Serial (5 page)

Hogart, Missouri, 1991

Wham!
Milt Thompson hit a home run into the left-field upper deck of Busch Stadium in St. Louis and the crowd stood and roared.

So did Roy Brannigan.

Beth Brannigan watched her husband sit back down and guzzle the last of his can of beer as he watched the Cardinals–Pirates ball game on their old console TV. He was slouched on the sagging gray sofa. On the wall behind him was a huge, roughly hewn wooden crucifix that had been created with a chain saw. He’d bought it at a flea market for ten dollars. Beth had seen him pray before it for the Cardinals to win. Jokingly, he pretended, but he didn’t fool her. In Roy Brannigan’s mind, it wasn’t the cardinals in Rome who counted. They couldn’t hit a curve ball.

Beth was a sweet-looking woman with a heart-shaped face and guileless blue eyes. She had a brown fleck in one eye that gave her a kind of intense look that somehow added to her appeal. Her figure was trim and shown to advantage in a red tank top and short Levi’s cutoffs. She was barefoot. Beth had once overheard a man describe her as fetching. She thought that was fitting, the way she fetched for Roy.

Roy’s idea of marriage was based on the Old Testament, and he spun it with his own interpretation. He insisted they attend church every Sunday, as they had this morning. After church they’d have a big meal at home, and Beth would clean up afterward. If the Cardinals were playing a day game, which they seemed to do most Sundays during the season, she’d make sure the kitchen was cleaned up before Roy finished smoking his after-meal cigar out on the porch. She’d have a cold beer waiting when he came back inside to watch the game. Religious though he might be, he had no qualms about Beth working on the Lord’s day.

Nor did religion keep Roy from accumulating a large cache of pornography, of which he thoroughly disapproved. He fancied himself a student and critic of erotica. He would from time to time write reproachful letters to the publishers, excoriating them for publishing such filth. But he bought most of his collection by mail, and often an order form and the letter to the publisher would be posted simultaneously.

This televised contest was a night game, part of a twilight double-header to make up for a rainout earlier in the season. Beth had been busy most of the day, and they’d had snacks as well as their usual midday meal.

She was used to tending to Roy’s needs. Beth didn’t really mind the hard work, when he treated her well. When he was gentle with her.

Which wasn’t all the time.

Her mom and dad over in Hawk Point had suspected Roy might be abusing Beth. But her dad had lung cancer, and her mother was too afraid of Roy and the bleak future to interfere other than to warn Beth not to let things go too far. They never had come right out and said what “things” were. But then, neither had Beth.

Even the impotent support of her mother and father disappeared last October when both Beth’s parents were killed in an auto accident on Interstate 70. Their car had run head-on into a pickup truck speeding the wrong way. The driver of that vehicle had been killed, too. The autopsy showed he’d been legally drunk.

Beth had mourned hard and been comforted by Roy and his well-worn Bible. They’d prayed together fiercely at home, and with the tiny congregation at the Day of Heavenly Atonement Church.

And then one day Roy acted as if he’d decided she’d mourned enough. It was time to get on with life, he’d informed her, and quoted the appropriate verse in scripture.

Not about to challenge the Bible, Beth had allowed her relationship with Roy to resume its bumpy course.

The pain of grief had lessened, but the course never smoothed. It had led here, to the squalid living room of their ramshackle house and a ball game televised from St. Louis.

“You want some more beer, hon?” she asked.

There was crowd noise from the TV and he didn’t hear her. He was suddenly up again from the sofa, in a fury. He hurled his empty beer can so it bounced off the screen door.

“That wasn’t a foul ball!” he yelled, pointing at the TV. “That umpire’s gonna burn in hell.”

“All of ’em, probably,” Beth said.

“Yeah.”

She thought he was agreeing with her, then realized he’d meant that yeah, he wanted another beer.

“Well,” she said, “we’re all out.”

“Man’s gotta be blind not to see that wasn’t a foul ball,” Roy said.

“I thought all umpires
were
blind,” Beth said. “Figured it was a requirement for the job.”

