The Dead Letter (24 page)

65.

MacFarlane took his time circling the block. At this hour the occu
pants of neighbouring homes had settled into sedentary routines, and the streets were quiet. On his first pass MacFarlane had seen only two people abroad, a woman following her leashed dog and a shaggy-haired teen with a guitar case strapped to his back. He passed Anne's house a second time. Then he eased his car to the curb, and waited in the dark. The pale glow of a cell phone lit his cheek.

“Stratford Police Department. Constable Williams,” said the voice answering.

“Williams. Chief MacFarlane. Anything going on that I should know about?”

“No, sir. Quiet all afternoon and pretty quiet so far this evening. How'd your meetings go?”

“…well…very well. Just tying up some loose ends. By the way. I got a tip on the possible location of Michael Underhay. I'm following up on that. So I may not be available for a while…maybe not until tomorrow afternoon. If there's an urgent matter, call Sergeant Deale. Got that?”

“I do…and have a good evening, sir.”

MacFarlane clicked off, rolled down the windows of his car, and scrutinized the nearby houses. He heard nothing, and he saw nothing out of the ordinary. MacFarlane would have preferred to do this late at night as he had when he planted the explosives in Anne's car, but events were developing more quickly than he had anticipated. Time was running short. The timeline had to be compressed.

MacFarlane had always been concerned about timing. He didn't like rushing into action. He believed that's when mistakes were made. He had witnessed it dozens of times in the criminals he had arrested over the years—good planning undermined by hasty implementation. But now, as he thought about this present modification, he concluded that it may even be more advantageous. His car was a common model and, parked where it was, it should draw no attention and, if someone should see him, there was little chance anyone would recall the particulars of anyone passing by at eight or nine o'clock at night.

He got out of his car, retrieved a large hockey equipment bag from the trunk, and closed the rear hatch soundlessly. Then he walked toward Anne's house, two doors up the street.

MacFarlane wore black sneakers, blue jeans, a bulky navy pullover, and a Boston Bruins cap. He blended well into the mottled blotches of a shadowy street. As he approached Anne's house, he looked around carefully. The outside light was off. He looked for a motion detector, but found none. Then he turned up her driveway. Her rental car was parked at the upper end, just beyond the side entrance.

The house bordering Anne's driveway was dark, just as he had found it the last two evenings he had driven past. Newspapers sticking out from their delivery box suggested that the neighbours were away. The large maple trees along their property line cast deep shadows on Anne's home. But the foliage had blocked him from seeing a small light burning in a downstairs side window of her home.

The light in that window didn't discourage MacFarlane. He had planned to take her by surprise anyway, hopefully with very little struggle, and he knew that, if he had to, one quick blow could render her unconscious. However, one thing did raise his concern—the sound of voices coming from Anne's living room. Visitors would scotch his entire plan.

MacFarlane heard the mutter of mixed voices, but not clearly. He had to know what was happening. So MacFarlane moved more closely and stealthily alongside the building just beneath the lit window. He raised himself up to a corner of a pane and peered in. Anne was asleep on the sofa. The voices had come from the TV, where broadcasters were discussing a weather forecast on a news channel.

MacFarlane checked the physical layout of the room and moved toward the side entrance. He set the equipment bag down and tried the handle. It was not locked. The handle turned, and the door opened soundlessly into a tiny entry with two steps leading to the kitchen. The inside door was ajar. MacFarlane worried about the steps, but they were firm. He crouched on the upper tread and nudged the door. It opened a crack, enough so that he could see Anne clearly.

Quietly, he removed a flask and a cloth from the pocket of his pullover. He removed the cap, doused the cloth, and pushed the door again, but this time the door squeaked. Anne moved restlessly on the couch. He remained frozen for several minutes. Then he pushed the door open wide enough for him to slip through the frame but, at that moment, the door loosed a mournful groan. The noise jarred Anne from her sleep, but she was too late. She glimpsed a looming black shape enveloping her. Her arms went up defensively, but the weight of the man was too much. She felt the wind driven out of her. She attempted to scream but something jammed her mouth and nose. She gasped for breath and smelled something sweet and pungent. Then consciousness slipped away.

MacFarlane taped her ankles together, then her hands, and added a firm strip across her mouth. He recovered the hockey equipment bag from outside. Then he laid Anne inside, zipped it closed, carried her to his car, and placed her in the trunk.

Anne was unaware of how long she had been unconscious but, when she awoke, she felt sure that she was in the trunk of a car and, from the smoothness of the ride, she was confident that it was a main highway. For a while she struggled against the bindings that held her, but it was futile, and gradually she became aware that escape had become secondary to a more immediate threat to her well-being. Nausea.

