A Cry In The Night

36

Beth!” She closed her eyes, jammed her knuckles against her mouth. Beth was still alive. Whatever he planned to do to them hadn’t happened yet. The memory of the painting, Beth and Tina, stiff little puppets, the corduroy belts around their necks. She could not blot it out.

She felt Mark’s hands, those strong hands on her shoulders, steadying her. She held out the receiver so he could try to listen too.

“Beth, hello, darling.” She tried to sound carefree and pleased. It was so hard not to scream, Beth, where are you? “Are you having a good time with Daddy?”

“Mommy, you’re mean. You came into our room last night and you wouldn’t talk to us. And you covered Tina too tight.”

Beth’s plaintive voice was high-pitched enough for Mark to hear. She saw the agony in his eyes, knew it was reflected in her own. Covered Tina too tight. No. No. Please, God. No. The baby. Now Tina.

“Tina cried so hard.”

“Tina cried.” Jenny tried to fight the waves of dizziness. She mustn’t faint. “Let me talk to her, Bethie. I love you, Mouse.”

Now Beth began to cry. “I love you too, Mommy. Please come soon.”

“Mommy.” Tina’s helpless sobbing. “You hurt me. The blanket was in my face.”

“Tina, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Jenny tried not to let her voice break. “I’m sorry, Tina.”

There was a clunk as the phone was moved, then Tina’s wail.

“Jenny, why are you so upset? The girls were dreaming. It’s just that they miss you as I do, darling.”

“Erich.” Jenny knew she was shouting. “Where are you Erich? Please, I promise you. I’ll sign that confession. I’ll sign anything. But please, I need my children.”

She felt Mark’s grip on her shoulder, cautioning her. “I mean I need my family, Erich.” She forced her voice to calm, bit her lips over the urge to plead with him not to hurt them. “Erich, we can be so happy. I don’t know why I do such strange things when I’m asleep but you promised to take care of me. I’m sure I’ll get better.”

“You were going to leave me, Jenny. You just pretended to love me.”

“Erich, come home and we’ll talk. Or let me send the letter to you. Tell me where you are.”

“Have you talked to anyone about us?”

Jenny looked at Mark. He shook his head warningly. “Why would I tell anyone about us?”

“I tried to phone you three times yesterday afternoon. You were out.”

“Erich, I hadn’t heard from you for so long. I needed to get some fresh air. I skied for a while. I want to be able to ski with you again. We had such fun, remember?”

“I tried to phone Mark last evening. He wasn’t home. Were you with him?”

“Erich, I was here. I’m always here waiting for you.” Tina was screaming now. From the background she could hear road sounds again, like heavy trucks shifting gears on a grade. Could Erich have been at the farm last night? If so had he gone to the cabin? No, if he had been in the cabin and seen the broken window, realized that people had been there, he wouldn’t be calling now.

“Jenny, I’ll think about coming back. You just stay in the house. Don’t go out. Don’t go skiing. I want you right there. And someday I’ll open the door and be there and we’ll be a family again. Will you do that, Jenny?”

“Yes, Erich, yes. Yes. I promise.”

“Mommy, I want to talk to Mommy.” Beth’s pleading. “Please, please…”

There was a sharp, clicking sound and the dial tone began to hum in her ear.

Jenny listened while Mark repeated the conversation. She only interjected when the sheriff asked, “But why would the kids have thought it was you?”

“Because he has my suitcases with him now,” Jenny said. “He probably put one of my robes on… Maybe even that red one I’ve been missing. He must have a dark wig with him. When the children are very sleepy they see what they think they’re seeing. Dr. Philstrom, what will he do now?”

“Jenny, anything is possible. I can’t deny that. But I suspect that as long as he still holds the hope that you’ll stay with him, the girls are fairly safe.”

“But Tina-last night…”

“You have that answer. He tried to phone you in the afternoon and you were gone. He tried to phone Mark in the evening and couldn’t reach him. It’s uncanny how some psychotics develop almost a sixth sense. Some instinct told him you were together. In his frustration he came very near to harming Tina.”

Jenny tried to swallow over the quiver in her voice. “He sounds so strange, almost rambling. Suppose he does come soon? He could conceivably decide to come back tonight. He knows every inch of this property. He could ski in. He could drive a car we wouldn’t recognize. He could walk in from the riverbank. If he sees anyone around here who doesn’t belong here, that will be the end. You’ve all got to go away. Suppose, oh, God, suppose he sees Caroline’s grave has been disturbed? He’ll know that Arden’s body was found. Don’t you see? You can’t have any publicity. You can’t send out flyers. You can’t have strangers here. The cabin. If he goes to the cabin and sees the broken window… those bits of cloth tacked on the trees…”

Sheriff Gunderson looked from Mark to Dr. Philstrom. “Obviously you both agree. All right. Mark, will you ask Rooney and Clyde to come in here? I’ll get the people from the coroner’s office. They’re still sifting the dirt in the cemetery.”

