by Sharon Ervin
“Right.” He jotted the addition on the list and opened the door. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“I’ll be right here.” She closed the door behind him and turned to reconnoiter. She was surprised and pleased to realize that after all her blubbering on the bus, she didn’t have a headache.
She found the complimentary bottle of shampoo, got a towel and turned on the water in the bathtub, trying not to entertain the memory of the last time she’d washed her hair--in the trough in the cabin with Bo. A tiny cry caught in her throat. “Don’t,” she chided out loud. “Don’t do this. Let him go. Think of something else.”
She adjusted the water. That was nice. Water on tap. An innovation she’d scarcely noticed or appreciated, before.
She hung her head over the side of the tub to let the water cascade through her hair and tried to think of the future; her new life in this picturesque little town, if she had a job. She rinsed, soaped and rinsed again, then wrapped a towel around her head turban style. Fumbling with the phone book, she found the number and dialed the Gazette.
“Bruce Crownover, please.”
When the managing editor answered, she hesitated.
“Hello?” the man repeated, irritation in his voice.
“Mr. Crownover?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Sara Loomis. I’m here in Overt. I want to know if you still have a job for me?”
It took him a minute, then his voice softened. “The Sara Loomis who was en route to her new job on this newspaper when she was abducted?”
“The same.”
“Have we got a job for you? Yes, ma’am. Have you got a story for me? I sure as hell hope so. Did you think we’d fill your job while you were kidnapped?”
“Well...”
“Generally we don’t penalize people for being late for work if they’ve got any kind of an excuse at all.”
She chuckled lightly. “Well, sir, I’ve got a dandy.”
His laugh burbled along with hers. “When are we going to get it?”
“The FBI wants to debrief me first. They insist I spiel it for them before I get befuddled and forget or start embellishing.”
“I can understand that. But you will write it for us before you start penning your best seller, right?”
She laughed lightly. “Right. So am I still employed?”
“Tell you what, Sara Loomis, I’m going to set it up so that you’ve been on payroll since one November, how does that sound? More good news. Friday’s payday.”
“Don’t you need my social security number or something?”
“Nah. We can do all the fine tuning when you get to the office. When do you suppose that’ll be?”
“I don’t know for sure. If I can answer all the FBI’s questions and find something to wear, maybe Wednesday.”
Crownover cleared his throat which sounded like an affirmative response. “We’re all sure looking forward to meeting you, Sara Loomis. Yes, ma’am, we’re sure eager to make your acquaintance.”
Chapter Eighteen
Agent William Krisp was well named, Sara decided. The man was brittle; his words, terse.
Barrel chested, Krisp stood erect at five-foot-eight, eye level with Sara, and rolled a toothpick back and forth across his mouth awaiting her responses to his succinct questions.
He had allowed her only a few moments' private reunion with her parents before directing her to one of the three chairs at the small table in the sitting area of her motel room. He had brought along a male stenographer who set up his machine across from her and began clattering the keys.
Shampooed, bathed, and dressed in new slacks, sweater, and underclothes from Wal-Mart, Sara opened her account telling them about her rest stop at the convenience store near a town she couldn’t identify.
“Blimpton, Arkansas,” Krisp supplied.
She detailed her abduction, a random choice by the abductor, conversations during their wild ride in the dilapidated pickup, and the scene when they stopped at the clearing in the mountains.
She recalled some of their names--Cappy, Franklin, Holthus--but she couldn’t remember the other two. Then, of course, there was Ma or Queenie. Krisp nodded sagely.
“Holthus has bright red hair and beard. He should be easy to spot.”
Krisp nodded again
“Franklin is the one who actually kidnapped me. He should be easy to identify. He’s missing parts of three fingers on his right hand.” She cringed, suddenly recalling Franklin’s odor. “But I’ll tell you about that later.”
“He’s the guy...” Agent Larchmont broke in but shut up abruptly when Krisp flashed him a withering look.
