The Devil's Punchbowl

  “Are you all right?” I ask, glancing over to the passenger seat. “You seem quiet.”

  “I had another dream.”

  “What about?” I ask, easing the car right, toward the middle school.

  “Caitlin again.”

  I glance at Annie, but she keeps her eyes focused forward. “Was it bad or good?”

  “Bad.”

  “Will you tell me what it was?”

  Her face tightens with indecision, but then she says, “I dreamed Mom was alive again.”

  This surprises me, since Annie was only four when Sarah died and has few clear memories of her. “What happened in it?”

  “I don’t want to say. It was creepy.”

  “Everybody has creepy dreams sometimes.”

  “Well, we went to visit Mom’s grave, like we’ve done before, but Mom was with us. And the thing is the creepy thing ”

  “It’s all right, baby.”

  “Caitlin was the one who was gone. In Mom’s grave. And Mom was with us, looking down at the stone.”

  Sensing that Annie is really disturbed, I pull onto the grassy shoulder of the driveway and put the Saab in park. Cars loaded with children glide past, then slow and empty their charges at the door of the middle school.

  “Maybe you dreamed that because of the talk we had last night. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just that the last time I dreamed about Caitlin, me and Gram ended up having to hide out of town.”

  I pat her knee, then squeeze it reassuringly. “That didn’t have anything to do with your dream. That was something to do with my work.”

  She looks skeptically at me for a while. “Did you talk to her about what we said last night?”

  “A little bit. We’re going to talk some more today, I think.”

  “You think? Or you know?”

  “We’re not sure yet. Sometimes big things like this take a little time to work out.”

  She looks down at the glove box and nods with quick assertiveness, as though she knows her voice will crack if she speaks while looking at me. “Did you tell her I wanted her to be my mom?”

  “Did you want me to?”

  “Did you?”

  I sigh in resignation, knowing she can outlast me at this game. “No. I didn’t.”

  “Good. I’m worried it might scare her.”

  “No, no. Why would you think that?”

  “Well, she’s going to want her own babies and stuff. She may not want to think of herself as my mom.”

  Annie’s fear of rejection brings tears to my eyes. I squeeze her hand. “I’ll tell you a secret. I think Caitlin’s always wanted to be your mom.”

  Annie looks up at me and blinks three times, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “Really?”

  “She’s tried to do all the things Mom would have done, if she’d lived. I think Caitlin worries that you’ll think she’s trying to take Mom’s place.”

  Annie’s mouth falls open. “But I don’t think that!”

  As perceptive as she is sometimes, it surprises me that Annie doesn’t see the relationship of her dream to what’s happening in our lives. “Well, that’s the hard part about these kinds of situations. People are scared to say what they really feel, and sometimes they wait too long to do it.”

  “Have you done that? Waited too long?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think we’re going to get everything worked out.”

  Looking up, I see no more cars at the door. One of the teachers looks up the hill at us and gives a friendly wave.

  “You’re going to be late, baby.”

  She takes my hand and squeezes it. “It doesn’t matter, Dad.”

  “No. I guess it doesn’t.”

  “Let’s go,” she says brightly, as though everything has been resolved. “Like Gram says, ‘One way or another, everything’s going to be fine.’”

  I laugh and drive down to the door of the school. Annie leans over and kisses my cheek, then lifts her backpack from the floor. When I start to speak, she presses her finger to my lips.

  “You don’t have to tell me not to worry, or not to talk about any of this. I know how things work.”

  With that, she smiles, gets out, and disappears through the door of the school I loved as a child, the school that made me what I am, the school that my daughter will soon be leaving forever.

  CHAPTER

  49

  Caitlin hunches naked on the balls of her bloody feet, listening to Linda’s chain rattle. She can tell by the sound that the chain is heavy, the kind with big, bright links that farmers use to tie tractors to flatbed trailers. Some people, Caitlin knows now, use them to strengthen fighting dogs, by making them drag the chains around every minute of their lives, as Linda must do now. Linda sleeps fitfully in her fever, moving frequently, shifting the dog collar that holds her to the chain.

