The Sleuth Sisters

by Pill, Maggie

  When he began again, his voice was calmer but still taut with emotion. “I didn’t even realize what I’d done until I was standing over her with the bat in my hand. Then Carson comes out of the bathroom shouting, ‘What did you do?’ He bent over her, and I knew he wouldn’t understand.” He let out a breath that was almost a sob. “It was all his fault, and he didn’t get it!”

  When he spoke again it was creepy, because he described the image that had risen in my mind. “I was a mess, blood all over me. I grabbed Neil’s hoodie and put it over my clothes. I shoved the bat up the sleeve and pulled the hood over my head. I didn’t know Stan saw me leaving until later.” He chuckled softly. “He thought it was Neil.”

  “I was pretty stirred up, but I knew I had to get back to WOZ. My suit was black, and I keep a fresh shirt in my office for emergencies. I let myself in the back door, washed up in my bathroom, and put on the clean shirt. That night I took the hoodie, the bat, and my bloody clothes and buried them.”

  After a long silence that made me think he was finished, DuBois spoke again, his voice low. “There was one more problem. Stan’s secretary, Phyllis, came looking for me while I was gone. I made up a story about leaving to pay a speeding ticket. Phyllis isn’t very smart, as you probably noticed, but she had a thing for me. When I asked her to keep it quiet, she agreed.”

  Had Phyllis suspected she’d been scammed? Probably not.

  DuBois sighed deeply. “From then on, I was extra nice to Phyllis, so she wouldn’t want to tell anyone I was gone for a while that day. I didn’t intend to marry her, but I couldn’t let her think too much, you know? It would have been easy to find out there wasn’t any ticket, but Phyllis isn’t the type who’d check up on her boyfriend.” His laugh this time was bitter. “She’s a looker, and they say I’m lucky. Long as you don’t want someone to talk to, she’s a great wife.”

  After that there was silence that felt like it lasted for days. I almost missed DuBois’ voice after while. I had a few questions, but I could guess the answers. He’d probably met Zach through Stan Wozniak and recognized a fellow human being who wasn’t particularly human.

  More and more, my body objected to its awkward position. I was still afraid. I tried to remain determined to escape, but I felt myself becoming lethargic. Everything stopped mattering. In the end I just waited, passive and stoical.

  I’d sunk to a semi-conscious state when the lid opened and a flashlight beam hit my eyes. “Get out.”

  To my undying shame, I could not. DuBois had to help me. Once I stood on solid ground, I shut my eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

  After a few moments I felt a little better. It was dark, and rain was still falling. There was a quarter moon, visible from time to time as clouds scuffed across the sky. When my head settled and my body once again obeyed my commands, I looked to Eric to see what was next.

  “Get in. You’re driving.”

  I obeyed. He went to the other side, climbed in, and sank down, his back against the door. If anyone happened to see us on the road, it would appear I was headed for the Pit alone.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Retta

  Faye was waiting out front, and she climbed in so fast I hardly had to slow the car down.

  “Where should we start?” she asked.

  “Mrs. DuBois says she left a little after five, right?”

  “Right.”

  I mentioned a couple of places she might have gone, but Faye dismissed both. “Do you think we should call the police?”

  “I tried that.” Faye explained Tom’s attitude and Rory’s absence. “I thought she might have gone to see the chief with what she learned from Phyllis DuBois, but I can’t contact him.”

  I pulled the car over to the curb. “I can.” Grabbing my bag from the backseat, I took out my phone and told it, “Call Rory.” In seconds, he was on the line. “Neuencamp.”

  “Rory, it’s Retta Stilson. I understand you’re on the road, but Faye’s worried about Barbara. She didn’t come home, and we wondered if you talked to her this afternoon.”

  “I didn’t talk to her,” he answered, “but I saw her leaving town. I was at the gas station when she went past, going south on 23.”

