Hounded

by Anita Klumpers

  From the shadow of a tree, almost invisible, she had watched and waited for Timothy to approach. But he headed the opposite direction, to the unpleasant north side of the garage. She’d flown to press herself against the back wall of the building. A minute opening in the thick ivy allowed her to peer around the corner without being seen. She did so, suddenly feeling like a foolish little child.

  Timothy set the statue down and reached inside his belt to pull out something small. It must have been a key, because he tugged at the vines creeping over a narrow door and inserted it into the lock. The door, Timothy told her once, led to an old wine cellar, long abandoned. The wine his father moved to the house, the door he locked to keep out inquisitive children who might fall down the stone steps and break body parts.

  Timothy’s furtive check of his surroundings didn’t frighten Elise into flight. He couldn’t see her. He swung the door open to the creak of rusty hinges. Then he picked up the statue and disappeared down the steps and she’d lost interest. He must not want Timmy running across the stone likeness of himself and ruining a special day. She took the dogs for a walk and forgot the entire incident.

  Did that memory have any significance? She doubted it. The statue was probably in the wine cellar for exactly the reason she’d assumed. The light in the billiard room had no doubt been lit by an intruder desperate to find something of value. When she’d shot out of the house to look for Jeff he might have thought he’d been discovered. He’d shoved her in the pool out of self-preservation and not intended murder. He didn’t realize how hard he’d hit her, Elise told herself with almost convincing bravado.

  And yet she found herself at Timothy’s bedroom closet. He’d organized his belt rack beautifully. Her late husband preferred black belts but had an appropriate number of brown, tan, and gray. The one with the inner key pocket, she felt almost certain, was tan. He’d been wearing khaki slacks that day…

  It was, in actuality, light brown. As she lifted it from the rack she wondered why on earth she thought the key would still be in there. But it was, still tucked in the small zippered opening. She carried it back down to the kitchen and out on the deck before she realized that was stupid. Yes, yes it was. She flew back in the house ahead of a white flash jagging across the sky and began the mental argument.

  She should wait till morning to check the wine cellar. She should have Detective Bly go with her. Or Russ. How she wanted him by her when she walked down those stone steps. She tried calling him again and this time it went straight to voice mail. Of course. She told him to buzz off and he had complied.

  But Timothy had stashed the statue where no one would see it. It might have the same cubbyhole as Vanessa’s. And Vanessa said family papers were missing. Where better to put them than in a family statue?

  A lot of places, she reasoned as she rummaged for a flashlight. In true lawyer fashion Timothy could have used a safe deposit box. Maybe another belt had the key to that. Maybe the papers would end up to be Vanessa’s infant scribbles or grade school report cards. No. He wouldn’t call those “important family papers.”

  Elise’s voice of reason gave up and went to bed. Flashlight in hand she stepped outside, leaving the patio door open in case the heavens opened and she didn’t want to waste time struggling with a stubborn door.

  The wind grabbed her hair, snatched at her breath. Thunder ran on a continual loop and as she limped along, certain she would be struck by lightning any moment, her body reminded her of the day’s trauma. Tomorrow, she promised her outraged shoulder, I’ll ice you all day. And visit a psychiatrist because clearly I am crazy.

  After the artificial brightness of the back lawns, the north side seemed like a long dark cave that snickered at the anemic glow from her flashlight. Elise expected protection from the gusts here—instead it acted like a wind tunnel. The undergrowth pawed her legs, low-hanging branches slapped her face. Ivy moved as though a body slithered along beside her.

  She overshot the door, so well did the vines camouflage it. Even then she had to claw at the slimy stuff to find the handle. The key fit easily but the door put up a fight before it opened, still protesting noisily. At least, she thought, when she’d finally shoved it open to wedge in the mud, she needn’t worry about it slamming shut on her.

  No light, even on bright days, could find its way into the cellar. Elise gripped the flashlight and in its steady beam inched down. Only half a dozen uneven steps led to the dirt floor but they were rough, steep, and slippery with moisture. She understood why the cellar had been abandoned.

  Empty shelves lined the stone walls. One sweep of her flashlight convinced Elise that no three foot high stone statue lurked behind the cobwebs. She moved into the small, dank room and shone the light again, puzzled. When had the statue of young Timmy been removed? And by whom? From the overgrowth on the door she’d be willing to bet it wasn’t recently. Of course, she and Timothy had seldom communicated anything these last months except insults. Maybe he put it back up in the old billiard room, or donated it, or given it to Timmy. Elise shrugged. As she kept reminding herself, she was no detective.

  “There you are, Elise.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek.

  “The Hound of Heaven,” Line 95

  Her flashlight clattered to the floor and Elise whirled, only to be dazzled by the beam directed down into her eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” The voice came from the top of the stairs. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Palmer! She couldn’t even gasp out his name. Never had she experienced this type of gut-gripping fear.

  “Why are you here? Didn’t I tell you not to leave the house? To keep the doors bolted and the alarm on? This was foolish, Elise. Very foolish.” He stepped gingerly down the stairs. She still couldn’t see him, for the brilliant light in her face.

