All The Pretty Dead Girls

by John Manning

  Everyone knew and liked Wally Bingham. Everyone knew he worked hard and missed his wife. Everyone knew Millie Carter—the devout, bereaved widow of former First Selectman Jesse Carter, who wore a locket around her neck with Jesse’s photo inside, who played the organ at the Episcopalian Church and sang sweetly with the choir. But no one knew that on those rare nights when Wally took a night off, he’d give Millie a call, and off would come the locket and on would come some sexy fishnet stockings, and the two would meet down by Earl’s Tavern. Making sure no one saw her, Millie would sneak down the alley and let herself into Wally’s apartment with her own key.

  Everybody knew Ken Von Stein had turned the fortunes of Lebanon High football around in the seven years he’d been head coach. Everybody knew and liked his wife Evie, and his adorable and smart three children who were in the grammar school. Everyone looked at the Von Steins as shining examples of everything that was right with Lebanon. Everybody was proud of the four conference championship banners that hung in the high school gym, won by Ken’s teams in the last five years. But nobody knew that when making love to his wife, Ken was actually thinking about the boys on his football team walking around naked in the locker room after practice. Nobody knew that sometimes some of the football players were mystified to discover that their dirty jocks had disappeared from their lockers overnight. Nobody knew that every Tuesday night, after the other players had gone home, David Hemingway, the fullback, would slip into Ken’s office and drop his jeans, letting the coach service him. Nobody knew how much Coach Von Stein hated himself every time he did this, yet somehow he couldn’t stop himself, even though he knew he could lose his job and his family and go to jail if anyone ever found out.

  Everybody knew that Cat Marsden was overprotective and smothering of her thirteen-year-old son Jimmy. That wasn’t a secret to anyone—that had had been going on ever since Cat’s husband had run off when Jimmy was just a baby. What nobody knew was that Hank Marsden hadn’t really run off on his wife. He’d meant to, but Cat had shot him twice in the head before he could get out the door, and had buried his body in the basement of the Marsden house.

  Everybody knew that Claire Holland had died a slow and painful death from a cancer that had rotted her from the inside out. Everyone had liked Claire—she’d been head cheerleader and Homecoming Queen at the high school and had never had a bad thing to say about anyone. Everyone knew that her husband, Sheriff Miles Holland, was still mourning her death three years later, and it was beginning to look like he’d never get over it. They didn’t know that when she had finally died he was relieved—and not just because her suffering was over. He was also relieved because his own suffering had ended as well. They didn’t know how often he’d prayed for Claire to die, and how incredibly guilty he felt about it. No matter how much he tried to convince himself he prayed for her death just so she’d be released from her pain, he knew that he’d prayed so fervently because he wanted to be freed of the burden of taking care of her. People didn’t know that every time Miles went to lay flowers on his wife’s grave, he asked her to forgive him. They didn’t know the guilt was slowly starting to take a toll on his own sanity. They didn’t know how often Miles wished he were in the grave with her.

  Everyone knew that Dean Theodore “Ted” Gregory ran Wilbourne College like a small personal fiefdom, an autocracy he’d been granted by an obliging board of trustees, nearly all of whom had been specifically selected by Gregory. There was a nominal president of the college, of course, Mrs. Marion Edwards Taft, but she was over eighty now, and her duties had gradually devolved to Ted Gregory. It seemed to most people in Lebanon that Gregory had always been at Wilbourne; his father had been on the board, and Ted had been made a professor of English right out of college. Everyone knew that Gregory had an intense dislike of being contradicted; he sometimes overruled fellow committee members when organizing fund-raisers for Lebanon’s St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Few ever objected; Ted Gregory knew how to get things done. He and his wife Mona were pillars of St. Mark’s, and the other church members understood how very committed Ted was to spreading “the word of the Lord,” as he called it. If that sometimes meant he had to run roughshod over people—usually secular-minded people who had no appreciation for the word of the Lord—then so be it.

  Except for those who attended St. Mark’s, not a lot of people in Lebanon knew Ted and Mona Gregory. They were, after all, “Wilbournians.” But they knew their two twin sons, Bruce and Bryce, who’d been straight A students and star athletes at Lebanon High. Such good-looking boys they were, and so filled with promise for the future. People sometimes asked Ted and Mona how the boys were making out at college, and they’d be told, “Marvelous, just marvelous.” But what they didn’t know was that Bruce had dropped out of Ohio State midway through his first semester and disappeared; Bryce had left the University of Michigan a heroin addict, and was now a male prostitute on the streets of Detroit.

  There was, in fact, a great deal that the people of Lebanon didn’t know about the Gregorys. They didn’t know that late at night, in the Dean’s House on campus, Ted and Mona locked their doors tight and closed all the curtains, and then sat on the floor chanting strange words and singing queer rhymes. They didn’t know that spilled between them on a marble altar was blood—and that more blood was stored in vials hidden in their dining room cabinet, behind the fine china and crystal. They didn’t know about the secret room that the Gregorys had built in the basement of the dean’s house. No one knew about that room—except for Bruce and Bryce, and it was that room that had sealed their tragic fates.

