August Moon (20 page)

“What are you doing
here?” The moonlight reflected off his John Lennon glasses and I couldn’t read his eyes. He held me while I steadied myself.

“Because I’m so far away from Statesboro, Georgia?” He made his faint Southern accent stronger. “Is that what you mean?”

I felt like someone had dipped me in a tub of icy lard. Of course he was from Georgia. He had come right out and told me that when we first met, but I had fallen for his “aw shucks,” nerdy professor act. I didn’t know how he was connected to Robert Meale, but I knew he had seventy pounds on me and two good feet. “I have to get something out of my car.”

He chuckled softly. “You’re pretty transparent, Mira. You’re as scared as a sheep on shearing day.”

I pulled clumsily out of his arms and glanced toward the house, which was still as dark as a tomb. Mrs. Meale appeared to have passed out in the car. I forced myself to look into his eyes while I reached for my stun gun with one hand and my knife with the other.

“You won’t need either of those. We’re on the same team.”

How had he known that I had two weapons and was reaching for them? “I’m not really a team player,” I said, stalling for time as I fumbled at the tangled spider knife hook in my waistband.

Quick as a rabbit, he pulled a Taser out from under his dark coat, held it up for me to see, and then holstered it as he pulled out a wallet and flashed his identification.

“It’s too dark to read that.”

“I’m a detective, from Statesboro. I was sent up here to follow Robert Meale, who is a person of interest in an active investigation.”

“What? And why are you carrying a Taser instead of a gun?”

He laughed again. “Mrs. Berns already talked to me about that, only she called it a ‘laser beamer.’ I told her it was so I could time travel. The truth is, Pastor Robert Meale has a habit of shielding himself with people. You never see him alone. I have my gun in my car but have been carrying the Taser.”

Something about his story didn’t sit right, but that might be because he was now telling me he had been lying to me all along. Where should I start believing him? Since his zapper trumped mine, there was no harm in at least pretending that I bought his story. “I have Mrs. Meale in the car. She’s been beaten up pretty badly by her husband, and she claims to have evidence that he’s responsible for the killings in Georgia as well as Lucy’s death and Lydia’s disappearance.”

“Why didn’t you take her straight to the police?”

“I was afraid she’d do something crazy, like jump out of the car and kill herself. She was adamant about not going to the police. Said she’d do it tomorrow. I figured I would go as soon as I got her safely to her sister.” I darted a glance at the car. My driver’s side window was open, and I didn’t want Naomi to know what I was up to. Fortunately, she looked like she was out cold.

Weston sighed and ran his hands through his flop of hair. “Let’s get her in the house and look at her injuries. We’ll decide where to go from there.” All business, he went to the passenger door and lifted Naomi out. The movement roused her, and she let out a groan. “Mrs. Meale? My name is Weston Lippmann. I’m going to get you into your sister’s house.”

She didn’t respond. I walked ahead and reached to knock on the door, but it was opened before my hand touched it. In front of me stood the same mousy-haired, pear-shaped, fever-eyed, poorly-permed woman who had been staring at Naomi with rapture at the Creation Science Fair. “Are you Sissy? I mean, are you Mrs. Meales’ sister?”

“I am.”

“She needs your help.” I stood aside, and Weston walked forward. Sissy blanched when her sister was carried past her. “She said her husband did this to her. She insisted that I bring her here instead of the hospital. Can you take care of her?”

“Does she have any broken bones?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“That stubborn mule. I’ll end up bringing her to the hospital anyway, you know. She needs a doctor.”

I nodded, relieved. “I was hoping you’d say that. You need help getting her into your car?”

“No, I’ve got help here.”

I looked around, seeing the inside of the house I had spent a couple good nights spying on. I was in the entryway, with the kitchen to my right, a main hall straight ahead, and a cavernous main room to my left. Weston was gently laying Mrs. Meale on a couch in the great room, talking to her quietly.

I wondered if Les was in the house, if that was the help Sissy was referring to. I didn’t have time for random thoughts, though. “Can I use your phone?”

Sissy smiled apologetically. “Don’t have one. I value my privacy.”

Weston came up and gave me a reassuring look before turning to Sissy. “Your sister doesn’t have any broken bones, just a lot of surface abrasions. I’m sorry to leave you like this, but we have to get going. You’re sure you can handle this?”

