When the thing finally gave under a hard yank, I lost my balance and fell sideways off the log and banged my knee, bruised my thigh on the flashlight I’d tucked into my pants pocket. I did some cussing, feeling clumsy and foolish. Damn me for the big clown I was! I picked myself up and hobbled around until the pain subsided. The flashlight hadn’t been damaged, small miracle. I clipped it to my belt in back, which is what I should have done in the first place.
I righted the log, climbed onto it again. Slid the window open as far as it would go. The opening looked wide enough for me to wiggle through. Another check of my surroundings, and up I went, using my forearms for leverage, shoes scrabbling against the wall. It took me more than a minute to haul my body through and get a foot anchored on the sink drainboard.
In getting the foot down I dislodged a plate and a glass, sent them toppling to shatter on the floor. The plate and glass were dirty, recently dirty: bits of food and some kind of brownish liquid flew up with the shards. More dishes were stacked on the drainboard and in the sink; those, too, had been used not so long ago. By Nedra Merchant? Or by somebody else?
I swung down to the floor, took a closer look at the dishes. No residue of lipstick or anything else that might tell me the user’s gender or identity. Or whether one person or two or more had eaten off them.
Through an open doorway I could see the front hall and part of the staircase to the upper floor. I headed that way. Closed up as it was, the place was stifling; I had trouble taking in the dust-clogged air. Across the hall, the living room waited in shadowed neatness. More of Nedra Merchant’s poster-work adorned the walls in there, but otherwise the room contained nothing of hers. The furniture was of good quality, but it ran to leather and dark wood: Dean Purchase’s taste, not hers. Either she hadn’t gotten around to replacing it or she liked it as it was.
Dripping sweat, I climbed the stairs and prowled through the two bedrooms and bathroom on the upper level. One bedroom hadn’t been used in a long while; the other had been occupied as recently as last night. The double bed in that one was rumpled, the bottom sheet pulled half off the mattress, the upper sheet and a light blanket wadded at the foot. There was a stain of some kind on the bottom sheet... Christ, semen?
On the floor next to the bed, its lid raised, sat a Gucci suitcase — either a part of the set of luggage in the storeroom at Nedra’s city house, or a twin. The case was three-quarters full of light summer clothing, all in the bright colors and Oriental style she favored; there was also some lingerie. Newly arrived and not yet completely unpacked? Or getting ready to leave and not yet completely packed? I couldn’t tell which.
The closet held a few more of her summer things, plus a man’s robe and a man’s silk aloha shirt — both of medium size. Shoes, a spare purse... otherwise the cupboard was bare. Nothing in the dresser other than a couple of skimpy swimsuits. And nothing on or in either of the nightstands.
The bathroom was another bust. So was the downstairs toilet. In the kitchen again, I opened the refrigerator. Bread, milk, cold cuts and cheese, a carton half full of deli potato salad — all fresh, no more than a couple of days old. Two bottles of dark stout, a jar of mustard, another of green olives. In the freezer compartment, a pint container of Haagen-Dazs rum-raisin ice cream with one small scoop out of it.
When I shut the freezer door the leaf blower or chain saw noise from downhill quit abruptly, and the silence in there turned as thick and clotted as the trapped heat. Or did it? I thought I heard something — faint, faraway, inside rather than outside the house. But when I stood rigid and strained to listen. I couldn’t identify it or its source. Maybe if I shut the window... I reached up and slid it closed, listened again.
Now I was sure I heard something. A kind of humming, fluttery sound. Refrigerator motor? No, it wasn’t like that. It was like... a fan going somewhere, a small electric fan.
But if a fan was running in here, I couldn’t figure where. I’d been through every room in the house—
That door in the back wall, next to the stove. Where did that lead?
I’d noticed the door earlier, but I hadn’t really paid much attention to it. Kitchens have doors to pantries, storage closets; you take them for granted, don’t focus on them unless you have a reason to. Now I had a reason. And the first thing I saw when I got close to this door was that it was outfitted with a new-looking Schlage knob-and-lock plate, and an equally new-looking eyebolt lock mounted above.
Why lock a pantry? Why put two locks on a pantry door?
I pressed my ear against the heavy wood panel. The fluttery hum was coming from the other side — definitely some kind of electric fan. I worked the eyebolt free of its hasp, slid it back. But the key lock below had been turned and it was a dead-bolt, not the kind you can pop with a knife blade or credit card. Dead-bolt locks are also damned hard to pick, even by somebody with professional or semiprofessional skills.
Key might be here somewhere, I thought.
It was, but I almost missed it. I opened drawers, cabinets, the doors under the sink... and the whole time it was hanging in plain sight from a hook screwed into the wall next to the refrigerator. “Get your eyesight checked,” I muttered aloud, and took the key off the hook and unlocked the door.
It opened inward into heavy blackness. The fan sound was loud now and I could feel the breeze from it. The air was cooler in there but still sluggish — and rank with smells that closed my throat, made my stomach dance. Dry earth and must, soiled clothing, body odor and body waste. Instinctively I wanted to back up, get away from the stench and what was hidden by the dark. Instead I dragged the flashlight off my belt, fumbled for the switch.
Something stirred in the darkness.
Something made a whimpering noise.
Something said in a cracked voice that made my skin crawl, “Baby? Please let me come out, Baby. Please don’t make me stay in here anymore. Baby? Please, Baby, I’ll be good to you.”
I clicked on the flash.
The light pinned her, and she made the whimpering noise again and flung an arm up in front of her face. I made a sound, too, when I saw her. She was crouched on all fours, wearing nothing but bra and panties, her hair hanging down and shiny black in the glare. But it was her face, her eyes that tore the sound out of me. Jesus, her eyes...
“Baby?”
I had found Nedra Merchant — what was left of her.
Chapter 21
I took the light off her, swept it around. Grotesque shadows capered over wood and stone and packed earth; an object gleamed in one corner like a creature with a huge dead eye. Overhead, the beam picked up a low-wattage bulb suspended from a rafter, a piece of string dangling below it. I moved ahead, caught hold of the string and yanked. Most of the dark disintegrated under a burst of dim yellow.
It was like a cave in there. Or an animal’s lair.
Or a prison cell.
The part just inside the door had once been a pantry about six feet deep. Shelves covered the bare-wood walls on both sides, some bearing a small cache of canned goods; the lower section of one shelf had been torn down, torn apart, its broken pieces since picked up and stacked neatly to one side. You could see where a wall and another door had enclosed the rear of the pantry: the vertical beams and hinges were still there. The rest of the construction had been removed to open up the part where the woman was, where I now stood.