The Loveliest Dead (35 page)

He nodded and looked up at David and Jenna and Martha. “Demonic. That’s what I thought.”

Mavis finished the ice water, put the glass on the tray, and stood. “Arthur, I need to speak with you privately for a moment.”

“Huh-what?” Arthur said as he stood. Mavis took his hand and led him to the entryway, where she whispered to him by the front door.
 

“Whatever it is,” Martha said quietly, “it’s sure not trying to hide from anybody.” She put a hand on Miles’s shoulder and said, “How about some brownies?”
 

Martha and Miles went to the kitchen. David sat down in the recliner, Jenna in the straight-back chair. After several seconds of whispering back and forth, Arty and Mavis came back into the room. As they went to the couch and sat down, Arty smiled a bit nervously and said, “Mavis and I have a kind of shorthand we’ve developed over the years. Sometimes we just have to step aside and talk alone for a minute. She says what-ever’s in this house, it’s powerful. And judging by what you’ve told us, it’s obviously malicious, which is why I think it’s demonic.”
 

To Mavis, Jenna said, “Do you want to go through the rest of the house?”

Mavis spoke rapidly. “Not right now, no, thank you, dear—that shook me up, and I’d like to wait awhile before I do any more.” Her whole face seemed to have collapsed a little, and her hands fumbled with each other.
 

“I think we should call in Father Malcolm,” Arty said.

“For an exorcism?” Jenna said.

“Possibly. But first, this house needs to be blessed.” He reached into Mavis’s satchel on the floor and removed a cell phone and handed it to Mavis. “Call Father Malcolm, Momma, tell him to catch the next plane here.”
 

“I think he’s in San Francisco this weekend. If so, he could be here in hours.”

Jenna saw Mavis’s hands tremble as she made the call, saw her toss a few uncertain glances at her husband.

Arty said, “We’re going to have to invite Jesus Christ into your home, Mr. and Mrs. Kellar. Can you deal with that?”

David sighed as he looked over at Jenna, and they both nodded.

“Good,” Arty said solemnly. “You told me you aren’t a believer. Well, what happens in the next twenty-four hours or so might change that.” He smiled. “And you might even make some money, because if this goes the way I think it’s going to go, we’ll definitely be doing a book about this investigation. Won’t that be nice?”
 

“Lily? It’s almost four o’clock. Did you hear from the police chief?”

Lily opened her eyes. Claudia was sitting on the edge of the bed. Lily’s headache had receded, but a dull, faint throb remained. The nausea had passed. She sat up on the edge of the bed, stretched her arms and yawned.
 

“Boy, did I sleep,” Lily said.

“No call yet?”

“No. I think the phone would’ve woke me.” Claudia took the cell phone off the bedstand and checked. “Yes, someone called from the Eureka Police
 

Department.”

“They did? Damn. I slept through it.”
 

“You needed the sleep. I’ll call the number.”
 

Claudia made the call and handed Lily the cell phone. After four rings, a recorded voice answered and began to recite a menu of options. “Voice mail,” Lily said as she took the phone away from her ear and held it in front of her, frowned at it. “I don’t feel like dealing with voice mail. How do you hang this thing up?” she asked.
 

“Press the End button.”

Lily pressed the button and handed the phone back to Claudia. “We should try the Kellars again. Do you have their number?”

Claudia flipped the cell phone open again, pushed a couple buttons, and handed it over. “I’ve already programmed it into the phone.”
 

Lily smiled as she took the phone. “You’re terribly efficient.”

“Hello?” It was Jenna Kellar.

“Mrs. Kellar, I’m glad you answered. It’s Lily Rourke.”

“Oh, yes,” Jenna said. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but we have a couple investigators here right now. I don’t think we’ll need—”
 

“Mrs. Kellar, the Binghams aren’t going to help you. If anything, they’re only going to make your situation worse. I’ve been having very strong visions about this, Mrs. Kellar. Something bad is going to happen if they—”
 

“What have you got against them?” Jenna said.

“I don’t know them, but I know
of
them. I know what they do, how they work, and the problem you have is not—”
 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t talk right now. My husband could come in here any second. I barely got him to agree to the Binghams, and he wouldn’t be very happy if he knew I was talking to you.”
 

“Wait, it’s
extremely
important that we talk. Your son is in danger.”
 

There was a lengthy silence over the line.

Lily said, “I saw what happened in your house last night. I saw your husband attack your son. I think the thing that made him do it—”
 

“How do you know that?” Jenna said, her voice breathy with surprise.

“I told you, I’m psychic, and I’ve been having visions about your family.”

Jenna sighed. “What do you
want
from me?”
 

“I want nothing from you but a little of your time. I think I can help you.”

“My husband is coming, I have to go.”

“I’m staying at the Motel 6 in—”

The call ended with a click. Lily pressed the End button, flipped the phone closed, and dropped it onto the bed. “These people are impossible.”
 

They went to a small diner for a late lunch. Claudia had a corned beef sandwich and Lily a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Halfway through the meal, Claudia’s cell phone chirped. She took it from her purse, flipped it open, and looked at the display above the keypad. She handed the phone across the table to Lily and said, “It’s the police department. Just press the Send button.”
 

Lily said, “Hello.”

“Hello, this is Merry Peebles at the Eureka Police Department. Could I speak to Lily Rourke, please?” Merry Peebles sounded like a teenager.
 

“This is she.”

“Chief Winningham would like to see you right away. He’s on his way back to the station now.”

“When do you expect him?”

“Any minute.”

“Okay. We’ll be right there.” Lily ended the call and handed the phone back to Claudia, saying, “It looks like we’re finished with our lunch.”
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Saturday, 3:32 P.M.

