Grimm Memorials

by R. Patrick Gates

  Eleanor relished it all, and waited. Seconds later, when Judy came lurching out of the chapel, her face and mind white and empty from shock, Eleanor was ready. She brought up the long carving knife she had gotten from the kitchen and rammed it right up to the hilt in Judy's heaving chest until the tip of the foot-long knife stuck out between her shoulder blades.

  Judy's screams became gasps. She sank to the floor, still seeing Eleanor as the friendly cop, and died.

  You're really fucking it up, Eleanor, Edmund said, gloating. He was standing directly above her on the second-floor landing, looking over the railing at her. Eleanor could see the ceiling through his head.

  You're not going to make it. Too many people know about you now You've struck too close to home; you broke the cardinal rule.

  "I'll make it," she shouted defiantly. She bent over Judy's body, grabbed the knife handle with both hands and pulled. Judy's body flopped an inch off the floor and a big red bubble rose out of her mouth, but the knife didn't budge. Eleanor reached out and popped the bubble with her finger, flecking Judy's lip and face with tiny red dots.

  You can't keep them away. You're running out of time. The Machine is dying and so are you.

  "I'll make it," Eleanor said again, grunting as she grabbed the knife handle once more. She placed a foot on Judy's neck, and one on her stomach, and yanked. With a jarring bone-scraping sound, the knife came free, coated with blood and looking like a mechanic's nightmare of a dipstick. Being careful not to cut her tongue, Eleanor licked the blade the way a kid licks a knife her mother has just frosted a cake with.

  The police are coming. They'll put you in prison where you'll rot.

  "No," Eleanor gasped, out of breath from the effort of removing the knife. Her probe of Judy's mind had told her that Roger had never told his wife where he was going or why. If he hadn't told his wife, it was a pretty good bet that he hadn't bothered to call the sheriff, either. Even if he had, she could fix it with one phone call.

  "Sheriff's office, Bureau of Missing Children, Deputy Vitelli speaking," the voice on the phone said.

  Eleanor spoke into the telephone, and Judy Eames's voice came out of her mouth. "This is Mrs. Eames"

  "Uh, yes, Mrs. Eames?" Deputy Vitelli answered with a hint of dread to his voice. He hated talking to the Eameses; hated the sad desperation in their voices, especially Mrs. Eames's voice. They were the case that he had been waiting for in his missing children investigation, and now that he had them, he wished he hadn't. Every time he heard the pitiful hope in their voices as they asked if there were any news, he despised himself for hoping to get a case such as theirs.

  On all the other cases, there were extenuating circumstances that left doubt as to whether there was a serial child killer or cult working in the area; reports of which were what caused the county, after much heavy lobbying by women's groups, to create Vitelli's bureau in the first place.

  The Hall boy's father was an abusive parent, and on the mother's admission, used to beat his wife and child. The wife hinted that she feared her husband had done something to the child, but he had been at work at the time. Vitelli guessed, and the sheriff agreed, that the boy had probably run away from home to escape his father's brutality. When the Eames girl disappeared, Vitelli had sought a connection between the two disappearances, but there seemed to be none; the Halls had moved months ago. He had added Jerry Hall to a list that had only the name of Stephen Lewis, the boy they'd found in the Connecticut River, on it, but the sheriff thought he was clutching at straws. And he had been. The women's groups were hounding the county, who was hounding the sheriff, who was hounding Vitelli to get results.

  Every other case that had come up since then always had another explanation that suited the circumstance. The Torrez boy's parents were drug dealers. Vitelli had learned that they were into some very heavy debt to some mob-connected suppliers out of New York; real sickos, the kind of guys who would take a kid as payment, using him to make money in child pornography to get their money. The Lafleur twins' mother was insane, locked up in a private sanitorium. It was anybody's guess what she had really done with her children. Though Vitelli had assumed at first that she had thrown them into the Hadley River, their bodies were never found. Betty Boone and Timmy Walsh were obvious cases of a divorced parent abducting offspring. And the four boys who had disappeared the day after Margaret Eames had probably fallen into the river. They had been seen building a raft out of old two-by-fours the day before by another kid in the neighborhood.