Rooney was surprisingly composed. Jenny knew that Dr. Philstrom was studying her closely. But Rooney’s concern seemed to be only for Jenny. She hugged her, laid her cheek on Jenny’s. “I know. Oh, my dear, I know.”

Clyde had aged ten years in the past hours. “I’m listing all the property Erich owns,” he said. “I’ll have that for you soon.”

“The painting,” Jenny said. “We’ve got to put that painting back. It was on the long wall in the loft.”

“I left it in the supply closet in the office,” Dr. Philstrom said. “But I think it might be better if Mrs. Toomis would agree to come back and stay in the hospital until this is over.”

“I want to be with Clyde,” Rooney said. “I want to be with Jenny. I’m all right. Don’t you see. I know.”

“Rooney stays with me,” Clyde said flatly.

Sheriff Gunderson walked over to the window. “This place is a mess of footprints and tire tracks,” he said. “What we need is a good snowstorm to cover them. Keep your fingers crossed. There’s one due tonight.”

The storm began in the early evening. Snowflakes fine and rapid bit at the house and barns and fields. The wind blew and scattered the flying flakes, eventually banking them in rapidly growing piles against the trees and buildings.

The next morning, in prayerful gratitude, Jenny observed the glaring whiteness outside. The violated grave would be quilted with snow, the tracks to the cabin obliterated. If Erich came he would not be suspicious; even Erich who could instantly sense a book out of place, a vase moved a quarter of an inch, would have nothing to trigger his awareness of their presence in the cabin.

During the night, pushing their way through the treacherous roads, Sheriff Gunderson and two deputies had come back. One had wired the phones to monitor incoming calls, had given Jenny a walkie-talkie and taught her how to use it. The other had made copies of the papers Clyde pulled from the files, the pages and pages of income tax forms showing the Krueger holdings: deeds, rental contracts, office buildings, warehouses. The originals were back in the files, the copies taken to be pored over by investigators who would then begin to search possible hiding places.

Jenny adamantly refused to allow a policeman to stay in the house. “Erich could open the door and walk in. Suppose he realizes that someone else is here. And he would. You can count on it. I won’t risk it.”

She began keeping track of days with the awareness of seconds turning into minutes, minutes crawling to the quarter hour, the half hour. She had found the cabin on the fifteenth. On the morning of the sixteenth, the grave had been opened and Erich had phoned. The snowstorm ended on the eighteenth. All through Minnesota the cleanup began. The phone lines were down all of the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth. Suppose Erich tried to call? Would he realize that it wasn’t her fault he couldn’t get through. The entire area of Granite Place where the farm was located was harder hit than the rest of the county.

Don’t let him get angry, she prayed. Don’t let him take it out on the girls.

On the morning of the nineteenth she saw Clyde coming to the house. The upright set of his head and chest was gone. He bent forward as he walked the freshly plowed path, his face puckered not so much against the wind as under an invisible burden he seemed to be carrying.

He stepped into the kitchen foyer, stamping his feet to break the cold. “He just called.”

“Erich! Clyde, why didn’t you ring through? Why didn’t you let me talk to him.”

“He didn’t want to talk to you. He just wanted to know if the lines were down around here last night. He asked me whether or not you’ve been out. Miz Krueger, Jenny, he’s uncanny. He told me I sounded funny. I said I didn’t know about that; it’s been pretty busy trying to feed all the cattle in this storm. That seemed to satisfy him. Then he said the other day… Remember when he called right after we found Arden?”

“Yes.”

“He said he’d been thinking about it. He said that I should have been in the office at that time, that the call should have been picked up there first. Jenny, it’s like he’s right here watching us. He seems to know every move we make.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said that I’d gotten Rooney out of the hospital that morning and hadn’t been to the office yet so that it was still on the night setting where it rings in the house. Then he asked me if Mark has been poking around here; that was the way he put it, ‘poking around.’”

“What did you say?”

“I told him Dr. Ivanson had been checking the animals and should I have called Mark instead? He said no.”

“Clyde, did he mention the children?”

“No, ma’am. Just said to tell you he’d be phoning and he wanted you in the house waiting for the call. Jenny, I tried to keep him on so they could maybe trace where he is but he talked so fast and got off so quick.”

Mark phoned every day. “Jenny, I want to see you.”

“Mark, Clyde’s right. He is uncanny. He particularly asked about you. Please, stay away.”

On the afternoon of the twenty-fifth Joe came to the house. “Mrs. Krueger, is Mr. Krueger all right?”

“What do you mean, Joe?”

