The wind was whistling outside, the cold borne across the Great Plains on the back of buffalo winter. The woodframe house shivered and moaned, also unable to sleep by reason of turbulence. The man, gray hair all over his chest and matting his back, walked in his pajama bottoms to the chilly kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator. Its dim light fell upon his death’s head of a face, all hollowed cheekbones and deep-socketed eyes. Something was wrong with the left eye, and his jaw was crooked. His breathing was a slow, hoarse bellows. He reached for the four remaining cans of Bud in their plastic harness, and he took them all with him to the den.
In his sanctuary of walnut paneling, his bowling plaques on the walls and his marksmanship trophies standing around like Greek sculptures, he turned on the TV and settled himself into his butt-worn, old plaid recliner. He used the remote control to go to ESPN first, where two Australian teams were playing their brand of football. He drank most of one of the beers, putting it down in a few long swallows. In his mouth someone sang underwater. His head was pounding, too, a slow, excruciating pain that began at the crown of his bald skull and trickled like hot mercury down to the nape of his neck. He was a connoisseur of headaches, as some men know wines or butterflies; this headache would fill him with delicious pain, and leave an aftertaste of gunsmoke and metal.
He finished a second beer and decided the Australians didn’t know squat about football. His big-knuckled hand moved on the remote control. He was in the realm of movies now: The African Queen on one station, Easy Rider on another, Godzilla vs. Megalon on a third. Then into the jungle of talking heads, people selling cellulite cream and promising hair growth for desperate men. Women were wrestling on the next channel: GLOW. He watched that for a while, because the Terrorist knocked him out. Then he went on, searching the electric wilderness while his head sang and his skull vibrated with bass notes.
He came to Headline News, and he stopped his impatient finger to watch the nuts in Beirut blow themselves to pieces. He was about to move on, toward religious territory, when the newscaster said: “A bizarre scene today just outside Atlanta, when police officers and agents of the FBI walked into a trap set by a woman who may have stolen an infant from an area hospital.”
The third can of Bud hung poised at his lips. He watched the jerky cameras record a scene of carnage. Boom went a gun. Shotgun, it sounded like to him. People screamed and backpedaled. Someone was on the ground, writhing in agony. Whoever was holding the camera fell to his or her knees. More gunfire: pistol shots this time. “Get down, damn it!” somebody yelled. The camera angle went down to pavement level, and raindrops splashed the lens.
“The suspect,” the newscaster said, “identified by the FBI as Ginger Coles, is thought to have taken a baby boy from St. James Hospital at approximately two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. FBI agents and policemen tripped a wire-fired shotgun at her apartment, killing FBI agent Robert Kirkland, thirty-two, and critically wounding another agent and a young man.”
The man in the chair gave a soft grunt. The scene showed a sheet-covered body being put into an ambulance.
“The suspect, also known as Janette Leister, may still be in the Atlanta area.”
Leister, the man thought. Janette. Oh, Jesus! He sat bolt upright, his headache forgotten, and beer streamed from the Bud can onto the carpet.
“Coles is also implicated in the murder of a neighbor, sixty-six-year-old Grady Shecklett, and she’s considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. We’ll have more on this story as it develops. Stay tuned for sports news next.”
Leister. Janette. He knew those names, but they didn’t go together. A tick bothered his right eye. Gary Leister. Janette Snowden. Yes, those were names he knew. Two dead members of the Storm Front. Oh, Christ! Could it be? Could it be?
He stayed where he was until the story came around again thirty minutes later. This time he had his VCR on, and he taped it. The house shuddered under the onslaught of winter winds, but the man’s attention was riveted to the violent drama on his television set. When it was over, he played it back once more. Walked into a trap. A wire-fired shotgun. Ginger Coles. Janette Leister. Taken a baby boy. May still be in the Atlanta area. Armed and extremely dangerous.
You can bet your life on it, the man in the plaid recliner thought.
His heart was racing. The wire-fired shotgun was something she’d come up with, all right. A little extra effort to nail the first person through the door. But still in the Atlanta area? That he seriously doubted. She was a night traveler. Even now she was probably on the road. But going where? And why with the baby?
