Secret, Silent Screams

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  Marti shuddered and dug her fingertips into the arms of her chair. “Please listen to me” she begged. “What I have to tell you is important. Barry didn't kill himself! It's not right to call Barry a suicide victim, because he's not!”

  There was a light tap on the door and it opened wide enough for Mrs. Anderson to poke her head in. “That woman from Channel 13 is oh the phone.”

  “I can't talk to her now. I'll call her back”. Dr. Emery said, and the door silently closed. He leaned back in his chair, sympathy carving furrows between his eyebrows, and asked, “Marti, don't you see that this attitude of yours is part of the early denial of Barry's death?”

  Just what Miss Dillard had told her. Why couldn't they listen to what she was saying?

  Marti perched on the edge of her chair. She tried to make herself breathe steadily and think calmly. She had to convince Dr. Emery that, she was right and he was wrong in what he planned to do. “It is hard to get used to Barry's being gone,” she said. “It hurts an awful lot. But I need to explain to you what I mean. Please let me explain.”

  “Of course,” he told her. He patiently rested his chin on a steeple made by his fingers. “Go ahead, Marti. I'm listening.”

  Carefully, from the beginning, she told Dr. Emery what she had told Karen and what Karen had told her. Whent she finished, fee sat quietty for a moment, thinking.

  Finally, Dr. Emery said, “You mentioned that the coroner didn't seem to think the bruise was significant. I'd be inclined to agree with him. And as for the right hand versus the left hand holding the gun, does it really matter? We have no way of knowing what was in Barry's mind. It could be that the evil in that music had influenced him so greatly that he was not himself.”

  Martigasped. “Barry didn't like that group, Flesh. He never listened to their music.”

  “But Sudden Death,the tape, was found in the Logans'VCR.”

  “Someone else put it there.”

  Dr. Emery stood and walked to the large bookcases that lined the wall of his study. He removed a notebook from the bottom shelf, opened it wide, and pulled out a few sheets of paper. He came back to the desk and handed the sheets to Marti. “The top sheet contains the lyrics for “Sudden Death,” he said. “The pages under them contain lyrics for other songs performed by the disgusting group that calls itself Flesh. They're equally horrifying.”

  “I know.” Marti didn't look at the papers on her lap.

  “You're familiar with them, then?” As he spoke, he ran his hands through his thick white hair until it was a tousled mess. He was upset. Marti didn't want to upset him. She just wanted him to listen.

  “Yes, Dr. Emery,” she answered. “Flesh is one of the top groups. Everybody knows their tapes.”

  “They mock all that is good. They worship evil. In Sudden Deaththey glorify suicide.”

  “I know.”

  “Then how can you in good conscience ask me not to pursue my campaign?”

  “I didn't ask you that.”

  “Isn't that what this appointment was for? How could I misunderstand what you've been saying?”

  “I don't know.” Marti leaned back and groaned. “Dr. Emery, if you want to go after Flesh, I'll support you. Their stuff is junk. Sickening junk. And chances are you're right that Flesh's music may have had something to do with Robin's and Al's suicides. At least we know both of them were playing Sudden Deathat the time.

  What I've been asking you is only that yon not use Barry's name in your campaign. It's not fair of you to talk nbout Barry's suicide, when he didn't kill himself.”

  Dr. Emery was silent for a long time. Marti could hear the steady tick of a little clock on the bookcase, and the forgrance of the roses was overpowering. Finally Dr. Emery said “You told me that you feel a commitment to Barry, but so do I.I never met the two young people who killed themselves last spring, but I knew Barry Logan well. He was a member of this congregation, a fine young man with great potential. If he had come to me—“His voice broke, but he took a deep breath and added, “In some way I failed him.”

  “No! You didn't,” Marti interrupted.

  Dr. Emery held up a hand and continued, “I can only cling to the thought that Barry would regret what he did and want to help others in any way he could. He would want to be an example to other teenagers of how the evil of that music can permeate young people's mitids and actions, their very lives. After a great deal of prayer and thought, I have chosen this way for him.”

