Authors: Nevada Barr
13 1/2 (26 page)
When she saw it was free of snakes and three-quarters full of papers thrown in willy-nilly the anxiety didn’t lessen. Wishing she could walk away and accepting that she couldn’t, she gave up her stick, carried the papers to better light by one of the windows, and looked at the uppermost page: handwritten, no date, no name. She read the first line.
“I spend most of the time wondering if it feels good to kill people. A rush like good weed or what? And little kids, are they more fun? Killing them feel different?” Nearly the same words on the page in Red’s sepulcher. Had that been copied from this? Or a theme revisited?
Polly retrieved the page found at the tarot reader’s from her pocket and laid the pieces of paper side by side. The writing was not identical but that proved nothing either way. One’s own signature differs from signing to signing.
Polly flipped to the next. “I had the dream again last night. Blood all over me so fresh it’s warm, and me, laughing like a lunatic.”
And the next.
“Why an axe? Because you get more splatter? The only noise is screaming? It’s macho?”
“I think about killing all the time—I mean
all
the time. Day and night. I guess once wasn’t enough. Not like I’m jonesing to do it again, just thinking about it.”
all
the time. Day and night. I guess once wasn’t enough. Not like I’m jonesing to do it again, just thinking about it.”
The pages were not numbered and were in no apparent order. Some of the paper was college ruled, some wide ruled; some was graph paper. The random journaling of a deranged mind.
A deranged mind expressing itself in her husband’s handwriting.
Nausea took root in her, a poisonous plant with fast-growing vines, so harsh and voracious it doubled her over
.
Vomit burned the top of her throat. Her heart pounded bruisingly against her ribs. She made it to an old, cushionless wicker chair, collapsed, and hung her head between her knees.
.
Vomit burned the top of her throat. Her heart pounded bruisingly against her ribs. She made it to an old, cushionless wicker chair, collapsed, and hung her head between her knees.
Blanking her mind, Polly reined in the organs of her body bent on flying out of her mouth. Breathing in and breathing out, she slowed her heart. Self-preservation had always been strong in her, but never had it been as strong as after Gracie was born. Alone, Polly could fail; she could be severely injured; she could even accept dying. With two of the most precious little girls in the world depending on her, she looked both ways before she crossed streets and took her vitamins.
Emma and Gracie would not be back from the zoo until three-thirty. Marshall seldom got home before nine. Upstairs, she was guaranteed privacy and air-conditioning, but the idea of carting a box filled with sickness into the space where her daughters played was anathema. In life, there were poisons for which there was no antidote, filth no amount of Clorox could clean up. Mothers did not keep these things under the sink where children could get into them.
Polly compromised by bringing the box to the rear stairs where there was enough light to read. Sitting on the first tiny landing beneath the window where the narrow stairwell made its first twist, the file carton between her feet, she stared through the dirty glass into the backyard. Flowers were in full autumn glory. The garden’s lushness, shadow filled with color, usually soothed her. Now, she saw only steamy fecund overgrowth, dead flies on the windowsill, a spider waiting in its web to suck the life out of her neighbors.
With a repressed shudder, she turned her attention back to the carton and lifted a pile of newspaper and magazine clippings and computer printouts onto her lap.
“The Boston Boy Fiend,” “Bad Seed Kills Toddlers,” “Murder for Kicks,” “Jury Unconvinced in Phillips’ Case,” “Raines Indicted for Family Slaughter,” “BTK Killer Confesses,” “Speck ‘at Home’ in Prison.”
The stories chronicled children killing children, children killing parents or neighbors, wives killing husbands, mothers killing their babies, brothers killing sisters, Bundy and Speck and Gacy and Dahmer killing everybody.
“The Boston Boy Fiend” was a mimeograph—something she’d not seen for years—of an article written in 1874. “The Boston Boy Fiend has struck again, and the great tragedy is that this little girl did not have to die. After this beast in boy’s clothing confessed and was convicted of killing four-year-old Horace Mullen and sexually torturing seven others, he was released early by a reform school board that chose to ignore the court’s warnings. He has now been convicted of the brutal death of a ten-year-old neighbor girl.”
