A Maiden's Grave Read online

  The governor lifted his bulky weight from the chair. He walked to the window. Outside the combines combed the flat landscape, two of the ungainly machines slowly converging. The man sighed deeply.

  Fucking symmetrically amoral life, ain't it, sir?

  "He simply isn't your typical hostage taker, Governor. There's a sadistic streak in him."

  "And you really think he'd . . . hurt the girls? You know what I mean?"

  "I believe he would. If he could keep an eye out the window at the same time. And one of the fellows in there with him, Sonny Bonner, he's doing time for rape. Well, interstate transport. But rape was at the bottom of it."

  On the governor's desk were pictures of his blond family, a black Labrador retriever, and Jesus Christ.

  "How good is your team, Captain?" Whispering now.

  "We're very, very good, sir."

  The governor rubbed his sleepy eyes. "Can you get them out?"

  "Yes. To know how many casualties, I'd have to do a preliminary plan of the tactical operation and then run a damage assessment."

  "How soon could you do that?"

  "I've asked Lieutenant Carfallo to obtain terrain maps and architectural drawings of the building."

  "Where is he now?"

  Tremain glanced at his watch. "He happens to be outside, sir."

  The governor's eyes twitched again. "Why don't you ask him in?"

  A moment later the lieutenant, a short, stocky young officer, was unfurling maps and old drawings.

  "Lieutenant," Tremain barked, "give us your assessment."

  A stubby finger touched several places on the architectural drawings. "Breachable here and here. Move in, use stun grenades, set up crossfire zones." The young man said this cheerfully and the governor seemed to grow uneasy again. As well he ought to. Carfallo was a scary little weasel. The lieutenant continued, "I'd estimate six to eight seconds, bang to bullets."

  "He means," Tremain explained, "it's six seconds from the time the door blows until we acquire all three targets--um, have guns pointed at all the HTs."

  "Is that good?"

  "Excellent. It means that hostage casualties would be minimal or nonexistent. But of course I can't guarantee that there'd be none."

  "God doesn't give us guarantees."

  "No, He doesn't."

  "Thank you, Lieutenant," the governor said.

  "Dismissed," Tremain snapped, and the young man's face went still as he turned and vanished.

  "What about Potter?" the governor asked. "He is in charge after all."

  Tremain said, "And the related issue--there'd have to be some reason to green-light an assault."

  "Some excuse," the governor mused, very carelessly. Then he stiffened and picked at a renegade powder-blue thread on his cuff.

  "Say something happened to sever communications between Potter and Handy and the men in the field. And then say someone in my team observed a high-risk activity inside the slaughterhouse, some activity that jeopardized troopers or the hostages. Something Potter wasn't able to respond to. I'd think that--well, even legally--we'd be fully authorized to move in and secure the premises."

  "Yes, yes. I'd think you would be." The governor lifted an inquiring eyebrow then thought better of saying whatever he'd been about to say. He slapped the desktop. "All right, Captain. My instructions: You're to move the state Hostage Rescue Unit to Crow Ridge and provide any backup assistance you can to Agent Potter. If for some reason Agent Potter is unable to remain in command of the situation and the convicts present an immediate threat to anyone--hostages or troopers or . . . just plain anyone--you're authorized to do whatever's necessary to neutralize the situation."

  Entrust that to tape if you want. Who could argue with the wisdom and prudence of the words?

  "Yessir." Tremain rolled up the maps and diagrams. "Is there anything else, sir?"

  "I know that time is of the essence," the governor said slowly, applying his last test to the solemn trooper, "but do you think we could spend a moment in prayer?"

  "I'd be honored, sir."

  And the soldier took the sovereign's hand and they both dropped to their knees. Tremain closed his piercing blue eyes. A stream of words filled the room, rapid and articulate, as if they flowed straight from the heart of an Almighty worried sick about those poor girls about to die in the corridors of the Webber & Stoltz Processing Company, Inc.

  So you'll be home then.

  Melanie watched the lump of a woman and thought: it's impossible for someone to cry that much. She tapped Mrs. Harstrawn's arm but all the teacher did was cry even harder.

