Disembodied Bones, page 7
Silence came from the other end. Jacques stared harshly at the intercom.
“Why aren’t you wearing uniforms?” came a crackling response thirty seconds later.
Jacques restrained himself from looking around to see how the man could possibly know what he was or wasn’t wearing. “Contractors, sir,” he said blithely. “They don’t got enough fellas to go around, if catch my drift. The city signs my paycheck is all. And well, we got reports of rotten egg smelling gas all around your property, sir, and God knows we don’t wanna have your house blow up with you in it.”
His eyes slowly went up and he saw what they had missed before. There was a small camera mounted on the gate. It was black and small, blending into the wrought iron all around it. If he hadn’t been looking specifically for it, he wouldn’t have ever noticed it.
“Come around the back entrance,” said the man. His tone was neutral. “I never use the front gate.”
Jacques smiled coldly at the camera with a little salute. He hoped Louis would understand that they were being watched by some unknown person or persons. “We’ll be around in a minute, sir. Don’t go lighting no matches or fires, will ya?”
There wasn’t a response.
When Jacques got into the truck he said slowly, “There’s a camera on us, but I think the fella fell for it. He said to come round the back. But he asked why we didn’t have no uniforms.” He paused. “She’s awake again,” he said, wondering what the man had done to his only daughter to make her unconscious and feeling a surge of paternal anger that he was fighting to control. He gritted his teeth and started the truck. “Let’s go. When we see this bastard up close we can explain why we lied.”
Two minutes after their trucks disappeared around a corner, Roosevelt Hemstreet pulled his unmarked sedan up to the gate. He considered the surroundings carefully, made note of the camera, and got out to push the same button that Jacques had.
•
Monroe Whitechapel reached the bottom of the stairs and was reaching for the intercom again when he heard a faint noise from above. It resonated mutedly down to him as if through thick walls and a great distance away; small bodies were fast at work, trying to escape their prison. That girl, again. He cursed under his breath. She wasn’t supposed to wake up so soon. He skillfully flipped the key to the locked room over his fingers and turned his attention back to the second visitor. He discovered with some dismay that a Shreveport police detective was standing at his front gate. Power company people in the back and a cop in the front, all after that girl finds her way into my house. Is it all coincidental? Whitechapel didn’t believe in coincidences, but handling it in the way an innocent man involved remaining frigidly cool. The key vanished into a pocket. I can control this.
“Mr. Whitechapel,” said the police detective. “I’m Detective Roosevelt Hemstreet, SPD. I need to speak with you.”
“In reference to what, Detective?” Whitechapel was hardly ever rattled. Once he’d had the plastic-encased body of a boy in the backseat when he’d been stopped for a speeding ticket. That day he hadn’t even broken a sweat, but when that girl had magically come up with the right answer to the riddle no other child had been able to answer, he’d been shaken. It was as if she had read his mind. He didn’t know how she managed to find her way into the house but he would find out. And if this police officer outside knew about it, then Whitechapel would take care of that as well. He could dig a grave for an adult just as well as he could for two children.
“You might have heard in the news that a child was kidnapped in town yesterday,” replied the deep voice of the detective. “There are reports that he was sighted out in this area.”
“I haven’t seen any children,” Whitechapel lied promptly.
“Perhaps I could leave a flyer with you. Your staff might have seen the child or your wife perhaps might have seen him?”
Whitechapel cogitated. It didn’t sound like the large black police officer knew anything about him and the ones in the rattletrap trucks certainly weren’t cops. And the one in front was holding a sheaf of papers in his hand like it was a pile of flyers. Whitechapel stared at the compact black and white monitor that showed him the expanse of the front gate. He couldn’t see the man’s face all that well but he appeared bored, as if on another stop of many, just making sure that the area was blanketed with the information about the missing child.
It could be a ploy, thought Whitechapel. But if it’s not, then he’ll be suspicious by my refusal. Won’t most people say, “Sure, officer, I’ll do anything to help find a little boy.”? Sure they would, and so will I. “You can leave it at the gate, detective. Or if you’d like you can come around to the back gate. There are some power company people here also. Perhaps they would like to look at the flyers as well.”
