Evil Behind That Door

by Barbara Fradkin

  “This is your fault, O’Toole. It could have been okay, if I’d sold the place. If you didn’t open that door.”

  “Barry! Don’t make things worse!”

  “I’m going to fix it, O’Toole. Just the way you suggested.” His voice grew quiet and his footsteps thudded on the stairs.

  I shouted. I pounded. But nothing answered me back. I stood in the dark. Forced myself to listen. Nothing but silence. I fought back panic. Think, Rick. Is there a way to get out of here? I had to see what was around. Had I left the flashlight in here?

  I dropped to my hands and knees and began to feel around on the floor. My fingers slid over mason jars, cold earth, the edges of the bin. The small, smooth skull. I jerked back. Reached cautiously again and felt the cold round steel of the flashlight. I gave a sob. Switching it on, I shone it around the room. Around the frame of the door, which was sealed shut. Along the base of the wall where, long ago, an animal had scratched.

  No, not an animal. Little Louie, who had been locked in here alive and had tried to claw his way out. How could anybody be that cruel or, more likely, that stupid?

  I knew the answer. If they were drunk enough. And freaked enough to think he was already dead.

  Then the flashlight lit up something shiny in the corner. I went closer. Little bits of foil, all in a pile. I dusted one off. It looked like a candy wrapper. Pink. Beside it, some bits of cloth. Not plaid this time, but red. I brought the light close. It looked like part of a big red bow. The kind you see on Christmas presents, or Valentine’s boxes.

  Valentine! I looked at the pink foil. Valentine’s chocolates. Every year Aunt Penny sold big heart-shaped boxes in her store. My mother used to say some day Elvis would buy her one. Once she even bought a box for herself and pretended they were from him. Didn’t matter he’d been dead more than a decade. She ate one a day for a month. Didn’t let me near them.

  Barry’d said something about chocolates. What had happened? Did Louie get at Barry’s chocolates, like any little kid would? And Barry got so mad he hit him? But that didn’t make sense. You didn’t buy chocolates like this for kids. Not in a heart-shaped box that cost half a week’s pay.

  Maybe Barry bought them for his mother. Spent every cent he had to get them for her. But the instant I thought that, I knew how ridiculous that was. Barry was five years old. Where would he get the money for chocolates? Only Pete had that kind of money. Pete, who always bought his wife fancy gifts.

  But if Pete had bought the chocolates…

  I sat in the dark, fingering the foil. I felt like an idea was hanging around just out of reach, in some dark corner. Over my head, I could hear Barry thumping around in the kitchen. I felt my heart racing, my thoughts skittering around like scared chickens. Think, O’Toole. Think!

  Valentine’s Day. Something about that day rang a bell. Then it hit me. Pete and Connie had disappeared on Valentine’s Day, after celebrating too hard at the Lion’s Head. Too drunk to remember the thin ice at the mouth of the creek. Or so it seemed. But Pete had crossed that ice hundreds of times in the past, and if you gunned the snowmobile fast enough, it was no problem. Even with a keg of beer on the back.

  Unless something was wrong with the sled.

  Like pinballs falling into slots, the pieces tumbled into place. I didn’t breathe. Someone had tampered with the wiring. Someone who knew they were going to the Lion’s Head and would be cutting back home across the lake. Why would Barry do that? Barry hated his father. As a little kid, he’d suffered a lot at his hand. But he was a big man now, and Pete was no match. He’d survived thirty-five years with him. Why now?

  Maybe he just wanted the money from the farm. But that seemed like an awful lot of planning for a guy like Barry. And a lot of luck too.

  How would he be sure they’d take the Wildcat? How could he be sure the sled would fail at exactly the right time, on the thin ice? Only two people could be sure of that. Pete, if he’d decided to end it all.

  And Connie.

  Pete really knew his way around engines, Nancy had said. And Barry had helped him.

  That was it! That was the idea hanging out there in the dark. Pete and Barry wouldn’t need a manual to tamper with the electrical. But Connie would.

