Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre (9 page)

highway. Wasn’t that a pity. And what the hell were they supposed

to do, with some naked chick showing up like that? They weren’t

Boy Scouts, and this wasn’t the annual jamboree. So they gave her a blanket and a couple pulls on a bottle of screw-top red, and then she took herself a few hits of herb. What was supposed to happen next?

Didn’t the same thing happen, everywhere? Nature took its course.

When he finished up his tale, Ben hit the STOP button on the

little cassette recorder we used for interviews. I escorted Mr. Bare Ass back to his cell, then met up with Ben in his office.

“That guy couldn’t shut himself up if you gave him a rubber plug

and a roll of duct tape,” Ben said.

[66] THE MUMMY'S HEART

“Yeah . . . but when I think about what they did to that girl. Man.

Sometimes I just don’t know. Talk about a guy who deserves a beating.

Walking him back to his cell, it was all I could do to stop myself from ramming his head into the wall. Take my badge if you want to, but I really wanted to knock the teeth right out of his mouth.”

“Oh, he’ll have his beating coming . . . and worse. You can bank

on that. I’m sure he’s got a full-course menu of pain and humiliation ahead of him.”

“Where?”

“In prison.” Ben smiled. “They’ve got plenty of experts in there.”

He grabbed his keys off the table.

“Now let’s go check on that girl.”

And that’s what we did.

Walking into that hospital room with
Jane Doe
taped on the door, it was almost like seeing her for the first time. The night I’d rescued her was a blur, and there were really only two things I remembered about her—her eyes, which were wide and terrified. And the trail of bloody burns the bikers had left on her body with those road flares, as if they’d wanted to leave her with a set of brands that marked a trail of pain she’d never forget.

Ben had already called an ambulance by the time I got her out of

the lake. We carried her up the access road and met the paramedics where we’d blocked the road with the police cruiser. Maybe two

minutes later, the ambulance doors closed and she was gone. That

was the last we saw of her until the hospital visit.

A couple days rest had done her some good. She actually smiled at

us as we came through the door. We talked for a while, just chit-chat.

Nice day . . . nice room . . . oh, you’ve got a great view here . . . and look at
that little birdbath out on the patio. That’s nice.
I was surprised to find how pretty she was. Especially her eyes. They were dark pools, deep brown, and they shone beneath long bangs that were the same color.

Ben asked her some questions. He was patient. He had to be,

because she really didn’t have any answers. After a while she said,

“I’m sorry I can’t be more help. I’m still kind of tired. The doctors say things might be better after I get some rest.”

NORMAN PARTRIDGE [67]

“Okay,” Ben said. “You take care of yourself. If there’s anything

you think of, just give us a call.” He handed her his card. “Anything you need, too. We’ll be right here if you need us.”

After that, there wasn’t much else for Ben to say.

But she had something to say, and she looked at me when she

said it.

“They tell me you saved my life, and I remember that.”

I nodded.

“It’s the one thing I do remember. I didn’t forget you.”

She stared at me.

“I won’t ever forget you.”

She didn’t blink. I was about to say something stupid, like I was

just doing my job, but then she said something else.

Something I’ll never forget.

Her eyes were bright pools beneath those dark bangs as she spoke.

“I tell myself there are other things I’ll remember,” she said. “Right now I’m waiting for them, like I was waiting for you. Underwater.”

And maybe that’s the way it was. I didn’t know. There was a lot we didn’t know about the young woman in the hospital room with
Jane Doe
on the door. Some of the hospital staffers thought she knew more than she was saying. Not so much the doctors, but a couple of the nurses definitely felt that way. One of them even said the girl was in on the dope deal, and that she was just putting on an act until she could get free and clear. Ben and I didn’t buy any of that, and for one simple reason—our Jane Doe just didn’t act like any biker chick we’d ever seen.

The doctors weren’t much help. One dealt the
amnesia
card on the table; another wouldn’t even use the word. He said that diagnosis was out of his league. And, who knew, it could have been that foul-mouthed biker wasn’t far off the mark. Maybe the young woman was

some cast-off flower child, left by the side of the road after a literal and figurative bad trip of epic proportions. Or maybe the bikers had snatched her off some college campus, dosed her up and kept her that way until she couldn’t even see straight. We could have speculated until the wheels came off, but no amount of guessing was going to

get us to the truth.

