All Fall Down (14 page)

“Sorry we woke you, Mother,” Logan said. “I just got in.”

Her dark eyes studied his. “Was it very bad?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “You get some sleep. I’ll tell my grandson wonderful stories until he drifts off again.”

“Thanks, Mother,” Logan said.

He bent to kiss Timothy, who murmured, “Are you
sure
there’s no big gold dog that’s gonna save me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m gonna ask Grandma anyway,” Timothy said. “She knows more about this stuff than you do.”

Logan laughed. “She knows more about a lot of things than I do, son. Good night. See you in the morning.”

In his own room, Logan undressed and took a shower in the master bathroom. He was appalled to see little flecks of blood on his neck and face, flecks of Kathy’s blood that had somehow gotten on him when he put the black sequined costume in the evidence bag. He was glad the light in Timothy’s room had been dim. The last thing that little kid needed to see was something else to upset him. He was upset enough about his mother.

With only a towel wrapped around his waist, Logan went to his dresser drawer and withdrew the letter he’d received from Dory yesterday. It was written on scented paper, and she’d drawn a little picture of a cactus on top.

“Why don’t you try coming home and giving him one yourself?” Logan muttered, crumpling the letter in his hand. Six times. Six times now Dory had declared she “couldn’t cope” and taken off. But she’d never stayed this long. And she’d called before. She’d sent little cards to Timothy before. This time there had been nothing but this one letter.

He remembered when he had met Dory. The daughter of a wealthy Chicago businessman, Wilson Whitfield, she had met Logan when, on a lark, she had come with friends to West Virginia’s Snowshoe ski area. Over his Christmas break, Logan had been waiting tables at a restaurant there, trying to make enough money to pay for his last semester of college, and he’d spotted Dory. Her coloring was different, but there was something about her—the way she laughed, her tall slimness, the shape of her large eyes—that reminded him of Blaine, who’d left two years earlier for Dallas. He understood why she left, but the pain of her departure had never eased. And finally there was Dory, who was entranced with him—mostly, he realized now, because she was temporarily fascinated by Indian culture, but also because she wanted to get back at her father, who’d recently divorced his loving yet unstable wife, the mother Dory adored. In return, Dory happily dashed Wilson Whitfield’s great expectations of his lovely daughter’s marrying, into the “right.” kind of rich, socially acceptable family by marrying Logan.

The first two years of their marriage had been fine—not wonderful, not what Logan had hoped for, but fine. Then Tim was born, and suddenly Dory began to act like a caged animal. They’d tried living in San Francisco, but Dory claimed she was afraid of earthquakes and longed for life on the East Coast, so when Tim was one, they moved to Miami. There she claimed she was surrounded by rampant crime, along with too many drugs coming in from the Caribbean. She didn’t want her little boy raised in that environment, she said. Now she wanted the beautiful, lush hills of West Virginia, where they’d met. Life was slower and quieter there. So four years ago they’d come back to Sinclair. Six months later, she told him she felt stifled, terminally bored. He’d explained that they couldn’t keep moving. That was when the arguments started, gradually escalating until Tim had begun to creep around fearfully, frequently burst into tears, and sometimes run away from home, convinced he was the cause of the trouble. Logan had then insisted on psychiatric help for Dory, and that was when her vanishing acts began. In the last year, Logan had finally admitted to himself that Dory wasn’t cut out to be a mother. In fact, he didn’t think she was cut out to be a wife, especially not the wife of a cop. She needed constant companionship, constant entertainment, but not the kind that could be provided by a middle-class working husband and a little boy.

He didn’t hate Dory. He felt sorry for the restless, unhappy spirit that wouldn’t allow her peace of mind. But how could he have
ever
thought she was like the strong, determined Blaine O’Connor he’d loved since childhood? And how could he have ever thought she’d be a good mother, the kind of mother Blaine was trying to be to a stepdaughter who didn’t even like her very much, from what he’d observed? “Rebound,” he said aloud. “They call what happened between you and Dory love on the rebound.”

Logan threw the crumpled letter into his wastebasket and gazed at himself in the mirror. I look five years older than I am, he thought. I’m tired and I’m defeated. And now all this hell has broken loose. Dory’s gone again, my son is in terrible emotional pain, and I’ve got two slaughtered girls on my hands. And there’s Blaine. What do I make of Blaine?

He sighed, wondering what the odds were of a woman once suspected of murder finding two dead girls in less than one week.

4

A police cruiser sat in the driveway when Blaine arrived home. She went inside to find Robin perched stiffly on the couch, making uncomfortable conversation with the young Deputy Clarke they had come to know during the investigation of Martin’s death.

