The Body In The Basement ff-6

by Katherine Hall Page

  “Duncan won't be back until late—if he comes here at al . He'l probably sleep in his moldy old cabin as usual."

  “I liked that `good mother' touch." Jim chuckled. "How he wouldn't be seeing his friends for a while and you wanted to treat them al to pizza and the movies. Here, you steer. I've got to change my shoes.”

  Valerie took over. She was in a boat, steering a boat.

  The phobia, like everything else, had been fake.

  Jim sat beside Pix companionably. They could see Valerie at the helm, shifting her feet every once in a while, causing the lights in her shoes to flash. Jim chuckled.

  "Technology. What next? Shoes that talk or sing? Sorry about Samantha, incidental y. Valerie must have pushed her a bit harder than she'd planned. We had merely intended to give you a scare so you'd stop sticking your nose into things. We hoped Samantha would see the lights and assume it was Dunc. It al worked out perfectly.”

  Depending on one's viewpoint. Pix was reaching the boiling point.

  She saw they were headed for a smal island that she knew belonged to the camp. It was a long way from shore.

  They used it for overnights, teaching the kids survival skil s.

  Now it appeared it would test Pix's own. Valerie cut the motor and eased the boat into shal ow water. Jim jumped out, pul ing them farther onto the beach. The hul scraped along the rough sand, then al was quiet. The only sound was that of the waves gently breaking to either side.

  “Last stop," Jim said heartily. He reached in the boat and picked Pix up, depositing her more or less upright on the sand. Samantha was next.

  Pix had never noticed how strong he was. She'd never noticed a lot of things about Jim.

  “Toss me the rope, Val. I won't be a minute." He pul ed a gun from his pocket. "Okay, up the path”

  Pix couldn't imagine where he was taking them, and although the night was stil warm, she felt a cold sweat break out. Was it real y going to be the last stop? Behind her, Samantha moaned.

  They walked to a clearing in the middle of the island.

  Some summer's campers had built a lean-to and it was this that was apparently their destination.

  “Get in and lie down. Let's not make things hard. I do so wish you two had not become involved. Believe me, I hate doing this," Jim said as he began to expertly bind Samantha's feet together again.

  Pix thought about trying to kick the gun from his hand.

  She could do it easily, though with her hands behind her back, it would gain her nothing. Every plan she had devised had come to naught. She had failed miserably. But she would not cry, she told herself angrily. She would not let the bastard see her cry.

  He finished with Samantha and went to work on Pix. In a moment, he was standing up.

  “Wel , good-bye, I guess. There's real y nothing else to say.”

  A few minutes later, they heard the boat start up again.

  Mother and daughter started talking at once. "Mom, they're gone!”

  “Are you al right?”

  They were almost giddy with relief. They were alive.

  But, Pix soon realized, taking stock of the situation, not in good shape.

  The island was uninhabited, and tied securely the way they were, there was no way they could attract attention tomorrow morning from a passing boat. When the Athertons didn't turn up at the camp and it became apparent that Pix and Samantha were also missing, a search would be made, yet it was unlikely that anyone would think to come here. There were countless islands of varying size dotted throughout Penobscot Bay. It could be days or even weeks before they were found.

  Jim wasn't going to be directly responsible for their deaths. Obviously, he'd come up with a plan that effectively kept them out of the way while the Athertons headed for the Canadian border and stil kept his hands clean. Pix could almost hear him explaining it to "sweet-cakes,”

  “That's al we need, a few hours. If they're found, fine. If not ...”

  If not .. .

  “Samantha, we have to try to cut these ropes with something. Can you stand up?"

  “I don't know" She strained to bend her knees and get into a sitting position. "It's no use. He's tied our hands and feet together."

  “Maybe I can untie the knot. My fingers are free.”

  Pix rol ed over to Samantha and began to pick at the knot at her ankles. Her fingers soon began to ache and she wished she hadn't kept her nails so short. Manicures didn't last long gardening.

  “At least one of us has to get down to the shore and start yel ing. There's always the chance that a boat could have pul ed into the cove for the night. Distract me. Sing.

