Chapter 11

 

2:25 PM

A sudden sharp cry came from the next room.  In the silence that followed gooseflesh crept along his forearms and hair prickled at the back of his neck as Harold wondered what had silenced it so quickly.

Someone's in there with it! he thought.

He got to his feet, but froze two steps from the chair, sure that at any moment he would hear the click of pistol being cocked.  He glanced out the window to make sure that the girl's was the only car in the drive.  Mrs. Carter was at the college and her husband was at work. 

It's that boy shacking up with her!

He tiptoed to the kitchen took a meat cleaver from the knife rack on the counter.  Feeling marginally better with the intimidating weapon in his trembling hand, he slipped off his run-down loafers and went stealthily toward the bedroom.  At the door another short cry came from inside, again followed by silence.  He pushed gently against the unlatched door swinging it open a few inches on silent hinges.  Peeking in, he could see most of the room.  Nothing was in his field of view.

Behind the door!

Harold took a deep breath to prepare himself for what had to be done.  Gripping the cleaver, he slammed his shoulder into the door, simultaneously raising his weapon to hack at any part of the man that appeared.  The door banged back loudly, hitting only the wall and sending white shards of gypsum board skittering across the hardwood floor.

Mirabelle looked at the wild-eyed man breathing raggedly in the doorway.  Whatever was happening, she didn't like it.  An indrawn breath filled her lungs and then she loosed an ear-splitting wail.  He couldn't believe that such a small child could make so much noise.  When it continued he went haltingly toward her crib, holding up both hands, one still holding the meat cleaver.

"Shhhhhh, shhhhh, shhhhh," he said.  "It's okay.  Now be quiet, little baby.  Everything will be all right."

But it was to no avail. 

Thinking the cleaver might be scaring the baby, he tossed it onto the bed and stood uncertainly eye to eye with the squalling child.  Trying to figure out what he should do, he reached out tentatively and picked it up.  The squalling continued.  Its red face worried him.  He decided that rocking it might work.  He might be able to get it back to sleep.

Mirabelle sensed his tension.  Something was definitely wrong.  She didn't know this person and she definitely didn't like what was happening.  In fact she was getting really angry.

The red-faced child he was trying to pacify began making even more noise.  It actually hurt his ears now.  Frustrated, he began to pace.  He couldn't think clearly with all the noise it was making.

"You asked for it, you little devil," he said angrily. 

He took it back into the room, put it into its crib, shoved the crib into the closet, and shut the closed door.  Then he stalked out grimly and closed the door to further dampen the noise.

"What are you doing, Harold?"

Flinching, he turned quickly.  The girl strained to look past him as if she could see through the closed door of the nursery.  Mirabelle continued to wail, the closed doors doing little to mute her protest.

"I didn't hurt her," he said weakly.

He hated the sound of his voice.  The girl was making him feel as if he had to answer to her, as if she were in charge!

"But I'll hurt you if I have to," he said evenly.

The hunger in his pasty face took Raven back in time, to the trailer that was her home and her mother's place of business.  The expression was on the face of her mother's friend, the one she had been sold to the first time it happened. 

It never ends, she thought sadly.

Then, with sudden clarity, she saw the reality.

He's a coward.  He'll want to get away---he'll have to---No!  No!  Oh, God, please.  Please!

Close to mindless panic, she struggled futilely against her bonds.  Looking at Harold made it worse.  His face was now flushed and a wild look of excitement painted his features.  Then she realized that she was doing exactly what he wanted and that once he began he would inevitably continue until he had consummated his sick fantasy.  Then, even if killing her was not part of it, he would do so to keep from getting caught.

She saw no way out, but instinctively she realized that she had to delay him.  And that meant that she had to stop feeding his fantasy with her fear.  Raven squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to resist the panic.

Think of Mirabelle, she told herself.  You have to save her from him too.  There's no one but you, Raven.  You have to do it.

She opened her eyes and somehow managed to begin in a calm voice.

"Listen to me, Harold.  You haven't done anything really bad yet."

Despite her resolve, however, her voice cracked, threatening to reduce her to the useless tears that would seal her fate.  She fought back the rising hysteria, knowing that she had to keep her wits about her if she and the baby were going to escape.

"You're not the kind of man who would harm a woman and a helpless child," she said almost steadily.  "You don't really want to.  I know you don't.  Harold.  I swear that if you let me go . . . if you leave . . . I won't tell anyone . . . about this . . .ever.  I swear I won't."

Harold's heart raced.  She was begging, and it made him feel powerful, masterful.