  “I Understand how you feel, but I wish … oh, how I wish you could believe me!” Marti whispered.

  His eyes were hurt. “Marti, don't you trealize that the shock and confusion and pain you're experiencing because of Barry's death are keeping you from thinking clearly?”

  “I told you what I know about Barry. I thought you would—”

  But Dr. Emery got to his feet and asked, “Are your parents aware of your—your belief?”

  “Yes,” Marti answered.

  “Are they arranging some kind of counseling for you?”

  “We talked about it”

  He bent to scribble a name and telephone number on a notepad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to Marti. “Let me recommend an excellent therapist,” he said.

  Marti took the paper, folded it, and tucked it into her pocket next to the note from Mrs. Dillard. “Please think about what I told you,” she said. She felt her eyes moisten and she gulped, steadying herself with a deep breath.

  Dr. Emery placed a hand on Marti's shoulder, gradually moving her toward the door. “I fully expect to meet a great deal of opposition to my work.” he said. “And I know that sometimes opposition crops up in unexpected places. But this conversation has taken me by surprise. Perhaps it has served an important purpose in reminding me that the young people of today are totally unaware of the dangers of the negative, evil music that permeates their lives,”

  “Dr. Emery, I thought I made it clear that I don't like Flesh's music, and neither did Barry.”

  He opened the door and held it wide for Marti. Before he could say a word, Mrs. Anderson looked up. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Oh, Dr. Emery,” she said. “Someone from NBC in New York called just a minute ago. I took his number. I said you'd call back.”

  Marti fought back the tears as she looked at Dr. Emery. “Please understand,” she said. “I still want us to be friends.”

  His face softened and he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Of course we're friends,” he said. “You're suffering a great deal of torment, Marti, and my prayers will be with you. In turn. please pray for me.”

  Marti didn't answer. A sob rose in her throat and she turned away, Fumbling in her handbag for a tissue. The telephone rang again, and Mrs, Anderson answered it As she placed her hand over the receiver, her voice trembled with excitement. “This time it's someone from that Monday-night TV magazine program,” she said. “You can take the call in your office.”

  As Dr. Emery closed his office door behind him, Mrs. Anderson eagerly leaned across the desk to whisper to Marti, “I watch that show all the time. I think I was talking to that blond reporter—you know—the one who's so handsome. I'm so flustered, I can't remember his name.”

  Marti didn't answer. She hurried out the front door of the ehurch offices and stood on the small porch under the overhang, stopping to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. One of Dr. Emery's dark red climbing roses trailed healthy branches over a trellis near the steps, and as she shifted the books in her arms, stuffing her damp tissue back into her handbag, a thorn from one of the branches raked her arm below the elbow. A tiny red line of blood immediately appeared, said she fished in the bag for another tissue, blotting angrily at the blood.

  Darn! What else could happen?

  Marti glanced across the lawn and down the empty street in front of the church. Near the far corner a light gray sedan was parked.

  She gasped and instinctively stepped farther back on the porch, behind the heavy rosebush. The car was too far away for her to know if
it was the same car that had followed her, and too far for her to see if someone was seated behind the wheel. If she stepped off the porch and walked down the street, would whoever was in that car try to follow her?

  Marti didn't want to find out.

  CHAPTER • 6

  She opened the door and returned to the office. As Mrs. Anderson looked at her with surprise, Marti said, “111 save some steps if I go out the back way,” and ran down the hall to the door that exited onto the parking lot.

  She hopedshe hadn't been seen when she had stepped onto the porch. And she hoped that the person in the car wouldn't guess that she had leftthe building through another door; Marti dashed across the parking lot and down the street behind the church. Glancing over her shoulder now and then, stumbling and irun-hipp she followed another, longer route home.

  There was no sign of the gray car.

