The Cellar Read online

  The morning was quiet, as if nothing were awake yet except a few birds. He glanced at Cabin 9. Donna would be in there, probably asleep. It was a beautiful morning, and he wanted her to be with him. But he wouldn’t try to wake her.

  He put the suitcase into the trunk of his car and quietly shut the trunk. Then he returned to his cabin. With a washcloth and bar of soap, he carefully scrubbed up every visible trace of blood in the bathroom. The white towels looked okay. So did the other washcloth. The one in his hand was pink with blood.

  He peered into the bathroom wastebasket. Its plastic lining held bits of tape and gauze, bandage wrappings, bloody toilet paper. He dropped the dirty washcloth into it and removed the lining.

  He carried his first-aid kit and the garbage bag out to his car. Nobody around. He put them in the trunk.

  Then, done with the clean-up, he sat on the cabin step and lit a cigar. It tasted fine, the flavor of its smoke blending with the scent of fresh, piny air.

  He leaned back, propping his elbows on the stair above him, and grinned. In spite of his wounds, he felt exceptionally fine.

  When he was done with the cigar, he drove down Front Street. The town was quiet. He slowed to give a shaggy brown dog time to amble out of his way. A blue-and-white police car was parked in front of Sarah’s Diner. The only moving car he saw was a Porsche that approached slowly, as if struggling to stay within a reasonable proximity to the town’s thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit.

  To his left, Beast House looked barren. To his right, nothing stirred on the property of the house without windows. He slowed when he could see the outcropping of rocks on the hillside behind Beast House. He would have to get up there soon and retrieve his equipment.

  But not now.

  Beyond town, he made a U-turn and came back. He passed the two houses. On the next block, he parked in front of a closed barber shop. He walked to the Beast House ticket booth.

  On its walls, newspaper clippings were framed in glass. Some told of the murders. Other focused on the tours. He read several of the articles. He wanted to read them all, but that would have taken too long: He didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself.

  He gazed up at the clock face above the ticket window. Then he checked his watch. The first tour wouldn’t start for nearly three hours, at ten o’clock.

  Stuffing his hands into his front trouser pockets, he strolled farther down the sidewalk. He paused to look at the weathered Victorian house, then started up again, trying his best to look like a tourist with time on his hands and a preference for morning walks.

  When he passed the bend, he stepped into the trees and made his way back.

  Several yards from the fence, he found an opening that gave him a view of the front of Beast House, but offered good concealment.

  Crouching, he began to wait.

  3.

  Just after nine-thirty, a camper van parked on Front Street. A man climbed out, checked the ticket booth, and returned to the van. Out came a woman and three children. Soon a young couple arrived in a VW.

  Jud made his way to the road, and walked up to the ticket booth. It was still deserted.

  So was the house, unless someone had entered before Jud began his surveillance: Nobody had gone in the front while he’d been watching.

  As Jud waited near the ticket booth, more people arrived. He watched the windowless house across the street. Its door was shut. The green pickup truck was still parked in front of the garage.

  Finally, ten minutes before the tour was to start, Jud saw Maggie and Wick leave the house. Braced against Wick, she carried her cane but didn’t use it. It took them a long time to reach Front Street. They waited for a station wagon to pass, then they crossed.

  Wick helped her up the curb, and let go of her arm. She leaned heavily on her cane. “Welcome to Beast House,” she called out, her voice low but clear. “My name’s Maggie Kutch, and I own it. You may purchase your tickets from my assistant.” She swung her cane toward the ticket booth. Wick was unlocking its door. “The tickets run four dollars per adult, only two dollars per child under twelve for the experience of a lifetime.”

  The people had listened, quiet and motionless. When Maggie stopped talking, those who were not in line already headed for the ticket booth.

  Maggie unlocked the turnstile and pushed through it.

  “Back for seconds, eh?” Wick asked when Jud reached the ticket window.

  “I can’t seem to stay away.” He slid a five-dollar bill under the glass.

