by Bob Avey
Chapter Forty-One
A shaking sensation dragged Elliot out of his sleep, and when he felt Cyndi’s hand upon his shoulder he immediately realized why. Thudding echoed through the house. Someone was at the door. He glanced at the clock. Six a.m.
Cyndi rolled over to get out of bed, but Elliot stopped her. “I have a lot of friends, but I’ve made some enemies, too.”
He jumped out of bed and struggled into the pair of denims he’d left on the floor. Sleepiness and alcohol dulled his senses, but he stumbled to the nightstand and found the .38 he kept there, checked it, then slid the weapon into his back pocket.
He made his way through the living room in darkness, but when he reached the front door he paused, then flipped on the outside light and peered through the peephole. Again it malfunctioned, coming on only for an instant, but in that microburst of time Elliot saw a man, dirt clinging to his clothes, as it would after he’d clawed his way from the grave.
The light flashed on, then off, and even though Elliot knew it was impossible, there was little doubt in his heart that he’d again looked into the pleading eyes of Justin Stone. The man he’d killed was on his doorstep.
Elliot slammed his hand against the wall to jar the faulty light switch, then threw open the door, and when he reached out he touched not a ghost but the substance of reality. When the light made another attempt, he saw that he indeed gripped the shoulder of someone in the flesh, but it was not Justin Stone.
Standing on the porch, his face twisted in pain, his mouth gaping open, from which escaped a sound like the guttural groan of a wounded soldier, was Joey Anderson.
Tears streamed from Joey’s eyes, and he cradled an animal that drooped from his hands in a crude arc, its head and legs dangling lifelessly across his arms.
“He’s dead, Mr. Elliot. My dog is dead.”
As was usually the case, Joey was not alone for long. Like a drowning victim coming up for air, his mother came out of the darkness. “Joey . . .”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried to stop him.”
Elliot’s eyes were fastened on the dog, but Joey’s misfortune dominated his senses. Joey had been dealt a bad enough hand in life. He didn’t deserve this.
A buzzing sound filled Elliot’s ears, and numbness ran through his limbs, as if he, too, had tasted fate and remained standing only because he’d joined the ranks of the living dead. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly said. “We found him lying near the back door.”
The loss in Joey’s face spoke of his failure to comprehend why such a thing should happen. Elliot extended his arms and offered to take Colorado’s body, to relieve Joey of the burden of touching the carcass.
Joey backed away. “We bury him. You help me.”
It was closer to a demand than a request, the alternate, more worldly version of Joey that Elliot had glimpsed earlier when he’d held the gun. He put his hand on Joey’s shoulder. “All right. Just give me a minute to get dressed.”
Elliot strode into the bedroom and threw on a sweater, then headed for the garage to get the digging tools. When he reached the door leading to the garage, Cyndi came out, holding a long-handled shovel. The one with the good, sharp blade. The one he would have chosen.
She held it out. “Thought you might need this.” Moisture shone in her eyes. “Poor Joey.”
Elliot took the shovel, feeling wetness on the handle. Cyndi had been crying. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s got to be tough for him.” He started toward the front door. “I won’t be long.”
Just before Elliot left the house, he heard water running in the sink. Cyndi, washing her face. Their first night together had been stained by an act of cruelty. Young, healthy dogs like Colorado didn’t just fall over dead by themselves.
With the shovel in his hand, he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. Kelly Anderson and Joey stood on the lawn next to the garden where dormant rose bushes poked through the soil. When Elliot drew near, Kelly gently urged her son toward the sidewalk, and while Elliot followed she led them along the darkened walkway. They crossed Kelly and Joey’s front yard, then went through the gate of a stockade fence to the back of the house.
A floodlight cut a bright swath across the yard. Elliot shook his head then went to the southwest corner of the lot. Placing his foot on the blade, he drove the shovel into the ground.
When he’d dug deep enough, Elliot turned to Joey and nodded.
He seemed to understand. He walked over and lowered his arms, letting Colorado’s body slide from his grip and fall into the grave. The carcass hit the soft earth with a dull thud.