Sissy walked over to her sister, who was now sitting up. “I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

I followed Weston out the door. When it closed behind us, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, not sure what our next move was. “You drove here?”

“I did.”

“Do you have a cell phone in your car?”

“Yes, but it’s not much good in these woods. No reception. Good thing I have a police radio.”

I relaxed an inch. “So you can call in what I told you about Lydia?”

“Yes, and get an ambulance here. You’re going to drive back to town?”

“I suppose.”

“Go straight to the Battle Lake Police Station. Don’t stop for anyone.”

“Deal.”

He tipped his head curtly and strode back through the woods, on the opposite side of the driveway from Les’ rope trap. As I walked to my car, a bright glint in the passenger’s side seat caught my eye. I opened the door, reeling at the coppery smell of Naomi’s blood. In the seam of the seat was her giant crucifix ring. I held it up toward the sky, and it caught the moonlight in a thousand glinting shards. There were lights on in Sissy’s house now, and I heard a door slam, presumably the one leading to the garage. I would just step back in the front door, leave the ring on the counter, return to my car, and head to town like a bat out of hell.

Back inside the house, I was surprised to see that Naomi had already been moved off the couch. I glanced around. The kitchen and hallway were also empty. Back and to my left were the stairs to the basement, and there was a trail of blood leading down them.

I stopped at the top of the stairs. “Naomi? Sissy?”

Something heavy crashed to the floor downstairs, followed by a pitiful whimper. I dashed down the wooden steps as fast as my sprained ankle would allow. At the bottom was a finished basement with sheetrocked walls and a floor covered in linoleum designed to look like wood planks. This main room was set up like a den with marble-eyed animal heads on the wall, two uncomfortable-looking chairs, and a small television. Three doors led off this den, and another soft cry came from the one kitty whompus from me.

I rushed to the door and yanked it open. My intestines turned light and icy as I realized I had lurched right into the spider’s web.

The large room was
decked out like a small, gory church. Along the far wall were hung larger-than-life figures of Jesus on the cross, each one showing him progressively bloodier, his eyes bottomless pools of betrayal and sadness. To my immediate right was a life-sized nativity scene, complete with a baby Jesus. Only candles lit the space, but they provided me enough light to see the true horror: Lydia and Pastor Meale bound and gagged on the floor. Between them was a tipped statue of Jesus with nails driven through his hands and feet, this one a modest five feet in length.

My eyes picked up these details in a millisecond, which was a hair longer than it took for my ass to say, “Run!” I twisted toward the door, fully aware that the only chance I had at saving the three of us was escaping before I was discovered.

When I turned, I was confronted with a horrific sight. In the middle of the basement den stood Mrs. Naomi Meale, herself a gruesome ghost of a woman, a soft smile on her pulped face, her body still covered in blood and rags. She could walk, and she held a gun.

I swayed between the gory church behind me and terrible apparition in front of me and fought the urge to faint with all the desperation of a woman hanging on to a cliff wall by her fingernails. I stomped down on my sprained ankle and pain shot up my leg like an electric shock. With the pain came clarity and attention to the moment.

“You call that hurting yourself? Beginner.” She smiled, and one of the scabs on her face cracked. A thin trickle of blood rolled down her chin. She really had beaten herself up, or had someone else do it, just like she had really let a cigarette burn on her leg, her living, feeling leg.

I moaned and darted a glance at the stairs behind her. I couldn’t get to them, not with my twisted ankle, not when she had a gun on me. There was a door to my right and a door to my left, but I didn’t know where either one led. It was me, Mrs. Meale, and dead stuffed animals, and I didn’t know what to do.

That’s when I heard a creak at the top of the stairs. Mrs. Meale did not turn to look, but I saw feet coming down the carpeted steps. “Weston?” He came into full view and smiled at me ruefully. The room spun, or maybe it was my eyes. Weston was in on this with Naomi. What was the connection? How blind had I been?

As tears filled my eyes, Sissy came behind Weston, a mean-looking snub-nosed pistol in her hand. It was pointed at Weston’s back. My heart soared. The situation was bad, but Weston hadn’t lied about being on my team. My hope of Weston performing some slick police move to get us out of this was quickly squashed, however, when Sissy darted her hand forward, snatched Weston’s Taser out of his holster, and zapped him with it before he had a chance to change expressions. He slumped to the ground.