  Caitlin has not slept. She feels as though she’s awakened in some nightmare version of The Count of Monte Cristo, but instead of solitude as her curse, she must endure the cries of a woman who has suffered thirty hours of rape and abuse, while being powerless to help her. Caitlin doesn’t intend to stay that way. She knows a lot more about her situation than she did when she arrived last night, and she doesn’t believe their plight hopeless, as Linda so clearly does.

  Being betrayed by her former pastor seems to have cracked the foundation of Linda’s religious faith. Caitlin senses that her will to live is fragile, her injuries and infections no doubt aggravating the situation.

  From long and careful questioning of Linda during the night, Caitlin believes they’re not far from Natchez. Yesterday, Seamus Quinn visited the kennel building that is their prison three separate times, with only a few hours between each visit. Caitlin is sure he must be driving back and forth to Natchez between the bouts of rape.

  What interests her more is that Quinn has told Jonathan Sands that Linda is already dead. Quinn was apparently supposed to kill her on the night Ben Li died, but by a brave leap from the boat, Linda saved herself. Quinn found her again by quietly putting out the word among hard-luck gamblers that all debts would be forgiven if someone could deliver Linda Church to him. Quinn’s ploy paid off, and he’s apparently kept her alive because he always coveted his master’s favorite mistress.

  That Quinn would lie to his boss about something so important might offer a chance to drive a wedge between the two men, but the more frightening aspect of this lie is that Quinn must mean to kill Linda soon, so that Sands will never know he failed in his first effort—or risked letting Caitlin hear what she’s already heard. This, Caitlin knows, is the worst indicator of her own likely future. For if they mean to let her live, why would they allow her to see or hear what they’ve done to Linda Church? Her best hope is that some disconnect between Sands and Quinn has resulted in this scenario. Otherwise, she has only one chance: escape.

  During the night, Caitlin kicked at the kennel’s tin roof for two hours, off and on, taking breaks before repeating the skin-the-cat move required to get her feet up to where the tin meets the wall. Her feet were bruised and bleeding after ten minutes, and the pit bulls outside went crazy while she did it, but no humans appeared. Quinn apparently believes that the dogs alone are sufficient to prevent an escape.

  After she got a section of tin pried up, she learned why. The kennel building is surrounded by a heavy Cyclone fence eight feet high, set back twenty feet on all sides, and hidden from the air by a huge shed, like those that house machine shops. The metal struts that support its roof are twenty feet above her head. If she had a rope, she might be able to reach one of the rafters, but she doesn’t know if there’s rope in the kennel. Even if there is, and she could climb hand over hand to the struts, Linda would not be able to follow.

  According to Linda, the kennel building is forty paces long and hardly more than a glorified doghouse. They placed Caitlin in the structure’s only room with four walls, other than a locked storeroom that occupies one end of the building. The remainder of the kennel’s interior consists of two rows of empty dog stalls partitioned by heavy Cyclone fencing, with a centr
al aisle running between them. The first stall on the right, past the entry door, holds several live cats to be used as training bait. Despite Linda’s fevered state of mind, all this conforms to what Caitlin remembers from her hooded journey down the central aisle.

  Using this knowledge, she reconnoitered the entire roof, looking for a weak spot where she might drop down into another part of the kennel. Everywhere she went, the dogs followed, looking up with the obsessive fascination that only real hunger can bring. The pit bulls have narrow waists and massive chests, like those of steroid-addicted bodybuilders. The musculature of a couple of them actually looks human in the chest and forelegs area. Still, she thinks, based on the Internet reading she’s done on dogfighting, these are probably not true fighting dogs. If they were, they wouldn’t be left to run loose in the same yard; they’d be chained far enough away from each other not to do any damage. Instead they’re probably guard or “protection” dogs, which can be controlled by commands, at least by the proper person. What puzzles Caitlin is what happened when she was brought through the yard to the kennel last night. The dogs weren’t ordered away by command. She remembers Quinn telling a man to “use bait if you have to” to get them away from the gate. This makes her think the pit bulls might just be a pack of dogs they use for training purposes, kept hungry to intimidate Linda—and now her—into staying put.

