Stone Maidens (36 page)

Twenty-three six-, seven-, and eight-year-old girls were chasing one another on the mowed lawn in front of the Echo Lake Recreation Center building. Quickly they were gathered and shuttled inside by chaperones. Arlene Greenwald, the scout leader, was
taking no chances after learning of the manhunt for the escaped David Claremont. She was comforted by the fact that the ranger’s cabin was directly across from the rec center. All the same, she had called the girls’ parents to discuss whether to reconvene the outing some other day. The scout leader checked her watch—half past four—and wondered why Ms. Prusik hadn’t yet arrived.

The girls gathered in the center of the room for the troop’s regular announcements. Except Maddy, who leaned against the back wall, away from the group, inching her way to the door. She slipped outside and walked down to the water’s edge. The peaceful solitude was soothing. Ever since her sister, Julie, had died, she couldn’t stand to be around other people, except her parents. She crouched by the shore, observed a bullfrog disappear underwater and become a flattened image of itself. Out farther, fish were biting through the mirrorlike surface, feeding.

Maddy wandered along the lake edge, gazing at her reflection. A narrow foot trail entered the woods circling the lake. She took it without a thought. Her ninth birthday was a month away. Big for her age, the girl had her father’s stocky build.

“There you are!” Arlene Greenwald, the scout leader, panted up behind her. “I thought we’d lost you.”

The scout leader tugged Maddy by the hand. “We’d never have found you in those old woods.” She blinked down at the girl. “Let’s go join the others, shall we?”

Maddy didn’t say a word. She pulled free, not liking being tugged by the woman. She marched ahead of Mrs. Greenwald and rejoined the others, who were already sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor, playing a guessing game about nature.

“Who knows what kind of bird of prey sits in the trees surrounding the lake, waiting to dive down and catch a fish?” one mother said, moving her arm like a swooping bird, scanning a sea of Brownie faces.

Hands went up all around with attention-getting grunts. Maddy twisted her neck from side to side; she didn’t want to play.
During a singsong she asked to go to the bathroom, and a chaperone followed her to the door marked for ladies. Maddy’s eyes focused on an outside window with a frosted pane next to the sink. It was a double-hung style, just like the kind her father had installed in their house last year. She turned its center latch and lifted it open all the way. A waft of lake air slipped up her nostrils. Without a thought she hoisted her leg over the sill and lowered herself to the ground, drawn by the quiet tranquility of the lake’s coves.

A late-model black sedan bearing MD plates slowly motored past the picnic area and disappeared along the service road.

Maddy went back to the lake trail. A few feet into the woods it turned darker. The other girls’ singing reverberated off the still waters. Between tree trunks she glimpsed the one-story brown building, now nearly a football field away.

She stepped over a muddy spot in the trail with deer tracks through it. Just ahead a small creek fed into the lake. Her eyes wandered up the creek bed, which contained only a trickle now—a vestige of what it had been during the springtime flood, which would have concealed the rocks that lay dry and exposed. A dribble of water spilled from a limestone overhang, challenging the girl to climb higher. She hopped from rock to rock, her arms extended for balance, completely oblivious to the gathering of Brownies now out of sight several hundred yards behind her.

The jumble of rocks in the bed grew steeper. She found handholds, careful not to slip. Catching her breath, Maddy crested the waterfall and looked out across the lake, and for the first time in a long time she experienced a sense of triumph.

A shrill cry tore open the silence. Too loud for a birdcall—too human sounding. The anguished cry was repeated, this time as a perfect high-pitched echo coming back across the lake, the sound of someone choking. It wasn’t right. Goose bumps raced up Maddy’s arms. A dragging sound drew nearer, made her crouch behind a tree stump. She noticed a road ahead.

It grew quieter again. There was no more gasping. Gaining courage, Maddy cautiously rose, holding her breath as she did. Her own heartbeats filled the girl’s ears—nothing else. Had she only imagined it?

The sound of someone rolling in leaves, rolling and groaning, made the young girl freeze. Her eyes focused on a stand of evergreens near the place where it leveled out. The noises didn’t sound like fun; someone was in trouble, maybe needing help.

She skirted the evergreens, keeping a safe distance from whoever was moaning. The immense girth of an old beech tree stood blocking her view at the edge of the dirt road. A sign was nailed to it, a direction sign. She’d seen it out the car window before arriving at the lake. It read: P
ICNIC
A
REA
¼ M
ILE
A
HEAD
.

A man’s bloodied face slid into her view, propped against the tree trunk with the sign. His shirt and pants were torn and dirty, one cheek scraped raw. She’d never seen anyone in such an awful state before. Had he been attacked by some wild animal? The man’s eyes were fixed, not really looking at her. He seemed very distressed. Maybe he’d been lost in the woods overnight, or had broken his leg? Maddy’s father always warned her about wandering off. Crosshaven’s woods were plenty notorious for kids getting lost or hurt or worse, like Julie.

The man’s stance shifted awkwardly. He scraped his shoulder along the tree trunk for support, grimacing and twisting. His arms were restrained behind his back. Suddenly his hands popped free. The man rubbed his reddened wrists. He dropped to his knees, his head sunk down. Maddy climbed the rest of the way to the road, emboldened by the apparent emergency.

“Mister, are you OK?”

His head bobbed, and he closed and opened his eyes once. “Better...you leave.” His chin slumped back to his chest. “Go...quick...”

Maddy didn’t budge. “Who hurt you? Do you want me to get help?”

The man jerked his head from side to side, as if expecting someone’s return. A motor rumbled closer, crunching and spitting gravel sounds of a car rapidly approaching. Its running lights shone through the trees up ahead.