  “Hmm. I wonder where she’d have been going.”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Come to think of it, she looked unhappy. I thought she was mad at me.” The phone crackled as he made a movement I couldn’t identify. “No message?”

  “No.”

  There was a pause before he said, “I don’t like that.”

  I opened my mouth to reassure him, but then I glanced at Faye’s white face. She was scared. “We’re going to see what we can find out. I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Please do.”

  I closed the phone and turned to Faye. “Rory saw Barbara on 23, going south.”

  She frowned. “Let’s drive out that way. Maybe she had a flat tire or something.”

  Instead of saying she’d have called in that case, I put the car in gear and did as she said.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Barb

  I turned into the viewing point’s parking area, a small space of dirt carved out of a thick stand of alder and birch trees. At the center of the area, a short flight of stairs led to the plank platform that I knew from my earlier visit revealed a spectacular view of Lake Huron, the expanse of the Pit, and a sheer drop to the Pit’s floor, a hundred feet below.

  “Get out,” DuBois ordered. When I obeyed, he exited the other side and came around. Glancing at my flat shoes, he said, “Good choice. We have to do some walking.”

  I searched my mind for a way to delay him, but what good would it do? No one knew I was here. No amount of dragging my feet would help me now.

  “Hey.” With my already high stress level, the voice almost set me screaming. I turned to see Gabe approaching. It was difficult to make out his features in the dark, but there was no mistaking his shambling gait and slouched posture.

  When he got close, Gabe stopped. “What’s she doing here?”

  DuBois stepped forward, pointing the gun at Gabe’s chest. “She’s going to be murdered.”

  “What?” Gabe was stunned. “I never killed nobody.”

  “Shut up and do as you’re told.” With a tense gesture, DuBois indicated that Gabe and I should go left. We paralleled the platform, coming around its southern end, where a six-foot fence continued along the rim of the Pit. I remembered that the fence angled away from the edge, making a wedge of land the local teens called Party City. Someone had cut a hole in the fence, low to the ground and just big enough to crawl through. No doubt the kids tested their courage by hanging out on the wrong side of the protective fence. In the faint light I saw beer cans and a “pocket-rocket” liquor bottle, all empty.

  “Through the rabbit hole, Ms. Evans,” DuBois said cheerfully.

  Gabe looked at the fence then at Eric. Though not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, he was getting a glimmer. “Look, Mister. I don’t want the money. I promise I’ll keep quiet—”

  “I said shut up. Ms. Evans, do as I said. Gabe, follow her through. Both of you, stop on the other side. Remember, a bullet goes a lot faster than you can run.”

  I couldn’t bend myself low enough to pass through the hole, though an image of laughing teens scooting lightly to the other side came to mind. Older, stiffer, and less willing, I crawled through on hands and knees. Radiating fear, Gabe came so close behind me that my shoe brushed his arm. I turned, ostensibly to hold the fencing back for him, and stuck a tissue from my pocket through the diamond-shaped pattern of the fence wire.

  DuBois did a good job of getting through without taking the light off us. I considered trying to kick at the gun as he squirmed through, but he kept a firm hold on it, using his elbows to bear his weight. “Head
down the path,” he ordered, aiming the light at a break in the trees more suited to the passage of deer than humans. “I’ll shine the light ahead so you can see your way.” He sounded almost solicitous, like a good WOZ Industries employee protecting guests on the property from harm. A person might not believe only one of us was going to be coming back.

  Surreptitiously draping another tissue on a branch, I started walking. It was all I could do.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Retta

  The road was shiny with rain, and headlights of approaching cars blurred in the mist. We passed several vehicles heading into town, but saw no one heading out.

  “I don’t know what she’d be doing out here.” I was due at the school in an hour, and I wondered if we were being silly, hunting down a grown woman who could come home for supper or not, as she chose. Faye was having none of it.

  “WOZ Industries is this way.”

  “Yeah, but everyone’s gone home by now, and it’s a little early for teenage lovers.”