"What else will you do for me?" he asked.

He felt his face flush at his boldness.  It made him feel foolish, and that made him angry.  It was what they always did to him.

"Harold, It's not too late."

"You think I'm really stupid, don't you?" he said sharply.

"No.  No I don't.  Listen.  Even if I do tell them after you let me go, what have you really done so far?  It's just a minor, not like you actually did anything to me."

"You shut up," he said petulantly.  "You're trying to spoil it." 

She had been controlling her emotions, but suddenly she thought of Shane and what she was trying to build with him. 

"Don't do this to me.  Please.  Please don't."

Harold smiled.  That was more like it.  Now she was behaving like she was supposed to, like in the dreams.

"Don't do this to yourself," she said, steadier now.  "They'll put you back in jail and you'll spend the rest of your life there.  That shouldn't happen, Harold.  I don't want that to happen to you."

He gritted his teeth, tempted to backhand her.  She was actually pretending that she cared about him.  They never cared---not one of them, not ever.

"What makes you think---you're a liar!  A liar!" he screamed, lurching from his chair.

"You don't care about me!  You don't care about anybody but yourself!" he screamed, his face inches from hers.

She shrank back, afraid that he was about to hit her or seize her by the throat.

"I seen what you done to your boyfriend," he said as if it made him sick.  "Leading him on and all.  Won't even let him touch you!  Just tease him . . . make promises you never intend to keep!"

He loomed over her threateningly.  "What do you get out of that?  Why do you do stuff like that?  Women like you!  Just some kind of game!"

"What have I ever done to you?" she asked.  "And why do you want to do this to me?"

He shook his head. 

"No.  Don't turn this around!  You do it all the time!  You dress up and run around showing off your---showing it off to guys you wouldn't even give the time of day!  Don't tell me you don't know what you're doing!  Get your kicks out of waving it in our faces!  Well now you're going to get what you deserve.  You're going to pay."

"Harold, Listen to me.  It's not too late."

"Oh yeah it is."

"It's not.  If you do this they'll catch you.  They'll put you in a cage.  Everyone will say that they were right about you."

"Maybe they were," he said, sullenly.

Raven tried to imagine what Jill would do.  Jill was the only person able to relate to this strange, disturbed man.

"What will Mrs. Carter will think of you?" she asked impulsively.

He literally flew to his feet.  Raven cringed away from the expected slap or punch.  Instead, he rushed from the room and out the front door.  She heard him run down the steps.  Cold air fell in through the open door.  Hopes that he was leaving died quickly, however, whenever his footsteps sounded on the porch again.  Unable to turn, Raven squeezed her eyes shut, listening to labored breathing as he approached.  She heard a ripping sound.  She recognized it from the repair work Shane had been doing on the air conditioning vents just as he slapped the duct tape across her mouth, smoothing it to both cheeks roughly.

He stood back with labored breathing and tried to reconstruct his fantasy.  The bonds were right, her position, even the duct tape was a nice touch, but her eyes held his with an open stare devoid of emotion, neither seeking pity nor radiating fear.  If he blindfolded her then maybe the darkness would cause the right movements.  He tried to picture her cringing from him as he orchestrated a sensuous dance of mounting apprehension.  He could hear the indrawn breaths and gasps of unfolding recognition as she realized her fate at his hands.  He'd be the master.

But the baby's continued infernal wailing drove the vision away.  Something would have to be done about that.

 

2:35 PM

"I don't know, Ron.  As far as I can tell, he hasn't been spending a conspicuous amount of money and, despite his odd behavior, I don't think he's a druggie."

Richard made the turn onto the graveled street in Kaleville where Porter's rented house stood.  They had been discussing the merits of Harold as a suspect in the possible murders of Marvin Hendrichs, Gary Kinder, and Jessie Stoddard.  Until they recovered bodies, technically there was still no homicide to solve. 

"He lied about the phone calls from Hendrichs.  There's more to that connection.  I can feel it," said Guidry.  Also Kinder's old man gives Porter a job straight out of prison---at a Christian school for crying out loud.  What's with that?"

"But then he fires him as soon as Marie Preslar's body was found," replied Richard dismissively.

"So maybe its revenge.  He offs the kid to get back at his Daddy.  And he don't feel too bad about it because he's already had a run in with Junior."

Richard pulled into an empty drive.  Harold's truck was gone.

"Revenge doesn't feel right to me either," he said as they got out.  "Fact is, I don't see a motive."