He reached over beside his chair. He picked up a cord with prongs on one end, the other end connected to a small black box with a speaker in it. He fit the prongs into a flesh-colored socket on his throat, and he held the black box in his right hand and clicked it on. There was a low humming noise.
“It’s you, isn’t it, Mary?” the metallic voice said through the speaker. The man’s lips moved only a bit, but his throat convulsed with the words. “It’s you, Mary. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?”
He ran the tape back and watched it a third time, his excitement mounting.
“With shotgun shells and walking hell and dead men all in a row,” he finished.
He unplugged his throat socket to save the batteries. They were expensive, and he lived on a budget. There were tears in his eyes: the bright, standing tears of great joy. He opened his mouth to laugh, and what came out was heavy metal thunder.
3
When the Candles Went Out
“READY?” NEWSOME ASKED.
Laura nodded, her eyes tear-swollen behind sunglasses as Newsome grasped the back of her wheelchair.
The elevator reached the first floor. Ramsey kept the Door Closed button pressed, but they could hear the murmur of voices beyond the door. Newsome drew a long breath, said, “Let’s do it, then,” and Ramsey released the button.
The elevator door slid open, and Newsome wheeled Laura out into the knot of reporters.
It was Sunday afternoon, almost twenty-four hours since David had been stolen. Laura was leaving the hospital without him, the torn stitches between her legs still oozing a little blood and her insides crushed with grief. In the wee hours of the morning, between three and four, her anguish had turned monstrous, and she might have taken her own life if she’d had a gun or pills. Even now, every movement and breath was a labor, as if gravity itself had become her enemy. The rain had ceased, but the sky was still plated with gray clouds and the wind had turned viciously cold. The glaring lights of minicams caught her in their crossfire. Laura ducked her face as Newsome said, “Give her room, please. Step back now,” and the security officers in the lobby tried to get between Laura and the reporters.
“Mrs. Clayborne, look this way!” someone shouted. She didn’t. “Over here, Laura!” someone else insisted. The questions were flung at her: “Has there been a ransom note yet, Laura?” “Do you think Ginger Coles was stalking you?” “Are you going to sue the hospital?” “Laura, are you afraid for your baby’s safety?”
She didn’t answer, and Newsome kept pushing the chair. Though she’d lost David’s weight, she’d never felt so burdened down. Cameras whirred, driven by electric motors. “Mrs. Clayborne, look up!” to her left. On her right, the hot focus of a minicam in her face. “Get back, I said!” Newsome demanded. Laura looked at the floor. She had been instructed by both Newsome and her own lawyer not to answer any questions, but they flew about her like squawking birds nipping at her ears. “What about the baby box?” a reporter shouted over the din. “Did you know about the burned dolls?”
The burned dolls? she thought. What was that about burned dolls? She looked up into Newsome’s face. It was closed, like a piece of stone, and he kept guiding her onward through the human sea.
“Did you know she cut an old man’s throat before she took your baby?” “What’re you feeling right now, Laura?” “Is it true she’s a member of a satanic c
ult?” “Mrs. Clayborne, did you hear that she’s insane?” “Back off!” Newsome growled, and then they’d reached the hospital’s front doors and Doug’s Mercedes was waiting beyond. Doug was striding toward her, his face drawn from lack of sleep, and her mother and father were in the car. More reporters were waiting outside, converging on her with a glee that was almost wolfish. Doug reached out to help her from the chair, but Laura ignored him. She got into the backseat with her mother, and Doug slid behind the wheel. He accelerated so quickly, a news team from the ABC station had to scatter to keep from being run down, and one of the men lost his toupee in the Mercedes’ backblast.
“They’re at the house, too,” Doug said, racing away from the hospital. “Bastards are crawling out of the woodwork.”
Laura saw that her mother wore a black dress and pearls. Was she in mourning? Laura wondered. Or dressed up for the cameras? She closed her eyes, but she saw David behind them and so she lifted the lids again. She felt as if she were bleeding internally, growing weaker and weaker. The engine drone lulled her, and sleep was a sweet refuge: her only refuge.
