The Cellar

CHAPTER FIFTEEN 1.

When Jud climbed out of his car, he saw Donna sitting on a front step of her cabin and he knew that something was wrong. He went toward her. She saw him, and stood. He took her in his arms, and she began to cry softly, quietly, her back trembling under his hand. Jud stroked the back of her head. Her cheek was wet against his face. He held her for a long time.

Then Donna looked up at him. She sniffed, smiled an apology, and rubbed her face with her sleeves. “Thanks,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, her lips pressed tightly shut. “Can we go for a walk?” she asked.

“I know a nice place. We’ll have to go in the car, though.”

“Before we go, I’d better get registered for tonight.”

“Good idea,” Jud said. “I’ll have to do that, too.”

Together, they went to the motel office. They registered. Then they returned to Jud’s car. “Where’s Sandy?” he asked.

“Sleeping.”

“She seems to do a lot of that, doesn’t she?”

“It’s a good way to escape.”

“Is she all right?”

“No. Probably not.”

They climbed into the Chrysler, and Jud drove out to Front Street.

“We saw your car in town this morning,” Donna said in an obvious attempt to change the subject.

“I took the tour again.”

“You mean they had a tour? I would’ve thought the police…”

“The police don’t know about the killing, apparently. The body’s gone. So’s the blood. It looks like somebody did a nice clean-up job.”

“Scrub-a-dub-dub.” Donna met his glance, and frowned. “That’s what Axel does. He’s in charge of cleaning the place.”

“Axel’s in this thing up to the armpits. So’s his mother. They all are. It’s a family enterprise. All it takes is a murder, now and again, to keep the tourists coming.”

“If the body’s gone, though…”

“I think they got nervous, killing someone so close to the other three. Nervous enough to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Why did they kill her—they? Now you’ve got me believing it. Why did they kill her, if they didn’t want the publicity?”

“She was gonna burn the place down.”

“I guess that’s a good enough reason. What’s your next step? Do you try to find her body?”

“That wouldn’t do us much good. What we’ve gotta find is the man in the monkey suit.”

“Then what?”

“If I have to, I’ll kill him.”

“You intend to kill him, don’t you?”

“I doubt if he’ll give me a choice.”

They were silent as they drove past Beast House. After they rounded the bend, Donna said, “Have you killed very many people?”

“Yes.”

“Do you…think about it much?”

He glanced at her, then steered onto the shoulder of the road and stopped. “You mean, does my conscience bother me?”

“I guess that’s what I mean.”

“I never killed a guy who didn’t have it coming.”

“Who judges that?”

“Me. I judge him and sentence him.”

“How can you?”

“I hear voices.”

She smiled. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. I hear a voice. It’s usually mine saying, ‘I’d better nail this bastard before he nails me.’ ”

“You’re awful.”

He laughed softly. And then he felt a cold tightness inside him. He swallowed. “Sometimes what I hear are the voices of the dead. People I never knew. People I saw in news photos, or with my own eyes. They say to me, ‘I’d be alive today if this bastard hadn’t canceled my ticket.’ Then I look at the living and they say, ‘That bastard’s gonna kill me tomorrow.’ And then I judge him and then I execute him if I can. I figure I’m paying him back for the dead, and I’m saving a few lives. Maybe this sounds terrible, but my conscience is pretty happy with itself.”

“Do you kill for money?”

“If he’s the kind of guy I’m willing to kill, there’s always someone who’s glad to pay me for it.”

They got out of the car. Jud took Donna’s hand and led her across the road. “Do you mind a workout?”

“Okay by me.”

They entered the forest. Jud went first, seeking out ways through the tightly grouped pines and around impassable areas of rock or fallen trees. Twice, he stopped to let Donna rest.

“You didn’t tell me this was an obstacle course,” she said at one point.

The last few yards were steep, and Jud looked back at Donna. Her face was determined. She backhanded a drop of sweat off the end of her nose. Wet hair clung to her forehead. “Almost there,” he said, and reached down a hand to her. He pulled her to the top of a dead trunk, then they both hopped down. “Made it.”

They walked easily along the level crest of the hill and came to a windy clearing.