“He phoned to see how I was feeling. Wanted to know if I’ve been seeing you. I said just the one time I bumped into you. I didn’t say you’d come to our place. You know what I mean. He said he wanted me to come back to work when I’m ready but if I ever came near you or if he ever heard me call you Jenny, he’d shoot me with the same rifle he used to kill my dogs. He said my dogs. That means he did kill the other one too. He sounds crazy. I think it won’t do no good for either you or me if I’m around here. You tell me what to do.”

He sounds crazy. He was openly threatening Joe now. Despair anesthetized Jenny’s terror. “Joe, did you tell anyone about this; did you tell your mother?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t want to get her started.”

“Joe, I beg you, don’t tell anyone about that call. And if Erich phones back, just be very calm and easy with him. Tell him the doctor wants you to wait a few weeks more but don’t tell him you refuse to work. And Joe, for God sake, don’t tell him you’ve seen me again.”

“Jenny, there’s real bad trouble, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” It was useless to deny it.

“Where is he with your girls?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see. Jenny, I swear to God you can trust me.”

“I know I can. And if he phones you again, let me know right away, please.”

“I will.”

“And, Joe… If-I mean he might come back here. If you happen to see him or the car. I need to know at once.”

“You will. Elsa was over at our place for dinner with Uncle Josh. She was talking about you, saying what a lovely person you were.”

“She never acted as though she liked me.”

“She was scared of Mr. Krueger. He told her to know her place, to keep her mouth shut, to make sure nothing was ever out of place or changed in the house.”

“I never could understand why she worked for us, the way Erich treated her.”

“The kind of money he paid. Elsa said that she’d work for the devil for that big a salary.” Joe put his hand on the doorknob. “Sounds like she was working for the devil, don’t it, Jenny?”

February is not the shortest month of the year, Jenny thought. It seemed an eternity. Day after day. Minute after minute. The nighttime madness of lying in bed, watching the outline of the crystal bowl against the darkness. She wore Caroline’s nightgown every night, kept a cake of pine soap under the pillow so the bed always held the faint scent of pine.

If Erich came in some night, quietly, stealthily, if he came into this room, this nightgown, this scent, might lull him into security.

When she did sleep she dreamt incessantly of the children. In sleep they were waiting for her. They would call “Mommy, Mommy,” and tumble into the bed, pressing small, wiggly bodies against her, and then as she tried to put her arms around them she awoke.

She never dreamt of the baby. It was as though the same total involvement she had given to preserving the small flicker of life in that tiny body now belonged to Tina and Beth.

She had the confession memorized; over and over it ran through her head: “I am not responsible…”

During the day she was never far from the phone. To pass the time she spent most mornings cleaning the house. She dusted and waxed and mopped, swept, polished silver. But she would not use the vacuum for fear of missing the first peal of the telephone.

Most afternoons Rooney came over, a quiet, different Rooney for whom the waiting was over. “I was thinking we might start quilts for the girls’ beds,” she suggested. “As long as Erich still thinks he can come here and find you and be a family with you and the girls, he won’t hurt them. But in the meantime you gotta be busy at least with your hands. Otherwise you’ll go crazy. So let’s start quilts.”

Rooney went up to the attic to get the bag with the leftover scraps of material. They began to sew. Jenny thought of the legend of the three sisters who spun, measured and cut the threads of time. But we’re only two of the three, she thought. Erich is the third. It is he who can cut the strand of life.

Rooney sorted the pieces of material into neat piles on the kitchen table. “We’ll want them bright and cheerful,” she said, “so we won’t use dark colors.” She began whisking back into the bag the ones she was rejecting. “This was from a tablecloth old Mrs. Krueger had. That’s John’s mother. Caroline and I used to laugh that anyone would want such a dismal-looking thing. And that sailcloth was from a bolt she bought to make a cover for the picnic table. That was the summer Erich was five. And, oh, I don’t know why I don’t just throw out the rest of this blue stuff. Remember I told you I made curtains for the big back room? When they were up you’d think you were in a cave. The whole room was so dark. Oh, well…” She pushed it into the sack. “You never know when you might want to put your hand on it.”

They began to sew. It seemed to Jenny that the end of hope had robbed Rooney of intensity. Everything she said was expressed in the same middle key. “Once Erich is found we’re going to have a real funeral for Arden. The hardest for me now is to think back and remember how Erich encouraged me to think that Arden was still alive. Clyde said all along that she’d never run away. I shoulda known that. I guess I did know that. But every time I started to say that I guess my Arden is with God, why, then Erich would say, ‘I don’t believe that, Rooney.’ He was so cruel getting up my hopes like that; kind of like never letting the wound heal. I tell you, Jenny, he don’t deserve to live.”

“Rooney, please, don’t talk like that.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny.”

Sheriff Gunderson phoned her every night. “We’ve checked out the real estate. We’ve given pictures to all the police in those areas with the understanding there be no publicity and if they see him or the car they don’t apprehend him. He’s not at any of the places listed in his tax returns.”