Elliot covered the hole, then leaned the shovel against the fence and went to Joey. He hugged him, feeling the boy in a man’s body quiver with tears. “I’m sorry, Joey. I’m sorry.”
Then Elliot squeezed Joey’s shoulder, turned away, and walked back to his house.
Chapter Forty-Two
Elliot went back inside his house and closed the door behind him. After entering the bedroom, he stripped off his clothes, soiled from burying the dog, then wearily stumbled into the shower.
When he climbed back into bed, Cyndi rolled toward him, and he wrapped his arms around her, lying in silence, listening to her rhythmic breathing. The lamp on the side table was on, but it didn’t seem to matter. She fell asleep in spite of it.
Elliot held her as she slept, afraid to do the same for fear that she might disappear and not be there when he awoke. Thoughts of their wedding conjured in his head, but the happy thoughts were tainted. He saw Cyndi’s dress and it was not white. He was to blame. He shouldn’t have drank so much, shouldn’t have asked her to sleep with him.
At some point, Elliot drifted off.
Somewhere between consciousness and sleep, the face of a young prostitute invaded his senses.
He glanced at Cyndi, then toward the clock. It was 7:30 a.m. Just a bad dream.
When he again closed his eyes, however, he saw not the lingering image of Cyndi, but the colorless dead face of Brighid McAlister. His eyes flew open, and he ran his gaze, over and over, across the features of the lovely woman sleeping next to him. How could he have missed it? Had the heavy makeup, the bushy black hair, the lifelessness of Brighid’s corpse skin blinded him, clouded his senses? Whatever the reason, those barriers no longer existed. With their removal, the likeness jumped out at him. Jim Llewellyn’s prostitute bore a strong resemblance to Cyndi Bannister.
The death words of Justin Stone formed in Elliot’s mind. “Brighid.”
Elliot rolled over and got out of bed. The covers slipped down, and Cyndi’s smooth abdomen was revealed. A hint of a shadow stained her skin there, like the remnant of a temporary tattoo. Nausea crawled through him.
As he left the bedroom, he recalled what Snub the bartender had said. “I don’t know who it was in the bar that night, but it wasn’t Brighid McAlister.”
Elliot went to the living room and sat on the couch This couldn’t be happening. He wondered if he thought hard enough he could wake up from this nightmare. He closed his eyes as tightly as he could. He even pinched himself. All to no avail. He still sat in the darkness of his living room.
His arm dropped over the side of the couch, and his hand touched the magazine rack. He felt the package Beverly Mandel had given him. He brought the package to his lap, then flipped on the lamp beside the couch. The package was addressed to him. The waitress had planned on mailing it. He tore away the paper, and his throat tightened as the removal of the wrapping revealed its contents—a large book with a black and red cover that read: DONEGAL, OKLAHOMA, CLASS OF 1988.
Like an enemy flag that refused to go down in defeat, a yellow sticky note marked one of the pages. Elliot placed his thumb along the marker and opened the book, spreading the pages.
Encircled in red, set off from the others by a smearing of lipstick, the likeness of a particular student burned recognition into his mind. The child in the yearbook was the same one featured in Doc
tor Bannister’s prize photo, the one he kept hidden in his desk drawer, his coveted secret snapshot of his daughter when she was ten years old.
A searing pain started in his stomach and spread to his heart.
There was no mistaking it. The photos were nearly identical. But the caption beneath the yearbook likeness did not read Cyndi Bannister. Displayed there instead, as final as words on a death certificate, was the name Elizabeth Stone.
Elliot grabbed the phone and dialed information. When he had the number for Doctor George Bannister, he dialed it. When Bannister answered, Elliot asked, “Cyndi, she’s your child, right?”
“What? Who is this?” He was groggy, half asleep.
“It’s Elliot, Kenny . . .”
“Yeah, I remember. What did you ask me?”
Elliot took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Please say yes, he thought, but said, “Is Cyndi your natural-born child?”
