“That’ll be the day. She’s got something bothering her. It’s always something.”
Mary Ellen remained transfixed while Adam was fed his mashed banana. He was propped in a reclining seat on the kitchen table, with Mary Ellen gazing in adoration at his messy face, when footsteps thumped lightly on the walk outside.
Anita peered through the screen door. “Mrs. Gilwood, did you know they found Valerie Cruz and she’s dead, too? She was in my sister’s class.”
“I heard,” said Joyce. “It’s horrible. And I’m amazed that your mother allows you to wander around alone, even on the road. Does she know you’re here?”
“I guess so.” Anita let herself in. “Valerie was a friend of my sister’s, and when they found her, she was all cut up. They cut open her stomach and took out all her, you know, what’s inside. I bet
that
hurt.”
“I bet she was already dead when they did it,” Joyce said. Gail, coming into the kitchen at the sound of Anita’s voice, turned ashen. Joyce added, “I’d rather we didn’t talk about those things.”
“They killed her by choking her to death,” Anita went on. “Like this.” She reached for Gail’s throat. Gail slapped her away.
Anita was taken aback by Gail’s hostile reaction, but soon recovered. She ran squealing up the stairs, with Gail after her, and brought down the dolls to play with on the lawn.
By that time, some of the lawn was in shade. Joyce carried a lunch tray outside to a small wooden table under an oak tree. She found the two girls huddled by the zinnia bed. Anita’s voice drifted over to her. “… go back to that place.”
“No,” said Gail.
“But I have to get my peacock and my horse. I left them there, remember? And you were there, too, so it’s partly your fault, and you have to go with me.”
Gail looked at her mother in mute appeal. To distract them from whatever Anita was trying to cook up, Joyce said, “After lunch, maybe we can go swimming. All of us.”
Gail was delighted, almost to the point of forgetting about
the murders. They packed away the dolls and ate their lunch, then set out in the car, with Adam’s travel bed in the back seat. Mary Ellen squeezed herself in beside it. Gail and Anita sat in front.
They stopped at the Farands’ house so that Anita could change into her swimsuit. Sheila came out to the car and leaned on the window.
“I suppose you heard the news?”
“If you mean about the other girl, yes. I heard it this morning.”
“I just can’t believe it. My daughter knew that kid. Joyce, what are we going to do?”
“What can we do? Just watch out, I guess.”
“Oh, you, you’re a city girl. You’re used to these things.”
“I’m both. I grew up in the country, and believe it or not, I never felt any worse off in the city. We always had our door locked, and there were always people around. I felt—”
Not safe, after Larry died. She had hated it then.
Anita came out of the house wearing a pair of shorts over her suit, and got into the car. They drove through the edge of Cedarville, past a row of small stores and modest houses. After that, the street diminished to a narrow winding road that led out into the country. About a mile later, they came to an artificial pond with the pretentious name of Paradise Lake. The entrance fee was immodest, but it was the only place near Cedarville where they could swim. She settled herself with Adam in a grove of pine trees and watched the girls play in the water. Anita had latched onto Mary Ellen and was whispering to her and giggling, which left Gail by herself.
But Gail often played and swam alone. She paddled near the shore, humming softly, and found pebbles and flip tops to create another microcosm, as she had created the fairy house. Mary Ellen, who turned out to be a surprisingly good
swimmer, abandoned Anita and double-overarmed to a large float near the center of the pond, occupied by a group of teenagers. Joyce watched in mild alarm as Mary Ellen quickly befriended a romantically dark youth with the body of a man. They swam around the raft, dove off it, raced, and splashed each other.
Gail came out of the water and stood shivering by her mother.
“You’re freezing.” Joyce handed her a towel.
“Mommy, I don’t like it anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like the bottom of it. It’s all muddy, and there are sticks and things.”
The bottom of it, which she could not see … She could only feel the mud and the sticks. Gail was cursed with too much imagination. Now even this was spoiled for her.
Gail settled under the trees, wrapped in her towel. But Anita, who was incapable of playing alone, came to inveigle her back into the water.
“I’ll race you,” she coaxed. Gail shook her head.