  They were still in the little hellhole of the killing room. Scummy water on the floor, ringed like a rainbow from spilled oil. Filthy ceramic tile. No windows. It smelled of mold and shit. And decayed, dead animals in the walls. It reminded Melanie of the shower room in Schindler's List.

  Her eyes kept falling on the center of the room: a large drain from which radiated spider legs of troughs. All stained brown. Old, old blood. She pictured a young calf braying then struggling as its throat was cut, the blood pulsing out, down the drain.

  Melanie started to cry and once again heard her father's voice from last spring, So you'll be home then. You'll be home then you'll be home then . . . .

  From there her thoughts leapt to her brother, lying in a hospital bed six hundred miles away. He'd have heard by now, heard about the murder of the couple in the Cadillac, the kidnaping. He'd be worried sick. I'm sorry, Danny. I wish I were with you!

  Blood spraying through the air . . . .

  Mrs. Harstrawn huddled and shook. Her face was a remarkable blue and Melanie's horror at Susan's death was momentarily replaced by the fear that the teacher was having a stroke.

  "Please," she signed. "Girls are scared."

  But the woman didn't notice or, if she did, couldn't respond.

  So you'll . . .

  Melanie wiped her face and lowered her head into her arms.

  . . .be home then.

  And if she'd been home, like her parents wanted (well, her father, but her father's decision was her parents'), she wouldn't be here now.

  None of them would.

  And Susan would still be alive.

  Stop thinking about it!

  Bear walked past the killing room and looked in. He squeezed his crotch, half hidden beneath his belly, and barked something at Shannon. He offered his knee, said something about did she want to kick him again? She tried to give him a defiant look but stared down at her arm, rubbing the faded self-drawn tattoo of the superhero.

  Brutus called something and Bear looked up. The big man was afraid of him, Melanie understood suddenly, seeing the look in Bear's eyes. He laughed humorlessly, sneering. Glanced once at Mrs. Harstrawn. But his eyes lingered longest on the little girls, especially the twins and Emily, her dress, her white stockings and black patent-leather shoes, the dress bought just for the occasion of Melanie's performance at the Kansas State Theater of the Deaf Summer Recital. How long the gaze coursed over the little girl. He reluctantly walked back into the main room of the slaughterhouse.

  Get them out, Melanie told herself. Whatever you have to do, get them out.

  Then: But I can't. Brutus will kill me. He'll rape me. He's evil, he's the Outside. She thought of Susan and wept again. He was right, her father.

  So you'll be home then.

  She'd be alive.

  There'd have been no secret appointments after the recital in Topeka. No lies, no hard decisions.

  "Get back, against the wall," she signed to the girls. She had to get them away from Bear, keep them out of sight. They moved as instructed, tearful all of them except lean, young Shannon, once more angry and defiant, the tomboy. And Kielle too--though she was neither angry nor defiant but eerily subdued. The girl troubled Melanie. What was in her eyes? The shadow of exactly what had been in Susan's? Here was a child with the visage of a woman. My God, there's vindictiveness, chill, raw hatred. Is she the one who's really Susan's heir? Me
lanie wondered.

  "He's Magneto," Kielle signed matter-of-factly, glancing in Brutus's direction and addressing her comment to Shannon. It was her own nickname for Handy. The other girl disagreed. "No. He's Mr. Sinister. Not part of Brotherhood. Worst of the worst."

  Kielle considered this. "But I think--"

  "Oh, you two, stop!" Beverly burst into their conversation, her hands rising and falling like her struggling chest. "This isn't stupid game."

  Melanie nodded. "Don't say anything more." Oh, Mrs. Harstrawn, Melanie raged silently, please . . . How you cry! Red face, blue face, quivering. Please don't do this! Her hands rose. "I can't do it alone."

  But Mrs. Harstrawn was helpless. She lay on the tile floor of the killing room, her head against a trough where the hot blood of dying calves and lambs flowed and vanished and she said not a word.

  Melanie looked up. The girls were staring at her.

  I have to do something.

  But all she remembered was her father's words--phantom words--as he sat on the front porch swing of their farmhouse last spring. A brilliant morning. He said to her, "This is your home and you'll be welcome here. See, it's a question of belonging and what God does to make sure those that oughta stay someplace do. Well, your place is here, working at what you can do, where your, you know, problem doesn't get you into trouble. God's will."

