Evil Behind That Door (6 page)
Barry had barricaded it up. The crowbar was jammed against it. Two-by-fours were nailed across it at crazy angles from top to bottom. It would take an hour to pry them loose. While Barry drank himself deeper into blackness at the Lion's Head.
My thoughts raced. I could just forget the whole thing. Bury the wooden bin somewhere in the yard. Bury the secret of Louie's death with it. No one would know, except Barry and me. And Barry sure as hell wouldn't be telling.
But Aunt Penny would know. So would Frank Leger. He was too lazy to make an issue of it, but it might slip out someday. As a happy-hour joke.
Or he might mention it to Constable Swan.
That did it. Constable Swan believed in the truth. She believed in doing the right thing. I might not be high on her list of cool guys, but I wasn't at the bottom anymore either. She smiled now when she saw me. That was worth everything.
Picking up the crowbar, I began to pry the two-by-fours off. Before long I was sweating. Barry had put at least ten nails into each end. No way evil was getting out. I pried and shoved and pulled and cursed. All the time I could hear the wind wailing around the house. Like a haunting.
I popped the last board off and tossed the crowbar aside. Pulled open the door. Cold rushed out. Its fingers curled around me. I jumped back with a gasp. Get a grip, O'Toole! It's not a ghost. I shone the flashlight inside. It was empty.
I grabbed the bin and stepped into the dark. I felt like dumping the whole thing on the ground and running back out. But I tried to remember how everything had been laid out. The cops would need to know that. I picked up the little bones to put the cloth underneath. They felt clammy in my hands from the cold earth.
Thunder cracked. I jumped. Listened. I heard another sound. A rumble. More thunder? A car? I scooped the skull out of the bin. Heard the front door bang open.
Fuck! He was here! I dropped the skull on the floor and scrambled out the door.
“O'Toole!”
His voice bellowed through the house. I could hear the rage. The booze. I looked around for a place to hide, but it was no use. He'd seen my bike for sure. I grabbed the storage room door to push it shut, but it stuck halfway. Behind me I heard him thump down the stairs, his breath heavy and stale with beer. I turned around, blocking his view and putting on a big smile. It died the instant I saw him.
He filled the middle of the basement. His eyes were fixed on the dark hole behind me. His hand gripped the crowbar.
“It's been a rough day, Barry. How about I come backâ”
He blocked my path to the stairs. “You went in there again!”
I had no answer to that. Couldn't find my voice anyway.
His eyes were bloodshot and his face sagged. “I don't want to hurt you, Rick. But I need to know what you're going to do.”
“C-close it up again. That's all.”
“Bullshit!” He grabbed my arm with his free hand and hauled me back across to the half-open door. “What did you see in there?”
His grip was like a vise, but I could feel him shaking. “Nothing,” I said. “It's just an old root cellar.”
He peered inside. Squinted. The skull was sitting plain as day in the middle of the room. “Nooo-ooo!”
The cry made me jump. Fear shot through my gut. Barry began to crash around the basement. “Oh fuck, it
is
there!”
I had no idea what to do. What to say. I just wanted to get out of there.
“It wasn't my fault, Rick! I was just a kid!”
“Sure you were,” I managed.
“I don't even remember doing it!” He paced, waving the crowbar. “I just remember this crowbar. My father yelling. Louie just laying there. My mother screaming, âYou killed him!' Over and over again. âYou killed him!'”
Terrified, I began backing toward the stairs. Barry was like a cornered bear, trapped by his memories. Nothing I could say would calm him down. But I had to try. “Let's get away from here, Barry.”
He whipped his head back and forth. “All over those stupid chocolates! Dad said it wasn't my fault because I was only a kid. Said he'd take care of it. But, oh Jesus, I didn't know, I wasn't sureâ¦This is where he put the body!”
I was astounded. Inches from the stairs, I paused. “He never told you?”
“He said we could never talk about what happened. Never tell. Oh God, why did you open that door?” Barry jerked his head up. I froze, one foot on the bottom stair.
“What are you doing, O'Toole?” he roared. He grabbed my arm. Dragged me over to the open door. With one powerful shove, he threw me inside.
