The Sixes

17

PHOEBE TOOK A breath and slid over the rusted lever on the dishwasher door. The rushing-water sound ceased instantly, and the house was now utterly quiet. She paused for a moment, steeling herself. Then she slowly opened the door. A spray of water splashed onto her, and she glanced down instinctively. But it wasn’t just water. The wet mark the water had left on her white pajama bottoms was tinged pink.

She gasped. The water was mixed with what looked like blood.

Letting the door flop back into place, she stumbled backward. It was them again, she realized—the Sixes. They’d gotten inside again somehow—while she was sleeping.

She grabbed her phone from the counter. She’d programmed in Craig Ball’s number the other night, and she hit it now. Her fingers, she saw, were trembling. As the phone rang, she rushed into the living room, checking all around her. Since both chain locks were still on, they must have gone out a window, she thought. But how had they gotten in? She felt as if she was in one of those nightmares in which the walls and the doors of your house dissolve, and you feel completely exposed and vulnerable.

“Ball,” a voice said. It was low but not groggy, as if he’d already been awake.

“It’s Phoebe Hall,” she blurted out. “They’ve broken into the house again. Please, you’ve got to help me.”

“You’re talking about the girls—the Sixes?”

“Yes—and I think there’s blood. In my kitchen. I don’t know who it belongs to.”

As she talked, she positioned herself by the front door, ready to bolt if she had to.

“Okay, I’m ten minutes away, tops.”

“Should I call the police, too?”

“Uh, just wait till I arrive, okay?”

As soon as the call ended, she froze and listened again. Could they still be in the house? she wondered frantically, but she heard nothing now, only the low groan of the furnace. She leaned back against a small cabinet to the right of the front door. They’d raised the stakes, she realized. As bad as the rats had been, breaking into her house while she was there, was a whole new level of audaciousness.

Though the wait seemed interminable, Ball was good to his word. The car pulled up exactly ten minutes later. This time, however, he wasn’t wearing his campus police jacket. He was dressed in jeans and a black leather coat.

“You okay?” he asked as Phoebe let him in the front door. She knew that she must look panic-stricken.

“I’ve been better,” she said. “I woke to the sound of my dishwasher running, and I think there’s blood inside it. I’m wondering if they put a rat in there.”

“Christ,” he said, grimacing. “Let me see.”

She trailed behind him as he went into the kitchen. He scanned the room, and then, using a handkerchief that he’d drawn from his pocket, he slowly opened the dishwasher door.

For a few seconds he just peered, squinting, into the machine. Phoebe stood behind him, and from her vantage point she saw that the dishwasher looked empty, except for the pool of bloody-looking water at the bottom. She fought an urge to retch.

“Is it blood?” she asked.

“I think so,” he said. “There’s that telltale smell. But at least I don’t see anything dead in there.”

Slowly, he pulled out the top rack. It was empty. He squatted close to the ground. As he pulled out the lower rack, Phoebe spotted something in the utensil holder. It was a cluster of spoons, wrapped in soggy cardboard that had been secured by a rubber band and was now tinted pink.

Using his handkerchief again, Ball lifted the little package from the dishwasher.

“If there were any prints, they sure aren’t there now,” he said. After yanking a paper towel from the dispenser, he laid it on the counter and set the spoons on top.

It took Phoebe only a split second to see that there were six spoons altogether.

“I don’t believe this,” she said, throwing her hands up. “What are they trying to do to me?” She didn’t want to freak out in front of Ball, but inside she was roiling.

“They’re getting bolder each time,” Ball said in disgust. “What I want to know is how they got in.”

“Exactly—and I have no damn clue. I checked the doors and windows before bed, and the chain locks were still on both doors when I came downstairs.”

“Well, this ain’t some locked-room murder mystery, so there’s gotta be an answer,” Ball said. “They may have pried a window open. Why don’t you take a seat in the other room while I look around. Try to relax.”

Oh, yeah, right, Phoebe thought, but she went into the living room and plopped onto the sofa. Leaning into the cushions, she could feel that she was sweating through her pajama top. Calm down, she told herself. You need to have all your wits about you.

