South Of Hell

Chapter Thirty-two

“So, how does this regression stuff work, exactly?” Shockey asked.

Louis turned to him. The detective was perched on the edge of the piano bench in the far corner of Dr. Sher’s living room. Shockey’s face was wan, lines cutting deep parentheses around his mouth, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy. Louis wondered for a second if the guy had been hitting the bottle hard again, but something told him it was a different demon chasing him this time.

Jean. Always Jean.

Shockey had been watching Amy all morning. And Louis had the feeling that it wasn’t out of some newfound love for the girl. Shockey was still obsessed with finding Jean, and he now believed that Amy was his last chance of doing that.

That is why he had insisted on coming to see Dr. Sher with them this time. Dr. Sher was going to make a last attempt to access Amy’s memories of her mother’s murder. And Shockey wanted to be here to see it.

Louis watched as Shockey chewed at his ravaged cuticles. Amy was across the room, lying quietly on the settee as Dr. Sher prepared to put her under hypnosis. A part of him understood what Shockey was going through. To find out you suddenly had a kid, that was hard enough. But then, what did you do with all the emotions swirling inside you? Especially that one nagging feeling that maybe you didn’t feel any close connection to this person, this little stranger, you were supposed to care about?

Louis sat down on the bench next to Shockey.

“What happens? Does she just, like, go to sleep or something?” Shockey whispered.

“Kind of,” Louis said.

Shockey heaved a sigh and rubbed his face. Louis rose and went over to stand next to Joe near the French doors.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” Joe said quietly, her eyes on Amy. “She’s having trouble going under. She was nervous all morning about this. She is really afraid she’s going to fail again.” Joe hesitated. “This means everything to her, Louis, finding her mother.”

“Joe, her mother is dead,” Louis said.

Joe gave him a sharp look. Louis let it go, focusing his attention on Dr. Sher.

It looked as if Amy was finally going under, and now Dr. Sher was trying to get her to zero in on the night of Jean’s murder. Amy’s face was tight with concentration, which Louis knew by now was not a good thing.

“Let that go for now, Amy,” Dr. Sher said gently. “We’ll start with something easier. Tell me about your life on the farm. And I want you to see it not like when you were little. Try to remember it as you are now.”

Still, Amy was silent.

“Where are you? Tell me what the room looks like,” Dr. Sher prodded.

“I’m in my room upstairs at the end of the hall. There’s pink wallpaper with the old-fashioned people, the big white house and the horse and carriage,” Amy said softly. “I like the wallpaper, because the house looks so beautiful and the people look so happy.”

“Did you feel happy there, in the farmhouse?” Dr. Sher asked.

Amy gave a slow, almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Only when Poppa went away,” she said softly. “When Momma and I were alone, we were happy.”

“Yes. Your mother played the piano for you.”

Amy nodded. “She sang the French song for me over and over. She taught me all the words. She said it was about angels looking over us in our hiding place. She said I had to learn it in French so it could be our secret song.”

Amy’s brows knitted.

“What’s wrong, Amy?”

“He hits her,” she said. “He hates it when we sing, and he hits her.”

Louis glanced at Shockey. The man was rigid, his face pale.

“What else can you remember, Amy? Tell me more about your father.”

Louis looked back to Dr. Sher, and he knew she was trying to lead Amy slowly to the murder. Louis wondered if Shockey was going to be able to sit there and passively listen if the worst came out. He tensed, ready to lead Shockey out of the room if necessary.

But Amy didn’t — or still couldn’t — go to the night of her mother’s murder. Instead, she began a slow and chillingly calm litany of abuse.

Winter nights with blankets withheld. A sweltering summer day spent locked in the dark attic because she had wet her pants. A terrified run down to the cellar and out through the cornfields, where she hid listening to her mother’s screams coming from the house. No children to play with, no school allowed except what Jean could teach her at the dining-room table. And always the threat that if she ever told anyone, she would be thrown in “the hole” — the outhouse.

Owen Brandt’s treatment of his wife and her child had gone beyond cruelty. It had been a calculated plan to isolate them, tear them down physically and psychologically, until their wills were broken and their world had been narrowed down to that hellish house.

Louis listened to it all with clenched jaw, his hand finding Joe’s and holding it tight. And Shockey? At some point, he had got up from the chair and gone to the window, where he stood, head bowed, quietly weeping.

Louis was watching Dr. Sher. The woman looked shaken to her core and didn’t seem to know what to do next. Then, with a glance at Louis, she sat up straighter, stopped the tape to turn it over, and hit the play button again.

She knew she had to get Amy to the murder somehow.

“Amy,” Dr. Sher said, “can you remember the last time you saw your mother?”

It took a long time, and finally Amy nodded.

“What happened that day?”

“Momma was gone all day,” Amy said. “I think she went to sell vegetables, but maybe not, because I remember now it was very cold and raining hard. But she was gone a long time.”

She fell silent. Oddly, she smiled slightly.

“Momma was always so happy after she got home from selling vegetables. I loved seeing her happy like that.”

Louis heard a sound. Shockey had turned and was watching Amy again.

“We’re in the parlor playing the piano and singing our song,” Amy said, still smiling. “Momma tells me a secret. She says we’re going to run away soon.”

Amy’s smile vanished.