“No, she isn’t. I thought you already knew.”
“She’s adopted?”
“That’s right. Cyndi always wished we were her real parents. She didn’t want us to talk about it. I guess that’s why we didn’t bring it up.”
“When?” Elliot asked.
“The adoption? Cyndi came to us late 1988, around November, I believe.”
Elliot let the phone slide from his hand. Cyndi’s adoption coincided with Howard and Maud Wistrom’s finding their Douglass in the park. It also happened right around the time that the Stone family dropped off the radar screen.
Elliot thought of Joey’s dog, Colorado, his sudden silence last night, and knew what had happened. Whether it was intuition or a form of hoodoo didn’t really matter. He got to his feet, dropping the yearbook to the floor, then headed for the garage.
Once there, he went to the row of shelves along the west wall and found the jug of antifreeze he’d left there. The bottle was sticky, the surface of the shelf beneath it, stained.
She’d poisoned the dog.
Elliot staggered back inside, wishing he could rip the fabric of reality from its lofty perch and stuff it so deep no one would find it. He started toward the bedroom, desperation choking his sanity, and a dark understanding ran through him, a carnal notion that had begun to form even before he’d fully grasped what was happening: He could let it go, leave the blame where it lay, buried in the ground with Cyndi’s unfortunate brother.
As the black thoughts wove through Elliot’s senses, Cyndi called out to him, and he thought he heard her say, “Are you coming back to bed, Kenny?”
Whether the words were real or imagined, they came forth as dark, shapeless, writhing spirits, skulking in dark corners and casting up knowing gazes, black eyes in dead, white sockets that possessed an all-too-personal knowledge of that which he kept hidden, secrets he could scarcely bear to realize.
If he loved her, would he turn his back on all he was, all he believed in?
He stumbled into the bedroom and found it void of any presence other than his own. He flipped on the light. The bed was empty. He ran his hand across the sheets, seeking her warmth that lingered there, though at the same time fearing that she might lurk behind him.
Elliot went through the house, turning on lights and calling her name, but she was gone. She’d slipped out, he suspected, while he was in the garage checking the antifreeze.
The answering machine was blinking. He stabbed the button to check it.
This is Jed Washington. We got a positive ID on the corpses in Saucier’s barn. It was Kathryn and Solomon Stone all right. Oh, and you can scratch the other grave, bones turned out to be canine.
Another bad thought occurred to Elliot. He hadn’t seen the yearbook when he’d searched the house. He ran back to where he’d left it, but it, too, was gone. Then it dawned on him. The return address of the package. Beverly Mandel. Cyndi had seen the name and the address. Elliot put his hand to his forehead. They’d taken Cyndi’s car last night. She’d left it parked on the driveway.
Elliot ran to the garage and hit the opener. When the overhead door rose, he saw the driveway was empty. Cyndi’s car was gone.
He scrambled back into the house, then threw on some clothes. He yanked open the nightstand. The .38 was missing.
He went to the closet. The Glock was still there. He slid into his shoulder holster, put on a jacket, and raced from the house.
When Elliot pulled into the parking lot of Beverly Mandel’s apartment complex, he saw that the door to her apartment was open. He phoned the department, explaining what was happening, then jumped out of the truck and ran up the stairs.
Elliot saw Cyndi, using the waitress as a shield. She’d backed herself and her hostage into the bathroom. She held the .38 she’d taken against the base of Beverly Mandel’s skull. The look in her eyes said she meant to use it. There was something different about her as well. Dangling from her neck was an amulet, a five-pointed star with a single point facing the earth.
Elliot slowly stepped into the small, tiled room. He heard a simultaneous annunciation, “Kenny,” coming from both Cyndi and the waitress.
“Hello, Cyndi. Wondered where you went.” He almost choked on his words. He shrugged, acting as if a complete loss of understanding surrounded him. “What are you doing?”
Beverly Mandel’s eyes were like saucers.
