Under the Beetle's Cellar (20 page)

He wheeled his chair back to the door. “Let’s walk on the road. It’s shorter to go across the field and I can do it in my chair, but it’s hard going.” They both went down the ramp and Jake led the way back to the road and down to the next driveway. The house had a front porch with fat pots of red geraniums on the steps. A large golden retriever with a completely white head lay sleeping on the porch with its paws dangling down to the top step.

From around the side of the house dashed a brown-and-white spaniel, who started to yap at them. But the dog came to a sudden stop, staring at a spot behind Molly. She turned and was surprised to see that Copper had followed them. The big dog was standing with his fur bristling and his teeth bared. The spaniel turned and ran back the way it had come, disappearing around the house.

“Probably a wise move,” Jake said.

The dog on the porch hadn’t even opened an eye.

Molly watched Copper approach stiff-legged, growling low in his throat. “Oh, God, I left the leash in the truck.” She started forward to grab the dog’s collar.

Jake raised a hand. “Hold on. It’ll be okay.”

Reluctantly, Molly stood where she was. When Copper stepped on the first stair, growling, the old retriever opened one eye, then the other, and watched Copper approach. Then, when Copper was almost on the porch, the retriever slowly rolled over and offered its belly, paws in the air. Copper stopped and the growling died away. The erect fur flattened; he approached and sniffed the older dog’s tail and belly.

Molly had been so riveted by the performance, she hadn’t noticed a woman come out the door. The woman was standing still, watching the dogs with a smile of bemused interest on her face. Now she said, “Maggie could teach us all something. Sometimes pacifism works. Hey, there, Jake Alesky. I’ve missed you, dear heart.” She walked briskly down the steps and leaned over to embrace Jake. A snarling from the porch caused her to straighten up. Copper was starting down the steps toward her.

“Oh, my,” the woman said.

Molly felt a flush of embarrassment. She moved forward and grabbed Copper’s collar. Her hand was shaking, but she managed to hold on and say in a firm voice, “No, Copper. Sit.”

She was relieved to see him obey. “Sorry,” she said. “He’s not my dog. He gets confused when people have contact. He’s a retired police dog, a bit unbalanced. I’m sorry.”

Jake said, “Theodora, this is Molly Cates. She works for
Lone Star Monthly
and she’s writing something about the Jezreel mess. I’ve been telling her about Walter. Molly, meet Theodora Shea.”

Molly was afraid to let go of Copper’s collar, so she raised her free hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Shea.” Theodora Shea was probably in her seventies, smooth-skinned and plump under her loose embroidered Mexican dress. Her fluffy white hair was yellowed and sticking out in places and her prominent nose curved gently. She wore white face powder. A cockatoo indeed. The resemblance made Molly smile.

“Molly, will you help me bring some chairs down from the porch so we can sit and talk a bit?” Theodora asked.

Molly looked down at Copper, who appeared to have relaxed. She took a chance and let go of his collar. Then she carried two wicker chairs from the porch and put them at the foot of the steps, one on either side of Jake’s wheelchair.

Although both Jake and Molly declined the offer of refreshments, Theodora excused herself and was back in a few minutes bearing a tray with three glasses of lemonade and three huge slices of chocolate cake. She set the tray down on the bottom step and shot both dogs a warning look. “With Walter gone and the poetry group not meeting, I’m drowning in cake. You young people can help me out.”

She handed icy glasses to Molly and Jake. Molly refused cake, but Jake took his plate and rested it on what lap he had, which was just large enough to support the plate.

Theodora sat down and said, “We have got to do something. Two FBI agents came to see me the second week, and I told them exactly
what I thought about this madman up the road in Jezreel. All this palaver is just not going to work.” She took a sip of her lemonade.

Molly noticed how moist and rich the cake looked as the forkfuls moved steadily from Jake’s plate to his mouth, how fluffy the white filling in between the layers looked. “Is that whipped cream?” she asked.

“Yes.” Theodora reached over to pick up a piece from the tray and hand it to Molly. “We need to snipe him and have the SWAT team move in like the wrath of God, before they have a chance to harm the hostages. I feel certain that Walter would agree with this assessment.”

“They can’t snipe him,” Molly said with her mouth full. “He never shows himself, never even passes an uncovered window.”