The police detective didn’t hesitate in his response. “Sure. I’ll do that.”
While the picture on the little monitor showed the man climbing back into his sedate sedan, Whitechapel didn’t falter. His first stop was a little office next to the foyer, one of the few rooms in the house without a childlike theme. He jerked open a drawer in a burled wood desk and pulled out a Smith and Wesson revolver. Rapidly, he returned to the stairs and took three at a time. It was time to move the children to where no one could hear them, and certainly no one could find them in an ordinary search. And if he had to shoot that little bitch, well, that was all right with him. Then he would deal with the people waiting at the gate.
•
Something was kicking at Leonie; weak, feeble kicks barely seemed to move her leg, prodding her to wakefulness. Her head hurt and her shoulder was aching and the floor she was lying on was cold as if it had been covered with ice. One arm was draped over something soft and plump. “Wake up,” someone insisted in a croaky whisper. “Wake up!”
With a lightning bolt of realization, Leonie remembered Whitechapel and she shot up, pushing herself up with hands and knees. Dizziness assailed her and she caught herself on a wall. She bent over and tried to keep from throwing up the banana the little old woman had given her.
The little voice said, “Can you help me? He’ll be back anytime and he’s so mad at you.”
The dots cleared from her vision and the nausea passed. Leonie managed to look around. She was inside the windowless room of her thoughts. A single bulb burned in a ceiling socket, revealing what she already knew. There were dozens of red, satin pillows on the floor and in the exact center of the room was a metal hook that had been attached to the floor with rivets that prying fingernails couldn’t hope to force up. But secured to the hook was the other person with whom Leonie was so connected. Douglas Trent stared up at her with large brown eyes. His collar-length hair matched his eyes, a light chestnut color, toasted in the sun’s warm light. His face was pale and drawn with worry, but he looked the same as the picture Leonie had seen. He was wearing what he had last been seen in and there were bruises on his arms where he had struggled with Whitechapel. He had shifted his body around so that his bent knees could push weakly at Leonie in an attempt to get her to regain consciousness. Whitechapel had choked her into oblivion and shoved her in the room with his other prisoner, eager to deal with his visitor and get that person away from his home.
Leonie made a noise and knelt beside him. “It’s all right,” she muttered, praying it was so. Her fingers worked the tight knots of the ropes around his arms. He had been tied with his arms behind him and his legs attached to the arms. “My name is…”
“Leonie,” finished Douglas. He swallowed and tried to clear his dry throat. “I’ve…been dreaming of you. Dreaming of my mother. She’s hurt real bad by this. I can hear her crying.”
Leonie hesitated for a moment. She couldn’t begin to understand why an outsider would have this connection with her. It had seemed so one-way, but clearly it wasn’t. She didn’t have a moment to waste. When Whitechapel was done doing whatever it was that had gotten his attention. The doorbell, she remembered excitedly. I screamed. Was it loud enough?
Her fingers seemed like they were all thumbs. The knots were tight so that little boyish fingers couldn’t work themselves free. Not that it was a problem because Douglas couldn’t feel his hands or his feet anymore. Leonie made a disgusted noise and pried one knot loose. It got another one going and in another thirty seconds she had the younger boy free. She threw the ropes away from his body with a sound of disgust.
Douglas groaned as feeling started to return to his limbs with a devastating resurgence of sensation that crossed the border of pain. Leonie rubbed his hands and switched to his feet. “We have to get out of here,” she muttered urgently. She leapt up, ignoring the fiery ache that worked itself down from her shoulder blade to her elbow and gingerly tried the door. It was locked once again. Then she carefully went around the walls of the room. There wasn’t another door, or a window, or any other opening that could possibly allow them to escape.
