The Girl in the Maze

by R. K. Jackson

  Amberleen. Just a five-hour drive from Atlanta. Maybe he should just go out there, poke around. He could take a look at the rooming house where Martha had lived. Talk to some of the people she worked with. His supervisor, Frank Chen, wouldn’t approve, but…

  Another slow rumble of thunder outside, like a throat clearing. Vince lifted his forehead from the mirror, where it had left an oval smear. When he’d arrived at the lake cottage, one of his first actions had been to shave off his beard. The skin where the hair had been, long shielded from the sun, looked pasty. His face looked boyish, unprofessional, and a little chubby. His lips seemed thicker.

  Not many dates with that look, eh, chubby?

  Now, where had that thought come from? Don’t ignore it. Vince turned and looked around the room. His gaze landed on the sculpture on the coffee table.

  Buckley.

  The figure had been fashioned from a double log, joined at the base. One branch was still just a log, but the other half had been sculpted into a man wearing overalls. He was peeing against the log. You could tell what was happening from the position of Buckley’s arms, from his self-satisfied leer over his shoulder. As if this were the grandest joke of all time.

  Vince’s father was a genius with wood. But this particular sculpture reminded Vince of a side of his heritage he’d rather forget—a side that celebrated crudity, bad grammar. It was a part that Vince had sought to distance himself from through education and professional achievement.

  Vince went over to the sofa, sat down, laced his fingers together, and looked at the statue. Gestalt therapy. Why not? Chen was a strong advocate for the method—dialogue with an inanimate object as a conduit to the subconscious. Maybe Buckley had something valuable to tell him.

  “That’s correct,” Vince told the statue. “Dates aren’t going to be on my agenda for a while.”

  You never were a great success with the women, were you?

  Vince reflected. He considered himself handsome, just a little on the short side, a little thick-limbed. Vince knew these qualities resulted in few dates in high school or college, but they also fueled his drive for professional achievement. Vince turned the sculpture around on its base to face him. “I have status now. I have overcome my physical shortcomings. That’s what matters most.”

  You just ain’t picking up the scent, Tubby, the statue’s expression seemed to say. You’ve got your head in the sand. Do I have to draw you a picture?

  Vince leaned back on the sofa, struck by the verbosity of this subconscious voice. “I’m not here to hide anything. What have you got to tell me?”

  You keep goin’ over all the particulars of this here train wreck, but you leave out the best part.

  “And that would be?”

  The fact that you thought Martha was hot.

  “Yes, I found her somewhat attractive. Not excessively. She wasn’t my only attractive patient. So what?”

  You couldn’t deal with it, that’s what.

  “Bullshit.”

  Vince imagined that Buckley cackled, pleased to have gotten a rise from him.

  And let’s not forget that little issue with your willie.

  “You are off base. Yes, of course I felt attraction to her, briefly.”

  You had hard-ons during the sessions.

  “It’s normal in therapy. It happens to all psychotherapists. It’s called countertransference. How you deal with it, that’s what matters.”

  And how did you deal with it, Romeo?

  “I recognized it for what it was. Then I set it aside.”

  Don’t kid yourself. She was everything you wanted. Pretty, smart, admiring—and damaged. And you had complete power over her. Hoowee! That turned you on, boy.

  “I had feelings for Martha, certainly. Fatherly and brotherly.”

  And lustful.

  Vince chuckled to himself. “I can’t believe I’m practicing gestalt therapy with a piece of firewood.” He crossed his legs and sat back, shifting into his professorial mode, addressing himself instead of the woodcarving. “Patients can be very seductive, and the connection with patients—in an effective relationship—is sure to become very intense. The issue isn’t arousal. It’s how you deal with it. You acknowledge it. You own it, you don’t resist it. But you don’t let it own you.”

  Remember that time? When she made a pass? Buckley grinned at him, his wooden face frozen in a perpetual wink.

