Caught in a Bind Read online

  “Speaking of your car, son,” William Poole said quietly, “when was the last time you looked into it?”

  “Ah.” Randy looked very wise. “You want to know when the body got there.”

  William nodded. “That’s the idea.”

  “Well, I sat in it just before I left for dinner. I met Mom at Ferretti’s, not that she invited me.”

  “And there was nothing unusual about the car or the garage when you last saw it at what? About 5:30?”

  Randy thought for a minute. “Yeah, about 5:30. And if by unusual you mean there was a dead body lying around bleeding all over the place, no, there was nothing at all unusual. I just sat behind the wheel making believe I was driving.” Randy’s hands were in front of him, steering.

  William adjusted his gun on his hip. “One piece of advice, son. Don’t even think about taking that car onto the road before you have your license.”

  Randy blinked and flushed. “I’d never do something like that.”

  I could almost hear William’s mental Right.

  “Besides,” Randy continued, “Mom has the keys.”

  William nodded. “Good. Make certain you leave them in her care. If you break the law here, we can make it twenty-one before you get a license.”

  Randy stared. “Twenty-one?”

  “Twenty-one,” William repeated. “But since you’re not going to take her out early, there’s no problem. Right?”

  Randy nodded reluctantly. Busted by the cops before he even committed the crime!

  “And when you do get your license,” William continued, “don’t see how fast she can go.”

  Randy held up his hand. “That’s two pieces of advice. You said one. Two’s one too many.”

  William ignored the disrespect, and Randy resumed pacing, cursing and muttering under his breath. I suspected that beneath the distress and excitement of being part of an official murder investigation, he was livid about the blood spilled all over his new upholstery.

  This suspicion was confirmed when he leaned close and whispered out of the side of his mouth like a gangster in a B movie, “How do you get blood out of things?”

  I was tempted to say, “Wash it thoroughly in cold water,” and offer him the hose, but he was just being fifteen and Randy.

  For Edie a dead man in the garage upped the ante considerably on the scariness of Tom’s disappearance. The fact that the police no longer seemed to see Tom as a husband jumping his matrimonial ship added to her tension. The big question became whether they now saw him as another potential victim like their John Doe, or whether they saw him as a thief and a murderer. Neither option was comforting.

  Edie lay on her sofa under a blanket that I’d brought from upstairs, and still she shivered as with a terrible chill.

  “I know this is hard, Edie,” William said. “But you know the drill.”

  She nodded. “I’ve never seen him. I don’t know who he is.”

  William was unfailingly polite, but I thought I detected a subtle skepticism. Not a happy observation.

  After the police, the coroner and the body left, Randy disappeared in the general direction of upstairs and, I presumed, his bed. I knew he would have preferred to begin clean-up operations on his car, but it was off-limits as part of a crime scene. With any luck, the police would impound it until his twenty-first birthday, saving themselves a few years of dealing with him behind the wheel of that speed machine.

  Edie and I stayed in the living room where she slept restlessly on the sofa, muttering occasionally in her sleep, at other times sighing as though in despair. I took catnaps in my cushy leather chair.

  I pulled myself awake at seven and took my burning eyes and sour mouth into the guest bath where I did my best to transform myself. It was about as hopeless as turning coffee dregs into fresh brew. Still, when I pulled up to the window at McDonald’s and ordered an Egg McMuffin, the sleepy teen who took my order and money understood what I said.

  I wrote the story on Edie’s mysterious body, still a John Doe when we went to press. He had carried no wallet, no driver’s license, no credit cards. His clothes were from Penney’s, his jeans were Levis, available countless places, and his sneakers Reeboks, same thing.

  With Mac’s approval I had chosen not to mention the missing money in my story. There was, after all, no definitive connection between the murder and the money. As soon as I finished writing, I turned the article in to Mac and left the News before he thought of anything else I should do. I made it to bell choir practice with one minute to spare.

