Stolen Honey (26 page)

“No, she’s not at the college. She came to see Tilden, I told you. I didn’t see his car when I drove in. When did you last see him?” She heard her voice go shrill with her impatience.

He licked his lips. She saw how purplish his tongue looked, how red and blotched his face was from the sun. Finally he said, “Yesterday afternoon. He didn’t help with chores. He’s probably at the library. Tell you what. You go there, see for yourself. They’re both there, exams coming up. He knows he’s got to pass.”

Maybe. Maybe, she thought, though she couldn’t believe it. Donna studying quietly in the library, skipping her chores, not letting her mother know where she was?

“He’s gone off somewhere, Harvey, she’s with him. He doesn’t want her to tell. But we already know, you see. Emily Willmarth was with her when she found the copper beads. He’ll have to come back and face the truth.”

She heard the siren, Olen was coming on in style. Harvey’s face went pinker still. When Olen burst in with a colleague and a warrant to search the house, Harvey had to let him do it. He stood aside, arms dropped at his sides, Ralphie beside him, grasping his hand, humming to himself. Russell burst in with Brownie, flushed, wanting to know, “What in hell’s going on here?” Harvey looked like a man swept away by a nor’easter.

After a half hour’s search they found the skeleton under Tilden’s bed, wrapped in a blanket—Gwen was surprised to see again how tiny a bundle it was: a small round skull, neck and breastbone well preserved where the beads had lain—the copper salts had acted as a preservative. She’d been somewhere between three and seven years old, a tiny princess indeed. Russell scooped her up; he was weeping. He rocked the bundle tenderly in his arms, as if it were a living child.

Gwen remembered how he’d been at Donna’s birth, how loving, how thrilled. Brownie had been a different story, he was a boy child. Russell hardly touched him until he was on his feet and running. Gwen saw Brownie watching his father cry; he was openmouthed, it was as though he were seeing him for the first time. He wouldn’t remember how his father was when he was a child.

This was the time to go, Gwen thought. While they had the bones, before Russell demanded restitution. Although that would come: Russell wouldn’t let the Balls get away with such a sacrilege. But they couldn’t leave. Not without Donna.

They were downstairs, Harvey following, muttering to anyone who’d listen about how he hadn’t known, had nothing to do with the theft. It was that son of his—”a disgrace,” he owned, “a goddam disgrace. I’ll see he gets his when he comes back. I’ll deal with him,” he assured Olen Ashley, who was standing in the outer doorway with his hand on his holster. Sergeant Hammer stood behind him, in the same posture.

“It’s not for you to do that,” Olen said. “This is a matter for the police. You have to go through proper channels. You can’t take matters in your own hands, Ball.”

“Damn right, he can’t,” Russell growled, the bundle still gripped against his chest. He didn’t seem bothered that Olen was seeing him this way, the tears glazing his black eyes. He had his princess, he wanted to go home, return her to her proper grave, restore order. He didn’t yet know about Donna, Gwen realized, he didn’t know she was missing.

When she told him, he howled like a banshee and Olen had to restrain him. “Find her, Ashley, goddam it,” Russell moaned. “Get out the sirens. Just find her.” For the first time since he’d known Olen, his hands gripped the older man’s arms. His eyes begged.

A cry came from the direction of the woods, and Sidney Ball appeared in the doorway, pulling along a distraught Tilden. “He was hiding in the tree hut,” he told his father. “You gotta face up,” he warned his brother, “You gotta tell them what you told me.” Sidney’s face took on a stiff-lipped aura of self-righteousness.

Tilden’s face went dead white at the sight of the two policemen; he broke from his brother’s grasp and ran to his father, embracing him. “For you, Dad, that’s why I did it. For you! I thought you’d want it, I thought you’d be glad.” When his father didn’t return the embrace, he dropped, sobbing, at his feet.

“For chrissake, be a man,” Harvey bellowed, yanking his son up by the armpits. “What made you think I’d of wanted you to do that? Dig up a goddam grave? You thought that’d help? Now you only made things worse. I was getting what I wanted, in my own way.” He shoved the boy toward Olen. “Here’s your thief.” But the boy only sank down again at his father’s feet.

And was jerked up by an irate Russell. “Where’s Donna? Where’s my girl? What’ve you done with her?”

“How’d I know where she is?” Tilden blinked up into Russell’s eyes, his face a mask. He’s like a marionette, Gwen thought, pulled by his father’s strings—but he’d suddenly snapped out of control.