He tried to offer cautious comfort. “They say no news is good news, Mrs. Krueger. Right now the kids may be playing on a beach in Florida, getting a nice suntan.”

Pray God they were. She didn’t believe it.

Mark phoned every night. They stayed on only a minute or two. “Nothing, Jen.”

“Nothing.”

“All right, I won’t tie up the line. Hang in there, Jenny.”

Hang in there. She tried to establish some sort of pattern to her days. The nights, either sleepless or wracked with torturing dreams, drove her from bed at dawn. For days she hadn’t been outside the house. An early-morning television program featured a yoga exercise. Faithfully she sat in front of the set at six-thirty, mechanically following the prescribed routine of the day.

At seven o’clock Good Morning America came on. She forced herself to listen to the news, listen politely to the interviews. One day as she watched, pictures were flashed on the screen of children who had disappeared. Some of them had been missing for years. Amy… Roger… Tommy… Linda… José… one after the other. Each representing heartbreak. Someday would they add Elizabeth and Christine… “nicknamed Beth and Tina” to the list. “Their adoptive father left with them on February sixth, three years ago. If anyone has knowledge…”

The evenings had a ritual too. She sat in the family-room section of the kitchen and read or tried to watch television. Usually she would spin the dial and leave the set at where it stopped. Unseeingly she endured situation comedies, hockey games, old movies. She tried to read, but pages later she’d realize her mind hadn’t taken in a thing.

The last night in February she was particularly restless.

It seemed as though there was a stillness in the house that was particularly jarring. The canned laughter during a program depicting a couple throwing bric-a-brac at each other made her snap off the set. She sat staring ahead, seeing nothing. The phone rang. By now without hope, she picked it up. “Hello.”

“Jenny, this is Pastor Barstrom from Zion Lutheran. How have you been?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“I hope Erich extended our sympathy at the loss of your baby. I wanted to visit you but he suggested I defer seeing you. Is Erich there?”

“No. He’s away. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”

“I see. Will you just remind him that our senior citizens center is almost complete? As the largest donor, I want to be sure he knows the dedication date is March tenth. He’s a very generous man, Jenny.”

“Yes. I’ll tell him you called. Good night, Pastor.”

The phone rang at quarter of two. She was lying in bed, a pile of books beside her, hoping that one of them would help her while away the night.

“Jenny.”

“Yes.” Was it Erich? He sounded different, high-pitched, tense.

“Jenny, who were you talking to on the phone? Around eight o’clock. You smiled while you were talking.”

“Around eight?” She tried to sound thoughtful, tried not to scream out the words, Where are Beth and Tina? “Let’s see,” she made a point of the delay. Sheriff Gunderson? Mark? She didn’t dare mention either. Pastor Barstrom. “Erich, Pastor Barstrom phoned. He wanted to talk to you, to invite you to the opening of the senior citizens’ hall.” Her hands clammy, her mouth trembling, she waited for his comment. Keep him on the phone. That way they might be able to trace the call.

“Are you sure it was Pastor Barstrom?”

“Erich, why would I say that?” She bit her lips. “How are the girls?”

“They’re fine.”

“Let me talk to them.”

“They’re very tired. I put them to bed. You looked nice tonight, Jenny.”

“I looked nice tonight.” She felt herself begin to tremble.

“Yes, I was there. I was looking in the window. You should have guessed I was there. If you love me you would have guessed.”

In the darkness Jenny watched the crystal bowl, eerie, green. “Why didn’t you come in?”

“I didn’t want to. I just wanted to make sure you were still there waiting for me.”

“I am waiting for you, Erich, and I’m waiting for the girls. If you didn’t want to be here, let me come and be with you.”

“No… Not yet. Are you in bed now, Jenny?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What nightgown have you got on?”

“The one you like. I wear it a lot.”

“Maybe I should have stayed.”

“Maybe you should. I wish you would.”

There was a pause. In the background she could hear sounds of traffic. He must always call from the same phone. He had been outside the window.

“You didn’t tell Pastor Barstrom that I’m mad at you.”

“Of course not. He knows how much we love each other.”

“Jenny, I tried to phone Mark but his line was busy. Were you talking to him?”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You really were talking to Pastor Barstrom.”

“Why don’t you call and ask him?”

“No. I believe you. Jenny, I’ll keep trying to get Mark. I just remembered. He has a book of mine. I want it back. It belongs on the third shelf of the library, the fourth from the right end.” Erich’s voice was changing, becoming whiny, fretful. There was something about it.

She was hearing it again. The high-pitched screaming that had nearly destroyed her with its accusations: “Is Mark your new boyfriend? Does he like to swim? Whore. Get out of Caroline’s bed. Get out of it now.”

There was a click. Then silence. Then the dial tone, a mild, impersonal buzz radiating from the receiver in her hand.