Eleven Days (12 page)
“That’s okay. Really. Happens a lot. People think we’re deliberately withholding information that we don’t actually have. Happens a lot. They always think we know more than we do. Sort of flattering, in a way.”
“I just am so worried about the baby.”
“So am I, Helen, so am I.”
We could hear Hal in the other room, talking on the phone to Hester. He was telling her where Rachel worked, and to get down there and find her.
“I didn’t see the baby, or any baby gear, in the house, Helen.”
“Oh, I suppose not.”
“You suppose not?”
“I haven’t seen the baby for quite a while.”
“Then why do you think something happened to it?”
“Because I’ve seen Rachel.”
“Without the baby?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Her lip started to quiver again. “And I’m afraid something happened to her. That they did something to her.”
Get in here, Hal. Please, get in here.
“Who’s they, Helen?”
“That damned Sirken and the one they call Darkness.”
“Who the hell is Darkness?”
“I don’t know. Just that that’s what they call him.”
“Hey, Hal!”
He stuck his head around the corner, the phone to his right ear, and held up his hand for me to hold on for a moment, then disappeared around the doorway again.
“Helen, Hal should hear this.”
She nodded. “The baby’s name was Cynthia …” and started to cry again. “Excuse me,” she sobbed, and headed back to the bathroom.
Hal came back to the table as she was disappearing down the hall.
“She crying again?”
“Yeah, listen, she thinks something happened to the baby a few months ago, and there is a guy named Darkness who is also in the group, and she thinks that he did something to it, along with Sirken.”
Hal just stood there for a second. “Jesus Christ, I was only gone a minute!”
I lit my fifth cigarette of the interview and just closed my eyes for a second. My head was starting to ache again. Damn.
“Well, I sent Hester to find Rachel. She’s going to call back as soon as she locates her. She’ll call your office first, and if we’re still here, I gave her this number. This is getting a little too complicated.”
“Yeah, but it’s good information.”
He asked me, in a lowered voice, if I thought that Helen was involved more than she was letting on. I said that I didn’t know.
“How reliable is she?”
“Pretty reliable, I think.”
Helen returned to the table, apologizing again.
“That’s all right, Helen,” said Hal. “Just take your time, there’s no rush here.”
Hal led the conversation slowly back to Darkness and
the infant, starting by telling Helen that Hester was looking into the whereabouts of Rachel in Iowa City, and that he was sure that she would find her. He also said that he thought the baby might have just been left in Iowa City with a sitter, that that was common practice, and that Helen might be worried for no reason.
She didn’t agree. She’d talked with Rachel several times while she was pregnant, and twice after the baby had been born.
“She just thought of it as a sort of job she had to do. Like it was a burden that she had to bear. I asked her a couple of times if she was going to adopt it out, because it was pretty obvious she didn’t really want it.”
“What did she say about that?”
“She said that she couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?”
“Couldn’t.”
“Why was that, you think?”
“I don’t know. But she was just sort of, well, dull, if you know what I mean. Dull, no luster, no excitement about the child.”
I was busy taking notes and had just written one to remind myself to check with hospitals to get the birth record of the child. Helen apparently could read at an angle.
“She wasn’t born in the hospital, Carl.”
“What?”
“Don’t check hospitals, it won’t help. She was born at Phyllis’s house.”
“When was that?” asked Hal.
“Just a minute, let me check my calendar. Sometime in late November.”
She went to a kitchen drawer and came back with a calendar. Most of the date boxes had penciled-in notations, the ones I could see having things to do with the farm—veterinary appointments, farm supply dealers, etc.
“Here it is … November 24th. ‘Rachel-baby.’ ”
Hal looked at the calendar.
“Now, Helen,” he said, “what about this Darkness individual?”
Helen visibly composed herself. “I hate him. So did Phyllis.”
“Why?”
She began to explain, slowly at first, and gaining speed as she went.
“He was behind it all, I think. The leader of everything. He made them do everything. He made the decisions for them, all of them. And they did what he wanted.”
“Can you give us an example?”
