch required an explanation—some good excuse for using official channels for personal business. Claiming a family emergency risked calling attention to the other activities taking place at the Cherokee Rose.
“So just do your job,” she said. “Oh, by the way, I moved that antique of your grandfather’s downstairs.”
I knew exactly what she meant. Knew that she’d rolled back the rug beside her bed, lifted one of the floorboards, and unwrapped the revolver from the piece of old patchwork quilt that protected it. After eight years in the darkness.
“You cleaned it up, didn’t you?”
She laughed at that.
“Don’t worry, honey. It’s nicely polished. And now it’s in the safe behind the counter, so if anyone ever tries to rob us…”
Armed robbery. That was the excuse that we always held at the ready. Just in case we were confronted by someone like Hector. It was an explanation that law enforcement would readily accept. A strategy that we’d been careful enough—and fortunate enough—never to have used.
But I’d never had any trouble imagining my Gran acting in such an extreme emergency. Now, as I continued speaking on the phone with her, I could see her taking my grandfather’s gun from the safe. I pictured her as I often had, her sinewy arms extended, pale eyes focused and intent through her thick lenses, arthritic hands unwavering. Gran would face an intruder courageously, without regard for her own welfare. Just the way her great-grandmother had faced down a posse while a group of runaway slaves had hidden just yards away.
If the need arose, Gran was more than capable of pulling the trigger.
I’d hung up the phone, pushed the answering machine button again, and was about to take the last bite of cake when I heard the third message.
My sister’s voice again. Still whispery.
Now furious.
“I saw the way everyone was smiling at you on TV. If you tell them, I swear—”
The message and the threat cut off as Katie slammed down the phone.
The answering machine beeped—3:20 p.m. Some station, I realized, had broken into their regular programming and broadcast a segment of the news conference. And I knew there was a small TV in the kitchen of the Cherokee Rose. Katie liked to leave it on as she worked.
Suddenly, I lost my appetite for the cake my sister had made especially for me. I dropped it into the garbage, wiped my fingers on my jeans. Spurred by a half-spoken threat I didn’t fully understand, my anxiety—my suspicions—returned in a rush. But now they made less sense than ever.
Katie couldn’t have been involved, I told myself. Not in all those murders. They’d taken place over decades. She’d been too young….
But what about just one murder? The one that didn’t fit the pattern?
Once more, the inhaler that I’d found—the inhaler that now shared the kitchen counter with my gun, car keys and a ripe tomato—took on significance.
I punched Chad’s number on the speed dial. Not because I wanted to hear a friendly voice or because my sister’s threats made me feel abandoned and alone. I called him because I needed a professional’s perspective. At least, that’s what I told myself.
Two rings and a few minutes of small talk later, I gave him an update on the crime scene. Twenty-one bodies for sure. Another half-dozen tarps filled with random bits of clothing and miscellaneous body parts. Search efforts so far limited to the bottom of the ravine.
Then I told him that all the recov
ered bodies seemed to be male.
“Weird,” he said, which pretty much summed up my feelings. “I wonder how our Jane Doe fits in?”
My question exactly, I thought.
“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe she doesn’t.”
Then I spoke my next thoughts out loud. And though Chad had no way of knowing it, I was telling him why—at least, in this instance—I thought it was unlikely that Katie had committed murder. Despite the secret she thought I knew. Despite her threats. Despite the inhaler.
“It’d be a coincidence, wouldn’t it, if someone else killed our Jane Doe?” I said. “And then, by chance, hid the body along the same stretch of ravine where at least twenty other people were executed?”
“One hell of a coincidence,” Chad said with enough passion that I believed him. “Even if all the other victims are men.”
Then he stopped speaking abruptly, as if he was thinking over the words he’d just said or chasing some wisp of a thought.
I knew him well enough that I waited, not interrupting. And though pacing was an obvious remedy for the impatience I felt, I used the time instead to tuck the bagged inhaler into a roasting pan I rarely used. By the time I stepped back down from my kitchen stool, Chad was talking to me again.
“Maybe it has do with the fact that she is female. So she was executed, just like the men. With a bullet through the brain. But, unlike the men, her body wasn’t just shoved into the ravine like so much garbage. The place was remote and the odds were against finding her, so our killer could simply have left her out in the open. But someone made sure that the body wasn’t exposed to the weather or scavengers. I bet, at the time, the inside of that old tree looked pretty secure. In an odd sort of way, our Jane Doe was buried. Or, at least, placed somewhere permanent. Undisturbed. Out of respect, maybe. Or love.”
And that, I thought, let Katie off the hook.
I put my gun away as I always did unless I was wearing it or cleaning it. No matter that I lived alone and wasn’t expecting company. Too many people—among them, Katie—had keys to my house. So I locked it into the gun box in my bedroom and then I showered.
For the second time in the past several days, I stripped and dumped my filthy clothes in a plastic bag, isolating them from a hamper full of more conventionally dirty clothing. Once again, I ran the shower hot, scrubbing away—at least from my flesh—all residue of the day’s activities, the day’s discoveries. And then as I stood in the shower, I checked for ticks, running my hands through my hair, below my breasts, over my entire body. Alert for anything that felt like a freckle, but hadn’t been there when I’d showered that morning.
Finally clean, but far from refreshed, I turned off the shower and dried myself off. Then I wrapped the towel around me, intending to step across the hallway into my bedroom. To get dressed.
I made it out of the bathroom.
Two steps down the hall.
Four steps from my bedroom door.
That was when the kitchen door flew open, its flimsy latch torn away by the force of a shoulder against the door.
He lurched forward into the room, surveyed the kitchen.
