Honeymoon for Three

CHAPTER 26

He should go to whomever passed for the police in this part of the world. Gary was certain that Alfred had somehow found them again and kidnapped Penny. What would he do to her? Would he kill her? Gary couldn’t bear that thought. If he were going to kill her, she might already be dead.

He had to assume she was alive and act on that assumption. Any other thoughts led to insanity. He had to find out where a police station was located. He was standing beside the Beetle, sweeping the highway with his eyes, from north to south. All he saw were a few cars and lumber trucks. Alfred was long gone with Penny.

He should look at the map. He got into the car so that he could study his map of California without the wind blowing it. Humboldt County was an unpopulated area. Any sheriff’s station would be south of here, perhaps at Trinidad or McKinleyville. He could drive to them in a few minutes.

Which way would Alfred be taking Penny? Gary remembered that he had been living in Lomita, very close to her. Would he head in that direction? What would a rational kidnapper do? Was there any such thing as a rational kidnapper? Was Alfred rational? How could he be? He had killed one person; he had tried to kill them. He was obsessed with Penny. Rational was not a word that applied to Alfred.

Gary started the VW and headed south. He was moving at close to the top speed of the little car when he caught a logging truck. He couldn’t safely pass it, so he rode in its slipstream. These trucks really moved, and although he was anxious and impatient, he realized he couldn’t do much better than to cruise in its wake. He arrived at the village of Trinidad in fewer than fifteen minutes.

He stopped at the first gas station he came to and asked directions. He found out that the sheriff’s station was in McKinleyville, a little farther south. Another ten minutes and he was there. He parked in front of the building and went inside. When the deputy on duty asked him what he wanted, he blurted out, “I think my wife has been kidnapped.”

Alfred was determined not to get stopped for speeding. He had been stopped for speeding in Montana, and, as a result, he been forced to give up his car. If he were stopped now, the police would see Penny with the tape over her mouth. There was no way he could hide her completely, unless he placed her on the top bunk and crammed her into the back of the camper where she wouldn’t be visible from ground level. He would have to tape her so securely that she couldn’t move at all.

He wouldn’t do that, even if he could somehow get her up there. Not if he wanted her to love him. He could put a blanket over her head while she was on the lower bunk, but the shape of her body would be suspicious to a cop. He would just have to drive carefully. At least he wasn’t driving a stolen car. Mattie had been very kind to him. He would have to return the camper to her when he was through with it. Or at least write her a note and tell her where to find it.

Alfred decided not to try to drive all the way home in one day. It would be too hard on him, since he had to do all the driving. He had a camper. He would find a nice campground, north of San Francisco. Camping wasn’t so bad when you had a vehicle like this. He had food and water. Penny would enjoy it. She liked camping. They could do it if he could trust her.

In addition, he needed time to win Penny over. The sooner he could do that, the better life would be. Maybe he could do it tonight. Tomorrow he would drive the rest of the way home. He couldn’t actually go to his apartment, at least not until he knew whether the police were still looking for him. She and Gary were moving into a new apartment. He and Penny would go there. Instead of Penny and Gary, it would be Penny and Alfred. That sounded better.

He would get back his job at the grocery store, or maybe work at another one. Penny would teach. Alfred would become a checker and maybe even a store manager. Penny would be proud of him. They would live happily ever after.

Penny couldn’t remember when she had ever felt more uncomfortable. Her arms ached from being behind her back, and she had no feeling in her hands. She couldn’t separate her legs. She had cramps from lying in the same position. She had to go to the bathroom.

There was one ray of light. The single piece of tape over her mouth was not completely effective. She had attempted to open her mouth as soon as Alfred’s back was turned and partially succeeded. She could talk-indistinctly-or even scream. With further effort, by working her lips and jaws, she could probably free her mouth altogether.

She had to pick the right opportunity, since she knew that Alfred was watching her in the rearview mirror of the camper. She could tell because she could see his eyes in the mirror when she lifted her head and looked forward. She kept her mouth closed, making it look as though it were still securely taped. She didn’t want Alfred to double- or triple-tape her mouth.

Her discomfort had drowned out her fear. If he were going to kill her, wouldn’t he have already done so? No, he wanted her alive. At least for the moment. He seemed to change his mind more often than the tide changed. If Darren, the gentle janitor at Fenwick High School, could kill Emily, Alfred could certainly kill Penny. He hadn’t shown much gentleness so far, and he had already killed one person.

Were all men secretly like this? Did Gary have a mean streak inside him, waiting to come out? Alfred was definitely unpredictable. The only constant was his obsession with her. He was taking her someplace. Perhaps back to Los Angeles. In his twisted world, he saw them as a couple. Well, maybe she could use that. But she couldn’t do a damn thing while she was tied up.

