Cage Of Night Part 30

"Then you're not guilty of anything, Cindy."

Long pause. "You don't believe me about the well."

"I guess I haven't made my mind up yet."

"It's down there."

"Say I believe you. For the sake of argument. It's not going to make any difference in a court of law, is it?"

She looked confused.

"David killed the clerk and Garrett killed Mae Swenson, right?"

"Right."

"Well, that's all the court is going to care about."

"But I should testify about the well."

"You know how people talked to you when you got out of the mental hospital?"

"Real patronizing and all?"

"Exactly. Well, if you sat in the witness stand and tried to tell the court about the well, that's how people would treat you again."

"You think they'd send me back to the mental hospital?"

"Possibly."

"I'd rather die than go back to that hospital. That doctor really did feel me up all the time. And one time I woke up after he gave me a lot of drugs and my v.a.g.i.n.a was really sore. I think he raped me."

"That's why you don't want to tell anybody else about the wella"and you sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't want to tell the court. You see?"

"I don't want to go back to the mental hospital."

"Then let me handle it."

She stared at me. "What're you going to do?"

"I'm not sure yet. But don't tell anybody about the well. Or that you were out at Swenson's that night."

It was going to work out. I would ask the Chief to investigate Garrett, and then, after the trial was over and Garrett found guilty, Cindy and I would be free to be together.

"Cindy, I love you," I said.

"I love you, too, Spence."

When we were kissing there in the burned-out sh.e.l.l of the building, the winter night wondrously golden in the moonlight, a distant freight train lonely on the darkness, I felt exhilarated about what lay ahead for me.

Cindy lay ahead for me.

Cindy my girlfriend, Cindy my wife.

Richard Mitch.e.l.l, KNAX-TV: "Even in the rain, the anti-capital punishment group continues to march in protest in front of the prison gates. A man beats a drum that makes a lonely, chilling sound in the darkness tonight. You have to wonder if the condemned prisoner can hear that drum in the death chamber. There are only a few minutes to go now, a few more minutes before a human life is snuffed in retribution for a horrible crime. Listen to that terrible lonely drum sound in the night, just listen to it."

Tape 40-D, December 2. Interview between Attorney Risa Wiggins and her client in the Clark County Jail.

A: That was the night you set fire to the well?

C: Yeah. I figured if I dumped enough gasoline down there and set a fire, maybe that would get rid of the alien.

A: Did it?

C: I thought it did. For a few days, anyway. But then the chanting in my head started again. (Pause) I don't think anything can kill that alien. I think it's indestructible. You know, just like in the Sci-Fi movies. I mean, they could drop a nuclear bomb on it and it wouldn't make any difference.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

I took Cindy home in a circuitous way through alleys so that Garrett wouldn't have a chance to see us.

"I'm afraid of going back to the mental hospital, Spence."

"You're not going back to the mental hospital."

"Garrett'll say I made him do it."

I looked over at her and smiled. "n.o.body'll believe that, Cindy."

"But the well."

"Remember the Shared Psychotic Disorder?"

"Then you don't believe there's an alien in the well?"

"There isn't one, Cindy."

"Then you're saying I'm crazy?"

"I'm saying that you have a great imagination. So do I."

"I really hear stuff down that well."

"I heard stuff that one night myself," I said.

"But you still think it was just your imagination?"

"Absolutely."

"I'm still worried about prison."

I reached across and took her hand. "I'm going to the Chief and tell him everything, Cindy. He'll believe me and then he'll arrest Garrett."

"You really think it can be that easy?"

We had just reached her garage. Moonlight painted her back yard a glowing gold color.

"I love you, Cindy."

She leaned over and kissed me.

"Thanks for believing me, that I didn't have anything to do with the murders I mean."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow."

When I got home, I spent a few minutes talking to my folks and then I went upstairs to my room.

I was just reaching for the light switch when I noticed a flash in the back yard where I'd parked my car next to the alley.

Somebody was down there with a flashlight.

I went to my bureau and got my binoculars.

I expected to see Garrett down there.

At first, I couldn't see anything, just darkness, a dark human form leaning into the back seat of my car.

No police vehicle was any place in sight.

Then I let my eyes adjust to the binoculars and to the darkness.

The figure finally finished in the back seat and stood erect outside my car again.

It was the Chief.

He was holding something almost delicately in his hand. He took some kind of plastic bag from the pocket of his parka and lovingly, carefully slid the object inside there.

I couldn't see what the object was.

But I knew what the plastic carrier was: an evidence bag. They get tagged with a letter and a number and are used in court when the prosecutor is trying to nail the defendant to the wall.

All I could think of was how my car door had been slightly ajar when I'd gone out tonight.

All I could think of was that somebody had seen my car out at the Swenson place.

A knock came behind me.

I turned around and saw Josh silhouetted in the doorway.

"You got a minute?" he said. Then, nodding to the binoculars, "What's going on?"

"Chief's down at my car."

"Oh."

His reaction was odd. I'd expected him to he excited or upset when I told him about the Chief.

He said, "That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"Mind if I turn the light on and close the door? I don't want Mom and Dad to hear this."

"To hear what?"

But he didn't answer my question. He clipped on the light, shut the door, and came over and sat down on my desk chair. I sat on the edge of the bed.

"One of the guys on the team has a cousin who works at the police station," Josh said.

"So?" His mysteriousness was beginning to irritate me.

"So, he told me that the Chief got this anonymous note this afternoon."

That was the first time I felt fear. You know how it isa"suddenly your bowels turn queasy, and your hands begin to twitch, and you sense that terrible trouble lies just ahead?

"What did the note say?" I tried to act as if I was holding up just fine but I think Josh could see that I was scared.

"Said you killed Mae Swenson."

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," I said.

"Yeah. That's what I say."

"I didn't kill her, Josh. I swear I didn't. And Cindy can testify to that." I told him what Cindy had said about Garrett.

He got up abruptly, clipped off the light and walked to the window again. He picked up my binoculars and put them to his eyes.

"The Chief's gone," he said. "I wonder what the h.e.l.l he was looking for."

"He found something," I said. "In the back seat. He put it in one of those evidence bags."

Josh shook his head and set down the binoculars. He went back and sat at the desk chair. He didn't bother to turn on the lights.