[68] THE MUMMY'S HEART

Me, I found another answer. It came in a dream . . . or it might

have been a nightmare. I wasn’t sure which.

It was 1963 again. That same Halloween night. I was a kid all over again, battling a mummy, trying to save a little girl. She hit the water, and I dove in. Only this time, things ended differently.

This time, underwater, I reached out and found a hand. It seemed

small, but not like a child’s hand. I took hold of it and kicked to the surface, and I came up in sunlight.

In that moment, things changed.

We weren’t kids, either of us.

It was a woman I’d saved, and I was a man.

I carried her to shore. We were all alone.

“I didn’t forget you,” she said, looking up at me. “I won’t ever

forget you.”

And then our eyes closed, and our lips met, and we were like that, together. The wind rose around us. I could smell the clean, cold scent of the eucalyptus grove, hear the dry leaves rattling in the breeze.

And when our lips parted, I felt calm . . . as calm as I’d felt in a long, long time.

Then I looked behind me and saw the dead thing standing at the

edge of the eucalyptus grove, watching us. Charlie Steiner smiled, and blood bubbled over his lips. He was still dressed up in his Halloween clothes. Still playing the part of the thing he wanted to be . . . and the thing that would get him what he wanted.

His words were slurred around the bloody remains of his tongue.

“It takes a long time for a dead girl to grow into a princess,” Charlie said, “and this one is mine.”

Then he raised his bloody hand.

And he started forward.

My shoulder healed up fast, but that dream stuck with me. Sometimes it made it tough to be in the Steiner house, though I tried to stay busy and wear myself out with work. I tore out drywall, started on the electrical. That kept me going. A lot of nights, exhaustion kept the dreams at bay. Other nights I’d go to bed, and I wouldn’t sleep at all. I’d listen to the wind outside, waiting for a sound that didn’t NORMAN PARTRIDGE [69]

belong. And when I did sleep (and sleep deeply), it didn’t turn out well, because Charlie Steiner was waiting for me.

“She’s my dream,” he’d say, his mouth bubbling blood. “Not yours.

Mine.”

And so I’d get up and work. I’d walk around the house, listening

to the floorboards creak, wondering if they’d creaked that way for Charlie when he was on the road to insanity. That wasn’t a good way to think. Sometimes I’d grab Roger’s old Louisville Slugger and use it to take out some drywall. That made a mess, but at least it worked off some energy, and it felt good. Then I’d clean it up and do some real work. And, eventually, I’d sleep.

Sometimes working with the Slugger, I’d imagine that I bashed in

a wall and found the missing pages from Charlie Steiner’s notebook tucked between the wall studs. I’d wonder what those missing pages would say, and what they’d tell me, if they told me anything.

I’d wonder if it would be anything I didn’t already know.

I didn’t think so.

See, by then I understood Charlie Steiner pretty well.

There wasn’t really anything I could do about any of it. I didn’t think talking would be a good idea. I wasn’t good at talking. The way I was built, I figured there wasn’t much to do but ride it out.

So that’s what I tried to do. But maybe I wasn’t the only one

pushing my way through a bad patch. I didn’t see Jane Doe again

after that day at the hospital, but I heard a lot about her. For a few weeks her picture was in all the papers. The story even made the

national news a couple of nights running. But no one came forward

to ID her. No relatives, no friends, no co-workers. It was as if she’d come from nowhere.

Or out of a dream.

That’s when the gossip geared up. A tabloid ran an article, “The

Lady in the Lake.” That got them through the first week. By the

second, they’d dredged up the old Terror of Butcher’s Lake stories about Charlie Steiner. A few of them even mentioned me. They ran

with that until the story cooled off, and then they found something else.

[70] THE MUMMY'S HEART

Of course, that wasn’t the end of it around here. The local chatter started up, and it was running strong by the time the young woman

was released from the hospital. Some of the nurses had taken to

calling her “Ananka” behind her back. And maybe she’d heard them.