  (How perfectly she'd made out the words then, even the impossible sibilants and elusive glottal stops. As clearly as she understood Handy--Brutus--now.)

  Her father had finished. "So you'll be home then." And rose to hitch up the ammonia tank without letting her write a single word of response on the pad she carried around the house.

  Suddenly Melanie was aware of Beverly's head bobbing up and down. A full-fledged asthma attack. The girl's face darkened and she closed her eyes miserably, struggling ferociously to breathe. Melanie stroked her damp hair.

  "Do something," Jocylyn signed with her stubby, inept fingers.

  The shadows reaching into the room, shadows of machinery and wires, grew very sharp, then began to sway. Melanie stood and walked into the slaughterhouse. She saw Brutus and Stoat rearranging the lights.

  Maybe he'll give us one for our room. Please . . . .

  "I hope he dies, I hate him," the blond fireball Kielle signed furiously, her round face contorted with hatred as she gazed at Brutus.

  "Quiet."

  "I want him to die!"

  "Stop!"

  Beverly lay down on the floor. She signed, "Please. Help."

  In the outer room Brutus and Stoat sat close together under a swaying lamp, the light reflecting off Stoat's pale crew cut. They were watching the small TV, clicking through the channels. Bear stood at the window, counting. Police cars, she guessed.

  Melanie walked toward the men. Stopped about ten feet from them. Brutus looked over the dark skirt, the ruddy blouse, the gold necklace--a present from her brother, Danny. He was studying her, that damn curious smile on his face. Not like Bear, not staring at her boobs and legs. Just her face and, especially, her ears. She realized it was the way he'd stared at devastated Mrs. Harstrawn--as if he was adding another specimen to a collection of tragedies.

  She mimicked writing something.

  "Tell me," he said slowly, and so loudly she felt the useless vibrations pelt her. "Say it."

  She pointed to her throat.

  "You can't talk neither?"

  She wouldn't talk. No. Though there was nothing wrong with her vocal cords. And because she'd become deaf relatively late in life, Melanie knew the fundamentals of word formation. Still, following Susan's model, Melanie avoided oralism because it wasn't chic. The Deaf community resented people who straddled both worlds--the Deaf world and the world of the Others. Melanie hadn't tried to utter a single word in five or six years.

  She pointed toward Beverly and breathed in hard. Touched her chest.

  "Yeah, the sick one . . . . What about her?"

  Melanie mimicked taking medicine.

  Brutus shook his head. "I don't give a shit. Go back and sit down."

  Melanie pushed her hands together, a prayer, a plea. Brutus and Stoat laughed. Brutus called something to Bear, and Melanie suddenly felt the firm vibrations of his footsteps approach. Then an arm was around her chest and Bear was dragging her across the floor. His fingers squeezed her nipple hard. She yanked his hand away and the tears came again.

  In the killing room she pushed away from him and collapsed on the floor. Melanie grabbed one of the lights, which rested on the ground, and clutched it, hot and oily, to her chest. It burned her fingers but she clung to it like a life preserver. Bear looked down, seemed to ask a question.

  But just as she'd done that spring day with her father on the farmhouse porch, Melanie gave no response; she simply went away.

  That day last May, she'd climbed the creaking stairs and sat in an old rocking chair in her bedroom. Now, she lay on the killing room floor. A child again, younger than the twins. Mercifully she closed her eyes and went away. To anyone watching it seemed that she'd slipped into a faint. But in fact she wasn't here at all; she'd gone someplace else, someplace safe, someplace not another living soul knew about.

  When he recruited hostage negotiators Arthur Potter found himself in the peculiar position of interviewing clones of himself. Middle-aged, frumpy, easygoing cops.

  For a time it was thought that psychologists ought to be used for negotiating; but even though a barricade resembles a therapy session in many ways, shrinks just didn't work out. They were too analytical, focused too much on diagnostics. The point of talking to a taker isn't to figure out where he fits in the DSM IV but to persuade him to come out with his hands up. This requires common sense, concentration, a sharp mind, patience (well, Arthur Potter worked hard at that), a healthy sense of self, the rare gift of speaking well, and the rarer talent of listening.

