Night in the Lonesome October

  ‘Nah. But I’m trying to be a writer. Apparently, I lean toward the morbid and grotesque. I suppose I think about murders and things like that more than most people.’

  ‘Well, if he took her into the woods, we’ll never find them.’

  ‘It’s just what I might do. Maybe Randy doesn’t like the woods. Or maybe he has good reasons to take her to his house or to some other building ... anyplace that’s closed at night. They’d at least be warmer than the woods. Not that it’s very cold tonight, but you might want to be in a nice, warm place if you’re going to ... you know, mess around with someone.’

  Nodding, Lois turned a comer. Now we were northbound on Franklin Street. ‘We’ll stop at my house for a minute,’ she said. ‘Pick up a few things. Then we’ll drive around, see if we can spot Randy’s truck.’

  ‘What about calling the police?’ I asked.

  Lois was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, ‘Not me.’

  I remembered Eileen’s nine-one-one call on Wednesday night... and the strange lack of results.

  ‘They might be able to help,’ I said.

  ‘I have some things in my past.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘They don’t like me much.’

  Smiling, I asked, ‘You’re not a killer, are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She seemed serious. Still, I said, ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You killed someone?’

  ‘My husband.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘He was also the brother of a local cop.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’

  But wait, I thought. She’s not in prison. She’s sitting right next to me. ‘You weren’t convicted?’ I asked.

  ‘The charges were dropped. It was self-defense. But a lot of people think I should’ve gotten nailed for it. Particularly Joe’s family and his brother’s cop friends. So they haven’t got much use for me. If you want to call the cops, I can drop you off at a pay phone. Just please don’t bring me into it. Or Casey.’

  ‘Casey?’

  ‘They’d love to get their hands on her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Lois swung to the curb in front of her house and stopped the car. She kept it running, though. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘You think girls her age are allowed to do what she does?’

  ‘Not really, but ...’

  ‘At the very least, they’ll put her in a foster home. At worst, she might be sent to a juvenile detention center. I hope that’s the worst. She doesn’t tell me everything. For all I know, she could end up in prison.’

  ‘I sure don’t want anything like that to happen.’

  ‘So if you bring the police into this situation, be very careful what you tell them. Leave me and Casey out of it.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Should I take you to a phone?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I know you want to help Eileen.’

  ‘I’ve got to. I’ve got to save her. If I can.’

  ‘What I’ve seen of the cops in this town,’ Lois said, ‘they’re not so great. It’s like we’ve got the bottom of the barrel. We used to have some good ones, but they left because it’s such a shitty department.’

  ‘You think I shouldn’t call?’

  ‘If you do, you might end up waiting on a comer all night. Or they might show up in an hour and not take you seriously, might figure you’re trying to make trouble for Eileen because maybe she went out with another guy. Or they might think you did something to her. That’s the way this bunch operates.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen,’ I said, ‘they aren’t very good.’

  ‘They’re fuck-ups. And even if a miracle happens and one of these guys believes your story, you’ve got nothing much for him to go on. You’ve got a description of the suspect, but no name, no address, no license plate number. The cops might be able to help somehow, but it’s not likely. The main thing is, Eileen has to be found fast. Here’s what I’d do. You and me, we go looking for the pickup truck. Maybe we’ll be lucky. If not, I’ll drop you off at a phone and you can go ahead and call the cops. How does that sound?’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  ‘You don’t sound very sure.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  It seemed wrong not to bring in the police right away. They were professionals. They had the manpower to conduct a thorough search. Hell, one of them might know Randy, know exactly where to find him.

  On the other hand, according to Lois, they’re fuck-ups.

  I tended to believe her; apparently, they hadn’t responded at all to Eileen’s call on Wednesday night. A call reporting a murder.

  If I get the cops involved, I’ll have to do it without Lois. I’ll be on my own. And they’ll force me out. As soon as they get my statement, they’ll be done with me.

  We’ll take it from here, Mr Logan. You can go on home, now.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ I said.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  ‘Wait here,’ Lois said. ‘It’ll be faster. I’ll be in and out.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She climbed out of her car and ran to her house. She took the porch stairs two at a time.

  Seeing a strip of light appear and widen when she opened the front door, it struck me that this was the same house Casey had entered the first night I followed her. Hidden in the darkness of the porch, she’d opened the door with great stealth as if breaking in ... or sneaking back into her parents’ house after a late-night rendezvous.

  Why had she been so furtive about it? Who had she been trying to hide from? Certainly not from Lois.

  Maybe Lois doesn’t live alone.

  She seemed to live alone.

  Maybe Casey sneaked in to surprise her.

  On the other hand, perhaps her secretive behavior had nothing to do with who was inside the house, but rather with who might be outside.

  Outside watching her.

  Me?

  Maybe not me in particular, but anyone who might be looking out a window or driving by or roaming the streets. She wanted nobody to know about her visits to Lois. Or about any of her activities, more than likely.

  Where is she now? I wondered.

  Doesn’t matter. What matters is saving Eileen. Take care of this, and there’ll be plenty of other nights to be with Casey.