“Well,
I’m
going in the water, and
I’m
going to have fun.” Anita rolled about, wiggled her toes, and performed enticing antics. She had chosen a shallow area where sand from the artificial beach could still be seen through two feet of water. It was clear of mud and sticks. Gail wandered down to the shore. Ignoring Anita, she stepped into the water until it covered her feet.
Anita barrel-rolled on the sandy bottom. Gail waded into deeper water. Anita turned a somersault. Gail stared at the trees on the opposite shore.
Suddenly Anita was on Gail’s back. They both tumbled into the water. Then only Anita emerged, riding on something and laughing wildly.
Joyce kicked off her shoes and splashed into the lake. A young woman in a blue bikini ran with her, blowing a
whistle. She pulled Gail from the water and led her toward the beach, where a crowd of children gathered to stare.
Gail sputtered and choked. The woman patted her on the back until she seemed to be breathing evenly.
The children drifted away, except for Anita, who stood gaping at Gail. On catching Joyce’s eye, she giggled self-consciously.
“That wasn’t funny,” Joyce said. “Why did you do it, Anita?”
“Because she wouldn’t play with me.”
Gail was still choking and trying to clear her throat. Anita watched her curiously.
Joyce asked, “Do you think that’s the way to get someone to play with you?”
Anita tilted her head and pulled on a strand of hair, trying coquetry where it had no chance of succeeding.
“My father does that sometimes.”
“He ducks you? Gail could have drowned!”
She should have ignored the statement. Anita was a known liar, trying to justify herself.
It wasn’t possible, not the mild-mannered Foster Farand, with his rimless glasses, his bald spot, and funny little smile.
No, Anita herself was crazy and vicious. Or only childish and unthinking?
On the other hand, could there be something wrong with Foster? Something she had never seen? But not even Foster—Not that.
And yet, there had been two murders. Where there were murders, there was a killer.
It had to be somebody.
Anita, sensing that she was out of favor, tried a different approach. She became sweetly contrite—and emptily so, it seemed to Joyce—stroking Gail’s arm and trying to jolly her out of her silence, but never quite apologizing.
“You had the lifeguard come and save you,” she purred. “Were you scared in the water?”
Gail regarded her stonily.
“My father does that to me all the time,” Anita said. “You get used to it after a while.”
Gail glanced at her mother. Joyce smiled and winked. The response was too frivolous. Gail turned away, feeling betrayed there, too.
Joyce saw Mary Ellen swimming back from the float, and decided it would be a good time to leave.
As they walked toward the parking lot, Anita announced to everyone’s distress, “I’m supposed to go home with you until my mother calls. She’s going out shopping, and she’s scared for me to be in the house when nobody’s there. I always used to stay home alone. I think she’s crazy. It’s because of those dead girls. It makes people crazy.” She giggled.
“I don’t really think it’s awfully funny,” Joyce reproached her. “Those were living girls, just like you, and now they
won’t ever have any more life. It’s not fun or exciting.”
Anita sobered on the surface, but her eyes twinkled. She skipped ahead, to show how unafraid she was.
Gail muttered, “I don’t like her.”
Mary Ellen stopped abruptly. “Uh-oh.”
“Did you forget something?” asked Joyce.
“No. I shouldn’t have gone in the water. I think I’ve got it.”
“Got it? Oh, my heavens.” The problem was clear from the way Mary Ellen stood, with her thighs pressed tightly together.
“There’s a little outhouse near the beach,” Joyce said.
“But I don’t have anything with me. I’ll have to sit on a towel in the car.” So saying, Mary Ellen wrapped her towel around her hips. “It always does this. It just comes on without any warning.”
“How long have you been having it?”
“About half a year. I’m almost thirteen.” In another half year. “I have this friend of mine who started when she was ten.”
Their car shimmered in the sunlight and its door handles burned their fingers. The plastic seatcovers burned, too. They all had to sit on towels.
“Do you want to stop at a drugstore?” Joyce asked.
“No, I have some at home.” Mary Ellen smiled, feeling a bond. They were both women together, while Gail stared at them, not quite understanding, and Anita sang, trying to attract attention.