T
he force sent me crashing against the wall. I scrambled to my feet just as the door slammed shut. I threw myself at it.
“Barry, what are you doing?”
A hammer began to pound. Through the banging, I heard Barry crying. “Damn it, O'Toole! Why did you open the fucking door?”
Bloody hell!
I hammered back. “Forget the door. Forget this room.”
“I'm not going back to prison. I can't!”
“You won't. Just let me out.” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. I had to calm him down. “Open the door, Barry.”
“This is your fault, O'Toole. It could have been okay, if I'd sold the place. If you didn't open that door.”
“Barry! Don't make things worse!”
“I'm going to fix it, O'Toole. Just the way you suggested.” His voice grew quiet and his footsteps thudded on the stairs.
I shouted. I pounded. But nothing answered me back. I stood in the dark. Forced myself to listen. Nothing but silence. I fought back panic. Think, Rick. Is there a way to get out of here? I had to see what was around. Had I left the flashlight in here?
I dropped to my hands and knees and began to feel around on the floor. My fingers slid over mason jars, cold earth, the edges of the bin. The small, smooth skull. I jerked back. Reached cautiously again and felt the cold round steel of the flashlight. I gave a sob. Switching it on, I shone it around the room. Around the frame of the door, which was sealed shut. Along the base of the wall where, long ago, an animal had scratched.
No, not an animal. Little Louie, who had been locked in here alive and had tried to claw his way out. How could anybody be that cruel or, more likely, that stupid?
I knew the answer. If they were drunk enough. And freaked enough to think he was already dead.
Then the flashlight lit up something shiny in the corner. I went closer. Little bits of foil, all in a pile. I dusted one off. It looked like a candy wrapper. Pink. Beside it, some bits of cloth. Not plaid this time, but red. I brought the light close. It looked like part of a big red bow. The kind you see on Christmas presents, or Valentine's boxes.
Valentine! I looked at the pink foil. Valentine's chocolates. Every year Aunt Penny sold big heart-shaped boxes in her store. My mother used to say some day Elvis would buy her one. Once she even bought a box for herself and pretended they were from him. Didn't matter he'd been dead more than a decade. She ate one a day for a month. Didn't let me near them.
Barry'd said something about chocolates. What had happened? Did Louie get at Barry's chocolates, like any little kid would? And Barry got so mad he hit him? But that didn't make sense. You didn't buy chocolates like this for kids. Not in a heart-shaped box that cost half a week's pay.
Maybe Barry bought them for his mother. Spent every cent he had to get them for her. But the instant I thought that, I knew how ridiculous that was. Barry was five years old. Where would he get the money for chocolates? Only Pete had that kind of money. Pete, who always bought his wife fancy gifts.
But if Pete had bought the chocolatesâ¦
I sat in the dark, fingering the foil. I felt like an idea was hanging around just out of reach, in some dark corner. Over my head, I could hear Barry thumping around in the kitchen. I felt my heart racing, my thoughts skittering around like scared chickens. Think, O'Toole.
Think!
Valentine's Day. Something about that day rang a bell. Then it hit me. Pete and Connie had disappeared on Valentine's Day, after celebrating too hard at the Lion's Head. Too drunk to remember the thin ice at the mouth of the creek. Or so it seemed. But Pete had crossed that ice hundreds of times in the past, and if you gunned the snowmobile fast enough, it was no problem. Even with a keg of beer on the back.
Unless something was wrong with the sled.
Like pinballs falling into slots, the pieces tumbled into place. I didn't breathe. Someone had tampered with the wiring. Someone who knew they were going to the Lion's Head and would be cutting back home across the lake. Why would Barry do that? Barry hated his father. As a little kid, he'd suffered a lot at his hand. But he was a big man now, and Pete was no match. He'd survived thirty-five years with him. Why now?
Maybe he just wanted the money from the farm. But that seemed like an awful lot of planning for a guy like Barry. And a lot of luck too.
How would he be sure they'd take the Wildcat? How could he be sure the sled would fail at exactly the right time, on the thin ice? Only two people could be sure of that. Pete, if he'd decided to end it all.