Maybe that’s why she took the name “Ana Jones.”

Anyway, Ana walked out of the hospital. She walked into town

and found a studio apartment with some money a few of the doctors

had raised for her. Pretty soon she was working at a roadhouse out by the state highway. A place called The Double Shot.

She worked swings, same as I did. Mornings she had to herself.

Nights, too. Sometimes I’d drive by The Double Shot toward the end of my shift, thinking I’d stop in and say hello. See how she was doing.

Then I’d remember what she said to me, and how her words had

frozen me up. I’d remember the look in her eyes, and I’d remember

Charlie Steiner’s words. And I wouldn’t stop. I don’t even know why, exactly, but I wouldn’t.

I felt like I had to figure things out before I could talk to her

again. Sometimes it seemed things were coming full circle, and other times I felt like I was just going around and around like a cat chasing its own tail. Maybe life (and fate) were doing the same things. Which is another way of saying that the wind blew in different directions, and it definitely had me in its grip.

I don’t know how those times were for Ana. For me, the nights

remained the worst part. Even if I didn’t dream, Charlie Steiner was waiting there behind my eyelids. Some nights Ana was waiting there, too.

Things stayed that way for a while. Some mornings I’d get up

early and go for a run on the dirt road that ran along the lakeshore.

Sometimes on my way back I’d take that familiar cutoff down to the water, just to stare out at the lake. I’d listen to the wind whispering through the eucalyptus, and try to convince myself that there was

nothing there at all.

Sometimes I’d take that road and find that there was already

someone else down by the water.

Sitting, watching, listening.

Ana Jones.

NORMAN PARTRIDGE [71]

I didn’t talk to her.

I left her alone.

I left most everyone alone.

Things settled into a routine. Not a pleasant one, but a routine. Six weeks like that, maybe seven. I still wasn’t sleeping much, and I wasn’t really trying anymore. It just didn’t feel right, and like I said, I didn’t like what was waiting in my head when I tried to sleep.

So I’d bang nails during the day, replacing dry rot around the

doors and windows. Then I’d go to work at the cop shop. Walked in

one afternoon, and Ben Cross was waiting for me.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

“Ancient history, Ben. The bullet didn’t dig deep. I’m all healed up.”

“Really?”

“Well, I don’t sleep on it, if that’s what you mean. But, hell,

Ben . . . I’m fine. It’s not like I ended up face down in a campfire, like that biker did.”

“Let me be straight with you: I’m thinking you should take yourself a couple weeks off. Rest. Relax. Rehab. We’ll take a break from working on the house. I won’t come around, and you won’t bang nails.”

“C’mon, Ben—”

“No arguments. Go to the gym. Drink some beer and eat some

barbecue. Get laid. Do whatever it is you young guys do these days.”

“Really, Ben. It’s no problem. If I’m screwing something up, I’ll fix it. Just give me some time.”

“If you were screwing up, we’d be having a different conversation.”

“Fair enough.”

“The thing is, I don’t want you screwing anything up . . . and I

think we’re getting to a point where you might.”

“Okay. That’s plain enough. But—”

Ben put up a hand. “No ‘buts.’ Two weeks off, pardner. Sick leave.

You get paid, and you hang on to your vacation time. As far as I’m concerned, that’s doctor’s orders, and the clock starts ticking right now.”

“All right, boss.”

“That sounds better,” Ben said, and we shook on it. “Like I said,

[72] THE MUMMY'S HEART

I’d better not catch you pounding any goddamn nails, either. Get out of that goddamn house.”

Of course, I didn’t take Ben’s advice. I went right back to the Steiner place. I holed up there like a grizzly with a toothache. It wasn’t the best move I’ve ever made. I might as well have barricaded the door.

Around that time, my phone started ringing more often. I didn’t

answer it. Ben and I had hooked up a police radio in the house, so I knew it wasn’t someone calling from the cop shop. If Ben wanted me, he would have called on the squawk-box.

For my part, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone . . . especially another tabloid reporter. I was even avoiding my family. You could get away with that in those days. It was easier to check out of the game for a while. People didn’t walk around with phones in their