Roy was pacing, still angry at the bad call in St. Louis. “Blind or crooked, is what they are. Doggone all of ’em!”

“God’ll see they get what’s comin’ to ’em,” Beth said. “Or the devil.” At this juncture, God appeared to favor the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“Do I have to tell you?” Roy asked.

“Tell me what?”

“You say we’re outta beer, so go get some more. There’s money in my wallet on the dresser.”

Beth was already on the way. Roy’s anger at the umpires might easily be redirected toward her.

Her blue-soled rubber thongs flapping on her feet, and a ten-dollar bill tucked low in the back pocket of her Levi’s cutoffs, she set off along Pick Road toward Willis’s Quick Pick Market. It was about a quarter of a mile away, near the sometimes busy county road. Though it was dark and shadowy along Pick Road, she could see the combination convenience store and gas station ahead like a bright oasis of light in the night.

Pick Road was paved, but the blacktop had broken up, and Beth couldn’t make out some of the cracks until she’d stubbed a toe or come close to turning an ankle. It was no place to walk with floppy thongs. She moved off the narrow road and made better time on the grassy shoulder, but it was still slow going.

In the dark woods that spread out behind the store, a man stood in the dim moonlight and watched Beth’s progress. He was wearing tight jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. A bulky man, he had long dark hair hanging lankly to below his shoulders, and a big belly that overhung his jeans.

As he watched Beth, he shook his head in wonder on his bull neck. What the hell was a piece like that, with those legs and tits, doing out wandering around by herself at night? She could be a hooker who worked the trucks that stopped at the convenience store or to gas up. That was always possible. But she didn’t look like a hooker, didn’t walk like one. Wasn’t even carrying a purse, like almost all hookers did.

No, she didn’t look like a working girl.

What she looked like was what he needed. He took a swig of beer, watching the roll of the woman’s hips, and smiled.

Nice…

Then he thought,
The hell with it.
What the girl looked like was trouble.

But trouble appealed to him. That had been his problem all his life. It was almost as if he had to get himself in trouble to validate the kind of screwup he was. Trouble always tugged at him like a magnet, even though he knew in his heart that trouble was … trouble.

And this leggy creature in the Levi’s shorts certainly represented trouble.

At least she was the kind that could be avoided. If a man wanted to avoid her.

He retreated back into the shadowed woods in case she might glance over and see him.

Wouldn’t want to scare her away.

When Beth reached the store, Willis smiled at her as he always did. He was old enough to be her father, but she’d seen him glance at her in that way now and then, so she was careful around him. She acted like a lady. Didn’t want any kind of negative word getting back to Roy.

“Six-pack do you?” he asked, when she plopped down a carton of cold beer on the counter.

“It’ll do Roy,” she said.

Willis laughed. “Won’t he drink a brand comes in a carton with a handle? That’s six-pack’s gotta be plenty heavy, by the time you walk all the way back to the house.”

“Get real, Willis. Six little beers?”

“Well, you ain’t no Charles Atlas.”

“Who’s that?”

“Before your time,” Willis said. “Unfortunately, not before mine.” He rang up the six-pack of Wild Colt beer and fit it into a paper sack so it would be easier for her to carry.

Beth stuffed the change, including the coins, into a back pocket, then smiled a thanks to Willis and went out the door, carrying the beer tucked like a football beneath one arm. He could see the outline of the coins against the taut denim that covered her ass.

That religious nut Roy doesn’t know what he’s got,
he thought, wishing he were twenty years younger.

Ten, even.

Beth hadn’t gone far when she realized Willis was right—the beer
was
getting heavy. And Pick Road was just as rough to walk on going back toward the house as it had been going toward Willis’s. And the weedy, rocky ground along the shoulder was just as uneven. Burrs now and then worked between her rubber thongs and the soles of her bare feet, causing her to stop and balance on one leg while she let the thong dangle and shook her foot until the burr dropped out.

But worst of all, because she was making slow time, the beer was getting warm.

Roy didn’t countenance warm beer. In fact, he liked it cold enough that there were tiny flecks of ice in it.

