The Searing Read online

  Sara used the bathroom downstairs to wipe her face and clean her hair, and when she came out into the kitchen, the telephone rang.

  “Are you okay?” It was Marcia calling, her voice weak and weeping.

  “I am now.”

  “Oh, God, Sara, I can’t take another one.” She started to cry into the phone.

  “It’s all right now, Marcia. We have another eight hours before the next one.”

  “No, Sara, the next will be in six hours. They’re coming faster. And then it will be five! Four!” Marcia kept sobbing.

  “Marcia! Stop it!” Sara ordered. The hysteria of the other woman had forced Sara to calm down; someone, she knew, had to take control. “Marcia, call everyone,” she directed. “Get them together. We’re going to leave before the next attack. Have everyone pack an overnight bag and meet at the barn.”

  “Where will we go?” Marcia asked meekly, like a child. It comforted her to be told what to do, to have the decision made for her.

  “We’ll worry about that later. Somewhere. Anywhere away from this place. Now get on the telephone and call. See if everyone else is okay. I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

  “Come now! Please, Sara, I’m afraid to be alone in this house with just Benjamin.”

  “I’ll be there soon. There’s something I have to do here first. Just get hold of the others. Don’t worry, Marcia. We’re safe for a while. Bye.” And then she hung up before Marcia could protest.

  Sara stood for a moment in the hallway, listening for sound. She heard nothing, but that didn’t matter. The child had always been silent when she hid in the house, and Sara knew she had to be upstairs, curled up as she usually was in the damp shower.

  Sara stood at the bottom of the stairs, trying to control herself. She took several deep breaths and calmed down her racing heart, then slowly, forcing herself to climb the stairs one at a time, she went up to search for Cindy in the dark house.

  She looked in the guest rooms first, then went into her own room. Bruce Delp had not yet fixed the windows, and her bedroom was freezing. The wind blew through the broken windows and chilled her as she searched the bathroom, closets, and under the bed for the child.

  Sara was still shaking from the cold and her own fear when she Came back downstairs and into the kitchen to telephone Bruce Delp.

  “He’s not here, Miss Marks,” Pearl Delp said. “He’s out looking for Cindy. We were fixing to sit down for dinner, and she went to wash up and got out through the bathroom window.”

  Sara sighed. She had been right. “And when was this, Mrs. Delp?” Sara asked, being careful to contain her anger. The blundering incompetence of Cindy’s parents and the local police was exasperating.

  “About two hours ago. My husband, he called that detective, and they got people looking in the fields. You ain’t seen her, have you, Miss?”

  “No, Mrs. Delp, but your husband said he would repair my windows this afternoon and he hasn’t. I would like very much if he’d call me the moment he gets home. I can’t stay in this house.” Sara could hear her voice shouting at the woman, and she stopped talking. Her body was trembling from the cold, her fear, and her anger.

  “He’s awful worried about that girl, Miss Marks,” the woman replied.

  “Yes, I understand. And I’m sorry I shouted at you, but it’s just that we’re all under a great deal of tension because of Cindy.”

  “It’s all my fault,” Pearl Delp answered softly.

  “I’m sorry,” Sara began.

  “It’s my fault Cindy is this way.”

  “It’s not your fault, Mrs. Delp. Autism can affect anyone’s child. Five children out of every ten thousand are autistic.”

  “I’m being punished,” the farmer’s wife continued stubbornly. “You see, me and Bruce, we had to get married. Cindy, she’s a love child. God is punishing us for breaking His commandment.”

  “Mrs. Delp!” Sara spoke over the woman’s sobbing. “You are not responsible. Believe me. I am a doctor, Mrs. Delp, and I know that nothing you and your husband did caused Cindy to be stricken with autism.” Sara stopped and listened while Pearl Delp stopped her crying and regained her breath. Then she heard Pearl Delp say coldly, “You don’t know, Miss. You may be a doctor, but you’re a stranger here. I have lived with that child for twelve years, and she ain’t normal.”

