South Of Hell

“Do you know where your mother went, Amy?”

“I… can’t…”

Dr. Sher let out a breath of frustration. “It’s all right, Amy. Just stay with the memories. What happened the night your father came home and heard you singing? What happened after your mother went upstairs?”

“It started to rain again. It was raining really hard, and it was very cold. I was downstairs by myself, and I was scared. But Momma came down to get me. She looked… she looked scared, too.”

“What did she do?”

“I… I knew something was different, something was wrong this time, because Momma was really scared.”

“What did she do, Amy? What did your father do?”

“He was yelling at her. He was yelling, and she was trying to get away from him. She grabbed me and told me to go to my hiding place. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to leave her…”

Amy’s breathing had become labored.

“But she made me go, she made me go, and I didn’t want to, but then Momma told me I had to go to my hiding place, and she would go to hers. She told me when it was all right again, she would come and get me.”

Louis felt Joe’s hand tighten on his.

“Then… then the lights went out, and I couldn’t see her anymore. I lost her in the dark, so I did what she told me to do. I hid in the cupboard.”

Amy drew in a sharp breath.

“You can do this, Amy. You’re strong enough now to do this,” Dr. Sher said gently.

“He is stabbing her with the knife, and she is screaming. It is right there in front of me, but I can’t see all of her, just pieces of her through the gaps in the boards. And when the lightning comes, I see her shoes, and everything is red, everything is red and blue, the blue floor has turned red, and I can’t see her face, just her shoes…”

Joe pulled her hand away from Louis.

“I can’t look anymore. I can’t look anymore, so I close my eyes and put my hands over my ears. I can’t look anymore…”

Louis glanced at Shockey. There were tears on his face and rage in his eyes.

“Amy? Amy, can you remember what happened next?”

When she answered, her voice was small, as if she had become five again. “He’s gone. The kitchen door is open, and the rain is coming in. I crawl out. Momma is gone. And I… am alone.”

“Did your father take your mother somewhere?”

“I don’t know. Momma is gone, and I am alone.”

Dr. Sher looked up at Louis and gave a subtle shake of her head, her eyes seeming to ask him what to do next. But he knew it was over.

Whatever Amy had seen in that kitchen, this was all she could remember. If Brandt had dragged Jean out and buried her, Amy had not seen it.

Louis felt Joe pull her hand away and looked over at her. Her eyes were wet. She looked exhausted.

He heard a shuffling and then the soft click of a door closing. Shockey had left, closing the French doors behind him. Louis saw the blur of Shockey’s brown jacket as he bolted through the front door. Louis rose and went to a window, afraid the man was going to do something stupid like go after Brandt. But he could see Shockey through the window. He had stopped and was just standing on the porch, staring up at the gray sky.

Dr. Sher’s soft voice brought him back. The doctor was bringing Amy out of her sleep state. She ended by telling Amy she would be able to remember everything she had said. Louis wondered now if that was cruel.

Amy slowly swung her legs to the floor and looked at each of them before her eyes focused on Dr. Sher.

“I didn’t find her,” Amy said.

Dr. Sher hesitated, then shook her head.

Amy looked first to Joe, then to Louis. And in Amy’s eyes, Louis saw something he had never seen there before: despair. The same aching despair that filled Shockey’s eyes.

Amy began to cry.

“Now I know,” Shockey said.

They were standing out on the porch, Shockey staring out at the street, Louis at the window, watching Joe and Amy. They were sitting together on the settee, heads bent low, talking.

“Yeah, now we know,” Louis said. He turned back to Shockey. “But given the fact that this all came out under hypnosis, there is no way they will let Amy testify against Brandt.”

Shockey shook his head. “Then what was the point?”

“Of what?”

Shockey gestured back to the window. “Of that! What was the point of putting her through that?”

Louis had the thought that Shockey meant “putting me through that,” but he kept quiet.

“The point is, Detective, that girl needed to remember it,” he said. “And you needed to hear it. Even if you can’t do a fucking thing about it.”

“I want to kill him,” Shockey whispered.

“Then what would happen to Amy?”

“I can’t do anything for her, Kincaid.”

“You can show up in court Monday and tell the judge you think you’re her father.”

“Father,” Shockey said softly. He looked at Amy through the window. “I don’t even know what that means. I look at her, and I…” He ran his hand over his face. “I look at her, and I don’t feel anything for her, and it’s like I’m not even really seeing her. I look at her, and the only thing I can think about is Jean.”

Louis was silent.

“Your girlfriend’s right,” Shockey said. “I have no business being that girl’s father.”

Shockey walked off the porch. Louis watched him get into his car and drive away.

Chapter Thirty-three

It was dark. And she was alone again.

The power had gone out forty minutes ago, and Margi had been sitting on the floor in the parlor, listening to the crack of thunder and the fierce rush of rain against the windows. Somewhere under the floorboards, she could hear the trickle of water.

Margi drew her knees closer and leaned her head back against the wall.

She had lived in lots of shitty places and had been in a slew of men’s beds in her twenty-nine years, but nothing had been as bad as this place.

Had Jean Brandt sat here once in this same spot? In the dark? Heart in her throat as she waited for the door to open and Owen to come back?

Margi wiped her face and pulled in a breath that rattled her ribs.

How had this happened? How had she come to this? Owen hadn’t been a monster when she met him. He’d been a friend of her cousin she visited sometimes in the Ohio prison. Her cousin had told her Owen was in jail for throwing a woman from a car. She should’ve known then that he was mean. But he had been so nice to her, and she figured any man could change if he had a woman he loved enough to change for.

Plus, she was so tired of being alone. Willy had kicked her to the curb after he sobered up and decided he could do better than a skinny high-school dropout who couldn’t have no babies.

Owen didn’t care about babies. He told her that on one of the afternoons she spent talking to him through the Plexiglas. Told her he didn’t want any kids, because once he got out, he was going to move to Florida and get a high-paying construction job and a condo on the beach.

She believed him.