She stopped and looked up at the moon. It was half full and tilted like a luminous boat. There should be enough light for her to take the shortcut through the woods. She might pick up a few scratches from branches, but she could reach the house twice as fast that way.

But what really made her decide to take the shortcut was that despite herself she felt a little afraid of the dark woods, and she resented that fear. She was afraid of Roy, but that was different—he was her husband. And she had to admit that the punishment he meted out was just and not applied very often. There were only so many things in life that Beth would or
could
allow herself to fear. The woods at night wasn’t one of them.

She was nearing the narrow path leading into the trees, so there would soon be no turning back. That would make less sense than anything she might do.

The phrase entered her mind:
Point of no return.

With another reassuring glance up at the moon floating in the cloudless summer sky, she entered the woods.

New York, the present

Nora Noon rode the subway to within two blocks of her apartment. All the way on the crowded train, she’d had the feeling she was being observed.

And of course she was. Any attractive woman on a packed New York subway train was the object of male attention. Bodies pressed bodies. Sometimes, when the train jerked or swayed on its tracks, supposedly accidental contact was made. Nora was used to that kind of thing.

But this was different. Or maybe she felt that way because she was tired, and because of her rapist being released from prison.

She still found herself trusting her memory and doubting the DNA evidence. DNA used in criminal trials couldn’t be as foolproof as defense attorneys would have people believe. Nothing, even in science, was that certain. Maybe especially in science. Not that long ago science was telling people to avoid the night air and go to barbers to have their blood drawn when they were ill.

But everyone else accepted DNA as absolute proof, and Nora felt the weight of that, the crush of disapproval. With her wrong identification, she had caused an innocent man to spend over five years in prison. She should pay for that.
Somebody
should pay.

The train lurched. Nora slid a few inches across the plastic seat until her body met that of a man reading a folded
Times
in his lap. He didn’t seem to mind. She found herself staring at the newspaper. She’d heard that perverts on the subway used newspapers to conceal their erections.

Don’t be an idiot! Don’t believe everything you hear. This guy’s probably a clerk or accountant or editor, taking the train home to his wife and kids.

Besides, I can take care of myself.

She wasn’t sure about that last part. Six weeks of karate lessons had made a difference, but not
that
much difference. And it had taught her just how strong men in general were. The smallest man could generate more strength than even a large woman. It had to do with percentage of muscle mass.

Hunters. The bastards are hunters.

Knock it off, Nora.

The train’s wheels squealed on iron rails as it slowed approaching her stop. She waited for the complete stop and then the sudden backward lurch before standing up and elbowing her way toward the sliding doors and the concrete platform.

Fear slipped away as she pushed through the metal turnstile and climbed littered concrete steps to the upper world.

The evening was still bright and the sidewalks crowded with human energy.

About half the outside tables at Perfect Pizza were occupied. On impulse, she stepped through the opening in the iron fence that separated the dining area from the wide sidewalk and found a table beneath an umbrella. A waitress named Emma, whom Nora knew somewhat, immediately came toward her. They exchanged greetings, and Emma smiled the smile that could break the resolve of a professional mourner. Nora was glad she’d decided to come here. She ordered a slice of pizza with ham and pineapple on it, and a glass of burgundy.

She sat back and let her gaze roam over the diners. What would really cheer her up was if she could spot a woman wearing a Nora N. original. It had happened once before; a woman in the neighborhood had bought a T-shirt with a sequin design and asymmetrical neck, and a month or so later here the woman had been in Perfect Pizza, flaunting Nora’s creation. It could happen again, but the odds were long. Like a writer spotting someone reading his or her book.

After the pizza slice and a second glass of wine, Nora left the restaurant and walked the remaining block and a half to her apartment. She felt better now. Unafraid. The wine could do that, push lingering uneasiness away from the active part of her mind. Useful stuff, wine. She might have a glass or two tonight before bedtime.

When she reached her apartment building, she trudged up the worn stone steps with a cautious look left and right.

Nothing suspicious, she decided.

Besides me.