"Reasonable motive is obsolete.  Don't you watch the news?  People are all the time showing up at work and hosing down co-workers because they got fired or were skipped over for promotion or somebody took the best donut.  Harold might just got a few more screws loose than we thought.  Besides, prison kind of makes you mad at the world."

No one answered when they knocked at the door.

"He's a strange character, all right," said Richard as he tried the knob, "Alienated and prison poisoned?  Maybe."

The door was unlocked.

"He looks like a meth head.  Skinny . . . pale . . . nervous acting," observed Guidry.  "Damn!  What's that smell?  Somebody die in there?"

"If we go in and find anything it won't be admissible."

"Let's do and say we didn't," said Guidry, brushing past.

"Look at this pigsty!" he said a moment later.

In the kitchen egg cartons were stacked on the edge of the stove in a mound that reached the top of the adjoining refrigerator.  Eggshells littered the counter and floor.  The sink was piled with a crusted jumbled heap of plates, glasses, pots, pans, and silverware.  Harold apparently hadn't washed a dish since the fire.  Empty fast food trash covered the table and made a pile on the floor between the table and the adjoining wall.  A legion of ants busied themselves scouring chicken bones and pizza crusts.

The bedroom was no better.  Dirty clothing, towels, sheets, blankets, and magazines almost completely obscured the cheap indoor-outdoor carpet.  But the walls caught the attention.  Two had been fitted with four-by-eight cork centered bulletin boards.  Pictures cut from magazines had been carefully pinned to cover the entire surface.

Richard examined the board nearest him.  Cutouts of girls with short blonde hair had been perfectly aligned.  They ran from what he judged to be thirteen to maybe sixteen years of age.  All were dressed in summer clothes, swimsuits, or underwear.

"Look at these," said Guidry, holding up a handful of magazines he had picked up from the floor.  "Girl's magazines, for crying out loud."

"Girlie magazines?" asked Richard peering more closely at the display on the first board.

"Hell no!  Nothing that normal.  Old Harold gets off on teeny-bopper mags.  Girls in my junior high used to read this crap.  This is what he spends his money on?"

"Probably got them from his trash run."

"Get a job you love and you got life dicked," said Guidry.

"No nudes," said Richard after scanning the boards.

"Probably keeps them under the mattress so Mom won't find them," said Guidry, as he pulled open a drawer beside the bed.

He pulled something from the top drawer and held it at arms length for Richard to see.

"Think our pervert wears these while perusing his collection?" he asked with a laugh as he held up a pair of women's cotton briefs.

"I don't think he got those from his route."

"Hello!" said Guidry, dropping the panties on the bed and reaching into the drawer again.  "It seems our boy has been taking pictures too."

Richard came over to view the stack of Polaroids.

"You can't even buy this film anymore," he said, shuffling through the photos.  "Wonder where he got it?"

Most were taken at too long a distance or with too little light.  Some had obviously been taken from his truck.  The shots were of girls in their early to mid teens, although there were two coeds, Mareesha and Jenine, the girls who reported the break in.  Most were of girls walking along the street, but a disturbing few were taken through windows from outside at night.

"These must be his prize collection," said Guidry, holding up a small stack bound with a rubber band.  "At least we know what our boy has been up to."

"Hey, look at this," he said, indicating the top photo.  "How old do you make her?  Fourteen, maybe?   The old boy's definitely got a case of arrested development.  Likes them young.  Damned pedophile!  Bet we look around real close we find a kiddy porn stash."

"Let me see those."

Richard removed the thick rubber band.  The stack contained pictures of a single person.  He shuffled through them with both relief and concern, relief that they weren't of Jill, but concern because they were of Raven.  The first photos were unremarkable, the poor quality work of an untrained photographer:  Raven standing at the door to the cabin, walking to the mail box, hanging clothes on the line, coming out of a store downtown.  The bottom photos were more alarming.  Taken by a traditional camera, their slightly fuzzy images and yellowish lighting indicated that they were taken under incandescent lighting without a flash.  They were taken at the canoe rental, the angle revealed that they had been taken from outside.

"We got us a peeper," said Guidry.  "Surprise, surprise."

"Ron, don't you think whoever developed these would have refused to print them?"

"No.  All that's automated now.  The technicians probably don't even look at them.  Besides, what you got?  You can see more skin on your average TV commercial."

"That one there ain't bad, though," he said as Richard shuffled a picture of Raven with her face in profile and her back turned.  It had been snapped just after she had removed her blouse, but revealed only her bare shoulders and thin waist.