As Ball began to make his way through her rooms, she tried to imagine the ugly little scene that had unfolded in her kitchen earlier. The girls—because surely there was more than one—had clearly counted on the fact that the sound of the dishwasher would wake her. That way she would see the blood when she opened it.

But was there a particular reason for this visit? she wondered. The apples had materialized after she’d dropped by Blair and Gwen’s apartment. The rats had shown up after she’d talked to Blair. Maybe they’d somehow found out about her trip to see Alexis. Or Blair blamed her for being called in to see Stockton.

Ball had gone up to the second floor, and now she heard him descending the stairs, the steps creaking and groaning from his weight. He paused at the foot of the stairs. There was a consternated expression on his face, indicating he’d yet to solve the puzzle.

After a few seconds he crossed the room and stopped again, just in front of Phoebe. He cocked his head, still thinking, and then blasted back into the kitchen.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” he called out a minute later, his voice muffled.

Phoebe nearly leaped from the couch and hurried into the kitchen. But Ball wasn’t there.

“In here,” he called. He was in the small pantry off the kitchen. Though Phoebe kept some kitchen supplies there, the space was mostly being used to store boxes of Herb’s belongings that he’d packed up before his leave. As Phoebe stepped inside, she saw that Ball had shoved a stack of boxes out from the wall. Behind them was a window—small, but still big enough for a body to crawl through.

“It’s unlocked,” Ball declared. “And look—there are a bunch of scuff marks on the sill.”

“It’s been hidden from view since I moved in here,” Phoebe said, chagrined. She could have kicked herself. “If the driveway were on this side of the house, I would have at least noticed it from the outside.”

“You know what my guess is?” Ball said as he turned the lock into place. “They unlocked it after they snuck in with the apples—so they’d have a way back in if they wanted. Or maybe they never even came in through the door that first time. You might have changed that lock for nothing.”

Jeez, Phoebe thought, that’s the least of my concerns.

“So now do we call the cops?” she asked. “I mean, how can we not?”

“Tell you what. Let me do it. I can take the heat and explain that I’d asked you to let me handle things initially.”

“Okay, I’d appreciate that.”

“But I don’t know how soon they’ll investigate this. Right now they’re focused on the two drownings. The good news is that we’ve figured out how those girls have been sneaking in, and you should be okay going forward. But if I were you, I’d investigate having better-quality locks put on the windows.”

After he left, promising to have security continue to patrol the block, Phoebe sat back on the couch, collecting her thoughts. There was no point in trying to get back to sleep, even though it was barely four o’clock.

She hated how rattled she felt. She had sworn she wouldn’t let the Sixes get to her, but they finally had. It wasn’t that they’d simply scared the bejesus out of her; now they were fucking with her mind. And there might be more visits in the offing. At least tonight she would be with Duncan, staying at his house.

A few minutes later, she finally forced herself into the kitchen to make tea. The cluster of spoons sat on the counter, mocking her. She tore off a paper towel and, holding it in her hand, pushed the little package toward the back of the counter.

Once the first light had appeared outside, she went back upstairs, showered, and dressed. When she returned to the first floor, she still felt jittery. But she couldn’t just crawl up in a fetal ball, she told herself. She had prep work to do for her Monday-morning classes, and she hoped to get some of it out of the way today. But first, out of sheer curiosity, she wanted to check out the spot where Trevor Harris’s body had been found. After throwing on her coat, she grabbed the set of her notes that she’d planned to give Hutch. If she had time, she would drop them off at his place.

She headed north for just over a mile along the river on Route 1, the road that ran parallel to the bike path she used, until she reached the Big Red Barn. Since the body apparently had been found across the road by the river, this would be the best place to park, she realized. Phoebe had shopped at the store once, just after she’d skulked into Lyle, hoping to find a few items that would help make Herb’s house seem more like her own. But to her chagrin the store seemed to sell mostly baskets, old metal spoons, and painted milk cans. It was too early for the place to be open, but there were half a dozen cars in the parking lot, some official vehicles, others probably belonging to people who’d come to rubberneck.

She parked at the far end of the parking lot and climbed from the car. Though the sky was clear, the air felt close to freezing, and she was glad she’d dressed in plenty of layers.