  The Pit was known for what the kids called “watching the submarine races on Lake Huron.” Apparently they raced late every night.

  “There!” Faye’s voice startled me. Walking along the road was a couple sharing an umbrella and three bags of groceries. “Stop! Maybe they’ve seen her.”

  I pulled over, and Faye rolled down the window. “Did a ’57 Chevy go by here?”

  “Sweet car,” said the young man, who was damp around the edges of his U of M sweatshirt. “We saw it on our way into town, a couple of hours ago.”

  “It went down Pit Lane,” the girl said. Her sweatshirt was drier, since she held the umbrella. The sleeves hung over her hands and the band reached her knees. His spare, no doubt.

  We thanked them and went on. I turned onto Pit Lane, driving slowly so Faye could peer down the trails and sideroads. We went all the way to the WOZ entrance, where the guard at the shack stepped out, pulling a slicker over his head as he came.

  “Ladies? What can I do for you?”

  “Have you seen a woman in an old Chevy?”

  “Why, no. Everybody’s gone for the day.”

  Faye looked disappointed as I turned the car around and started back. The guard retreated to his shelter, waving as he disappeared. “Now what?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Drive slowly, and I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Barb

  We entered the woods, moving away from the gaping hole on our right. The Pit was huge, running for at least half a mile, and the fence that lined it ran close to the road for the convenience of construction and maintenance crews. We were on a small promontory that ended somewhere ahead at what had been the original viewing point. We’d come there as kids in the days when such things were protected only by a wooden railing and a sign that advised caution. I shuddered, remembering that I’d once climbed the fence and leaned over to tease Faye, laughing as she begged me to come away from the sheer drop.

  Behind me Gabe moved in an almost catatonic state. Faced with death, he wasn’t thinking; he was merely doing as he was told. When the trail turned again, I dropped my third and final tissue.

  DuBois held the ridiculously small flashlight I kept in my car, lighting the ground just in front of us. He stayed centered behind Gabe and me, one hand holding the gun and the other the light. I told myself I should run, but there was nowhere to go. The cyclone fence, somewhere to the left, was six feet high. I might run smack into it in the dark and knock myself senseless. Even if I didn’t, I’d never be able to scale it before DuBois caught up with me. Anywhere else I went would lead to exactly what he wanted, a fall over the edge to my death.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Faye

  “There!” My voice sounded loud in Retta’s car, which has that sealed-like-a-can-of-tuna quietness inside. “There’s someone at the viewing point.”

  I’d seen only a flash of white, but when she backed the car up a little, my heart started pounding. “It’s the Chevy.”

  She backed up some more and pulled into the parking area. Barb’s car was at the far end, up against the trees. Going down Pit Lane, it had been invisible from the road, but on our return, the white on the back fender showed just enough for me to spot it.

  “Look!” Retta pointed to the opposite end of the open area. Harder to see due to its color was a dark Ford Ranger pickup, parked sideways so that it nestled under the trees.

  Retta shut off the engine. “What do you think’s going on?”

  I had no idea. Barbara had her late-night outings, and I had no idea what she did. I couldn’t imagine, however, that she’d come to meet a secret lover at the Pit.

  Getting out, we went to the Chevy, which was unlocked and unoccupied. We skirted it and found nothing. Rain, now steady and stronger than before, was rapidly obscuring the footprints around it, and it was even harder to see them in the light of Retta’s key-chain flashlight. Disgusted, I said, “We should each keep an emergency kit in our cars.”

  “Oh!” Retta scurried away, and soon the dome lights of her SUV revealed her digging in the well at the back. Closing the door softly, she hurried back with a black knapsack in hand. “Don insisted I have one,” she whispered. “I’ve never used it, and I forget it’s in there.”