Whitechapel had intended this room to be his prisoner’s cell. The door was thick oak. The lock was solidly attached. Leonie briefly closed her eyes and tried to calm her panicked emotions. She opened her eyes again and slowly surveyed the room again. He had tied Douglas to the middle of the floor because he didn’t want him to escape. So there had to be a way out.
Leonie looked up. There was an attic door above her. It was the type that would be pulled down with a hanging cord, but of course, Whitechapel had removed most of the cord. She could see the edges of the door and just a little bit of cord that remained hanging from a hole. Kneeling next to Douglas, who was still rubbing his limbs, she said, “Listen, Douglas, we can get out of here, but you have to get on my shoulders.” She pointed upward. “If you can reach up and grab the attic door, we can get up there and escape down the stairs on the far side of the house. I’ve seen them.”
Douglas nodded, a tear running out of his right eye. He wiped it away furiously. “I’m going to kill that man. He’s a bad, bad man. He said that he would give me toys, but I would have to stay with him forever. I’d never see Mom and Dad again. And he hurt you. I can see marks on your throat. You’ve got blood on your mouth.”
“I know, Douglas,” Leonie said as she helped him up. “But cher, we have to hurry.”
“Cher?”
“It’s a French word. Do they call you Douglas or Doug?”
“Doug, mostly.” Douglas considered, a tremor shaking his full lower lip. “Except my mother. It’s always Douglas. Or she middle-names me. When she’s really, really pissed off.”
Leonie smiled faintly. “My maman does that. When she’s very mad.” As she spoke she got Douglas to his feet and briskly rubbed his limbs. “Have you ever done gymnastics, Doug?”
“Sure. Somersaults. Some other stuff. Leonie, are we going to really get out of here?” His voice held a little quake of fear. She knew he was trying to be as courageous as he could.
“Be brave. We can fight him.” Leonie bent her knees slightly and braced her arms against her legs. “Climb up on me and I’ll raise you up to the ceiling.” Her eyes went upward. “I think between the two of us, you can just reach.”
Douglas put one foot on her knee and rested his hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t help the wince and the throbbing gasp that slipped out of her mouth. “What’s wrong?” he said.
“Shoulder’s hurt,” Leonie replied quickly, glossing over the deep-set pain that was working its way down into the tips of her fingers. “But hurry, Doug. We don’t have much time.”
He slowly climbed upward, balancing himself on her body. Leonie didn’t realize it but they were close to the same size, even though he was three years younger than she. She thought she was a strong girl from working in her maman’s garden and helping her grandpapa plow his cotton. But as she started to take on his additional weight, her knees started to shake with effort and she felt as weak as a newborn puppy.
The doorknob started to rattle and both children went still.
-
The more of it there is,
The less you will ever see.
What is it?
It is darkness.
Chapter Seven
One where none should be,
Or maybe where two should be,
Seeking out purity,
In the king’s trees.
What am I?
Monroe Whitechapel started to open the door of the locked room where the two children were located. The urgent repetitions of the intercom buzzer alerted him that the men from the power company were waiting at the back gate. Re-locking the door, he cursed loudly and went back downstairs.
•
“Hurry,” whispered Leonie, fear of Whitechapel quickly motivating her, and used her good arm to help Doug up. He started to overbalance as one foot stepped onto her shoulder but caught himself on her head. One hand tangled painfully with a handful of her long hair and he started to say something but cut it off just as quickly.
The doorknob’s movement stopped abruptly at the piercing sound of another buzzer and they both clearly heard Whitechapel mutter, “Goddamnit. Now what?” His heavy footsteps went away. The echoes died away as the two children strained to achieve their goal.
“Leonie, I can’t quite reach it,” moaned Doug. He was stretched all the way up; his lean body was a length of extended sinew and muscle, striving for the prize. His fingers tickled the end of the cord and he couldn’t grasp it.