The man tumbled to the ground and he rolled down the embankment toward her. Maddy leapt backward. Her Brownie cap fell off as she plunged through the leaves, not caring about the noise she was making. She didn’t have time with the car braking hard behind her, the car door slamming. The hurt man’s cuts and bruises had spoken loud and clear: GET OUT!

It was after five o’clock, and the sky grew noticeably dimmer along the narrow forest road. Prusik had developed a bad blister on her right heel. She chided herself for running off like she had in a brand-new pair of oxfords. The blister was tiring her right leg, with no sign of the lake in sight. Worse, no one had driven by to flag down.

She dug her hand into her coat pocket and tried McFaron’s number again. The low battery symbol blinked on. She grumbled aloud to herself. She couldn’t believe it: limping with an excruciating blister in the middle of nowhere with a dying cell phone. Up ahead through the trees, the flicker of headlights caught her attention. The distinct whir of a car motor approaching—someone was coming her way.

“Finally. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

The wash of the car’s beams illuminated the gloomy woods. A moment later they shone brightly in her face. She shielded her eyes, holding the FBI badge out. The car slowed. She hurried to the passenger side. The driver leaned over and pushed open the door.

“Your timing couldn’t be better,” Christine said, clambering inside the vehicle and pulling the door shut. She gingerly pulled off the back of her right shoe where it had rubbed unmercifully.

The driver accelerated hard. “You Ms. Prusik? FBI?” He spoke from under a dapper wool hat with a pull-down brim, an Irish tweed sort.

“That’s right, Special Agent Prusik,” she responded, taking in the man’s profile. All she could see clearly was a side view of his lower face—the rest of his face was concealed behind the hat—but the driver’s chin and jawline were David Claremont’s. Her heart began to hammer in her chest.

The man’s shoulders were slightly askew—lower on his right—meaning there was some degree of curvature to the man’s spine. His driving posture slouched toward the left. He held the steering wheel firmly with his right hand while propping his left elbow on the window ledge, resting his head against his left hand—all of which suggested right-handedness, not like Claremont, who she’d verified was a lefty. During her interview of Claremont, Prusik recalled that he had sat canted to his right side, another facet of left-handedness. She squeezed her pinkie in the tightening ball of her fist.

“Who contacted you? Was it Sheriff McFaron’s office?” Prusik said in her most assertive voice. She was good in an interview room, but in the confines of a speeding car with a killer, she was clearly not the one in control.

“Yes, that’s right, the sheriff’s office. Didn’t mean to get your credentials wrong, Special Agent. They sent me out looking for you as soon as they heard.” The man’s speech had a boldness and confidence totally absent from the man she’d interviewed in the Weaversville Police Station.

“So you were in contact with Sheriff McFaron?” she demanded to know, feeling increasingly uneasy. How could this man—Donald Holmquist?—know who she was and where she’d be?

“That’d be him all right.”

He hadn’t really answered her question at all. No acknowledgment either way, which told her that she was in great danger. Christine scrubbed her fingers through her hair. She needed to buy herself time.

“Then you must know I’m expected at Echo Lake State Park for a speaking engagement with the Brownie troop. I imagine they’ll be looking for me by now.”

“A woman’s work is never done,” he pronounced cryptically.

Christine distinctly heard neck vertebrae cracking as the driver twisted his head toward her, then away—a quirk she recalled seeing David Claremont do at one point during the interview. “I appreciate your coming to look for me,” she said as casually as possible. “How close are we to the picnic area?”

The driver gunned the motor in response. They were careening back through forest tracts she’d spent the better part of an hour limping past.

“Just a ways ahead.” He levered a forefinger up off the top of the steering wheel, pointing forward. “There’s a shortcut that leads to the lake quicker.”

“Yeah.” Prusik forced a chuckle. “I know all about your shortcuts down here.”

“Not like the big city, is it? With plenty of people around to help out when you need it,” the man said almost gleefully.

Prusik blinked in surprise at this second cryptic remark, some kind of inward code of his, or implied threat. She decided to take a calculated risk. “Say listen, you know your brother, David, has become quite a celebrity in the media? I think your story is worth hearing, too.”

The car gained speed, passing an intersecting road Prusik recalled seeing a half hour before. Her mind raced. “Are you sure we haven’t missed the turn?” she asked, saying “we” to sound less threatening. “We could turn around back there?”

He swerved a little too rapidly around a bend; gravel dinged beneath the car. “Hardly,” he said, then uttered in a deeper voice, “Mother always said, as you make your bed, so must you lie in it.”

The man’s odd manner of expression sent Prusik’s blood pumping. His driving too fast and going the wrong way did, too. Her throat went dry. Pulses from her amygdala crowded her head
as they had in the stuffy interview room at the Weaversville jailhouse. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She had found the man she’d been hunting for. Or he had found her.

She steeled herself, focusing out the windshield on an invisible vanishing point in her mind, envisioning the hypnotic quiet of the lap pool. Taking stroke after stroke, her arms pulling her through the water, her flutter kick steady, keeping her abdomen taut with each breathful of air. Maintaining steady her pace, a V-shaped wave rippling off her bathing cap, Christine Prusik touched down in her calm place.

“Speaking of your mother, Donald”—she took a brazen leap of faith—“what would she say if she knew that you still wet your bed? I’ve been up to your room in Delphos. But you know that, don’t you? Quite a mess you’ve made of the place.” Prusik watched the man’s hands jam tightly together, scrubbing across the top of the steering wheel.

“What do you think your mother would say about your soiling the mattress like that?” Prusik pressed. “A man your age still soiling
her
mattress, I mean
really
.”

Holmquist’s lips were quivering.

“And I won’t even ask whether she’d approve of what else you’re doing—of what you’ve been canning up these days.”

The car slowed. The man’s head slumped down in shame.

“I don’t think she would approve at all. That would definitely be a big no.”

“You better just hush,” he said in a small voice.