  I missed her, though. I’d wanted so badly to see her tonight.

  Too badly. That’s why this happened. I should’ve stayed with Eileen.

  She wasn’t supposed to wake up!

  And if she did, she wasn’t supposed to leave.

  I’m outa here.

  Real nice.

  Out of my apartment and into Randy’s pickup. He must’ve spotted her immediately after she came out of the building, before she could get to her car.

  Did he just happen to be driving by?

  Maybe he’d seen her earlier and followed her. Or seen me, for that matter. Found out where I lived. Staked the place out and bided his time, waiting for just the right moment.

  However he did it, he did it. He got her. And now he’s going to give her the works.

  He’s probably already doing it, I thought.

  I looked at my wristwatch. 11:58.

  What time had I seen them go by? Somewhere around 11:15 or 11:20. They were still on the road at that point. So if he took her someplace in town, they probably would’ve arrived there no later than 11:30.

  So maybe he’d been at her for half an hour, so far.

  Less time, if he took her farther away.

  They might still be on the road, on their way to a secluded place in the woods or maybe a farmhouse outside of town or ...

  If they are, I thought, she might be all right so far but we’ll never find them in time.

  I heard the thud of Lois’s house door bumping shut. Then she bounded down the stairs. She hadn’t changed her clothes. Instead of her purse, however, she now carried an overnight bag. She hurried around to the driver’s sid
e of her car, opened the door and swung her bag in. Its buckles jangled. I smelled leather. ‘Wanta put this on the floor?’

  I took it from her. It was heavy. Leaning forward, I set it on the floor near my feet.

  Lois climbed into the car, shut her door and started the engine. ‘I was hoping Casey might be there. She knows this town inside and out. Not to mention, she can get through doors like they aren’t even there.’

  ‘Any ideas where she might be?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure. In somebody’s house. Unless she’s roaming the streets or fooling around in a park or ... she might be almost anywhere. Most likely in a house, though.’

  ‘Like whose?’ I asked.

  Shaking her head, Lois pulled away from the curb. ‘No sense in sitting still while we talk. Keep your eyes open for the pickup. I’ll check the parked cars on both sides of the street. You check the driveways the best you can. It was heading north on Franklin when you saw it, right?’

  ‘Right.’ I started watching the driveways.

  ‘So we’ll try going north till we hit the city limits, I guess, then maybe work out some sort of east-west pattern on the way back, try to hit every street. Of course, if he put his truck in a garage or something, we’re screwed.’

  ‘Or if he took her out of town.’

  ‘Well, this is what we can do. Like I said, maybe we’ll be lucky. If we strike out, I’ll drop you off at a pay phone and you can call the cops if that’s what you want to do.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘But what about Casey? Do you have any idea which houses she goes to?’

  ‘She’s told me about some of them. She has regulars. Certain houses - certain people - she visits from time to time. But I think a lot of it’s random. I can’t imagine she has any sort of fixed schedule. She’s what you might call a “free spirit.”’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Maybe a little nuts.’

  I smiled. ‘Think so?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Do you know why she does it?’

  ‘Why she goes into the houses?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I know it started one night when she was out roaming and someone went after her. She ran into a house to hide. Thought nobody was home, but she was wrong. They were home, all right, but asleep in the bedrooms. So she started to explore the house. God only knows what sort of buttons that pushed. Here’s a girl with - far as I know - no family at all, no home, and she’s in someone else’s home in the middle of the night. Almost like part of the family, but not part of the family. They’re asleep and she’s not. She’s sneaking around, looking at them, at what they’ve got in their closets and drawers and medicine cabinet and kitchen, looking at their books, their mail ... secretly participating in their lives.’ Lois shook her head. ‘I don’t know exactly how one thing led to another, but I know she got hooked. Pretty soon, it became her way of life.’

  ‘She’s actually friends with some of the people,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Every so often, somebody wakes up. Or comes home and catches her. She’s made a lot of friends. Me, for instance. I was having a pretty rough time a while back ... I’m still having a rough time, but it’s not so bad anymore. Mostly thanks to Casey. Have you ever had one of those dreams where you wake up crying?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I did. I used to have them a lot, especially right after what happened with Joe. Anyway, I woke up sobbing one night and someone was standing over me, stroking my face, saying, “It’s all right. Everything’s fine.” I guess I should’ve been terrified, waking up with a stranger in my room. But I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt ... peaceful and safe. That was the first time I ever saw Casey.’

  ‘Must’ve been nice,’ I said.

  ‘It was wonderful. She’s wonderful. But she’s also ... in such danger. Always in such danger. Things happen to her. They’re bound to, the way she wanders around all night and sneaks through houses. She’s had some terrible beatings. She’s been ... it’s not for me to tell you these things. She might not want you to know. But awful things have happened to her. You can imagine. And she’s had so many narrow escapes. I worry so much about her. But she is who she is. I wouldn’t want to change h:r.’

  ‘It would sure be nice,’ I said, ‘if we could find her tonight.’