“Tie him up and put him with the rest.” Naomi didn’t take her eyes off me while she spoke. “Make sure you do a good job this time. We don’t want any getaways like we had at the Pagan Festival.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sissy duck her head in shame. She was clearly the follower in this team, and the intense adoration I had seen her shower on her sister had been real. Sissy leaned her sturdy, farmwife body down, hooked Weston under his armpits, and dragged him toward the horrible church.

I stared back into Naomi’s unhinged eyes. “You lied about Robert. You’re the one who’s murdering girls who look like you used to. Why? Why would you do that?”

“‘As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.’ Proverbs, chapter 11, verse 22.”

“What? You killed three teenagers and kidnapped a fourth because they were without discretion?”

“Because they were fornicating harlots. I tried to show them the righteous path. I gave them a chance to repent. They didn’t, not until I had them in my own small church.” She indicated the horror show behind me, running her hands through her hair, ragged where I had cut it to release her from my tire. “It is my duty to turn girls off the trail that sullied me. That’s why our Lord let me walk down that sinful path with Robert, so I could prevent other girls from making my same mistake. Because of me, they will not despoil themselves. They will not know the searing pain of losing a beloved baby.”

“Why didn’t you let them go after they repented?”

She laughed, tightly. “Because it was too late. The girls were too far gone. They had cavorted with Satan and could not be turned back. I had to do the Lord’s work.”

“The Lord’s work? Kidnapping and murdering young women?”

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all of them also that love His appearing.”

“Amen,” Sissy seconded, as she stripped off a loud piece of duct tape from a roll on the couch and bound Weston’s wrists. She grunted and strained as she dragged him roughly to the horrific tableau behind me, pushing me aside as she struggled past. Weston was still out cold, though I thought I saw his eyelids flutter for a second.

When Sissy passed directly behind me, I could see sweat leaking through the back of her blue-flowered, cotton dress. I wanted to jump on her and make her stop, but she had arms like Popeye and would make short work of me if Naomi didn’t shoot me first.

Naomi scowled at her sister’s interruption. “I can’t imagine you would understand what it’s like to lose a child and to find forgiveness and peace only by agreeing to do God’s bidding. Robert pegged you as a heathen from the first. That may have been the only thing he was right about. He always came up short, though, my Robert.”

“What was all that about him being the head and you only being the neck?”

“The neck turns the head, my dear.”

Sissy returned to the den and stood by me with hands on pear-shaped hips, breathing heavily. “What are we going to do with her?”

Excellent question. “I could convert.”

“Tie her up and put her with the others.”

Sissy shoved me roughly. “And then what?” I asked. A mental picture of Lucy Lebowski, her perfect young back marred by a murky hole big enough to put a fist through, flitted behind my eyes, unwanted.

“‘If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink. For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee.’ Proverbs, chapter 25, verses 21–22.”

“You’re going to burn my house down?”

“It’s the only way, Sissy. I already wrote Robert’s suicide note and left it at the camp. Apparently he couldn’t stand the shame of kidnapping and killing four teenage girls. He beat his wife within an inch of her life and went to his sister-in-law’s house to kill himself and destroy all evidence.”

I shook my head. “That’ll never work. He’ll be found tied up. And how will you explain me and Weston being here?”

“The fire will burn his bindings off before they find your corpses. They can think what they want about you and your fornicating friend.”

“What about Sissy?” My mouth was dry with desperation. “The police will think she was in on it.”

“Sissy is officially at the Holiday Inn in St. Cloud. She made a great point of telling me, Alicia, Robert, and the entire congregation that she’d be gone all weekend and wouldn’t be back until Monday morning. She already checked in yesterday. Robert would certainly have taken advantage of that to finish his dirty work in her empty house.” An unsettling, joyful agitation burned in Naomi’s eyes and was reflected in Sissy’s. They had both tumbled over the edge of sanity and were operating on adrenaline and misplaced faith. Standing together, one sister solid as a silo and plain, the other bloody and wasted but oddly striking, I could see just a hint of a resemblance, a glimmer of what they may have looked like, young and hopeful, before this craziness had consumed them.

“What about Alicia?” Panic made me lightheaded. “You’d kill her father?”