  Vince’s mind flashed back to a moment that still burned in his mind. The breathless moment that she had leaned forward, placed her hand on his, and looked into his eyes with deep longing.

  “Yes. I remember. And I remember the outcome. I passed the test. I maintained therapeutic distance.”

  You did then, but what about next time? How long could you control yourself? One way to solve that, eh?

  “You are mistaken.”

  You sent her off to her doom. And the rest, as they say, is history. Buckley maintained his self-satisfied, toothy grin; his eternal wink.

  Vince stood and paced. Could it be true? Did the stress of managing the attraction he felt for her lead to premature closure of therapy? You have to consider that possibility, Vince thought. You have to.

  He stopped at the sliding glass door and looked out at the darkening sky. The pines bent in the wind, shedding tufts of needles. Vince’s reflected shape, transparent against the glass, looked ghostly. Wider than ever. He kicked at the glass with the toe of his shoe. The reflection wobbled.

  The Android on the mantel buzzed softly. Vince grabbed for it, almost dropping the device as he pressed the ANSWER button.

  “Hello?”

  “Dr. Trauger?”

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry to bother you on your vacation—”

  “It’s fine, Janice, what’s up?”

  “The police called, tried to reach you here.”

  Vince’s hand tightened on the phone. “Why? What did they say?”

  “It seems the alarm went off at your house—the one on Dunwoody Road—about an hour ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t worry, it was nothing. It was just the wind. The police went to check it out, they said everything’s fine. I just wanted to let you know.”

  Vince sighed. “That’s all? No other news from the police?”

  “No. How’s the vacation going?”

  “It’s going fine. Have there been any messages?”

  He could hear a faint ruffle of papers on the other end. “Let me see…just someone from the Autism Society. They want to know if you’re going to make a contribution this year.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Just one other call this morning—I think it was a wrong number.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I think it was a woman, but I’m not sure. There was a lot of static. It sounded like she was arguing with someone.”

  “Arguing?”

  “I’m not sure, the voice was pretty faint. She said something about Lenny.”

  Vince’s stomach tightened into a ball, as if someone had just punched him there. He felt blood rushing to his head. “What?”

  “ ‘Shut up, Lenny.’ That’s what I heard. Someone you know?”

  Vince’s fingers dampened against the Android. “Janice, I need you to do something for me. Go back through the call logs. I’d like to know exactly where that call was placed from.”

  Chapter 28

  Morris pulled the Tahoe into the empty gravel parking lot of Hoyt’s boatyard, closed now because of the storm, and turned off the engine.

  It was only six o’clock, but almost like nighttime. He’d managed to make it across the rickety trestles of Fowler’s Creek Bridge before things got too bad and now he was back on the mainland. Safe.

  The rain fell steadily, slanting across his windshield and carrying along bits of wet leaves and pine needles. Lightning flashed behind the swaying palms. Not much wind, though. At least, not yet.

  It bothered Morris now, what he’d done.
More than he thought it would. But it had to be done. All of it.

  He certainly had paid his dues. Fifteen years of public service. Living the life of a public servant…pushing papers, more paperwork and politics than people realize, especially in a sleepy hamlet like this. It wasn’t the career he’d chosen. It had chosen him. So he’d played the game. Sucking up to the commissioners. Concealed his true self. Remember their names. Keep on smiling. And never, ever let them know how smart you are.

  People liked him. His charm was his currency, and for the most part, throughout his career, he’d remained honest. His character was his ironclad alibi. But when the time came, he’d been surprised at how easy it was to step across the line.

  Maybe this was the moment he had prepared for his entire life, unconsciously. His life had just gotten stuck. The whole goddamned town had gotten stuck. Somebody had to play the hero, somebody had to do something, for Christ’s sake. It was time to move on. Manifest destiny.

  Morris tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Astrid and Jarrell—done, taken care of. Too bad that troubled young man, on the run from the authorities, decided to end it all that way. At the mother’s house, they would find Jarrell’s suicide note with its brief message: “See you in hell.” And too bad his concerned mama, when she went looking for him, wound up drowned in the storm surge. Very sad. But that’s what had happened. Not a soul alive to know otherwise.

