The pack of hot dogs, dashed at Finley’s feet, had been trampled flat.
Cora was the first to start picking up clothes and towels and shoes that they had set out on the pavement to dry. The rest of them joined in.
The clothes she gathered were stiff and dry. She took off her filthy, damp blouse, used one of the towels to rub herself dry, then put on the blouse she’d worn yesterday. She was about to button it when she noticed her wadded bra under the waistband of her skirt. She’d forgotten about putting the bra there. She tugged it out. The bunched fabric had been pressed tight against her low belly, leaving the skin marked with a pattern of seams and folds and wrinkles. She loosened the belt of her skirt and slipped a hand under the waistband.
Rubbing the irritated skin, she watched Finley change blouses. Yesterday’s looked the same as the one she removed, but its tan fabric wasn’t dark with moisture and didn’t have blood all over it from her cut hand.
Though Vivian’s white knit shirt and shorts were filthy, she didn’t change.
Neither did Cora. They were both busy carrying things to the car.
Abilene buttoned her blouse, then slipped off her moccasins and sat on the pavement and pulled on her socks and sneakers.
She picked up the moccasins, some scattered garments and towels, and took them to the car. Cora, inside, dumped them behind the back seat.
‘Is that it?’ Cora asked.
Abilene thought of Helen’s shoes at the edge of the outside hot pool. She decided not to mention them.
Vivian came along with her arms full. ‘Nothing else.’ Abilene took the load from her and handed it in to Cora.
She handed out their purses. ‘You want your camera, Finley?’
‘What are we doing?’
‘What do you think? Getting away from this damn place.’
‘I’d better take it, then.’
Cora crawled out with the video camera and gave it to Finley. Vivian let the door drop shut.
‘Maybe we’ll be able to hitch a ride,’ Cora said, ‘once we get down to the main road.’
‘Are we just going to leave her?’ Abilene asked.
‘We can’t take her with us,’ Vivian said.
‘We could bring her outside. It doesn’t seem right to leave her down there.’
‘It’s a crime scene,’ Cora said. ‘We might screw up evidence for the cops if we move her.’
She was right. And Abilene felt too dazed and weary to care much one way or the other.
They were silent for a while as they walked past the front of the lodge and headed down the long driveway toward the road.
Then Finley said, ‘Do you think Batty had anything to do with it? He knew where Helen was.’
None of the
‘He couldn’t control where the blood dropped,’ Cora said.
‘Pretty damn weird,’ Abilene said, ‘how the cat led us to her. It had to be Amos. Almost as if Batty sent it along… like a guide, or something.’
Cora shook her head. ‘It smelled the blood, that’s all.’
‘Fuckin’ beast,’ Finley said.
‘I hope we didn’t shut it up in there with her,’ Vivian said.
‘It' was long gone,’ Cora told her.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m not sure of a damn thing,’ she muttered. ‘You wanta go back and check?’
‘You don’t have to get huffy.’
‘I think it was gone,’ Finley said. ‘I checked around on the way out. Unless it was hiding pretty good…’
‘Who gives a rat’s ass about the cat, anyway?’
‘I don’t think it’s the cat we’re worried about,’ Abilene said.
‘Well then, what the…?’ She suddenly looked sick. She stopped and turned around and scowled up the driveway toward the lodge.
Abilene looked, too. The lodge was out of sight beyond the slope.
‘Come on, guys,’ Finley said. ‘It’s probably not in there.’
‘Maybe we should go back and make sure,’ Cora said.
They all knew Helen’s story about the cat woman. The woman’s name was Maggie and she had lived with a houseful of cats a few blocks from Helen’s childhood home. ‘She was so husky she made me look positively svelte,’ Helen had explained. ‘But she was a real spook, a refugee from the funny farm. Anyway, she ended up croaking. Her body wasn’t found for a really long time. She was dead in that house with all those cats. And they couldn’t get out. When the cops finally went in, she was nothing but bones. The cats had licked her clean, and all of them were fat and sassy. Except for one. This big tomcat, they found it dead inside Maggie’s ribcage. Apparently, it had crawled in there and choked to death eating her heart. It was wedged in so tight that they couldn’t get it out, so Maggie’s skeleton was finally buried with the cat’s corpse still in her chest.’ Finley had said that was bullshit. Helen, grinning, had said, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
And now, staring up the driveway, Abilene supposed that everyone was probably thinking about Helen’s cat-woman story.
‘Should we go back?’ she asked.
‘I really hate to think she might be shut up in there with the cat,’ Cora said.
‘We don’t want to run into the killer,’ Vivian said.
‘He’s probably not around. And even if he is, he wouldn’t try to take on all of us. He’s already had plenty of chances. He only got Helen because she was by herself.’
‘It must’ve been that kid,’ Vivian said. ‘God, we should’ve gotten out of there yesterday.’
‘If I hadn’t lost the keys…’ Abilene muttered.
‘They wouldn’t have gotten lost if we’d left as soon as we spotted him.’
‘Everything’d be fine if we’d stayed together,’ Cora told her. ‘Helen shouldn’t have gone off by herself.’
‘But she did,’ Abilene muttered. ‘All she wanted to do was help.’ Her throat tightened and tears came to her eyes. ‘She just wanted to find the keys.’
Vivian put an arm around her.
Finley looked at her strangely. Glaring. As if betrayed and outraged that Abilene was starting to fall apart again.
But that wasn’t it.
She kept on glaring as Cora said, ‘Maybe we’d better forget about going back. The cat’s probably not in…’
‘Fuck the cat,’ Finley said. ‘Let’s go back and waste the bastard that killed her.’
They stared at Finley.
They stared at each other.
Abilene wiped her eyes. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘She was one of us. Shit, look what we did to Wildman after he hurt her. All he did was punch her a little. And somebody murders Helen and here we are, walking away.’
‘This is different,’ Cora said.
‘Fuckin’-A-right, it’s different. This guy killed Helen. He made her dead. He grabbed her and took her into that room and cut off her suit and put her through all kinds of hell. Can you imagine? Think about it. I mean, Helen was always a scared kid and a guy did that to her. God knows what he must’ve done before he killed her. Can you imagine what it must’ve been like? And we’re just gonna walk away?’
‘That’s the idea,’ Cora said. Turning around, she continued down the driveway.
Finley hurried after her, Abilene and Vivian following.
