He pretended not to hear, groping into the shower, starting to turn on the faucets. She reached out, touching his arm, staying the motion. “It’s all right, Allan,” she said softly. “I have to know. What did they find?”
“The murder weapon,” he said.
“What was it, Allan...”
“Harvey Coleman’s trumpet. Remember, it disappeared after the last band concert.”
She nodded, waiting, gripped in a sudden, abhorrent fascination.
“They found it under the bandstand steps. It was dented and twisted...” He broke off, bending down to unlace his shoes. “They think it’s the: same weapon that killed little Barbie Jean.”
“Allan,” she said, “Was Sharon... Was her hand...?” She stopped, swallowing, the question stuck in her throat.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “It was gone. They found it under the steps along with the trumpet. They found Barbie Jean’s hand, too. Late this afternoon. In the park.”
“Oh, God, Allan...” The fascination was gone, leaving only the horror. She felt herself beginning to tremble again. “They’ve got to catch him,” she breathed. “They will, won’t they, Allan? The Morgan City police will catch him, won’t they?” Looking down at her, a tenderness swept through Allan. She seemed suddenly young, as young and as vulnerable as Ellie. He lifted her chin in his hand. “They’ll catch him, honey,” he said. “Eventually. I wish I could tell you not to worry, but I can’t. We’ve got to worry until it’s safe again, until this maniac is hauled in.” He paused a moment, frowning, then he reached into the shower, twisting the faucets. “I think,” he said, raising his voice over the noise of the water, “that we’d better tap the savings and send you and the girls on a little trip somewhere until this whole thing is over.”
Instinctively, Gwen shook her head. “We can’t,” she said. “We just can’t.”
“I think we have to.” He dropped the rest of his clothes on the floor and climbed into the shower, thrusting his head back out abruptly. “Where’s Ellie now?”
“She’s in the yard. Joanne’s been keeping an eye on her. I’ll call her in now. I was waiting for you to come home.”
Gwen scooped up the rest of the dirty clothes and moved out of the bathroom, back toward the kitchen. In the service porch, the cries broke through to her. It was Ellie’s voice, shrill with excitement, coming from the yard. “Joanne, look! It’s a fire, it’s a fire! The doll factory, it’s burning!” Gwen raced to the kitchen door, stopped by the sight across the fields, the peach-colored sheet of flame leaping from the doll factory. Her heart gave a lurch, her eyes pulling away, following the sound of Ellie’s voice. It was all right. Ellie was down by the wall and Joanne was with her, her arm around Ellie’s shoulders, gently coaxing her back toward the house.
Gwen turned, hurrying for the telephone. Thank heaven for Joanne. She’d been wonderful through this whole thing. She wasn’t acting like a teenager; she was acting like a woman. Blinking through quick, senseless tears, Gwen dialed the fire department, her chest heaving with sudden thanks that at least one of her children was safe, too old to be prey for a maniacal killer who attacked only little girls.
The fire trucks were screaming into sight when Allan, pulling on a fresh tee shirt, hurried into the yard. “Where’s the fire?” he shouted. Then he caught sight of the blazing doll factory and breathed, “Good Lord...”
Two engines turned in at the forsaken wedge of gnarled road that led to the doll factory, and finally the fire chief’s car, and then there was abrupt silence as the sirens were turned off and the procession bumped the rest of the way mutely, in a strange, soundless vacuum.
Gwen was the first to speak. “That’s the whole fire department, Allan,” she murmured anxiously. “What if there’s a fire in another part of town? Wouldn’t it be better to just let the old factory burn down?”
“Not with this wind picking up,” Allan replied. “It’ll spread if they don’t get it under control.”
Ellie said, “It happened just when the train went by. The train whistled and then wham! There was this great big blast of fire.”
“Probably a train spark,” her father answered. “There might have been some old chemicals still around.”
“It’s beautiful,” Joanne breathed, watching a new jet of flame stab the sky.
“It sure is,” Ellie agreed reverently. She wished that the eye squinting thing worked. All she could see against the blaze were the little shapes of firemen bobbing around the big trucks. She couldn’t see the hoses or the water or anything. If she could just get a little closer... Without much hope she said, “Can I go a little closer and watch?”
“No, you may not,” her mother replied flatly. “You know perfectly well you’re forbidden to leave the yard.”
It was her mother’s tone of finality that triggered Ellie’s impulse to protest. “But it’s very educational,” she countered plaintively. “I never saw a fire put out before. You want me to have an education, don’t you?”
Ellie’s father turned to her, his face stern. “Under no circumstances, Ellie, educational or otherwise, not for fire or emergency or any other reason, are you to leave this yard. Do you understand?”
Ellie’s nostrils flared under the bite of sudden tears. “You don’t have to get mad at me,” she retorted accusingly. “Besides, there’s nobody else going. How can I catch an epidemic if there’s nobody even there to catch it from?”
“There are the firemen, Ellie,” Joanne put in kindly.
“Then why don’t they catch it from each other?”
There was a pause, then solemnly, “Because they’ve already had it.”
Gwen cast a wry look at her husband and reached for Ellie’s hand. “Come on, Sweetie,” she said. “Dinner’s almost ready and you can watch the fire from the table while we eat.”
A few hours later when the fire department was getting ready to leave, and only a glowing arch remained where the flames had been, Ellie turned disconsolately from the living room window. “It’s almost out,” she said sadly. There, was nothing to do again. It was even worse thinking about tomorrow. There would be nothing to do all day long. Suddenly inspired, she said, “Daddy, will you play me a game of chess if I promise to sleep late in the morning?” If she stayed up late tonight and slept instead in the morning, tomorrow wouldn’t last nearly so long.
Behind his newspaper, Allan heaved a sigh of resignation. “All right,” he replied patiently. “If Mother’s agreeable to your staying up, I’ll play. But only on one condition...”
“I won’t cry if I lose,” Ellie broke in ecstatically. “I promise I won’t cry. Okay, Mamma? Do I have to take my bath first or can I wait till after?”
“Better first,” her mother smiled. “You’ll be too sleepy after.”
“Okay. I’ll hurry.”
When she was gone, Gwen looked at her husband. “Allan,” she said, her voice troubled, “do you think we ought to tell her the truth?”
He shot her a quick look. “What do you mean?”
She got up restlessly and moved to the window, staring out at the cathedral-like arch still glowing from the doll factory. “It’s just that I don’t think this is going to work much longer. I don’t think we should have used an epidemic as the reason in the first place.” She turned from the window, facing him. “Allan, it’s been hell this last week keeping her constantly in sight every minute of the day, never really sure she wouldn’t wander off. I know how you feel about it, but if we told her the real reason she’d understand. She wouldn’t be constantly nagging to go somewhere, always poking around the limits of the yard.” She sat down opposite him, her eyes pleading. “It’s a big yard, Allan. I worry even when she’s in it. If we told her the real reason, she wouldn’t even leave the house. She’d be safe.”