  Anything." The pain and frustration were intense.

  “Al right. What shal I sing?" Samantha's mind was suddenly blank. She and Mom had rather different tastes in music. The latest from the Indigo Girls would not do much to speed the process. "I know—what you and Daddy used to sing to me when I couldn't get to sleep." Her voice started out shakily and got stronger. "Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird.”

  By the time Papa had purchased the sixth horse and cart, Pix had undone the knot and Samantha's feet and hands were no longer tied together. She stood up.

  “Look and see if there are any nails in the wal or anything sharp you could use to try to undo mine " Pix did not want her daughter to suffer the way she had; she knew her fingers were bleeding from the rough rope.

  Samantha hopped around the lean-to. The moon had risen. It was past eleven o'clock.

  “Here's a bunch of nails. They must have hung stuff on them. I'l try to get one with my teeth."

  “Be careful!" Al those years of orthodontics, fluoride treatments, sealants. She watched Samantha hop back toward her with a rusty nail in her mouth and kneel by her side. Samantha dropped the nail to the floor and deftly picked it up, starting in on the knot, looking over her shoulder the same way her mother had.

  “Boy, are we going to be stiff in the morning.”

  “Yes," Pix agreed, stiff, but not stiffs.

  “Al right, it's your turn.”

  Pix started to sing. This time Mama bought.

  After what seemed like hours, Pix was somewhat freed also and they gingerly made their way down to the shore. Coming through the trees, the ocean with the moon streaking across it like a beacon was a welcome sight. Pix had almost fal en in the woods and now she fel on purpose, rol ing over and over toward the shoreline, wel away from the ledges. She closed her eyes as the hard rocks pressed into her body, then opened them when she reached the smoother sand. Samantha fol owed her and they began to cal , "Help! Help! Please, someone help us!”

  They decided to take turns, then figured they might as wel wait until morning. No one was within earshot. Pix once more lay as close as she could to her daughter. The wind was picking up. It was getting. colder. Even if they could free themselves, it was too far to swim to the mainland through the frigid waters. Pix reassured Samantha. It offered a measure of comfort for herself, too, despite the disbelief of a quick rescue steadily rising like the tide.

  “Don't worry, everything wil be al right in the morning.

  Why don't you close your eyes"

  “I don't think I can sleep."

  “Hush, little baby ..

  Before she could get very far into the lul aby, Pix thought she heard the sound of an oar or a paddle. She lifted her head. Wishful thinking. Then the sound came again, more distinctly.

  “Yoo hoo! Pix? Samantha? Where are you?" It was Mother.

  The three women and Duncan made a somewhat outlandish grouping as they sat on the deck of the Athertons' house waiting for Earl. Neither Pix nor Samantha had wanted to go inside, so Duncan had fetched blankets for them to wrap around themselves and a bottle of brandy and glasses at Mrs. Rowe's suggestion. Pix was drinking from the Baccarat after al . The teenagers had Cokes and were steadily devouring a bag of potato chips. Although hungry, Pix herself did not feel like eating anything from this particular larder.

/>   Warm, the brandy seeping into her weary bones and bloodstream, Pix wanted her mother to tel the story again

  —and again just as a child with a favorite book. Like most other parents she knew, she had more quotations from Doctor Seuss and Margaret Wise Brown to hand than Doctor Seuss and Margaret Wise Brown to hand than Shakespeare.

  “You actual y have Duncan here to thank more than me," Ursula said.

  “I know," Pix answered, and gave the boy yet another hug. Since her mother had climbed out of the canoe and deftly cut their ropes with the Swiss army knife she always carried, Pix had been doing a great deal of hugging.

  “I knew something was weird. They had been treating me like shit—excuse me." Duncan flushed and looked at Ursula. "I mean, they had been yel ing at me and saying I was never coming back here, then suddenly Mom gives me some money and tel s me to take al my friends out." He shook his head. "She's been real jittery al summer and it's been worse lately. I thought because of what was happening at camp, and"—he lowered his voice

  —"because of what they thought I was doing.”

  Pix was indignant. "We owe you an enormous apology!"