  Safely Inside her own house, Marti went upstairs and flopped onto her bed, listening to the strong thump of her heart. Stupid, stupid! she blamed herself. There arelots of light gray cars. Why should you let yourself get so scared about nothing?

  From where she lay, Marti could see the edge of Barry's bedroom window. with the blinds tightly closed, and her longing for him was so great that she moaned and rolled over on her stomach, curling into the ache.

  “Oh, Barry,” she whispered, “if you could only tell me what happened!”

  She pictured his room, the team pictures on his wall, the tennis and Little League trophies lined up on the top shelf of his bookcase, his bed with the battered oak headboard, the blue-and-green-plaid bedspread, which hung to the floor and covered everything he could stuff under the bed each time his mother shouted, “I'm coming up to inspect. You've had enough time to clean up that room!”

  Slowly, Marti sat up as the idea grew. Maybe there was a way that Barry could tell her what had happened. Maybe there was something in his room that would give her the answer. There was no reason why she couldn't go into Barry's house to examine it. The key to his house was downstairs in the cupboard, next to the china, where her mother had left it.

  Marti climbed off the bed and walked down the stairs.

  The key still lay in the cabinet, hard and cold in her palm as her fingers closed around it. Marti didn't stop to think about what she was doing. The need to see what she could find in Barry's house was too strong. She ran across the lawns of her house and the Logans’ house, fit the key into the lock on the Logans' front door, and stepped inside the house, shutting the door firmly behind her. The house was dim, thermal drapes like closed eyelids shutting out the sunlight, and its warm

  mustiness smelled of loneliness and fear. For a few moments Mart! stood silently, barely breathing, listening intently, feeHng the horror of what had happened here closing around her.

  “I have to find out,” she murmured, and her words shook the silence, stirring up all the tiny popping, creaking, whispering noises that houses make. Terrified, Marti stood her ground. She had a purpose in coming here, and she was determined to carry it out.

  After making sure the door was locked, Marti walked the length of the entry hall, the heels of her shoes on the tile echoing loudly. With trembling fingers she unlatched and pushed aside the louvered doors that had closed off the den, and stood in the open doorway of the room where Barry's body had been found.

  The chalk markings made by the police were still visible. A half-filled glass of cola rested on the table next to one of Barry's textbooks, opened and upside down, and a videotape lay on top of the VCR. Apparently no one had disturbed this room after the police had finished their work and had gone away, but the room was not peaceful. Bagged ends of the violence that had taken place still seemed to vibrate against the window-panes and growl in the dark corners.

  Marti crossed the room quickly and raised the mini-Minds. Orange-gold sunlight spilled into the room and lit the tiny motes of dust that spewed upward, and slowly settled. Beyond the window were the covered patio and the pool. So many memories. Deliberately, she turned her back to the window, hugging her arms across her chest, and tried to study the room the way the police had, hut nothing that she saw meant anything to her. Frustrated, she Realized that she didn't know what to look for.

  A board snapped overhead, and she looked up, startled. The house was reacting to the heat. The air conditioner would have been left on to prevent mildew and warping, but it must have been set at the high seventies.

  It had been the memory of Barry's room that had triggered her decision to come here, so whatever she might find that could be helpful must be there. She dropped the miniblinds, shutting out the sunlight, and the room closed in upon itself. She fastened the louvered doors with trembling hands, locking within a murderous force so intense she had heard it, smelled it, and felt it scrape against her skin.

  Across the hollow entry hall and up the carpeted stairway she walked, turned to the left, and stood at the door to Barry's room.

  As she twisted the knob and pushed open the door, she stared wide-eyed, unable to believe what she saw. Each drawer in the dresser had been pulled out, its contents dumped on the floor. The bed had been torn apart, the mattress pulled askew. The closet door was wide open, and Barry's clothes had been dumped in a tangled heap.

  “Why?” she groaned “Why would anyone do this?”