In fading blue ink, next to “sexually torturing seven . . . ” was scribbled in Marshall’s idiosyncratic hand, “Why didn’t I do this?” and “Incest or pedophilia, take your pick.”
Nausea, temporarily quiescent, raged back. Eyes closed, Polly rode it out until the danger of vomiting or running screaming from the house abated, then pushed on.
“Bad Seed Kills Toddlers.” Another mimeograph. “1968 England” was penciled at the top of the page. “Eleven-year-old Mary Flora Bell, ‘Fanny’ of ‘Fanny and Faggot,’ as they styled themselves, was today convicted of two counts of manslaughter for the slayings of two toddlers, one gone missing and believed to have perished of an accident three months previously, and the second, found four weeks later, dead of strangulation, the body mutilated.”
“Two toddlers” was underlined. In the margin Marshall had written, “Two? Shoot, and I thought I was the record holder.” Then, “Why little kids? Because they’re so easy?”
“Murder for Kicks” was clipped from a newspaper. No date, but the paper had discolored with age. “According to the testimony, Cindy Collins, age fifteen, and Shirley Wolf, age fourteen, were trying doors in their apartment building. They’d planned to get keys and steal a car, they said. An elderly woman let them in. Shirley Wolf confessed to pulling the woman’s head back by the hair and stabbing her to death. An autopsy report said the victim had been stabbed twenty-eight times. Both Wolf and Collins told the court that they thought the murder was “a kick.”
Scrawled at the bottom of the page was, “Stab an old dame for the fun of it. Kill for fun. That ought to stick in your mind.”
The sun moved down the sky. Heat and glare poured through the window. Sweat stuck Polly’s hair to her forehead and cheeks, glued her clothes to her skin. Flies battered against the window glass, a desperate buzzing that ran along her nerves like electricity.
The next article was headlined, “The Real Amityville Horror.”
An image of her home crawling with bloated flies flared up, so real she cried out. In true nightmare fashion, she couldn’t move; her legs would not lift her. She could no more escape that stairwell than could the flies.
She lifted out the rest of the newsprint and set it down beside her, unread. Beneath were scraps of pages, halves, or thirds, or quarters—not torn but cut clean with a razorblade or scissors. None had number sequences. Or if they had, they were cut off. A handful contained only a line or two of text.
“ . . . the cat was dead, our old Ginger cat, and when I looked, her guts were all over my hands . . . I drown them . . . anybody tries to stop you, you just shoot them . . . I went from room to room and they were all full of blood; I started to laugh . . . When the other guys heard what I’d done, they looked . . . If I ever get a chance to do it again . . . fucked from the start . . . I had a knife in my hand, and I was chasing . . . mass murder. I can see myself doing that . . . biting chunks of flesh out . . . murders. Sure . . . ”
The scraps ran on in that vein unceasingly. Their deep-rooted sickness twined in through Polly’s eyes to her mind and she hated that she was a member of a race capable of such cruelty.
Further down, some pages were whole. Judging by paper type and ink color—or in some cases pencil—they were written on different days, maybe in different years. Sentence construction and uneven letter size suggested a young writer.
A young Marshall Marchand.
“Monster” and “child” were not antithetical to Polly.
Lord of the Flies. The Bad Seed.
Lord of the Flies. The Bad Seed.
She picked up what looked to be the earliest writing, the oldest paper, the penciled letters awkward: “John List. Killed wife, mother, and three kids. 1971. Sure. I can see killing like this. This List guy had God on his side. That makes it work for him. He wants out of this family thing. He’s pussy-whipped, and his mother’s a nag, and he doesn’t have the balls to leave . . . ”
The next was in faded ballpoint:
“They just did what they wanted. Took what they wanted. Then died in a blaze of glory. That looks pretty good from where I sit.”
And again ink:
“Shooting the family starts to look pretty good. Sane even. Until you get to the kids. Maybe he figures they aren’t quite people; with eight of them they wouldn’t seem like an endangered species exactly, just a housecleaning issue.”