  The Eames case, and the case of the Lewis boy found in the river last year, were the only ones that had no explanation as to what had happened, other than that somebody, or somebodies, had kidnapped and, in the case of the Lewis boy, murdered a child. It was so ironic: now that he had the case that justified the existence of his bureau, he'd give anything for it never to have come into being.

  "Has my husband talked to you today?" Mrs. Eames asked.

  "Uh, no, ma'am," Vitelli answered, the question catching him off guard. He had been expecting her to ask, in that gutwrenching, despairing voice with just a touch of hope to itthat made it all the more harder to listen to-the question she asked every day, whether or not her husband had also called: Is there any news of my daughter? He had been ready to give his standard noncommittal answer that was supposed to neither enhance, nor dash, a parent's hopes, but which was becoming old and hollow sounding of late.

  "Oh. He was supposed to tell you that we're leaving today to go up to Vermont to visit with family and get away from things for a little while," she said softly, tiredly.

  "I'm certain he hasn't called me, Mrs. Eames, but I think that it's a good idea for you two to have your families around you at a time like this. There's nothing you can do here. If we get any information, we'll contact you immediately. Why don't you give me a name, address, and phone number where you can be reached."

  "Of course," Mrs. Eames replied.

  Vitelli sat poised with his pencil over an index card for several seconds, then picked up the card and looked at it. "Okay, I've got it," he said, staring at the blank paper.

  "Thank you," Eleanor replied, and hung up the phone. That would take care of the police at least for another few days, which was all she needed. After Halloween and the Harvest of Dead Souls, it wouldn't matter what they found out. All she had to do was get rid of the Eameses' car. Their bodies she could always put to good use.

  On the other side of the house, away from the road, was a wide path to the river. She could easily drive the car over the skimpy underbrush and rig up a stick on the gas pedal to get it over the embankment and into the river. The Connecticut was swollen and running fierce from recent heavy rains; it would be awhile before anyone found the car there. The bodies were much more easily disposed of. Whatever Mephisto didn't eat would make a marvelous last meal for her captives. She thought hard for a moment, making sure she'd covered everything. Satisfied, she started for the door.

  Don't count on it! Edmund laughed from the second floor.

  Eleanor whirled. "Leave me alone! Why do you torment me?" she shouted. Edmund merely laughed at her. She knew the answer to that as well as he.

  "You are dead, Edmund," she said vehemently, "and the dead stay dead! "

  Then what am I? Edmund chuckled over the railing.

  "An illusion, brother," she said, heading for the door with the keys to the Eameses' Volvo clutched tightly in her hand. "Just a guilty illusion."

  Edmund's derisive laughter on her back didn't sound illusory.

  CHAPTER 25

  Friday night's dream, on Saturday told .. .

  Diane Nailer sat at the kitchen table, staring at the wood grain with the blank gaze of the exhausted. She had expected to be very tired in the last few months of pregnancy, but she hadn't expected anything like this. She had never been this tired carrying Jennifer or Jackie. She had told Dr. Rice, her new obstetrician, about it on her visit last week, but he had explained it away as natural since her body was older now
. He recommended plenty of rest.

  Of course, that was the problem. She couldn't seem to get any rest, but she didn't dare tell the doctor that because then she would have to tell him about the dreams and her dead father coming to visit her. If she did that, her father would bring the baby-killing pain back with him. She would do anything to prevent that.

  If only he would let her get some sleep.

  Suddenly Diane burst into tears. What is wrong with me? Am I going crazy? she wondered. Ever since that day in the restaurant when her father had first returned from the dead to warn her to take care of the baby, she had felt her grasp of reality, her sanity itself, slipping slowly away. She was no longer in control of her life, her body, not even her mind.

