The remains Page 17

  Chapter 72

  We emerge from out of the house in the woods arm in arm.

  I’m still crying. But Molly is not. I know she’s convinced that the monster is dead. Even I believe he’s dead.

  Molly is a rock.

  She shushes me, tells me it’s going to be okay. She leads me through the woods, to the sound of water running brusquely over rocks.

  When we come to the stream bank, she sets me down. She makes like a cup with her right hand, reaches into the stream and brings a handful of the water to my mouth.

  “ Drink,” she says.

  I do as she tells me.

  The crystal clear water is cold, life renewing. It tastes pure, sweet.

  In my mind I see him, what he tried to do to us. I’m sure he’s dead, but I’m frightened he’ll come back for us. But I say nothing about it. So long as Molly is with me, I can bear anything.

  “ Don’t worry,” she insists. “The monster is dead now.”

  She tells me to lie back. She dips her hand in the water once more, then brings the wet hand to my face. I can smell her hands. She runs her fingers through my hair, over my eyes and lips. She washes my neck and arms. She touches me softly, bathes my body and my legs. Finally, she washes my feet with the cold stream water. When she is done, she sets her own feet into the stream and washes her own body. I watch her wash her hair with the water until it is dripping wet.

  When we are washed we sit on the bank in silence, allowing ourselves to dry in the cool air. Although we are shivering from the cold we don’t feel it. We feel only the recent memory of that afternoon. We feel a pain like we have never felt before and never will again. We never talk about saying anything to our parents about the attacks. It’s already implied that we’ll remain silent about exploring dark woods our father forbade us to enter.

  As the sun begins to set, Molly takes my hand and leads me to the place in the rocky stream where we can easily cross.

  She kisses me on the forehead.

  “ I am you,” she says. “And you are me.”

  Together, we head for home through the trees.

  Chapter 73

  For a time that seemed forever, we ran in a downhill direction toward the fields of tall grass. There was no talking. Not that Franny would have said anything anyway. But there was simply no breath left in our lungs. In my lungs anyway.

  On the outside was the vision of the fields and my parents’ house looking small and isolated in the distance. But on the inside my heart beat, pulse soared, blood pumped through wiry veins while the misty cool air of a new morning burned up lung tissue.

  We didn’t head for my parents’ house. Instead I followed Franny through the fields, limping up a gentle incline until eventually I spotted the Scaramuzzi farm. By this time, the day was warming and I was having trouble breathing and keeping my balance. Then as though a car crashed into me, my chest constricted, the center cramped in tight pain, a shooting jolt of lightening in my left arm.

  When I collapsed, Franny stopped.

  He came to me, bent down and lifted me up in his arms. He carried me like that all the rest of the way.

  When finally we made it to his house, he set me gently down onto the porch.

  Although I couldn’t really see her, I heard Caroline Scaramuzzi gasp. She wasted no time dialing 911. I was in and out of consciousness as she spoke with the emergency people, as I mumbled the words “Michael… inside house… in woods… Michael.”

  I wasn’t scared. I was no longer in pain. I was caught up in a semi-conscious state I’d never before experienced. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was dying. Dying wasn’t so bad. Dying meant that I would see Molly before the day was out. As the life began to seep out of my earthly body, I knew without a doubt that I wouldn’t die. Not really.

  Before long, I was flying.

  Chapter 74

  A helicopter was called in to transport me from Brunswick Hills to the Albany Medical Center. After being lifted off the porch floor of the Scaramuzzi house, I found myself floating far above the valley. I was lying on my back, a translucent oxygen mask covering my face. When I turned my head to the left I could see the deep blue/green water of the Hudson River; the way it snaked itself from north to south between the cities of Troy and Albany. There was the loud- whump-whump-whump noise of the chopper blades-a sound I felt deep inside my chest.

  When I turned my head I looked for Michael, as if everything that had transpired over the past dozen hours was an elaborate nightmare. But instead I spotted Caroline Scaramuzzi. She was strapped into a seat that folded out of the aircraft’s sidewall. From where I lie belted to a collapsible gurney, I could see that she was dressed in her usual blue jeans, thick fisherman’s sweater and green Crocs.

  I felt Michael’s absence like a hole in my belly.

  I locked eyes with Caroline. I allowed her image to guide me back to the land of the unconscious.

  Chapter 75

  Another day passed before I woke up. Lying in the hospital bed, I had no other choice but to believe the truth: I was alive. How did I know this for sure?

  First off, my head ached. My temples pounded. I felt empty on the inside. Nauseous and so very thirsty. I tasted only my own bitter breath. There was the vague odor of alcohol in the air. All was quiet.

  A glance over my shoulder did not reveal Franny, or Caroline for that matter. Rather, it revealed Detective Harris. The tall, suited man smoothed out his cropped hair, gazed into my newly opened eyes. Maybe it had something to do with my imagination, but I swear he was trying to work up a welcome smile when he said, “You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

  A smile. For certain he was smiling.