The next one was a frontal view.  She was dressed for bed, but fully clothed and looking directly at the window as if she had heard something outside.  Richard felt an irregularity in the smooth surface and frowned.  He held it up to the light.  Pinholes had been punched carefully through the photo in the area of the breasts and crotch.

"Don't take Sigmund Freud to figure out what old Harold was thinking when he did that," said Guidry.

"No," said Richard, "but a profiler would be more interested in the other holes.  See here."

"He took out her eyes!"

"That's more than just sexual frustration," said Richard.  "Our priorities just changed.  Let's find her first, then worry about Harold."

 

2:45 PM

Harold went to the kitchen for water, getting back into it now that the baby had stopped screaming.  He decided to put it out in the girl's car if it started up again.  Of course he'd wrapped it up good so it wouldn't be too cold.

He swallowed nervously, trying to picture the girl looking at him the way she should.  Closing his eyes, he tried to knit her into a scene from some movie.

He grasps her wrists and pins them behind her, forces her lips apart with a grinding kiss.  She struggles to escape---and then she melts, yielding to the need she feels.  They clench together as if made for each other and she surrenders her will to his.  Now he can do what he wants.

Harold detoured to the bathroom where he sat in the dark trying to relieve himself silently lest the girl hear the embarrassing vulgar sound.  He pulled up his baggy pants, made sure to zip the fly, and opened the door so that the light from the kitchen illuminated the bathroom so that he could see to wash his hands.  He hated fluorescent lights and never turned them on except to shave.  After washing he splashed water onto his face.  Looking up, he caught a glimpse of his pasty, wrinkled visage and averted his eyes.

You're a forty-year old man with no future and no past---a virgin!  said his tormentor.

The mockery made him want to break things.

Virgin!

Such a word.  It was so delightful, so full of promise when applied to a woman.  But a male virgin was no man at all!

Wrong, Harry.  You're no virgin!  They took care of that as soon as you got to the big house.

David used the mocking tone he always used when bullying Harold.

"If I hadn't gone with you that day I could have lived a normal life," he mumbled.  "I could have met a woman like Miss Carter.  It ain't fair!  I've been cheated out of my whole life."

David only laughed.

Harold slammed his hands to his ears and fled the darkness, trying to leave his shame and still the jeering voice.  Standing with his back to the door, trying to calm himself and thankful that the girl couldn't see him.

But he could see her.  She was moving.  He watched with growing arousal as she struggled silently to loosen her bonds.  Her movements were delicious, enticing, inviting---she was dancing for him.

That's more like it, he thought, licking his cracked lips.

He began to rebuild it.  He'd reason with her, make her understand the futility of resistance.  He'd make promises that he alone would decide to keep or break depending on nothing more than his whim.  When he had her ready, he'd remove the duct tape so that she could promise and plead.  He pictured tears on her soft cheeks, a trembling nod of her head, and cooperation.  It would be sweet, sweet surrender.  And he would be good---beyond anything she had experienced or even imagined.  Then there would be tears of gratitude in her eyes.  She would cling to him.

She won't do that, said David.

Shut up.  You can't ruin this any more than she can.  It don't matter what she does because I'm the one charge.  Me!  I decide!

She stiffened, suddenly aware of his presence.  Harold pulled his chair close and sat back, trying to decide how to begin.  If he took away the tape too soon she might scream.  Begging was good, but he didn't want her to scream.  He decided to see how she was going to react before deciding.  She cringed away as he reached forward to undo the top button of her blouse.  When it came loose he pulled back to evaluate the effect.

That's fine.  Not too much.  Not trashy.

Raven had squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of him removing her clothing, but he didn't continue.  Instead, she heard him sit back down across from her.  She opened her eyes to see him staring at her, his face pale, devoid of expression.

Suddenly he came quickly out of his chair, and she flinched away reflexively, sure that the attack was beginning, but he didn't throw himself on her.  Instead he only slid her skirt up to just above her knee.  Sighing audibly, he retreated slowly and lowered himself in his chair, obviously mesmerized by the sight of her.

He's treating me like a doll, she realized.

A cold tide flooded through her as the obvious conclusion occurred to her.

I'm a thing, just a plaything for him.  When he's through, he'll throw me away like a broken toy.

In its banality, the analogy was more horrid than more graphic descriptions.  She was a plaything in the hands of a horribly disturbed child.

Unlike Raven, Harold hadn't thought it through to the end yet.  He was lost in the moment, savoring the fulfillment of his fantasy bit by bit, delaying each gratifying realization of his dreams.  If he thought about anything else, it was that he was amazed how it had all just fallen to him.  The opportunity had just presented itself.  She had given herself to him.