Obviously, Krisp and Larchmont knew Franklin. Were they the ones who had brought the dogs and left footprints along the river bank near the Johnsons? She had a feeling Franklin was their guide that day, the culprit helping the law search for the red herring. How ironic.
But Sara wanted to give her account in full before she asked any questions. She spoke slowly, trying to keep events in chronological order. Krisp seldom interrupted.
When she finished hitting the high spots in her initial account, Krisp said, “Did you fear for your life at any time?” He studied her closely, making notes in his own notebook in addition to the stenographer’s word-for-word account.
She thought that seemed like a silly question. “Yes.”
“Did you see any weapons?”
“Weapons?” She was astonished. “Yes. There were weapons everywhere. Rifles, shotguns, bows and arrows, knives, pistols in holsters like cowboys. Those people are still living in the old west, Mr. Krisp. They don’t go to the corner grocery. They shoot game for the table. Yes, I saw weapons.”
He disregarded her sarcasm. “Did you see any automatic weapons?”
“No. They’re proud of their shooting. They don’t hunt with Uzis.”
Krisp shook his head. She realized he was probably disappointed to have unearthed common criminals instead of a politically subversive group of some kind.
“Why do you think they took you, Ms. Loomis?”
She raised and lowered her shoulders. “There was a lot of confusion, people screaming, guns firing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Franklin yanked me out and threw me into the truck. I told you what Holthus said later. Queenie had told them not to take any hostages or do any shooting.
“The whole gang piled into the truck on top of me--in my lap, for heaven’s sake. They were in a panic. I don’t think most of them knew I was there until later.”
Krisp’s voice droned. “Did you see these people do anything illegal?”
Sara looked at him in disbelief. “You mean other than robbing a convenience store and kidnapping me?” She thought a moment while everyone else in the room waited.
“Well, they made moonshine,” she said, realizing that might be a federal offense. “But I don’t think they make it to sell. Just for family. And I think they’re all related. The intermarrying in that bunch has taken its toll. I doubt there’s a sound mind among them.”
Krisp nodded soberly. “Okay, they got you to their hideout, then what happened?”
“We were near a place called Settlement. I don’t think Settlement is their hideout. I think it’s a community whose name reflects the imagination of its residents.”
The agent allowed a tolerant smile and waited for her to continue.
“Anyway, Franklin wanted the honor of killing me. He talked about other women he’d killed.” From the corner of her eye, Sara tried to ignore her mother’s flinch. “I don’t know if he was bragging or if he’d actually murdered someone. But Cappy, the nineteen-year-old stutterer, somehow won the honor of doing me in. He marched me off into the woods.”
She detailed her conversation with Cappy as well as she could recall it, particularly his speculation that Bo would kill her quickly and mercifully.
“Taking my chances with a guy Cappy said was a mute madman seemed, at the moment, my best chance, so I camp
aigned for that.”
She recalled her terror during her first confrontation with Bo.
“What’s his full name?” Krisp asked, peering over the tops of his eyeglasses.
“I don’t know.”
“You mean he wouldn’t tell you?”
“Bo’s a mute. He doesn’t speak.”
“Not a word?”
“No.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She shrugged. “I never heard him utter a word, even in emergencies.” She glanced toward her parents and lowered her voice. “I don’t think he’s physically able to speak.”
Krisp looked hard at her, allowed his glance to wander to her parents on the sofa several feet away, then he scribbled something in the margin of his notebook.
“So what do you know about Bo?”
“He was in the military. Mrs. Johnson told me that. He’s lived there for two or three years. She gave me that, too. In fact, she’s probably the one you ought to ask about him. Most of my information about Bo, I got from her.”
“Describe him for our reporter here, Ms. Loomis, and we’ll get a sketch artist to give us a rendering.”
Sara frowned down at her hands. “Okay.” But she stalled.
“Do you have reservations about giving us a description of this man?”