  He was to the third step, now the fourth, the fifth, the beam almost level with her. He had reached the dirt floor, and he kept coming, face grotesquely shadowed by the light in his hand.

  If she waited till he got an arm’s length away, Elise thought, she might be able to slip past him. If only she hadn’t dropped the flashlight. She could have walloped him with it.

  He stopped, and she knew she wouldn’t reach the stairs. Not even her sharp tongue could do battle. She was paralyzed.

  “Why are you standing there?” Palmer was irritated, fretful even. “You need to be back in the house.” He reached for her and laid a hand on her unresisting arm. She heard a quick intake of breath. “Elise. Are you sleeping right now?”

  She wished she knew how to fake sleepwalking, but had no idea if, like his wife, Palmer had read up on the condition. He didn’t seem to expect the answer she couldn’t choke out. He led her to the stone steps, up them, into the rain and wind. The next storm was upon them and lightning illuminated decomposing vegetation and grasping branches of the passageway. Palmer didn’t need to urge her to scramble around the corner and onto the back lawn.

  “We’ll just get you inside and you lock up behind me. I had a feeling I should check on you.” He guided her up the steps. “You never seemed like a foolhardy girl, but then again, you married into the Ambersons. No more nighttime wanderings. Maybe we need to put one of those ankle alarms on you.”

  They were at the patio door and he frowned to see it open. “No sense of self-preservation.” He tugged it wider, put a hand in the small of her back, and pushed her in. “You aren’t sleeping, are you?”

  “No.”

  “How did you get in the wine cellar? The key has been lost for years.”

  “Timothy had one in a zipper pocket of a belt.”

  He seemed stunned. She continued.

  “He put the statue of Timmy down there.” Something flared in his eyes, and died away. “But now it’s gone.”

  “No it isn’t.” Palmer sounded unaccountably jubilant. “A small room for the most expensive wines was built behind the cellar. Not quite a secret, but y
ou have to swing aside one of the wine racks to slide the panel. Kept the servants from stumbling on the good stuff. I’m guessing that’s where the statue is.”

  “Why there?”

  Palmer shrugged and arranged his mouth in a benevolent droop. “Unfortunately we can’t ask Timothy, can we?”

  Suddenly all business, he held out a hand. “If you give me the key I’ll lock up the cellar. And we’ll just leave the statue where it is, in deference to my dead brother’s wishes.”

  Key in hand, he strode out the door, stopping only to reiterate his demand that she lock everything up and activate the security system if she knew what was good for her.

  Elise collapsed onto a chair, only to drag herself to her feet. Palmer didn’t need to tell her twice about the alarm.

  It was as she punched in the code that she felt, rather than heard, a rumbling rasp. It might be approaching thunder. But it wasn’t. The gates were creeping open. Several seconds later the sound repeated as they began their slow closure. She wouldn’t have heard if she hadn’t been at the front of the house. A car, slow, silent and almost invisible, crept around the curve, lights off. The driver pulled to the edge of the grass verge. Strain her eyes as she might, Elise couldn’t identify who leapt from the driver’s side to run toward the garage. But she knew it was an Amberson.

  Elise had no intention of heroics. She needed to get to the kitchen and find her cell.

  In the kitchen she dumped the contents of her purse onto the table. She smiled fondly at the cell phone. Just three numbers away sat a 911 operator eager to send help.

  The battery was dead. Elise snatched up the home phone, hoping the intruder didn’t read old mystery stories. From outside the house, a single sharp crack erupted that no electrically charged clouds ever created. The dogs appeared behind her, rigid, and staring at the patio door.

  “I don’t know what it was, boys. Not lightning.” Jeff took a tentative step toward her. “Stay there! We’ll open the door just a crack and see if we can hear better.”

  But of course the door wouldn’t open the required few inches. It stuck and when she tugged, slid open a full foot. Plenty of room for Mutt to bolt through.

  For a dreadful second she couldn’t see past the sheets of rain if Palmer had locked the gate at the top of the steps. Mutt dashed back and forth, unable to get down. With whelming relief she stepped out to grab him.

  The scream, horrible and terrified, froze her. A second crack, clearer now that she stood outside, galvanized her. Realizing it was the most foolish thing she would ever do, she scooped an already drenched Mutt back into the house and powered the stubborn door closed.

  Whatever happened had happened on the north side of the garage. Since she had no weapon, no authority and very little courage, Elise used the only defense in her arsenal. Noise.

  Banging the gate, clattering down the stairs, slapping hands on the rail, when she hit the waterlogged grass, noise dissolved. So she began to shout, hoping to be heard over the storm and the wind. Words, sentences, imprecations flew from her mouth interspersed with “‘I’m coming! Here I come! Are the police here yet? They should be coming any minute!”

  Despite the bravado, she still stopped dead at the corner and peered through the same ivy she’d used to screen her spying on Timothy.

  “Come on over, Elise.”

  It wasn’t the command that moved her, or even the gun pointed at her pitiful camouflage. It was the body on the ground at Therese’s feet.

  “What have you done, Therese?”

  She knelt in the slimy moss at Palmer’s side. Before she could process that he must be dead, he blinked.