“Poppa is home. He sees us at the piano. He… he hits Momma. He… he starts to come for me, but she stops him, talks to him and takes him upstairs. I… can hear them up there. I can hear him making ugly noises and hear Momma crying. But she told me never to come upstairs, just wait for her to come back and get me. She told me to go to my hiding place and wait.”

“Where was this hiding place?”

“The cupboard,” Amy whispered. “Sometimes it took her a long time to come for me, but she always did.”

“Did you have any other hiding places, Amy?” Dr. Sher asked. “Maybe a place you and your mother went together when things were bad?”

“Momma has a special hiding place,” Amy said.

A floorboard creaked, and Shockey came forward. Louis put up a hand, motioning him to stay back, to stay still.

“Do you know where her hiding place is?” Dr. Sher asked.

Amy frowned.

“Do you know where your mother went, Amy?”

“I… can’t…”

Dr. Sher let out a breath of frustration. “It’s all right, Amy. Just stay with the memories. What happened the night your father came home and heard you singing? What happened after your mother went upstairs?”

“It started to rain again. It was raining really hard, and it was very cold. I was downstairs by myself, and I was scared. But Momma came down to get me. She looked… she looked scared, too.”

“What did she do?”

“I… I knew something was different, something was wrong this time, because Momma was really scared.”

“What did she do, Amy? What did your father do?”

“He was yelling at her. He was yelling, and she was trying to get away from him. She grabbed me and told me to go to my hiding place. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to leave her…”

Amy’s breathing had become labored.

“But she made me go, she made me go, and I didn’t want to, but then Momma told me I had to go to my hiding place, and she would go to hers. She told me when it was all right again, she would come and get me.”

Louis felt Joe’s hand tighten on his.

“Then… then the lights went out, and I couldn’t see her anymore. I lost her in the dark, so I did what she told me to do. I hid in the cupboard.”

Amy drew in a sharp breath.

“You can do this, Amy. You’re strong enough now to do this,” Dr. Sher said gently.

“He is stabbing her with the knife, and she is screaming. It is right there in front of me, but I can’t see all of her, just pieces of her through the gaps in the boards. And when the lightning comes, I see her shoes, and everything is red, everything is red and blue, the blue floor has turned red, and I can’t see her face, just her shoes…”

Joe pulled her hand away from Louis.

“I can’t look anymore. I can’t look anymore, so I close my eyes and put my hands over my ears. I can’t look anymore…”

Louis glanced at Shockey. There were tears on his face and rage in his eyes.

“Amy? Amy, can you remember what happened next?”

When she answered, her voice was small, as if she had become five again. “He’s gone. The kitchen door is open, and the rain is coming in. I crawl out. Momma is gone. And I… am alone.”

“Did your father take your mother somewhere?”

“I don’t know. Momma is gone, and I am alone.”

Dr. Sher looked up at Louis and gave a subtle shake of her head, her eyes seeming to ask him what to do next. But he knew it was over.

Whatever Amy had seen in that kitchen, this was all she could remember. If Brandt had dragged Jean out and buried her, Amy had not seen it.

Louis felt Joe pull her hand away and looked over at her. Her eyes were wet. She looked exhausted.

He heard a shuffling and then the soft click of a door closing. Shockey had left, closing the French doors behind him. Louis saw the blur of Shockey’s brown jacket as he bolted through the front door. Louis rose and went to a window, afraid the man was going to do something stupid like go after Brandt. But he could see Shockey through the window. He had stopped and was just standing on the porch, staring up at the gray sky.

Dr. Sher’s soft voice brought him back. The doctor was bringing Amy out of her sleep state. She ended by telling Amy she would be able to remember everything she had said. Louis wondered now if that was cruel.

Amy slowly swung her legs to the floor and looked at each of them before her eyes focused on Dr. Sher.

“I didn’t find her,” Amy said.

Dr. Sher hesitated, then shook her head.

Amy looked first to Joe, then to Louis. And in Amy’s eyes, Louis saw something he had never seen there before: despair. The same aching despair that filled Shockey’s eyes.

Amy began to cry.

“Now I know,” Shockey said.

They were standing out on the porch, Shockey staring out at the street, Louis at the window, watching Joe and Amy. They were sitting together on the settee, heads bent low, talking.

“Yeah, now we know,” Louis said. He turned back to Shockey. “But given the fact that this all came out under hypnosis, there is no way they will let Amy testify against Brandt.”

Shockey shook his head. “Then what was the point?”

“Of what?”

Shockey gestured back to the window. “Of that! What was the point of putting her through that?”

Louis had the thought that Shockey meant “putting me through that,” but he kept quiet.

“The point is, Detective, that girl needed to remember it,” he said. “And you needed to hear it. Even if you can’t do a fucking thing about it.”

“I want to kill him,” Shockey whispered.

“Then what would happen to Amy?”

“I can’t do anything for her, Kincaid.”

“You can show up in court Monday and tell the judge you think you’re her father.”

“Father,” Shockey said softly. He looked at Amy through the window. “I don’t even know what that means. I look at her, and I…” He ran his hand over his face. “I look at her, and I don’t feel anything for her, and it’s like I’m not even really seeing her. I look at her, and the only thing I can think about is Jean.”

Louis was silent.

“Your girlfriend’s right,” Shockey said. “I have no business being that girl’s father.”

Shockey walked off the porch. Louis watched him get into his car and drive away.