The Dead Place (5 page)

The man looked at the box again, and this time held out his arms to take it from her.

“I’m afraid I dropped it,” Kate said, adding hastily, “It was an accident—your cat startled me.”

A frown creased the flat face. “I hope you didn’t break it.”

“I hope not, too. Just let me know if it’s damaged, I’ll reimburse you.” She inched toward the door.

He shook his head. “You can’t.”

“No, really, Mr. Simnic, I’ll gladly pay for any repairs or replacement costs.”

“It can’t be replaced. It’s too valuable.”

Oh, great, a potentially litigious neighbor. Ian was going to love this.

“Whatever it is, Mr. Simnic, I’m sure we can—”

“It’s a doll.”

That startled her. Kate stared at him, trying to fit doll and this simian-looking man into the same universe. It didn’t work.

“It’s for my collection. Well, Mother’s collection.”

He reached a hand into his pocket and produced a pocket knife. For one horrible moment, as she watched his blunt fingers pinch forth the biggest blade, Kate thought he meant to use it on her. Instead, he set the box on the floor and squatted beside it, running the tip of the blade through the packing tape.

Pulling back the flaps, he scooped handfuls of Styrofoam peanuts onto the dusty floor, making little grunting noises. Multiple layers of bubble wrap appeared, and through them Kate could make out the hazy shape of something human-looking. Terrence Simnic unwrapped the layers, being careful not to jostle what was inside, reminding Kate of an archaeologist removing gauze from a mummy. Suddenly he stopped.

“She’s perfect!” It was a heavy, heartfelt whisper.

Kate stepped closer to look for herself and gasped.

Lying amid the wrapping was a porcelain doll with features fixed in a scream. The red-rimmed mouth was wide open and the glass eyes horrified. It was grotesque, but Terrence Simnic was actually smiling.

He twisted something on the back of the doll and all at once the face turned. A new expression appeared, happy, and then he turned a knob again and a sleeping face appeared.

“German. Late nineteenth century. Mint condition.” He mumbled the words, and Kate wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself. He lumbered to his feet, cradling the doll in his massive arms. It wore a nightgown of yellowed white lace and he stroked the cloth.

“She’s my latest. Do you want to see the others?”

Kate hesitated, wanting to issue a polite demurral, but Terrence Simnic was leading the way to another room. “It’s in here,” he said. “Mother always kept them in the dining room.”

Reluctantly, Kate stepped after him. The dining room was papered in deep red with little crescents of gold that had faded over time. It was peeling at the corners of the high ceiling and there was water damage in one spot, spreading in concentric brown circles. A dusty, oval-shaped walnut table and six chairs stood in the center of the room, but the focal point was really the antique curio cabinets lining the wall. They were made of oak or mahogany and didn’t all match, and every shelf was literally crammed with antique dolls.

“Mother would have loved you.” Terrence crooned to the doll. He carefully unlocked one of the oak cabinets and shifted two frilly dressed baby dolls so that his newest acquisition could sit between them. “There you go, little one, there you go.”

It was spooky, the faded room and the shelves filled with dolls. There was dust everywhere but on the curio cabinets, which looked as if they were cleaned every day. They smelled faintly of furniture polish.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” This time Terrence Simnic’s question was directed at Kate. She struggled to think of something to say, but he seemed to take her silence for awe, nodding with a goofy smile on his face.

“It’s something, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes.” That she could be honest about it. It was certainly something.

“Mother took such pride in her collection,” Terrence said. “She had such a good eye and I’ve tried to match it. I’m very particular about what I buy. Every doll has a complete history and the most damage I’ll accept is a single, hidden, hairline fracture.”

A phone rang somewhere in the house, a loud, jangling old-fashioned sound that made both Terrence and Kate start.

“That’s for me,” he said. “You need to leave now.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Kate walked quickly back to the front of the house while the phone continued to ring, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder until she reached the door. When she looked back into the gloomy, dusty house, she could see Terrence Simnic standing in a doorway at the other end of the dining room, an outdated phone, complete with long cord, in one large hand. He stared at her and she fled out the door.

Kate crossed the yard back to her own house feeling as if she were being watched. Grace was playing the piano. A haunting melody floated out the window, stopping abruptly as Kate came in the door.

“That was lovely,” Kate said, pausing at the entrance to the living room. Grace looked up from the keyboard and scowled.

“It sucks. I can’t get it right. It’s too fast and it lacks feeling.”

“It sounded good to me.”

“That’s because you don’t play the piano, Mom.” Grace turned her attention back to the score in front of her, and Kate knew she was being dismissed. While this behavior annoyed Ian, Kate chose to ignore it and was even, secretly, amused by it. She saw herself in this devotion to one’s passion, and even though Grace’s snotty attitude wasn’t pleasant, Kate could still understand and respect her daughter’s devotion to her music.

