Terror on the Beach

by Holloway, Peggy

  Sarah then spoke in a little girl’s voice but the voice was suddenly strong. “Daddy, I don’t want to twoon anymore. It hurts. And I want you to make Bucky quit coming to see me.”

  She looked at Dr. Anna and Dr. Anna nodded. Then she turned back to me, “I like cuddling with you but you won’t stay cuddled. You always turn me the other way and say you want to twoon.

  “I don’t like to twoon. I don’t like to twoon with you and I don’t like to twoon with Bucky. It don’t hurt as much with Bucky but you keep telling him he’s doing a good job. I don’t like you saying that.

  “Mommy thinks I twoon because I like it and then she tells me I’m bad and she wishes I never was bornded.”

  She looked up at Dr. Anna, “Am I a bad girl?”

  She looked so pitiful it broke my heart. To think of how much she had accomplished while having to go through something so awful! It made me love her even more.

  Dr. Anna hugged her close, “You are most certainly not a bad girl. Now I want you to look over here at the sheriff. He cares about you.”

  When Sarah looked at me I said, “I will protect you, Beth. No one will ever hurt you again. I promise you that. And I will protect Sarah because I know you love her.”

  She smiled, “Well, can I sit in your lap, then?”

  She crawled into my lap and went to sleep. I held her while Dr. Anna and I continued to talk.

  “I think she is making excellent progress, Robert. But she is at a crucial point right now. If she continues to move this fast for long she will become overwhelmed and her anxiety and depression level will become unbearable to her. She could become suicidal.

  “So, if you need to go back, this would be a good time to do so. I plan on lightening up on her now. She will be pampered for awhile with messages and long walks and then gradually eased back into more intense therapy after about another week.”

  “I have to admit, Dr. Anna, I wish I could stay here for the whole thing but I do need to get back. Thanks for letting me sit in on the session.”

  Dr. Anna got that twinkle in her eye I had seen before, “You didn’t just sit in, Robert. You were working too. I’d be willing to bet that at one point you’re going to be asking yourself why you were attracted to a woman who needs so much help.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but closed it again and decided I would ask myself that question later.

  “Before you go, Robert, I will be open with you about how I plan to proceed. I plan to gradually introduce Sarah to her other personalities and will eventually begin to integrate them. It will, of course, be up to Sarah how this will go. I wish I could give you a time frame but each patient goes at her own pace. Do you have any questions?”

  I had plenty but I knew if I asked them all I would never leave so I said no.

  Sarah and I met later that evening and ate at the gourmet restaurant in the same building. I was surprised at how good the food was. We said good bye after dinner and I went back to the cabin and called the airlines. I made reservations for early the following morning.

  CHAPTER 28

  I was having coffee on the plane the next morning and thinking about all that had happened over the last few months. I was so tired I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew the stewardess was tapping me on the arm, “Sir, you need to put your seat up. We’re making our approach to land in Savannah.”

  I deplaned with a sense of unreality. It lasted all the way through getting my luggage and riding the bus to long term parking. I didn’t know if it was because I had so little sleep over the last few days or because of the emotional session I had with Sarah and Dr. Anna the day before.

  Half-way to Monroe Beach I had to pull over and take a nap. I had never been through anything like this before. But after only a half hour nap I was fine. I felt totally relaxed and refreshed.

  I didn’t even bother to go home but went directly to my office. Brenda came in and handed me a whole fistful of messages. Most of them I could handle right away and were no more than some of the town’s people wanting assurances.

  Freddy came in while I was talking to Mrs. Krindle who lives alone and is in her eighties. “If you stay off the beach you should be all right, ma’am.”

  “I don’t go on the beach. Thanks a lot sheriff. I feel a lot better now that you’re back in town.”

  When I hung up the phone, Freddy said, “Sheriff, I might have a lead. I spent the night hiding on the beach and watching people walk by. It’s amazing how many people still go down on the beach after dark. I guess they all think it won’t happen to them.”

  “Before you get into that, Freddy, I need to ask you something. You told me that when you brought Sarah down she started talking like a man and telling you her name was Twoon.

  “How did you hear that when we now know she doesn’t have a personality named Twoon? I want you tell me again step by step about all the events leading up to her arrest, because I’ll tell you right now something is wrong and I can’t figure out what it is.”

  Freddy went over it again and this time I stopped him when he said she was face down when she identified herself as Twoon.

  “Wait a minute, Freddy. You didn’t tell before that her face was hidden when she said that. Kevin was there, could he have said it and thrown his voice. Some people can do that you know.”

  “After what I saw last night I think it’s possible, sheriff. I was under the pier standing behind one of the posts watching people go by just to see what I could see. Kevin Payne came by dressed all in black. He kept looking over his shoulder and every now and then he would get down between the sand dunes.

  “Once when he got between the dunes I worked my way around, so I was in back of the second group of dunes, so I could look over the dunes and spy on him. At one point he pulled out a knife and started stabbing it into the sand.

  “He looked like he was getting turned on stabbing it in the sand like that. At one point he unzipped his pants and started rubbing himself but then appeared to become frustrated.