She cast him a side-long look. “I don’t know why you want one. I get the impression you already know what Franklin and Cappy and Holthus and Queenie look like.”
Krisp settled a dark stare on Sara. “Do you have a problem with describing Bo for us?”
“Yes, I do.” She straightened in her chair. “Why do you want it? Franklin kidnapped me. He was the one so darn eager to kill me, said he’d like to have done a number of other things to me first. Sexual things. And he followed through on those threats every time he got the chance.
“Cappy wanted us to have sex but he didn’t know how. I told him I couldn’t teach him anything about that. I can give you detailed descriptions of both of those yahoos. Why do you keep asking about Bo?”
She glanced at her parents who sat tense, side-by-side on the sofa. Her dad grimaced. Her mother refused to raise her eyes, concentrating instead on her hands folded in her lap.
Krisp held his silence. Was he reeling out rope hoping she would implicate herself? In what? Her own kidnapping?
“Bo frightened me at first,” she said, relenting. “He growled and grunted, shoved me around, kept me locked up.”
She told about Bo’s staking her out under the tree then rescuing her from the coyote attack; about his locking her in the shed, then retrieving her before the tornado; about his providing clothes, and feeding her; about his taking her into the cabin the night the weather turned cold.
She didn’t mention sleeping in Bo’s bed that night, certain none of them would understand. She wasn’t sure she understood that either, exactly.
“Then Franklin came to rescue me.” She glared at Krisp. He returned the look showing no emotion, but he flashed Larchmont a warning glance. Sara saw the exchange and made a mental note to question the junior agent later, away from Krisp’s squelching looks.
“When did this aborted rescue take place?”
Krisp returned Sara’s scowl of disapproval. “It was not an 'aborted rescue,' Mr. Krisp. It was an attempt by Franklin to rape and murder me. He did a pretty fair job of assaulting me as it was.”
“Of course, you don’t know that he would have raped or murdered you, Ms. Loomis.”
Sara felt her face flush. “Mr. Krisp, I thought you wanted facts.” Her words hissed between clenched teeth. “If you plan to make up a story to fit some lame theory of your own, you don’t need me.” She tapped her index finger on the table as she spoke. “But I am a news reporter, sir. I deal in straight-up, hard news; in facts, sir.”
“Now hold on just a minute, young woman...”
She raised her voice over his attempted interruption. “I intend to write this entire story exactly as it happened. I imagine your superiors will wonder if your account and mine are different. They’ll probably want to know where you got yours. I lived this nightmare and I am damn sure not going to verify a bunch of fabrications.”
He glared at her. “I have no intention of dealing in anything but the facts in this situation, Ms. Loomis.”
“Even if they don’t make the FBI look as efficient or as heroic as you’d like?”
He glanced quickly toward her parents, at Larchmont, then at the court reporter taking down each word.
Larchmont cleared his throat and looked at Krisp. “Maybe we should delete that part of the interview.”
“Not a chance.” Sara shot a warning glance at the reporter.
“I have to take it all down,” the stenographer said. “I’m not allowed to delete anything.”
Krisp nodded to Sara, prompting her to continue.
She explained about Franklin’s spiriting her away to a remote spot and tying her, hanging her from a tree while he made camp; about his tippling from the fruit jar; his threats regarding her body, his attempt to molest her, their mutual assaults upon one another; about Bo’s intervention, and details of the dispatching of portions of Franklin’s three fingers.
Her mother squirmed and her dad covered his wife’s trembling hands with both of his. Larchmont groaned. Krisp remained stoic, as if he were unmoved by any part of Sara’s account. Then he mumbled to Larchmont, “We may have to exercise the escape clause in our deal with young Franklin Kindling.”
Sara’s eyes narrowed. “And how long have you known that family’s name, Mr. Krisp? Kindling, is that it?”
Krisp flashed an embarrassed look at Larchmont and she realized the senior agent was annoyed with himself for having let that information slip.