Kate made her way to the kitchen to prepare dinner, listening to the music start again. She moved about easily in the large kitchen, so much larger and newer than their old one. So why did she miss it? The kitchen in their apartment had been galley style and they’d remodeled it, on the cheap, two years before Grace was born. This kitchen was wide and spacious, with solid wood cabinets and granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. Everything she’d lusted after in magazines, and yet now that it was hers, all she could think about was the edge of the old laminate countertops where they’d marked Grace’s height in pencil.

She reached up to take a pot from the rack hanging above the center island, and caught a glimpse of Terrence Simnic’s house through the window. The lights were on in the back of his house, and she wondered if he was cooking dinner. It was impossible to tell, because old curtains hung in the windows back there just like in the front of the house.

He was a strange man, but they’d dealt with strange neighbors before. Kate remembered the old woman who’d lived in the apartment below theirs and regularly cooked tripe, the awful smell invariably sliding up and under their door and lingering for days despite their best efforts to shoo it away. Or the shifty-eyed, pock-marked man two floors down, who’d worn a full-length fur coat in the middle of July and had screaming matches in some Slavic language with a string of anemic-looking bottle blondes.

Compared to these neighbors, Terrence Simnic with his doll collection really wasn’t that bad. She turned away from the window and concentrated on what to make for dinner, but she couldn’t shake the crawly feeling being in his house had given her.

Ian arrived home shortly after six, dumping his briefcase in the hall and coming straight through to the kitchen with a troubled smile on his face.

“God, it’s good to be home,” he said, pouring a glass of the South African white wine that she’d opened.

“Long day?”

“That doesn’t begin to capture it. Did you hear the news about Lily Slocum?”

Kate shook her head, concentrating on chopping tomatoes to add to the salad. “Has she been found?”

“No, but they found a photo of her.” Ian took a sip of wine. “Apparently she’s dead.”

The knife slipped in Kate’s hand and she narrowly missed slicing her thumb. “What? That’s terrible!”

Ian described the photo found in a local shop, and Kate thought of the poor girl’s parents getting the news. She rinsed the cutting board, the red smears from the tomatoes suddenly making her queasy. “Are the police even sure this photo is real?”

“They’re not saying much, but since it’s not the first time this has happened, everybody seems to think it’s real.”

“What do you mean it’s not the first time?”

Ian put down his wine and pulled a copy of the
Wickfield Gazette
from his briefcase. “Here, you can read about it yourself. Copies were distributed at the emergency meeting I got called to with the university president and provost, as well as another meeting with legal office representatives and public relations folk.”

Kate read the story of the discovery of the photograph, but her eyes were drawn over and over again to the haunting photo. A young woman dressed in a flowing white gown reclined on a chaise lounge. It was a beautiful picture, the figure seeming to float within the clusters of delicate flowers arranged about her body. Her eyes were closed, she might have been sleeping.

A recap of the details surrounding Lily Slocum’s disappearance was included in the article, along with a smaller headshot. She was a pretty girl with a sweet, very pale face and long, straight blond hair. She wore too much eye makeup, which made her look even younger than her twenty-one years. She looked like a child, a little ghost child, and Kate realized with a start that she was only six years older than Grace.

“She’s so young,” Kate said out loud.

Ian took a long swallow of wine and rubbed his forehead. “Yes, she was.”

His use of the past tense jumped out at her. “You believe she’s dead then?”

“I don’t know. If she isn’t, why hasn’t anyone heard from her?”

Kate followed the story to the inside pages of the paper, and was surprised to find three more photos of smiling, attractive young women.

Kate folded the paper, surprised that her hands trembled. “So much for the safe community.”

Ian sighed. “This is exactly what the university is afraid of. It
is
safe. Think how many more homicides are committed in New York every year. It just gets more publicity here because it’s a small town.”

“Tell that to the Slocum family.” Kate handed the salad and dressing over to Ian to toss so she could take the chicken out of the oven.

“Fortunately, I don’t have to. Today’s meeting was bad enough. There’s a lot of finger-pointing about campus security, which makes no sense to me since she wasn’t on campus when she was abducted.”

It made perfect sense to Kate. People needed to feel as if something could have been done to prevent Lily Slocum’s disappearance, so they blamed things like lax security.

“Grace, come set the table!” she called, adding the paper to the recycling bin and then moving it under some other papers so their daughter wouldn’t see it. Even as she did it, she realized the futility of the gesture. Grace wasn’t much younger than these other girls and she’d probably already heard the news the way that kids seemed to hear and know everything.

Ian took plates from the cupboard and handed them to Kate. “I’ve got to work late a few evenings this week because the meeting I had scheduled on the Performing Arts Center got bumped by today’s emergency meetings.”

“We’ll be here alone?” For some reason Kate had a sudden image of Terrence Simnic next door in that gloomy house with his dolls.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Ian gave her a funny look, and Kate realized she was gripping the counter. She let go, giving herself a mental shake. There was nothing to be afraid of. The person who’d taken Lily Slocum wasn’t going to break into her house and Terrence Simnic was just a harmless eccentric.

“No problem,” she said. “Grace and I can manage.”

