“You don’t approve?”
“You might’ve been killed.”
“I came fairly close.”
“How did you get away?”
“I threw gas on him. I guess he was afraid he’d go up in flames.”
Jud’s back was clean and slick. Leaning over the side of the tub, she kissed it. The skin made her mouth wet. “All done,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am. Could you hand me a towel?”
She gave him one, and watched him press it against his upper leg, to keep water from running onto the bandage as he stood.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, climbing from the tub.
“Will you?” she asked, smiling at him and trying to look as if she didn’t know he was asking her to leave the bathroom.
“Oh, you prefer to stay?”
She nodded. Reaching behind her, she pulled the door shut. Its handle made a snapping sound as she locked it.
“This isn’t the most comfortable place in the world,” Jud said.
“It’s fine with me.”
Hands brushing her shoulders, Jud slipped the straps of her nightgown down. She let the nightgown fall. The effect on him was immediate. Dropping to one knee, Donna freed the erect penis from his shorts and tugged the shorts down his legs. Then she stood naked in front of him. First, his eyes caressed her. Then his hands traced the curves of her shoulders, the slopes of her breasts. He pulled her against him, the stiff penis prodding her belly.
As they kissed, Donna’s hands explored the dips and rises of his back, the firm globes of his buttocks. She moved a hand to the front, and fingered his scrotum, the long smooth shaft of his penis. She felt his fingers down low between her legs, and moaned as they stroked.
Jud kicked the pile of clothes aside. He spread two bathtowels on the floor, and Donna lay back on them, knees high and parted. Jud knelt over her.
She felt the light touch of his tongue, first on one nipple, then on the other. Then came the slippery pushing. He went deep inside her.
Gasping through her open mouth, she tried to stay quiet. Didn’t want Larry to hear. But her breath was coming louder now, and she couldn’t help the trembling sound of it. Then she no longer cared. There was only Jud on top of her, inside her, filling her, stroking her to an unbearable urgency that tightened and tightened and finally broke. He muffled her outcry with his mouth. 2.
“For heaven’s sake, what took you so long?” Larry asked, looking up at them from the television.
“I thought it was rather quick,” Donna said, smiling.
Jud, wearing only a towel and his bandages, took a robe from the room’s closet. He put it on and removed the towel.
“So,” Larry said. “Now that we’re both here and you’re nicely patched up, would you be good enough to tell us what happened to you?”
“Do you want to stay?” Jud asked Donna.
“I want to know,” she said. “I’m chilly, though. May I?”
“Help yourself.”
She pulled back the covers of the bed that had not been slept in. She sat on it, propped the pillow against its headboard, and leaned back. “All set,” she said, and pulled the blankets shoulder high.
Jud told them what had happened: He told of watching the house from the hillside, of seeing the woman enter, of following her inside, of finding the gasoline can on the stairway.
“Ah,” Larry said. “Good woman. She was going to reduce the filthy place to ashes.”
“I wonder why she waited so long,” said Donna.
“Could be a lot of things. She probably left town after the killings, to bury her husband and boy. Do you know where they’re from?” he asked Larry.
“Roseville, out near Sacramento.”
“It’d only take a few days to bury them and get back here. What was she doing the rest of the time?”
“Trying to figure out how to take her revenge, maybe. Then planning for it, making preparations. When I left there tonight, I used a hole under the fence. I think she probably dug that hole, herself. Once her preparations were made, she probably had to work herself up to actually getting in there and doing the job.”
Larry frowned. “Why, for heaven’s sake, did you try to stop her?”
“I didn’t go inside to stop her. I went in to find out who she was, and what she was up to. Until I heard the scream.”
“Oh my God.” Donna could feel a chill, in spite of the covers. “How badly was she hurt?”
“She was dead.”
“The same as the others?” Larry asked.
“The same as the gal in the parlor. Ethel? This one was in fairly much the same shape, if the wax figure was accurate. I gave her a close look, after the…killer…got away.”
“Could you tell if she’d been sexually molested?” Larry asked.
Jud nodded. “It was fairly obvious.”
The thought of it made Donna press her legs tightly together. She became aware that she could still feel Jud inside her, as if he had left an imprint. Her fear and repulsion subsided. She wondered, for a moment, how she might arrange to be alone with him again.
“I knew she’d been molested,” said Larry. “The beast…that’s its motive. Sexual gratification. Of course, I should be glad, I suppose. That’s what saved my life. The creature was more interested in satiating its lust with Tommy…”
“I don’t think sex is the main thing.”
“Oh?” Larry sounded skeptical.
“Let me give you my theory. I think this beast is a man.”
“Then your theory’s shit.”
“Just listen. It’s a man in a costume. The costume has claws.”
“No.”
“Listen, damn it. You too, Donna, and see what you think. The original killings, the Thorn lady’s sister and kids, were done by Gus Goucher, the man they hanged.”
“No,” Larry said.
“Why not?”
“They were torn apart with claws.”
“According to whom?”
“According to morgue photos.”
“Have you seen those photos?”
“No, but Maggie Kutch has.”
“If you believe her. Who has possession of the photos?”
“Maggie, I suppose.”
“Maybe we can get a look at them.”
“I rather doubt it.”
“Okay, we’ll let that go for the time being. It’s not that important. Gus Goucher’s jury must’ve seen the photos, must’ve heard testimony…”
“According to the old newspaper accounts, they did.”
“And what the jury heard was sufficient for them to condemn the man.”
“Granted.”
“We ought to check this, but I have the impression that, until the Kutch murders thirty years later, Goucher was pretty much accepted as being the Thorn killer.”
“It was made to look like he was. They needed a scapegoat.”