As she hurried to the road on foot, she noticed that there were two large carved pumpkins and about a dozen dried corn stalks leaning on either side of the wide barn door. Halloween is coming, Phoebe realized, and then after a brief mental calculation, she realized that the festivities were Sunday night. Perfect, she thought. It would feed nicely into any terror the students were experiencing now.

Though it was early in the morning, cars zoomed down the road in both directions, and it took a minute for Phoebe to find an opening in the traffic. Once across the road, she hurried through a cut in the tree border and emerged onto the bike path. On the other side of the path, in front of the muddy river, was an area that had been partially cleared of trees and set with five gray wooden picnic tables.

A movement caught Phoebe’s eye, and she glanced in that direction. Farther down to the right, about two dozen people, a few with bikes, stood on the path, staring into the wooded area in front of the river. Phoebe followed their eyes. Yellow police tape had been looped through the trees closest to the path. Deeper into the woods she could see four or five men and women in uniform moving, sometimes lurching, through the trees and underbrush along the riverbank. That was clearly where Trevor’s body had been found. It was horrible to think of him lying along the water’s edge for months as his friends and family—and of course Lily—frantically wondered where he was.

Phoebe glanced back at the crowd and let her eyes roam over the faces. There seemed to be a mix of townspeople and students, in addition to the cyclists, who must have just stumbled onto the scene. And then suddenly she spotted Hutch at the far end of the crowd, dressed in baggy pants and a heavy black-and-red lumberjack-style jacket. Considering how much he clearly missed the action, it wasn’t a surprise to see him here.

“Hey, Hutch, hello,” Phoebe said after wandering over to him. His expression had been solemn, but as soon as he turned and recognized Phoebe, his face relaxed into a smile.

“Professor Hall, good morning.”

“Phoebe, please.”

“Okay, Phoebe it is. So you came to check out the scene. Grim business, isn’t it?”

“Yes—things seem to be going from bad to worse,” Phoebe said. She gazed back through the woods at the cops stepping clunkily through the brush. “How did the cops discover him, do you know?”

“I talked to an old buddy of mine on the force, and he told me that they were hunting for a sweater the girl had worn, hoping to find where she went in. They found the sweater here, then the boy.”

Phoebe gasped. “So they died at the same spot. The cops must be thinking serial killer,” Phoebe said.

“Not necessarily. Since these two were boyfriend and girlfriend, they might have gotten into something over their heads—something that caught up with them at different times.”

“You mean something like drugs?” Phoebe said. She’d never considered anything like that.

“Could be,” said Hutch. “We’ve got a problem around here with that stuff. Marijuana, OxyContin going for eighty dollars a pill, and even heroin.”

“But just to play devil’s advocate, what if the deaths are part of a larger pattern?” Phoebe asked. “You mentioned the other day that a year and half was too long of a cooling-off period for a serial killer, but now we’re looking at four incidents spaced no more than six months apart.”

“If you count Wesley Hines.”

“Right. By the way, after you gave me Wesley’s name, I found out he lives near here, and I paid him a visit. He’s still saying someone drugged him and tossed him into the river that night. I suppose he could be a pathological liar, but he seemed genuinely upset to me.”

Hutch shook his head slowly, as if both doubtful and yet deliberating what she’d said.

“I took notes during my conversation with him yesterday and made a copy for you,” Phoebe added. “I was going to drop them off at your place later.” She fished the notes out of her bag and offered them to him.

“I’ll take a look,” he said, accepting the pages and tucking them into the breast pocket of his jacket. “You know, I’m going to feel like hell if I completely misjudged the situation with that boy back then. It happened just around the time I was being forced out. Maybe I was too distracted to see the situation clearly.”

Phoebe felt a rush of sadness, thinking of Hutch at that moment in his life. With his wife dead, work was all he had. And how honorable of him to acknowledge now that he might have been wrong. She couldn’t imagine Craig Ball admitting to as much as misdialing a phone number.

“One thing I know from writing biographies is that things often only make sense in context,” Phoebe said. “I included other notes in there, too. Yesterday I talked to a girl who’d been victimized by the Sixes, and she told me they’ve done their share of tormenting students here. I keep wondering if they might be behind the drownings—either directly or indirectly.”

