Under the Beetle's Cellar (45 page)

Molly watched them hug and comfort one another. Whatever horrors they had endured during their captivity, she realized, something remarkable had happened down there underground to knit them together.

After a while, Hector called out to Lattimore. “Okay, man. We’ll go to your hospital now.”

Kim stood at the back of one ambulance and Hector at the other. Quietly the children divided themselves into two groups and climbed in.

Then, with no sirens or lights, the ambulances drove out of the smoldering compound and headed west toward Memorial Hospital in Georgetown, where the children’s families and a team of doctors and social workers were waiting for them.

Molly looked at her watch. It was forty-two minutes past midnight, April 14. The fiftieth day, the day Samuel Mordecai had expected the world to end. She glanced at the ruins of the Hearth Jezreelite compound.
He had certainly inflicted a great deal of damage on the world, this abandoned infant turned angry prophet. And the damages hadn’t all been reckoned yet.

But life on earth was pretty resilient. She recalled the stubborn expression on Kim Bassett’s face. Lord, wasn’t Thelma Bassett going to be glad to see that expression again. The thought made Molly smile and, at the same time, it brought hot tears to her eyes.

Back at the command post, lights were blazing. Grady Traynor threw an arm around Molly. “We caught the three Sword Hand of God perps.”

“Oh, Grady! How?”

“Your friend Addie Dodgin, in Waco, helped. She’s been calling, Molly, and wants you to call her, no matter what the hour.”

“Tell me,” Molly demanded.

“They were in a stolen van outside her office, waiting for her to come out. She spotted them and called the feds. They’d told her to call if anything didn’t look right. They swooped down and caught them with all the paraphernalia for turning people into blood statues. We’ll need you to take a look at them, Molly. Tomorrow will do.”

“Okay. I need to talk to Rain Conroy. Where is she?”

“Long gone,” Grady said.

“Gone?”

“On her way back to Quantico. She got debriefed by Andrew Stein, grabbed an ice pack for her face, and was on the way to the airport less than fifteen minutes after you two came out.”

“She didn’t stay to see the kids,” Molly said.

“No. But she left you a message.”

“What?”

Grady grinned. “She said, ‘Tell Molly Cates she’s the only stand-up writer I ever met.’ ”

Molly’s face felt flushed with pleasure. It was a compliment she would carry with her to the grave.

Molly watched as Patrick Lattimore released the evening’s final tally to the press:

In what he referred to as a highly successful tactical maneuver, all ten of the remaining hostage children had been rescued from the buried bus where they had been kept during the forty-nine days of their captivity. All were alive and apparently healthy, although two of them, Sandra Echols and Philip Trotman, were being kept overnight at Memorial Hospital in Georgetown for observation. The rest had been released to their families.

Eleven cult members had been killed in the assault, including Samuel Mordecai, who was shot in the head by the HRT entry team while he was in the act of firing on them.

Fifteen cult members had been wounded.

Two federal agents had been killed in the line of duty, and three had been wounded, one critically.

One hundred and twelve cult members, including sixty-three women, had been taken into custody and charged with murder and attempted murder. Other charges were under consideration. A search of the compound revealed forty-two neat graves, believed to be the forty-two infants murdered by the Hearth Jezreelites.

The bus driver, Walter Demming, had been shot by the cultists during the assault. He had died of his wound shortly after arriving at Brackenridge Hospital.

Patrick Lattimore did not mention the existence of Special Agent Loraine Conroy, who had killed Samuel Mordecai and three other cult members.

He did not mention Molly Cates.

When questioned about the two women seen entering the compound twenty minutes before the assault, Lattimore said he had no comment.

It was a version of the events that stunned Molly. He had turned the story of the devastation at Jezreel into a football score, a cool postgame recitation of dry statistics. He had managed to censor out of it all the juice—all the fear, all the loss and tragedy, all the loyalty and devotion, and all the courage.

The press, of course, would sniff out the drama. Herself included. She was already thinking about the story she wanted to tell. It had been taking root in her brain for days without her knowing.