There was more but Polly put the papers and articles back into the carton and replaced the lid.
Pandora repenting too late.
Pandora repenting too late.
The writing was sick-making, violent, boastful, gloating, heartless, the profile of a man without a soul, a ghoul who gloried in causing harm. They were horrific. But Polly was not as shattered as she thought she should be. Having read critically countless thousands of passages, she couldn’t but see the contradictions in this—she sought a word—collection? Grouping? Opus?
The voice in the writing had been directed at the reader—no, at an internal judge. Perhaps they had been written during a period of severe abuse and meant to be read by an abuser or a therapist or aloud in a group therapy situation.
The span of time over which they were written suggested an outside influence, someone who required the pieces. The earlier words smacked of the braggadocio of a vicious killer preening, comparing himself to his godforsaken heroes, but they were childish in style and content. The comments written in subsequent years were oddly detached, as if jotted by an actor preparing to play a role, making notes, a character study of evil.
Or by a monster seeking to find where, in a monstrous universe, he fit. Seeking . . .
“Seeking to kill little kids,” she interrupted her thought aloud. “Wake up and smell the corpses, Pollyanna,” she snapped.
This wasn’t a Frankenstein monster of literature to be parsed and analyzed; this was her husband boasting that he “thought he was the record holder,” her beloved Mr. Marchand asking, “Why little kids? Because they’re easy?” The man who came to bed with her each night, wondering why he hadn’t sexually tortured seven children.
Tears began, then burned away. Sobs started, then froze in her throat. Her hands came up to cover her face, then fell helplessly onto her thighs. Anger flashed. By its lurid light she could see the fear at the back of her mind.
Like drops of quicksilver held on the palm, emotions slid away when she tried to touch them.
“This is real,” Polly said, and her voice was as tiny and sweet as Emma’s.
But not as innocent.
The absurdly delicate and graceful gold wristwatch Marshall had given her suggested it was close on two o’clock. The watch was beautiful and, like a true femme fatale, did not need to be exactly on time. The girls would be back in ninety minutes. Gracie was old enough that Polly could leave the two of them unattended for a little while, but she did not want them left alone.
What if Marshall came home?
She nearly gagged on the thought. Sweat was sticky on her skin. Flies lit on her arms and buzzed close to her eyes. Her legs were stiff. Her back ached as she forced herself up from the narrow step as if she’d been hunkered there a day instead of an hour. Still unwilling to allow the carton into the house, she left it in the utility area at the top of the stairs with the dryer lint and dirty laundry.
She showered, dressed in fresh clothes, and applied lipstick. In the kitchen, she scribbled a note for Marshall. “The girls and I will be staying with Martha.” That done, she called Gracie’s cell phone. “Honeybunch, can you get Mrs. Fortunas to take you and Emma to Aunt Martha’s instead of home? No, no, baby. Everything’s alright. I’ll explain later. Thank you, sugar.”
She gathered up the carton and headed down the basement stairs.
Danny was waiting at the bottom step.
“I thought that might be you,” he said with a smile.
The box in Polly’s hands grew as heavy as if she carried a decapitated head.
“What’ve you got there?” he asked mildly.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. The startled look on his face reminded her that the box contained only bits of paper, that she was a respectable woman passing through her own cellar.
He held out his hands for the file carton. “Do you need any help with that?” he asked politely.
The box jerked.
Danny laughed. “Did you get Gracie that kitten after all?”
“Kitten?” Polly said stupidly. Then it came to her, the kitten Gracie wanted for her birthday. “No kitten,” she said. “Just some papers Marshall wanted me to bring by the office.”
Reflexively, she glanced at the folded-back tarpaulin where she had taken the box from the pile. Danny followed her glance and she saw a flicker of emotion in his face, a rigidity that moved from his lips to his cheeks; a smile aborted or a sour thought too close to the surface.
He knows,
Polly thought.
The telltale heart. Edgar Allen Poe was a genius.
Polly thought.
The telltale heart. Edgar Allen Poe was a genius.
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