  Attempting to shift my shell-shocked body up against the headboard, I wrenched and strained to no avail. Movement proved an impossible dream. Any kind of movement, no matter how slight, caused a sharp pain to pulse up and down my spinal column. It also caused the heart monitor to which I was attached to pick up speed.

  “Michael?” I whispered.

  Harris crossed his arms.

  “Michael is still recovering from surgery,” he said, looking away. “He’s lost a lot of blood Rebecca.”

  I tried to move, but I couldn’t.

  “Michael’s alive? But how…”

  I needed to see Michael. I needed to know that I wasn’t dreaming.

  “You can see him soon,” he explained. “But Rebecca, I need you to talk to me; tell me everything.”

  I laid back, stared up at the ceiling, breathed.

  After a time, I proceeded to lead him through the whole ordeal. From the time Michael and I returned to my apartment on Thursday afternoon, to Franny’s rescue of me inside the basement of the house in the woods.

  For a time Harris just sat there chewing on the information. Clearly something wasn’t sitting right with the detective. He stood up, turned his back and stared out the window onto the parking lot below.

  “By the time my men got to the house in the woods,” he said. “By the time we got to Michael, Whalen was gone, vanished.”

  I felt my insides tighten up. I wondered if the monitor picked up the change.

  “We followed a blood trail out of the house and into the woods. But after a while it disappeared, along with our suspect.” He shook his head, eyes peeled out the window. But when he turned back to me, he tried to plant a same smile on his face. A reassuring smile that screamed lie.

  “I don’t want you to worry,” he assured me. “If his head injury is as bad as you painted it, there’s a good chance that his body will be found in those woods as early as this morning or this afternoon.”

  How had Whalen had been able to leave the half-way house without being detected? How was he able to follow me for all those weeks and months? How was he able to kidnap Michael and me if he was supposed to be reporting to a job or a half-way house?

  I shot the questions to Harris. Did it angrily, bitterly, as if he were personally responsible. In turn he shrugged his shoulders,
bit his lip.

  “Half-way houses are not prisons, Rebecca,” he offered. “Parole officers are not ball and chains. Ankle monitors can be hacked and removed, if you know what you’re doing. The system of keeping a twenty-four hour watch on a parolee, even a violent offender like Whalen, is not perfect. All it would take for him to get some extra time outside the house is a little money and maybe the confidence of one or more of his counselors. That’s about it, I’m afraid.”

  He put his hand on my hand, squeezing my fingers. He told me not to think about Whalen anymore.

  I looked up at him, into his eyes.

  “Thirty years ago,” I said, “when Whalen dragged us into the basement. He never actually…” I hesitated, because I didn’t know how to say it.

  “He never actually what?”

  “When he had Molly on the floor, she turned to me, told me not to resist. She made me promise not to resist. When she allowed Whalen to do what he wanted, he no longer wanted to do it. He couldn’t go through with it with either of us, because we wouldn’t resist him.”

  The detective nodded. His hand was still holding mine.

  “But he still violated you,” he said. “He hurt you and he hurt your sister. He abducted you and held you against your will.”

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about my confession; how to feel about the possibility of Whalen still being alive.

  “Get some rest,” Harris said, releasing my hand. “You’re going to need it.”

  I closed my eyes. It felt good to close my eyes. Already I felt myself nodding off.

  “Dead,” I mumbled in my near sleep state. “Find… the devil… dead.”

  Chapter 76

  By the time I opened my eyes again, it was going on late morning. A nurse was standing beside the bed. She was holding my left hand in her hand, the pads of her middle and index fingers pressed against my wrist. When she was through, she jotted some information onto a clipboard.

  She then tossed me a smile for the brokenhearted.

  But I was also a woman whose leg had been grazed by a bullet, who’d suffered a mild heart attack, plus two broken ribs, a hairline fracture in my right hand, numerous abrasions, contusions and lacerations.

  The nurse shifted her eyes toward the door.

  “Looks like we have some visitors,” she said before slipping out the door.

  Enter Caroline and Franny.

  Franny, my hero.

  Caroline, dressed in her jeans and Crocs; Franny, dressed in his baggy jeans, red T-shirt, bright yellow suspenders, thick gray-black hair all mussed up.

  “Come here, Franny,” I whispered, my voice forcing itself from out of dry mouth and burning throat.

  There was something in his hands. Another canvas. It dawned on me then, there had to be a fifth painting. That is, if he were to stay true to all five senses. This must have been the fifth and final one. He set it against the chair, its image facing the opposite direction. He came to me, stood up against the side of the bed, face down, eyes staring down at his shoes.

  “Can I hug you?”

  Out the corner of my eyes, I saw Caroline smiling.

  “Go ahead Franny,” she pressed. “It’ll be okay.”

  Without shifting his eyes, he leaned into me. I took hold of him. Although I had very little strength left in my arms, I hugged him as tightly as possible.

  “Thank you, Franny,” I whispered into his ear. “I love you.”

  I felt a tear run down my cheek. I felt my face touching his. I knew he could feel the tear against his skin too.

  “You’re my friend,” he mumbled.

  I let him go. He stood up, went back over to the corner, where he stood by the painting, as if guarding it.

  Caroline turned to him.

