The Body in the Basement (34 page)

Read The Body in the Basement Online

Authors: Katherine Hall Page

“All right. That should do it.”
Valerie dumped enough hemp to tie up the
Queen Mary
at her husband's feet and took the gun firmly in her own hand.
“Good, good,” Jim said as he started to wind the coils around Pix, finishing with what she knew must be very efficient knots. After all, the man taught the art.
“Oh, by the way, my love, I almost forgot.” He gave a sharp yank to tighten the rope around Pix's wrists. It dug painfully into her skin and she winced. “Sorry, Pix,” he said, then continued to address his wife. “As I was saying, Samantha was very clever and got two campers to confess to some of the pranks that have been occurring. Apparently, they were angry at being here and wanted to get sent home or that's how it started anyway. It actually is rather funny.
They
were responsible for the parade! Here we thought it was Duncan all this time.”
Valerie did laugh. “That
is
one on us, but it helped to tarnish his reputation. I probably didn't need to paint those sails—the mice and maybe the bird would have been enough with the parade. I ruined a perfectly good pair of pants for nothing.”
“I do wish you had consulted me before that one.” The change in Jim's voice was a grim reminder of the way he behaved when pushed to anger. “What if it hadn't come off? Those sails are custom-made for us.”
“If you had known, you wouldn't have been so convincing, sugar. Now I thought you were in a hurry.”
“What can I be thinking of?” He hastened to bind Samantha.
The job done, complete with handkerchiefs over their mouths, he kissed his wife good-bye and ran down the stairs, but first he took Pix's car keys from her purse, apologizing. “We mustn't leave the car parked out front. Sorry.”
Jim gone, Valerie had clearly had enough of the Millers' company and told them, “Now remember, my parents didn't play games with yours and I'm in no mood for any games with
you. I can see everything that goes on in here, so don't try anything.” She closed the door hard.
Trussed up like the proverbial Thanksgiving bird, Pix thought this virtually impossible, nor was she planning on giving any indication like rolling over and futilely trying to cut the rope by rubbing it on the slick paint of the desk leg. Valerie alone was as dangerous as a well full of copperheads. Pix could hear her now: “Oops, sugar, the gun just kind of went off.” Her well manicured hands seemed able to support any number of deaths.
At least she was lying close to Samantha. Now she inched still nearer. Her daughter had tears in her eyes and Pix could almost smell the fear coming from her body. Every maternal nerve ached to comfort Samantha. She clenched her teeth, unclenched, and miraculously the handkerchief loosened. She tried it again. And again. Soon she was able to talk.
“Clench and unclench your jaw. I've been able to loosen the gag,” she whispered.
Samantha went through similar contortions and after a while was able to whisper back, “What are we going to do? Are we going to die?”
“No. Don't even think of it.” Pix wanted to distract Samantha. “Now tell me what happened? What's in the closet?”
“Oh, Mom, there are stacks of those quilts. The ones with the blue X's—and more shelves full of a lot of other antiques.”
“What kinds?”
“Toys mostly—plastic Mickey Mouse figurines. Also some wooden carvings of animals. Oh, and one of a figure. It looked like John the Baptist or someone like that from the Bible.”
Mickey Mouses. Pix could hear Earl's voice explaining just how they were faked. And the folk art, folk art similar to what was at Jill's.
Mitch and the Athertons' business partners in marketing fake antiques—deadly partners for Mitch. They had killed
him and used one of the phony quilts to bury him in. She'd been right. The marks indicated which were real and which were copies. They'd gotten sloppy about removing them. And Samantha had opened the door.
“But what did she mean about Duncan? And Mom, she killed her own husband!”
“I know, darling, it's beyond belief. Poor Duncan. All this time he's felt responsible, and really his mother was just waiting for him to go to sleep so she could push Bernard overboard.” Pix shuddered. It was getting cooler as the sun dropped steadily toward the horizon. Obviously, it hadn't been only Jim who couldn't stand the sight of Duncan. Valerie wanted him out of their lives, too, yet didn't want public opinion against them. Hence, Duncan the incorrigible. Duncan may have attacked Samantha, perhaps pushing her harder than he intended. Pix was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt, considering his parents. But the rest had been manufactured by them out of the boy's own unhappiness and depression. What a thing to do to a child!