  Everyone knew the history of the town of Lebanon—how in 1687, a group of people had left Boston and forged a new village out of the wilderness in upstate New York. Every schoolchild read that story of Lebanon’s beginnings, how the town’s founders had been a sect even more conservative than the rigid Puritans, and how they’d been forced to practice their religion in secret. Everyone knew there was a memorial to the patriarchs of the first four families of Lebanon in the Town Square, and that every June 20, Founder’s Day, the town celebrated the bravery and commitment of these pious men. The original faith of Lebanon’s founders had not lasted long beyond that first generation, but still these good men had endowed the town with a deep commitment to God, family, and neighbor, and for that, every year, they were hailed.

  What people didn’t know–what had been erased from history books—was that the “good founders” of Lebanon had left Boston just one step ahead of an angry mob that torched their houses, and that, had they been caught before they fled, they would have been hanged. Nobody knew that the religious expression the town fathers sought had nothing to do with worshipping God. They also didn’t know that the original faith of Lebanon’s founders had not, in fact, died out—but that it was still alive, thriving in fact, on the campus of Wilbourne College.

  27

  All Tish Lewis knew was that it was dark.

  And cold.

  How long had she been in this place? And where exactly was she?

  She had long since stopped screaming. All it had done was leave her throat sore and throbbing. No one had come in response to her screams, not even that red-robed figure that brought her meals twice a day and hauled away the smelly pail that Tish used for a toilet. At first she wouldn’t eat—fearful that she would be poisoned—but then sheer hunger had overtaken her and she’d wolfed down the bread and raw vegetables with a savagery she hadn’t known she possessed.

  When was that? A week ago? Two? Time meant nothing in the face of endless night. Tish begged the figure in the red robe to let her out of the room, but the figure never spoke. It just clamped the iron door shut as it left, and Tish could do nothing but shiver and cry in the dark.

  Why? Why was she being held?

  Ransom? That’s what she thought at first. Someone had kidnapped her and was demanding money from her father. But that was before she began to hear the chanting through the door. The terrible singing.

&nbs
p; That was before she heard the scream.

  It was a girl’s scream. She knew that. And she thought she knew who the girl was, too.

  Her roommate, Joelle.

  That’s when this had started. Between bouts of utter terror, when all Tish could do was cry and shake, she tried to force herself to remember the events that had led up to her being brought to this room. She had gotten a voice mail from Joelle. Her roommate’s words were burned into her brain:

  I’ve heard it. The screaming. Oostie took me into the room. I think she’s in on it—all of them maybe—

  And then the message had ended abruptly.

  Tish sat in the dark, on the moist earthen floor, and held her knees, rocking a little as she once again tried to remember. I went back to the dorm after getting Joelle’s message. She wasn’t in the room. I went out into the hallway and saw the door to Room 323 was open. I stood in the doorway and looked in.

  And I saw—

  And I saw—

  “What did I see?” Tish whispered to herself.

  She knew it was horrible—something far beyond her comprehension—and it had terrified her. More than terrified her. It had overcome her. She had screamed, passed out, and woken up here in this place. Her mind would not allow her to remember exactly what she had seen. Or, more accurately, what she had seen had been so terrible, so beyond description, that her brain lacked capacity to fully comprehend it.

  Tish began to cry again. She was starting to lose hope that she’d ever get out of this room alive. What worried her most now was how her death would come, not if. They had taken her for a reason—they’d taken Joelle, too, and Tish was certain it was Joelle’s scream of death that she had heard. They’d taken both girls to kill them.

  But who “they” were and why they wanted to kill them was unknown. And it was the unknown that Tish feared most.

  28

  Perry Holland was worried about his father.

  As September turned into October, the leaves turned from green to vibrant shades of orange before they dropped from the trees. The days grew shorter and the wind colder, and Sheriff Miles Holland seemed to be aging right before Perry’s eyes. It was as though he’d woken up one day to discover that his father had turned into an old man overnight. The circles under the sheriff’s eyes had grown deeper and darker, his hairline seemed to move back an inch at a time every week, and more and more lines carved themselves into his face. Worse still was the emotional aging. Sheriff Holland didn’t seem to pay attention when people talked to him. A look of complete indifference settled on his face. Sometimes, words had to be repeated to him more than once, and he’d forget what you told him in a moment.

  Sheriff Holland had always take great pride in his job, and in the uniform he wore. But ever since Bonnie Warner disappeared, Perry thought, his father’s uniforms had become increasingly wrinkled, and sometimes even looked dirty. Sometimes, he went days without shaving—and started skipping showers as well. Often, Miles would sit in his office for hours, just staring into space. People in the sheriff’s department were starting to whisper. Sometimes, Perry would walk into a room where his coworkers were talking, and they would suddenly fall quiet, and he knew they were talking about his father.

  He hasn’t really been himself since Mom died, Perry thought as he turned his patrol car down the street where he’d grown up. But it’s gotten worse—far worse—in the last month and a half.