Anne could still taste the drug that had knocked her out. It lingered in her nostrils and throat. A sickening sweetness clung to it. The odour inside the canvas bag was appalling, too, but in a different way. It was rank with the indelible stench of old sweatshirts and rancid footwear. Together, the odours churned her stomach, but she fought back the urge to vomit. She realized that, with her mouth still taped shut, she would asphyxiate if she threw up.

The car suddenly swerved off the main highway onto a secondary road. She half-rolled inside the equipment bag. The blackness disturbed her sense of balance. She felt disoriented and lightheaded, and she felt the initial twinge of a spasm.

Something, she did not know what, brought to mind her long-ago pregnancy, her birthing of Jacqui, and the discomfort and pain she endured during that traumatic ordeal. Controlled breathing was a godsend of a technique that had been taught at prenatal classes she and her husband, Jack, had attended. It had eased the hurt then. Perhaps it would do the trick now.

Anne twisted herself into a more comfortable and stable position. She blanked her mind as best she could, focused on willing the muscles in her body to relax, and fell into a slow rhythmic pattern of breathing.

Five long minutes passed. All that while, she staved off a string of involuntary surges from her stomach. She was beginning to feel more comfortable and confident until the car veered off again.

MacFarlane slowed to a crawl along the new road, but the first bump was a head-banger. It was frightening. The vehicle lurched to the left and then to the right, all along the rutted pathway. Fear jostled the controlled breathing completely from Anne's mind. The succeeding bumps and shocks were irregular, unexpected, and Anne struggled unsuccessfully to brace herself.

A short smoother period followed. Anne had been knocked about and beaten up in the trunk. She felt the bruising and assessed the soreness that would come tomorrow—that is, if tomorrow came for her at all. In spite of that, however, she realized that her nausea had vanished. Fright and pain had vanquished it.

Then the vehicle stopped. She heard the driver door open and heard the pop of the trunk latch. Someone hoisted her from the trunk by the handles of the bag that held her. Her captor said nothing. She heard his footsteps crossing a short porch and the creak of an old door. She heard the zip of the equipment bag that held her and squinted into a shaft of flashlight too bright for her dilated eyes.

MacFarlane tipped the bag on its side and rolled Anne out onto the bare wooden floor.

“I brought you a playmate,” he said.

66.

“Hey, people! Let's get this place rockin'.”

William Larsen pushed his way past Jacqui. He ducked as he came through the door, a case of beer tottering above his head. It barely cleared the opening. A corner of the case grazed Jacqui's cheek as he passed, and she caught the sour smell of alcohol on his breath. Four or five more rushed in after him and disappeared into the kitchen. For a moment, surprise and disbelief overcame her. Then she hurried after them.

“Wait! This isn't my house! I'm babysitting! You can't stay!”

The uninvited visitors also caught Bobby and Sig unexpectedly. Both felt awkward and unsure of what, if anything, they should do, and, within minutes, a dozen more streamed past them. Party-crashers filled the house. The din increased. Noise in one quarter competed with noise in another, and chatter and laughter escalated to shouts and manic roars. Someone plugged in a portable stereo. A strident rap song pumped out a muffled defiant lyric. The atmosphere became unrepressed and shrill. More people came through the door.

Rada became alarmed by the growing crowd. The press of so many people so quickly had startled her. So she abandoned her armchair and shrank into a corner near the stairs. Sig moved to her side.

In the kitchen, an already drunken William Larsen and his troupe in the kitchen were draining all of Jacqui's energy. There was no reasoning with them. They only half-heard what she said, and they laughed at her frustration as if it were some comical routine meant to entertain them. Jacqui hadn't heard the other cars pull up outside or the pickup truck that had jumped the curb and found a parking space on the front lawn, but she did hear the music rumbling from the living room. Finally, she threw up her hands and retreated.

Jacqui was alarmed at the transformation that had taken place in the living room.

“Bobby! Do something!” she said. Bobby couldn't hear her from where he stood, but he could read her body language and sensed what she wanted. He looked around blankly.

Even Jacqui found herself at a loss to know where to begin or what she could do next. A swirl of light-headedness swept over her, and she fought to keep it in check. It was the first taste of fear and a precursor of panic, and Jacqui struggled to refocus.

She saw several people descending the stairs from the second floor, and she remembered little Luc who was up there in bed. She bounded up the stairs two steps at a time. Jacqui had closed up all the upstairs rooms when she had put Luc to sleep. Now, two of the doors were ajar, one of them being Luc's. Jacqui pushed. It slowly opened. She peered into the semi-darkness. He still lay in his bed, tucked in, eyes closed, and fast asleep.

She closed that door and headed down the corridor toward the other. She stopped abruptly when she heard small noises inside. She gave the door a slow shove. A shaft of light from the hallway revealed two bodies on the floor. The scruffy beard belonged to Hank Stillwell. The blonde mop of curls suggested Missy Metcalfe. Her bare breasts and his boney thighs suggested something else entirely.