The duct tape is a nice touch, he thought.

A dull thud from outside startled him from his reverie.  Then the baby started crying again.  Harold jumped up and ran to the door, peaking through the curtains as he clenched and unclenched his hands.

Miss Carter!  What's she doing home?

"No, no," he said aloud, trying to deny what was happening.

Not now---not now.  Over before it begins.  Getting caught.  Back to jail without even doing anything---just like before.

It was ending just as he should have known it would.

"This is your fault!" he hissed at Raven.  "You lying, teasing tramp!  You---"  Bitch is what he thought, but he never said words like that.

What am I going to do?  I can't think!  She's almost to the porch.  Run?  No.  She's seen my truck.  Too late!   Too late for anything.

 

Jill heard Mirabelle crying as she inserted the key in the lock.  The key wouldn't turn, so she reversed it and found that it had been unlocked all along.  She pushed open the door.

"Raven, you forgot to lock the---"

Harold knelt awkwardly twisted in the floor with the fingers of his left hand wound in Raven's hair.  Richard's fillet knife shook as he held it just below the hinge of her jaw.  Her eyes mirrored Jill's own terror.

"Close the door, Miss Carter.  Or I'll cut her throat . . . I swear I will," he choked out.

Jill froze, unable at first to process it.  Oddly, her first thought was that Richard would really be angry with her because he had warned her about Harold.  Then she thought of her daughter.

"Mirabelle!" she gasped.

"The baby's okay.  Shut the door!"

She dropped her book bag and closed the door, trying to still the useless, insistent self-recrimination whirling through her mind.

I've got to think, she thought, still rooted to the doorway.  I have to find a way to---to what?  If I leave I can probably outrun him and get help.  He'll have to chase me or run away himself.

"Come over and sit on the couch, Miss Carter.  If you try to run away, I'll cut her throat," said Harold as if he had read her thoughts.  "And I've still got the baby."

 

2:55 PM

"No car," said Richard as he topped the crest in the drive leading down to the canoe rental.  Shane might have it though."

"At least the trash truck isn't here," said Guidry as they pulled to a stop beside two barrels with scrap lumber and pieces of torn out rotted timbers piled nearby.  "Seems he didn't make his run out here yet, or else he's laying down on the job."

After knocking and getting no answer, Richard used his key to let himself in.  A note addressed to Shane and propped against a sugar dispenser on the table advised that she ". . . had to leave . . ," and " . . . would be back some time after three."

"Girl's not big on specifics," observed Guidry.

"She's at our house," said Richard as he picked up the phone.  "Which is good.  She'll be with someone."  His voice trailed off as he waited for Jill to pick up the phone.

"No luck.  Probably took Mirabelle to town.  Maybe Raven went over and they all went in together."

"I don't think you got anything to worry about, Carter.  The little pervert is still at the drooling stage.  I doubt if he ever got to the touch and giggle in his whole life.  A real woman would probably scare his pants off." 

He clapped Richard roughly on the shoulder, the male ritual of sympathy and reassurance. 

"Besides, her car is gone, right?  And Porter's isn't here, which means he hasn't been here.  Still, we need to get old Harold off the street before he decides to blow something else to hell."

Richard punched more numbers into the cell phone.  "I'll feel better when we get him in cust--- Hello.  Mr. Shelton?  This is Deputy Richard Carter.  We're looking for Harold Porter, Sir.  Could you tell me where his route runs today?"

Richard shook his head impatiently.  "No.  We just need to talk to him about an ongoing investigation.  He may have information that can be of use.  No, I'm afraid I can't just yet.  I know.  Okay, where do you think---I see.  Thanks."

He hung up and turned to Guidry.  "His boss says he should be finished with his route already.  Today he runs U toward the state park."

"So we just backtrack the route and pick him up?"

"Shelton says he's probably on his way back from the Ripley County landfill."

Guidry nodded.  "So let's get going."

"Just a minute.  I'm going to try home again.  I'm supposed to be there by three."

When there was still no answer, they drove toward the landfill some twenty miles away.

 

3:05 PM

A large bump had begun to purple beneath the clotted scrape on Raven's temple and a small spot of dried blood glistened in her hair.  Dull, silver-gray tape stretched crookedly across her mouth, oddly distorting the line of cheek.  Her eyes pled.  Jill held Mirabelle on her lap and tried to push away the dread that threatening to incapacitate her.  She was the only one who might reach Harold.  But her resolve to keep her head was slipping away.  She couldn't help but imagine what had transpired before she came home and what might soon happen.