She wouldn't have to bother asking Jim why he did it, though. She thought of his wine cellar, the boats, all the expensive video toys, this whole “Million Dollar Mansion.” He may have been partly motivated by the love of a bad woman, but the real answer was the old tried and true “for the money.” What he had inherited and what he made from the camp had evidently not been enough. The Athertons were all set to live the good life—until the Millers happened along.
Pix looked around the room. Even if she could get free of her bonds, there was nothing even remotely resembling a weapon, unless you were up for a pillow fight.
They'd have to untie them enough to walk—that is if they were going to move them, and Pix was afraid they were. Left in the house, they might be found too soon and raise the alarm.
“Mom, can you think of anything? What would Faith do?”
Pix was stung. So far as she knew, Faith had never been
bound and gagged. She'd probably do exactly what Pix was doing—try to keep her circulation going. She decided to ignore her daughter's remark.
After a while, Samantha asked timidly, “What time do you think they'll come back?”
“They said at dark. The sun set at eight-nineteen last night.” Pix did know some things. She continued to parade her expertise. “I'd say they'll come back around nine. They're obviously planning to leave by boat and they'll want to get a good start. This is deep water, so they don't have to consider the tide.”
“Which gives us less than three hours.”
“I'm afraid so.”
“And no one to miss us. Arlene was leaving for Ellsworth straight from work with Fred. They knew you wouldn't let me go. How about Granny?”
“I spoke to her this afternoon, so she wouldn't expect to hear from me again. I asked her to come over tonight, but she said she was tired and wanted an early night.”
“If Daddy calls, he'll think we went somewhere for dinner.”
“And I talked to Faith just before coming over. That's what kept me.”
Pix gasped, but Samantha quickly reassured her. “Even if you'd been on time, it would have been too late. She didn't have the check upstairs. The one thing that would have saved us was if the phone hadn't rung. Then I wouldn't have done such a stupid thing and opened the closet door. She must have been talking to Jim.”
“Earl would have no reason to think it odd if we weren't home.” Pix continued the litany with decreasing hope.
“And there's no one else.”
“Only us.”
The Athertons came back at 9:30.
When Valerie had first left the room, Pix had not been anxious for their return, but as dusk fell, her muscles and her nerves were crying out for some sort of change. And what that might be was something she had been speculating about for hours—silently. Samantha was calmer and had even dozed off at one point. Pix had felt drowsy herself, yet she dared not shut her eyes. She heard them before she saw them, rapid footsteps on the stairs.
The door opened and with a flick, light flooded the room, blinding Pix temporarily with its abrupt brightness. She could see how frightened Samantha was now. Her eyes were wide open, pupils dilated, like a fawn teetering about on the road, caught in the beams of a car's headlights.
“I still say we should take the silver service,” Valerie was whining.
“We'll buy another. It's not that special and it weighs too
much. We'll be lucky to make any speed at all with everything you've packed.” He bent down and untied Pix's ankles. The pain was intense but bearable. She knew she could walk. The question was, could she run? He helped them to their feet and said, “Get going—slowly in front of us, and don't try anything. Any noise and I'll shoot you both.”
So much for Pix's plan to scream her head off the moment she was outside. They didn't know the gag was loose. With the way sound travels over water, the whole island would have been alerted. Only no one would be able to get there in time.
She started to head for the spiral staircase.
“No, the other way.”
They filed down the hall past doors to rooms whose decor Pix could merely imagine. She had no doubt that had Jim not been around, Valerie would pull the trigger in a moment just because she was having to leave her fabulous house. And given her treatment of husband number one, Jim ought to be looking around a great deal, Pix thought ruefully. Her hands were tied behind her back and she gave a little wave to Samantha. Jim didn't want to leave two bodies behind. Pix was convinced they would remain alive, she told herself fervently. The question was, where?
They marched through the kitchen and out the back door. It was very dark. The moon had not risen yet and Pix stumbled on the stairs. If she broke a leg, would they shoot her?
“Down to the dock,” Jim ordered.