  “Guess your lady friend didn’t show up.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Your lady friend. The gal that cavorted in the street there, showing off her titties.” Wick gave him the ticket and change.

  “I wonder where she is,” Jud said.

  “More ’n likely in the loony bin.” Wick chuckled, showing his crooked brown teeth.

  Jud went through the turnstile. When the entire group was gathered on the walkway, Maggie began to speak.

  “I started showing my house to visitors away back in ’31, right after the beast struck down my husband and three darling children. You may be asking yourselves why a woman’d want to take people through her house, when it was the scene of such personal tragedy. Well, the answer’s easy: m-o-n-e-y.”

  A few of the people laughed uneasily.

  Maggie limped up the walkway to the foot of the porch stairs. She pointed her cane upward at the balcony. “Here’s where they lynched Gus Goucher.”

  Jud listened carefully to the story of Gus Goucher, checking each detail against his theory that the man had, indeed, been guilty. Nothing she said contradicted his view. He followed Maggie up the porch steps. She told of the old door being shot open by Officer Jenson. She pointed out the monkey-paw knocker. Then she unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  The pungent odor of gasoline filled Jud’s nostrils.

  “I must ask your forgiveness for the smell,” Maggie said, entering. “My son spilled gas yesterday. It won’t be so bad, once we’re away from the stairs.”

  Jud stepped inside.

  “You can see how it stained the carpeting there.”

  He maneuvered around others in the group until he had a clear view of the stairway. Nothing. Where Mary’s body should have been, there was only a dark stain. All the blood had been nicely scrubbed before someone doused the carpet with gasoline.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1.

  Sunlight on his face woke Roy. He lifted his head off his rolled jeans, and propped himself up with his elbows. The campfire was out. A sparrow, near the campfire remains, was plucking bread from a clump that Joni had probably spit out. The backpack stood upright, closed and safe.

  In daylight, the clearing didn’t seem nearly as secluded as it had in the dark. The trees surrounding it were farther apart, the spaces between them offering a wider view than he’d thought. Worse, a hillside overlooked the area.

  As he looked up at the hillside, he heard an engine. He saw the blue roof of a car rush by.

  “Oh shit,” he muttered.

  He unzipped the side of the mummy bag and crawled out. Standing, he unrolled his jeans. He reached into them and pulled out his Jockey shorts. Balancing on one foot, then the other, he stepped into them.

  He heard voices.

  “Oh shit oh shit.”

  He sat down quickly on the mummy bag and started pulling on his jeans.

  Two hikers, a young couple, came striding along the hillside just above his camp. They wore soft felt hats, like the ones he’d seen in Karen and Bob’s closet.

  They came closer and closer.

  Lifting his rump, he pulled up his jeans. Zipped them. Buckled them.

  The couple stepped into the clearing.

  He couldn’t believe it! The fucking trail ran right past his mummy bag!

  “Oh hello,” said the man of the pair. He seemed pleasantly surprised to meet Roy.

  “Hi,” said the girl with him. She seemed no older than eight
een.

  “Hello,” Roy answered. “You almost caught me with my pants down.”

  The girl grinned. She had a big mouth for smiling, and huge teeth. Also huge breasts. They did a lot of swinging inside her tight, green tank top. She wore white shorts. Her legs looked tanned and powerful.

  The man pulled a briar pipe from a pocket of his shorts. “You camped smack in the middle of the trail,” he said, as if he found it amusing.

  “I didn’t want to get lost.”

  He slipped a leather pouch out of his rear pocket and started filling his pipe. “What’d you use for water?”

  “I did without.”

  “There’s a public campground about a mile that way.” He pointed his pipe stem at the hill. “Faucets there, toilets.”

  “That’s good to know. Maybe I’ll head up that way.”

  He lit a match and sucked its flame down into his pipe. “Illegal camping here, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yep. Anywhere but the public sites.”

  “I can’t stand those places,” Roy said. “They’re too crowded. I’d rather stay home.”

