With an Extreme Burning

TWENTY-FOUR

By the time they passed through Point Arena, late in the afternoon, Amy was no longer afraid of him. She'd gotten her head totally together. She felt the way she'd always imagined she would when she was a working reporter and found herself in a dangerous situation: cool, crafty, determined. You didn't get your ass out of trouble by panicking or wimping out. You used your head, waited for the right opportunity, and then did what you had to do. Whatever you had to do.

Meanwhile, she'd pretended to be scared out of her skull. Meek and obedient, too. Let him think he could do anything he wanted to her and she wouldn't fight back. Let him think she was going to be an easy victim.

She studied him out of the corner of her eye. Sitting over there all smug, his hands dirtying the wheel of her car, probably thinking he could put his hands on her if he felt like it and she'd just turn to jelly. Once he could have; once she would have. She couldn't stand to think how willing, how stupid, she'd been just a short while ago. Well, she'd learned her lesson. Hatred was all she felt for him now. The attraction was totally gone, as if it had never existed. He wasn't handsome or sexy, he was repulsive. He was Freddy Krueger with a hunk's mask on.

His eyes were steady on the road; they didn't seem to blink much anymore. He looked relaxed, not even a little tired or cramped from all the driving. Super cool or bat-shit crazy? She couldn't tell. He didn't show much of what was going on inside him—and it was probably just as well he didn't. Amy shifted position again. Her buns were sore from sitting in one place for almost three hours. They hadn't stopped once, not even for gas because she'd filled the tank that morning. Down around Fort Ross she'd tried to get him to stop at a gas station so she could use the bathroom—a trick that might give her a chance to slip away from him or at least to write a message on the mirror with her lipstick. But he hadn't fallen for it. “I really have to pee,” she'd lied, and he'd said, “You'll just have to hold it. Either that, or go ahead and wet yourself.”

That was about all he'd said to her since way back at Bodega Bay. Talk, talk, talk nonstop for half an hour—and then nothing, as if a faucet inside him, turned on for a while, had suddenly been turned off. It was all right with her. The silence was a lot easier to take.

The long ride was almost over. They were passing the turnoff for the Point Arena Light Station; that meant the one for Manchester State Beach and the Dunes was only a couple of miles farther on. He knew it, too—must have read a map or something, because he began to slow down even before she spotted the half-hidden sign for Stoneboro Road. He didn't come close to missing the turn either, something even she'd done once.

Stoneboro Road wound in for more than a mile, through open fields and cattle graze, before you could see the sand dunes and the abandoned development. At that point you could also see miles and miles of the curving beach, and inland across a long valley dotted with dairy ranches to the mountains of the Coast Range. It was lonesome and windswept and beautiful. Even today, with him beside her, she was aware of its beauty.

The weather was pretty good, windy and mostly sunny, and there were a half dozen cars parked at the entrance to the beach. None of the people was in sight though. He turned off on the road that ran through what was left of the development. Narrow, carpeted in blown sand, it paralleled the outer sweep of the dunes and took them past signs and paved streets that led nowhere: Barnegat Drive, Duxbury Road, Coventry Lane. No cars here, just sawgrass and gorse and cypress and scrub pine. And the high dunes covered with thick tufts of tule grass that had always made her think of a vast herd of hairy creatures watching the sea with hidden eyes.

Another mile … and when they came around a bend in the road, the Dunes appeared. Gray, salt-weathered, set seventy or eighty yards off the road on high ground, built on pilings so that blowing sand could drift underneath. The unpaved lane that led up to it was half gravel and half weeds, so it was barely visible until you were right on top of it, but he seemed to know where it was. He turned, and they jounced along and finally stopped on the flat-topped rise, behind the cottage. He shut off the engine, but he didn't move to get out right away. He rolled down the window a little and sniffed the air with a little smile on his mouth.

“Nice here,” he said. “I love the coast, the ocean.”

Amy didn't say anything.

“It reminds me of where I used to live.”