As they left the house, lighted up like a Christmas tree to indicate occupancy, Pix wondered what they had done with her car. Another thought struck her. What had they done with Duncan? He was still on the island as far as she knew.
They reached the dock. Jim's Boston Whaler was pulled up.
“We're all going to take a little boat ride,” he said. “Honey, you get in first.” Pix was pretty sure he didn't mean either of them. Valerie slid by them awkwardly. She was struggling
with a heavy canvas bag that she must have picked up on their way out. She was dressed for the voyage: heavy pants, jacket, and a kerchief tied over her hair. Pix gasped in surprise. Not at Valerie's outfit, but at what she was wearing on her feet—running shoes with twinkling red lights that flickered on and off as she got into the boat.
It hadn't been Duncan at all.
Why hadn't Pix tripped her, pushed her body straight over the side—this monstrous woman who had knocked Samantha to the ground, leaving her injured, with no more compunction than she would have felt swatting a mosquito? It was all Pix could do not to yell out every filthy name she had ever heard. But even if they didn't kill her, they would surely tighten the gag, and if she had sent Valerie sprawling into the sea, Pix herself might have followed her.
No, there was absolutely nothing she could do.
They got in the boat. If she had been in the mood, Pix would have been amused at the sight of a large wicker picnic basket—a few bottles of the bubbly and other assorted goodies for a midnight feast on the bounding main? Valerie set her bag next to it with a defiant look at her husband. The silver after all?
“We should be in Nova Scotia before dawn,” Jim said with obvious pleasure, anticipating the trip. He was where he was happiest—on the water.
“Duncan won't be back until late—if he comes here at all. He'll probably sleep in his moldy old cabin as usual.”
“I liked that ‘good mother' touch.” Jim chuckled. “How he wouldn't be seeing his friends for a while and you wanted to treat them all to pizza and the movies. Here, you steer. I've got to change my shoes.”
Valerie took over. She was in a boat, steering a boat. The phobia, like everything else, had been fake.
Jim sat beside Pix companionably. They could see Valerie at the helm, shifting her feet every once in a while, causing the
lights in her shoes to flash. Jim chuckled. “Technology. What next? Shoes that talk or sing? Sorry about Samantha, incidentally. Valerie must have pushed her a bit harder than she'd planned. We had merely intended to give you a scare so you'd stop sticking your nose into things. We hoped Samantha would see the lights and assume it was Dunc. It all worked out perfectly.”
Depending on one's viewpoint. Pix was reaching the boiling point.
She saw they were headed for a small island that she knew belonged to the camp. It was a long way from shore. They used it for overnights, teaching the kids survival skills. Now it appeared it would test Pix's own. Valerie cut the motor and eased the boat into shallow water. Jim jumped out, pulling them farther onto the beach. The hull scraped along the rough sand, then all was quiet. The only sound was that of the waves gently breaking to either side.
“Last stop,” Jim said heartily. He reached in the boat and picked Pix up, depositing her more or less upright on the sand. Samantha was next.
Pix had never noticed how strong he was. She'd never noticed a lot of things about Jim.
“Toss me the rope, Val. I won't be a minute.” He pulled a gun from his pocket. “Okay, up the path.”
Pix couldn't imagine where he was taking them, and although the night was still warm, she felt a cold sweat break out. Was it really going to be the last stop? Behind her, Samantha moaned.
They walked to a clearing in the middle of the island. Some summer's campers had built a lean-to and it was this that was apparently their destination.
“Get in and lie down. Let's not make things hard. I do so wish you two had not become involved. Believe me, I hate doing this,” Jim said as he began to expertly bind Samantha's feet together again.
Pix thought about trying to kick the gun from his hand. She could do it easily, though with her hands behind her back, it would gain her nothing. Every plan she had devised had come to nothing. She had failed miserably. But she would not cry, she told herself angrily. She would not let the bastard see her cry.
He finished with Samantha and went to work on Pix. In a moment, he was standing up.
“Well, good-bye, I guess. There's really nothing else to say.”
 
A few minutes later, they heard the boat start up again. Mother and daughter started talking at once. “Mom, they're gone!” “Are you all right?”
They were almost giddy with relief. They were alive. But, Pix soon realized, taking stock of the situation, not in good shape.