It was 3
A
.
M
. before they were finished at the command post and Molly and Grady could head home. Molly rested her head on the seat back, beyond exhaustion. They passed the compound, which was still ablaze with lights. The acrid smell of charred wood still hung in the air. But only one fire truck, three DPS cars, and a small group of agents patrolling the fence remained. It was over.

“So, Molly. How do you feel?”

“Awful. Wonderful. Exhausted. Weepy. Seeing those children walk out alive was a high point of my life, Grady.”

“Mine, too. How about your own adventure tonight?”

Molly closed her eyes and thought. She hadn’t had time yet for summing
up. “I would never do it again. I used up whatever luck I have allotted to me for this lifetime. From now on, I’ll have to be careful.”

He grinned at her. “I know that feeling.”

“How about you, Grady?”

“Given the odds against us, I think we pulled off a miracle. Those kids were as good as dead. We dragged them back from the underworld. With Walter Demming’s help. And yours, Molly.”

He might have said more. There was lots more to say, but she didn’t hear any of it because she was asleep.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

“We should be living like persons who don’t expect to be around much longer.”

H
AL
L
INDSEY
,
T
HE
L
ATE
G
REAT
P
LANET
E
ARTH

Grady Traynor was waiting when Molly and Jo Beth walked out of the Sports Spa. He was sitting on the tailgate of Molly’s repaired pickup drinking a beer. Copper was lying at his feet.

Jo Beth leaned over to give her father a kiss, but she stopped halfway when Copper lifted his head and growled at her.

“He’ll get over that,” Grady said.

Jo Beth stood back and studied the dog. “Maybe you should send him for retraining.”

“Military school,” Molly said. “He could board.”

Grady stroked the dog’s head. “Don’t pay any attention to what your mother says. Actually, she’s smitten with the animal. This morning she bought him a bed.”

“I thought a bed of his own in the kitchen might keep him out of my bedroom,” Molly said, with a meaningful glance at Grady.

“We’ll see,” he said with a smile. “How are your push-ups going?”

“I haven’t actually started the new program yet. It’s only April. But by the end of the year I’m going to have arms like Rain Conroy’s.”

“Jo Beth,” Grady said, “how about joining us? We’re going out to the lake to watch the sun set. If the world’s going to end at sunset, we thought the lake would be the best place to watch it happen.”

“Thanks,” Jo Beth said, “but I’ve got a date. And I’m late. Got to run.”

They watched her walk across the parking lot in her black tights and
long gray sweatshirt. Before she got into her car, she turned and waved at them.

“We do good work together,” Grady said, throwing a kiss at his daughter.

“Yes,” Molly said. “We certainly do.” She ran her fingers over the repaired rear fender. “Thanks for getting this fixed.”

He patted the tailgate, and she hoisted herself up to sit next to him.

“I’ve been thinking, Molly.”

She tensed. Here it came. There was no putting it off any longer. “What?”

“About my lease and all.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Barbara Gruber called me.”

“Oh?”

“She’s going to Washington for six months to learn how to set up a DNA lab. But since she’s a good buddy of yours, I suppose you know that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s looking for someone to sublet her house. It’s got a fenced-in yard, she says.”

“A perfect dog yard,” Molly said.

“That’s what she said. And the rent’s exactly what I’ve been paying. A real coincidence.”

“Yeah.”

“I told her I’d take it.”

Molly turned to look at him. His pale aqua eyes had always reminded her of Oriental Avenue on the Monopoly board. She took his face between her hands. “Oh, Grady! What a good idea. It’s only about a mile from me. I could help you with the dog.”

He laughed. “It
is
a good idea.”

She pulled his head down to kiss him, but Copper growled low in his throat.

Grady said, “Wait. Hold that thought.” He jumped down from the truck, took the dog by the collar, and led him up front and into the cab. He slammed the door and ran back to resume his position on the tailgate. “Now. Where were we?” He leaned down and kissed her, first chastely on the cheek, then lingeringly down her neck, his mustache tickling like butterfly wings, and finally on the mouth—a long, deep exploration that left them both breathless.

Afterward, he reached back into the cooler and took out a beer. He popped the top and handed it to Molly. “It will give us six more months to contemplate the eschatology of cohabitation,” he said.

