The Dead Place Page 5

  “Something for the neighbor.” Kate leaned toward Grace for a kiss. “How was your day?”

  “Eww! Mom, you’ve got paint all over you!”

  “Have an air kiss then.” Kate mimed a kiss near her daughter’s face and Grace rolled her eyes.

  “Fine. Just don’t touch me. I’m hungry—can I have a snack?”

  With a last look at the banker, who was becoming less distinct with each stroke of the brush, Kate broke away and followed Grace out of the studio, taking the neighbor’s package with her.

  “You shouldn’t leave this door unlocked,” she said when the back door, which led into the kitchen, opened as she tried to put the key in the lock.

  “What, like someone’s going to break in while we’re eight feet away?” Grace snorted. “Get real, Mom.”

  “Just keep it locked.”

  “Whatever.” Grace buried herself in the fridge and Kate reached around her to pull out an apple.

  “Here. These are good.”

  “I don’t want an apple.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know, Mom, that’s why I’m looking.”

  The tone of exaggerated patience would have infuriated Ian, but Kate didn’t react. Pick your battles, friends with older children had cautioned when she described the strange metamorphosis affecting her once-sweet daughter. Kate had taken to repeating that to herself like a mantra.

  She carried the package out to the entrance hall and cautiously peered out the glass-paneled front door before opening it. The dirty white van had reappeared on the street, but when she stepped out on the porch she couldn’t see any movement in the neighbor’s house.

  She looked down at the box and then back in the house, wondering if she could get Grace to carry it over for her. Only Grace would ask why and probably mention it to Ian and he would want to talk about it. “You’re becoming agoraphobic,” he’d said angrily when she refused to walk up to town the other night.

  As if she didn’t know that, as if she didn’t realize it was a problem. It wasn’t as if she wanted to be this way. She’d tried once to explain how painful it was to be around other people since the attack, how it made her feel as if she were exposed.

  To feel her skin tingling, as if everybody knew, to wonder if every man she saw was the stranger who’d broken into her studio—sometimes it was more than she could bear and she just wanted to hide. It was as if the assault hadn’t been a single incident, but a virus infecting her and all parts of her life.

  The days when she’d felt safe on the streets of the city seemed so far in the past that it was as if they’d happened to another person. She’d been so naïve about danger, so blasé about her own personal safety. Rape was something that happened to women who lived in dangerous neighborhoods or went out at four in the morning or dressed provocatively. Rape didn’t happen to married women, to mothers, to women who always locked their car doors.

  She glanced down at the box in her hands and read the address label again. Terrence Simnic. Well, maybe she’d just leave the box on the porch, ring the bell, and walk away.

  That decision propelled her off her own porch, over the driveway, and up Mr. Simnic’s clipped lawn to his front steps. The house was similar in style to hers, but there was something timeless about this one, as if she’d stepped back into a Victorian novel. Maybe it was only that the old wicker furniture on the porch reminded her of her grandmother’s house.

  The door had probably once been painted a deep green, but it had faded over time. She rang the bell and heard it echoing faintly through the house.

  Nobody came. She shifted the box in her arms and hit the bell again. Something brushed against her leg and Kate screamed and dropped the box.

  A yellow, short-haired cat stepped between her legs and leaped soundlessly on top of the box, looking up at her quizzically, its sinuous tail curling like a question mark.

  “You scared me,” Kate said, crouching down and extending her hand. The cat leaned into her tentative touch, and she stroked his soft fur and wondered what to do about the box. She couldn’t just leave it here, not after she’d dropped it. She picked it up again and gave it a slight shake, praying whatever was in it wasn’t fragile.

  A third try of the doorbell, though she’d given up hope of finding Mr. Simnic. Maybe he was hard of hearing. She knocked on the door anyway and it swung open. Startled, Kate looked into the house. It was gloomy thanks to the heavy curtains drawn over the front windows.