“The FBI’s bringing over some pictures in an hour or so,” Doug told her. “They took the police sketch you helped them with and put it into a computer that matches photos from their files. Maybe you can identify the woman.”
“She might not be in their files,” Miriam Beale said. “She might be a lunatic escaped from an asylum.”
“Hush!” Laura’s father said. Good for him, Laura thought. Then he added, “Sugarplum, let’s don’t upset Laura anymore.”
“Don’t upset her? Laura’s half crazy with worry! How can it be helped?”
Talking about me like I’m not even here, she thought. I’m invisible, gone bye-bye.
“Don’t bite my head off, hon.”
“Well, don’t sit up there telling me what to do and what not to do! My God, this is a crisis!”
Dark things stirred in Laura’s head, like beasts pulling themselves free of swamp mud. “What about the burned dolls?” she asked, her voice as raw as a wound.
No one answered.
It’s bad, Laura knew. Oh Jesus oh God oh it’s bad very bad. “I want to know. Please.”
Still, no one would rise to the challenge. Pretending I don’t know what I’m saying, she thought. “Doug?” she said. “Tell me about the burned dolls. If you don’t, I’ll find out from a reporter at the house.”
“It’s nothing.” Her mother spoke up. “They found a doll or two at the woman’s apartment.”
“Oh, Christ!” Doug slammed a fist against the wheel, and the Mercedes briefly swerved from its lane. “They found a box of dolls in a closet! They were all torn up, some of them burned and others…crushed and stuff. There! You wanted to know! All right?”
“So…” Her mind was starting to shut down again, guarding itself. “So…the police…think she might…hurt my baby?”
“Our baby!” Doug corrected her fiercely. “David is our child! I’ve got a stake in this, too, don’t I?”
“The end,” she said.
“What?” He looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“The end of Doug and Laura,” she said, and she uttered not another word.
Her mother clasped her hand with cold fingers. Laura pulled away.
The reporters were at the house, waiting. The vans were out in full force, but the police were there, too, to keep order. Doug put his hand on the horn and bellowed his way into the garage; the garage door slithered down and they were home.
As Miriam took Laura back to the bedroom to get her settled, Doug checked the answering machine. The voices he’d expected were there: NBC, CBS, ABC, People magazine, Newsweek, and other magazines and newspapers. All of them were hooked to the tape recorder left by the police to monitor a possible ransom call. But there was one voice Doug hadn’t expected. Two quick words: “Call me.” Cheryl’s voice had gone into the tape recorder, too.
He looked up, and saw Laura’s father staring at him.
Laura stood in the nursery. Miriam said, “Come on, let’s get you to bed. Come on now.”
The nursery was a haunted place. Laura heard the ghost-sounds of a baby, and she touched the brightly colored mobile over the crib and sent it gently twirling. She was crying again, the tears stinging on her chapped cheeks. She heard David crying, too, his voice waxing and falling in the little room. Stuffed animals grinned from the crib. Laura picked up a teddy bear and held it against herself, and she sobbed quietly onto its brown fur.
“Laura!” her mother said right behind her. “Come to bed this minute!”
That voice, that voice. Do what I say when I say it. Jump, Laura! Jump! Be successful, Laura! Marry someone with money and social standing! Stop wearing those awful tie-dyed blouses and bluejeans! Fix your hair like a lady! Grow up, Laura! For God’s sake, grow up!
She knew she was stretched to her limit. One more small stretch and she would snap. David was with an insane woman named Ginger Coles, who’d slashed an old man’s throat on Saturday morning and killed an FBI agent on Saturday evening. Between those two events, Laura had given her baby to murderous hands. She remembered the red crust under a fingernail. Blood, of course. The old man’s blood. That thought alone was enough to rip her off her hinges and send her shambling to a madhouse. Hang on! she thought. Dear God, hang on!
“Did you hear me?” Miriam prodded.
Laura’s crying stopped. She wiped her tears on the teddy bear, and she turned to face her mother. “This is…my house,” she said. “My house. You’re a guest here. In my house, I’ll do what I please when I please.”