  The good thing about bell choir is that it takes every ounce of my concentration not to mess things up, so every other worry gets put aside for the duration. It’s the only real benefit I have found to being a marginal musician. Smiling to myself, I lined my bells up, C-sharp, C, B and B-flat, glad to put Edie, Tom, Randy and the corpse aside for a while.

  When we played the first piece for the third time and I actually got it right, I was euphoric.

  “Maddie, did you hear that?” I turned to my best church friend who stood next to me and played the D and E bells. “I got it right!”

  “You’re wonderful,” she said. “Talented and beautiful and…” She peered at me. “And you’ve got dark circles under your eyes that rival mine. I know it wasn’t a late night with Curt because he’s on the retreat with my Doug and the rest of the men. And you can’t blame it on a baby like I can. What gives?”

  “Covering a story,” I said. “Read about it in the News.” I didn’t want to shatter the respite of bell choir by reviewing the crime. To divert her, I asked, “How’s Holly?”

  Maddie’s face lit up. “Even after a sleepless night like last night, I wouldn’t trade her for anything.” She turned toward her pocketbook resting on the floor behind her. “I’ve got pictures of her getting her bath.”

  In the few months of Holly’s life, her every move had been recorded and lovingly shared with anyone breathing. I was tempted to ask how this week’s pictures of Holly bathing differed from last week’s pictures of Holly in the tub, but I was afraid Maddie would tell me. “See? She’s got a bigger smile. And that’s a boat floating there, not the rubber ducky. And her hair is a sixteenth of an inch longer!”

  “All right, people,” said Ned, our director, arresting Maddie mid-search.

  “Later,” she whispered.

  “Later,” I agreed.

  “You may remember,” Ned said, “that we will be accompanying the youth choir on Easter morning. We won’t actually practice with all the kids until next weekend, but today we’re going to practice with the soloist, Sherrie Bauer.”

  As he spoke, a familiar raven-haired beauty walked in. She had music in one hand and dangled a backpack from the other. I half expected to see Randy trailing after her, tongue lolling.

  Sherrie Bauer had a wonderful voice, very full and controlled for someone as young as she. For her solo, we traded our bells for chimes which made a much softer sound and didn’t drown out her voice. They also didn’t amplify my mistakes as clearly as the bells.

  As I listened to Sherrie and concentrated on my notes, I thought that Ned might have inadvertently given me the perfect combination of things to get Edie and Randy and hopefully Tom (fully restored to his family from wherever he was) to church. Easter and Sherrie sounded like an unbeatable combination to me.

  When rehearsal finally ended, I managed to escape before Maddie remembered Holly’s pix. I felt like a lousy friend, but I was just too exhausted to wax enthusiastic over chubby little knees and shampoo Mohawks. All I wanted to do was collapse and sleep for hours, but I couldn’t. I had an interview ahead with just enough time for lunch and a shower first.

  Whiskers met me at the apartment door with several gruff meows. For a time he stalked around the living room, tail held high, mad at me for being away so long. Then he forgave me and butted my shins until I picked him up. He purred like a formula car awaiting the green flag at Indy.

  I fed him, and while he ate I listene
d to my answering machine.

  Jolene: “So what happened when you went home with Edie last night? Terminal boring, I’ll bet. Sort of like my night without Reilly.”

  Wait until she read the paper. That’d teach her to shirk doing good deeds.

  Curt: “Where are you, darlin’? Out carousing with the girls, I bet. Sigh. I miss your sweet voice, Merry. I remember when a weekend with the boys was at the top of my fun-things list. Not anymore. I’ll see you tomorrow evening at 7:30—if I last that long.”

  I smiled, delighted that I had replaced the boys in his life. He’d certainly replaced everyone else in mine.

  I glanced at the clock. 1 p.m. An hour before I had to meet Stephanie Bauer at Freedom House. Six and a half before I saw Curt. I smothered a yawn and hoped a shower would do something to stimulate my brain cells.