  “Mr. Simnic?” She wasn’t even sure she was pronouncing his name correctly. There was no answer, but the cat had followed her in and meowed loudly near her feet.

  “Hello? Mr. Simnic?” she called louder, and took a few more steps into the house.

  “What do you want?”

  The voice, deep and flat, came behind her. Kate whirled around and managed to turn a startled cry into, “Hello!” She gestured at the package. “Just dropping this off for you. I rang the bell but nobody answered.”

  The man standing in the doorway looked down at the box and back up at her. He was anywhere from thirty-five to fifty years of age, just above average height, and with skin that looked pasty white as if he spent no time in the sun. His short, brown hair was wispy and receding, but as if his body were compensating for that, he had thickly haired arms hanging, somewhat chimp-like, down at his sides. He was wearing a short-sleeved baby blue shirt with sweat stains visible at the underarms. More body hair sprouted from the open neckline. His khaki pants had an oily-looking stain on one knee and they looked like they were dependent on his cracked leather belt to hold them up.

  “Who are you?” he said in the same flat voice. His eyes were large and the muddy brown of river silt. It was too late to flee. Kate saw no other option and stuck out her hand.

  “I’m Kate Corbin, your new neighbor.” She gestured at her house, but the man’s eyes remained focused on her face. “You’re Terrence Simnic, right?”

  “Yes.” He sounded deeply suspicious.

  “Well, I guess you weren’t here today when the mailman tried to drop this off, so he asked if I’d hold it for you.”

  The man looked at the box again, and this time held out his arms to take it from her.

  “I’m afraid I dropped it,” Kate said, adding hastily, “It was an accident—your cat startled me.”

  A frown creased the flat face. “I hope you didn’t break it.”

  “I hope not, too. Just let me know if it’s damaged, I’ll reimburse you.” She inched toward the door.

  He shook his head. “You can’t.”

  “No, really, Mr. Simnic, I’ll gladly pay for any repairs or replacement costs.”

  “It can’t be replaced. It’s too valuable.”

  Oh, great, a potentially litigious neighbor. Ian was going to love this.

  “Whatever it is, Mr. Simnic, I’m sure we can—”

  “It’s a doll.”

  That startled her. Kate stared at him, trying to fit doll and this simian-looking man into the same universe. It didn’t work.

  “It’s for my collection. Well, Mother’s collection.”

  He reached a hand into his pocket and produced a pocket knife. For one horrible moment, as she watched his blunt fingers pinch forth the biggest blade, Kate thought he meant to use it on her. Instead, he set the box on the floor and squatted beside it, running the tip of the blade through the packing tape.

  Pulling back the flaps, he scooped handfuls of Styrofoam peanuts onto the dusty floor, making little grunting noises. Multiple layers of bubble wrap appeared, and through them Kate could make out the hazy shape of something human-looking. Terrence Simnic unwrapped the layers, being careful not to jostle what was inside, reminding Kate of an archaeologist removing gauze from a mummy. Suddenly he stopped.

  “She’s perfect!” It was a heavy, heartfelt whisper.

  Kate stepped closer to look for herself and gasped.

  Lying amid the wrapping was a porcelain doll with features fixed in a sc
ream. The red-rimmed mouth was wide open and the glass eyes horrified. It was grotesque, but Terrence Simnic was actually smiling.

  He twisted something on the back of the doll and all at once the face turned. A new expression appeared, happy, and then he turned a knob again and a sleeping face appeared.

  “German. Late nineteenth century. Mint condition.” He mumbled the words, and Kate wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself. He lumbered to his feet, cradling the doll in his massive arms. It wore a nightgown of yellowed white lace and he stroked the cloth.

  “She’s my latest. Do you want to see the others?”

  Kate hesitated, wanting to issue a polite demurral, but Terrence Simnic was leading the way to another room. “It’s in here,” he said. “Mother always kept them in the dining room.”