Hutch whistled through his teeth. “I haven’t stopped thinking about what they did with the rats. You get kids in a group, and things can definitely escalate.”

She then told him about the little horror show at her house last night.

“I don’t think I like the way this has been handled,” he said, looking sincerely worried. “I’m concerned about your safety.”

“I’m calling the locksmith for extra security as soon as they open,” she promised. “And I’m staying with a friend tonight.”

There was some movement down by the woods, and instinctively Phoebe and Hutch turned their heads in unison. Phoebe’s heart sank a little at what she saw. Pete Tobias was now standing toward the front of the crowd, talking to two guys who looked like Lyle students. There was something downright feral about him—he always had his nose in the air, hyper alert—and she knew he’d soon turn and scan the crowd with those beady black eyes. If he noticed her here, he’d try to make something of it.

“I’d better get up to campus, Hutch,” Phoebe said. “Call me after you read the notes, okay? I’d love your take on them.”

“I will,” he said. “And Phoebe . . . please be careful?”

After saying good-bye, Phoebe turned quickly and hurried away, hoping Tobias hadn’t spotted her.

She drove to campus next and went directly to the library. She spent the next few hours prepping for class on Monday. As soon as she thought they’d be open, she called the locksmith and arranged for someone to come by her house that day and install better window locks.

As she headed home later to meet the locksmith, she was struck by how electrically charged the campus seemed. People—faculty as well as students—were clustered in knots, talking, their faces pinched in concern. It was clear the news about Trevor had spread all over by now, and people were not only sharing whatever they’d heard but also probably speculating wildly. Passing a cluster of four girls, Phoebe heard one of them suggest that Trevor and Lily had made some kind of suicide pact, but that Lily had taken longer to fulfill her end of the bargain.

Right outside the western gate to the campus, things seemed just as crazy. There were five or six Winnebagos belonging to various news outlets, all with satellite dishes on top. Phoebe imagined that there were more like those positioned at the other gates.

The locksmith was pulling up in his van just as she arrived home. It was the same guy as before. When he was done, he walked her from window to window, showing off the special locks he’d installed.

“It’s tight as a drum in here now,” he said, flicking his lank hair out of his face. After he left, she told herself that unless the Sixes arrived with glass cutters, she was truly safe. And yet her body felt weighed down with worry.

At five o’clock she freshened up, applied makeup, and changed into jeans, a black cashmere sweater with a V neckline, and her tight suede boots. The anxiety she’d felt all day seemed to seep away, replaced by a growing sense of anticipation. She was looking forward to the evening, more than she would have ever expected. Knowing she’d be spending the night at Duncan’s, she stuck her toothbrush and clean underwear in her bag.

She walked to campus this time, assuming they’d take Duncan’s car to his place. After heading through the western gate, she followed the path toward the quad. Some of the excitement she’d noticed all around her this morning appeared to have simmered down. As she passed Curry Hall, the dorm where Lily had lived, she paused momentarily. I have to know what happened to you, Lily, Phoebe thought. She couldn’t abandon her the way she herself had been abandoned so many years before.

Rounding the dorm, Phoebe spotted Craig Ball at the edge of a small parking lot that abutted the building. He was talking intensely to a male student dressed in a green Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt. Was he interviewing a friend of Trevor’s? Phoebe wondered. She would have liked to ask Ball if he’d talked to the cops yet about her situation, but it clearly wasn’t the right moment.

She crossed the quad and swung left onto a path that would take her to the north side of campus. Soon the Grove, the wooded area at the northern end of campus, appeared on her left. Bright orange and yellow leaves still covered the lower branches of the trees, and there was a thick, lush blanket of them on the ground as well. On any other day it might have looked like a storybook forest, but to Phoebe it held no charm today.

Before long she could see the top of the science building peering above a cluster of tall maples. It was just around the next bend. She picked up her speed a little, anxious to arrive. As she walked, the ground lights along the path popped on, momentarily diverting her attention. When she looked up again, she saw two female students emerge from the other side of the bend, one in a black coat, and the other, a redhead, in a fake fur vest over a sweatshirt. It took Phoebe a few seconds to realize that it was Blair and Gwen. Her stomach flipped over as soon as she’d processed the thought.