“I can give hundreds.” She thought for a moment. “He was the one who told Phyllis to come here in the first place.”
“He did?”
“Yes. He told her to get a job in a rural area, anyway. Not to be employed in the city. It was hard for her, because there aren’t as many jobs out here, you know. It took her a while, but that’s what she did.”
“She told you this?”
“Yes. A few months ago. I asked her why she had come here, because she didn’t like it here, you know. Neither did her son, Gary. So I asked her why, and she told me that Darkness had made her do it.”
“Did you know about Darkness before then?”
“Oh, yes.”
It turned out that Helen had first heard about Darkness when she asked Phyllis once about why she was depressed. After Phyllis had hinted around to Helen that she participate in their little group. About six months ago, or around October.
Helen really had meant it when she said that she didn’t know much about this dude. What she did know was that he was male, and a dominant personality. That he lived within a hundred miles, no further, of Phyllis’s house. An
interpretation gained from the fact that he would be said to be leaving wherever he was coming from on a Friday, for example, and would be there on Friday night. She had no idea what he did for a living, but said that the impression she got was that he was pretty intelligent. And very forceful.
“Did they ever refer to him and another at the same time?”
“I don’t understand, Carl.”
“I mean, did they ever say anything like Darkness and so-and-so will be coming. Like he was married?”
“I don’t remember that …”
“Did you ever meet him?” asked Hal.
“No, I never did. I thought I might have seen him once, when I went over to their place. I tried to call first, because Phyllis was pretty private, you know, but the line was busy all morning, so I went over to ask her if she was all right. It was a Saturday, I remember that. And Rachel answered the door, and I saw a man inside.”
“What did he look like?”
“I really couldn’t tell. It was in December, and there was a lot of snow on the ground, you know, and it was a bright, clear day, and I could hardly see inside the house. But Rachel wouldn’t let me in.”
“What did you see?”
“Well, he was sitting down, in the living room. He looked pretty big, to me, for a sitting man. And he had a beard.”
“What color?”
“I don’t know.”
“Light or dark?”
“Dark. And a turtleneck.” She smiled at Hal. “Dark.”
“Thanks.”
“But Rachel was very nervous, and I just knew it was him.”
“You drove?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you notice any unusual car at their place? One that wasn’t theirs?”
“Oh, yes. I didn’t tell you. Yes, he drove a big, black car, kind of like our old Mercury, but newer.” She smiled shyly. “I suppose that was what made me think it was him, too.”
“The car?”
“Yes. I knew not to go there when he was there, and I knew it was his car. When I drove in, I knew he was there then, I guess. But I was curious about him, I suppose.”
“I suppose.”
“And it made Phyllis a little mad. She really liked me, but she was upset the next time I saw her. She didn’t say anything specific, actually. But I knew I shouldn’t have done it, and I really felt bad about it.”
“Why’s that?”
“I got the feeling that he had been pretty hard on her for it.”
“Just a feeling?”
“Yes. Just a feeling.”
“She didn’t say anything, or look like she had been abused, or anything?”
“No. But it really made me think yesterday, I’ll tell you that.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes. He came back. Drove by Phyllis’s place and turned around in our driveway.”
“He was here yesterday?”
“Yes, he was.”
By this time, it was all I could do not to jump up and look out the window.
“What time was this?”
“Oh, it was just after dark. About six-thirty or so.”
We just sort of took a break then. By mutual consensus. Helen put on another pot of coffee. I looked at my watch, and it was 16:36. A little while, we’d be eating supper out here.
The phone rang, Helen answered it, and said, “Yes, he is, just a sec. It’s for you, Carl.”
It was Lamar. “What the hell you doing out there? We’ve been trying to call you at home all afternoon. You’re on sick leave.”
“Yeah, well sort of a guide and making introductions.”
“Greeley could find it himself.”
“Well, it’s not too strenuous … How you comin’ on the burglaries?”
“Not good. Don’t change the subject. You having any luck there?”
“Oh yes, yes we are. Yes.”
“Really?”