Pelican Bay, I'll bet, she thought. She almost said it, caught herself in time. If she made a slip like that and he had lived in Pelican Bay, he'd know they were on to him, that that was where Mom and Dix must have gone. There was no telling what he might do then.

“You've been a good girl,” he said. “Keep on being good and everything will be fine.”

“I will,” she said.

“I'm going to get out now. You sit there until I come around and open your door. When you get out, don't try to run away. If you do, I'll shoot you. I won't like doing it, but I will.”

“I won't try to run.”

When he opened the door, she took her time unkinking her body. He stood back a few paces, his hand on the gun in his belt. No, she wouldn't try to run. Even if he didn't shoot her, he could probably chase her down; he wasn't that old and he was in such good shape. Stay cool, she told herself. There'll be a time when he forgets to be careful.

He made her climb the outside stairs ahead of him, one hand on her arm. His touch was no longer silky or electric; it made her skin crawl. The wind was chilly on her face, sharp with the salt tang of the ocean. It would be cold later, when the sun—already falling and starting to turn red around the edges—dropped below the horizon. How long would he keep her here? All night? She'd have to try to find out about that right away.

On the narrow landing at the top she said, “How are we going to get in?”

“With the key your father gave you.” He jangled her key ring, then held it out to her. “One of these. Find the right one and use it.”

As soon as she had the door open, he took the key ring back and put it into his pants pocket. The right-hand pocket. When they were both inside, he turned the deadbolt lock, put the chain on. The only other ways out were off the balcony or through one of the windows. He knows that, too, Amy thought. He knows everything about the Dunes.

The big front room smelled of sea-damp and old smoke from the cigarettes Megan sucked on constantly and the joints she and Dad smoked when they were alone. It was a mess, too. Papers and crap on the floor, tables littered with dirty glasses and ashtrays, even a plate with sandwich crumbs on it. If she hadn't known better, she'd think kids or homeless people had gotten in despite regular patrols by the county sheriff and the park rangers. But it was just that Dad was sloppy and Megan and that dickhead son of hers were total slobs.

He didn't seem to notice. He'd pulled the drapes open over the sliding door to the balcony, letting sunlight pour in, and he was peering out with that little smile on his mouth again. Admiring the view. “You can see for miles from up here,” he said. “All the way from the lighthouse to Irish Beach. Come take a look, Amy.”

“I've seen it before. I still have to go to the bathroom.” It wasn't a lie this time. She really did have to pee now.

“All right. Go ahead.”

For a couple of seconds she thought he was going to make the mistake of letting her go by herself. But no, he followed her down the hall. And when she went into the tiny bathroom he stood leaning against the wall right outside.

“Leave the door open,” he said. “And come right out again when you're done.”

“Are you going to watch me?”

“I wouldn't do that. I'll look away.”

Useless to argue with him. She moved to the toilet, made sure he wasn't looking before she hiked up her skirt and slid her panties down. But she had trouble going with him out there, even if he wasn't watching. The embarrassment of it made her hate him even more.

She didn't come right out afterward. She stepped over to the sink, and when he didn't object, she washed her hands, taking her time, thinking that there might be something in the medicine cabinet she could use as a weapon, a packet of Dad's razor blades or something. Could she reach up and open it without him seeing? No. Shit. The bathroom was too small and she could see him in the mirror, which meant that he could see her, too. And his eyes were on her again.

Back in the living room she said, “It's cold in here. There's plenty of wood—I could make a fire.”

“No, no fire.”

“We'll freeze once the sun goes down.”

“Isn't there some kind of heater?”

“There's a space heater, but it's old and it doesn't work too well. We always just make a fire.”

“Well, we'll just have to find other ways of keeping warm.”

Oh-oh, she thought. “How long are we going to be here?”

“A while,” he said.

“All night?”

“A while. Several hours at least.”

“Doing what all that time?”

“Getting to know each other better,” he said. “Isn't that what we talked about, Amy? What we planned?”

A little fear wiggled back into her. But mostly what she felt was determination. And the hate, like a wad of something in her throat, choking her. “When do you want to start? Now or later?”