  “Don't worry about it. I probably would have thought it was me, too. Like who would have thought Mom would go out and buy the same shoes? They're for kids.”

  Pix pul ed the blanket closer around her. The wind was picking up and it seemed they might final y get the rain they'd been waiting for al these weeks. It could come. The Fairchilds' foundation was dry. Even if Seth couldn't work for a few days, the ground was so parched, it would be worth it.

  The deck they were sitting on seemed another island and time was suspended, making it difficult for her to decide to move. Behind them the house was stil il uminated, a gaudy backdrop to the dark landscape on either side. The waning moon shone across the water and the stars were out, mixing with clouds moving across the sky in an ever-increasing number. The air was fresh. Tilting her head back, Pix drank it in grateful y.

  She realized she hadn't been listening to the conversation, and Duncan, uncharacteristical y, was continuing to talk.

  “So I go to my friends, `Let's blow the pizza, get snacks, and see the early movie.' I wanted to check out what was happening. I came back here alone. Al the lights were on, but no one was home. They weren't in the office at camp, either, and al the campers and staff were in their cabins. Mom's car was in the driveway and when I looked in the garage, Jim's was there, but yours was, too. It didn't make any sense. You couldn't have al gone somewhere together, unless someone else had picked you up, but you didn't seem to be that kind of friends, anyway. I decided to cal your house. I was going to hang up when you answered so you wouldn't think I was a jerk. When you didn't answer, I began to get this funny feeling. I couldn't cal Earl. We aren't exactly buddies. So I thought of your grandmother. She seemed okay.”

  Ursula took up the tale. "I couldn't imagine who was cal ing me at such an hour. Duncan wanted to know if you were there and of course you weren't. I told him I'd be right over." What Ursula did not say was that she knew immediately something was very very wrong. It was a summer out of sync and the disappearance of her daughter and granddaughter had to be serious. She stopped at their house to make sure and found it dark, completely empty.

  “It's amazing what we can do when our adrenaline gets going," Pix marveled, thanking God that she had not known at the time her octogenarian mother, who had not driven for years, was racing from The Pines across the causeway to the Athertons in the dead of night in her venerable

  "Woody"—a 1949 Plymouth Suburban wagon.

  “Fortunate that I had just had the car serviced for Arnie and Claire to use while they're here. Anyway, Duncan had been doing some investigating of his own while I was on my way. When I arrived, he told me there were many things missing from the house—valuable things—and the lobster boat was gone; the Whaler was at the mooring. I cal ed the police, then decided to take the canoe out. Duncan had found some rope and your purse on the floor in one of the rooms upstairs and we were both convinced that you'd been taken someplace under duress”

  Pix liked her mother's choice of words—a quaint way to describe the terror that she and Samantha had just suffered.

  She looked at the group. It was very late and they were al in one stage or another of extreme exhaustion.

  “I think we'd better go home, especial y because it seems a storm is on the way. I know Earl was coming here, but surely the state police have been in touch with him and told him we're al right. He'l know we went home—and al of us are sticking together for the rest of this night, anyway”

  When Duncan had reached Earl, the sergeant had immediately launched a search of the area around the camp, including the quarry, cal ing back to tel the boy to stay put with the Mil ers if they turned up at the house.

  There was one more thing Duncan wanted to say.

  Everyone was being so nice and he felt guilty. "I didn't think Mrs. Rowe should go out in the canoe like that, but I don't know how to paddle one, and she was pretty insistent.”

  Mother had won the Women's Singles Canoe Trophy at various events on the Concord River for more years than Pix could remember and had been paddling the Penobscot since she was a child. And "pretty insistent" was definitely a euphemism.

  “She's very good at it, in fact, she'l teach you"

  Samantha thought it was time Duncan had some new interests and she ful y intended to take her rescuer under her wing, if he would let her.

  “That would be great," he said, then mumbled, "except I don't know if I'l be here.”