  The comment about using bait stayed with her, though, and before much time passed, the rudiments of a plan had formed in her mind. If she could somehow get to the stall that holds the cats, she could pry off the bars of a window on one side of the kennel, toss a couple of cats out as bait, then jump through a window on the opposite side and sprint for the fence. If the dogs are hungry enough, she feels sure she can cover the twenty feet required before they figure out her trick. Of course, getting to the cats proved impossible last night. Prying up a sheet of tin from the top side of the roof had proved much harder than kicking up a section from below. If she didn’t have to worry about sliding off into the jaws of ravenous pit bulls, it might be easier, but there’s no point thinking like that. She’s made decent progress on the tin sheet over the spot where, by the sound of mewling, she judges the cats to be, but she stopped with first light, worried that Quinn would show up. It will take another hour’s work to get the sheet pried up enough to drop down and get at the cats.

  The real problem with her escape plan is Linda. Even if Caitlin can somehow free Linda from her collar and chain, her leg injuries might keep her from running quickly enough to the fence—never mind climbing it.

  The only other option Caitlin can think of is the storeroom. Quinn has taken Linda into the storeroom to rape her, and Linda recalls seeing a drug cabinet and stacks of bagged puppy chow inside it. She does not, however, recall seeing any tools. If the cabinet contains tranquilizers like the one they used on Caitlin, there might be some chance of drugging the dogs. But unless she can get down through the roof of the storeroom, that option is off the table. And according to Linda, the men who feed and train the dogs are likely to show up soon—they come once in the morning and once in the evening—and Quinn could appear at any time.

  The chain next door rattles louder than before, and Caitlin stops bobbing in her crouch. She hears Linda groan through the plywood, then a parched sobbing sound.

  “Linda? It’s Caitlin. I’m here.”

  The chain rattles loudly, and Caitlin hears plastic slide.

  “Oh my God,” Linda whines. “I have to pee. What am I going to do?”

  “Just grit your teeth and do it. That’s all you can do.”

  “I can’t! I can’t take it!”

  “You have to. I’m with you.”

  The plastic pail slides again, and there’s momentary silence. Then Caitlin hears urine hitting the plastic pail, and Linda begins to scream. Caitlin hugs herself and tries to block it out. Once, when she was hiking in Belize with a boyfriend, she developed a urinary tract infection from too frequent sex. The pain was almost unbearable, and by the time they got back to civilization, it had spread to her kidneys. She’d spent three days in a hospital on IV antibiotics, wondering what women had done before the discovery of penicillin. Surely millions must have died, and in the same agony that Linda Church is suffering now.

  There’s a heavy bump against the plywood wall, and the chain rattles loudly. Linda is gasping. Caitlin is about to try to comfort her when she hears the sound of an engine. The pit bulls begin barking wildly.

  “Oh, no,” Linda says. “Nooo ”

  The engine dies, and a door slams.

  Linda’s sobs grow louder. “I can’t do this!” she wails. “Oh, God, don’t let them do this.”

  Caitlin speaks a few words of reassurance, but her heart is skipping from fear. She’s never been at the mercy of a man the way Linda has these past hours, much less a sadistic psychopath. As she struggles to gain control of herself, she hears Linda reciting a Bible verse. Caitlin doesn’t recognize it, but the sound of the terrified woman steels something within her. Long ago Caitlin determined that she would not go through life as a victim, and she has no intention of becoming one now.

  By the time the door of the kennel building slams open, she’s standing naked but erect in her cell, right over the bloody footprints that could alert her captors to her nocturnal efforts. She’s used some of her precious drinking water to try to lighten the bloody marks, but the only real result was to make them larger. If anyone notices, she plans to tell them she’s started her period.