  Reluctantly, Kate stepped after him. The dining room was papered in deep red with little crescents of gold that had faded over time. It was peeling at the corners of the high ceiling and there was water damage in one spot, spreading in concentric brown circles. A dusty, oval-shaped walnut table and six chairs stood in the center of the room, but the focal point was really the antique curio cabinets lining the wall. They were made of oak or mahogany and didn’t all match, and every shelf was literally crammed with antique dolls.

  “Mother would have loved you.” Terrence crooned to the doll. He carefully unlocked one of the oak cabinets and shifted two frilly dressed baby dolls so that his newest acquisition could sit between them. “There you go, little one, there you go.”

  It was spooky, the faded room and the shelves filled with dolls. There was dust everywhere but on the curio cabinets, which looked as if they were cleaned every day. They smelled faintly of furniture polish.

  “Aren’t they beautiful?” This time Terrence Simnic’s question was directed at Kate. She struggled to think of something to say, but he seemed to take her silence for awe, nodding with a goofy smile on his face.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes.” That she could be honest about it. It was certainly something.

  “Mother took such pride in her collection,” Terrence said. “She had such a good eye and I’ve tried to match it. I’m very particular about what I buy. Every doll has a complete history and the most damage I’ll accept is a single, hidden, hairline fracture.”

  A phone rang somewhere in the house, a loud, jangling old-fashioned sound that made both Terrence and Kate start.

  “That’s for me,” he said. “You need to leave now.”

  She didn’t need to be told twice. Kate walked quickly back to the front of the house while the phone continued to ring, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder until she reached the door. When she looked back into the gloomy, dusty house, she could see Terrence Simnic standing in a doorway at the other end of the dining room, an outdated phone, complete with long cord, in one large hand. He stared at her and she fled out the door.

  Chapter Six

  Kate crossed the yard back to her own house feeling as if she were being watched. Grace was playing the piano. A haunting melody floated out the window, stopping abruptly as Kate came in the door.

  “That was lovely,” Kate said, pausing at the entrance to the living room. Grace looked up from the keyboard and scowled.

  “It sucks. I can’t get it right. It’s too fast and it lacks feeling.”

  “It sounded good to me.”

  “That’s because you don’t play the piano, Mom.” Grace turned her attention back to the score in front of her, and Kate knew she was being dismissed. While this behavior annoyed Ian, Kate chose to ignore it and was even, secretly, amused by it. She saw herself in this devotion to one’s passion, and even though Grace’s snotty attitude wasn’t pleasant, Kate could still understand and respect her daughter’s devotion to her music.

  Kate made her way to the kitchen to prepare dinner, listening to the music start again. She moved about easily in the large kitchen, so much larger and newer than their old one. So why did she miss it? The kitchen in their apartment had been galley style and they’d remodeled it, on the cheap, two years before Grace was born. This kitchen was wide and spacious, with solid wood cabinets and granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances. Everything she’d lusted after in magazines, and yet now that it was hers, all she could think about was the edge of the old laminate countertops where they’d marked Grace’s height in pencil.

  She reached up to take a pot from the rack hanging above the center island, and caught a glimpse of Terrence Simnic’s house through the window. The lights were on in the back of his house, and she wondered if he was cooking dinner. It was impossible to tell, because old curtains hung in the windows back there just like in the front of the house.

  He was a strange man, but they’d dealt with strange neighbors before. Kate remembered the old woman who’d lived in the apartment below theirs and regularly cooked tripe, the awful smell invariably sliding up and under their door and lingering for days despite their best efforts to shoo it away. Or the shifty-eyed, pock-marked man two floors down, who’d worn a full-length fur coat in the middle of July and had screaming matches in some Slavic language with a string of anemic-looking bottle blondes.

  Compared to these neighbors, Terrence Simnic with his doll collection really wasn’t that bad. She turned away from the window and concentrated on what to make for dinner, but she couldn’t shake the crawly feeling being in his house had given her.