Jill couldn't see Raven's hands, but the unnatural position in which she lay made it obvious that her hands and feet were trussed together.  Harold paced, knife in hand.  He hadn't spoken since commanding her not to answer the phone when it rang earlier.  Oddly he seemed as frightened by what was happening as she.  But he had the knife.

I have to get him to talk, she told herself as she tried to push away her fear. 

That's the problem!  I communicated with him!  I invited him into our home.  I brought him into our lives and now he's going to----Stop it!  I must think!  Okay.  Okay.  I must delay him until Richard comes home.

Jill took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.

Now think it through before I say anything.  He likes me, so maybe I can reason with him.  I need to make him understand how crazy this is.

Jill felt her the blood drain from her face as the truth suddenly came to her.

He is insane!

Suddenly, she saw the meaning in what he had done to Raven.

The carefully arranged position---the neat knots---a camera pose!  "He's been developing this fantasy for a long time."

The words were Richard's, something from one of the criminology lessons he used to discuss with her before she told him she didn't want him bringing his work home.  But the lesson had stuck, and now her mind wouldn't let it go.

"A man doesn't just wake up one day and decide to violate a woman out of the blue.  It's something he's done in his mind a thousand times.  Now he's making it real." 

She envisioned Harold on his prison cot, stimulating himself in the night with just such visions.

"His overriding need is to control, to humiliate, to terrify."  Stop it!  This does not help.

She rocked Mirabelle as much to comfort herself as her daughter.  She caught Raven's eyes and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she felt helpless.

You must be brave, she told herself.  You must keep your wits.

She tried to bite back her rising panic, but her mind wouldn't let go of all the horrible possibilities.

What is he going to do?  What does he want?  If I hadn't come home what would he have already done?  Quit it!  Quit it!  Quit it!  You can't afford this, Jill.

"I wasn't going to hurt her, Miss Carter," blurted Harold earnestly.  "I know what it . . . I only wanted . . . I only wanted to look."

"I . . . I believe you," she lied, trying to keep her voice even, but she was trembling.

"I wouldn't hurt her . . . or anyone.  I know . . . what I was doing was wrong . . . but if she . . ."

He shook his head miserably.

"What am I going to do, Miss Carter?  What am I going to do?"

"You have to let us go," she said.

Harold nodded, licked his lips, and then shook his head.

"I can't go back.  I can't."

"I know it would be difficult, Harold.  But I also know that you do not want to hurt us."

"I never wanted to hurt nobody."  He ran the palm of his hand nervously over his thinning hair, shaking his head as if in disbelief.  "I never meant none of this to happen.  Now I . . . there's no way out."

"Yes there is, Harold," she said desperately.  "Yes there is."

He seemed not to hear her.  His expression became grim, determined.

"Haven't we always treated you well, Harold?  What did we ever do---"

"Not you!  It's her!  This is all her fault!  None of this would have happened if she'd been what . . . what she was pretending to be!"  He shook his head vehemently.  "No, Ma'am, Miss Carter.  I ain't going back.  I spent my whole life in there!  You know what that's like?  And all for nothing!  I was just a kid---and I didn't do nothing!  It ain't right the way they treated me."

Tears reddened his rheumy eyes.

"Then I know you don't want to do anything to us."

"You know I wouldn't be doing this if I had me a choice," he said weakly.  "I didn't want this to happen.  Why did you have to come home early?"

"Harold, listen to me.  It's not too late.  You haven't done anything really bad yet.  You can stop this."

He seemed preoccupied.  He picked up the duct tape from the table and approached.  She held Mirabelle tightly to her, shuddering involuntarily as he knelt before her.

"Don't do this," she said, her voice breaking.

"Put your feet together."

She shook her head.

"Please, Miss Carter.  Don't make me . . . I don't want to hurt nobody."

She was immobilized by fear of what he might do to Raven if she refused.  Whatever Harold felt for her had made him treat her with a kind of respect so far.  She had to maintain the personal link because if he ever decided that he didn't care what she thought they were all doomed.  Not knowing if what she did was the right thing to keep the situation was escalating, she decided to comply.  She took a shuddering breath and brought her ankles together.

Harold hesitated.  Then he handed her the tape.

"You do it.  Put the baby down and just take a couple of wraps around your ankles," he said, sounding for all the world like a normal human being talking about an everyday task.  "That way I can put the knife away.  I . . . I think that would be a good idea, don't you?"