  “Why did you leave the house, Elise?” And that was all.

  Elise took his hand, feeling for a pulse. “Therese, what have you done?”

  “Sent my sorority sisters home when I heard him leave, and followed the piece of vermin here. The sick, sneaking pedophile. And shot him.” She laughed, ugly and grating. “You didn’t know, did you? No one did except me, and Timothy, of course. Because his children were Palmer’s most accessible targets.”

  She looked from Elise to Palmer, nose wrinkled as though she’d smelled something nasty. “I never liked you, Elise.”

  That was nothing new.

  “Of course I never liked him, either”—waving the gun at Palmer—“but I enjoy being an Amberson. This pathetic piece of slime isn’t going to drag my name or reputation down with him.” Her brow cleared. “I take it back, about not liking you. You fixed everything, like in those shows where the killer gets rid of two people by making it look like a murder-suicide. It’s too perfect. And wasn’t it providential, how I mentioned your sleepwalking to the detective?”

  Keeping her hand on the limp wrist, Elise tried to keep her voice steady and calm. “I don’t think that will work.”

  Therese pulled a bundle of plastic-wrapped papers from Palmer’s jacket pocket, tucked them under her arm, and rubbed the handle of the pistol with her skirt hem. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t care what works, as long as there’s no connection to me. So I need to shoot you. Nothing personal.”

  The air crackled, shivered, and split to make way for a fiery finger of lightning just beyond the fence. Therese barely reacted. The gun, after the smallest of twitches, leveled at her again and Elise knew she would die. She leaned back into Jeff, who somehow had come to hover over her, breathing out love and comfort and promises that all would be well.

  She closed her eyes, unwilling to see the spurt of flame from the muzzle. “I didn’t mean it God. I hope You know that.”

  The night exploded.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,

  Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—

  Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

  “The Hound of Heaven,” Lines 43-45

  She opened her eyes when she heard God calling her name. Drenched, Elise felt one hand on slick vegetation, the other on flesh. Palmer lay next to her, so still, bits of ivy covering him. Therese sprawled to her left, also unmoving, under a branch severed from one of the trees. Jeff must have escaped.

  Grit and panic forced her to her feet. She scrambled over the fallen limb to reach Therese. Eyes open, staring at nothing, the woman would never see anything again. She crawled back to Palmer, lying unnaturally still but with a pulse.

  “Now what, God?”

  And God answered. “Elise! If you can hear me, say something.”

  “Here I am, God.” Her response needed something more. “Choose me.”

  Russ’s face materialized over the fence.

  “Oh, dear Lord. I’m coming over, Elise. Stay there.”

  Dreamily, she watched him adjust his grip, hoist his upper body onto the ledge and follow with one long leg, then the other. Reversing the process he dropped to the ground with a muffled grunt.

  Carefully he stepped to Therese, knelt to touch the crushed neck, a wrist on one wide-flung arm. When he rose he glanced at her, face grave. He repeated the process with Palmer and dropped next to Elise.

  “Are you all right?”

  Elise hadn’t the energy to respond. She took his nearest arm and pulled it around her shoulder. Gently he drew her to him and with his free hand dug out his phone, hunched over it to make a bellowed call, and settled them both against the wall.

  “The woman is dead.” She nodded, and he pointed at Palmer. “Might be alive. I don’t dare touch him anymore. Looks like a bad spine injury.”

  She nodded again, head against his chest and he wrapped her even closer.

  They were still there moments later when Stevie Wonder ran over to them.

  “Dear God Almighty,” he said, surveying the carnage.

  “Indeed,” Russ responded.

  Other officers arrived but another round of thunderstorms beat them. Detective Bly ordered everyone to stay in squad cars till he notified them to come out.

  “We need to get inside too.
Dangerous storm. Can you get her up, Russ? And what about him?”

  Russ shouted something as lightning hit again, close enough that the hair lifted on their heads. With less concern for her damaged body than for haste, each man grabbed one of Elise’s arms as the thunder crashed overhead.

  “Back door,” Elise gasped. “Front is dead bolted.” A cylinder of white caught her eye and she pointed. “Therese took that from Palmer.” Steven snatched it up and the three of them galloped through the muck as a thousand heavenly fires ignited at once and roiling clouds pounded the earth in feverish accompaniment.

  Elise was beyond fear. She threw her head back to search blazing skies for the chariot of God hurtling after her. If she saw it she determined to throw herself in it, bow at the feet of her Master and hold out willing hands for the chains that made her free.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rise, clasp My hand, and come!

  “The Hound of Heaven,” Line 176

  Somehow they reached the kitchen, where Steven barked into his phone and scribbled furiously in his notebook. Russ held Elise on his lap in the rocker and she didn’t mind a bit. The detective, suppressing a grin at the double-decker couple, proved his worth that night. He brewed a fresh pot of coffee and rooted out several kitchen towels which he handed to Russ, who put them to good use by drying Elise’s hair vigorously, arms and legs carefully. Steven finally sat after handing around cups of coffee.

  “Ambulance is here but no one is going out until the lightning lets up. Not much good we can do for those poor folks anyway.”