  “He zipped his pants back up and got up and started down the beach. I followed at a distance and suddenly he spun around and I think he saw me. He then walked straight to that little cabin he’s staying in and went in.

  “I sat on the beach the rest of the night to make sure he didn’t come back out.”

  “You must be exhausted. Why don’t you go on home and get some sleep. I’m going to see the judge and see if I can get a search warrant for his cabin. If not, I’m going to pay the artist a visit. If you see Simon around anywhere on your way out tell him I want to see him.”

  TWOON

  I’m probably going to have to leave soon and move to another beach. They found the two bodies really fast thanks to those two brats. Now the sheriff is back in town and that red-headed deputy knows Sarah isn’t Twoon.

  When I went to the beach last night I thought I could help myself and my frustrations by stabbing the sand and remembering my night with the last couple.

  I’ve got to have some relief soon. Do you think I have no conscious? I have as much as the next guy. I’m just more honest. Mt needs are different. I need to see suffering. I need it. I can’t help it.

  I’ve got to find a way to get relief tonight. I have no choice. If I’m careful, no one will ever catch me. I’ve been doing this a long time and no one has ever caught me.

  I will hike down the beach tonight and find someone alone and do it yet again. I will need more than last time. I have to make it last a long time because I don’t know when I’ll get to do it again.

  I’m thinking about bringing someone here and tying them up so I can have them anytime I want. Why didn’t I think of this before?

  CHAPTER 29

  I couldn’t get the judge to give me a search warrant. We didn’t have anything on him really so I decided to go see Kevin Payne and try to feel him out.

  I asked Simon if he wanted to go with me but he declined saying he thought I would do better on my own since he had already been
by there once.

  I took the car and parked on the side of the highway, walked up on the porch and knocked on his door. He came out rubbing his eyes and I thought I must have woken him up from a nap.

  I had on my uniform so there was no question as to who I was but he didn’t appear to be nervous. He was wearing a pair of jeans cut off into very short shorts and I thought his legs were shaped like a girl’s.

  I noticed his hair and eye color and his coloring was similar to Sarah’s. He came out on the porch and shut the door behind him as if he didn’t want me inside. Simon told me he had done the same thing to him until Simon had asked to see his paintings.

  I decided on a different approach, “It’s kind of hot out here. Why don’t we go inside? You got anything cold to drink?”

  He invited me inside and didn’t appear to be at all nervous. He fixed us each a glass of iced tea and turned on a window air conditioner. “I don’t run it much,” he said. “Usually if I open my bedroom window I get enough ocean breezes to keep me cool enough.”

  Since he was only wearing the cut-off jeans and nothing else, I noticed he was very thin. His eyes were brown like Sarah’s but much darker. I used one of Dr. Anna’s techniques of remaining silent to see what he would do.

  He didn’t appear to be uncomfortable with the silence and in fact he made me uncomfortable. He sat staring at me like he was trying to hypnotize me with his eyes.

  I was the one to break the silence, “Kevin, I’d like to ask you some more questions about the night Sarah was arrested.”

  “Anything that will help, sheriff.”

  “You said you didn’t hear her say her name was Twoon, but Freddy said he thought he heard her say that. You were both there and I’m wondering how that could happen.”

  “I don’t think she really said that. I think Freddy made it up. Because we know now she is not the stabber. So it must be Freddy.”

  “Well, the description of one the survivors on the beach in the Florida panhandle didn’t describe Freddy.”

  “There was a victim who survived in the panhandle? Well maybe the stabber was wearing a dark wig.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he started wearing a wig after he got over here, a blond wig. How do you explain Sarah dressed like the stabber when she was arrested?”

  “Maybe Freddy dressed her like that after he killed Tory. Maybe she was having one of her blackouts and he dressed her like that then.”

  He had just given himself away on something but I pretended I didn’t notice, “All right that makes sense. Just a few more questions, how did you happen to be near Sarah’s shop at that time of night?”

  “It wasn’t that late. I’m a night person. That’s when I do my best paintings.”

  “Sarah said you were here painting sunrises. How do you do that if you’re not a morning person?”

  “When the sun comes up I haven’t yet gone to bed. I do a rough sketch using pastels to get the colors on the canvas and then I go to bed. I sleep all day and that night I paint, sometimes all night.”

  “I must have waked you up then. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. I can go right back to sleep.”

  “May I see some of your paintings before I go?”

  “Sure,” he said and took my empty glass and put it in the kitchen sink.

  There was just one other room besides the bedroom, the main room, the bath room, and a small kitchen. He opened the door to the other room and I saw a few canvases stacked along the wall.

  I flipped through them and they were very good. They were all seascapes. There was a canvas but nothing was on it. I noticed he looked agitated.

  “You don’t have one you’re working on right now, Kevin?”

  “The one I’m working on right now is in the pastel stage.”

  “May I see the pastels?”

  He laughed, “Sorry, sheriff. I never let anyone see my work until it is finished.”

  I laughed along with him and left soon after that telling him I would let him get some sleep.

  When I got back to the office I called in Freddy and Simon, “The son-of-a-bitch knows about Sarah’s blackouts.”