“Of course, Ms. Loomis, Franklin Kindling may want to file assault charges against your friend Bo for amputating his fingers for him.”
Sara allowed a half snort, half laugh. “I hope he does. What a hoot. Look at my wrists.” She held out her hands. Both wrists still showed ugly evidence of the rope burns. “Franklin caused every bit of that. I’ll be glad to show my scars and tell a judge and jury about ropes Franklin tied so tight they made me bleed; about how he hung me from a tree limb so he could attack me; about that slimy little animal ripping open my nightshirt and about...”
“What?” Krisp finally sounded surprised.
Her eyes shot toward her parents on the sofa. “I left some things out before.”
“Back up then.”
Lowering her gaze, Sara provided more details of the episode in the canyon, of Franklin’s boasts that he collected a severed breast from each of his many female victims. She glanced at her parents before telling of her attempts to make Franklin mad enough to kill her, and of Bo’s last minute appearance in the nightmare.
She told how Bo comforted her and kept her safe with him. At that, Krisp eyed her suspiciously.
Omitting any reference to their sexual exploits, she recounted Bo’s thoughtful behavior: the chamber pot, the meals, clothing from the boxes in the shed, the comb he crafted for her, their visits to the Johnsons, and finally, his bringing her out on his motorcycle and giving her money for bus fare.
Krisp’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you call your parents from the bus station?”
“I...I guess I didn’t think of it. I wanted to get away from there, from that bunch of crazies in Settlement, back to civilization.”
“And to give Bo a chance to get clear, isn’t that right?”
Sara didn’t answer. The clattering of the reporter’s keyboard stopped. There was a long lull. Krisp studied her face for several seconds, then glanced at her parents.
Larchmont, idly picking his fingernails, spoke. “Does this Bo have any identifying marks, birthmarks, moles, tattoos, anything?”
Sara shook her head slightly, looking at Krisp. “No.”
Larchmont continued. “Maybe on his torso, places not normally visible. Something to help us verify his identity when we
get him.” Larchmont glanced up then back at a particularly troublesome hangnail.
The stenographer stared out the window.
Sara’s parents both gazed at a magazine on the coffee table in front of them. But Krisp looked directly at Sara and she returned his stare. Almost imperceptively, she shook her head. Krisp nodded, puckered his lips, and drew a deep breath.
“Mr. and Mrs. Loomis,” he rose casually, “I think we’ve pretty well heard the gist of the story now. Sara is of legal age and we’d like to ask her a few technical questions privately. I’d appreciate it if you would excuse yourselves for a little while, if you don’t mind.”
Sara’s dad gave Krisp a hard look, then his eyes traveled to Sara, who smiled assurance.
“There’s a nice coffee shop up by the motel office,” Krisp continued. “How about if you wait for us there?”
Sara’s parents both looked to her. She smiled again. “I’ll be fine.”
Her father stood. “We’ll be back in half an hour.” He gave her mother a hand up then walked over and kissed Sara on the cheek. Her mother hugged her tightly. They left. Agents Larchmont and Krisp and the reporter stayed with Sara.
“Did you get a tag number on the motorcycle Bo was driving?” Krisp asked. Sara thought he sat straighter in his chair and watched her facial responses even more closely than he had before.
Genuinely surprised, she shook her head. “No. I never even thought about motorcycles having tags.” She chided herself for not gotten a tag number, a way for her to trace Bo later.
“Where was Bo from?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t have an accent, of course. He was polite, very mannerly. Mrs. Johnson said he wasn’t from around there, but she didn’t know where he came from either.”
“Sara,” Krisp used her first name and his voice became soothing, “it’s not unusual for a kidnap victim to develop a dependence...a, well, shall we say a fondness...a crush, if you will, on her abductor.”
Sara felt a bright flush climb from her collar to her hairline and she bit her lips. Agent Larchmont’s eyes darted from Sara to Krisp and back to Sara.
She looked at her hands folded in her lap, then set her jaw and glared at her interrogator.