  Her father continued to visit her in her dreams, and she felt his presence like a cold draft when she was awake. Most of the time it was soothing to know he was nearby. She never thought twice about the fact that he had been dead for twelve years; it was as if he had never died. But, sometimes, she had moments of clarity, like now, when everything that had happened seemed like a horrid nightmare and she knew she was losing her mind. Those moments never lasted long though. Sooner or later she would hear her father's voice, or dream of him, and slip back into a state of sleepy submission.

  She heard the front door open and Steve come in whistling. He came down the hall and into the kitchen, going directly to the refrigerator. His shirttails were hanging out of his wrinkled pants and he looked very sweaty. He took out a can of beer, popped it open, and drank half its contents in one greedy swallow.

  "Hi, hon," Diane said softly. He ignored her and put the can to his lips again, drinking deeply. Diane knew she hadn't been very loving of late. But Steve was fooling around on her, wasn't he? In these moments of clarity, that seemed ridiculous; when her father was occupying her mind it was obvious to her that Steve was being unfaithful. Because of her father, she had become a world-class bitch. The thought that she hadn't been any better to the kids crossed her mind. She had all but forgotten about them; how could she have done that?

  "Steve, can we talk?" she asked in a timid voice. She didn't know what she was going to say, but she had to try to explain what was happening to her.

  Steve drained the can of beer empty and threw it in the sink. He belched loudly and sneered at her. "As usual with you, Di, it's too little too late. I've got better things to do "

  "I know you're mad at me," Diane started slowly "and you have every right to be . .

  "Ha!" Steve laughed with contempt and walked out of the room. He went upstairs to his study and slammed the door.

  "Steve, wait. I need. . ." Diane got out before the pain hit the side of her head like a glancing blow. Tears sprang immediately to her eyes and she let out a sharp cry

  It's all right, her father said softly in her ear. You don't need him. Did you see his torn shirt? He's been with his lover again.

  Diane nodded slowly, her eyes glazing over, and felt the anger, resentment and hate for her husband and what he was doing to her well up inside her once again. When her father spoke again, his words were like heavy canvas curtains falling over her, weighing her down with drowsiness.

  Think only of yourself and the baby. Nothing else is important.

  "Yes," Diane said dreamily, letting herself become the center of the universe again. As her two children came in from outside, Diane ignored their greetings and turned her back on them, walking out of the kitchen and going upstairs to her room.

  "She didn't even say hi," Jackie said, his voice quavering.

  "She never says anything anymore," Jen complained. "It's like we're invisible. She doesn't care about us "" I don't need you, she thought of her mother. Now that Grammy had come to live so close by, she didn't need anyone. Jackie, on the other hand, still needed his mother very much. He didn't like the idea of being invisible to her. Jen wished Gram would let her bring Jackie to see her; it would make him so happy, but she had said to wait until she was ready, so Jen had.

  "One good thing about it, though," Jen said with a smile of sympathy for her brother, "is that we can do anything we want. They don't care"

  "Like walking home through the woods every day?" Jackie asked. He hated that Jennifer did that, and spent a lot of her free time out there. He was afraid for her, but she had shrugged off his concern, telling him that soon she would reveal a wonderful secret to him. Jackie didn't care about any secrets if they involved the woods.

  Since Margaret and the four boys from around the corner had disappeared (he had heard on the bus radio that they were believed drowned in the river), Jackie had not wanted to go anywhere near the woods. He was sure that the woods, and maybe even the witch that Margaret and Jerry Hall (who had disappeared too, don't forget) had said lived out there, had something to do with their disappearances. So every day after school, he went right home and stayed close to the house, inside watching TV, or reading a book in his room, or going no further than the swings in the backyard.

  Jennifer ignored his question and Jackie didn't repeat it. They had argued about it many times and she was still sore at him for telling Steve about her not taking the bus. He looked at the clock on the stove, noting that it was 4:30 and there was no supper cooking.

  Jackie didn't know what was wrong with his mother Steve had told him she was tired and moody because of the baby inside her-but she hadn't cooked supper for them in a long time. They'd had to make their own, eating sandwiches or cereal, unless Steve came down and offered to take them to McDonald's in Deerfield, or out for pizza, as he sometimes did.