“Let me,” she told Russell, pulling the boy around to face her, stronger than she knew herself to be. “Brownie saw Donna hiking up this way. She was coming to find you, to bring back our skeleton girl. You intercepted her, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you?”

She saw Olen beyond the boy’s shoulder, his mouth open, almost panting, like he wanted to get at the boy and she was interfering.
Wait,
her narrowed eyes told him.

She was screaming inside
now.
“If you hurt her, Tilden—if you did anything to harm her in any way—I’ll kill you myself, I swear I will. Now tell me. Where’s Donna?”

“Up there,” he said, waving an arm toward the north. “In the camp—Dad’s hunting cabin. I drove her up, she was going crazy, accusing me of... all kinds of things. I couldn’t have her doing that. I just wanted to reason with her. I wanted to make her understand.” The sweat was streaming off his brow, soaking his T-shirt. He wiped his forehead with a hand, smearing the dirt and ash.

“Where’s this cabin? You lock her in?” It was Russell’s turn to yank him back. Tilden was taller than Russell by two or three inches but seemed smaller in his guilt.

“I was coming down to get food for us, that’s why. Then I was planning to let her go. Sure, I was, I—” He was trying to swallow, as though he had a huge lump in his throat that wouldn’t go down.

“Where’s that camp?” Olen demanded of Harvey.

It was Sidney who answered, sounding anxious, paranoid, as though he were guilty himself because his brother was guilty. “I can show you. I’ll take you up. I got the truck outside.” He ran out the door, Russell after him.

“Wait, Russ, I’m coming,” Gwen cried, but the two were already out, the truck revving up.

“Hammer! Go with them,” Olen shouted at his fellow officer, and the latter jumped into the back of the moving truck.

“I was trying to make her understand, why I did it, why I ran her down that time—I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“It was you!” Gwen cried. “She called it an accident. All the time it was you. What else—what else did you do, Tilden? What other things that have happened around here? Omigod! I don’t want to think...”

Olen yelped, his face suffused with red, a match for Tilden’s. “You tried to run down that girl? What in hell you think you were doing, you little son of a bitch!” It was like a light breaking in front of Olen’s eyes. “The fire in Gwen’s truck. The hate calls—was that you, Ball? Was that you? And what about that teacher? You were in her class. You were failing the course, right? What’d you do then, did you—”

“No, no!” Tilden cried. “I never. Not that. I never!”

Olen slapped a pair of handcuffs on the boy, turned to Gwen. “We’ll find out what he’s done. He’ll tell us, all right. You’ll tell us everything, won’t you, Ball? What else, who else you hurt?”

Harvey Ball was pressed against the wall, his mouth slightly open; he was rocking on his feet, as though trying to get words out. Finally he pitched forward, gripped his son’s shoulder. “You tell him, boy. You tell him what you did. Wasn’t that bad, was it? Stealing some old bones? You didn’t try to hurt the girl, did you? Tell me you didn’t do that. No son of mine would hurt a girl.”

Tilden shrank away, refusing to make eye contact. He stared down at the handcuffs, like an animal caught in a trap, not comprehending where the trap had come from.

“Olen,” Gwen said, “I want to find Donna. Make him take us up there.”

“I have to take him to headquarters, Gwen. Then I’ll be back. You go home now. Sergeant Hammer has gone after the girl, and your husband’s with her.” He started out the door, shoving the boy ahead of him, slamming the car door on him. She heard the cruiser pull away.

Harvey stood looking after it, hands dropped at his sides like a man who had lost a race. Ralphie was whimpering. He hugged his father around the knees, and Harvey gathered him up in his bulky arms. There was love enough for that one, anyhow.

“Take me to the cabin,” she told Harvey; and sighing, pushing Ralphie off with a pat on the buttocks, Harvey started out the door.

But when they got there a quarter of an hour later, the cabin was empty. There were only a pair of dirty mattresses on the floor, a broken rocking chair, a board on two sawhorses to serve as table. She gasped. On the table was a package of Africanized bees. Killer bees! What was Tilden planning to do with those? All it took, she knew, was a lawn mower, operating within one hundred feet of a hive, to set killer bees off.

Behind the package she saw a familiar jacket. She held it up, hugged it. It was Donna’s denim jacket. “Where are you, sweetheart?” she cried, squeezing the fabric. “Oh, Donna, love . . .”