“What happened?” Robin immediately demanded.

Blaine tossed her purse down and sank into a chair. “Kathy Foss was murdered in the gym tonight.”

Robin stared at her as if she’d just said Martians had landed. Clarke stiffened, his green eyes narrowing. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Sheriff Quint is at the gym now. He said Kathy’s wrists had been slashed.”

“I’ve got to get there!” Clarke said, almost crackling with the electricity of excitement. “Will you two be all right?”

Blaine felt that even if she’d said no, Clarke would have left anyway. However, she nodded, and he bolted out the front door.

“I knew someone was dead,” Robin said dully after he left. “I knew when you called that someone else had been murdered.”

The girl’s long hair was pulled back in a pony tail still damp from a shower she must have taken shortly before Clarke arrived. She didn’t look at Blaine. “Robin, did you see anyone at the gym tonight who shouldn’t have been there?”

“Just the contestants. And you. And Mr. Sanders.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes. So which one of us did it?”

“
None
of us,” Blaine said.

“Yeah, sure.”

Hiding behind sarcasm and flippancy again, Blaine thought. But she was too tired and too shaken to attempt to draw the girl out. Tonight
she
needed some attention, some caring, but she certainly couldn’t expect it from Robin.

Ashley, who had given her an ecstatic greeting when she got home, began sniffing at her curiously. Blaine looked at her hands, which had opened the locker door where Kathy had been hidden. Without another word, she left Robin to her sullen silence and went to the bathroom, where she stripped off all her clothes, threw them in the bathtub, and stepped into the shower stall, lathering over and over, washing her hair twice, until she felt clean again. Afterward she wrapped herself in a long, warm robe, picked up her clothes using a towel to cover her hands, and threw everything into the washing machine, adding bleach to the detergent.

At last she went back into the living room, now deserted by Robin, and poured herself a glass of wine. She sat down on the couch, Ashley beside her. She’d left the draperies open on the wall of windows at the back of the living room, and as she gazed out at the chilly, dark night, she was suddenly seized with the feeling that someone was out there, staring back. She shot across the room, drawing the draperies shut with such force she set them swinging. Ashley leaped up and chased after Blaine, sensing alarm. She tilted her head, looking at Blaine. “Sorry, girl. I’m just scared. There’s nothing out there, or you’d know before I did.”

Fifteen minutes later, after Blaine had finished her wine and checked the locks one more time, she climbed into bed. She was utterly exhausted, so exhausted she couldn’t sleep. Every time she started to drift off, the hideous image of Kathy tumbling out of the locker to stare sightlessly at her flashed through her mind and she jerked awake.

At two-twenty she decided to get up, make coffee, and watch cable television for the rest of the night. She had just thrown back the covers when the phone rang. Logan, no doubt, deciding he couldn’t wait until morning to question her further about finding Kathy. She snatched up the receiver. “Hello.”

Silence.

Oh, no, not again, she thought. She wanted to slam down the receiver, but a frightened curiosity restrained her. “Hello,” she said again, this time with less assurance.

She could hear the needle being placed on a record. Faint scratching sounds buzzed in her ear for a moment. Then the singing started, a rich male tenor voice that even the old recording couldn’t distort:

1

“I got another call last night,” Blaine said. Logan sat in a shaft of noonday sunlight behind his gray metal desk, regarding her solemnly. She was uncomfortably aware of Abel Stroud sitting at another desk by the beige wall, listening avidly. She wished he would leave the office and find something to do in the main room, where one other officer was doing paperwork and another was on the phone. Stroud obviously wasn’t going anywhere, though, and Blaine plowed ahead. “The call came about two-twenty, and it was related to Kathy’s death.”

“What did the caller say?” Logan asked.

“He didn’t
say
anything. Just like last time, he played a record. A recording of ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.’”

“I don’t know the song.”

“I do,” Stroud volunteered. “My ma used to sing it all the time. It says something about ‘I’ll take you back to where your heart will feel no pain.’ Used to make me cry when I was a little guy.’ ” Abel immediately flushed, obviously embarrassed by this personal disclosure, and picked up a pen and started writing furiously in his notebook.

Blaine didn’t know why, but she softened slightly toward the man. “That’s right, Mr. Stroud. That’s the song.”

Logan frowned at Blaine. “And Kathy’s full name is Kathleen. How many people knew that?”

“A lot. Some people, me included, called her Kathleen sometimes, and she was always listed as Kathleen Foss in the programs they passed out at the school football games. She was the head cheerleader.”