  Now all he had left to think about was the girl. Jarrell said he left her in the marsh before his deputies intercepted his boat. After twenty-four hours out there, she was likely dead—this time, for real. It was a near certainty.

  But Morris wanted closure. He’d never left anything to chance, and he wasn’t going to start now. He popped open the glove compartment and took out the evidence bag that had contained the piece of root. Martha’s serpent root. The bag was empty now, except for one tendril that had broken off.

  Morris took the strand out, rolled it between his thumb and finger. He shut his eyes.

  No. You aren’t done yet.

  He put the bag away, started the engine and pulled back out onto the road, and headed north, toward the island causeway.

  Chapter 29

  The wipers of the Passat sloshed volumes of water back and forth, revealing and blurring the surface of Interstate 16 in the gray slurry ahead. Vince squinted through the windshield, trying to stay focused on the white lines. The rain had gotten heavier by the mile since he’d left Warner Robins, and now it was like driving through a waterfall.

  Vince pulled off into the emergency lane for a breather and threw the car into park. The emergency lights clicked. The shadows of the rain rippled across the items on the leather seat next to him—the printed MapQuest directions, a heavy-duty aluminum flashlight, and a white pharmacy paper bag holding two vials of antipsychotics. After getting a busy signal ten times, he’d given up trying to call the number that his answering service had traced.

  He was on an absurd quest. An overvalued idea. The name from the phone call was probably—almost certainly—a coincidence, or a misunderstanding. The notion that he would find Martha out there, still alive, was the product of his mind’s desperate hopes. He should have told Chen about the call. He should have told the police. He should have done a thousand things.

  But what if it was her? That meant she wanted his help. If the police came, they would handle her like a dangerous criminal—perhaps with good reason. If she was there in Savannah, wandering around homeless and lost, he wanted to be the first to make contact. He wanted to be there when the police arrived, at her side during the arrest and processing. It was the least he could do for Martha. He might have let her down once, but he wouldn’t do it again.

  Strip bare the soul of any therapist alive, and you’ll find the desire to rescue someone. It’s built into what we do. The words of his supervisor echoed in Vince’s mind as he pulled back onto the freeway.

  —

  A green sign with reflective letters emerged from the murk: FORT STEWART. HINESVILLE. NEXT LEFT.

  He had the eastbound side of I-16 to himself now. It occurred to Vince that he hadn’t passed, or been passed, by another car for an hour. The westbound side of the highway, on the other hand, was a ribbon of inching, baleful headlights.

  Vince slowed the Passat. About one hundred yards ahead, it looked as if a giant spaceship had landed on the highway. A congregation of blue and yellow lights pulsed in the rain. State troopers.

  Caution lights mounted on sawhorses winked and wavered ahead of him, and Vince stopped the car. A shape in a poncho trotted out of the murk, came up to the driver’s-side door, and knocked. Vince lowered the electric window. Outside, it sounded like a million ball bearings dropping onto an aircraft carrier.

  “Highway’s closed. Cross here and merge!” the patrolman yelled, pointing his flashlight toward a track across the median. The officer’s face looked cherubic under the poncho hood.

  “I’ve got an emergency,” Vince said. “I have to get through.”

  The officer poked his face in the window. Water dripped from his hood and landed on the armrest. “What kind of emergency?”

  “Psychiatric.”

  “You a doctor?”

  Vince pulled out a business card and his driver’s license, handed them to the officer. The officer shined his flashlight on both, holding them inside the window.

  “Dr. Trainer?”

  “Trauger.”

  “Psychiatrist?”

  “Psychotherapist.”

  The officer returned the card and license. “Sorry, I can’t let anyone into Savannah. I can radio the EMT units in the landfall zone. Can you tell me the location of your patient?”

  Vince glanced out the window. “It’s hard to read the road signs. Where am I right now?”