  Freddy and Simon looked at each other and then at me, “We got him,” Freddy said. “Now the judge will have to give us a search warrant.”

  “Before I take this to the judge I want one of you to get on the internet and look up this artist, Kevin Payne. Print out everything you can about him then let’s meet. I need to go home and take a nap.”

  I looked at my watch, “Let’s say about three o’clock.”

  I went back to my apartment and unpacked and stretched out on top of the covers and tried to sleep but things were going around and around in my head.

  Just as I was finally dozing off, my phone rang. It was Dr. Anna.

  CHAPTER 30

  “What’s wrong, Dr. Anna. Is Sarah all right?”

  “She’s doing remarkably well, Robert. You can put your mind at rest on that. I was going to give her some down time like we talked about but she didn’t want it. She assured me she could handle it. She wants to get all her therapy done now. I tried to explain to her it doesn’t work that way but she’s a very determined young lady.”

  “That’s wonderful, Dr. Anna. Thanks for calling and telling me that. It helps a lot.”

  “That’s not the main reason I called. I have some information you’re going to want. Beth came out today and I tried to keep it light. She’s such a wounded child she usually goes right into the crying and screaming or looking scared.

  “On instinct, I asked her what her parents laughed about. I don’t know why I asked that but I’ve noticed in psychotherapy, the subconscious of both the therapist and the patient start interacting with each other and sometimes, if you trust that process you will come up with what you need to get you to the next step.

  “Forgive my psychobabble. When I asked her what her parents laughed about she laughed and said, ‘Bucky, the Twoon.’ I asked her what they meant by that and she said, ‘Daddy likes Bucky and thinks he can twoon better than anyone else, so he calls him Bucky, the Twoon.’

  “I asked her what twooning meant and she said, ‘you know, when you twoon up against each other in bed but with the boy in the back and he sticks it in there instead of in the front.’”

  I was feeling so much rage I could hardly talk. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So, she’s trying to say spoon. That’s why she didn’t want me to hold her that way in bed. She pronounced it that way because she was only four and they laughed at her making a joke out of it.

  “So, now her cousin is going up and down the beach calling himself Twoon. Thanks so much, Dr. Anna I’m close to something here too, I think. I’ll let you know.”

  “Hang in there sheriff. Gotta go.”

  I got up and headed back to the office after making myself a cup of coffee. As soon as I got inside my office both Simon and Freddy came in and started laying papers on my desk.

  As I picked them up Freddy and Simon looked at each other and grinned. There were several articles about the artist, Kevin Payne. But the two that got my attention were the ones with his picture on it. They showed a big man that looked like a sea captain. He had a full beard and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. The other article was about the stolen paintings from his studio. He lived in Atlanta and with Simon’s help we were able to get his unlisted number.

  He answered on the first ring, “So, you decided to pose after all. Thanks for calling me back. I look forward to painting your beautiful body.”

  I laughed, “I don’t think you would want to paint my body, believe me.”

  “Who am I speaking to please?”

  “This is Sheriff Kola down in Monroe Beach. Is this Kevin Payne?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. Did you find my paintings that were stolen?”

  “I think so. They were apparently taken by a man who claims to be you.”

  “Shame on him. When can I have my paintings, please?”

 
; “Not yet, sir, these paintings are evidence in a case we’re working on. Can you possibly make a trip down here if the FBI pays for it?” I looked at Simon as I said this and Simon nodded.

  When I hung up, Freddy was all for going to Bucky’s, beach house and arresting him.

  “I think we should wait until the real Kevin Payne gets here and take him over there. Then we can arrest him and hold him on a theft charge while we continue to get information on him. Actually once we have him in custody we may be able to sweat a confession out of him.”

  CHAPTER 31

  The real Kevin Payne flew into Savannah that very night and I sent Freddy and Simon to pick him up. I went back home to see if I could get a little nap before they got back I passed out on the bed on top of the covers and slept like the dead until my phone rang. It was Freddy.

  “We took Mr. Payne to Lily’s and got him checked in before calling you. Do you want to wait until morning to do this or do you want to do it now. Mr. Payne is raring to go.”

  “Y’all have some supper over there and I’ll join you in a minute. I haven’t eaten today. Tell Lily to set a plate for me.”

  I slapped some cold water on my face and headed out. When I got to Lily’s Bed and Breakfast I could hear laughter. Lily was standing by Kevin Payne and he was holding her hand.

  “I want so much to paint you,” he said.

  “Honey, if you think this face is interesting enough for you to paint, all right. But I won’t pose nude.”

  The table erupted in another roar of laughter. I walked over and introduced myself. He looked me up and down like he was studying one of his subjects to paint, but didn’t ask to paint me. Mr. Payne seemed to be use to being the center of attention and kept everyone entertained until the end of the meal. We said our goodbyes to everyone and headed over to the cottage where the fake artist was staying.

  “Simon and Freddy have filled me in and now I understand,” the artist said. “I wondered why anyone, if they were going to steal some of my paintings, they would take my seascapes. My best work is my portraits.