“Not her true Father. This is all for Him. ‘If God be for us who can be against us?’ Tie her up.”

I put up a fight with Sissy, who had her gun stuffed in her waistband, but she was built like a brick shithouse, had ten more years of life experience, and was quick as mercury. She had me trussed like a Christmas pig and on the floor within minutes. She dragged me into the little room of horrors, dumping me against a crucifix. The giant nail driven through Jesus’ foot dug in my back. To my left was Weston, whose eyes were closed, but one foot was twitching, like he was chasing rabbits. Straight ahead, Lydia lay on her side in front of the nativity scene, hands and feet tied and facing away from me. Pastor Meale was in the same position as her, only to my right and closer to the door. I could see his eyes were closed.

Sissy, the workhorse, then brought down a five-gallon can of gasoline and pulled an armload of cotton rags out of the laundry room. She doused them with gasoline, the wicked, heavy stench of fuel slipping into our nostrils. The metal can made a chugging-sucking sound with every splash of gasoline she poured. She piled the incendiary rags on the couch and rug in the main room and trailed some up the stairs. I heard splashing on the floorboards above as she spread out the last of the fuel.

The smell was suffocating. When Sissy returned to place the empty can near Robert Meales’ slumped and trussed figure, I pleaded with her. “You don’t have to do this. You can stop it all right now.”

“It’s too late. I have to leave.”

I would have given all the gardens in Minnesota to do the same. The binding was biting into my wrists, but the pain kept me focused.

“Is it all set?” Asked Naomi, following her sister into the room. If I was hoping for a twinge of guilt or a last-minute reprieve, it wasn’t coming. Her eyes were as hard as obsidian chips.

“We should be able to light it from the wheelchair ramp out front,” answered Sissy. “We better get the car on the road first, to be safe.”

“Come on, then. You’ve got to get back to St. Cloud and I have to get back to the woods by the Bible camp.”

Not even a backward glance from either woman as they walked up the stairs. The stench of gasoline was so thick that it coated my eyes with a greasy sheen. I tried to shift, but the metal nail in my back scratched at my spine. I endeavored to push it away, but it snagged on the duct tape holding my wrists behind my back. I got an idea—a tiny, desperate idea. I pushed the duct tape against the nail and felt it snag again. I scooted my whole body back toward Jesus’ legs and began to rub the tape furiously against the nail. Robert Meale and Lydia were both lying still, in the same spots and position as when I had first seen them. I could touch them with my foot if I stretched. Weston had stopped twitching on the far side of the room and was now motionless.

I returned my focus to the task at hand—getting this damned duct tape off my wrists. It was hard to keep getting the right spot without being able to see what I was doing, and several times my wrists slipped and the gargantuan nail sliced me. I didn’t stop, the smell of gasoline pushing against the back of my throat like a finger. The front door slammed, and I imagined I could hear the whoosh of a gas stove firing—first the doused rags leading up the wheelchair ramp, through the entry, down the stairs, and into the heap of gasoline-soaked rags in the center of the lower den. From there, they would take off on the trail leading into this room. We’d probably suffocate before we burned, but it would be a race. I rubbed, harder and harder, and the tape grew hot. Harder and harder I rubbed, ignoring the hot blood trickling down into my cupped fingers.

I did hear it before I saw it, the whistle of oxygen being removed, followed by a fiery tongue licking down the stairs as fast as a snake. In desperation, I stretched out my leg and kicked over part of the nativity scene in front of me. The manger fell on the cotton rags, disrupting the chain at the door. Still, when the flame snarled toward the entrance of our room, it lit the gas fumes, creating a searing sonic boom that left everyone without eyebrows. My heart raced, and I felt every hair on my body stand up.

From this angle, I could see that the rug and one of the chairs in the den had caught fire. The manger had bought me some time, but not much. I rubbed with even more gusto, telling myself that my wrists could not feel pain, that they were just instruments. I felt eyes on me and looked up at Lydia. Her head was turned toward me, and her eyes were wide, scared, and young. I wondered if she had been alert the whole time. Tears were coursing down her face, but she didn’t say a word, even though her mouth was not bound. Across the room, Weston was beginning to shift, but Robert Meale remained still as a statue, his eyes closed, on his side but facing me.