“This isn’t the time to act fool—”
“LISTEN TO ME!” she screamed, and Miriam was knocked backward by the power of her daughter’s voice as surely as if she’d been punched. “Give me some room to breathe! I can’t breathe with you on my neck!”
The older woman, a scrapper, regained her cool composure. “You’re out of control,” she said. “I understand that.” Doug and Franklin were coming along the corridor. “I think you need a sedative.”
“I NEED MY BABY! THAT’S WHAT I NEED!”
“She’s losing her mind,” Miriam said matter-of-factly to her husband.
“Get out! Get out!” Laura shoved her mother, who gasped with horror at the touch, and then Laura slammed the nursery door in their three stunned faces and turned the latch.
“Want me to call the doctor?” she heard Doug ask as she leaned against the door.
“I think you’d better.” Franklin speaking.
“No, let her alone. She wants to be alone, we’ll let her be alone. Good God, I always knew she had an unstable temper! Yes, we’ll let her be alone!” Her voice was raised for her daughter’s benefit. “Franklin, call the Hyatt and get us a room! We won’t stay here and breathe down her neck!”
She almost unlocked the door. Almost. But no, it was quiet in here. It was calm. Let them go to the Hyatt, and let them sulk. She needed space, even if it had to be within these four haunted walls.
Laura sat on the floor with the teddy bear, dim light drifting through the window blinds. She had given David to a murderess. She had put her child into bloodstained hands. She closed her eyes and shrieked inside, where no one but herself could hear.
An hour or so later, there was a tentative knock at the door.
“Laura?” It was Doug. “The FBI’s here with the pictures.”
She got up, her legs in need of blood, and unlocked the nursery. The teddy bear remained clamped under her arm as she went out. In the den, she found a middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit, his hair sandy brown and cut to a stubble on the sides. He had warm brown eyes and a good smile, and Laura saw him glance quickly at the teddy bear and then pretend he hadn’t seen it. Her father had remained at the house, but her mother had retreated to the Hyatt; the battle of wills had begun.
The FBI agent’s name was Neil Kastle, “with a K,” he told her as she sat down in a chair. He had some photographs, both col
or and black and white, he wanted her to look at. He opened a manila envelope with large fingers not used to small tasks, and he spread a half-dozen pictures out on the coffee table next to a book on Matisse. They were all pictures of women, some of them face-on—mug shots—and others at an angle. There was one picture of a big, heavyset woman aiming a rifle at a bank clerk. Another showed a husky woman glancing back over her shoulder as she was getting into a black Camaro; light glinted off a pistol in her hand.
“These are women from our Most Wanted list,” Kastle told her. “Six of them who match Ginger Coles in size, age, and build. We put the police sketch in our computer and assigned the variables, and that’s what we came up with.”
One of the women, tall and blond-haired, wore bell bottoms, an American-flag belt, and a green paisley blouse. She was grinning broadly, and she held a hand grenade. “Some of them are old,” Laura said.
“Right. They go back…oh…twenty years or so.”
“You’ve been looking for some of these women for twenty years?” Franklin asked, peering over Laura’s shoulder.
“One of them, yes. One’s from the late seventies, one’s from 1983, and the other three are from 1985 to the present.”
“What crimes did they do?” Franklin persisted.
“An assortment,” Kastle said. “Look at those good and hard, Mrs. Clayborne.”
“They look alike to me. All of them: same size, same everything.”
“Their names and statistics are on the back.”
Laura turned over the picture of the bank robber. Margie Cummings, AKA Margie Grimes, AKA Linda Kay Souther, AKA Gwen Becker. Height 5 feet 101/2, hair brown, eyes blue-green, birthplace Orren, Kentucky. She looked at the back of the black Camaro picture: Sandra June McHenry, AKA Susan Foster, AKA June Foster. Height 5 feet 9, hair brown, eyes gray, birthplace Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
“Why do you think it might be one of these women?” Franklin asked. “Couldn’t it just be…like…a crazy woman or somebody you don’t even know about?”