She didn’t really believe Gary could act like this. She was worried about him. What did he do when he couldn’t find her? He must be frantic. He would contact the police, but what good would that do? She had vanished into thin air. The last thing she wanted was to make trouble for Gary, but she had been nothing but trouble for him all during their honeymoon. What if he decided she wasn’t worth it-that he was better off without her?

She became angry at Alfred. The longer she lay there, the angrier she became. What right did he have to ruin her honeymoon-to ruin her life? If she got the opportunity, she would be hard pressed not to kill him-and she was not a violent person.

Maybe she never should have left Connecticut. Connecticut was safe. Safe because it was home. Home was supposed to be safe. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to avoid Alfred if she’d stayed in Connecticut, but maybe it would have been easier to handle him there. Or was she deluding herself? Her best friend had been murdered just before her wedding. Did that sound like a safe place to live?

In Fenwick, everybody nosed into everybody else’s business and made judgments. That was one reason she had left. People erected facades, and some things remained largely hidden. The alcoholism of her father, for example. Her mother lived with him and put up with him, but she should have divorced him long ago.

There were a few people who didn’t bother to look respectable. One of them was Katharine Hepburn. She had a home in Fenwick. Kate would drive through town in a powder-blue Cadillac convertible with the top down, sitting beside her lover, Spencer Tracy, their scarves and hair flying in the wind, even though Spencer was married and would never divorce his wife. Flaunting their love for each other, flouting convention and respectability. Kate also did good deeds, such as buying a new fire engine for the town.

Penny had been to Kate’s home once. Kate invited her because Penny was a founder of an organization composed of teenagers who helped others. They baby-sat during elections so that people could vote. One cold January they collected $1,200 worth of recyclable bottles, and presented the proceeds to the March of Dimes Polio Fund. Kate gave Penny a dozen autographs, and she never gave autographs.

Penny had to learn to be more like Kate. To pursue her dreams without worrying what the world thought about her. First, she had to get out of this mess. She would do whatever it took to escape from Alfred, even if she had to do things the folks in Fenwick would frown on-things a good girl didn’t do.

Penny rolled over onto her back with her arms underneath her. She knew she could sit up from that position, especially if she could get her legs over the side of the bed. To do that, she would have to rotate her whole body 180 degrees. She could scoot around, but Alfred would see her do it.

Could she risk it? Would that make him mad because she would be more visible through the windows of the camper? What would he do to her? Would he tie her so thoroughly that she couldn’t move at all?

How long had they been driving? It seemed like hours. Just when she couldn’t stand it anymore and was about to sit up, regardless of the consequences, Alfred slowed and pulled off the highway and stopped. He picked up a map from the seat beside him and looked at it.

Penny hummed to attract his attention. She kept her mouth closed so he wouldn’t realize that she could open it. He turned around and looked at her.

“How is my sweetheart doing?”

I’ll sweetheart you, she thought. Take the damn tape off my mouth, and I’ll tell you how I’m doing.

He got up and walked back to her. As if he had heard her thoughts, he peeled the tape quickly off her mouth. She pretended that it stung, although the actual pain was minimal.

“Owww.”

“Sorry. There’s blood on your pillow.”

He actually sounded concerned.

“I don’t know about that, but I have to go to the bathroom.”

Alfred seemed taken aback. “Uh, can you hold it?”

“I’ve been holding it. Now I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll get one of the cooking pots.”

“I’m not going in any damn pot. I’ll go outside in the trees.” It wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but she would if she had to.

“But you can’t walk.”

“Okay, Alfred, it works like this. Untape my hands and legs and give me my shoes. I’ll go in the trees. I’m not going to run away. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Where would I run to?”

That was true. Dark woods loomed on either side of the road. Hansel and Gretel woods. If she ran into the woods, she would get lost. Or the witch would get her. She would have to come back to the road at some point. There was no way to elude Alfred. He apparently saw the truth of this. He took the blanket off her and untaped her hands. She brought them around to her front and started rubbing them together to get some circulation back into them. Then he untaped her legs.

Penny had a momentary urge to attack Alfred, but her hands and feet were barely working, and he would quickly overpower her. She put on her shoes. He opened the sliding door and stepped outside with her. He told her to stay in sight. She walked a few feet into the woods and went behind a tree, trying to preserve a modicum of modesty.

When she came back, Alfred said, “I think you cut your head. Let me look at it.”

For the first time, Penny noticed the ache on the top of her head. She remembered that it had been worse right after Alfred grabbed her, but she had ignored it as being the least of her problems.

Now he sat her on the floor in the doorway of the camper with her feet on the ground. She didn’t have any choice in the matter. He stood on the ground beside her and parted her hair with his fingers.