“There's no point in waiting.”

“Whatever you want.” In her mind were pictures of things she would do to his private parts, if she just had the chance. She could endure anything for that chance. “You won't have to rape me,” she said, and began to unbutton her blouse.

They were in the rented car again, moving through the wet afternoon toward Highway 101. Freezing in there after the warmth of Martin Delaney's house; Cecca reached out automatically to turn the heater up. It was already on as high as it would go. She pressed her hands between her thighs.

“Jerry,” she said. “My God.”

“You didn't look surprised when Delaney described him.”

“No. I thought at the library it had to be Jerry.”

Dix nodded and said bitterly, “Mr. Congeniality. The guy who'd do anything for you, give you the shirt off his back. All an act contrived to win our friendship and trust.”

“I can't imagine a mind that could conceive of such a … a hideous revenge.”

“I can, at least up to a point. What I can't imagine is that much hate. He killed someone I loved—in cold blood, not by accident—but I don't hate him nearly as much as he must hate us. Do you?”

“No,” she said, “not that much.”

“Ironic as hell, isn't it? Before the accident, he wasn't much different from you, me, any of us—a more or less normal person with a family, a job, an average middle-class life. It was the hate that pushed him over the edge.”

“But the accident was his fault.”

“Transference,” Dix said. “If he'd accepted culpability, he'd have been a monster in his own eyes. He couldn't bear that. So he made you three the monsters instead.”

“How could he live so close to us for so long and never let any of it show?”

“Force of will. Four years is a long time to us, but not to a man like him. His family was his whole life; without them he has nothing left except revenge. Just killing each of you wasn't enough for him. It would've been over too fast and then he'd have no more reason to live. He had to savor his revenge, make it last. Get to know you first, get as close to you as he could. Katy was the driver that night, Katy was his primary target. He set out to seduce her and he probably didn't care how long it took. You can't get any closer to a woman than inside her body.”

I almost let him inside my body, too, Cecca thought. Came nearer than I ever want to admit.

Dix said, “Hard to tell if he murdered Katy on some sort of timetable or if something happened—the trophy business, maybe—to make him do it before he wanted to. Once he committed himself, though, he was driven to go after the rest of us.”

“Our families … we took his, he'd take ours.”

“ ‘One's pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.’ Yeah, that was part of his plan all along.”

“But why go after you once Katy was gone?”

“Maybe he meant to kill me first, and blames me because he couldn't do it that way. Or his hate for Katy was so great, it included me: guilt by association. Or he'd decided all family members have to die no matter what. One thing I'm fairly sure of: Ted and his sons were the targets at Blue Lake, not Eileen. He knew about her evening walks, counted on her being away from the cabin when the timer set off the propane. The whole idea was for her to see her family destroyed by explosion and fire, as his was.”

“Sick, so sick …”

“He had it all planned like that, in detail. To him it must all make perfect sense, fit some kind of pattern of retribution. His mind has to be deteriorating though. The things he's done since Katy have been progressively more bizarre and disconnected.”

Cecca watched the rain slant against the side window. After a time she said, “He must have loved his own children. How could he justify harming Bobby, Kevin, Amy? Innocent young lives.”

“They're not innocent young lives to him. None of us is even human to him anymore, if we ever were. This is a grim analogy, but I'll bet it's reasonably accurate: In his mind we're like germs, the source of all his torment. You don't look at germs as individuals. Don't think twice about killing germs that have infected you.”

“Germs,” she said.

“Prevalent psychology today. Gang wars, freeway shootings, mass murders … the ones who commit those atrocities are exterminators of objects, bugs, germs, not people. Get in their way, hurt them somehow, and they feel they have every right to destroy you.”

Again Cecca watched the rain form its teardrop patterns on the window glass. “It makes me feel so damned helpless,” she said. “The idea of a man none of us ever met or saw, a man we barely knew existed, plotting our deaths from hundreds of miles away—and then moving to our town, making friends with us and a whole new life for himself just so he could destroy us from within. If that kind of thing can happen …”

“I know,” Dix said.