And Connie.
Pete really knew his way around engines
, Nancy had said. And Barry had helped him.
That was it! That was the idea hanging out there in the dark. Pete and Barry wouldn't need a manual to tamper with the electrical. But Connie would.
“You killed him!” Barry remembered her screaming. He also remembered the crowbar. I picked up the skull and held it under the light. Looked at the crack running through its side. It was a tiny skull, easy to crack with a crowbar. But I had used that crowbar. It was solid iron. A strong five-year-old like Barry could pick it up, but could he lift it over his head? Swing it hard enough to crack this skull?
Impossible. An adult had done this. It had to be Pete. Pete, who was angry about the chocolates. Pete, who had yelled at Louie. Pete, who brought the crowbar down on his head.
And Connie who had killed him for it.
Connie, who'd never stood up for anything in her whole life. Had Pete pushed her one too many times? Had she decided to put an end to their pain? On Valentine's Day. The day her favorite child was killed, thirty years ago. She'd lived with that ever since, escaping into drugs, cheap novels and gossip rags. Keeping the memories of Louie alive in her private shed.
But Barry didn't know that. He didn't know that when his mother screamed “You killed him,” she was screaming at Pete, not him.
And now he was upstairs doing God knows what.
“B
arry!” I pounded on the door. “You didn't do it! Barry!”
A huge bang shook the house. I gasped as a roaring filled my ears. What happened? I pounded louder, but it was no use. The roar drowned out everything else.
I pressed my ear to the door and tried to listen. Held my breath. The blood pounded in my ears. I thought I heard footsteps overhead. Smelled something familiar.
I flashed the light up to the ceiling. Wisps of smoke seeped through a crack in the floorboards. I shone the light on the door. Smoke was sneaking under the door too. The stink of burning wood and rubber filled the room. I yanked off my shirt and stuffed it under the door. Smoke curled across the ceiling. I stared up at the crack. Tried to push handfuls of dirt into the gap, but they wouldn't stick. The tiny room started to heat up. I broke into a sweat.
I grabbed a mason jar and banged it on the ceiling. “Barry! You didn't do it! Your father lied to you!”
Nothing. Dirt fell into my eyes, smoke choked my lungs. I coughed. “Barry!” I screamed, hoarse now. “Your father is the evil one! You can still get out of this. Don't make it worse!”
Overhead, nothing but the roar of the fire. I sank down on the floor. Pressed against the cold earth, I gasped for air. He can't hear me, I thought. The door's too thick. The fire's too loud. And he's probably long gone by now anyway. Setting up his alibi in the Lion's Head.
Rick? What a shame. I didn't even know he
was working down there today. But he'd talked
about changing the knob and tube, so maybe
that's what happened.
I cursed at my own stupidity. I was going to die, and I'd told Barry the perfect way to do it. Turn on the gas stove, flick the overhead light switch, and beat it out the door before the place blows up.
I felt dizzy. I could hardly lift my head. Over the roar of the fire, I heard a distant wail. Angels? My imagination? A trick of my air-starved brain? Was that part of the white light you see just before you die?
The wail grew louder and louder. The light in the room grew dimmer, and my muscles grew limp. Was it coming from outside? Was it real? I dragged air into my lungs. Shouted.
“Help! Down here!”
A siren blasted outside. Another wailed, getting closer. Shouts. Doors slamming. It was real. They were coming to get me!
I coughed and screamed. With my last strength I stood, leaned on the wall, swayed and slammed the jar on the ceiling. Again and again, until it broke. Blood ran down my arm. The fire roared, the water pump thundered to life, blocking out all other sound.
I fell to the floor. Rested my head on the earth, now warm and smoky.
They weren't going to find me. No one could hear me. No one knew about this room, and Barry sure wasn't going to tell them. I was going to die in this tomb like little Louie. Trying to scratch my way out. No one will ever find my body. Like Louie, like Barry's mother. Lost in the huge dark bottom of the lake.
Never to be found.
Darkness began to close. Never to be found. Like the jewelryâ¦
A
firefighter's ax crashed through the door. Once, twice, three times. Splinters of wood flew in my face.