“A new countdown.” Molly took a long sip of her beer. “Have you noticed how time tends to organize itself into a series of countdowns? As soon as one ends, another begins. Two weeks till your lease is up. Seven years till I’m fifty. Eight months till I can do fifty push-ups. One day to taxes. Fifteen days till my article is due.”

“Yes, and when they aren’t built in, we make them for ourselves.” He tipped his head back to take a long swig of beer. “What
are
you going to write about Jezreel? The story about Special Agent Rain Conroy and how Samuel Mordecai really met his maker is pretty sensational. Too bad you can’t tell it.”

“Not really. That’s not the story I want to tell. There’s a much better one.”

“Walter Demming?”

“Yeah. Walter Demming and his eleven kids. Don’t you wonder what happened down there underground for forty-nine days, Grady? You saw what it was like. Can you imagine living there for that length of time with all those children? I talked to Kim Bassett today. The first day they were down in the hole, the Jezreelites turned the lights off and left them in the dark. They were all terrified, she said, crying and screaming. To calm them down, Demming started telling them a story and he kept it going, an installment or two a day, during their captivity. Kim said he finished the story last night, just a few hours before he was killed. The characters were animals—a turkey vulture and an armadillo—and they had adventures that sound to me a lot like some of his and Jake’s experiences in Vietnam.

“And the way he let the FBI know where they were is remarkable—the poetry and the Vietnam reference. That cries out to be written about. And, Grady, there’s no question that what he did last night saved their lives.”

“Sounds like you’re a little in love with him,” Grady said.

Molly sighed. “I suppose I am, a little. All the children are. And they’re eager to talk about him. I’m planning to go to the memorial service on Tuesday; a few of the kids are going to give eulogies. And I want to see how they do over time. Kim had trouble sleeping last night, and her mom says several of the other children woke up screaming. I think they’re in for more than just bad dreams.”

“It’s a hell of a story,” Grady said, nodding.

“It is. I think what I love about Demming is his natural courage, the unselfconscious kind that just emerges out of character and the situation.”

Grady took hold of her hand. “Molly, that’s the reason I had to take Copper.”

She looked up, surprised. “It is?”

“Yes. I watched him work once, and he struck me as a creature who just couldn’t stop himself from being brave when the situation required it. He didn’t choose courage, it just bubbled up from his nature. I couldn’t stand to see that snuffed out. There’s so little of it around.”

Molly nodded.

“Oh-oh.” Grady pointed at the orange ball of the sun that was just beginning to flatten against the horizon. “It’s setting. We’re not going to make it to the lake.”

“I like it right here in the parking lot,” Molly said, sipping her beer and savoring the way the clouds on the horizon got suffused with orange and pink and gold.

“Me, too. Looks like the world’s not going to end today.” Grady lifted his can. “Here’s to the world continuing,” he said, “just as flawed and imperfect as it has always been.”

Molly smiled. “I’ll drink to that.” She tapped her can to his. Then she held it up in a salute to the dog, who was watching them intently, his nose pressed against the back window.

EPILOGUE

Excerpt from “Under the Beetle’s Cellar,” by Molly Cates,
Lone Star Monthly
, June 1995

… 
They don’t really hang out together much, they say. But sometimes they gather out on the playground and talk. They talk about the nightmares and the moments of panic when the school bus comes to a sudden stop or when the lights go out. They talk about how Bucky’s thumb-sucking has gotten out of hand, and about how Sandra’s persistent stomachaches are mostly in her head. They joke about going to therapy.

They talk about Josh and what it was like to watch him die.

And they talk about Walter Demming.

They say that in the beginning he didn’t seem to like them much, but, later on, when he walked the bus aisle at night checking on them, they would sense his presence and feel taken care of. They say he wasn’t someone you would think of as funny or entertaining, but the story he told became their all-time favorite; sometimes now they talk about Jacksonville and Lopez and argue about the ending, and they laugh. They say he didn’t like religion much, but he ended up praying anyway. They say he’s hard to describe, hard to pin down as this thing or that.