“Hello, Ms. Hall,” Blair said as she drew closer. She found Phoebe’s eyes in the dusk and boldly held them. Gwen, however, lowered her eyes to the ground.

“Hello, Blair,” Phoebe said, staring straight at the girl. Her unease was quickly morphing to anger.

“It’s getting dark so early these days, isn’t it?” Blair said slyly, slowing down as she passed. A tiny smile formed on her face, making the edges of her full lips curl upward.

You little bitch, Phoebe thought. I won’t let you intimidate me.

“We all need to be careful, then, don’t we?” Phoebe said. “Bad things can happen in the dark.”

The nasty little smile evaporated as Blair passed. She didn’t like two playing at her game.

Was I being warned of another visit? Phoebe wondered, hurrying up the path. Or was Blair simply trying to remind me who was boss? Phoebe turned to look behind her, but the girls were now out of sight.

It wasn’t until she was inside the science building that Phoebe finally let out a breath. Duncan’s office turned out to be on the second floor, in a warren of a half-dozen or so offices that branched out from a single reception area. The receptionist had gone for the day, but after making a guess, Phoebe hung to the right, and two doors down she found Duncan reading what looked like a term paper, his cowboy boot-clad feet propped on the desk.

“Hey there,” he said, looking up at the sound of her footsteps. He swung his feet off the paper-strewn desk and pushed his reading glasses onto the top of his head. He’d paired his jeans with a plain white button-down shirt, open at the neck and rolled at the sleeves, the color setting off his dark brown eyes. Phoebe felt desire surge through her. How the hell did this happen? she wondered. A week ago I was completely irritated when he asked me for dinner, and now I’m nearly weak-kneed at the sight of the man.

“So this is the nerve center of the psych department at Lyle College,” she said, smiling.

Duncan tossed down the paper and rose from the desk. “If you took a look at these papers I’m grading, you’d hardly call it a nerve center. Of course, it takes lots of nerve to turn in crap like this.”

“Are the students just not trying? Or do you think what’s happening on campus is affecting their work?”

“Possibly the latter. Though with some of the guys, I worry it’s just plain over their heads. Here, let me clear a seat for you.”

There it was again—the problem with boys. Duncan came around the desk, scooped up the papers piled on a leather-covered wingback chair, and plopped them on the floor. Then he turned back to Phoebe.

“My, don’t you look lovely today?” he said. He stepped closer and kissed her softly on the mouth.

“Thank you,” she said. She leaned back, looking into his eyes. “Though I’m a bit wigged out at the moment.” She briefly described what happened with the dishwasher and then bumping into the girls on the path.

“Gosh, Phoebe, why didn’t you call me?” he said. “I would have come right over.”

“You were already forced to come to my rescue once this week. How many times can I drag you out of bed?”

“Well, is Ball taking this seriously enough?”

“Yes, I think so. And he’s involving the police now.”

“Would you prefer to bag the tour and just head to dinner then?”

“Oh, no, a tour would be fine.”

“Great. Wait here for just a sec, though, would you? Bruce wanted to ask me something up on four.”

As soon as Duncan departed, Phoebe let her eyes roam the room, trying to see what the space would divulge about him. There were stacks of term papers on the desk and on the counter behind it, shelves full of books, and Post-it notes stuck to the computer screen, typical items in any professor’s office. The only personal objects were a mug that read “Musikfest, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” a wall diploma for a doctorate from the University of Michigan, and two small photos on the desk. In one Duncan stood with several students, holding an award; the other featured him and Miles, in hip waders, standing in a stream. Not much to go on. She took a seat and tried to relax.

For a while her thoughts wandered, and then finally she brought them back—to the room, to the night ahead. She glanced down at her watch. To her surprise Phoebe realized that Duncan had been gone fifteen minutes already. She rose from the chair and sauntered down the short hall to the reception area and then out into the main corridor. It was empty and silent, not surprising for this hour on a Friday night. Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps echoing in a nearby stairwell. She waited, thinking it was Duncan, but he failed to appear. She felt a sliver of annoyance at his having left her for so long.

She started to turn, to go back to Duncan’s office. Then suddenly the hall lights went off in unison. Phoebe was standing in total darkness.