“Out you two! Out! Find a hotel room, for god's sake!”

“We're kinda busy,” said Hank. He sounded half out of breath and a bit whimsical. Then he laughed.

Missy moaned in agreement.

“Now!” said Jacqui. “Get out of here now!”

“Come back in ten minutes. You and your boyfriend can have the room then.”

The moaning of Missy and the renewed enthusiasm of Hank infuriated Jacqui. She turned her head away as if to find some resolution and saw Rada, standing just outside the doorway and looking in. She must have sought refuge from the mob downstairs and followed her up, thought Jacqui.

The expression on Rada's face was troubling to Jacqui. It shifted between tears and fright. The sight before her was sordid and embarrassing, and Rada was appalled. Jacqui felt the anguish and confusion that confounded Rada at that moment. This wasn't her reality. Rada was an innocent, she thought, not too much different from little Luc in regard to worldliness. At that moment, the thought struck Jacqui that the blame for all this could fall on no one but herself.

An uncontrollable knot of anger overcame Jacqui. She turned back toward the entangled and writhing limbs of Missy Metcalfe and Hank Stillwell. Instinctively she drew back her leg and delivered one of her better soccer kicks into Hank. In their shadowy clutch Jacqui couldn't see where it landed, but he flinched and squealed in pain like a little boy who'd fallen from his bike, and he rolled away. Missy's eyes grew large and frightened. Jacqui sent a second kick toward Missy. Despite the faint light, Missy saw a glint of white as Jacqui's sneaker hurtled toward one of her swaying breasts. She shrank back. Jacqui's foot fell short of the mark and caught the recoiling side of Missy's left shoulder
.

“Do I have to repeat myself…,” Jacqui said, “…or are you getting the picture?”

By then Hank and Missy had scrambled a few feet away. They cast angry, yet guarded, stares at Jacqui as they hurried into their clothes and made for the hallway, hopping and dressing as they left.

“Come on,” said Jacqui to Rada. “We've got to get you out of here.”

She grabbed Rada's arm and led her along the now-empty hall and down the stairs. Sig had remained in the corner near the foot of the stairs.

Jacqui gazed around as she descended into the main room. It was frightening to see the house so full. Many she recognized from school. Others she had never seen before and, from their dress and demeanour, she would never care to see again.

Once more she shouted at Larsen to leave, but Larsen and his group were still too drunk and self-absorbed to make sense out of what she was telling them, and Jacqui's voice sank beneath the deafening music and a pumping sub-bass that sent tremors into the beams of the house.

At the bottom of the staircase, Jacqui grabbed hold of Sig's neck and tugged until he bent down toward her. She cupped her hands to his ear.

“Get Rada out of here. Walk her home. This is no place for her.”

Sig nodded and took Rada's arm. He broke through the crowd and led her toward the front door.

More beer was being passed around. Some drank from their own pints of whisky. Jacqui winced when she saw someone butt his cigarette on the floor. The smoker wore a varsity football sweater she didn't recognize. Jacqui didn't know him.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “Get out! Out! Don't you have any respect?” She pointed at the crushed cigarette butt.

The footballer stared at her. He looked incredulous. His girlfriend snickered. Both were glassy-eyed.

“Who the hell invited you to this party? Get lost,” he said, putting the palm of his hand on Jacqui's face and shoving her away.

Jacqui's foot caught. She stumbled back, lost her balance, and tumbled into a cluster of people behind her. Jacqui and two others sprawled across the floor. Beer spilled. Glass broke. Someone swore at Jacqui.

“Her right brain doesn't know what her left foot is doing,” said the footballer to his girl. He turned toward a group of his friends, pointed toward Jacqui, and hooted.

Bobby leaped over Jacqui and the two others on the floor. He drove his right fist into the footballer's belly, just below his rib cage, knocking the wind out of him. He doubled over. His beer bottle fell to the floor. Bobby's arm encircled the boy's neck. His other hand clenched it in place, and rendered him helpless. Bobby led him out the front door and threw him off the porch onto the front lawn.

Jacqui had recovered by then. She pulled herself up, shoved her way through the amused crowd, and yanked the plug from the disc player. The wall of sound crumbled into a stunning and somewhat sobering quiet. The voices and shouts that had been competing for space in the din now seemed garish and shrill and out of place. There was an embarrassing lull.

Jacqui seized that moment, stood on a chair near the centre of the room, pulled a cell phone from her pocket, and held it above her head.

“Hey!” she shouted loudly enough to get the crowd's attentions. “None of you were invited into this house. I want everyone to leave. I'm calling the police. Anyone here when they arrive will be arrested. So get out now,” she said.

Then she tapped in the emergency 911 number.