  The bag contained a decent flashlight and a pack of unopened C batteries. With a silent prayer they weren’t too old to work, I loaded the flashlight and tried it. A strong, bright beam of light rewarded my effort. Along with that was an umbrella, a candle for heat, some matches, a lighter, a bundle of flares, a small blanket, some MREs (army-style Meals, Ready to Eat) and two bottles of water. I handed the bag to Retta. “I’ll be right back.”

  At the viewing point the footprints were clearer, since the trees sheltered the ground a little from the rain. A large pair of shoes with no visible tread, a slightly smaller pair with heavy tread, and a small pair with light tread that I thought were Barb’s. Following them about twenty feet, I found a hole in the fence just large enough for a person to crawl through.

  I stood frowning into the darkness. In unguarded moments, my sons had mentioned parties at the Pit. They’d laughed at WOZ Industries’ efforts to keep them away from the dangerous dropoff. “They put up a fence,” Jimmy once said scornfully, “we cut a hole. They fix the hole, we make another one.”

  Obviously, this was the hole that led to what they called Party City. Was I mistaken? Had these footprints been made by a trio of teenagers out for a few thrills along the edge of the Pit? I almost turned to go, but something white stopped me. Caught in one of the diamond-shaped holes formed by the wire, a tissue fluttered. It was damp but not soaked, so it hadn’t been there long. Someone had gone through the hole in the fence fairly recently, someone who always had pockets full of tissues.

  “What do you see?”

  I jumped as Retta spoke at my elbow. “Barb went through there.”

  She peered into the night. “Why?”

  We both listened for a moment, but the sound of rain dripping off everything around us covered any noise from the woods ahead.

  Barb was on the wrong side of the fence. Since I couldn’t think of a reason that made sense, I guessed it had nothing to do with her unfailingly reasonable self. “I’m going after her.”

  “Faye, that’s crazy. I’ll go.”

  I turned the flashlight on her. “Retta, you’re wearing heels, nylons, and a skirt.” She might have said I don’t move as fast as I used to, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “I’ll follow the fence along the road on this side. Maybe I’ll see or hear her.”

  There was a moment when each of us wanted to reassure the other, but neither could think of a way to do it. As a family we’re nothing if not realists, and we both sensed this was bad. Touching my arm briefly, Retta turned and hurried away, looking a little l
ike Gene Kelly as she splashed unheeding through the rain with a forgotten, folded umbrella over her shoulder.

  I was glad she didn’t stay to see me crawl through that fence. It wasn’t a pretty sight from any angle, but from the back it was undoubtedly ugly. The hole was made by teenagers for teenagers, not for women with figures beyond Rubenesque. The fencing caught at my clothes, gouged my back, and held on as if desperate to stop me, only to suddenly let go and rebound against the post with a clang, almost launching me face-first into the mud.

  Once through, I flashed the light ahead. The inevitable beer bottles, mashed paper cups, and bits of broken glass lay on my left. Inky blackness on my right hid the pit and the lake beyond it, but I knew it was there. A familiar feeling hit low in my gut, the sense I was being pulled toward that yawning gulf by an irresistible force. I imagined myself stepping forward: solid ground, solid ground, and then nothing beneath my foot but air.

  Stop it! I told myself. There’s no time for this!

  For reassurance I bent and picked up a branch. Like a blind person using a cane, I tested the ground in front of me. It felt solid. With the stick, the light, and my fear for Barb’s safety, I would ignore the fact that I was so close to the edge of the Pit. I would ignore my pounding heart and shaking legs. Ahead of me a path disappeared into the trees. A tissue lay on the ground, damp but not sodden. Lowering my head, I started down the path.

  Chapter Fifty

  Barb

  Passage was difficult, since the path was simply the way deer and adolescent explorers traveled. How far was it to the old viewing point? Would I be given the option of jumping?

  I had a really dumb but somehow important argument with myself about whether it was better to go over the edge myself or make DuBois push me. Maybe he’d order Gabe to push me off. I might be able to handle him. Faye had. I made myself stop thinking in that direction.