She ran outdoors with the jacket. Donna was out there somewhere. She’d escaped, she’d gotten disoriented; she was lost. She was hurt—there were bears, snakes, fisher cats lurking about. Gwen’s mind spun out disasters. “Donna!” she shrieked. “Russell! Oh, please, please, answer me!”

* * * *

Ruth woke up, disoriented. This wasn’t her room, the windows were in the wrong place; there was a large homely TV across from the bed—a king-sized bed. Someone was in it with her. He lay there on his back, in deep sleep, his salt-and-pepper hair like a bird’s nest—why, there was even a tiny piece of leaf stuck in it! His skin was slack from sleep—she saw the coarse hairs on his chin and cheeks where he hadn’t shaved, his arms bent back at the elbows the way a child sleeps, the breath wheezing like a bicycle unwinding from a long ride. She had never seen him like this, it was quite wonderful. He’d kicked off the sheet, yet his body was warm to the touch. It appeared lean and hard, any excess flesh fallen to the sides.

She stroked his belly. How long it had been. For months, even before Pete left, while he was fooling around with that “actress,” there had been little sex. She lay back down, already delighting in the feel of a body next to hers, touching, both of them at peace. There was the familiar fullness in her groin, from urine, from lovemaking. She and Colm were like the two half-empty wine bottles that stood on top of the TV. She changed the wording: no, they were half full.

Then she remembered the cows and sat up. “Colm!”

“Wha’?” His eyes squeezed open a crack.

“Who’s doing the prepping? Who’ll help with the milking?”

He groaned, rubbed his eyes. “The what? Oh, you ’member. You called home. Sharon’ll help. Ruthie, stay in bed a little longer, huh?” He touched her breast and she sighed. It was all right, then, she could have this time out. It had been months since she’d had a day away from the cows. She nestled into her lover’s armpits, closed her eyes... .

When she opened them again she saw it was nine o’clock. “That woman, Annette. The reason we’re here. I’ve got to see her.” She struggled out of bed, stood on the bland gray carpet. Gasped. There she was in the dresser mirror, stark naked—she hadn’t brought a nightgown. Her hair was wild, “like a middle-aged nymph,” he told her, and she flung a pillow at him. She sucked in her belly. Was he still looking at her? She flushed like a sixteen-year-old. His watery blue eyes smiled back at her in the mirror.

“Annette’s not going anywhere. You know what that hair woman said. She never goes out. Come back to bed.” He held out his arms.

“I should phone her, at least. Would she be in the book?” She pulled on day-old panties, her bra; looked under the Gideon Bible for the phone book.

“Jeez, Ruthie, the phone’s unlisted. Remember? You’ll just have to go there, that’s all. But first eggs and bacon, okay? Couple of Belgian waffles?”

Ruth was all business now. The honeymoon was over. “Go have your Belgian waffles—they’ll keep your stomach occupied while I talk to the old lady. Or try to talk to her. I’ll grab some coffee out in the lobby. You can save me a doughnut.”

“Waffles?” he said, looking dreamy-eyed. But before she could pull on her shirt, a little sweaty from yesterday’s running around, Colm was beside her, holding her, stroking. “You gotta live a little. You can’t work all the time. Lie down couple more minutes. Just a couple, okay? Time out, Ruthie. We don’t get many chances like this. Sharon’s there, so’s Tim. Please, Ruthie?”

His hands were on her back. She let him unhook her bra, pull her back down to the bed. Time out, time out, she told herself, and took it. Even enjoyed it.

* * * *

Gwen was pacing the kitchen floor when the phone rang. A search party was out looking for Donna: police, neighbors, scouts—Russell, Mert, and Brownie, too. Her job now was to stay by the phone in case Donna had blundered into a house, called home. Breathless, she grabbed up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Ms, Woodleaf? It’s Sergeant Hammer. You remember me, I was—”

“What is it? You’ve found Donna?”

“I’m afraid not, I mean, I don’t know. They’ve got me down here at the station. I’m calling because Chief Fallon thought you should know we found out about the fingerprints.”

Gwen waited. What fingerprints? She had no idea what the sergeant was talking about.

“In two places. On that pack of Juicy Fruit gum we found on the floor at the teacher’s place. And then on the living room window.” The voice was high-pitched, gaining in confidence. Gwen waited for the officer to make her point.

“And?” There was no time to waste. One of the searchers might be calling at this very moment, to say they’d found Donna.

“Well, they’re Tilden Ball’s.”

The voice went on for a few more sentences, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate. Tilden Ball, a killer?