  His sense of unease heightened when he turned into the driveway. Several weeks’ worth of newspapers were yellowing on the lawn, which hadn’t been mowed in weeks. The flower beds his mother had taken such great pride in were overgrown with weeds.

  Perry turned the ignition off in the car. It was nearly dark, with long shadows of pine trees cast across the house. But still, Dad hadn’t turned on any lights. Perry sat and stared at the place where he’d grown up. He had lived here until he moved into his apartment on the other side of town. This is where he’d watched Saturday morning cartoons, where Mom had made her fabulous pot roast on Sundays, where Dad had grilled ribs in the backyard, where Perry and his friends had watched football games on the weekend.

  Dad never let the yard go like this, ever, Perry thought. Maybe it’s becoming too much for him. I should make more of an effort.

  With a start, he realized he hadn’t set foot in his parents’ house since the gathering after his mother’s funeral. He saw Dad at work, and they often shared dinners at the Yellow Bird. But he had not been back to the house since the funeral. Perry took a deep breath. I still associate the house with Mom. That’s why I can’t face it. But how much harder has it been for Dad to keep living here?

  Perry was an only child; his birth had been hard on his mother, and they’d given her a hysterectomy before she brought him home. “They said I couldn’t risk another pregnancy,” his mother had told him once sadly. “I wouldn’t live through it.” They’d been a close family. If his parents had ever argued, Perry never witnessed it. Both of his parents had done the best they could, which, thinking back now, seemed very good indeed to Perry.

  I’m a terrible son, he thought, unable to budge from the car. The last thing Mom said to me was, “Take care of your father.”

  He forced himself to open the car door and headed up the walk. Kicking aside the damp leaves on the steps, he slipped his key into the lock, ringing the doorbell as he opened the door.

  “Dad? It’s Perry.”

  The living room was dark, the curtains drawn

  “Are you here?”

  “In the kitchen, son,” his father answered.

  With a sigh of relief, Perry switched on the overhead light in the living room and headed to the kitchen in the back. His mother had always kept the kitchen spotless and neat. As he took in its condition now, Perry sighed. Dishes were stacked in the sink. The kitchen table was piled with papers. Something had gone bad in the fridge, but Dad didn’t seem to notice.

  “Dad, what are you doing in here in the dark?”

  His father was sitting at the kitchen table, straining his eyes as he read through a stack of papers in his hand.

  Miles Holland looked up at him. “Oh, right. I guess I was so engrossed here I didn’t notice the sun had set.”

  Perry switched on the lamp over the table. An amber light suddenly suffused the room. Perry looked down at the papers that were piled haphazardly. Old, battered file folders. A stack of newspaper clippings. Photocopies of photographs.

  Perry sat down at the table. “Dad, I’m worried about you. Sitting here—”

  His father waved a hand. “Son, I’m on to something.”

  “Dad, look, you’re not eating, you’re not taking care of yourself…”

  “Perry, I tell you. I’m on to something.”

  His son made a face. “On to something about what?”

  “The college,” Miles muttered, shuffling some papers around. “Those missing girls…”

  “Dad, only one girl is missing. Bonnie Warner.”

  “You’re wrong. Two more girls.” He pushed a report toward him stamped TOP SECRET.

  Perry glanced down at it. “Joelle Bartlett…Patricia Lewis,” he read. “Dad, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “As a favor to the college,” he said, clearly unhappy with the decision. “It was a state police call, not mine. An agreement was made to keep the disappearance of two more girls secret for now, so as not to panic the campus and the town.”

  Perry was flabbergasted. “Dad, if people find out—hell, when people find out—they will be royally pissed. And with reason. If some maniac is running around abducting college girls, the public should know.”

  “Yes, I agree. The dean understood that eventually this would come out, but he asked that we sit on the news for a bit.” He shook his head. “The muckety-mucks at State Police HQ agreed—but it’s a temporary decision.”

  “How long have they been missing?”

  Miles shrugged. “Not sure. The damn college administration is being cagy. They didn’t e
ven make the report. It was the girls’ parents who got worried when calls they made to their daughters weren’t returned. Finally, they called the college, which at first said the girls were very busy with exams. Then, finally they admitted to the parents that they hadn’t been in class, but they’ve been vague for how long they’d been gone.”

  “Jesus,” Perry said.

  “And get this, Perry. The girls were roommates. And they lived right across the hall from the first girl who went missing—the one that left all the blood all over the street.”

  “So you suspect a connection.”

  Miles nodded. “The state is trying to take over the whole investigation. But I just can’t let the thing go.”

  Perry sighed. He understood his father’s determination. Bonnie Warner’s disappearance still ate at him, too. He couldn’t forget seeing her at the Bird that night, when she’d turned down his offer for a ride. He’d followed up every lead he could, questioned everybody who was out on the road that night, hoping to find some clue.

  “I’ve been digging,” his father told him. He began gathering the papers on the table into a pile. “Son, there’s a cycle…every twenty years or so.” Miles’s voice was animated, and he actually sounded like himself for the first time in weeks. “Something happens to the girls up there at the college every twenty years or so.”