An uneasy silence built between them. Hiss of tires, clacking of the wipers, rush of wind and water as trucks and cars passed—all external sounds. Then Cecca realized they were approaching a town. A roadside sign materialized through the misty rain: Neskowin.

She sat up. “Where are we going?”

“Back to Portland. We ought to be able to make the five o'clock flight to SFO.”

“We should've stopped in Pelican Bay,” she said. “We'd better stop here.”

“What for?”

“To call St. John.”

“You think he'd listen? Act without proof? All we have to give him are sketchy facts and supposition. We can't even prove to him quickly that Jerry Whittington and Gordon Cotter are the same man, and even if we could, there's no evidence to link Jerry with Katy's death, the explosion—any of it.”

“There has to be something at his house.”

“Yes, but St. John can't get at it without a search warrant. And he can't get a search warrant without probable cause.”

“He could talk to Jerry, couldn't he? Let him know we're on to him. And least that might stop him from doing anything else.”

“Would it? I don't think so,” Dix said. “I think it would have the opposite effect. He doesn't care what happens to him, Cecca. His whole focus is revenge—finishing what he started.”

“… You want to go after him yourself, don't you?”

“I don't want to, no. I don't see any other choice.”

“Use that gun you bought? Shoot him down like a dog?”

“No. My God, I'm not a murderer.”

“Do what, then?”

“Force him to admit the truth, get it down on tape. It won't be admissible in court, but it'll damned well get St. John's attention. Then search his house for evidence and make a citizen's arrest. There'll be legal repercussions, but I don't care about that now. All I care about is saving our lives.”

“If you're right about his mental state, he won't let you search his house or arrest him. He'll make you use the gun, he'll make you kill him.”

“I won't let that happen.”

“You may not have a choice.” She was thinking about yesterday afternoon, Elliot Messner, the pitchfork. How close she'd come to an act of deadly violence herself—a sudden step, a menacing gesture, was all it would have taken. And how she'd felt afterward.

“Cecca? You know there's no other way.”

“If you use that gun,” she said, “no matter what the reason, you and I will suffer for it—and I don't just mean legally. We'll suffer and Gordon Cotter will have his revenge on both of us, too. He'll have won.”

“How can you say that? We'll be alive, won't we? Safe?”

“He'll have won,” she said.

“Rape you? Lord, Amy, is that what you think?”

“Well? You want to fuck me, don't you.”

He winced. “No. Not like this.”

“But you said we should get to know each other better …”

“I didn't mean that way.”

“I don't … what did you mean?”

“For us to talk. About you, things that matter to you.”

“You never wanted to have sex with me?”

“Yes, I did. Very much. But that was before, when it was part of the equation. It would have been right then. It isn't right now. It's too late. It wouldn't have any meaning.”

“I don't understand …”

“I know you don't. It's all right. Button up your blouse and we'll talk. Go on, button your blouse.”

She buttoned it. She was confused, relieved, frustrated, all at the same time. Confused because she didn't know where he was coming from, he was so crazy and weird; relieved because he didn't want her body after all; frustrated because as much as she would have hated having him inside her, she could have hurt him—oh, could she have hurt him!—and then gotten away.

“Let's go out on the balcony,” he said.

“Why?”

“I like to look at the ocean, smell the sea air. Don't you?”

“I guess.”

“It should be warm enough. There's still plenty of sun.”

It wasn't warm out there; it was almost cold. He didn't seem to notice. He made her sit on one of the canvas deck chairs and then leaned on the railing and took several deep breaths. At first he was smiling that little smile, but it went away and all of a sudden, when he turned toward her again, he looked sad—sad and lonely and kind of lost.

“I miss it,” he said, but he wasn't really talking to her. Or even to himself. It was as if there were somebody else on the balcony with them. “I miss home. I miss you.”

“Who?”

He didn't hear her or just ignored her. Gulls, a whole flock of them, came swooping in over the dunes, screeching and scolding each other; he turned his head to watch them. After a couple of minutes they scattered and quit making so much racket, and he sighed and sat down on one of the other chairs.