  She hears booted feet come up the aisle between the stalls, then stop just short of her room. Though she can’t see Quinn, she remembers his photograph from the Golden Parachute file Penn showed her. He was handsome in what some call the black-Irish way, with curly black hair, dark eyes, and good bone structure. But even in the photograph the whole effect was spoiled by what appeared to be gray, badly-cared-for teeth.

  “Top of the mornin’ to you, ladies,” Quinn calls. Then his voice moves closer to Caitlin’s door. “How you doin’ in there, princess?”

  “She needs medicine!” Caitlin shouts. “She’s really sick.”

  “I gave her some antibiotics.”

  “They’re not working!”

  “I’ll give her something else then. We definitely don’t want anything interfering with our party.”

  “Just let her alone! She’s in agony!”

  “You want to take her place, princess?”

  The question seems so genuine that something jumps in Caitlin’s chest.

  “I wouldn’t mind a piece of you, darlin’. Cleanest I’ve ever had, by the look of you.”

  For one primal moment Caitlin wonders if Linda wishes he would turn his attention to Caitlin today. Of course she does. And I can’t blame her

  A key rattles in the lock on Linda’s cage, and Linda begins to shriek.

  “LET HER ALONE!” Caitlin shouts.

  “Ah, it’ll pass, now she’s done her business. She’ll be ready for another workout in no time.”

  Caitlin crushes her palms over her ears as she hasn’t done since she was a child.

  CHAPTER

  50

  I’m sitting at a private table in a side room of the Castle, the restaurant Caitlin and I frequented most often when she lived here. It’s a Gothic outbuilding of Dunleith, the most magnificent antebellum mansion in the city. I often make sure that people who are flying in to look at industrial sites stay here, and to prime them for the experience, I tell them that the main house makes Tara in Gone With the Wind look like a utility shed. No one has ever argued the point.

  Caitlin and I have had good meals and bad ones at the Castle, not because of the quality of the food, but because we’ve worked through so many phases of our relationship over the tables here. When times were good, we ate at the small table in back, beside the window overlooking the verdant grounds. When times weren’t so great, we ate in the private dining room where I’m waiting now. If Caitlin does show up, she won’t be surprised to find me at this table.

  It’s 12:25 now, and though I hate to admit it to myself, she’s probabl
y not coming. Caitlin tends to be late now and then, but she wouldn’t be on a day such as this. I can’t quite believe she’d leave me sitting here without even a phone call, or at least a text message. But I guess she feels strongly enough about where things are to view standing me up as her statement on the subject. I should probably just order lunch and try to parse out her feelings, but given my conversations with Annie, I don’t think I can put this event—or nonevent—behind me without being sure Caitlin hasn’t been delayed by something unforeseen.

  I speed-dial her cell, but it kicks me immediately to voice mail. Either she switched off her phone, anticipating upsetting calls from me, or else she’s driving south and chatting happily to Jan about the documentary she’ll soon be working on.

  Searching my contact list, I call the Examiner office and ask for Kim Hunter, the reporter who is Caitlin’s best remaining friend on the staff. It takes some time for Kim to come to the phone.

  “Hello?” says a young male voice free of any Southern accent.

  “Kim, it’s Penn Cage.”

  “Hey.”

  “Look, I’m down at the Castle, and I thought Caitlin was going to be joining me for lunch. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No. She didn’t say anything to me.”

  “You saw her this morning?”

  “No. I haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon. She came in and pulled some old stories she worked on.”

  “Do you know what stories?”

  “Something she did on charismatic religions. You know, foot washers and faith healers, that kind of stuff.”

  Maybe the stories have something to do with her interviews in New Orleans, I think, though it seems unlikely. “Did she say anything to you about going to New Orleans today?”

  This time the silence is longer, and Hunter sounds uncertain about telling me more. “She said she might be going down to do some interviews for a documentary being shot there.”