Donna stretched, spreading her arms. “Ah, that breeze feels good.”

“You can wait here. I’ve got to pick up a few things down below.”

“So that’s your game!”

She accompanied Jud to the edge of the clearing, where he pointed down to the outcropping. “I left some equipment in those rocks,” he told her.

“That’s where you were last night?”

“That’s the place.”

“I’ll go with you, okay?”

Together, they climbed downhill. Then they made their way up the rocks to the top, where they looked down at the back of Beast House.

“I can’t imagine going in that place at night,” Donna said. “It’s bad enough in daylight.”

“I’ll climb down and get my gear,” Jud said.

“Fine. I’ll wait.”

As Donna sat on a ledge of rock, Jud worked his way down to the recess with its two small pines. His pack and rifle and Starlight seemed just as he had left them last night when he rushed downhill to stop the woman. He put the scope in its case and loaded it into the pack. He strapped the pack shut. Then he slung it onto his shoulders. He picked up the rifle case and climbed to the top.

“Let’s go up to the clearing again,” Donna said.

“Sure.”

“I don’t much like staring that house in the face.”

“That’s actually the back of its head,” Jud told her.

“Whatever.”

They climbed to the grassy clearing. Jud put down his rifle and pack. Donna, stepping close, placed her open hands against his chest and looked up at him. “Can we talk some more?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“About killing?”

“If you want.”

“What happened today…” She lowered her eyes. “What happened was, I found out my…sister…” Her voice broke. She turned away. With her back turned, she took a deep breath. Jud put his hands on her shoulders. “My sister was killed!” she blurted, and broke into tears.

Jud turned her around and held her tightly.

“I killed her, Jud. I killed her. I ran away. He wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have had to. God! I didn’t know. I didn’t know! I killed them. I killed them both!” 2.

After a while, Donna settled down. She stopped talking, and only cried. Jud lowered her to the grass. Sitting against his pack, he held her. Her tears made the front of his shirt wet. Finally she stopped.

“We’d better get back,” she said. “Sandy. I don’t want to leave her alone too long.”

“We’ll leave when you tell me what’s going on. Who killed your sister, Donna?”

“My ex-husband. Roy Hayes.”

“Why?”

“Partly to get at me, I guess. Mostly, though, to make her tell where I am.”

“Why would he want to know that?”

“He’s been in prison. He…raped Sandy. She was just six, and he took her out riding on his dirt bike…and raped her. He’d done things to me, before. Vicious things.

“I knew they’d let him out, someday. I figured we’d drop everything, and take off. So that’s what we did Sunday morning when I found out he was loose.

“It never…it just didn’t occur to me he’d go to Karen. I don’t know what I thought. But I never…God, I never thought he’d go to Karen or anyone, and…he must’ve tortured her. God, and it was all because of me!

“We shouldn’t have run. We should have stayed. I should have got myself a gun, maybe, and just waited for him to come. But it never even occurred to me. I just thought we’d leave town, and maybe change our name, and everything would work out fine. But it didn’t happen that way. And now he knows where we are.”

“Where did your sister live?”

“In Santa Monica.”

“What’s that, ten or twelve hours from here?”

“I don’t know. Something like that, probably.”

“Do you know when your sister was killed?”

“Sometime last night.”

“Early, late?”

“I don’t know.”

“He could be in town right now.”

“I guess so.”

“What does he look like?”

“He’s thirty-five, about six-foot-two. Very strong, or he always used to be. He weighed about two-ten.”

“Have you got a picture of him?”

She shook her head. “I destroyed them all.”

“What color’s his hair?”

“Black. He always wore it short.”

“Anything else about him?”

She shrugged.

Jud got up and helped her to stand. “Are you convinced,” he asked, “that running away doesn’t work?”

“He convinced me.”

“Then let’s go back to the inn and wait for him.”

“What’ll we do?”

“If I have to, I’ll kill him.”

“I should be the one to handle him.”

“Not a chance. You’re stuck with me.”

“I don’t want you to kill anyone…not for me.”

“I wouldn’t be doing it for you. It’d be for myself. And for the voices.”