Theodora took a long, hard look at Molly. “How do you know that?”

“My ex-husband, Grady, is an Austin cop who’s on the negotiating team.”

Theodora ran her hand through her fluffy white hair. “Well. I knew you hadn’t got it from the news, because I watch and read everything. Would they snipe him if they could?”

“That’s a tough one. The problem is they’re a civilian agency. Mordecai has never been convicted of a crime and he’s not actually killing anyone right now that we know of. It’s a moot point anyway since he keeps out of sight.”

“What does this ex-husband of yours think is the next step?”

“They’re reevaluating it,” Molly said.

Theodora made a clucking noise. “Oh, come, come. You’re among friends. Cut the jargon.”

Molly smiled. “Okay. Every time they talk to Mordecai he reminds them that he will kill the hostages the second anyone sets foot inside his fence. The reason they haven’t moved in is that they believe that. But, if you believe Mordecai’s timetable, we’ve only got three days left now. Grady thinks it might come to SWAT, or actually HRT is what the feds call it—Hostage Response Team. He sees them as an absolute last resort because of the high risk to the hostages, but the negotiation’s gone nowhere. One problem the HRT has, though, is they don’t know where on the twelve acres the hostages are.”

“That’s a big problem,” Theodora conceded. “A big problem.”

Jake was quiet. He’d already finished his cake and was going after the crumbs by mashing them onto his fork.

Theodora noticed his empty plate. She leaned over, took it from him, and handed him another one. “Oh, this is intolerable,” she said, “the waiting. Doesn’t it make you want to march right in there and give them what for?”

“No,” Molly said, “it makes me want to run and hide until it’s over.”

“Me, too,” Jake said.

“You say the negotiators are discouraged. I believe it. On TV that Patrick Lattimore looks close to emotional meltdown. Looks like he’s giving up.”

“They are discouraged.”

“If that negotiator friend of yours gets to speak to Walter,” Theodora said, “I’d like to send Walter a message. Ask him to send my love and tell him how much we miss him in the poetry group. We haven’t done anything since he’s been gone. It just doesn’t feel right to go on without him. I’d like him to know we are waiting for him.”

“Poetry group?” Molly asked.

“Yes. A group of us who enjoy poetry. We get together here every week. The last few months we’ve been reading Emily Dickinson. Oh, I just wish I could send Walter a complete Dickinson right now. He likes to memorize poetry. It’s such a comfort during difficult times to have in your head when you need it.”

“
Need
it?” Molly said.

“Yes. I’m afraid by now he might be running out and needs some replenishment. Don’t you read poetry?”

“Almost never,” Molly admitted. “I wish I did. But I can’t imagine needing it. And Emily Dickinson! I have unpleasant memories of a high school anthology: ‘There is no frigate like a book.’ ”

“Oh, it’s such a crime the way they teach poetry in schools, especially the way they teach Dickinson. Really, she has so much to say to these alienated young people. She’s very accessible. I taught English for thirty years, before I retired, and sometimes I worry that the readers of poetry are dying off one by one. I have this recurring vision that one day the very last of us will be walking home from a library with a book under her arm and keel over and that will be the end of the breed, and no one will ever know or mourn it.”

Molly glanced up at the porch. The retriever was lying in the same place and Copper was lying next to her, his head resting against her flank.

“They seem to have hit it off, don’t they?” Theodora said. “Maggie makes friends easily.”

Jake said, “I’ve never seen Maggie do anything but lie right there at the top of those steps with her eyes closed.”

Theodora laughed. “Maybe that’s one good way to make friends—just make space for them on your porch.”

Jake handed Theodora his plate, from which he’d cleaned every crumb. “Thanks. It was delicious as usual, but we have to go. Can you keep on checking the house?”

“Sure. No trouble. Don’t you worry, Jake.” She turned to Molly. “Wait a minute. I’d like to give you something to take with you.” She bounded up the steps and returned in a few minutes with a large tinfoil package and a fat book. She handed the package to Jake. “It would be a favor to me to get some of this out of my kitchen,” she told him. The book she handed to Molly. It was
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

“I’d appreciate it if you would give it to your negotiator friend, in case he gets a chance to send it in to Walter. Would you do that for me, please, Molly?”