“Fascinating birds,” he said. “I used to watch them for hours. Grebes and ternes and pelicans, too.”

She said, “I hate them.”

“Do you? Why, Amy?”

“Scavengers. Always screaming and fighting and pecking at dead things. Not like the swans.”

“Swans?”

“They come in the winter sometimes, drifts of them. Whistling swans. They nest or something down at the mouth of the Garcia River.”

“I didn't know that,” he said. Now he looked sad again. “I'd like to see them sometime. But I never will.”

“Why not?”

“There isn't enough time. I won't be here next winter.”

“Where will you be?”

“With my family.”

“I didn't know you had a family.”

“I don't anymore,” he said.

For a few seconds it looked like he was going to cry. Then his face smoothed and the mouth smile came back. Creepy … God, had he always been this creepy and she somehow hadn't noticed? No. Underneath, probably, but not out where you could see it. He just wasn't bothering to hide it anymore.

“Tell me some more about yourself, Amy.”

“… Like what?”

“Things that I don't know about you.”

“Personal things?”

“Personal, private, special.”

“Like whether or not I'm still a virgin?”

“Well. Are you?”

She thought about lying but she didn't. “No.”

“I didn't think you were. But that's good.”

“Why is it good?”

“Sex is healthy. There's nothing wrong with sex between consenting people. Consenting, Amy. That's the key.”

“It was consenting with me. You want to know his name and how many times and what we did?”

“No. Don't be nasty. You're not a nasty person at heart.”

The wind kicked up and blew fine particles of sand from the dunes below. One of them got into her eye and made it sting and water. She sat there, chilled, rubbing her eye until she got the grit out. He didn't seem to notice how cold and uncomfortable she was. It was as if he saw her only when he wanted to, when there was something he wanted to know or she did or said something that made him aware of her. The rest of the time, she might have been invisible.

She said, “Why do you care that I'm not still a virgin if you don't want to have sex with me anymore? Why do you want to know so much about me?”

“I just do. It's important to me.”

“Why? Will it be easier to kill me if you know me better?”

“Oh, Amy …”

“Well? That's what you're going to do, isn't it?”

“You don't understand.”

“You keep saying that. I understand you want me dead.”

“It's not a question of wanting.”

“No? Then why?”

“You're part of her, that's why.”

“Who? My mother?”

“Yes.”

“What did my mother ever do to you?”

“She helped destroy me.”

“You said that before, too. It's a lie, she never hurt you or anybody else—”

“The hell she didn't!” He was suddenly angry. His face got red; veins bulged on his forehead. “She killed them! Three beautiful lives! Her and those other bitches. An eye for an eye. One bad burn deserves another.”

Jesus, she thought.

He was quiet again for a while, staring out toward where the white finger of the lighthouse stuck up from the southern headland. The sun was edging down toward the horizon; the clouds around it looked like spilled red wine. The beach was deserted now. Just her and him and the gulls for miles and miles …

When he spoke to her again, his voice was soft and sad and his face was the same—as if he'd never been angry at all. “Do I look alive to you, Amy?” he asked.

“… What?”

“Alive. I look alive to you, don't I?”

“You are alive.”

“No, you're wrong. I'm not. Do you know what a zombie is?”

“I saw Night of the Living Dead.”

“Well, that's what I am. A zombie. I walk, I talk, I eat, I work, I go through all the motions, but I'm not alive. Inside I'm dead. Oh, there are sparks now and then. Sparks. When I do what I have to for them, Cheryl and Angie and Donnie, I remember what it was like to be alive. But that's all, just sparks. I'll never be alive again. The important pieces are gone. The three important pieces are gone. Three parts to the whole, and only one part is left, and that part can't survive alone. It can function until it finishes what has to be done, but it's already dead. It simply hasn't gone to its grave yet. But it will soon. Zombies can't walk for long. I won't be walking when the whistling swans come next winter.”

He smiled at her, almost a tender smile. “Tell me more, Amy. Help me to know you. What else do you like besides the swans?”