  ‘She’ll probably turn up at my house sooner or later, but I don’t know when. For now, we’d better keep looking for Eileen.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  Just about then, we drove past a house with a pale pickup truck parked in its driveway.

  Before 1 could speak up about it, Lois hit the brakes.

  ‘Think that might be it?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll take a look.’ I threw open the passenger door, leaped out, and ran toward the pickup.

  A Nissan, not a Toyota.

  I hurried back to Lois’s car and we resumed our search.

  Chapter Sixty-two

  ‘This is probably far enough,’ Lois said. We’d left the town behind - along with all the streetlights and most of the houses. Even the paved sidestreets had disappeared. Woods were on both sides of us. Every so often, a dirt road led into the darkness.

  ‘He probably didn’t go this far,’ I agreed. And hoped.

  No other headlights were in sight, so Lois slowed almost to a stop and made a U-turn. We were just into the city limits again when we came to a cross-street. Lois turned right on it. ‘Not many houses,’ she said. ‘But maybe we’d better go for a while just in case.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  She drove fast. We kept our eyes open for pickups that might be Randy’s. After heading west for about a mile, she made a left turn, then another left and we headed east again, back toward Franklin.

  A couple of blocks after Franklin, Lois made a right turn, then another right and we went west for a mile or so before cutting over to the next street and heading east.

  Always watching.

  Every so often, we came upon light-colored pickup trucks. Most of them were parked alongside the street or in the driveways of houses. Sometimes, I could tell from a distance that a certain pickup wasn’t Randy’s. Other times, I had to climb out of the car for a closer look. None was his. They were always the wrong make, or an older model, or had some sort of peculiarity: a bumper sticker or windshield decoration - dice or a troll or a graduation tassel hanging from the rearview mirror—that Randy’s pickup didn’t have.

  A couple of times, we encountered light-colored pickup trucks in motion. One came toward us. Just as it went by, we could see that its driver was a husky man with a beard. Approaching another pale pickup from the rear, we saw that it had a built-in toolbox behind the cab.

  Lois kept driving. We both kept looking. I watched for Casey as much as for Randy’s truck.

  Then a pickup crossed an intersection a block in front of us.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I asked.

  ‘I saw it.’ Lois stepped on the gas. ‘Didn’t get a good look, did you?’

  ‘Huh-uh.’

  ‘Anything off about it?’

  ‘Not that I could see. It might be his.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell about the size, could you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Looked white, though.’

  ‘If it’s Randy, why’s he still driving around town? I mean, he’s got her.’

  ‘Maybe he’s looking for you,’ Lois said and took the corner fast. The tires sighed. Almost tipping over, I grabbed the seatbelt strap up near my shoulder and held on tight.

  When we came out of the turn, I could see red taillights far ahead of us, but not the vehicle itself. ‘Hope that’s it,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s find out.’ Lois sped up. At the next comer, we had no stop sign so we raced through the intersection. No traffic in either direction. Lois accelerated even more. We were gaining on the taillights.

  I began to see the general shape of the vehicle. ‘It’s a pickup, all right.’

  ‘Thought so.’
/>
  ‘What if it’s him?’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of guns in my bag.’

  The leather satchel was on the floor between my feet. I remembered its weight.

  ‘The first thing we need to do,’ Lois said, ‘is see if it’s really him. Then we’ll—’

  Out from between two parked cars just ahead of us came a bicycle.

  Lois shouted, ‘Shit!’

  Bright in our headlights, the old woman turned her head and grinned at us.

  The bike hag!

  Lois swerved.

  But not in time. Not possibly in time. The bike hag was a dead woman. I imagined her coming at me over the hood, diving headfirst with her backward ballcap tight on her skull, her leering, whiskered face smashing through the windshield ...

  Suddenly, she was no longer in front of us.

  A van was. A parked van.

  We crashed into its side with a roaring chaos of noise. I felt myself starting to fly forward, but was suddenly slammed back, bludgeoned across the chest.

  Through the ringing in my ears, a voice. Lois, sounding like someone who’d just been beaten to the ground and kicked a few times. ‘Least I missed her.’

  I grunted.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  I was still strapped in the passenger seat. Just in front of me, a limp cushion was sagging out of the dashboard. An air bag? Was that what had pounded me?

  The windshield was still intact, somehow, but the front of Lois’s car was smashed and crumpled against the caved-in side of the van. Steam or smoke was rising from the engine area. I heard hisses, pings and clanks.

  I looked at Lois. ‘Guess I’m okay. How about you?’

  ‘Just shaken up, I think. You gotta get outa here.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Go. Take the bag.’

  ‘The bag?’ Did she mean the air bag?

  ‘The bag. On the floor.’

  ‘Uh.’

  ‘Hurry,’ she said.

  I unlatched my seatbelt. Hunkering down, I found the leather bag near my feet. As I picked it up and set it on my lap, Lois opened her door.

  ‘Get going,’ she said, and climbed out. ‘Quick. Run.’

  I opened my door. ‘What about you?’

  She bent over and leaned in. ‘I can’t leave the scene. But you get outa here. Go. There’ll be cops. I don’t want ’em seeing what’s in the bag.’