  Pix had studiously been avoiding any reference to Duncan's parents. It did not seem the moment to break it to the boy that his mother was a murderer, including of his natural father, and that both Jim and Valerie were involved in larceny up to their shirt-pocket emblems. Seeing him on the dock, as soon as they were within shouting distance, they'd cal ed to him to phone the state police and get the Coast Guard to stop Jim's boat. Other than this, al mention of their captors had been moot.

  “But Granny, why did you go to the island?" Samantha asked the one question that had not yet been answered.

  Pix felt foolish not to have thought of it. Why indeed?

  “It was the only place that made sense. Their boat was gone. If you were stil alive, and I believed you were, they had to put you someplace, but it couldn't be close to the camp. So, I simply started paddling along the shore, then out toward sea. Plus, I heard you shouting.”

  Sgt. Earl Dickinson was surprised and happy to see a group of laughing, obviously healthy friends as he drove up.

  Someone had been in time.

  “Start throwing things overboard!" Jim shouted to his wife.

  “What?" She couldn't hear him above the gale-force winds and rain that had greeted them farther out to sea.

  He motioned with his hands and spoke louder, "Get rid of some of this stuff. We're too heavy."

  “Are you crazy?”

  He left the cabin, went to the back of the boat, and started tossing bags into the water. Valerie fel upon him, screeching, "My boxes! My col ection of Battersea boxes!

  What are you doing!”

  He slapped her hard across the face. "Shut up! I'm going to try to make for shore. We can't ride it out and we're not exactly in a position to radio for help.”

  She began to cry. "I'm scared, Jim."

  “So am I. Now, do what I said and come back under cover." They were both soaking wet.

  She threw the wicker hamper over the side and then the silver. We can always buy more, she told herself. We can always buy more.

  At the wheel, Jim reached for a handkerchief to dry his face and found Pix's car keys in his pocket. She won't be needing these, he thought, and lobbed them in a long arc into the churning water. Then he turned the boat toward land, looking for a safe harbor.

  The raging storm hampered the Coast Guard's search for the next few days. It was not until the sun broke out on Saturday that some children found a l
ife buoy with the name VAL 'N JIM washed up on the shore—along with an empty wicker picnic basket.

  “It's a great party," Faith Fairchild said to her friend, Pix. They were sitting side by side on the back steps of the Mil ers' house, watching a variety of activities. A large convivial group—with Pix's brother, Arnie, at the center—

  continued to consume lobsters at the large picnic table.

  "Frankly, at my age I'd rather have a talking frog" was obviously the punch line to a very funny joke. They al burst into laughter. Sam, who had once again made a mad dash for his loved ones, arriving early Thursday morning, started to tel one of his.

  “He never gets this one right," Pix told Faith, "but he laughs so much while he's tel ing it that everybody laughs with him, anyway." Faith nodded. As far as she was concerned, the world was divided into people who could tel jokes and people who couldn't. Total y unable to remember even the most sidesplitting gem, she didn't even try, and kept to strictly off-the-cuff.

  Another group was playing croquet. Pix watched her mother tap some poor person's bal miles off course, recal ing that even when they were children, Ursula had played to win. "Otherwise, you won't learn," she'd explained with triumphant sweetness. Claire, Arnie's wife, had obviously drunk from the same wel . Her bal hurtled through a hoop, smashed into another, which she briskly sent into the tal grass. Claire had been out for a long bicycle ride and stil wore her black Lycra biking shorts with a bright periwinkle blue oversized linen shirt. She was one of those petite, nicely-put-together women who always made Pix feel much tal er and much clumsier than she actual y was—

  like Alice after eating the first cakes. Pix never knew what to do with her hands and feet when someone like Claire was around. Pix had assumed that in middle age you'd stop caring about what other people thought of you.

  Supposedly, it was one of the perks. She was stil waiting.

  The children were al over the place. Samantha and Arlene had immediately taken command of the Fairchild offspring, to Faith's unabashed delight. They seemed to be playing a game that involved a great deal of running and screeching, with little Amy riding piggyback and the dogs racing at their heels, barking happily. Duncan was with them. There had been no sudden transformation. He stil wore a black concert T-shirt and black jeans, but his hair was clean and he and Fred were joining the game with every appearance of friendship.