  Forty-five minutes later I drove to Freedom House. I loved interviewing people, learning about them, looking for what made them tick, finding out what mattered to them. I parked in front of a large Victorian in what used to be the elite section of Amhearst. In fact the whole street was full of once-great homes that were now medical and dental suites, photography studios and offices for financial planners, psychologists and ministries. Some of the homes still had their pride intact with their well-tended lawns, fresh paint and gilt signs. Some were showing their age, all wrinkles and creaky joints, peeling paint and sagging shutters.

  Freedom House was in the latter category, a dull gray with white-and-rose trim. It desperately needed painting before the rose became grayer than the gray. The wooden steps were soft underfoot, and the wraparound porch rippled like a lake under a strong breeze. Two spindles were missing from the porch railing, and the shutters looked like they had a bad case of psoriasis.

  No financial resources to speak of, I guessed. The perennial problem of ministries.

  Stephanie Bauer met me in the front hall. “Welcome!”

  Her smile was so warm I smiled back automatically. “Hi. I think I saw you last night at Ferretti’s.”

  Stephanie nodded. “I was there with my son and daughter.”

  “I was there with the mother of the tall kid who crashed your family party.”

  “Randy.” Stephanie laughed. “What a delightful, funny guy.” Randy? Delightful? Funny? Wow! Wouldn’t Edie love to hear that.

  “I’m also in the bell choir, and I heard Sherrie sing this morning. She’s wonderful.”

  Stephanie beamed, a proud mama. “She is, but I’m proudest of her for her commitment to the Lord.”

  What a refreshing thing to hear a mother say about her child. “It’s probably from watching you and Freedom House.”

  Stephanie grimaced. “I haven’t always been the best example of a healthy Christian woman.” She turned toward the back of the house. “My office is in the old dining room. Follow me.”

  On the way we had to step around considerable clutter in the entry hall.

  “We’re getting ready to open a secondhand clothing shop,” Stephanie explained. “We’re collecting both clothes and supplies in preparation.” She waved her hand at a couple of clothing racks, a slightly dirty, well-used store counter and several bags of clothing shoved into a corner. “We want to use the store as a training facility so that the women we counsel can become financially independent if they need to. Too many women stay in abusive situations because of lack of money.”

  “When will the store open?”

  “In a couple of months. We’re going to call it Like New. That’s what the women are when they find Christ and learn that with His help, they can control their lives.” She grinned. “We just signed the lease for a store in the center of town, and I have no idea where the monthly rent is going to come from. As you undoubtedly noticed, we can’t even afford to paint this place. If the store succeeds, it’ll be all because of God.”

  She spoke as if trusting God this way were commonplace, and I thought that for her, it probably was.

  I peered into the living room as we walked past. It was filled with chairs of all sizes, colors and fabrics.

  “A motley mess, isn’t it?” Stephanie said cheerfully. “But we don’t have the luxury of being choosy. If someone offers us a chair, we take it. As long as it’ll hold a woman up safely, we don’t complain about the looks.”

  We settled on a dirty, well-used sofa and chair in a corner of Stephanie’s office. I checked my little tape recorder to make certain it was working properly. Satisfied, I leaned back.

  Stephanie patted her chair, and thousands of dust motes burst free, sailing through the air like seeds from an exploding pod. “A mission in Allentown was going out of business and they offered us first dibs on their furniture. Isn’t it comfortable?” She was clearly delighted.

  “It is,” I agreed, though I had just been thinking that I wouldn’t give the ratty stuff house room. I swallowed, feeling shallow and materialistic.

  “How did you get involved in Freedom House?” I asked. I knew the short answer to this question from my research, but it was still a good place to begin.

  Stephanie looked away from me for a minute, staring out the window.

  “It always amazes me when I have to admit that I was an abused wife. Not that I’m ashamed or feel guilty. I’m just amazed. How did I let myself get trapped like that?”

  “How did you?” I marveled that someone as strong and assured as the Stephanie sitting in front of me had once been a victim.

  “I got trapped for two reasons. I wanted to please. And no one had ever taught me the power of choice. And I was only eighteen when I married.”