  “Fran,” she said, reaching into her jeans pocket, producing a five dollar bill. “Go down to the cafeteria. Get a hot chocolate and a piece of pie. You can enjoy it right there. When you’re done come back up here.”

  Without a single word of objection, Franny took the money and, mumbling something happy about pie and hot chocolate, exited the room.

  Caroline turned to me then. With pursed lips, she approached me. She had something in her hand. A paperback book. My old dog-eared copy of To Kill a Mockingbird it turns out. She set it on the bed beside me.

  “I thought you might want this,” she said.

  Then, pulling one of the chairs closer to the bed, she sat down and exhaled. She asked me how I was feeling, if I needed anything. She told me she would take me down to see Michael as soon as he was out of recovery. She would do it even if she had to strap me onto her shoulders. Then she told me not to worry about anything. That if money was an issue, she would take care of it. She told me not even think of arguing with her.

  I didn’t.

  Then she began to tell me a story about the past. Not my past, but her past, my father’s and mother’s past. It was about an event that took place back in the early 1960s before I was born. Back when my father had just begun his career as a state trooper for Rensselaer County, back when the house in the woods was not a house in the woods at all, but a house surrounded by farmland.

  “There had always been something terrible surrounding that home,” she said. “It was a dark place, the house not kept up, the vegetation that surrounded it overgrown and neglected. They had a few animals, but pathetic stock. Your father had just moved to his place at the time and had, in fact, purchased his spread from the Whalen’s. They were always desperate for money so eventually they sold off most of what they owned, including a good sized parcel of Mount Desolation.”

  She looked away from me, toward the window.

  “The Whalen family was what you might refer to in today’s day and age as, dysfunctional. The father was a heavy drinker; an alcoholic. Rarely did he emerge from the house, other than to start up his truck, drive it into town for groceries and of course, whiskey. Mrs. Whalen did the best she could raising a daughter and a son on what little money came in. Although it was never proven, it was widely believed that young Joseph took the brunt of his father’s anger.

  “I believe his father beat him, beat him terribly. Joseph was an abused boy and like many abused boys he grew up to be cruel. He was eventually dismissed from high school for stalking and then inappropriately touching a girl in his class. The incident was kept hush-hush. Not a strange thing for the day. But Joseph was asked not to come back and I think for him it was a relief. He spent his days and nights on the farm after that, rarely leaving it, hunting and fishing for food; growing what he could.

  “Things were quiet for some time, until one night not long before President Kennedy was assassinated, we all awoke to a fire. The Whalen’s barn was burning. The fire lit up the night sky and we all came out of our houses to see it. My husband and I got in the truck and drove down to your parents’ place. Your father and mother were already up and holding vigil outside in the driveway. She was pregnant at the time with a baby that eventually miscarried. Your father had this look on his face I remember. It was a cross between worried and downright furious. The door to the squad car assigned to him was open and the radio was spitting out orders. Your dad was being ordered to investigate the scene while fire and police backup were on their way.

  “What he found inside that house that night shook up our small community something terrible. Joseph shot them all while they lie asleep in their beds. His mother, father and sister. Your father found them like that, in their beds. He found Joseph sitting outside the barn, the shotgun in his hands, just staring unblinking at the fire.

  “Your father arrested the fourteen-year-old boy on the spot. He was convicted and because of his age, treated as a youth. A ‘crime of passion’ they called it; the desperate action of an abused youth. In the end he was incarcerated for ten years up in a mental institution just outside of Saranac. By the time he was released in 1973 he was twenty-four years old. He returned to that house that by now was surrounded by thick woods. Joseph kept to himself, but still
we were acutely aware of his presence. It was as if the devil himself was in our midst.

  “Then women started going missing. Young women, some of them girls. No one attributed their disappearance to him at first, but I think your father suspected. Finally, an Albany woman had the guts to come forward and identify Whalen in a lineup. He’d abducted and attempted to rape her, but somehow she’d managed to get away. After she came forward so did a few others who’d been lucky enough to escape him.

  “They sent him away then for thirty years and what we thought would be for good. You girls were still young at the time so I can’t begin to describe the sigh of relief that was breathed by our entire community.”

  I took in Caroline’s story. Each one of her words seemed to bear a great weight. I had no idea about my father, about what he’d seen, about what he’d been ordered to do by his state trooper superiors. In my mind I pictured him walking the upstairs of that horrible house only to witness the dead bodies. I knew then that the reason he forbade me and Molly to enter those woods had nothing to do with a stream that ran as deep and strong as a river or the cliff and waterfall beyond it.

  It had everything to do with Whalen.

  How he could have kept the horrible story of that house and the people who had been murdered there from Molly’s and my ears for so long a time was beyond me. But certainly not impossible. Not when it came to my dad. Not when it came to protecting his daughters. Molly and I knew about Whalen’s rape conviction; knew that he’d been sent to prison for a time that seemed forever. We felt secure because he wouldn’t be able to get to us from prison. He wouldn’t be able to hurt us or our parents. We knew about his arrest but we never knew about his murders. And I’m glad we didn’t.