Chief Winningham was seated at his desk in his squeaky chair, smiling, when Lily and Claudia entered his office. He stood and said, “Miss Rourke, Miss— I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
 

“Claudia McNeil, but I’m just Claudia.”

“And I’m just Lily.”

“Well, Just Claudia and Just Lily, why don’t you just sit down. Coffee?”

They declined as they sat in the chairs that faced the desk.

Winningham sat down and wheeled the chair up to the desk. He tapped an open folder that held several sheets of paper. “Those two names you gave me— they’re both missing. But they’re not from around here. Billy Enders, ten years old, disappeared from Crescent City on March 11, 1997, and Jonah Wishman, eight, from Ashland, Oregon, on July 21, 1996. Both are still missing.”
 

Lily nodded. “I suspected as much.”

“Now, Lily, if you know something about the whereabouts of these boys, you have to tell me.”

“I don’t. Not yet.”

“Are they related? Can you tell me anything?”

“Nothing I’m certain of yet. And frankly, Chief, I’m not sure you’ll want to hear it.”

Winningham’s smile disappeared altogether and his back stiffened slightly. “It’s got something to do with Lenny Baines, doesn’t it?”
 

“Yes, it does.”

“Look, Lily, I said I knew the guy, I didn’t say I dated him. If you’ve got something to tell me about Leonard Baines, you have to tell me.”
 

Lily said, “Like I said, I’m not certain of anything yet. I’m still piecing things together. I need to talk to the Kellars—Lenny’s daughter and her husband—but Mr. Kellar has made it very clear I’m not welcome. Until I can talk to them and get into that house, I’m still kind of in the dark, so I’m hesitant to tell you anything.”
 

Winningham smiled again and sat forward in his chair, folded his arms on the desk. “I’ve got this fishing buddy. He’s retired now, but he was on the force in Redding when you identified the knife being used by that stabber back in—what, ‘seventy-eight? He loves telling that story. I’ve heard some others about you, too.”
 

“All true, I hope.”

“Far as I’ve been able to tell. Nobody knows a damned thing about you, but you’ve got a reputation, and it’s a good one. If you’ve got information that might lead to the remains of those boys, I want to hear it, even if there’s a few holes in it.”
 

A vague, dull ache was all that remained of Lily’s once-throbbing headache, but it was enough to irritate her. She rubbed a temple as she said, “I have reason to believe that those two boys were abducted, tortured, and murdered by Leonard Baines. I don’t know how or where he disposed of them. But I know they weren’t the only ones.”
 

“How many others?” Winningham asked.

“I don’t know. But I’ve got a bad feeling there was a lot of them.”

“Damn,” he said with a sigh as he leaned back in the chair, rubbed the back of his neck with a beefy hand. “I don’t suppose you have the names of any other missing boys, do you?”
 

“No.”

Winningham’s bushy eyebrows crept up his forehead. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Lily was about to tell the chief she’d let him know if she came up with anything, but the electric-blue flashing made her eyes flutter as she inhaled the smell of bananas. She got up and went to the small couch against the wall to her right. She sat in the center of it, then lay down on her left side and said to Claudia, “Another one’s coming.” She saw Claudia’s mouth move but did not hear what she said. Darkness rolled over Lily and engulfed her. Darkness and silence.
 

Lily regained consciousness but did not open her eyes. Through the pounding of her head, she listened to Claudia and Winningham.

“Can I borrow your garbage can?” Claudia said. “She might vomit when she comes around.”

“Sure,” Winningham said.

Lily felt nauseated. She’d eaten nothing but a little soup for lunch, but it was threatening to return.

“How long is she usually out?” Winningham asked. He sounded unnerved.

“It varies. Sometimes just a couple minutes, sometimes several.”

Lily realized there were tears in her eyes, and her throat felt hot and constricted. Her eyes seemed to press against her closed lids with each throb of her head. She sniffled and whispered, “I’m going to need some water. And some tissue.” She slowly sat up on the couch but did not open her eyes.
 

“Be right back,” Winningham said as he left the office.

“You’re crying,” Claudia said.

“It was awful. Awful.”

“What was awful?”

Lily dabbed at her eyes with a knuckle, then folded her arms across her upset stomach and leaned forward as much as her girth allowed. A brown plastic wastecan lined with a white garbage bag stood in front of her legs.
 

To Claudia, Lily said, “Could you please get a couple pills from my purse?”

Winningham returned with a Styrofoam cup of water in one hand and a box of Kleenex in the other. Lily put the tissues on the couch beside her and drank down two pills with some water. She handed the cup to Claudia, who put it on Winningham’s desk. Lily took a couple tissues from the box and noisily blew her nose. She tossed the tissue into the wastecan and said, “Write down these names.”
 

Winningham hurried around his desk and picked up a pen as he dropped into the squeaky chair.

Lily said, “Kenan Miller, Eric Noone, and Martin Pryor. Marty,” she whispered. “Everybody called him Marty.”

As she spoke their names, Lily saw their faces as she had seen them in the vision, filled with terror and pain. When she started sobbing, she sounded, at first, like she was laughing. Crying made her head feel worse, which only made her cry harder. She buried her face in her hands as Claudia put an arm around her.
 

“They suffered so,” Lily said once the wracking sobs diminished. “Those poor little boys suffered terribly.” She looked up at Winningham. “And you were there. I saw you in my vision—he had children locked in his house while you and other cops were outside with more children. I’m not positive, but I’ve got the feeling it was those three boys I named—they were in the house while you were there. He ... he enjoyed that, it excited him, having you there while he had tortured and starving little boys inside his house.” One half of Lily’s upper lip curled back. “He got off on it.”