Leonie didn’t dare move for the fear that she would tip him over and the noise would alert Whitechapel. Her entire legs were trembling with effort and her shoulder felt like a red-hot poker had been stabbed inside it. “I’m going to straighten up, Doug,” she whispered hoarsely. “Look at the cord and don’t look away. When I go up, grab on for all your worth, ma p’tite. He’ll be back in a minute. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“On the count of three,” she said and the effort was all she could put into it. The shaking that impacted her legs was spreading to her arms and soon Douglas would be swaying back and forth on her shoulders, unable to keep from pitching over. “One. Two. Three.” And she shoved her shoulders upward, feeling his feet leaving her body, the weight gone straightaway.
Leonie’s head whipped back and he was coming back down. Douglas landed on her with a grunt of pain, causing her shoulder to explode in agonizing sensation, and she couldn’t see if he had gotten the cord or not.
•
Whitechapel looked out the backdoor at the men waiting at the back gate and started to buzz them in. Then he heard a loud thud from above and he knew that he’d have to take care of the children first. Even if he had to kill both of them, he couldn’t risk exposure. He turned around and hurried back to the second floor.
•
Leonie carefully moved Douglas aside to look above them. She held her breath and saw that he had pulled the ladder door down halfway. She got to her feet and jumped up to grab the edge. Her shoulder was shrieking with agony as she held on, but the door didn’t want to move any more. She deliberately jerked up and down on it but it seemed like it was stuck.
Then Douglas’s arms wrapped around her lower body and pulled as hard as he could. The door’s old hinges squealed with protest and pulled downward. Leonie let go with a grateful groan. She used her good arm to pull the steps down, and then motioned at Douglas. “Go. Hurry. If he comes in and sees us, you’ve got to promise me you’ll run. Run until you find a policeman. Promise me.”
Leonie grasped Douglas’s arm and propelled him halfway up the stairs. He reached out with a small hand and found her hand, trying to pull her up with him. “You’re coming with me,” he said determinedly.
Taking a step back, Leonie couldn’t pull free of his grasp. “I have to close the door behind you, so he doesn’t know where you’ve gone. Otherwise he’ll catch both of us. He doesn’t want to hurt me,” she added quickly, knowing it wasn’t true.
Douglas’s face was shocked and as pale as Artic snow. “You have to come. He’ll kill you. He’s told me. He’s killed before. He will hurt you. Leonie. You have to come.”
The door rattled again. Leonie yanked her hand out of his. “Run, Douglas. Run across the attic. There’s stairs on the other side of the house. Go all the way downstairs and find a telephone. Call the police and tell them you’re in Monroe Whitechapel’s house.”
Douglas cast a disconcerted glance at Leonie then stared horrified at the door as it shuddered. Leonie stepped forward and heaved him upward. He scrambled up the stairs and disappeared into the darkness. She pulled back and tried to close the stairs but the mechanism was stiff from neglect and lack of use.
Leonie felt a helpless wave of fear course over her again. She shoved at the stairs once, glancing quickly at the opening door. Whitechapel stood in the opening, his features delineated by alternating shadows and yellow light. Then a low growl of pure fury filled the room as he realized that Douglas Trent was gone.
She knew she didn’t have anything to lose. Leonie plunged up the rickety stairs, silently imploring her legs to move faster than anything had ever moved before. Her head and shoulders were in the attic, her breath was coming and going as fast as a steam train headed up a sheer mountain, and a little bit of hope made her think she had a chance to escape.
That was when Whitechapel’s hand wrapped itself around one of her ankles, holding it as tightly as if it were a handcuff secured around her wrist.
•
Jacques was standing outside the back gate of the compound, looking inside. He’d rung the buzzer on the intercom ten times already and the lock on the gate hadn’t disengaged yet. He stared at the mechanism as if he could compel it to open with the force of his thoughts. Right now he was angry enough to spit nails into two-by-fours and leave only the heads showing. He was aware that Leonie was awake again and her fear was making the three men visibly anxious. Since they were in close proximity, his daughter’s newfound abilities were making themselves patently clear to them in the form of a piercing sensation that radiated to every part of their brains. She was deathly afraid of something or someone inside the compound and Jacques was stuck outside, unable to assuage those fears.