  Ian arrived home shortly after six, dumping his briefcase in the hall and coming straight through to the kitchen with a troubled smile on his face.

  “God, it’s good to be home,” he said, pouring a glass of the South African white wine that she’d opened.

  “Long day?”

  “That doesn’t begin to capture it. Did you hear the news about Lily Slocum?”

  Kate shook her head, concentrating on chopping tomatoes to add to the salad. “Has she been found?”

  “No, but they found a photo of her.” Ian took a sip of wine. “Apparently she’s dead.”

  The knife slipped in Kate’s hand and she narrowly missed slicing her thumb. “What? That’s terrible!”

  Ian described the photo found in a local shop, and Kate thought of the poor girl’s parents getting the news. She rinsed the cutting board, the red smears from the tomatoes suddenly making her queasy. “Are the police even sure this photo is real?”

  “They’re not saying much, but since it’s not the first time this has happened, everybody seems to think it’s real.”

  “What do you mean it’s not the first time?”

  Ian put down his wine and pulled a copy of the Wickfield Gazette from his briefcase. “Here, you can read about it yourself. Copies were distributed at the emergency meeting I got called to with the university president and provost, as well as another meeting with legal office representatives and public relations folk.”

  Kate read the story of the discovery of the photograph, but her eyes were drawn over and over again to the haunting photo. A young woman dressed in a flowing white gown reclined on a chaise lounge. It was a beautiful picture, the figure seeming to float within the clusters of delicate flowers arranged about her body. Her eyes were closed, she might have been sleeping.

  A recap of the details surrounding Lily Slocum’s disappearance was included in the article, along with a smaller headshot. She was a pretty girl with a sweet, very pale face and long, straight blond hair. She wore too much eye makeup, which made her look even younger than her twenty-one years. She looked like a child, a little ghost child, and Kate realized with a start that she was only six years older than Grace.

  “She’s so young,” Kate said out loud.

  Ian took a long swallow of wine and rubbed his forehead. “Yes, she was.”

  His use of the past tense jumped out at her. “You believe she’s dead then?”

  “I don’t know. If she isn’t, why hasn’t anyone heard from her?”

  Kate followed the story to the in
side pages of the paper, and was surprised to find three more photos of smiling, attractive young women.

  Police won’t speculate whether the disappearance of Lily Slocum is in any way connected with the disappearance eight years ago of Ann Henke or the disappearance of Lisa Myers and Barbara Lutz the year before, though similar photos of all three young women were found in Wickfield after their disappearance. The bodies of Ann Henke and Lisa Myers were recovered in 2000. Barbara Lutz has never been found.

  Kate folded the paper, surprised that her hands trembled. “So much for the safe community.”

  Ian sighed. “This is exactly what the university is afraid of. It is safe. Think how many more homicides are committed in New York every year. It just gets more publicity here because it’s a small town.”

  “Tell that to the Slocum family.” Kate handed the salad and dressing over to Ian to toss so she could take the chicken out of the oven.

  “Fortunately, I don’t have to. Today’s meeting was bad enough. There’s a lot of finger-pointing about campus security, which makes no sense to me since she wasn’t on campus when she was abducted.”

  It made perfect sense to Kate. People needed to feel as if something could have been done to prevent Lily Slocum’s disappearance, so they blamed things like lax security.

  “Grace, come set the table!” she called, adding the paper to the recycling bin and then moving it under some other papers so their daughter wouldn’t see it. Even as she did it, she realized the futility of the gesture. Grace wasn’t much younger than these other girls and she’d probably already heard the news the way that kids seemed to hear and know everything.

  Ian took plates from the cupboard and handed them to Kate. “I’ve got to work late a few evenings this week because the meeting I had scheduled on the Performing Arts Center got bumped by today’s emergency meetings.”

  “We’ll be here alone?” For some reason Kate had a sudden image of Terrence Simnic next door in that gloomy house with his dolls.