“You bet. Quite a lot.”
“Fill me in?”
“Not just yet …”
“Before you go home and be sick, get ahold of me.”
“Oh, yeah. No doubt there.”
I hung up and turned to Hal.
“That was Lamar. He was a little pissy because I’m on the injured list, and he thinks I should be home.”
“I meant to ask you about your head,” said Helen. “What happened?”
“Oh, somebody hit me with something.”
“It looks like it would hurt.”
“It does. Sometimes.”
“It wasn’t Sue, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t Sue.” Helen was a lot more pleasant than I’d remembered her from high school.
The phone rang again, and this time Helen gave it to Hal. While he talked, so did we.
“How do you like your job, Carl?”
“It’s okay, I guess, I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody, but it’s all right.”
“I never would have thought you’d be a cop, back when we were kids.”
“Me either.”
“In fact, of all the things I ever thought you’d be, this is probably the last one I would have picked.”
“That makes two of us.” I took a sip of coffee. Helen made very good coffee. Strong. “The same for you, too. I always thought you’d end up a professional woman, a doctor or lawyer?”
“Well, these things happen.”
“Yeah, they do.”
“Did you get hurt at work?”
“Yeah. Kind of dumb. Like I always tell Sue, whenever I get hurt it’s more than likely it’s my fault.”
She pushed the plate of cookies, recently refilled, toward me across the table. “You just don’t think of cops getting hurt around here … it bothers me that you got hurt, you know. I think you’re too nice to get hurt.” She smiled.
“Well, there’s at least one person who doesn’t agree with you.”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it? Who was it, by the way?”
Hal came back to the table. “That was Gorse. She’s been busy.” He sat down.
Rachel hadn’t been at work since last Thursday. Would have been the 18th. Didn’t work Fridays or the weekend, but was supposed to have shown up Monday afternoon. Didn’t. Hester had also found out where she lived in Iowa City. She wasn’t there, either. Not particularly unusual, and she might return any minute. Iowa City PD had a man watching her apartment. She was still checking into her background and would be doing interviews with her coworkers and any friends. Finding people in Iowa City is not easy.
The
putt-putt
of a tractor intruded into the dining room.
“That’ll be Fred,” said Helen. Her husband. “Please don’t tell him what I’ve told you. He doesn’t know about a lot of this, but he hated them up there.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” said Hal. “But we do have some more questions … would you be more comfortable talking at the office?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Why don’t I call you tomorrow and make an appointment?”
The tractor noise was stationary, and pretty close. There was heavy stomping on the back porch, as Fred cleaned his boots. Then the back door opened, and he came in. He was wearing a dun-colored coat, with a hat with earflaps down over his ears. He was medium height, large but solid, with a florid face.
He didn’t say a word, just looked at us.
“You know Carl,” said Helen. “And this is Mr. Greeley, he works for the state.” She turned to us. “This is my husband, Fred.”
I said, “Hi, Fred.”
Hal stuck out his hand. Fred took it reluctantly.
“You here about that business?” said Fred, gesturing toward Herkaman’s place with his head. More of a statement than a question.
“Yes.”
“I sort of wondered when you’d show up.”
“Takes a long time to talk to all the neighbors,” said Hal.
“I guess.”
“What do you know about them, Fred? Your wife has been helpful, but she doesn’t seem to know too much about them, at all.”
“Not much, uh, Greeley, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Just that they were the sort who kept to themselves a lot. Not real friendly.” He turned to Helen. “When’s supper?”
“Soon.”
“Good, I’m starved.”
“What do you think about all this, Fred?” I asked.
“I think you better arrest somebody pretty soon.”
“So do we, Fred,” said Hal.
“Can you tell us anything about them?” I asked.
He was still standing just inside the kitchen. He wanted us to leave.
“Not much. They were quiet. Different.”
“You ever talk to them?”
“Just to say hello.”
“Any idea who might have done this?”
“Nope.”
Helen looked embarrassed.
“Well,” I said, trying to help her out, “you’re not any more help than Helen.”
He didn’t say anything.