  And most important, a negotiator is a man with controlled emotions.

  The very quality that Arthur Potter was wrestling with at the moment. He struggled to forget the image of Susan Phillips's chest exploding before him, feeling the hot tap of blood droplets striking his face. There'd been many deaths in the barricades he'd worked over the years. But he'd never been so close to such a cold-blooded death as this one.

  Henderson called. The reporters had heard a gunshot and were champing to get some information. "Tell them I'll make a statement within a half-hour. Don't leak it, Pete, but he just killed one."

  "Oh, God, no." But the SAC didn't sound upset at all; he seemed almost pleased--perhaps because Potter had assumed point position on this megatragedy in progress.

  "Executed her. Shot her in the back. Listen, this could all go bad in a big way. Get on the horn to Washington and push the HRT assembly, okay?"

  "Why'd he do it?"

  "No apparent reason," Potter said, and they hung up.

  "Henry?" Potter said to LeBow. "I need some help here. What should we stay away from?"

  Negotiators try to increase the rapport with their takers by dipping into personal matters. But a question about a sensitive subject can send an agitated taker into a frenzy, even prompting him to kill.

  "There's so little data," the intelligence officer said. "I guess I'd avoid his military service. His brother Rudy."

  "Parents?"

  "Relation unknown. I'd steer clear on general principles until we learn more."

  "His girlfriend? What's her name?"

  "Priscilla Gunder. No problems there, it looks like. Fancied themselves a regular Bonnie and Clyde."

  "Unless," Budd pointed out, "she dumped him when he went to prison."

  "Good point," Potter said, deciding to let Handy bring up the girlfriend and just echo or reflect whatever he said.

  "Definitely avoid the ex-wife. It seems there was some bad blood there."

  "Personal relations in general, then," Potter summarized. It was typical in criminal takings. Usually mentally disturbed takers wanted to talk about the ex-spouse they we
re still in love with. Potter gazed at the slaughterhouse and announced, "I want to try to get one out. Who should we go for? What do we know about the hostages so far?"

  "Just a few isolated facts. We won't have anything substantive till Angie gets here."

  "I was thinking . . ." Budd began.

  "Yes, go ahead."

  "That girl with the asthma. You asked about her before but he's had a spell of her choking up a storm--if I know asthma. Handy's the sort who'd have a short fuse for something like that, seems to me. He's probably ready to boot her out."

  "It's a good thought, Charlie," Potter said. "But the psychology of negotiating is that once you've had a refusal you have to go on to a different issue or person. For the time being Beverly's non-negotiable. It'd be weak of us to try to get her and too weak of him to give in when he's already refused. Henry, you have anything at all on the others?"

  "Well, this girl Jocylyn Weiderman. I have a note from Angie that she's been in and out of counseling for depression. Cries a lot and has attacks of hysteria. She might try to panic and run. Get herself killed."

  "I'll buy that," said Budd.

  "Good," Potter announced. "Let's try for her."

  As he was reaching for the phone Tobe held up a hand. "Downlink."

  The phone buzzed; the recorder turned.

  "Hello?" Potter asked.

  Silence.

  "How's everything doing in there, Lou?"

  "Not bad."

  The thick window of the command van was right next to him but Potter's head was up, gazing at what LeBow had mounted--the CAD diagram of the slaughterhouse. It was a hostage rescue team's nightmare. The spot where Handy seemed to be at the moment was a single large room--a holding pen for the livestock. But in the back of the slaughterhouse were three stories of warrens--small offices, cutting and packing rooms, sausage grinding and stuffing rooms and storage areas, interconnected with narrow corridors.

  "You fellows must be pretty tired," Potter offered.

  "Listen, Art. I'm gonna tell you what we want. You probably got a tape recorder going but're gonna pretend you don't."

  "Sure, we're taking down every word. I'm not going to lie to you. You know the drill."

  "You know, I hate the way I sound on tape. One of my trials they played a confession tape of me in court. I didn't like the way I sounded. I don't know why I confessed either. I guess I was just anxious to tell somebody what I done to that girl."