  “Yes, I know Cindy is autistic.”

  “She ain’t autistic,” the woman shouted back. Her voice was deep and raw. “This child of mine ain’t normal. She kills animals. I’ve seen her with my own eyes. She’ll put her hands on them and they’ll go crazy in the fields, run wild, bang themselves against trees and fence posts. Don’t you tell me about my daughter, Miss. That child ain’t right. That child’s a killer, and no doctor like yourself is going to stop her from killing more.” She slammed down the receiver.

  Sara stood still, giving herself time to stop trembling and calm down. Then she shook her head and said out loud as if to reassure herself, “No!” The force and sound of her own voice in the silent house startled her and she left the kitchen and went back into the study, locking herself inside.

  In the study, she used the extension to ring Tom in the city. He answered on the first ring, as if he had been expecting the call and she explained quickly what had happened to her and the other women.

  “We have to leave, Tom. These attacks are getting worse. I’m afraid of the next one.”

  “Where’s the girl?”

  “She’s loose in the Village. I just telephoned Pearl Delp.”

  “What’s wrong with those people? Where’s Santucci?”

  “He’s here. They’re looking for her.”

  “Sara, I’ll be out there within the hour. Where will you be?”

  “At Marcia’s. I’m afraid to stay in this house by myself.”

  “Good. If you’re right and Cindy has fixated on you, then she’ll be back. Get out of that house.”

  “Okay! Okay!” His excitement and worry frightened her. She had a sudden vision of Cindy creeping into the house and coming to get her. “I’ll just pack a few things.”

  “Don’t!” Tom shouted. “You don’t need anything. You can get what you need for work tomorrow morning, when I’m with you. Just leave the house.”

  “All right, I’m leaving!” Sara shouted, upset with him for being so domineering.

  “I just care about you,” Tom replied. His voice had softened.

  “I’m sorry, Tom. Please hurry. I do want to have you here.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Good-bye, sweetheart.”

  “Bye.” Suddenly she missed him terribly and wanted him with her. It made her feel warm, knowing he cared so much for her. Sara sighed and hung up the phone.

  For a moment she did not move, but only listened to the silence of the large, empty house. It was dark outside and she had not turned on a light in the study. She reached over and snapped on the desk lamp. Its soft glow cast more shadows than light in the oak-paneled room.

  Then quickly, frantically, she collected her work off the desk, and stuffed the papers and books into her briefcase. Tomorrow was Monday, and she had done no reading all weekend. Her job had been the last thing on her mind since the week before, when Helen Severt ran to her with her daughter already dead in her arms.

  Sara looked up and glanced around the study, looking for anything more she needed to take with her, and spotted the file of material on autism she had brought home from NIH.

  There must be something, she thought, among all those research papers and medical studies that would give her an insight into handling Cindy, something that would tell her how to reach the child.

  She suddenly stopped packing papers into her briefcase and, moving the file to her desk, began to search through the documents, quickly scanning each report for the clue she had overlooked the week before.

  It took twenty minutes of hasty reading before she spotted an interoffice memo that startled her, and
she pulled it from the stack and read it through once more.

  A bizarre breakthrough happened yesterday at the lab which I thought you should be aware of. It concerns Danny Riley. As you know from his case history, the child has never spoken, but continually emits a high, screeching noise.

  While I was tape recording another child’s voice at the lab, Danny was playing in the same room. I did not realize I had picked up his squeaking voice, until I played back the tape this morning.

  This was unimportant to my work, but when I accidentally played the tape at a slower speed, at 3.3 inches per second, Danny’s screeching became immediately clear and understandable.

  The boy has been speaking perfect English all these years, but at twice to three times normal speed.

  Sara picked up the small tape recorder, took out the cassette, and walked over to her own larger stereo and recording components. She slipped in the tape and spun it back to her first question to the child.

  “What is your name?”