  “They are awful,” agreed the girl.

  “Yep,” the man said, and puffed.

  “Where are you headed?” Roy asked, hoping to get them on their way.

  “Stinson Beach,” said the man.

  “How far’s that?”

  “We plan to get there by noon.”

  “Well,” Roy said, “have a good hike.”

  “That’s some nice equipment you’ve got. Where’d you outfit yourself?”

  “I’m from L.A.,” he said.

  “That so? Been over to Kelty’s in Glendale?”

  “That’s where I bought most of my stuff.”

  “I’ve been there. Bought my boots there, in fact. Back about six years ago.” He looked down fondly at them.

  “Who’s that in your sleeping bag?” the girl asked.

  Roy’s stomach clenched. He thought about his knife. It was rolled inside his shirt, within easy reach of his right hand.

  “It’s my wife,” he said.

  The man grinned, gripping the pipe in his teeth. “You both fit in the same bag?”

  “It’s cozy that way,” Roy said.

  “Do you have room to maneuver?” asked the man.

  “Enough.”

  The man laughed. “We ought to try that, huh, Jack?”

  Jack, the girl, didn’t look amused.

  “Our bags zip together,” the man. “You ought to try it that way. Gives a lot more room.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing, why? ’Cause she doesn’t come out? She’s a pretty heavy sleeper.”

  “Can she breathe in there?” asked the man.

  “Sure. She always sleeps that way. Far down like that. She doesn’t like her head getting cold.”

  “Yeah?” The girl named Jack looked skeptical.

  “Well, we’d better be off,” said the man.

  “Have a nice hike,” Roy told him.

  “You too.”

  They walked past him. He watched until they disappeared into the trees, then he unrolled his shirt. He raised his pant leg, and slipped the knife into the sheath taped to his calf. Then he put on his shirt.

  He took Joni’s blouse and skirt out of the pack, and knelt at the head of the mummy bag. He scanned the trees. Nobody around.

  Joni groaned as he pulled her out by the arm. She opened one eye, and closed it again. Roy arranged her face-up on top of the bag.

  The sight of her sunlit, naked body excited him.

  Not now.

  Shit, not now.

  He pulled the dress up her legs, and fastened it. Then he raised her to a sitting position, and worked the blouse up her arms. He let her fall back. Quickly, he buttoned her blouse.

  “Wake up,” he said. He slapped her.

  Her eyes squeezed tight at the sudden pain, then fluttered open.

  “Get up.”

  Slowly, she rolled over and got to her knees. Her hair was bloody and matted to the back of her head where the knife hilt had bludgeoned her.

  Breaking camp seemed to take a long time. While he worked, he watched Joni closely. He listened for voices. He kept glancing up the hillside at the trail and the road. Finally, everything was loaded in the pack. He swung it to his shoulders, grabbed Joni’s hand, and led her down to the lower road.

  A Ford van passed.

  He waved and smiled.

  When the road was deserted again, he opened the Pontiac’s trunk. “Climb in, honey.”

  2.

  As Roy drove, he heard radio reports about a house fire and double murder in Santa Monica. They didn’t give the victims’ names, but mentioned a missing eight-year-old girl. He heard nothing about Karen and Bob Marston.

  That worried him.

  He went over it in his mind: how Karen had spilled the beans about Malcasa Point; how surprised she was when, instead of leaving, he gagged her and really got down to business until she died; how he had waited, hidden in the hall, for Bob to come home; the way Bob shook his head and moaned when he stepped into the bedroom and saw his wife hanging on the door; the sound of Bob’s head splitting under the ax; the candle placed carefully in a circle of paper wads, just the way he’d done it at the other place.

  Maybe a visitor dropped by and stopped the fire.

  Maybe, somehow, the candle blew out.

  If the candle blew out, maybe the bodies hadn’t been discovered yet.

  He couldn’t take that chance. He’d better just act as if the car is hot, and get himself a new one.