  “Is marrying at a young age typical of abusive situations?”

  She nodded. “Often, though not always. In our case it was too many stresses before we had the ability to handle them. When I married Wes, I was in a romantic fantasy. I saw him as strong and knowing, my knight to protect me from the world. I would be the best wife a man could ever have, and he wouldn’t lose his temper at me anymore because I’d make him so happy.”

  She looked into space, I suspected seeing herself at eighteen, twenty, twenty-five. “I bent over backwards to please him. When he got angry, I knew it was my fault because I hadn’t tried hard enough. When he hit me, I knew I deserved it. When he heaped verbal abuse on me, I knew I was all those terrible things he called me. After all, he’d never say them if they weren’t true.”

  “But you’re an intelligent woman,” I protested.

  She nodded. “But he was incredibly clever, a master manipulator. And he always begged for forgiveness with tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just made me so mad. Let’s agree that you’ll never do that again. Then I won’t have to hurt you again.’”

  “That’s no apology at all.”

  Stephanie nodded. “I know that now, but then I only heard the I’m-sorry part, not the it-was-Stephanie’s-fault part.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Nine years. Nine long years.”

  “Why did you finally leave?”

  “Deep inside I knew it was wrong to hit people, even stupid wives. I just couldn’t admit it out loud. But I started reading things about abuse after a nurse talked to me the time Wes gave me a concussion and broke my arm.”

  “How did he break your arm?” I cut in.

  “He threw me down the stairs for not making the bed with the sheets he wanted.”

  I blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  She shrugged. “At least that’s what he said.

  In reality he was about to lose another job and was taking it out on me. You see, if it was my fault he hit me, then he was still the good guy. I was the evil woman.”

  She smiled grimly. “When you’re in an abusive marriage, it’s like you’re addicted. There’s this intimacy and these soul ties from the sex, often violent or demeaning. You think you can’t live without him even as he’s killing you. You think it’s normal to live with this tension, this pain. And you know everything will be all ri
ght if you can just love him enough.

  “Which of course you can never do because for him the issue isn’t love but absolute authority. Total control. That’s the goal of every abuser.”

  “The puppeteer pulling the strings,” I said.

  “That’s too kind an image, but it definitely gives the idea.”

  “How were the kids during this time?”

  Stephanie smiled. “They were the one bright spot in my life. But they misbehaved, as all kids do, and I began to fear that Wes would beat them too.”

  I thought of vivacious Sherrie and felt sick at the thought of someone hitting her. “Did he?”

  She shook her head. “Wes never laid a hand on them, but they learned what they saw modeled. One day I was outside in the garden when I heard Sherrie begin to cry. She was about five years old. I rushed inside and found her and Rob in the living room. Rob was yelling at her like Wes yelled at me. He was calling her the same names that Wes called me. And on her cheek was a red handprint from where Rob had hit her.”

  My blood chilled as I thought of the handsome kid in the booth last night at Ferretti’s.

  “‘She didn’t do what I asked,’ Rob said. ‘I told her to get me something to drink and she didn’t.’ ‘I didn’t, Mom,’Sherrie said, hanging her head. ‘I’m sorry.’”

  Stephanie swallowed hard, the memory obviously still painful. “‘You can’t hit her like that, Rob,’ I told him. ‘It’s not right.’ ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Daddy hits you.’” Stephanie looked at me. “That’s when I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t let my children become Wes and me. I called that nurse and she sent me to a safe house. We lived there for two months. I couldn’t go to my regular job because Wes could find me there, but I found another one in another town nearby. And for some reason I began to go to church.”

  She turned and pointed to the photo of a little white building that looked more like a VFW hall than a church. It hung on the wall beside this year’s school pictures of Sherrie and Rob.

  “The safe house gave me protection when I needed it and helped restore order to our lives, but it was at church that I met Jesus. There I learned the power of choosing God’s way. That’s when I determined to offer women everything the safe house had offered me plus the power of God to redeem broken lives.”