Joyce drove past the Farands’ house, hoping to get rid of Anita, but the house was locked and the car gone. She wondered if she ought to tell Sheila what had happened at the lake. But what good would it do? Would Sheila want to know her child was vicious, and could she help it?
And if it was true about Foster, Sheila probably already knew that. What a mess it all was.
When they reached home, Mary Ellen showered and dressed and settled in her room to catch up on her school reading list, as she explained. Gail went to her own room, but it was invaded by Anita, who did not wish to be ignored. The child was almost schizophrenic, the way she seemed to have no idea of the undesirability of what she had done.
Joyce left it up to Gail to handle it. Gail’s distaste was bound to have more effect than anything anyone else could do or say, and besides, Adam was hungry.
And she was tired. The heat had done her in. From the peace of her own room, as Adam nursed, she heard Mary Ellen’s radio playing its endless disco beat. She fell asleep before Adam did and slept away two hours with the baby in the crook of her arm.
They woke together. She thought the house seemed very quiet, and wondered whether it was morning or afternoon, and where everybody was.
A look at the clock gave her her bearings. They had gone swimming, she now remembered, and Anita had tried to drown Gail. She did not want to recall that part of it. There had once been a time when she was fond of Anita’s parents, but now everything was mixed up, you couldn’t trust anybody.
Anita had apparently left, thank God. Gail was alone in her room, playing with tiny plasticene dolls that she had made herself.
“Gail, where’s Mary Ellen?”
“I don’t know.”
“She doesn’t seem to be in the house. Did she go out?”
“I don’t know.” A little more impatiently this time.
“Well, now look. If she went out, where would she go?”
“Mommy, I
don’t know.”
There was nothing within walking distance except other houses, and Mary Ellen did not know any of the people in them.
“Did she go with Anita?”
“No,” said Gail, “Anita went home with her mother.”
Might she have gone to the woods to see where the bodies had been? She hadn’t seemed all that interested, but one never knew. And what if she ran into the killer?
No, she wouldn’t, Joyce thought. She wouldn’t.
Carl would be home soon. And if the girl wasn’t found by then …
She called the Farands’ house. Denise answered the phone. It seemed only logical that Mary Ellen might have gone to visit Denise. They were the same age, although they barely knew each other. But Denise had not seen her.
They can’t do this to me.
Joyce felt an irrational anger at Gail. If the two girls had been in better communication, Mary Ellen would surely have told her where she was going. Gail only made her feel unwelcome.
She walked around the outside of the house, trying to see into the meadow, into the woods in back of the house. She dared not leave the children, dared not herself venture into the wilderness.
The meadow was a blaze of late afternoon light and filled with buzzing insects. A butterfly danced over the daisies.
She called from the stone wall. “Mary Ellen?”
Damn, the girl was just at the wrong age. And menstruating, too. What if he found that out? Would he let her go? Or would it enrage him?
She went back to the house. Carl was already late, it was seven o’clock. She prayed his train would be delayed, sitting on the tracks somewhere. She prayed for Mary Ellen’s safety.
Gail leaned over the stair rail and asked plaintively where she had been.
“Out looking for Mary Ellen,” Joyce replied. “Are you sure she didn’t say anything about where she was going?”
Gail looked hurt. “I’m telling the truth.”
“I know you are, honey. I just thought there might have been something you forgot.”
“Well, I didn’t, and I don’t know why you’re making so much fuss about Mary Ellen. She’s twelve years old.”
Gail paused, apparently reminded that so was Valerie Cruz. Joyce could read it on her face.
“Mommy, is anything going to happen?”
“If she doesn’t get home before her father does, something will certainly happen.” Take Gail’s mind off the murders. “And I just hope he doesn’t blame me too much, but I
am
responsible for her.”
“I’ll protect you,” Gail crooned in a dreamy voice. She would have loved a chance to take on Carl and defeat him. Then she asked, “What are we having for dinner?”
Joyce was appalled at the irrelevance of it, but realized she hadn’t even thought about dinner, and Carl would be coming any minute. It was too late to thaw anything, but she found a can of salmon in the cupboard. Salmon loaf was a good last-minute standby, although it had to cook for an hour.