Jill nodded.  She placed Mirabelle beside Raven and bent to wind the tape twice around her ankles as instructed.  When she glanced up she noticed that he had turned his head away to avoid looking down her blouse.

He handed her the work gloves she had given him the first day he had come to pick up the trash.  "Sorry they're dirty.  Put them on then I can tape your wrists in front of you.  With the gloves on you won't be able to peel the tape off your ankles," he said as if he needed to explain to her.

"I don't want to worry about you.  But . . . I just . . . want you to be comfortable . . . until---"

"Until what, Harold?"

"Until I . . . decide what I got to do."

"What are you going to do?"

He shook his head.  "I'm trying to think of a way out of all this, Miss Carter.  I really am."

"You can just leave.  That way you---"

"That won't work," he interrupted impatiently.  "It won't work at all."

 

3:15 PM

"If he came straight back from the landfill we should have passed him," said Richard as he turned back onto U just inside the county line.  "Maybe he took the back roads."

"Wouldn't have a choice," said Guidry.  "They're all back roads."

"Unit six, location?" came the dispatcher's voice over the radio.

Richard keyed the mic.  "Headed west on U near the Ripley County Line."

A short pause, then Shively's came on.  "Do you have another deputy with you?"

"Yes, Sir.  We are presently trying to locate an individual who may be responsible for the incidents we are investigating."

The pause was longer this time.  "This is the individual you so professionally briefed me on before you took your current course of action?"

At all hours of the day there were people who listened to scanners.  It was almost impossible to run a license plate without having someone in the county hear who had been pulled over.  By the next morning it would be coffee shop gossip.  He tried to think of a way to let Shug know he was looking for Harold Porter without naming him on the air.  He didn't think Porter had a scanner, but he didn't want to take the chance.

"We've confirmed that the same individual is involved in some of the other things we've been looking into.  Things that some of us don't see as much humor in as others," said Richard.

Guidry took the mic.  "Boss, we believe it was the turd in the punch bowl."

A moment elapsed.  "Five by," said the sheriff. 

The phrase was from Shively's army past.  It meant that the transmission was coming through clear and ungarbled.  Shug knew who their suspect was.

Guidry continued.  "The suspect has a hobby that my partner has been looking into."

"Collecting things?"

"Yes sir.  Tokens.  Maybe even previews of coming attractions."

"You're still five by."

"Could use a little help finding him."

"Got it covered," said Shug.  "And Carter, keep me advised in your accustomed manner."

 

3:25 PM

Sounds came from the basement.  Harold had gone down five minutes, but it seemed longer.  Jill was tempted to get Mirabelle and try to leave the house, but she would have to hop or shuffle, and he was sure to hear her.  Then she heard him trudging up the stairs and it was too late.  He came through the door carrying a roll of plastic sheeting and Richard's stapler.

He went into the kitchen and unrolled the plastic on the floor, his demeanor calm and unnerving as he went about his task.

"What are you doing, Harold?" she asked.

He didn't so much as look her way.  Instead he used the fillet knife to cut off a section about five feet long, the tip of the blade slicing through and into her new vinyl floor.  At that instant Jill realized that Harold had come to a decision.  She was no longer as important to him.  By destroying something of hers, he was beginning to depersonalize her.  Moment by moment she was becoming less important to him.

He unfolded the plastic and stapled it across the top of the kitchen doorway.  Then he went inside.  She could see him only vaguely through the translucent sheeting.  There was the dull scrape of something heavy being moved across the floor.

He is moving the stove?

He disappeared from her view.  The back porch door opened and closed.

She raised her gloved hands and chewed at the duct tape, hoping to rip it free, but Harold had wrapped it several times around each wrist and the entire mass seemed fused.  Before she could even begin to free herself of the gloves, the plastic billowed inward.  She could hear him in the kitchen.  There was more stapling followed by the dull sound of something hitting the wall.

"Dang!" she heard him say

A moment later he came through the doorway and immediately began stapling the plastic to the entire perimeter of the doorway.  She caught a whiff of dead mouse smell.

Gas!  He is filling the kitchen with gas!

She swallowed, trying to gain control of her emotions.

"Listen, Harold, listen.  You are not the kind of man who would intentionally hurt a defenseless woman, much less her baby.  I know you're not.  I know you don't want to hurt any of us now."

"I don't want to."

"I think you're a good man, Harold.  I think even now you're trying to find a way to keep from doing that."

He nodded.

"You're the kind of man who would even risk his life to help someone he cared about---the kind of man who would do anything he could to help a friend.  I'm your friend, am I not?  Brave men sacrifice themselves to save their friends."