  “You killed him!” Barry remembered her screaming. He also remembered the crowbar. I picked up the skull and held it under the light. Looked at the crack running through its side. It was a tiny skull, easy to crack with a crowbar. But I had used that crowbar. It was solid iron. A strong five-year-old like Barry could pick it up, but could he lift it over his head? Swing it hard enough to crack this skull?

  Impossible. An adult had done this. It had to be Pete. Pete, who was angry about the chocolates. Pete, who had yelled at Louie. Pete, who brought the crowbar down on his head.

  And Connie who had killed him for it.

  Connie, who’d never stood up for anything in her whole life. Had Pete pushed her one too many times? Had she decided to put an end to their pain? On Valentine’s Day. The day her favorite child was killed, thirty years ago. She’d lived with that ever since, escaping into drugs, cheap novels and gossip rags. Keeping the memories of Louie alive in her private shed.

  But Barry didn’t know that. He didn’t know that when his mother screamed “You killed him,” she was screaming at Pete, not him.

  And now he was upstairs doing God knows what.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Barry!” I pounded on the door. “You didn’t do it! Barry!”

  A huge bang shook the house. I gasped as a roaring filled my ears. What happened? I pounded louder, but it was no use. The roar drowned out everything else.

  I pressed my ear to the door and tried to listen. Held my breath. The blood pounded in my ears. I thought I heard footsteps overhead. Smelled something familiar.

  I flashed the light up to the ceiling. Wisps of smoke seeped through a crack in the floorboards. I shone the light on the door. Smoke was sneaking under the door too. The stink of burning wood and rubber filled the room. I yanked off my shirt and stuffed it under the door. Smoke curled across the ceiling. I stared up at the crack. Tried to push handfuls of dirt into the gap, but they wouldn’t stick. The tiny room started to heat up. I broke into a sweat.

  I grabbed a mason jar and banged it on the ceiling. “Barry! You didn’t do it! Your father lied to you!”

  Nothing. Dirt fell into my eyes, smoke choked my lungs. I coughed. “Barry!” I screamed, hoarse now. “Your father is the evil one! You can still get out of this. Don’t make it worse!”

  Overhead, nothing but the roar of the fire. I sank down on the floor. Pressed against the cold earth, I gasped for air. He can’t hear me, I thought. The door’s too thick. The fire’s too loud. And he’s probably long gone by now anyway. Setting up his alibi in the Lion’s Head.

  Rick? What a shame. I didn’t even know he was working down there today. But he’d talked about changing the knob and tube, so maybe that’s what happened.

  I cursed at my own stupidity. I was going to die, and I’d told Barry the perfect way to do it. Turn on the gas stove, flick the overhead light switch, and beat it out the door before the place blows up.

  I felt dizzy. I could hardly lift my head. Over the roar of the fire, I heard a distant wail. Angels? My imagination? A trick of my air-starved brain? Was that part of the white light you see just before you die?

  The wail grew louder and louder. The light in the room grew dimmer, and my muscles grew limp. Was it coming from outside? Was it real? I dragged air into my lungs. Shouted.

  “Help! Down here!”

  A siren blasted outside. Another wailed, getting closer. Shouts. Doors slamming. It was real. They were coming to get me!

  I coughed and screamed. With my last strength I stood, leaned on the wall, swayed and slammed the jar on the ceiling. Again and again, until it broke. Blood ran down my arm. The fire roared, the water pump thundered to life, blocking out all other sound.

  I fell to the floor. Rested my head on
the earth, now warm and smoky.

  They weren’t going to find me. No one could hear me. No one knew about this room, and Barry sure wasn’t going to tell them. I was going to die in this tomb like little Louie. Trying to scratch my way out. No one will ever find my body. Like Louie, like Barry’s mother. Lost in the huge dark bottom of the lake.

  Never to be found.

  Darkness began to close. Never to be found. Like the jewelry…

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A firefighter’s ax crashed through the door. Once, twice, three times. Splinters of wood flew in my face.

  “See anything?” A woman’s voice, dim in my ears. It sounded like Constable Swan.

  I tried to lift my head. Tried to speak. “I’m here,” I said. But I don’t know if the words came out.

  “No. It’s dark.” A shaft of light came through the door. It fell on my face. “Fuck!” The ax went back to work. It was the last thing I heard.