Cyndi kept the .38 in place. “Just protecting myself, don’t you see? No one else knows.” She used the gun for emphasis. “Just our little problem here.”
A cry escaped from Beverly Mandel’s lips.
“But I can take care of that. Now step back out of here. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Elliot forced a smile. “I believe that. I don’t want to see you get hurt either.” Again, as he looked into the face of Cyndi Bannister, he was reminded of Brighid. Maybe it was the anger in her face, or the lack of makeup, but the similarity was undeniable. “Why did you kill Jim Llewellyn?”
Cyndi remained silent for a moment, but then said, “Got it all figured out, haven’t you? I let you get too close, let my guard down.” She paused, then continued. “Llewellyn poked his nose in it a few years back, but I managed to scare him off with some nasty e-mails. But he decided to come back, stir things up again. I couldn’t risk it.”
“Where’s it going to stop? Jim Llewellyn, Gary Sullivan, Brighid, who’s next? Beverly, then me? Would you, Cyndi? Would you kill me?”
Beverly Mandel tried to scream, but Cyndi slapped her hand over the waitress’s mouth. “I thought you were different, Kenny, thought you understood. But you’re just like the rest. You don’t understand me at all.”
“I think I’m beginning to. Reverend Coronet controlled his flock through fear of sin and Satan. All you had to do was play along, plant a few rumors in the right ears. You had the people of Donegal so busy looking over their shoulders for the devil that they never saw you coming. You used me, got close and blinded me with your charms. Let it be over now, Cyndi. Put the gun down. Let me help you.”
She tightened her grip on the waitress. “You’re pretty smart, but you’re wrong about one thing. It might have started out that way, but I meant what I said.” Again she paused, and when she spoke her voice was low, almost a whisper. “I do love you, Kenny. But it’s too late. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Sure there is. If you’ll put the gun down, we can walk out of here, together.”
She shook her head. “Then what?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll bet it beats the alternative.”
“In your mind maybe, but not in mine.”
Tears threatened to pour from Elliot’s eyes, but he stopped them. “We can still have a relationship, by mail, and by phone. Even visitation. And someday, if things work out, we could be together.”
She glanced around, considering the offer, then shook her head. “They’ll never let me out.”
Then, even though Elliot knew it was the wrong time, when he was trying to talk her down, the question came out. “Why did you do it, Cyndi? Why did you kill
your parents?”
Her eyes grew wild, her face contorted. “You don’t know what it was like, living in fear, like prisoners of war, only the enemy was Mommy and Daddy.” She started to cry. “It wasn’t always bad, until we joined the church, and everything went to hell.” She closed her hand around the amulet that hung from her neck. Then Cyndi loosened her grip on the hostage, though she did not let her go but kept the waitress in front of her as she removed the .38 from Beverly Mandel’s neck, and pressed the barrel against the hostage’s temple.
“Don’t kill me,” Beverly said. “Don’t let her kill me, Kenny.”
Dizziness swept through Elliot, threatened to take his balance. “No.”
“It’s the only way.”
“No, Cyndi. For God’s sake. For my sake, please don’t do this.”
For a moment, that little part of the world inside the apartment stood still as silence, laced with death, permeated the air. Then, to his own surprise, Elliot charged forward, his body pinning both the waitress and Cyndi against the wall.
Cyndi screamed, a guttural howl that ran fear through Elliot. Her strength surprised him. She bucked and pushed like a two-hundred-pound defensive lineman, but still he held her, searching all the time for the .38 she held. When his hand found the weapon, he yanked it from her.
Elliot pulled Beverly Mandel behind him, then placed the barrel of the .38 in the center of Cyndi Bannister’s forehead. “It’s over,” he said. “It’s over.”
Elliot’s feet were like bricks as he turned and walked Cyndi, or Elizabeth, whoever she was out of the bathroom. The action sent an ache through his heart, and his knees grew weak, but someone stepped forward and steadied him.
It was Michael Cunningham. He looked at Elliot for a few seconds, emotion flickering in his eyes. Then he nodded. “Nice work, Detective.”