Molly had to stifle a snort, thinking about Grady’s response to that request. It was ludicrous. In the hierarchy of things she’d like to send in to the hostages, a book of poems by a repressed New England spinster was at the bottom of the list. Better to send them chocolate cake. “Sure,” she told Theodora Shea, sticking the book in her bag.

CHAPTER

TEN

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the wild beasts of the earth.”

R
EVELATION
6:8

“You kids know what a vegetable peeler is,” Walter Demming said. “Your mother has one, I bet, in the kitchen drawer. Along with all the stuff like corkscrews and garlic presses and spoons with holes—you know, the stuff she uses for cooking.”

“My mom doesn’t cook,” Heather said. “We take home from McDonald’s or sometimes Chinese.” When she spoke the word “Chinese,” her face glowed, as though just saying the word had filled her mouth with juicy, succulent bliss. Walter’s mouth watered in response, and for an instant he tasted and smelled the chicken in hot garlic sauce from China Sea, where he and Jake often got takeout dinners, which they ate on Jake’s veranda, with lots of Shiner Bock to wash it down.

“I love Chinese food.” Sandra closed her book and abandoned all pretense of not listening. “Egg rolls, fried rice, sweet-and-sour pork. There’s a place near us that delivers.”

“My mom cooks really good,” Hector said. “The best tamales. The
best.
Everybody says so. They’re so good she sells them and every year she does this thing for the church where she makes hundreds of them and they raise lots of money by selling them. If I could have anything right now—other than an Uzi—it would be a huge pan of my mom’s tamales. When we get out of here, my mom will have a party for us and we’ll stuff ourselves with her tamales—as many as we want.”

“My dad cooks,” Josh said, “and I help him. We’ve got a couple of those vegetable peelers. We use them to peel potatoes when we’re making
mashed potatoes. But we leave a little skin on because my dad says it makes them more interesting. We put lots of butter and milk in them, and after you’ve had the mashed potatoes we make, you could never eat the boxed ones, the fake kind you like, Kim.”

“You can put butter in the box kind, too, Josh,” Kim said, “and salt and make them taste really good and there are no lumps.”

“What I love even better than mashed potatoes,” Josh said, “is fresh bread. My dad got this machine, a bread maker, for Christmas. So we make bread and we cut it while it’s still hot even though you’re not supposed to, and we put butter and sugar on it and it smells better than anything in the world.”

A reverent and hungry silence followed.

Walter felt his stomach doing flips of desire. If they ever got out of here, the first thing he was going to do was make bread and put butter and sugar on it while it was still hot. It was the most desirable thing in the world. He looked around at the kids and thought if you could look into their heads and see what they were picturing, you would have some delectable illustrations for a cookbook.

“One sure thing,” Sandra said softly, “I’m never, ever gonna eat cereal again.”

“Me either,” Conrad said.

“Well, anyway,” Walter said, “back to the vegetable peeler. It’s a thin metal thing about this long.” He held his right thumb and forefinger as far apart as he could get them. “It’s got a thin pointed blade with a long slot running the length of it. You use it to peel vegetables. But Jacksonville didn’t understand why the old lady gave it to him. Where were the vegetables? What was he supposed—”

“For the bars,” Bucky blurted out. “He’s
so
dumb. It’s for peeling the bamboo bars!”

Walter raised his eyebrows. “I never said Jacksonville was a genius. He’s got some good traits—he’s loyal and honest—but he’s not what you’d call a quick thinker. It takes him a while to figure things out, Bucky. So be patient. And remember he’s been under a lot of stress. Most of us don’t think so well under pressure.”

Boy, is that the truth, he thought. Some of us don’t think at all under pressure. So far he’d been a total bust. Today, when he got on that phone, he was going to have a last chance to do something. Surely the reason the FBI had not come in to rescue them was that Samuel Mordecai had threatened to kill them if they attacked. Otherwise they would not have allowed forty-eight days to pass without doing something. You couldn’t just kidnap a school bus and get away with it. And another problem was that they probably didn’t know where the kids were being
held. That made a rescue difficult in a place as big and spread out as this compound had looked to him. If he could just let the FBI know where they were and what he would promise to do during a rescue, it might help. He’d also like to let them know that if they didn’t come in, he and the kids were dead for sure. But it was risky and he only had one minute to do it. It all depended on—