  Voices all around me. Pulsing lights. The stink of smoke and the hiss of wet coals. The crackle of a radio. People running. My head ached. My throat was on fire and something pressed down on my face. Nearby someone was crying. Who would cry for me?

  I lay still, wondering if I was dead. A finger lifted my eyelid and flashed a light in my eyes. I jerked away.

  “He’s coming to!”

  I blinked. Floodlights lit the whole place like day. The brightness hurt my head. I wanted to sleep. Maybe for a hundred years. But someone was squeezing my arm.

  “Rick? Rick! Can you hear me?”

  I opened my eyes. Saw the blue uniform of a paramedic and the worried face of Jason Renfold. I’d been at school with Jason, but he’d done a whole lot better than me. Right now I was glad of that.

  I tried to move my lips. Cracked and stiff.

  “Water,” Jason said, snapping his fingers. Next someone was holding a bottle to my lips. Most of the water ran down my chin. I coughed and wished I hadn’t. It was like raking a sword up my throat.

  “Do you know where you are?” Jason asked.

  I squinted around me. Above the bright lights, I saw the darkening sky. I saw smoke and steam hissing from the black skeleton of Barry’s house. Nearby I saw cops and firefighters and lots of townspeople. Fires bring the whole town out to help.

  I nodded. “Mitchells’,” was all I could say. More water was poured down my throat.

  I lifted my head. Nearby was a cop car with its door open. I saw Barry inside. He had a blanket over his shoulders and he was crying. Loud and noisy. He stopped when he saw me looking at him. He got out of the car and started toward me. Shoulders hunched, head down, like he was dragging the world. Right away a bunch of cops surrounded him and held him back.

  Constable Swan leaned over me. I saw she had a black smudge on her face and bandages on her hands. But she was smiling. “How are you feeling, Rick?”

  “Peachy,” I said. For that moment, I was.

  “Are you up to answering some questions about what happened?”

  Jason held up his hand. “We need to get him to hospital. Smoke inhalation can be dangerous. And he has some second-degree burns that need treatment.”

  “Of course,” Swan said. “The questions can wait. The main thing is, you’re safe, and the fire is almost out.”

  Barry blundered forward, a bunch of cops hanging off him. “I told them where you were. I heard you hollering. You always said the wiring on the house was a fire waiting to happen. Right, Rick?”

  I looked at him. I could see the fear in his eyes. The hope. I couldn’t nod. Couldn’t shake my head. I just wanted to sleep. So I shut my eyes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I woke up the next afternoon. I was in a hospital room, with flowers and teddy bears and even a big box of chocolates on the table beside me. It had a card beside it. From Jessica Swan.

  Aunt Penny was by the window, talking quietly. I twisted my head to see who she was with. Constable Swan, picture perfect in jeans and blue pullover. With her blond hair loose, she looked like the morning sky. I felt like one big bandage from head to toe. I had an iv line in my hand and an oxygen tube stuck up my nose. I stank like a burning house.

  They stopped when they saw me move. Aunt Penny leaned over, her lips tight. “That was a close one, Rick. We spotted the fire from the beach in town, but we all thought the place was empty. If it hadn’t been for Barry calling nine-one-one…”

  I tried to clear my head. To decide what to say. But it seemed like too much effort, at least for today.

  Aunt Penny’s lips tightened even more. You’d think it wouldn’t hurt the woman to show she was happy.

  “What were you doing down there anyway?”

  “Um, the bones. I was…”

  Aunt Penny sucked in her breath. “The skull. Little Louie.”

  I nodded. Constable Swan was all business. “What bones? What skull?”

  I moistened my lips. It would be a long story, especially for Constable Swan, who hadn’t grown up in Lake Madrid and didn’t know the family.

  Aunt Penny put a hand on my arm. “Don’t,” she said. “I’ll tell her.”

  So she told Jessica Swan about Louie’s death and the cancer story the family made up.

  “It seems the little boy’s body was in the root cellar all those years,” Aunt Penny finished.

  “How did he die?” Swan asked. She had taken a notebook out of her purse and was writing things down.