Harold nodded, a far away look in his eye.  Whether he was remembering the past, imagining the future, or simply responding automatically to her words she couldn't tell.

"I know what you want me to do, Miss Carter," he said dismally.  "But I cain't go back.  You ain't got no idea what it's like in there."

Although she was terrified the remark made her furious.

You miserable coward!  You would sacrifice us because you are afraid of going back to prison. 

That he was going to kill her baby was all she could think of.  The terror of it threatened to reduce her to helpless fury and despair.  She couldn't afford that.

I have to reach him.  If nothing else I must delay until Richard comes home.

"I'd write you every day, Harold.  I'd visit you," she said desperately.  "I'd be so grateful . . . and so proud of you.  I know most men don't have to fight against . . . what you're having to fight against right now.  I think you're a special kind of man . . . one any woman should admire."

He shook his head at first tentatively and then decisively, refusing to let his eyes meet hers.

"Harold, please.  You can't do this."  Her voice cracked.

She felt hysteria descending.  She couldn't afford that.  Instinctively she knew that crying would do no good.

"I know you," she said, fighting for composure.  "You would . . . never do anything to hurt a---a lady---a mother and her little girl.  That's not you, Harold.  I know it's not."

"None of this is my fault, Miss Carter," he said with his back to her.  "Things just started happening and I . . . I couldn't stop them.  They've ruined it all---don't you see?  It's all turning out wrong---not the way I wanted.  Why does this always have to happen to me?  Ain't I suffered enough?"

"No, Harold.  No.  Listen to me.  You can't do this," she sobbed.  "You can't do this to us.  We've been your friends.  We've always tried to treat you with kindness.  I invited you into my home.  Why are you doing this?"

"It just cain't be helped," he mumbled.

The futility overcame her.  Despite her efforts to control her emotions, she finally lost it.

"You hurt my baby, you son of bitch, I'll kill you!  If I don't, my husband will.  He'll track you down and rip your guts out!  You pathetic little coward!  You bastard!"

"Don't talk like that," he mumbled petulantly.  "You're a lady.  It ain't fittin' for you to talk like that."

"My language offends you?" she screamed.  "Look at what you're doing to us!  What did we ever do to you?"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he whined.  "It just got all messed up.  I had everything under control.  I was making David leave me alone  . . . and then it just went . . . bad." 

He looked at her with tears in his eyes.

"Cain't you see that I don't want to do this.  It's just the only way out."

Jill suddenly had a vision of Harold coming back into the house after they were dead.  He would remove the tape and arrange their lifeless bodies to make it appear that they had been overcome by the gas leak.

"This is no way out, Harold!  It's murder.  You can't just suffocate us and walk away thinking everything will be okay.  And it will do no good.  They'll know you did it.  You can't get away."

Harold shook his head stubbornly.

He's going to do it!  He's going to kill my baby!

"You stupid, impotent bastard!  You're going to kill my baby and you think I should understand you!  I should feel sorry for you?  You miserable, stupid, worthless son of a bitch!"

He jumped up and slammed his hands to his ears.  "Don't talk like that!"

Grabbing the duct tape he rushed toward her.  She arched away, but he threw his left arm around her and pulled her roughly to him.

"Get you filthy hands off me!" she screamed, trying vainly to shoulder him away.

He managed to rip off a length of the tape and slap it to her cheek.  His bony forearm dug into the crook of her neck painfully.  She smelled the stench of his sour sweat.  He stretched the tape crookedly across her mouth and pulled it tight.  

"I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry," he repeated in a high whining voice as he pulled it around her head until he had made a complete circle.

Breathing raggedly, Harold tore off another piece of tape.  As he leaned into her, forcing her back against Raven, she thought he was going to tape her nostrils shut.  He came at her with a strange high-pitched grunting sound.  She thrashed in his grasp, but he managed to smear the second piece of tape across her mouth.  Then he pulled back, shaking his head as if in denial of what he had just done.  His hands trembled.

Breathing heavily herself, Jill raised her gloved hands to the rough and wrinkled bands pulling painfully at random strands of her hair.

"I wish this didn't have to happen to us, Ma'am, but . . ."  He looked away from her.  "You had no call to worry about the baby.  You shouldn't have said that.  You know I ain't the kind to let nothing happen to it if I could help it.  I'll put it in the car before . . . you know . . . before.  I'll wrap it up real warm and . . . people will probably get here pretty quick . . . just so . . .  You shouldn't worry none.  I'll make sure nothing happens to it."