  He swung it onto a dirt turn-out, the tires flinging up clouds of yellow dust. He got out, opened the hood, and leaned under it, waiting.

  Soon he heard the sound of an approaching car. He stayed under the hood and reached toward the fan belt. The car sped past. It kept going. He tried the same tactic with two more cars. Neither stopped.

  The next time he heard an engine, he leaned under the hood until the car was close, then stood up and made a frustrated face, and waved. The driver shook his head. His face said, “Not a chance, buddy.”

  Roy yelled, “Fuck you, too!”

  When the next car came, he simply stuck out his thumb. He saw the woman passenger shake her head at the driver. The car kept going. So did the next.

  He slammed the hood.

  As he stepped to the car’s rear, a van approached. A sunburst was painted on its front. The driver was a woman with straight, black hair. She wore a headband, and a leather vest. He saw her right arm point him out. He waved. He liked the looks of her.

  But he didn’t like the looks of the man who called out the passenger window. “Car trouble?” The man’s voice was raspy. He wore a faded, sweatstained cowboy hat, sunglasses, and a black, shaggy mustache. His blue Levi’s jacket was sleeveless. His upper arm bore the tattoo of a dripping stiletto.

  “No trouble,” Roy called. “I just stopped to take a leak.”

  “Power to you.” The man saluted him with a clenched fist, and the van pulled away.

  Roy waited until it was out of sight, then opened the trunk. Joni looked up at him. The hot dog he’d bought at Stinson Beach and tossed into the trunk earlier that morning was gone. The can of Pepsi lay open on its side, empty. Must’ve been tricky, he thought, drinking it in the trunk.

  “Climb out,” he said.

  He helped her and shut the trunk.

  Joni looked around as if wondering where they had stopped, and why. She didn’t seem to find the answer. She looked up at Roy.

  “We need a new car,” he said. “You’re gonna help us get it.”

  He led her along the roadside. When they were fifty or sixty feet from the rear of his car, he told her to lie down in the northbound lane.

  Joni shook her head.

  Just as well. He really couldn’t trust her, anyway. She would probably try to run.

  He tried to think of a way to d
o this without hurting his hand: a rock, a club of wood, or his knife handle would do fine. Maybe too fine. He didn’t want to take a chance on killing her. Not yet. So he decided on his hand. Gripping the neck of her blouse, he jerked her forward. As she stumbled toward him, he slammed his right fist against her temple. Her legs went out. He dragged her partway into the road, and set her down. Quickly, he arranged her arms and legs so she looked awkwardly sprawled. Then he returned to his car, ducked into the nearby trees, and waited.

  The wait was short.

  He grinned, amazed by his good fortune as he watched a black Rolls-Royce round the corner. A man was driving; a woman passenger sat beside him.

  The car swerved to miss Joni, then slowed, and pulled behind Roy’s Pontiac. The driver stepped out. Leaving his door open, he walked quickly back toward Joni. He was a big man, well over six feet tall, and at least two hundred pounds.

  A goddamn football player!

  Shit.

  The big man knelt beside Joni. He touched her neck, probably trying to find a pulse. The Rolls was about twenty feet from Roy. All the windows were up. The woman, turned away, was looking through the rear window.

  The man began to pull off his sports jacket.

  Roy lunged from behind the trees. His boots crushed underbrush. The man glanced over his shoulder. The woman began to turn her head. Leaping, Roy’s boot thudded onto the hood of the Rolls. The car lurched under his weight. The man was standing. Roy jumped down between the side of the car and the open door. The woman screamed as he thrust himself onto the driver’s seat. He pulled the door shut, and locked it a moment before the man arrived.

  The screaming woman threw her shoulder toward the passenger door. Roy jerked the neck of her blouse. It ripped, but it stopped her long enough for Roy to grab her hair. He pulled her toward him. Her cheek hit the steering wheel. He forced her head down to his lap, then chopped her neck with the edge of his hand.

  The man’s face pressed the window, rage in his eyes, fists pounding the glass.