  Sara stopped the machine, slowed it down to 3.3 inches per second and pushed playback. Her fingers were trembling and she held her breath as Cindy replied in clear and audible English, “77, N28, 16, 39, W 11, 48.”

  Sara stopped the recorder and quickly jotted down the numbers, then she shifted the speed back to normal and listened to her next question.

  “Cindy, how much is 8,346 times 5,721?”

  Again, Sara stopped the machine and reset the speed, then pushed playback. Cindy’s voice replied, “47,747,466,” without hesitation.

  “Cindy, in which months during 1998 will the seventh fall on a Wednesday?” Sara had asked next.

  “January and October,” Cindy replied, her voice soft and timid on the slow-speed tape.

  Sara stopped the machine once more. Her hands were still shaking, but this time from her excitement. She leaned against the bookcase and thought what she would do next.

  She had to take the cassette with her and play it for Tom and Marcia. Also, they needed to talk to Cindy. Then she remembered she had asked Cindy one last question while at the farmhouse, and turned on the tape recorder and played back the exchange.

  “Cindy, who killed these little girls?” she heard herself asking. Sara slowed the recorder’s speed and listened carefully as Cindy, her high, screeching voice altered to a slower speed, answered clearly, “We did.”

  NINETEEN

  “We did,” Cindy answered coolly.

  Sara reached over and stopped the tape, then looked up at Marcia and Tom.

  “Why we?” Tom asked immediately, and began to nervously pace around Marcia Fleming’s living room.

  “She might have meant her father,” Marcia said. “That could explain what happened to the girl in the woods, the child with her head smashed.”

  “I think we should let Santucci worry about that,” Tom answered.

  He wanted to get the detective involved at once, and he wanted to get Sara off the farm and out of the Village.

  “Wait just a minute,” Sara replied. “Tom, what do you think the numbers mean? She handed him the slip of paper where she had jotted them down.

  77N2811639W1148

  He frowned and then said, “She seems to be giving them in sets of two. I thought she paused, for example, after seventy-seven.” He rewrote the numbers, spacing them on the notepad.

  77 N28 16 39 W11 48

  “What do you think they look like now?” He handed the paper back to Sara.

  She shook her head, saying, “It’s not a phone number or a street address.” She passed the slip of paper to Marcia.

  “But it might be this,” Marcia said, studying the list for moment, then taking Tom’s pen and writing the numbers down one more time.

  77 N28’ 16”

  39 W11’ 48”

  “Longitude and latitude?” Tom asked, looking up.

  “I think so.”

  “What does it mean when you ask a twelve-year-old child her name and she replies with longitude and latitude?” Tom asked. “I mean, is this kid crazy?

  “And if she isn’t crazy,” he went on, “if all that’s wrong with her is that she talks at twice normal speed, then what about the murders? She told you she killed those children. Do you believe her, Sara?”

  He was watching Sara as he asked the question. He could see in her face that she did not want to believe what she heard on the tape. It hurt him to watch her, to see how much she was suffering for the child. She cared for the young girl more than he had realized, and he wished to God he had been wrong about Cindy.

  Sara shook her head. She did not know what to believe.

  “Well, it’s police work anyway,” he answered. “Come on, you two; it’s almost eight-thirty.”

  “Let Marcia and me worry about when we leave the Village, Tom,” Sara said quietly. “This is more important.” She stared across the coffee table at Marcia and said, “Let’s ask Cindy what she meant by ‘We did.’”

  “There’s only one problem,” Tom interjected. “Where is she?”

  “Neil might be able to help us make more sense of her answers,” Marcia said.

  “How?” Sara asked.

  “These numbers … the longitude and latitude, if that’s what they are. He has maps at home, and I bet there’s a connection between this farm and these numbers.” She was already standing, moving toward the telephone. “Everything that has happened to us so far—the killings, the attacks—have occurred on land that was the old Delp farm.” Marcia held up the slip of paper with the list of numbers. “There’s a connection—somehow, somewhere!—with Cindy.”