Hector Townsend. Wearing tight jeans, leather chaps and heavy boots. The bulging muscles on his upper torso exposed by a black, sleeveless athletic shirt.
“Jackie!” Hector roared. “I know you’re here. One of your new friends called me. Told me how to get here. You can’t trust them. Come on out. I promise I’ll take care of you!”
I flattened myself against the wall, knowing that even the most casual glance down the hall would betray my position. Then I took a step sideways, toward the bedroom.
The floor creaked.
And he saw me.
“Where’s Jackie?” he bellowed as I dove for my bedroom door.
Hector’s heavy footsteps stormed down the hall.
I slid across my bed, losing my towel as I stretched out, grabbing for the gun box on the lower shelf of my night stand.
My fingers touched it.
I keyed in the three-digit number.
Almost had it open.
Too late.
Hector grabbed my feet, dragged me back away from the edge of the bed. And then he was on top of me. Crushing me. Scrabbling upward over my body to grab my hands, capture my wrists.
He was a big man. Massive.
I knew I couldn’t fight him. Not from this position.
I went limp instead.
That’s when he rolled me over. Held my arms over my head as he straddled my hips. Pinning me to the bed.
I prayed for an opening. Any opening.
He used his free hand to slap me. Hard.
“Where’s Jackie?”
I tasted blood in my mouth. From the inside of my cheek. And I recalled too vividly how Jackie’s face had looked when he’d finished with her.
I tried to buy myself some time.
“Please,” I cried, “I don’t know any Jackie.”
The grip of his massive left hand around my wrists tightened. He slapped me again with his right, then curled his fingers into a fist that he swept just inches from my face. Threatening.
Then he thought of something better.
He shifted slightly, settling his mass onto my thighs.
“I know you’re hiding her,” he said.
He spread his fingers wide, dragged his hand downward past my breasts, down across my belly.
“I’ve really missed Jackie,” he said. “Understand, bitch?”
I ignored the movement of his hand.
Stared up into his violent, evil face.
Then I turned my head, closed my eyes, blinding myself to this human monster as I fought the hysteria that was making it difficult to think.
No matter what was happening, I had to think clearly.
Just like Gran had taught me.
That’s when I heard the high-pitched whine, the sound of Highball’s nails against the uncarpeted floor of the hallway. He was pacing, agitated by a human behavior he didn’t understand.
I made it clear to him.
I screamed, long and loud.
One of Highball’s paws scraped across my trapped legs as he leaped onto the bed. He lunged for Hector’s arm, bit down hard. And held on.
Hector yelled out. Surprised. Terrified. Swung himself off of the bed. Off of me. Moved toward the door as he attempted to escape Highball’s teeth.
I grabbed my gun.
Aimed past my now-empty bed just as Hector shook my dog loose.
Highball landed in a heap on the floor, then sprung back onto all four feet. Growling. Circling in close. Limping, but intent on keeping a predator at bay.
Hector lifted his booted foot, a prelude to kicking my dog.
“Freeze!” I shouted to get Hector’s attention.
He glanced away from Highball, saw the gun, realized that I was a greater threat than the dog. He put his foot down, then stood very still, moving only to follow my unspoken command. The quick upward movement of the tip of my gun prompted him to raise his hands above his head. After that, the only thing that moved was his chest, which heaved up and down, and the thin line of blood that dribbled slowly from the bite mark on his bare shoulder.
Only then did I call Highball over to my side, where he stood with his soft, furry shoulder pressed against my leg. Obedient to my command, but still growling deep in his throat, his tawny-brown eyes fixed on Hector.
I used my free hand to pat my dog’s head as I considered what to do with the man in front of me. Arresting him, charging him with assault and attempted rape, facing him in court…all of that risked exposing the Underground.
Then I thought about shooting him. Point blank.
If I dialed 911, county would respond to my call. My cheek was bruised. As were my wrists. And the back door was broken in. No one would question my decision to defend myself against a rapist. One who targeted a woman living alone in an isolated area, but hadn’t counted on going up against a cop. And her dog.
A tempt
ing solution.
Not a viable one.
I would have unhesitatingly killed Hector to defend Jackie’s life. Or my own. But Jackie was long gone. And I wasn’t a murderer.
That narrowed the options to one.
With Highball as an escort, I walked Hector through the house at gunpoint, angry enough that I didn’t much care that I was still naked. Besides, I didn’t think Hector would stand idly by as I threw on some clothes. I made him open every closet, look under every piece of furniture.
“She’s long gone,” I said finally. “So get over it.”
Then I took him to the back door.
“If I ever see you again, you’re a dead man. Understand?”
He nodded.
I gave him a quick prod with my gun, encouraging him in the direction of the motorcycle I hadn’t heard because I’d been showering.
He ran across the yard, not looking back. Threw a leather-clad leg over his bike. The engine roared to life and gravel scattered as he sped away.
Now shivering from reaction, I stepped back inside. Pushed a kitchen chair beneath the doorknob to secure the back door. Then I knelt down beside my protector, laid my gun down on the kitchen floor and gave him a hug.
I checked him for injuries.
Just bumps and bruises, I thought when I was done. Just like me.
With Highball close at my heels and my gun back in my hand, I walked back down the hall. From now on, I thought, I’d have to watch my back. And keep my gun close at hand. Even in my own home. My own bathroom. Because Hector didn’t strike me as the type who’d just give up.
Neither did my sister.
Jackie didn’t know where I lived. She had no reason to send her abusive husband to my house. But I’d made myself a target for Katie. For Katie’s rage. And I’d become its latest victim.
Easy enough to imagine her wheedling a phone number from Jackie just before she left. All Katie had to do was tell Jackie that she was sending Hector on a wild-goose chase.
A chase that had landed him at her sister’s door.