  "Ma cares more about her new baby than she does about us," Jennifer said.

  Jackie didn't like it when she said that. He didn't want to admit it was true. It reminded him that he had always been his mother's baby, and now she had practically forgotten him. The thought saddened him to the point of tears.

  Jennifer saw the look on Jackie's face and felt bad for him. "I bet if you went and asked Steve to take us out for supper, he would," she told him.

  Jackie shrugged doubtfully.

  "Come on. Go ask him," Jennifer prodded.

  "He won't do it," Jackie pouted.

  "He will if you ask him," Jen replied.

  "You really think so?" Jackie asked hopefully.

  "Sure, go ahead."

  I knead you like dough But you are full of razors And my fingers bleed ...

  Steve stared at the haiku he had just written. A radical idea began to form in his mind. Since his incredible experience in Roosevelt's Bar that afternoon, Steve had felt the creative juices flowing once again. When he got home he had started right in on his sonnets, but instead, the haiku had popped into his mind.

  He liked it; it reminded him of her. Though he knew little else about her other than her name and the ironic-since he'd been searching so madly for her fact that she lived in the woods right behind his house, he felt as though he could trust her with anything, even his life. He felt he didn't need to know anything more-she loved him and was going to help him. Gone was the panic of just hours ago; she had given him a new perspective and had released him from the straightjacket of writer's block. It was only fitting that the first thing he should write would be about her.

  He smiled now, remembering the intensely wild sexual experience he'd had with her at the bar. He had never done anything like that with Diane; she was too prudish. Though he had always thought he would remain faithful to Diane he was not a good liar and was possessed of a strong conscience that usually dispensed guilt like an overactive gland-he didn't feel any guilt whatsoever about what he had done. He felt he was completely justified; Diane had blown their relationship, not him. And Eleanor was the best thing that had ever happened to him; he would be crazy not to grab her. Deep down, he knew his father would approve.

  The door opened and Jackie stuck his head cautiously into the room. "Mum didn't make any supper again," he said softly. "We were wondering if you could take us to McDonald's," he added hopefully.

  Steve turne
d back to his writing. "Not tonight. I'm too busy." When he didn't hear Jackie leave and close the door right away, he said, "And don't forget to close the door on your way out. " He had no time anymore for her kids; if she couldn't be bothered to take care of them, why should he? He was through bending over backwards to please her and try to make things work. He was free of her now that he had Eleanor, and he intended to make the most of it.

  He sat back and stretched, raising his arms above his head, and reached his fingers toward the ceiling. It was just amazing how good he felt. He had ambition again, and optimism, was it all just because of an afternoon of hot sex with her? No, it was more than that. Eleanor did things to him that no woman had ever done before. It wasn't just the physical pleasure she gave him either; she did things with his mind. He felt as though she had drilled a deep well in his brain that had struck huge deposits of creativity that were heretofore undiscovered.

  Not only had she given him inspiration, she had made all his other troubles seem trivial, inconsequential. Even Conally's vendetta against him seemed ridiculous and unimportant. It was clear to Steve now, thanks to Eleanor, that Joe Conally didn't have a case. Steve didn't know why he had worried so about it. Eleanor had made it all so clear to him with just a thought (her speaking in his mind seemed like the most natural thing in the world; the way true lovers should communicate) and she would do the same with Conally. She had taken everything she needed to know about Conally from Steve's mind and had shown him the perfect bait to lure Conally out to Grimm Memorials.

  Bait? Lure? He didn't know why those words came to mind (after all she was just going to talk to Conally, and show him the folly of his ways, wasn't she?), but they were fitting somehow. The memory of the gunshots he'd heard in Roosevelt's came back to him, but he shrugged off the feeling of dread that came with it. That had had nothing to do with him, or her, he was sure of it. It probably hadn't even been gunshots at all, just the TV, or a car backfiring. He had nothing to fear from Eleanor.