  “Highway Seventeen interchange. You’re almost to the city limits.”

  “Savannah? Oh my God, I’ve gone too far.” Vince groped in the sidewell of the door for his map of Georgia, thinking of ways to embellish his lie. He flicked on the dome light and squinted at the map. “My patient is actually in…Pooler. I should have taken that last exit, shouldn’t I? Now I’ll have to backtrack.” He cast a worried look at the exodus jamming the other side of the highway.

  “You’re going into Pooler?” The officer shined his light in the car. “That’s twenty miles inland. You don’t want to get into that mess over there.” The officer pointed his flashlight toward the empty highway ahead. “Go about a mile down, you’ll see the exit ramp for Pooler. From there, go north. It’s about fifteen miles.”

  “Good. I need to get there quickly.”

  “You won’t hit any traffic that way.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  Vince watched through sloshing wipers as a pair of poncho-clad officers lifted the end of a long barricade and muscled it aside.

  —

  It took forty-five minutes for Vince to reach Montgomery Street. He hunched over the steering wheel, veering left and right to avoid fallen branches, trash cans, and other scattered debris. Behind the gray curtain of rain he could make out vague façades of grand historic homes, set back from the street, their eaves gushing water.

  The Passat bucked and shimmied in a sudden gust of wind that lifted a sheet of water off the pavement and dumped it onto the car. Pieces of Spanish moss and palm fronds flew through the air. Vince tightened his grip on the wheel. Okay, this was just the pre-show. Carlos wouldn’t make landfall for several hours yet, the weather reports had been clear about that. He had enough time to get in, look around, and get out. If this was the prelude, he didn’t want to stick around for the main event.

  “Turn left on Liberty,” said the female British voice from his Magellan navigator. Vince rolled through a deserted intersection where a traffic light swung in the wind, its lenses dark. The road sloped downward through blasting sheets of rain toward the waterfront. Vince could see the wide, dark green channel of the Savannah River, churned and strafed by the pe
lting rain. The clipped voice from the dashboard told Vince to turn right on River Street. Vince pressed a button to silence the device and eased onto the cobblestone thoroughfare.

  He hugged the curb and rolled past closed-up restaurants, taverns, and shops, and scanned for signs of movement. A green patio umbrella lay in the street, its pleats flapping in the wind.

  Vince squinted at the storefronts. Some of the windows were barricaded with plywood. One piece had already started to pull loose and was scissoring in the wind. He passed a souvenir store, then a coffee shop with large, taped windows. Another boutique, then an alleyway, then finally, a store marked by a wide rectangular sign above plate-glass windows: MITCHELL’S CAMERA & ELECTRONICS. Vince curbed the Passat in front of the store and noticed something that caused a twinge in his gut. The door to the shop was busted.

  He killed the engine, grabbed his windbreaker from the backseat, and worked himself into it. He tucked the white pharmacy bag into an inside pocket, then grabbed the flashlight and pushed the car door open.

  Vince stumbled onto the sidewalk, the wind nudging him sideways and slamming shut the door of the Passat. He held the edge of his hood against the stinging rain, crossed the sidewalk, and ducked through the broken door.

  Glass crackled under Vince’s feet inside the shop entrance. He paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. The wind had scattered catalog fliers and flung intermittent bursts of rain through the door, soaking the merchandise. The shop had been looted. He pulled the hood back and scanned the room, considering the possibility that the perpetrators might still be there. But the room gave off no aura of human presence.

  Vince pushed a toppled display stand out of his way and made his way deeper into the room, stopped, and looked around. Nothing. Then he noticed a smell—stale, like an old dog blanket. His flashlight beam fell on a rectangular shape mounted on the wall behind the counter at the back. A phone. The handset was off, and the cord dangled below the counter. He squinted at the shadows at the base of the counter. Something pale and white poked from behind it, like a mushroom. He felt blood rush to his head in a cold, steely ache. He shined his light downward. It was a foot.