The island was uninhabited, and tied securely the way they were, there was no way they could attract attention tomorrow morning from a passing boat. When the Athertons didn't turn up at the camp and it became apparent that Pix and Samantha were also missing, a search would be made, yet it was unlikely that anyone would think to come here. There were countless islands of varying size dotted throughout Penobscot Bay. It could be days or even weeks before they were found.
Jim wasn't going to be directly responsible for their deaths. Obviously, he'd come up with a plan that effectively kept them out of the way while the Athertons headed for the Canadian border and still kept his hands clean. Pix could almost hear him explaining it to “sweetcakes,” “That's all we need, a few hours. If they're found, fine. If not …”
If not …
“Samantha, we
have
to try to cut these ropes with something. Can you stand up?”
“I don't know.” She strained to bend her knees and get into a sitting position. “It's no use. He's tied our hands and feet together.”
“Maybe I can untie the knot. My fingers are free.”
Pix rolled over to Samantha and began to pick at the knot at her ankles. Her fingers soon began to ache and she wished she hadn't kept her nails so short. Manicures didn't last long gardening.
“At least one of us has to get down to the shore and start yelling. There's always the chance that a boat could have pulled into the cove for the night. Distract me. Sing. Anything.” The pain and frustration were intense.
“All right. What shall I sing?” Samantha mind's was suddenly blank. She and Mom had rather different tastes in music. The latest from the Indigo Girls would not do much to speed the process. “I know—what you and Daddy used to sing to me when I couldn't get to sleep.” Her voice started out shakily and got stronger, “Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird.”
By the time Papa had purchased the sixth horse and cart, Pix had undone the knot and Samantha's feet and hands were no longer tied together. She stood up.
“Look and see if there are any nails in the wall or anything sharp you could use to try to undo mine.” Pix did not want her daughter to suffer the way she had; she knew her fingers were bleeding from the rough rope.
Samantha hopped around the lean-to. The moon had risen. It was past eleven o'clock.
“Here's a bunch of nails. They must have hung stuff on them. I'll try to get one with my teeth.”
“Be careful!” All those years of orthodontics, fluoride treatments, sealants. She watched Samantha hop back toward her with a rusty nail in her mouth and kneel by her side. Samantha dropped the nail to the floor and deftly picked it
up, starting in on the knot, looking over her shoulder the same way her mother had.
“Boy, are we going to be stiff in the morning.”
“Yes,” Pix agreed, stiff, but not stiffs.
“All right, it's your turn.”
Pix started to sing. This time Mama bought.
After what seemed like hours, Pix was somewhat freed also and they gingerly made their way down to the shore. Coming through the trees, the ocean with the moon streaking across it like a beacon was a welcome sight. Pix had almost fallen in the woods and now she fell on purpose, rolling over and over toward the shoreline, well away from the ledges. She closed her eyes as the hard rocks pressed into her body, then opened them when she reached the smoother sand. Samantha followed her and they began to call, “Help! Help! Please, someone help us!”
They decided to take turns, then figured they might as well wait until morning. No one was within earshot. Pix once more lay as close as she could to her daughter. The wind was picking up. It was getting colder. Even if they could free themselves, it was too far to swim to the mainland through the frigid waters. Pix reassured Samantha. It offered a measure of comfort for herself, too, despite the disbelief of a quick rescue steadily rising like the tide.
“Don't worry, everything will be all right in the morning. Why don't you close your eyes.”
“I don't think I can sleep.”
“Hush, little baby …”
Before she could get very far into the lullaby, Pix thought she heard the sound of an oar or a paddle. She lifted her head. Wishful thinking. Then the sound came again, more distinctly.
“Yoo hoo! Pix? Samantha? Where are you?”
It was Mother.
 
 
The three women and Duncan made a somewhat outlandish grouping as they sat on the deck of the Athertons' house waiting for Earl. Neither Pix nor Samantha had wanted to go inside, so Duncan had fetched blankets for them to wrap around themselves and a bottle of brandy and glasses at Mrs. Rowe's suggestion. Pix was drinking from the Baccarat after all. The teenagers had Cokes and were steadily devouring a bag of potato chips. Although hungry, Pix herself did not feel like eating anything from this particular larder.

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