Страница 36 из 38
"You're having the baby," I said sadly.
She nodded, still with her eyes closed, and kept her breathing going.
"You called some backup, right?"
She nodded again.
"Arthur must have been out on a call; that was you on the phone," I observed, and I went into the bathroom right at my back to wash my hands and get some towels.
"I don't know nothin‘ 'bout birthin‘ no babies," I told my reflection, pushed my glasses up on my nose, had the fleeting thought that it was nothing short of amazing they hadn't been cracked, and went to squat by Ly
"At my mom's house in a closet," I said briefly, my attention absorbed by Ly
"Oh, Torrance," Marcia said pitifully. "I wish you had told me. Was it you who broke into all the houses?"
"Looking for the head," he said. "I knew someone around here had to have it, but it never occurred to me it could be Jane. It had to be someone who could have seen me burying him, but not Jane, not that sweet little old lady. I just knew that if she'd seen me burying him, she'd have called the police. And I had to wait," Torrance meandered on, "so long between each house, because after each break-in, people would be so cautious for a longtime..." "You even pretended to break into our house," marveled his wife.
Gingerly I stole a peek under the nightgown. I was instantly sorry.
"Ly
I peeked again.
"Oh dear," I breathed. This was really quite a lot worse than watching Madeleine the cat. I followed my own advice and pulled myself together, despite my desire to run screaming out of this house and never come back. I let go of Ly
Ly
"Okay, Ly
Ly
"Whose skull?" I asked Torrance. Marcia had sunk to the floor, and they were sitting knee to knee holding hands.
"Oh," he said as if he'd lost interest. "The skull is Mark. Mark Kaplan. The boy who rented our apartment."
Ly
Amazingly, Ly
"That‘ s the shoulders," I whispered, holding this tiny, bloody, vulnerable thing. "One more push should do it," I said bracingly, having no idea at all what I was talking about. But it seemed to hearten Ly
It took me a second of sheer stupidity to understand her. I should be doing something! I should make it cry! Wasn't that important? "Hold it upside down and whack it on its back," Marcia said. "That's what they do on TV."
Full of terror, I did so. The baby let out a wail. So it was breathing, it was alive! So far so good. Though still hooked up to Ly
"What?" Ly
"Girl!" I said jerkily. "A girl!" I held the little thing as I had seen babies held in pictures and made plans to burn the rose pink nightgown. "Well," said Ly
It took some time to sort out the situation in Jane's little house, which seemed more crowded than ever with all the policemen in Lawrenceton. Some of the policemen, seeing Arthur's former flame kneeling before his new wife, both bloody, assumed I was the person to arrest. They could hardly put cuffs on me or search me, though, since I was holding the baby, who was still attached to Ly
Arthur had been out on a robbery call, but when he arrived he was so scared he was ready to kill someone. He waved his gun around vaguely, and when he spotted Ly
"Put the gun away and take this baby," I said rather sharply. "It's still attached to Ly
"Honey, put a towel over your suit and take your daughter," Ly
Or have you been injured?"
I pointed a shaky finger at Ly
"Are you all right?"
I looked to the source of the voice and found I was standing next to Torrance.
This was so strange.
"I'll be okay," I said wearily.
"I'm sorry. I was never cut out to be a criminal." I thought of the inept break-ins, Torrance not even taking anything to make them look like legitimate burglaries. I nodded.
"Why did you do it?" I asked him.
Suddenly his face hardened and tightened all over. "I just did," he said. "So when Jane dug up the skull, you dug up the rest of the body and put the bones by the dead end sign?"
"I knew no one would clean up that brush for years," he said. "And I was right. I was too scared to carry the bones in my trunk, even for a little while. I wailed till the next night when Macon went over to Carey's, and I carried the bones in a plastic bag through his backyard and up the far side of his house; then it was just a few feet to the brush.. .no one saw me that time. I was so sure whoever had taken the skull would call the police. I waited. Then I realized whoever had the skull just wanted... to have it. For me to squirm. I had almost forgotten that trouble about the tree. Jane was so ladylike. I never believed..."