  Aunt Penny answered again. “Who knows? It looked to me like the skull was cracked.”

  Swan frowned. “You saw it?”

  “I showed it to her,” I forced the words through my raw throat. I wasn’t letting Aunt Penny take the heat for this. “I was going to show you yesterday, but then the divers found Pete’s body and…”

  “And now we may never know,” Swan snapped. She pulled out her cell phone and went out into the hall. I could hear her passing the story on to her boss and telling him what the fire investigators should look for.

  When she came back in, she still looked mad.

  “The fire destroyed pretty much everything, but once the place is cool enough, we’ll search it. What does Barry Mitchell know?”

  “He was five years old. I don’t think he knows much.” I felt nervous. Barry was a loose cannon. God knows what he’d tell her under pressure. “But I had a good look around. I think Pete Mitchell hit his son in a fit of rage because he stole some Valentine’s chocolates. I don’t…” I tried to remember my theory from last night. “I think he was still alive when they locked him down there. But they thought Pete had killed him, so they made up the story about the cancer.”

  Swan’s blue eyes were boring through me. “So he died…down in that hole. Because of some Valentine’s chocolates.”

  I tried to shrug. It hurt every muscle. “That’s what I figure. I saw some Valentine’s chocolates down there. Pete and Connie disappeared on Valentine’s Day, exactly thirty years later. It got me thinking…”

  The blue eyes narrowed even more. “Thinking what?”

  I was on really thin ice here, unless I dragged Barry into it. “That maybe… maybe…”

  “Maybe the deaths are connected?” Swan asked. She was frowning and I could see her mind working. “I had a quick chat with the Ident guys this morning, and it looks as if someone tampered with the kill switch. The switch was still on, but there was a wire connected to it under the hood and running along under the bench. Looked as if someone rigged it to short-circuit the kill switch by pulling the wire.”

  I remembered the stuff on Pete’s workbench. The tools, the bits of wire, the greasy work gloves and the snowmobile manual, open to the wiring diagram.

  I was too tired to explain. But Aunt Penny was on the ball.

  “So one yank,” she said, “and the snowmobile would have died. In the middle of the lake.”

  Swan nodded. “If you timed it right. The Wildcat is a very heavy sled. No question, with that keg on the back, it would go down if the ice was thin.”


  “Then it had to be someone on the sled,” Aunt Penny said. “Pete’s been going downhill for years, since losing his job and his child. Maybe he couldn’t live with it all anymore and decided to end things for both of them.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Swan said. “Until Rick told me about their little boy. Maybe they both decided they couldn’t live with their consciences any more. And made a Valentine’s Day suicide pact.”

  I could have left it at that. It tied things up neatly. But the Mitchells came off almost as heroes. There were no heroes in this story. So I called up all my strength. “Why would Pete rig up a wire? If he wanted to stop the sled, he’d just hit the kill switch itself. It’s right beside his hand.”

  Swan pursed her lips in thought. Just then her cell phone rang, and she went back in the corner to answer. But Aunt Penny was still on a roll. “Okay, maybe it was Connie who couldn’t live with him anymore, or the memories of what they’d done. This explains why Valentine’s Day was such a big deal to them, and why she’d pick that day.”

  Sure it did, I thought. And the freezing water would make a pretty painless death. A perfect end. As long as you really wanted to die.

  But before I could say anything about the missing jewels, Barry himself filled the doorway. His face was red from the fire and his eyebrows were gone. His eyes looked huge. “Have you found my mother yet?”

  Swan was on her cell phone. She looked up, startled. No one had heard Barry come in. She hung up and I could see her sizing him up.

  “Not yet, Barry,” she said. “It’s tricky with the weather and the lake currents.”

  “But you’ll keep looking for her, right?”

  Swan gave me a look. It said a lot. I knew she’d figured it out too. How easy it would be for Connie—sitting behind Pete on the sled—to hook his jacket on the seat, jump off the sled and pull the wire as she jumped. Especially if she’d been pushing booze down his throat all evening. I bet she even got Pete to put the keg on the back of the sled too, with a promise of more partying at home. Connie had thought the whole thing out.