  On the cold, raw night, with the wind whipping up from the river and funneling into the natural amphitheater, it was hard for her to run, to follow the thin cow path along the ridge. Still she ran, her long legs racing along the top of the ridge, carrying in her arms the small lamb.

  The animal’s bleating was the only sound on the hillside, but it went unheard in the Village below. The cold wind blew the cry away from the houses and toward the woods beyond the property line.

  Yet she could see them searching for her. There were men canvassing the Village streets, working systematically up the hillside, their flashlights bright as stars in a summer sky, and dimly she understood that soon they’d find her, trap her here on the ridge, and she hurried on.

  “It’s here!” Marcia announced, coming back into the living room.

  “Neil said that on his survey map of the Village these numbers correspond to a spot on the valley ridge. He said to come by his house and he’ll show us.”

  “How’s Benjy?” Sara asked.

  “Fine, but exhausted. Neil said he fell asleep in front of the T.V. about an hour ago. I’m going to leave him at Neil’s for tonight.”

  “Okay, fine!” Sara was on her feet, ready to leave. “Let’s go.” “What do you think you’re going to prove out there?” Tom asked, still upset by their decision.

  “We’ll find Cindy,” Sara replied. “And she’ll give us whatever answers we need. The police have most of the county force looking for her in the Village, but they won’t find her there. She’s already given us the answer to that one. We’ll find her on the ridge.” Sara saw that he was still frowning. “Come on, Tom, it’s worth a try.”

  “Sara, it’s you and Marcia who are in danger.” He glanced nervously at his watch. Sara’s stubbornness and determination frustrated him. He had not met many women who were so self-willed.

  Sara smiled, pleased by his concern for her safety, but determined to do it her own way. “We’re going to be okay, Tom,” she answered, and for the first time in the last several days, she really believed they would be.

  The child ran past the Indian mound to the edge of the woods, then through the trees until she found the circle, and there in the middle of the ring of stones she knelt on the fall leaves. The terrified animal tried to scurry away; its thin, black legs kicked at the dirt, and again its bleating filled the silent night.

  She clung to the lamb, wo
ve her fingers into its short, tight fleece and held the sheep captive. Then, rocking back and forth, she looked up with her blank eyes and scanned the empty night sky, searching it like an unfocused telescope.

  Her head began to ache then, and fierce, ragged bits of bright, colored lights zigzagged across the wide pupils of her eyes. The lines of light swirled inside her brain, tore through the cerebrum, and spun around in her head, leaving her dizzy and sick.

  With difficulty, she raised the bleating lamb up above her head, poised it there, and then, panting out with effort, swung the small animal down, smashing it on the sharp edge of the stone, ripping a hole through the tiny head of the sheep and spraying blood and brains over a wide circle in the woods.

  Her long fingers were still laced into the oily fleece, now wet with blood, and the small animal jerked its life away.

  Reverently Cindy placed the dead lamb on the wet leaves, and calmly washed her hands in the fresh blood. Then, cupping her fingers, she collected the final, sputtering warm liquid of the sheep and, standing, carried the sacrificial blood up the rise to the ancient chamber high over the banks of the river.

  The telephone rang before they could leave the house.

  “That might be Santucci,” Tom said. “I told him to call here.

  Should I get it, Marcia?” When she nodded, he went to the phone and, picking it up, said, “Marcia Fleming’s residence.”

  “Is that you, Tom?” Santucci’s tone was casual, and Tom had come to recognize that this deliberate manner meant trouble.

  “Yes, Joe? What is it?”

  “We got another murder.”

  “Shit!” Tom sighed. He ran his hand through his thick, black hair; then he picked up the phone off the foyer table and paced in the hallway.

  “What’s wrong?” Sara asked. She had come to the archway leading into the living room and stood there, braced against the wall, as if she, too, expected the worst.

  Tom cupped the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered, “It’s Santucci. There’s been another murder.” Tom paused and watched the fear fill Sara’s eyes. The endless night and day attacks, and the deaths of the children, had wrecked the women.