“Manage what?” Grace slouched into the room and looked suspiciously at her parents. “I hope you haven’t signed me up for something like that stupid pottery class.”

Her parents laughed and Ian said, “You enjoyed that once you gave it a try and stopped complaining.”

“Yeah, who doesn’t want to hang out with some freaked-out hippie lady whose place reeks of patchouli and get your clothes covered in gray shit so you can produce one lopsided ashtray.”

“Don’t use that language,” Kate said, handing her a fistful of silverware. “And I loved your lopsided ashtray even if none of us smoke.”

“Mom, I could snort into a Kleenex and you’d treasure it.”

Ian put his wineglass down. “Don’t talk to your mother like that.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but only after she’d turned away from her father, Kate noticed. Instead of challenging Grace’s statement, she simply said, “Set the table and pour yourself some milk.”

“I want a Diet Coke.”

“Milk.” Kate held up a hand as Grace opened her mouth to argue. “You’re growing, you need the calcium, and it’s nonnegotiable.”

Grace gave a put-upon sigh, but after halfheartedly setting the table, she clumped past her parents to grab a glass from a cupboard and the milk from the fridge.

“Did you practice today?” Ian asked.

“Of course.” Grace sounded exasperated, but Ian pressed on.

“How was school today?”

Grace shrugged in reply and slunk over to the table with her glass, which, despite her protests, she immediately began taking sips from.

“C’mon, what happened? What did you learn?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m going to ask for my tax money back,” Ian said with a smile, nudging her with an elbow. The old, prepuberty Grace would have laughed at this, but teenage Grace, the bad seed, screeched.

“Watch it! You’ll spill my milk!”

Kate silently gave her own put-upon sigh as Ian came to serve the plates.

“Boarding school,” he muttered under his breath.

“Are you kidding? Then we wouldn’t be able to monitor her at all. I’m sure she’d have Damien as her guest in under a minute.”

Kate had spoken in a whisper, but Grace managed to pick up on a familiar name. “What are you saying about Damien? Did he call?”

“We’re not talking to you, young lady,” Ian said. “Sit down.”

“No! I want to know if Damien called. Did he?”

Ian squared off with her, arms crossed over his broad chest. “First of all, Damien isn’t allowed to call—remember? Secondly, you don’t say no to me. Sit. Down.”

Grace hesitated, staring at her father with hatred. Ian took one step toward her and she dropped in her seat.

Kate passed out plates and took her own seat. “Well,
bon appétit,
everybody,” she said, trying not to imbue it with sarcasm.

The photographs of Lily Slocum preyed on Kate’s mind, the image of the still girl lying on the chaise contrasting with that young, smiling face. After reading the article, she followed Grace out the door every day, accompanying her down the porch steps and their front walk and standing on the sidewalk in front of their house to watch her make her way to the end of the block to catch the bus.

“I could drive you,” Kate had offered. “Now that we’ve got a second car you don’t need to take the bus.”

Ian had spearheaded the purchase of a silver Toyota Prius, and was as thrilled as if he’d built it himself. He’d insisted on discussing all the features, and bored Kate with a detailed description of how hybrid cars work. When he offered to drive the Volvo to campus every day and leave the new car with her, she had to hide a smile at the strain in his voice. When she politely declined, he couldn’t hide his own delight.

The purchase of the new car didn’t interest Grace once she’d established that Ian wouldn’t let her drive it until she was old enough to get a learner’s permit. She turned down Kate’s offer of a ride claiming that she liked to take the bus.

“I’m not a little kid, you know,” Grace complained for the umpteenth time as her mother followed her to the front door. “I don’t need an escort.”

“Tough,” Kate said, catching the screen door that Grace tried to slam and following her daughter out onto the porch. “Do you have your lunch?”

“Yes, Mom.” The words were drawn out, exasperated. She wore shades of black as usual, a charcoal T-shirt and dark jeans, her matching hair a tangled curtain blocking her face. She jammed her iPod headphones into her ears and stalked away without a good-bye.

Kate watched her go, peering past the green leaves of the oak trees to see her reach the end of the block. She felt another wave of anxiety as Grace’s steps slowed the closer she got to the other kids at the bus stop. Did she have friends? These kids were a preppy-looking bunch. What did they make of Grace and her urban-guerrilla look? Was she happy at her new school? Wickfield High School had a good reputation and high test scores to back it up, but so had the school Grace had gone to last year, and that had turned out to be a disaster.

Kate walked back inside and locked the door behind her, checking it again two seconds after she’d turned the dead bolt. She jumped when the doorbell rang five minutes later.

Switching off the teakettle, she tiptoed back to the front door, pushing aside the curtain to see who was there.

“It’s me, silly, open the door.” Margaret Newman grinned at her, pressing her face close to the window as if Kate were partially blind.

With a feeling of relief, Kate unlocked the door and stepped into the embrace of one of her oldest friends.

“Good Lord, you’ve gone
Green Acres
on me already,” Margaret said, stepping back and surveying Kate’s blue jeans and old T-shirt.