She reminded herself that she’d decided not to let fear do its inevitable damage. She would keep that commitment.

Nora was actually humming as she worked the three locks on her apartment door. They were all sturdy locks. Two of them set automatically when the door was closed. One of them was a dead bolt. She would feel safe on the other side of those locks.

She carefully locked herself in, then went to the kitchen and, after deciding against actually drinking another glass of wine, downed a glass of water. Walking the streets of Manhattan had made her thirsty, even after the wine she’d had at Perfect Pizza. Maybe it was the saltiness of the pizza. Whatever. She wondered how people who lived on the streets could stay hydrated.

How awful it must be to live that way. And it could happen to anyone. That possibility was why Nora worked so hard at her trade. She, like so many living in the city, felt always close to becoming one of the pathetic people she saw every day, panhandling on the sidewalks. Maybe that was why New Yorkers seemed always distracted and in a hurry; visible all around them were the consequences of living without a net.

The spare bedroom in Nora Noon’s apartment was for storage. It was stuffed with clothing of her design, cloth creations draped on hangers affixed to shoulder-high steel racks that were on wheels. There was room for an aisle down the middle of the room, but sometimes Nora had to shift the overloaded rolling racks from one side to the other to reach the garment she wanted.

Tonight what she wanted was a dress that had been bothering her for days. It was this afternoon that she’d decided a higher waistline might be exactly what the design needed. Nora could alter the waist and try the dress on herself in front of the triple mirror at her studio. That was one of the advantages of Nora N. designs being for ordinary-sized women.

It was bright in the room with the overhead fixture blazing, and the air was still and stuffy. Some of the material she touched was warm from the sunbeams lancing in at the edges of the drawn shades. There was a faint odor of mothballs. Too faint, Nora decided. Most of her garments had a high wool content. Moths were the enemy.

She pushed aside two of the swaying, overloaded racks and saw the dress she wanted. Dark green with black piping. Maybe that had been a mistake, too, choosing a dark color for the piping.

She reached for the dress’s hanger, and a hand appeared from between the garments on the nearest rack and reached for her.

The sounds of her struggle were muffled among the overstuffed racks of clothing. Every time she tried to escape her assailant’s grip, her arms and legs would become entangled in material. She soon became swathed in the stuff. The karate lessons were useless. So were her screams, with her mouth jammed with what she knew was fifty percent cashmere.

Nora regained consciousness in her own bed. It was still futile to try to move her arms and legs. She was on her back, with her wrists bound to the headboard. Her legs were spread wide, her ankles tied to the bottom corners of the steel bed frame beneath the mattress. The rope was knotted so tightly that her hands and feet were numb. She attempted to say something but couldn’t utter more than a moan. Her tongue probed and found a rough surface. Her mouth was still crammed with material, but it was smoother.

She raised her head to look around her. That was when she realized she was nude and became really afraid.

Fighting off panic, she let her head loll back. There was no pillow so she was staring up at the headboard and the surface of the wall behind it.

Moving her head had caused a tremendous pain in the back of her neck. She remembered a hand clutching her there, squeezing. A man’s grip. No woman could encompass her neck so and squeeze so hard.

She let her eyes roll to the right and her gaze fell on an unfamiliar object on the nightstand by the bed. A curling iron. It wasn’t hers, though. This one had a white handle and a white cord that ran from the nightstand and disappeared. She knew the cord would be run to the socket just below where the lamp was plugged in. The metal brace was flipped downward so the main shaft of the curling iron was suspended an inch above the surface of the nightstand. A tiny red light glittered on the white handle. It indicated that the curling iron was turned on.

Nora sensed or heard a movement to her left, alongside the headboard and back where she couldn’t see who or what it was. She strained to see but couldn’t; the pain at the base of her neck prevented her from turning her head far enough.

Her body gave an involuntary jerk. Fingertips gently caressed her perspiring cheeks and then the vulnerable area beneath her chin. They brushed a strand of hair back off her forehead.

“It’s possible that your hair is going to curl,” a man’s voice said softly. “But the curling iron will never touch it.”