“You cut yourself. That’s what caused the blood on the pillow. It’s stopped bleeding, but I want to clean it up.”

Alfred stepped inside the camper and wet his handkerchief at the tap of the sink. He started working on the cut. Penny was surprised at how gentle he was. She thought she remembered hitting her head on the trunk cover of the VW when he grabbed her from behind and jerked her upright. It stung when the water touched it, but she didn’t say anything.

How could she be angry with him when he was taking such good care of her? That was a stupid question. He had kidnapped her. He had hurt her. He might kill her. She had to stop feeling sorry for him. Or whatever her feeling was.

“What do you want with me?” Penny asked.

Alfred didn’t answer immediately. She couldn’t see his face because it was above her as he concentrated on her head, being careful not to hurt her any more than necessary.

After a pause, he said, “I thought we could be happy together.”

In one way that was laugh-out-loud funny, but she didn’t dare laugh. She had to set him straight, though. No false pretences.

“Alfred, I’ve always liked you.” That wasn’t really a lie. At least she hadn’t actively disliked him. But when she didn’t see him, she never thought about him. If he had disappeared, she wouldn’t have noticed. In her life he was a nonentity. She couldn’t tell him that.

“I’m married now. I belong to Gary. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. When we get back to L.A., I’ll fix you up with some girls. I know some nice schoolteachers.”

Alfred didn’t say anything. He kept working on her head. She suspected that he had completed cleaning the wound. Maybe he just wanted to touch her. She was no psychologist, but she realized that what she had said about fixing him up didn’t register with him. For whatever reason, he didn’t want other girls; he wanted her.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lived near her and spied on her. He wouldn’t have followed her on her honeymoon. He wouldn’t have tracked her down again after he had lost her, against great odds. He wouldn’t have killed a man. God, was she responsible for that? That was more than she could handle right now. It was time to try another tack.

“I’ll make you a deal, Alfred. I’ll stay with you until we get back to L.A. Then you have to let me go back to Gary.”

A rational person would see through this, but Alfred had not been acting in a rational manner, as defined by the norms of the human race. Would he accept half a loaf? She wanted to create an atmosphere of trust so that he wouldn’t tape her again, but she also didn’t want him to get his hopes up too high. Why not? Why should she care what he felt?

If he accepted her terms, she could watch for an opportunity to escape. Escape back to Gary’s arms.

Alfred stopped working on her head and showed her the handkerchief. It had the yellow and black stains of clotted blood on it. He washed it with water from the faucet. She sat and looked at the trees while several minutes went by. When he didn’t speak, she tried again.

“We might go by the coast.”

The coast road, Route 1, was the long way, farther and slower than heading straight down 101. They would have more time together. Prolonging the trip could work to her advantage.

It would give Gary and the police more of a chance to find her, on the relatively unpopulated coast, rather than in Los Angeles where, in spite of any promises Alfred might make, he could easily decide not to release her. People could get lost in the wilds of L.A. Gary might never find her there.

Penny went to the front seat and looked at the California map. She knew approximately where they were.

“Route One cuts off at Leggett. We can follow Route One to just north of San Francisco. After we cross the Golden Gate Bridge, we can follow Route One again to San Luis Obispo. This is such a beautiful part of the country; we should take our time going through it.”

Baiting the hook, dangling the lure. Would he bite?

Alfred sat in the driver’s seat and followed her finger on the map. He looked into her eyes-a look that showed he wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that she cared a little. She gazed back at him with as much sincerity as she could muster. She might be able to escape at a campground. Or at a gas station. If not, she would face the problem of what Alfred wanted to do with her at night. She would worry about that later. One problem at a time.

“I have food, but I need to get gas.”

“I’ll be your navigator.”

Alfred looked almost apologetic. “I can’t take that chance. Please get back on the bed.”

“Are you going to tape me again?”

He nodded, looking miserable.

“Okay, but tape my hands in front. My shoulders are killing me.”

There was no use trying to fight him. He was bigger, stronger. She had to pick her opportunity. She lay on the bed. First he taped her legs. Any hope she might have had of him taking it easy on her evaporated when he made her place her arms behind her back. He taped her wrists together. Then he bent her legs behind her and pulled them up toward her hands.

“What are you doing?”

“Taping your hands and feet together.”

“No, absolutely not. I’ll…get cramps in my legs.” She was flexible from her days as a cheerleader, but this was probably a true statement.

Nevertheless, Alfred insisted on doing it. He had seen her turn over when she was taped before. She would barely be able to move with her arms and legs taped together. He obviously didn’t want her to attract any attention when he got gas. When he had finished, he taped her mouth, in spite of her protests, and placed a blanket completely over her. She felt even more helpless than she had before. Would she ever see Gary again?