  Someone had been here since Barry's funeral, since his parents had gone to visit relatives in San Antonio, while the house was unoccupied. Marti began to realize that this hadn't been a random trashing of Barry's things. Whoever had done this had been looking for something.

  Karen. She'd call Karen.

  Marti had memorized the numbers Karen had given her. She tested the telephone in Mr. and Mrs. Logan's bedroom, and found it was still connected. Good. She dialed the number of the police station, and asked for Karen. Within a few seconds Karen answered.

  “What are you doing in the Logans’ house?” she asked as soon as Marti told her about the state of Barry's bedroom. “Are you authorized to be there?”

  “They're neighbors,” Mart! said. “Mrs. Logan gave Mom the key so we could bring in their mail and keep an eye on the place.” She paused. “I guess we didn't do a very good job with that lasf part.”

  “All right, then,” Karen said. “If you have the key and the right to be there, I'll come. It will take just a few minutes.”

  “Thanks,” Marti said, but Karen hadn't finished

  “Marti,” she said, “are you sure that you're alone in the house, that whoever was in Barry's room isn't still there?”

  “I-I don't think anyone else is here,” Marti answered. She turned, her back to the window, staring through the bedroom door toward the hall. She shuddered as though an ice cube had slid down her backbone.

  “Just to play it safe, get out of the house. Wait for me outside, in front.”

  “But—“

  “Do it,” Karen ordered, and the conversation ended with a click.

  As Marti rested the receiver on its cradle, she heard the stairs creak, then creak again, and a soft thud from the direction of Barry's room.

  No one else is here, she told herself as she edged to the doorway of the bedroom and slowly, carefully, peered into the hall. It's only the temperature changes, the settling noises a house makes. But as a board snapped somewhere behind her, she bolted down the stairs and out the front door. dropping to the top step and huging her knees to her chest while she shivered in the hot afternoon sunlight.

  A police car took the corner quickly and halted with a screech of tires in front of the Logans’ house. Karen, in uniform, hopped out and ran up the path to join Marti.

  “I'll go in first,” she said, and drew her gun.

  Marti waited apprehensively until Karen appeared, her gun bolstered. “It's okay,” Karen said. “There's no sign that anyone's in the house now.”

  Marti led the way up the stairs and to the door of Barry's room. She stood aside to allow Karen a full view of the room. “I wonder what the person who did this
was looking for,” Marti said.

  “First question—who was in this room?” Karen said, She turned to look at Marti. “Did you touch anything?”

  “No,” Marti said. “I called you right away.”

  “Good. I've got a kit in the car. I'll take some photos and dust for fingerprints. No telling what may turn up,”

  Marti kept her back to the wall, her eyes on the hall, until Karen returned, then watched while Karen busied herself around the room. She was embarrassed because there were Barry's personal things. His pajamas were draped on a chair; his favorite old Astros baseball cap with his name scrawled across it still hung on a knob on the chest of drawers.

  “What are we looking for?” Marti asked.

  “We don't know yet. As I work, keep your eyes open. Sometimes something is left behind. Sometimes it's taken away.”

  “How will we know?”

  “We may not.”

  “Could we clean up Barry's room after you've finished? I hate to think of Mrs. Logan finding it like this.”

  “I'm sorry, Marti, but we can't. It's the Logans’ home that was violated, their property that was disturbed. I'll file a report on this-and get the prints checked out, but I'll have to talk to them after they return home and see the room.

  As Karen picked up a handful of Barry's T-shirts from the floor to see what was underneath, Marti cried out, “Oh, no! Look what they've done to Barry's photo al-bum!”

  It lay upside down where it had been thrown. some of its plastic pages caught and bent. Marti stepped forward to pick it up, but Karen snapped, “Don't touch it” Karen stooped and applied powder from her kit to the shiny brown imitation-leather cover, completing the testing for prints before she stood and said, “We got some good clear ones from that. Do you see why I told you not to touch it?”

  “Yes,” Marti said “Could I look at it now?”