Abel had recovered from his earlier disclosure of emotional vulnerability and now looked up at her in disbelief. “The sheriff didn’t tell me anything about you gettin’ a call after Rosalind Van Zandt’s body was found. Are you sayin’ that after each of the murders you got a call where somebody played music that had somethin’ to do with the dead girls?”

“Yes.”

He put down his pen next to a framed school picture of Arletta, her round face smiling broadly, her hair sticking straight up. “Sounds like somethin’ you saw in a movie.”

Blaine gave him a steady stare. “Well, I didn’t see it in a movie. It happened.”

Logan tapped his long fingers on the desk. She looked back at him, for the first time noticing how his badge caught the light and flashed at her, almost like a threat. “Blaine, you found Kathy’s body around a quarter to eleven and got this call about three and a half hours later. We weren’t using the radios last night—I didn’t want anyone picking up the news by listening to one of those damned police scanners. So even in a small town like this, not many people could have found out so soon. The call must have come from the person who murdered Kathy.”

“I know.” Logan stared at her, and she felt her hands fidgeting in her lap. She forced them to be still. “I’ve already talked with the phone company about having my calls traced. They told me I would need three successful traces before I could contact the police, but I thought in this case one trace would be sufficient.”

“It would be,” Logan said.

Stroud leaned back, making his vinyl-covered chair creak ominously. “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, you really are gettin’ these weirdo calls.”

“I
am
getting them.”

“Yeah, okay. But there’s somethin’ you haven’t considered.”

“And what’s that?”

“These
calls
are prob’ly comin’ from a pay phone, so a trace wouldn’t tell you a thing.”

“The music isn’t recorded on a cassette or a compact disc,” Blaine said patiently. “During the calls I hear a needle dropping down on an old record. Now, I hardly think someone is dragging a phonograph to a pay phone.”

“No, but they could play a tape of an old recording,” Abel maintained doggedly.

“Why would they do that? Why not just play a new tape?”

Stroud shrugged. “This is your story, Mrs. Avery. You tell us.”

“Just because it’s happening to me doesn’t mean I know why or exactly how it’s being done.”

“I’m glad you arranged for Call Trace,” Logan said. “I’d need a court order to get a trace on your phone.”

“I know. But something has to be done. These calls are so frightening, Logan, I can’t tell you how much better I’d feel if we could find out who’s making them.” Blaine paused. “There’s only one drawback to finding out where they’re coming from.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“I won’t get another one of them until someone else has been murdered.”

2

As soon as Blaine Avery walked out of the office, Abel Stroud looked at Logan. “Now tell me, Logan, why would the perp want to call this woman after every murder?”

“I have no idea.”

Stroud looked at him appraisingly. “How come you didn’t mention her sayin’ she got a call after she found the Van Zandt kid’s body?”

“I suppose I just forgot.”

Stroud laughed. “You? Forget? You’re like an elephant. You don’t forget one thing, especially if it’s got somethin’ to do with a case.”

Logan picked up his styrofoam cup of coffee and drained it. It had been poured half an hour ago and now tasted cold and bitter. “Thanks for the compliment, Stroud.”

“It wasn’t a compliment—just a simple statement of fact. I think you didn’t mention it for a reason.”

“And what would that be?”

“You don’t think she’s really gettin’ these crazy phone calls.”

Logan crumpled the cup and tossed it in a metal waste can beside his desk. “Then why would she voluntarily ask for a trace?”

“I haven’t quite figured that one out yet.” Stroud sucked loudly on his front teeth, a habit that nearly set Logan wild. “But I’ll tell you one thing,” he said finally, when Logan was just rising to leave the room. “That trace isn’t gonna show up one damn thing.”

“We’ll see.”

“Logan.” The sheriff stopped in mid-stride, struck by the serious note in Stroud’s voice. “You know I wasn’t crazy about you gettin’ elected sheriff two years ago, you bein’ so much younger than me and all. But I’m over that. I’ve seen you work. You know a lot more about investigative techniques than I do. You’ve worked on the big police forces. You’re good,
damn
good. But you’re lettin’ yourself get muddled this time.”

“Muddled? What have I done wrong?”

“Nothin’ big.
Yet
. But I can see you want to protect Blaine O’Connor.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Oh, come on, Logan. You used to date her.”

“In high school, for God’s sake. Nearly fifteen years ago.”

“Still, you’ve got a personal interest in this case.”

“Even if I wanted to protect Blaine, did that stop me from pursuing every lead in the death of Martin Avery?”

“No. But you’re startin’ to hold back things.” Stroud leaned forward. “Look, Logan, I’m not tryin’ to cause trouble. I’m only tellin’ you for your own good—you’d better bring the state police in
now
. Let them take over. Get yourself off this case. If you don’t, you may not have this job much longer.”